Towers And Gods Light Novels Episode One: Welcome to the Tower

## Episode One: Welcome to the Tower

Find it on youtube here: Towers & Gods Ep. 1 - Welcome to the Tower - YouTube

Check out the series playlist here on Dr. Bonehead's youtube page!

Please leave a comment of what your opinion of the LN is and anything you'd like to change or fix!

### King of the Sea Arc

#### Chapter One: Introduction

The Five main characters, known as Gasu, Brac, Eden, Wu, and Damien are chosen by the tower, taken from their respective places found across the tower. They are illuminated by energy and light, experiencing all emotions of the spectrum in a single moment. They all see nothing but feel everything simultaneously. Then silence.

Consciousness starts to come back to each of them respectively around the same time. Light begins to emerge into their vision for the first time since they were taken into the floor of tests by Headon. As they are succumbing to their emotions; what drives them to enter the tower, vision begins to take shape. Colors fill their eyes for the first time since they could only see the nothingness.

They each begin to recollect that single emotion and feeling that brought them into the tower. For some of these individuals, it was revenge while others were to seek a person or object that their heart desired most. It is presumed that they enter the tower not knowing each other, and yet on this day they would come together in search of their respective goals. Whisked away from their various backgrounds, they share the desire to Love, Power, Freedom, Revenge, Family.

They meet Headon, a tall white rabbit with a wide smile, blackened rimmed eyes as slits. He holds a staff with an orb on each end with the appearance of an entire galaxy in it. He wears a purplish black vest with shortened sleeves; aqua buttons on each side running down the middle of it. His forearms being slightly bulky; an equally aqua-green gem imbedded in the outside of his forearms. His appearance terrifies some, while interesting others. With awe and confusion, a beam of light appears as he bows, giving them each individually the same cunning side smile as the words leave his mouth.

**"Welcome to the Tower."**

Instantaneously, everything fades to black in the snap of a finger by Headon. The amalgamation of various emotions again fills those summoned to the tower by Headon as the darkness continues. Eternity passes in a moment. Shapes and colors again fade into view of each of those summoned. Sky Blue. White fog. Bright oranges and whites from the blinding sun begin to become all they can see. They awaken, to finally hear sounds again. Chirping --- The sound of birds; Seagulls more specifically. They feel the individual grains of wood on their back and hands as they wiggle to arouse from their groggy state. The motion from the waves slightly moving them from side to side, up and down.

They first notice each other, the smell of the sea, and motions of water pushing them around. As their observations of their surroundings pursue, they become aware that they are on a small sea vessel the size of a raft, but with a sail and mast. There are paddles laying along the sides of the boat. They look at each other. None of them are aware of how much time has passed or how they arrived among each other's company.

"That damn Rabbit brought us here," Wu says in an irritated tone under his breath. His white hair shines brightly in the bright sunlight, dampened only by his bronze skin and the extraordinarily dark tint of his sunglasses hung on his forehead. The others focus their eyes on Wu. He is wearing a black T-shirt that reads 'Monkey Business' in its center. The rest of his clothes are black too, even down to his tennis shoes being black. His hair white, up in a pony tail, hangs over his shoulder on one side.

"Um," Damien says still dazed, hosting himself up with the support of the mast. His cape flutters in the slight breeze as he looks around at the others.

"What rabbit," Brac says confused. His blue skin stands out to the others, as well as his large stature. He has white long hair up in a ponytail, and thick white facial hair. His light blue, almost crystalline armor shines in the bright light like thick ice refracting light.

"Hey," Damien continues, now confident and friendly as he gets his bearings of his surroundings, realizing that there are people around him, "How's it going?" Damien smiles intensely, welcoming others to greet him back, anticipation suffocating him to make these strangers into friends. His purple hair and frog like appearance is noticed by the others as they also become more aware of their surroundings. Brac laughs at the sight of his cape, being green with gold trim.

"...Hello?.." Eden says as she comes to the realization of where she is. Her dark jet-black hair with two front highlighted braids flowing gently in the breeze.

"Who are you," Brac exclaims in utter confusion to where he is with no apparent memory of how he arrived there. One hand, readily holding on his harpoon in preparation of a fight like his father had taught him.

"My name is Damien, it is a pleasure to meet you," Damien says to the group as his eyes dart back and forth between them all. His excitement builds up inside after his calm introduction.

"I'm Eden," she responds, being the first person to introduce herself to Damien after his kind and friendly gesture, "Almost pleasure to meet you," she continued, just starting to leave her dazed state. "Once I've met all of you," she finishes now more coherent to her previous responses, looking to the others amongst the sea vessel, observing their reactions.

Suddenly, Damien reaches out his hand, his excitement finally overtaking him in this new circumstance. His curiosity and friendly nature drive him to shake all of his new friends' hands in anticipation of meeting them. Before anyone else can respond, Brac walks right passed Damien, staring out the sea, his hands on his hips.

"Ahhh The Sea. What a beautiful Day." He breathes in, staring at the elegance of the sea. This is Brac's attempt to ignore Damien and his simple nature affecting his social skills. Damien's heart drops as he just holds his hand out, still waiting for the handshake that may never come. He feels the breeze now colder than a glacier, but he shows no concern, expecting someone to take to his friendly gesture if he just doesn't give up. He continues to stare off into the distance, waiting for a kind hand to return his handshake.

As this interaction occurs, Wu, seemingly ignoring everyone, sits in the corner sipping some mystery liquid drink from his gourd. Gasu also sits in isolation, observing everything around him with his senses keen on detecting anything of concern. Finally, Eden musters up the courage to hesitantly grab Damien's hand for a friendly embrace. He smiles as his heart explodes with joy in an impulsive manner. The others notice his odd behavior, being standoff-ish at first.

Eden, feeling the awkward tension rising from the silence of everyone else, raises the question: "So.... what are the rest of your names? As she looks around, she notices that Brac is still staring at the vast ocean with his back turned to the group, seemingly ignoring their existences. Brac and the others see that it is a calm day, with a very light breeze, beautiful horizon of blues and whites as the sun shines off the ocean surface. There isn't much land to be seen as far as the eye can see from what they first observe.

With the awkward silence and little communication happening, Damien says again: "My name is Damien; it is a pleasure to meet you!" His ear-to-ear grin, head turning to each individual searching for a response with optimism and anticipation. For the first time, an annoyed Gasu finally stands up, walking over to Damien, skeptically watching him. "You said your name is Damien?"

Damien, not expecting a response from anyone, draws a blank and is unsure of what to say now that someone responded. His words fumble as his awkward, straight forward responses take hold: "I mean... That was the name that my dad gave me?..."

Gasu's eyebrow raises slightly as he can feel himself already being annoyed by this person known as Damien. "That's an... interesting name." He retorts sarcastically.

"Some people would say it's a pretty cool name!" Damien responds as he thinks of Hresvelgar and himself both thinking that the name Damien was very cool, with no one else in agreement with him.

"...We'll go with that." Eden awkwardly responds, but quickly Damien continues, "I'm glad we all agree," not allowing anyone else to respond to the comment, asserting that Damien is in fact the coolest name in his mind. He sees Hresvelgar in his head, giving him a thumbs up as he thinks of how cool his own name is. He snaps back to reality out of his thoughts, continuing, "I didn't catch the rest of your names though."

