Today we jump into the qualifier! I may just do this whole thing in one chapter, I see no need to play it out. So yeah, this is probably going to be a shorter chapter, sorry :(
Enjoy!
Once Nashi reached the entrance of the Labyrinth, her head started to hurt. It wasn't due to anything other than the sheer size of the area around her.
"Shit." Nashi whistled, looking around. "This thing is huge." As she marveled at the size of the qualifier, she heard her friends walk in behind her.
"Don't wait for us or anything." Elise grumbled.
"Sorry, I got too excited." Nashi replied with a smile.
"Yeah but..."
"Don't start an argument." Simon interrupted. "We don't have the time to waste. If only six of three hundred teams can make it, we have to go fast."
"Fair enough." Damien said, twirling around. "But, you know, where exactly do we have to go?"
"He has a point." Ultear agreed. "We have no idea where to go." Drake made a face.
"Hold on." he said. Nashi saw him concentrate, before his eyes widened. He stumbled a little, and Nashi caught him so he wouldn't fall.
"You okay?" She asked. Drake shook his head, looking incredibly disorientated.
"This thing is huge." he muttered, rubbing his forehead. "My sound magic can't map it out for us." Nashi stood him up and he looked around. "I guess our only option is too look all over the place."
"I suppose." She replied. "Where should we start?" Soon enough, Nashi could hear explosions somewhere else in the Labyrinth. Clearly, some of the other three hundred teams had encountered each other. Simon pointed up a flight of stairs.
"We just need to get going." he told everyone. "Maybe if we get up high enough we'll be able to see a path." The group walked up the stairway onto another platform, where they could see much more of the qualifier.
"This thing is huge." Elise said. "How're we supposed to be one of the first six teams out of this fucking thing?" Nashi watched two six man teams below them engage in combat, attacking each other viciously.
"Maybe we should start with wiping out the competition." She said, a wolfish grin settling on her face. She formed a big fireball on her fingertips and launched it downwards at the opposing teams, causing both debris and guild members to fly every which way. She jumped down onto the larger platform, immediately surrounded by a third team. She smirked. "I find it cute you guys think you can take me out." Dodging the initial assault from a few of the members, she easily dispatched them all in a few minutes.
"Maybe we shouldn't waste too much time on other people." Ultear said as the rest of her team joined her. "We'll end up not making it." Simon nodded in agreement.
"We don't get any bonuses for anything else we do in this maze, so we just need to get through to the end." Drake looked off in the direction the other guilds had appeared from.
"There's a huge opening over there." he said, pointing towards it. Walking towards it, Nashi gaped.
The 'opening' Drake has mentioned was less of an opening and more of the core of the maze. buildings hung from the roof and jutted out from the ground in a space easily a few miles wide and even longer than that. Innumerable people jumped from building to building and fought on the ground below as well as the air, all hoping to better their chances by just a little bit.
"How are we going to go about this?" Damien asked, observing the battlefield for himself. "There's no way we're getting out of this without fighting a lot of people."
"Damien's right." Elise pointed out. "Not only o we have no idea where to go from here, but at least half of the teams have converged here. Someone's going to try and take us out at some point." She then grinned. "So we have to choice but to go with plan B." Damien nodded, his body glowing with dark magic.
"Take them out?" he asked as his demon takeover activated. Nashi nodded, igniting her body.
"Take them out." She agreed.
"Simon, to your left!" Drake watched as Simon ducked from his warning just in time to narrowly avoid a blast of fire aiming to take his head off. He flung a sword in that direction hoping to hit his attacker, but he was unsure the attempt managed anything.
Seeing as he and the others had come to the conclusion they would have to get involved in the attempts at taking out other teams to get out in time, he should have expected all of the chaos. Simon ran back to him as other guilds started to attack each other.
"This is getting insane." he told Drake. "Where'd everyone else go?"
"Not sure, but I think we should try and get away from this." He replied, gesturing to the aforementioned chaos. "We're getting no where doing this." Simon nodded. Just as the two turned to flee, they felt a great pressure.
And then the buildings behind them collapsed.
They both whirled to see the building flying everywhere, white magic surrounding it. Other people darted out of the way as well, trying to avoid getting crushed.
"Holy hell, who was that?" Drake demanded, but he saw no one who wasn't shocked by the collapse.
"I don't know, but I'm sure it\s not wise to stick around and find out." Drake nodded at this, he sure as hell didn't want to know. Activating his sound magic to keep an eye out for any surprises, Drake followed behind Simon down a pathway away from the huge battlefield.
"Run! She's going to get you!"
"Gah! She's everywhere!"
"How can a girl be so acrobatic?!"
Drake paused as a girl from the battlefield behind him laughed.
"Man, you guys are such a pushover nyah! No wonder Nami's doing so good!"
"Kumi-san!"
"Yes, nyah?"
"Have you found the exit yet?"
"Nope, but these guys really need to step up their game, nyah." This was punctuated by the muffled groaning of pain from another contender. Where's Nami?"
"No idea. I think she went that way."
"Well it'd be best to stay with her, nyah. Let's go." The girls then ran off from the battlefield, and Drake noticed Simon watching from a ways away.
"What is it?" He asked cautiously. Drake shrugged.
"Nothing." He replied earnestly. "Just some girl who must really like cats." Simon raised an eyebrow at this, but did not question any further. Jogging to catch up with him, the two eventually found their way to another decently sized battlefield, where a winged demon was flying around attacking others on the ground.