"My name is Gasu," the light blonde-haired man responded, looking intensely at Damien, unamused and skeptical. Damien could feel the intensity coming off of Gasu. Internally though, Damien jumps as he high-fives himself "I've made a new friend!" Gasu continues to address him saying, "--as for my last name, and anything else," Gasu pauses, pondering his past. "Don't worry about it." Gasu begins to turn back around as he hears another voice over lapping with Damien's response.

"My pleasure---" Damien responds as they both can hear another voice talking to Gasu as Damien speaks.

"--I like you." This was Wu, for the first-time showing interest in the group. He looks at Gasu, sensing that they could be good friends as they had similar vibes. "Gasu, would you like a drink?" Wu says as he slightly shakes his gourd to signify what he means. Gasu ponders Wu's offer for a second as the breeze blows over the beautiful landscape. "Sure, why not?" He answers hesitantly, but for the first time with a friendly demeanor. He takes a swig of Wu's gourd as the others stare in curiosity and fear of what it may contain.

As Brac still stares off into the distance of the bright blue sea, the others take notice of Wu's gourd. Eden finally offers up the question "What are you drinking?"

Wu perks up, "Oh sorry, I didn't answer your question. My name is Wu, by the way. Ah, you know--- a potion of sorts. Would you like a taste, yourself?" He holds up the gourd to Eden and Damien.

"Nice to meet you," Damien says as he continues, "But I'm good." Eden responds immediately afterward, "I'm fine as well." Wu shrugs this off, "Suit yourselves, more for me," content with their responses either way.

As they communicate, Brac does turn around, noticing a piece of the ship toward the back that has been displaced, with a chest near it. Wu also notices this at the same time, as the others are unaware. "Gourd Man," Brac speaks to Wu, "Do you notice the piece of board hanging out of the ship?" His concern is heard in his voice, as Brac has not had much experience being at sea on such a small craft.

"I Do, what of it though," Wu responds, not a care in the world as he takes another drink off his gourd.

"Wouldn't the ship, possibly sink? Due to that board being out of place?" His concerns steadily grow as he points it out to the others. They can visibly see a single board that is pried up slightly, but no water is noticed boarding the boat.

Wu ponders it for a moment. "Hmm. Possibly." Then he thinks of his gourd as he looks at it. He takes another drink. "Oh well," he finishes his statement, as he again takes another drink from his gourd.

Brac's concern slightly raises from both the misplaced board and Wu's disregard of any concern whatsoever of their boat sinking. "Uh, I think we should do something about this."

As the two talk about the board being misplaced, they all notice a wooden chest next to the misplaced board on the ship with no apparent lock on the lid of it, resting along the back of the boat. Damien, with no hesitation, approaches the chest. "There's a chest! I'm going to loot it!" Before anyone can react to Damien, he quickly pulls open the chest and observes its contents, kind of hesitant at first of reaching his hand inside. He notices that there are five black spherical objects in the bottom. Because of the depth of it, he can't tell what these objects are straight away.

"What's in there?" Eden asks quizzically as she slowly walks over and looks over his shoulder. At this moment, Damien reaches into the chest, touching one of these spheres causing it to fly up and float in front of Eden and he, slightly moving up and down as it makes a noise. \*bloo-loo-loo-loop\* Damien recognizes it right away as a Pocket, due to his experience on the twenty-first floor.

"What is that?" Eden says, as Brac also comments "Frog man, what is that thing you just found?"

"This is a Pocket. We can do all sorts of things with this: We can call each other with it, store items in it, it's basically a cool, handy little storage device."

*((NOTE: Pockets are for translating languages from different backgrounds than the user. They do share some functions as a computer/phone/gps/email/etc. being used to communicate, look up words or locations, store your money/credits/points, use as a flashlight, meet with a guardian to form contracts, you can write in them like a captain's log in a sense or reminders, use it as a clock, record stuff like videos, voices, calls, etc. They also can work as credentials/license and can perform multiple functions at once. - but they cannot store items. That would be an inventory, usually an Arms Inventory, although they usually, house weapons for combat instead of candy bars and frog merch. If anything, a Lighthouse would make more sense for what Damien describes, as he could store much popcorn and frog merch inside lol END NOTE))*

"Alright," Eden says, as she picks one up herself. It floats up like Damien's did and makes a noise. \*bloo-loo-loo-loop\* She notices as she moves, it follows her. She makes the observation that it is clearly attached to her like a trusty little side kick. "Hmm. Interesting," she continues.

All of a sudden, an audible message pops up on Eden's and Damien's pockets: *"Please, all team members please select a Pocket."*

Eden and Damien tell everyone to come get a pocket. "Come on over here big guy, come get yourself a Pocket," Damien specifically calls to Brac.

Brac stares at it quizzically, in amazement and bewilderment as this is the first time, he has seen a Pocket. Wu calls out to Brac while he is over by the chest, "Big man Brac was it? Please toss one over yonder. I'm too lazy to get up." Noticing his stubbornness, Brac rolls one to Wu. Meanwhile, Gasu approaches the chest to retrieve his Pocket on his own.

As they look at their pockets, they notice that their own individual names appear on the pockets, and they say 'F-Rank Regulars'. Then suddenly, their pockets line up and a voice appears to be coming from the pockets in unison.

"WELCOME EVERYONE TO THE SECOND FLOOR OF THE TOWER." As this echos in the ears of the regulars on this boat, it becomes easier to listen to it. It is an energetic, feminine voice speaking. "We are very excited to have you here on the floor of tests! We would like to prepare you for your first test, here on the floor of tests. We do warn you that this test is very dangerous, and all losers will be executed!" As there is a pause, the regulars on the boat begin to respond.

"...What?!" Eden responds with shock and horror.

"Well... that's no good.." Wu says, with very little care as he takes another swig of his gourd. Brac begins to chuckle menacingly and strongly, "Hahahaha, A Test for the Mighty!" He stands big and tall, ready for this challenge like an adrenaline junky as he flexes in excitement.

The voice on the Pocket continues: "This Test is called 'King of the Sea', If Everyone could go over to your wooden chest and open the secret compartment at the bottom!" After a slight moment of hesitation, Eden reaches in the bottom the chest to find that the bottom opens up, revealing a secret compartment that contains a map of the testing grounds. The map itself is rough to the touch, seemingly made out of older parchment, containing different colors of islands. It appears to be some kind of treasure map. On the back seems to be some kind of writing, showing as follows:

The announcement continues: "As I said, this game is called 'King of the Sea.' Your goal in this game is to collect as many islands as possible! Whoever collects the island and maintains it until the end of the game, scores points based on that island's size. It doesn't matter who claims that island first, all that matters is that your team holds that island until the end of the game. The game will last for three hours. As you can tell, each island is worth a various number of points. The smallest islands on the map are worth zero points -- The greyed-out ones. Then they are worth five, ten, and twenty points. The big island in the center is an automatic victory if you hold it until the end of the game. At this point, please select a team leader." The announcement stops to give teams a chance to pick a team leader.

The regulars stare at each other for a brief moment. In each individual's Pockets, a message appears that says "Leader: Yes or No." Wu immediately clicks no without hesitation, refusing to want the responsibility to be the leader, with Gasu quickly following suit. "So, who would like to be the team leader," Damien asks the group, not aware that Gasu and Wu have already declined the position. Damien looks around to the group, waiting for an answer from his newfound friends. Gasu faces Eden in this moment with a serious look as always, "I think she should do it."

Wu quickly adds in "Doesn't matter to me," before Eden or anyone else has a chance to respond to Gasu.

"How do you feel about being the leader, Eden?" Damien asks earnestly. During this decision making by the group, Wu swigs from his gourd frequently.

"Uhh," she says hesitantly as she continues, "If this is voted upon by the majority, I'm already out voted, so Okay. I'll click yes."

As soon as she clicks yes, the messages disappear from the others' Pockets, then suddenly the option of ten different colors appear on her pocket. The test announcer then says, "Please choose a color: The Ten colors are Light Blue, Grey, Green, Dark Blue, Orange, Yellow, Black, White, Pink, and Brown."

"What do the colors mean?" Damien asks the group for their opinions.

"I don't know," Eden responds as the newly appointed leader. "Anybody got a favorite color?"

There is silence from the rest of the group as Damien fumbles his thoughts, trying to think of his favorite color.

"Um... Uh, Pink Team! No Purple team! ---Wait--- Green team..."

*(\*NOTE\* THERE IS NO PURPLE TEAM LOL)*

Gasu, frustrated by Damien and his annoyance responds, "This is ridiculous, just pick a color already."

Eden immediately replies, "Black; I'll pick Black: It's the abscence of all colors." As she says this, she clicks black on her Pocket.

Before her finger hits the button and even after it does, Damien is visibly stricken by this as his words fumble over themselves trying to get out.

"Wai-, bu-- um--"

The Pockets make a noise as they update with the current information of the teams, officially making this group of raggedy regulars: BLACK TEAM. Other teams' colors are quickly chosen as Eden's Pocket makes all kinds of noises as all the slots are chosen. The announcer picks up immediately, "Excellently done! There are ten teams that will be participating in the game! Only four teams will pass. Each team is made up of five players. Your goal is to place a flag at the island of your choice. There is a designated location at each island in the center. When you place your flag into that spot, your team claims that island."

The team notices the sides of their boat, spawn thirty black flags dark as night hanging from the sides. The sail of the boat also changes color to the same as their team: Black.

"It doesn't matter if you stay on the island until the end of the game, all that matters is that your flag is in the correct location when the three-hour timer is finished.

Wu confidently points out his thoughts of the game, "Well this is easy enough. Let's just plant all the flags and then hold down the spots that give the most points."

"Why do they give us so many flags though?" Damien points out, curious and confused.

"I'm not sure," Eden interjects, as Damien continues.

"Isn't the goal to just hold one island?" Damien holds his chin while he looks at their black flag, wishing it was purple like his hair.

The announcer's voice continues: "The four teams with the most points at the end of the three hours, will pass. The six teams with the least number of points, will fail. Also, there is one more rule: Although everyone right now is a team of five, a maximum number of teammates that is possible is six. Which means the adding or subtracting of is allowed, as well as the trading of teammates. If you wish to make a trade, please note so in the Pocket."

Immediately, an interface menu pops up on their respective Pockets, showing them a Team menu, a Points menu, Timer Reminder, etcetera. None of them really take notice to all of its features or spend the time to investigate.

The voice continues: "All that matters is that the team leader starts the trade, and both team leaders must agree upon the decision."

Damien says "Hmmmmmm," as he ponders of the possibilities of having more friends in his group.

"Alright, so we could pick up a straggler if some of the other teams get knocked off. It would help us hold more islands." Eden mentions to the rest of Black Team.

"Other teams would have five as well, so we would be able to poach someone, or potentially in the worst-case scenario, we could lose someone." Damien remarks as he dreads the thought of losing Gasu already.

"Yeah..." Eden responds as Black Team take turns exchanging glances at this comment.

Gasu breaks the silence and awkwardness of the team. "I think it's a good idea," referring to both getting another teammate or having the option of joining another team, looking at Damien who already has annoyed him more than he can tolerate. They begin to review the map, noticing the different sizes and colors of the islands on the map as well as their point values.

Eden continues going over the details to help the group come to the decision of their best strategy moving forward. "So, looking at this map, we've got a few clusters of islands. I don't know if going to the middle one is the best. It would secure the win if we could hold it, but I have a feeling that all of the other teams are going to think that as well."

She ponders this for a brief moment, as Brac interjects with a sizable voice. "I think we should go to the middle island." The look on his face speaks volumes to how confident and serious he is with that statement.

Damien brings up a valuable point as he speaks his own mind disregarding Brac's statement, both from his own oblivious nature and energetic personality.

"Well, I think that we should talk about our own combat capabilities." This wasn't a bad thought, as none of them knew what each other were capable of. As he says this to Black Team, he pulls out giant golden scissors, almost the length of his body, seemingly out of nowhere. As he is doing this, they all hear the announcer's voice again over their Pockets.

"Any questions by the participants?" The voice is loud and carries through the air far and wide.

Wu's eyes light up as he sees Damien's scissor weapon. "That is an outstanding weapon, where did you get it," seemingly ignoring the question by the announcer.

Damien brushes off Wu's question very abruptly, "Thank you very much, but I do have one question." He hesitates, as he now turns to his Pocket, even though it can hear him regardless. He stutters a bit as he asks the announcer hesitantly, "Is uh, is lethal force something we have to do?"

The announcer smugly answers back quickly to Damien's question, "Oh, any form of violence is allowed." The voice said it so smugly that they could tell the announcer was smiling when speaking about violence. This bothers Damien for a second as he thinks about it.

"Any form of violence? ---Al-Alright, that's all then!" They could hear the emotion in his voice.

"Excellent! Well, with that: Let the game begin!" The Announcer's voice cuts out as a three-hour timer pops up on all of Team Black's Pockets counting down.

#### **Chapter Two: Black Team 'Operation Start the Jungle on Fire'**

"Oh no," Damien says under his breath to himself.

"Okay, Um. Uh." Eden scrambles as she thinks of what they should do.

"I think we shouldn't go for the middle island," Damien says, reassuring Eden that it will be okay.

"I don't think so either," Eden confirms as she gets her confidence back. They discuss their plan to claim whatever islands they can during the time limit. "We should take these larger islands on the outskirts to gather points."

"But the center island is an instant win. Why not just take the center island instead of the islands in the back?" Brac says in disagreement.

"Because we will have to hold that for three hours, and every other team is going to -" as Eden finishes her sentence, Brac again interjects with more intensity this time.

"But I AM here. We can hold that --- for three hours," as he smacks his chest in reference to his strength and confidence in battle.

Meanwhile, Damien comments to their disagreement with his own thoughts, as usual not keeping them to himself. "If we are going to take the middle island, it would probably be a good idea to show up maybe two hours later."

Wu smiles, directing Damien with his words, "So some of you do have some sense. Good." He continues to take drinks from his gourd as they continue their conversation about their way of approaching the test. Brac grumbles to himself as Eden now begins to speak, "If we do hold other islands close to the center island, we can hold those points for a decent amount of time and then the closer the clock ticks down, we can try to take the center island, essentially letting the other teams kill each other off."

"Taking all these other islands would just end up being more work, as we would have to split up in order to maintain them," Brac says in defiance, slowly getting more irritated with Eden for bossing him around even though Brac didn't choose her as leader.

Wu peers at the map from the chest over Eden's shoulder, then points to specific islands that they had been discussing on taking previously. "The islands you are referring to -- are they the red ones with the golden palm trees here?"