"Damien!" Simon shouted. Damien paused mid-charge of his darkness magic and turned to look at Simon. "Find anything yet?"
"No." Damien replied, causally sending his opponents flying. "How long have we been in here, anyway?"
"Ten minutes." Drake said. Damien groaned.
"Seriously? All the fighting makes it feel like it's been longer" This earned nods of agreement.
"Where are the girls?" Simon inquired. Damien shrugged.
"Not sure. Ultear's around here somewhere, but Nashi and Elise disappeared a while ago." As if on cue, a blast of ice send a guy flying from another pathway, and Ultear appeared from it.
"Damn, so it did just loop back here." She cursed, looking over at Drake and Simon. "Anything on your end?"
"Nope." Drake replied. He and Simon jumped down onto the ground level with Damien and Ultear, who both looked a little beaten up but nothing serious. "We need to..."
Then he smelled it.
It was Nashi and Elise's scent, that much he recognized, but their were others scents he only just barely did.
"Sabertooth." He whispered, making the others look over at him in surprise.
"What?" Ultear asked.
"Sabertooth, I can smell them." Drake replied, inhaling to get a better idea of where it was coming from. Soon enough, the trail formed down a path to their left. The others close behind, Drake took cautious steps as he followed the scent, really hoping he didn't walk into some sort of trap set by their rival guild. Seeing a corner up ahead, Drake peeked out from behind it. Behind a piece of rubble where Nashi and Elise, both peeking over at the group barely visible in the distance. Apparently sensing their presence, both girls turned to see them, and Nashi raised a single finger to her mouth. Nodding, Drake and the others came over to them, also hiding behind the rubble with them.
"Are you tailing them?" Drake whispered, and Nashi nodded.
"You bet."I heard them talking about figuring out where the exit is, so I figured following them is our best bet." That made sense to Drake, but one thing bothered him.
"Can Micheal or Keita smell you?" he asked. "If they are Dragon Slayers, they must recognize your scent, even if only a little." Nashi shrugged.
"Maybe they aren't looking for us." she replied.
"In any case, they're on the move." Elise reported, looking back at the barely visible team, he noted they were indeed moving farther away. Moving slowly so that the two Slayers on the other team wouldn't detect them, Drake noticed that they were indeed moving with a purpose. Everything turn was made without argument or thought, and due to this they almost lost them a few times.
"They can't know how to solve this for real." Ultear whispered. "This place is a god damn maze."
"They might be throwing us off." Simon warned. "If you guys could sense them, there's no way they can't sense us." Nashi nor Elise replied, as this had probably occurred to them as well. Drake wasn't aware of just how strong Micheal or Keita was, but their Dragon senses must have alerted them to the tailing group.
"Not like we have any idea anyway." Damien said, also making a fair point. "So on the off chance they both know where to go and don't realize we're on their tail, this can only go well." Deciding they had no better ideas, they continued following Sabertooth from a distance. Eventually however, the group stopped.
"Shit, did they hear us?" Simon asked.
"I don't think so." Nashi replied. Drake peeked around the corner they were hiding around to find Micheal turning around, looking at Juno.
"Do it." he told her. Juno nodded and, with the sound of spatial distortion all around them, the buildings around them all disappeared in an instant, stacking into a wall between them and Sabertooth.
"Damn it!" Elise shouted as they glared at their side of the wall. "How the hell are we supposed to follow them now?!"
"They totally knew!" Ultear growled. A loud laugh could be heard from over the wall.
"It was a nice try, guys." Micheal called. "But we'll be finishing the qualifier now. See ya at the top!" Six sets of feet ran away from the wall, leaving Drake and the others in the dust.
"Well," Damien said, much more calm then Drake felt. "That sucks."
"Now what?" Simon asked. "We still don't know where they're going."
"The top." Everyone looked over at Nashi as she said this, eyes wide. "Micheal said he'd meet us at the top."
"...Can we get over the wall?" Simon asked. Drake looked over at the barricade.
"Not without crushing ourselves or anyone else near us." he replied.
"Over here!" Everyone looked over at Ultear, who was near a stairwell going up. "It probably won't get us all the way around, but it's better than nothing!"
It took Nashi and the others a fair amount of time to make their way to the other side of the barricade made by Juno, but once they had they immediately followed the scent of their rival guild down a very precise path, all leading upwards.
"How did they even figure out the end was at the top?" Elise asked through her panting as they sprinted. At this rate they had been in the Labyrinth for half an hour, and God knew if they'd even make it in time to take one of the six spots.
"Who cares?" Nashi asked in response. "let's just hope he wasn't trying to throw us off!" Soon enough, the group of six saw a golden plated doorway up a gigantic flight of steps. The end was in sight, and no one else was around. The six sprinted up the stairs as fast ad they could, all trying to squeeze through the doorway at once.
"You can imagine that didn't end well.
"Nashi felt incredibly constricted as she and her friends all tried to push through the small doorway at once, finally making it through and landing in a heap. As soon as they all recovered, they noticed that they were being watched by the man who had announced the qualifier.
"Welcome contenders!" he greeted. "You have made it through the qualifier! Congratulations!"
"How many teams finished before us?" Simon immediately asked. The man smiled.
"Why, only one! You're the second team to make it to the end of the Labyrinth!"
Yeah yeah, a pretty shitty chapter. I don't want to dwell on the qualifier, but I had to do something with it, you know? Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, leave a review! Let's try and get five!