"One with the Red and golden palm trees, and the one with the green island and green palm trees. They are right next to each other in the Northwest. There is another pink and yellow one to the farthest of the Northwest," Eden responds to Wu as she points out the islands that she refers to.

"How about we just go to the closest one?" Damien asks Eden as he shrugs his shoulders. "We'd be able to hunker down. Once we got onto the island, we would have the advantage in any combat." As Damien finishes speaking, Wu is the first one to ask an important question: "Where are we located?"

After a pause, they realize they have no idea where they are on the map. "Oh no," Damien exclaimed in shock, "We better start rowing then!"

"We need to get the nearest island we can see," Eden added she peers out in the distance looking for a nearby island. Being used to ranged weapons, she had impeccable eyesight, allowing her to make out the shape of something in the far distance of the water. "Over there I can see an island in the distance. We need to start rowing to that immediately. Grab an oar everyone. If we all row, we can get there faster!"

Gasu looks to Eden with acceptance of her authority but not showing it. He respects her decision making but being a simple man of few words, he just says, "Sounds good." The group look for the paddles, but only find two among the items on the boat.

"Hmm, it looks like the strongest of us should be rowing since there is only two paddles," Eden declares. Simultaneously, Damien raises his hand with haste and excitement as Brac lets out a loud menacing chuckle of confidence and power, rocking the boat a little from side to side.

"Alright, Damien, and Blue man, let's get to work. We need to move as fast as we can," Eden says to the two volunteers, taking to her role as team leader quite well with proficiency.

"Alright, let's make our way toward that image in the background," Damien says as he picks up a paddle. His excitement is emanating from him as he readies his paddle. He puts in his maximum effort into every stroke. Meanwhile, on the other side of the boat Brac struggles to row, lacking experience using a paddle or from applying too much force. He is unsure what causes his difficulty in rowing but continues to do his best.

As they get closer to the image that was once in the background of their view, they begin to see another island on their right, much bigger than the one they are heading for.

"Gentlemen. There is another, larger island seemingly over there!" Eden points to the right of the boat in the direction of this larger island she mentions to the group. "We could continue to this island, though it looks rather small, or we could head to the larger island over there," she continues as she directs her question towards the rest of Team Black.

"Let's go to the large one," Brac responds, as he shamefully continues slightly under his breath, "I'll make up for --for --for my lack of effort in that row." He looks to his paddle as he says this, still rowing in an underperformed manner. Eden puts her hand on his shoulder to reassure him, "That's alright. You're learning."

Wu notices how tense and awkward Brac is as he rows, still struggling to get his bearings on how to do it. He thinks to himself of a way to help Brac row better, thinking maybe it is his muscles that need a massage in order to perform better. Of course, this may have just been the alcohol guiding his thoughts and decisions, though somewhat maybe his transition to being more comfortable and caring of his fellow teammates in their travels as they go from strangers to friends.

He confirms to himself his decision to attempt to help Brac, as he walks over behind him. Wu starts to rub his shoulders, not quite aware of the armor in between his hands and Brac's shoulders but continues anyway as if nothing strange is occurring. Brac realizes this almost immediately, looking over his shoulder at Wu in a bewildered and increasingly alarmed state.

"Uhhhhh... What are you doing over there, Gourd Man? Why are you touching me like that?! BACK AWAY!" Brac shows how uncomfortable he is with being touched by a strange gourd man as strangers watch in confusion.

"You seemed a bit tense, you could use a massage," Wu responds as he continues to rub Brac's armor as if it would miraculously help him row better.

Meanwhile Damien just continues rowing like a professional, noticing this awkward exchange as he turns his head to see what the commotion is. Once he sees Wu rubbing Brac awkwardly and the blue man's response to this, he quickly turns his head back forward.

He acts like nothing else has his attention during his deep concentration of rowing, trying to unsee what he just witnessed. He says to himself internally, "I dont know what is going on over there, but it is none of my business!" He chuckles to himself internally as well as he tries to rid the image from his mind.

All of a sudden, Brac starts to row better, either from getting used to rowing finally, the encouragement from Wu, or his own desire to make Wu stop touching him. Wu sees this as his massage working its wonders, finally letting go of Brac's shoulders. He sits back down as he begins to take another drink from his gourd. Brac lets out a sigh of relief and begins to feel comfortable again, yet somewhat still traumatized by the occurrence. Silence befalls the group until they finally approach this island they are directed for. Getting closer, the group realizes that the island they set for was much smaller than they realized, having only a couple trees and small enough to be traversed fully in only a minute.

The group begin to discuss about whether or not to continue on to the island. "Maybe once we set foot on the island, the Pockets will disclose more information to us. Uhh, Uhh, was it Wu? Or Gourd Man as people have been calling you? Jump out and put a flag on this island and see what happens," Eden declares.

Wu sighs slightly but accepts the request. As he gets up -- in one quick motion -- leaps off the boat, grabbing a flag with his non-gourd hand. His feet land firmly and quite easily on the sand as he's already taking a drink from his gourd before he plants his feet to the soft surface of the beach.

"Remember it's toward the center," Eden calls out to him from beyond the shore, still on the boat with the rest of Team Black.

Wu awkwardly looks back to the commanding Eden, quickly saying under his breath, "I can see that, thank you..." He quickly arrives to the center of the seemingly small island without much effort at all, coming across a small metal hole in the ground.

He lets go of the miniature flag, not knowing what to expect from this action. As it falls into the hole, a giant metal pole erupts suddenly from the hole in the ground with immense speed. At the top of the pole, he sees it unraveling a now giant black flag, shifting in the breeze of the calm ocean day. He looks at the team's flag now fluttering in the light, humid breeze, then declares with accomplishment, "The flag is fully erect! I've done it!" Their Pockets instantly let out a noise as it updates their score, now showing that Team Black obtained 5 points.

"Good job," Eden shouts to him from the boat, still along the coastline of the island. Wu waves at everyone else from Team Black from the center of the island as he pulls his gourd back to his mouth for another drink.

"Wait aren't others going to see it now," Damien says, but no one pays attention to him as his comment is left ignored.

Brac immediately notes, "This seems to be a Millimeter Island," in a deep, strong voice.

Eden exclaims disappointment, "Ugh, this is one of the smaller ones? Okay." She begins to look around again to see if she can see any other islands as Brac takes the same approach, but instead only looking for the biggest island, Kilo Island, worth the most points as it is an instant win. During this time, Wu returns to the boat and the other members of Team Black. Brac and Eden are looking in different directions, but neither of them are really able to see anything in the distance but the small island they already passed.

Suddenly they both respectively see another island in opposite directions of each other, not including the even smaller island they had passed to get to this Millimeter Island. They discuss to try to figure out their current location on the Map. Brac thinks that they are in the Southern area of the Map, whereas Eden comes to the conclusion that they are in the Northwest of the map. Gasu agrees with Eden. During this discussion, Eden additionally declares, "I think we need to start finding as many islands as possible and start planting as many flags as possible, potentially."

She worries about the possibility of running out of flags due to another team taking their flags from islands they have claimed under her breath. Damien does point out that they have twenty-nine flags left on the sides of their boat.

"As long as we plant a flag at the biggest island, it doesn't matter," Wu says to Eden and Damien, overhearing what Eden had said under her breath as well.

Gasu addresses Wu, "Well, most of the people here are going to be going for the big island. As long as we get enough flags planted on the small islands, that is another way to win this game; We have the most points, or we cover the big island."

Damien, observing their surroundings, points out that both the island to their right and the island behind them are bigger than the island they are currently on.

"Let's go right," Eden declares to the group and they then confirm. "Who is rowing," she asks the group, as Damien's hand shoots up into the air the moment, she finishes her sentence.

She looks at Brac and he looks hesitant on rowing again, thinking back to Wu's 'Man-ssage' as the skin under his armor shudders a little.

"Uh, Brac... Why don't you just let me take this one," as she reaches her hand out hesitantly for the oar. After a brief moment of silence, Brac grumbles-- looking downward as he hands it to Eden. The two begin rowing, both having experience being on the open waters. They travel at a considerable speed due to this. They glace back to see their giant black flag still waving in the wind above the island they had just claimed, heading for their new destination.

As they approach the island, they notice two smaller islands just off the shore of the island. Gasu notices on the bigger island that there is a large, light blue flag waving above it. He instinctively grips his sword tighter as he turns to everyone else in Team Black.

"Guys, we're gonna have company," he tells them in an even more intense, serious tone than he previously had as he points to the flag in the distance. The others, now at attention, also notice this light blue flag waving in the wind.

"This doesn't necessarily mean we have company," Damien states as he considers that the team could have left after placing the flag as their team had done with theirs.

"They might have moved on," Wu adds, as he confidently but carelessly continues, "It doesn't matter either way; we are almost there."

Damien looks in the distance, trying to see the island they had claimed and their flag, but for the first time noticing that it is out of his range of sight. He notices on his Pocket, the timer now reads 'two hours and thirty minutes remaining'

"Oh boy," he exclaims as he lets out a big sigh, pointing out the time remaining to the rest of his team. "Do we want to steal these guys' flag?"

Gasu and Eden affirm that they have to in order to score more points than their measly five they currently have if they hope to win.

"We have to; this island is bigger than the last one: it will score us more points," Gasu points out to Damien.

"I guess we may as well go and check it out," Damien replies, with Eden agreeing with Gasu and Damien, saying "Let's go."

When they arrive to the island, no one in the group can tell any indication of anyone else being on the island such as a boat or other teams' members. This is a much bigger island with many taller trees in the middle of it, obscuring their initial view of its entirety.

"They could be hiding in there," Eden warns the rest of her team.

"I meant to ask, but does anyone have any like, sort of... fire specialty?" Damien says this with a wide smile, intrigued to discover more about his team, but mostly due to his own interest in fire.

"Fire," Eden asks confused to what fire would have to do with their current situation.

"Why don't we burn the jungle down?" Damien asks the group.

"Are you out of your mind," Wu asks, surprised and concerned about Damien's suggestion.

"It's just a test floor," He responds to Wu, shrugging it off like starting the jungle on fire is a normal response to their situation.

"It's unnecessary," Wu responds as Eden adds, "I don't have anything on that.." She is visibly concerned, backing away from Damien slightly.

"I have a nature specialty," Brac brings up.

"Can you burn it down," Eden asks.

"Nature? Burn? No! Why would you burn down nature," the blue man responds almost offended by the suggestion of him personally doing so. Eden is quick to apologize.

"We could always make fire..." Damien suggests menacingly. "We could set fire to it!"

"We don't know if anybody's here; we might just give up our position and lose the element of surprise," Wu responds, trying to shut down Damien's obsession with burning down the foliage. Gasu agrees with Wu, backing up his statement.

"Exactly- I'm with Wu," Gasu says.

"Why don't we just swap their flag with ours," Brac asks the group like it's a simple and obvious answer to their predicament.

"I want to go take a look," Wu says to the group. "I'll be right back," and before anyone has a chance to respond or stop him to discuss it any further, he leaps off of the boat onto the shore, again grabbing a flag as he drinks from his gourd while midair in a flipping motion. He lands on the shore, heading through the trees into the jungle of the island. He hears birds chirping, insects buzzing, and the calm breeze moving the branches of the trees slightly. He is careful to not make a noise as he traverses between each tree in his path, jumping off back and forth off of the trunks of the trees-- propelling fast yet silently like an acrobatic ninja.... drinking from his gourd casually as he does so.

As he makes his way through the trees, he comes to an opening where he sees the pole with the hoisted light blue flag and two individuals-- one sitting and the other standing, both looking around. They wield some kind of long and skinny weapons as they stand guard to the flag with no indication that they had detected Wu or his team. Wu watches them, observing for a moment, then he sees one of them make a sudden movement.

"Someone's there! I saw someone," the man yells to his teammate. Wu quickly ducks down, heading back the way he came. As he rushes back to his team, he notices that they don't seem to be following him. Then he hears them say into their pocket loudly shouting,

"Back up; We need back up!" The voices of the two fade as Wu returns to the shore where his team currently is.

"Uhhh, I kind of fucked up guys-- they know we are here. I'm sorry..." He trails off as he takes a sip of his gourd, talking to the group over his pocket.

"So, they spotted you?" Eden asks Wu.

"Well, they didn't particularly see me as far as I could tell, but they knew somebody was there watching. There were two of them," Wu shares to his team.

"Should we fight or should we go to another island. We need to start claiming points as soon as possible," Eden turns to the rest of her team for their opinions, but Wu interjects, kind of putting his palm over his face.

"They called for backup. The two that I saw didn't look too imposing, but who knows what their comrades are like."

Brac tries to determine everyone's abilities and fighting capabilities as he asks the rest of his team, "Guys, what are everyone's weapons?"

Damien smiles to himself as he says, "Operation Burn the jungle down sounds like a pretty good idea right now."

"They weren't pursuing me; they might get caught up in the blaze. I actually don't care anymore: burn it all," Wu says without a care in the world. Damien shocked that Wu was now on his side with burning the jungle down, grabs two sticks immediately trying to start a fire. As he rubs them together vigorously, Eden, Gasu, and Brac stare at him speechless while Wu sips his gourd, neutral either way.

"Wait, if their team is split up, then that means it's five against two and if we can defeat them quick enough, it will become five against three by the time they arrive," Eden says to the group as she continues, "We could pick this entire team off."

As soon as Eden says that Wu is beginning to pour the liquid from his gourd on the fire that Damien is starting, making the fire increase in size dramatically. His ears perk up, almost like he is enjoying something other than drinking his gourd or rubbing Brac's back for the first time since he met the others on Team Black.

The others don't notice at first until the fire poofs up into the air as Wu dumps even more of his beverage onto the fire. Then he snaps back to reality as he thinks about Eden's words.

"Well--- Maybe we should fight," now turning back away from the growing fire, facing the team instead. He pauses as he considers it, "But then again," He turns back to the fire as he continues, "The fire."

"We could go along the shoreline and sabotage their boat," Damien suggests, quickly realizing with Eden's explanation that the rest of light blue's team has the boat, leaving the other two members on the island by themselves.

"There's no way they make it back in time," Wu adds to Damien and Eden's conversation as he stares at the fire, Damien now joining him over it both looking at it like it has them possessed.

Brac finally interrupts the rest of them, "I do not understand why we are deliberating; We have the element of surprise; they are running right into a trap. I say we just catch them." With Brac's words, they finally decide to just go into the jungle to find the two members guarding the flag, leaving the fire behind.

Damien reveals his scissors again, starting to cut down branches and foliage in his path as the group moves. Wu directs them on the path he took before, but when they arrive to the flag, they notice that there is no one to be found. The flag is still in place, fluttering in the breeze high above the ground.

The area around the flag is a small clearing, having a couple of small plants, some boulders, but relatively empty compared to the thick jungle up to this point. Brac, suspicious of the surrounding area containing a trap of sorts, searches for anything that would stick out to his trained eye. While doing this, he gets the impression that they are being watched by someone from somewhere unknown at the moment. As Brac is doing this, Gasu communicates with the rest of the group.

"Alright, so those two guys obviously have to be waiting here somewhere still. Why we can't see them, I don't know. I think if we send one of us in there, straight towards the flag, it will draw the two out. Then, the rest of us can jump the two from behind."

"Well, I got us into this. I'll go, if that is what we are doing," Wu volunteers but abruptly pauses. "Or we could burn it!" He turns, looking to Damien, "Damien, you still have that fire?" Damien, excited at this prospect as his eyes light up with joy, grabs two twigs again trying to spark another fire to burn down the jungle.

"Yeah, I think I can get this fire started," he says as he looks to Wu with an ear-to-ear grin.

"---Actually, I think Damien should be the bait," Gasu suggest to the group, much to the surprise and detest of Damien to this newfound plan. "Hang on-- Wait, what?" Damien responds. Meanwhile, Brac became so increasingly impatient and irritated with everyone else's debating, he just starts sneaking toward the flag. Unfortunately, his armor starts to clink as he dramatically but obviously tries to sneak faster and faster. The others on Team Black turn to look at Brac from hearing his armor. At that moment, someone jumps out of nowhere from behind a giant boulder, wielding a needle aimed for Brac.

"I'VE GOT YOU NOW!" The light blue member shouts as he ambushes Brac. Due to the surprise and Brac being in stealth mode (in his mind), he panics from the shock of the guy lunging at him. The blade slashes in a weak point in Brac's armor and blood spurts out. The other individual begins to come around the rock from the other side of the rock.

In response to this, Eden creates a shinsu bow. She readies her bow, pulling an arrow from her quiver, then aims at the guy attacking Brac. In this moment, Damien makes a suggestion to Gasu and Wu,

"All of these islands look the bloody same. Maybe if we switch the flag, it will confuse their reinforcements to slow them down a little bit." Overhearing this, Brac interjects. "I- I tried that frog. I couldn't sneak," Brac says shamefully from across the clearing from the rest of the group.

With quite speed, Eden lets go of her bow, sending an arrow flying at the man who attacked Brac, but he steps back to dodge it, causing the guy to dive back behind the rock, shouting to his teammate, "There's more of them!" He looks at Brac now stating, "You're so dead!" He readies his needle, swinging it at Brac. This time though, he is ready as he deflects it backward with his armor. The attacker stumbles backward. At the same time, his teammate set his eyes on Eden, charging at her. He swings his needle at her with unimpressive speed. Eden does a roll to get out of the way of his attack.

Now ready for battle, Brac stands towering over the regular that attacked him, cracking his knuckles a little bit. He grabs the harpoon from his back, expanding the tip of it. This reveals multiple blades from it, then crushes it down on the man. He dodges Brac's attack as he backed away just enough ahead of time out of fear, causing his harpoon to bounce off the rock behind him. The rock though is obliterated by his harpoon, causing the regular to become even more terrified of Brac's brute strength and power.

Back over by Eden, Damien, Wu, and Gasu, the man who attacked Eden stumbles. Gasu readies his katana, the others looking at him with anticipation of his attack. He performs 'Blade Style Somersault' leaping into the air as he holds his katana in front of him, doing a somersault midair, bringing down the katana on the regular with great force. In the blink of an eye, Gasu had reacted surprising even his own teammates. Blood pours out from the deep wound Gasu just inflicted. The victim of his attack is shocked and frightened.

He takes deep and quick breaths as he loses more and more blood. Wu puts down his gourd for the first time since they met him, pulling out a staff and casually strolling over behind Gasu, jabbing the man Gasu attacked in the face very swiftly with great force. This causes the regular's head to jolt backward, becoming obviously dazed from the blunt force trauma he just experienced. His head noticeably swells up.

Damien, watching all the action, doesn't want to be left out. He dramatically lifts up his hand into the air. The others that are doing combat, even the members of light blue team turn to look at Damien, looking with curiosity and anticipation of what Damien is about to do. The intensity from Damien is crushing like gravity upon them all. In his lifted-up hand, everyone notices a music box. The lid pops open, music playing menacingly.

Light shines out of the music box as he says, "I show my music box: I summon thee- The Great, Hresvelgr!" His voice is very theatric and over the top. Damien and all stare at the music box with fear of what is about to happen. The one that Gasu and Wu just injured covers his face in defense. The music stops as Damien's face remains serious the entire duration: cape fluttering in the wind. He puts one hand on his face, with the other still in the air holding his music box. Suddenly, POOF--- a very, very small, almost adorable frog manifests on Damien's shoulder. Wu's jaw drops with shock and awe, as does everyone else who was watching Damien in unison.

The man who covered his face, noticing nothing happened to him, uncovers his face and opens his eyes to see the cute, harmless frog on Damien's shoulder. His eyes bulge out of his head from the realization of the technique. "This?! All of that to summon a frog??"

Damien pets Hresvelgar lovingly, thanking him for his presence. Then he hands him a flag, "Can you go put this in, buddy?" Hresvelgar sits on Damien's shoulder confused and uninterested, but shrugs for a moment then takes the flag with his mouth. As the others just watch in shock and awe of this whole chain of events, Hresvelgar hops innocently over to the flagpole. Damien smiles at him, giving him a thumbs up. "Good job, buddy!"

Now that everyone has regained their composure over the previous events, Eden's shinsu bow disappears as she thrusts forward, preforming 'Brotherly Style: Open Hand' forcing her palm into his chest. The force knocks the air out of him and sends him backward slightly. Somehow the man still has enough composure to keep from being knocked completely over, but instead is forced to his knees. Blood continues to drain from his wounds as he coughs up more blood as well. The other man with orange hair over by Brac sees Eden do this, shouting, "BEACH! ---You BITCH!"

Overcome by his emotions, he runs over to Eden, slashing her in the arm slightly with his needle. He quickly realizes that was a mistake as he looks back and forth between all of the enemies that surround him. He starts stepping back slowly, trying to stay between Beach and Team Black. Beach remains on the ground kneeling, barely hanging onto life.

Brac readies his harpoon and yells, "By Caine, I shall smash this harpoon!" For a towering, huge man, he swiftly moves within striking distance of the one still standing with orange hair. He manages to dodge the harpoon, but backs into a tree. He holds up his needle, looking at Beach, who has blood covering his body and through his brown hair, then back to Team Black, not sure what to do next. He is visibly scared of the situation he is in.

Gasu closes the distance between him and the man with the orange hair. He tries to block Gasu's katana with his needle, but it slides off causing it to slice him. His movements are so elegant, precise, smooth in this attack that the others take notice of his skill with a sword.

At the same time, Wu casually approaches closer to the brown-haired man bleeding out. He smiles at Beach, then preforms 'Heavy Staff: Breaking Strike' bringing his staff down with tremendous speed and force directly onto Beach's head. The staff brings Beach's face straight into the ground. This causes his head to cave in and explode outward around, spreading brains and blood around the spot where Wu brought down his staff--- Where Beach's head used to be. Wu swings the blood and brain matter off from his staff with a single, swift swing. He's still smiling, turning his attention to the other member of Team Light Blue.

The orange haired man looks in horror and disgust, calling for his friend and ally in disbelief, "---Beach?... ----Beach?..." Panic really starts to set in for the only remaining member of Light Blue Team currently on the island. At this moment, Hresvelgr reaches the enemy flag, but looks up at the towering stature of the flagpole. With no idea or ability to change the flag, he shrugs his head back toward Damien. The purple haired anima sees this, kind of just standing in the background by the rest of the team, mostly spectating them pummel their enemies. He gives Hresvelgr a thumbs up, cheering him on.

"You can do it, Hresvelgar!" Hresvelgr looks back at the flagpole and lets out and exaggerated 'Ribbit' as he puts his mouth around the flagpole, attempting to lift it with no success. "Keep trying buddy!"

Damien uses 'Frog Style: Leap', jumping behind the orange haired regular to cut off his escape. Damien raises his scissors to him, pointing them dramatically at his face. "Yield," in an intimidating fashion.

Seeing this impossible feat, the man drops his needle. He raises his tiny sticks for arms into the air, surrendering. "Don't kill me, please! Please! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Don't hurt me, please don't hurt me! I Yield!"

Brac, still upset that the man cut him, walks forward with the intent to kill. "No, that bitch cut me. Brac does not approve of this, he cut me. Eye for an eye. I gotta cut him!"

Wu and Eden rush to stop him, putting their hands on him and succeeding in holding him back for the moment. Eden tells Brac to calm down, while Wu struggles in his voice from holding Brac back, "Brac, you forget he has reinforcements; just give it a moment,"

Damien then points his scissors down toward the ground and extends a hand, "Would you like to join our team?" The others are shocked by this statement and disapprove. They start arguing. "He's too weak for that," Wu states, "let's just get information from him and leave him."

"But a six on three fight would give us the advantage," Damien retorts.

"Hang on, Hang on," Eden interrupts. "Gasu, go change the flag. That's our number one priority." As they continue arguing, without saying a word back, Gasu walks over to the pole, changing out the flag with one of Black Team's.

He looks down to Hresvelgr who this entire time was still struggling to change the flag. As Gasu takes the flag down, Hresvelgr looks up to Gasu with big sad froggy eyes.

Gasu looks back and they have a silent exchange as if Hresvelgr was begging for Gasu to use the flag that he held in his froggy mouth. Gasu lets out a frustrated sigh as he accepts the flag from him and swaps it.

Now proudly on the pole above is a big, black flag. The Pockets immediately update, now showing fifteen points for black team.

Damien and Hresvelgr see each other, Damien giving him a thumbs up, telling him with only a look of how proud he is of Hresvelgar for all his hard work and what he accomplished, single handedly of course. Wu takes their light blue flag, and it decompresses into the small form again. He puts the flag into his inventory for later, just in case they could use it in some situation.

#### **Chapter Three: Poor Booth**

"What's your name?" Eden asks the regular.

"Booth, my name is Booth," he responds, still frightened.

"Booth, you need to get on your Pocket and tell your team that you do not need reinforcements." While she is telling him this, he lets out vocal noises only as he struggles to find words to reject this command.

"---I-I don't---- ...Okay, okay okay okay okay. Pocket, visible mode." Booth hangs his head in shame and reveals his Pocket. He calls his teammates over it. He hears a deep voice on the other side. "What is it? We're almost there." Booth studders as he nervously tries to get the words out. Team Black is standing there mouthing the words that Booth needs to say to his teammates.

"Th-Th-The Threat-t has bee-een ha-- They were-" He still struggles to get the words out due to his fear and anxiety from the situation he found himself in at this very moment. His panic overwhelmed him like a rodent cornered by a predator.

"What's wrong?" His teammate asks Booth, starting to get worried and suspicious.

"We took care of them. They ran away actually. They were scared of us: Me and Beach..." He looks at Beach's exploded head and blood spatter everywhere round him in that moment. This motivated him enough to find his compsure so that he too wouldn't have his head smashed in by the crazy staff man. "Yeah, yeah! Uh-huh. Okay, okay. Yeah, bye." After this, Booth hangs up his Pocket and it goes back to being invisible mode with Booth's command.

"What did they say?" Questioned Eden, eagerly awaiting his response.

"Th-they said okay. They are going to keep hunting other islands." Boof responds. Eden can tell that he wasn't lying but can also put together that Boof isn't trustworthy or cooperative.

Wu walks over to Booth, putting his arm around Boof's shoulder like a best friend would. He is still smiling and being friendly with Boof. He then points over the man with the watermelon bashed in skull, Beach.

"You see him over there? If you don't cooperate with us that is going to happen to you."

Booth clears his throat as he feels like he has a frog in it from the nervousness, dry like sandpaper. "B-but what if you do that to me, even if I do cooperate?"

"Don't give us a reason to," Eden replies, looking at him still not completely willing to trust this regular.

"Okay, okay, what would you like me to do?" Booth looks back and forth between the different members of Team Black. They then look at each other. They start to discuss the matter with each other.

"We could just tie him up and take him with us," Damien suggest optimistically.

"We also could just drop him off on a small island where he can't gain points," Eden recommends.

Brac interrupts as Damien and Eden say their suggestions, "----Or-Or-Or- I have a big gash on my back. That came from his ass. I say," pausing for a fraction of a second as he looks at Boof with an angry smile, then back to his team, "We kill him. I'm not saying we do it now; I'm not saying we do it on the boat. We already got this island. Let's just kill him." Brac makes it very clear that he just wants to kill Booth, regardless of when or where. He just wants the guy who struck him to be dead.

"We could just let the Test Administrators carry out the execution. If he loses anyway, it won't matter. He will meet his punishment," Eden points out to Brac.

"I mean we could kill him," Damien admits, "But then his friends will go looking for him."

"Brac, buddy, we can kill him at any point, let's just--" Wu can't even finish his sentence before Brac starts acting up again, interrupting the rest.

"We already killed his friend. We already killed his friend. He's here, I'm just saying, I've got this harpoon-- I can get to shivvin' and we can just get to movin'," Brac says violently but still somewhat casual tone. "Let's just kill him. We don't need extra baggage on our voyage. Let's just kill him." Booth, hearing their whole conversation, now becomes outwardly scared of Brac and the others as he starts panicking, waving his hands in front of him as he cowers.

"P-Please, please don't kill me! I'll do anything, anything I swear!" He starts to cry a little, fearing that this will be his first and final test in his journey to climb the tower.

"Let's get him to row the boat," Damien suggests in excitement as he thinks of finally having a break from rowing the boat so he can spend time with Hresvelgr. Wu, coming to the realization that they could make him do whatever they wanted, agrees with Damien. "We CAN make him row the boat..."

"Yes, I can row the boat! I can row, I can row!" His voice sounds in desperation to find any attempt to not get shivved to death by Brac. "I've got muscles!" He holds up a twig of an arm, almost looking like someone drew an upper-case letter 'L' on a sheet of paper.

The group except Damien just look at him, regretting Damien's comment on rowing, especially Brac, who just wants to shiv the carrot top looking guy and call it a day. "See, I can do it! I can do it!" He says as he slaps his biceps, trying to show off in what his mind are muscles. Wu, now realizing that Booth probably couldn't crumble a leaf, says fully of pity,

"Put that down... What's your name again?"

"Um, Booth."

"Booth, which island did your friends go to?" Wu and the others look at him, somewhat in disbelief as Boof points in a random direction. "You wouldn't lie to us, now would you Booth?"

"No, no! I wouldn't lie to you! I swear." Boof begs for his life with his pathetic stature and big sad eyes. Wu looks at him with disappointment and pity.

"You can deal with him Eden; the floor is yours. I don't care anymore. It's been fun," as Wu walks slightly away from the rest of them to where he had sat his gourd. He sits casually, resting against a rock as he begins to drink from his gourd again. Gasu and Damien suddenly hear talking coming from a different location on the island. They try to determine from what direction the sounds are coming from, but neither can tell the exact location of the talking.

"Well, it looks like we don't really have much of a choice now. I think Booth should probably die," Damien says solemnly. Hearing Damien say this, hot from their recent conflict still, Gasu draws his katana up to the orange haired regular's neck: ready to slice his head off. Booth pants and cries out with fear. The group though, stop Gasu from killing him.

"I think we should wait, because we don't know if that is his team or a new team. We might be able to use his help," Eden says to Gasu, trying to calm him down.

"We could send him out as bait and see what happens," Wu suggest from by his rock, still drinking from his gourd, but now with this staff next to him ready for combat just in case.

"I think we should hide and wait to see who comes through the forest. We are spending too much time on a small island. We need to get off and get more points," Eden adds, still trying to do anything to take the less violent route and motivate the team at the same time.

"I have a suggestion then. Let's start making our way back to our boat and we will leave him tied here. I'll keep watch for a second to see who approaches," Wu replies back to Eden, not wanting anything to do with taking Booth with them, but still somewhat agreeing with Eden's suggestion of getting off the island to score more points.

"I think 'Operation Start the Jungle on Fire' would be a good idea right now," Damien suggests, holding up two sticks again.

Wu immediately jumps on this idea out of nowhere, much to everyone's surprise as he loudly responds back with excitement and joy, "IT'S A GO?!?!"

Wu jumped up to his feet, looking at Damien holding the sticks, readying his gourd. Gasu, having a calm and collected mind now, as he addresses them with his opinion, "If we leave this guy here, he can tell anyone who comes here about us."

Damien agrees with him, "It's true. We may have no choice."

Brac under his breath now adds his opinion to the mix saying, "We should have killed him when we had the chance.." As he says this, he still holds his harpoon, observing how sharp the blades on his harpoon are as he looks at Booth then the harpoon blades again.

"So, no fire then, Damien," Wu asks, sounding disappointed, seemingly ignoring everyone else now.

"Oh yeah, I'm for the 'Operation Start the Jungle on Fire' but it's not solely up to me though." Damien also looks sad, but proud of himself as internally he monologues. In his imagination, on one shoulder is a black devil Hresvelgar holding a small stick with the fire, and on the other shoulder, the cute Hresvelgar sits with some popcorn. One tries to convince him in a froggy voice to start the fire, while the other tries to convince him to just chill and have some popcorn. Not his popcorn though. He looks back and forth at them as he cheers that he now has TWO Hresvelgrs, completely forgetting about the fire or the fate of Booth's life.

"Like I said, do what you want. I don't really care anymore. I'm going to keep drinking," Wu says as he goes back to drinking, now saddened by the second time getting Fire-Blocked by the group.

Suddenly, in the confusion and argument between Team Black, Gasu's guard is slightly lowered. Booth very quickly grabs his needle off the ground and goes to attack him, as Gasu is the closest one to him at this moment.

He easily side-steps carrot top's attack, causing Booth to charge passed him. He turns around, holding his needle up in a frantic state, shouting at Team Black- shifting the aim of his weapon between the various members. "I can take you! You're going to kill me anyway! I'm going to die fighting."

Gasu gracefully swoops his katana around, slashing Booth across the chest. He horrifically exclaims a painful shout as he drops his needle, following with dropping to his knees; Booth clutching his bleeding torso with both hands. His face in a state of utter horror and pain as he looks at the gapping wound he now had. He remains in silence as he waits for the finishing blow. The sharp end of Gasu's katana drags across the front of Booth's throat in less than a blink of an eye, with Gasu flinging it quickly to the side causing the fresh blood to fly off with force. He re-sheaths his sword afterward: all of this in one quick, easy motion for Gasu. Booth's throat explodes out suddenly; blood like a crimson waterfall dumping out all over the ground, his own hands, and chest.

With that, Booth is dead before he even realizes, or his lifeless body hits the ground. In that moment, Brac regrets not being the one who killed carrot top, wanting to go back to the boat to pout. Gasu turns back to the group after all this happens, saying calmly but sternly "We're wasting time. Let's get back on the boat and get more points."

Damien, still staring at Booth's slaughtered remains, so much dark crimson liquid that it appears like he drowned in his own blood. "That's a lot more blood than I was expecting to come out of him." He seems more amazed or fascinated than disgusted or afraid. Then he looks at Gasu and the others, "Well, this is a pretty valuable island. We should stay here and defend it. There are voices coming from somewhere on this island."

Eden points out to Damien on the Pocket that it's only worth ten points, whereas Damien says back "That is a pretty sizable amount."

"We need more," Eden says in response.

Brac, under his breath, mockingly: "My idea of going to the middle island is looking better and better."

"I've got an idea. I can distract them, draw them in, then we can light the jungle on fire," he says with a smile on his face as he looks to the black Hresvelgar on his shoulder with a small twig like a matchstick lit on the tip.

*(POCKET NOTIFICATION)* **"TWO HOURS AND TWENTY MINUTES REMAINING"**

"I say we leave and light a fire. At this point Damien wants to see it burn," Wu inputs to the group.

"Wait- I don't want to see it burn, I just see the tactical advantage of us burning the jungle," Damien denies as he feels a bead of sweat running down his head. He shoes away the imaginary Hresvelgrs away. He chuckles awkwardly as Wu gives him a suspicious glance.

"Don't lie, Damien. You want to see it burn just as much as I do," Wu pokes and prods at Damien jokingly, trying to get Damien to admit it.

Damien nervously says, "I'm not lying," as he drops the sticks he had behind his back, under his cape onto the ground and kind of gives them a not-so discrete nudge away from where Damien was standing. As Wu and Damien are having this conversation, everyone in Team Black hears shuffling, voices, and footsteps coming from behind the boulders on the other side of the flag.

"I definitely think they are over here," someone said as they approached the clearing where the group stood. "Are you sure it was from this way?" another voice says in response.

"Everyone hide," Eden directs with a gentle and leading voice, quiet enough for the rest of Team Black to audibly hear. They duck behind various tress, jungle foliage, and boulders in the immediate area. As they secretly watch, five individuals stroll casually into the clearing. They quickly notice the dead bodies, gruesomely slain-- blood still not dried. Four of them pull out their weapons in response, darting their eyes back and forth in the area, searching for the perpetrators.

"What happened here," one says out loud. They observe that one of them is calmer than the rest, not having his weapon drawn either. "Hmmph. Interesting." He says calmly as he looks around the scene. He has a long spear on his back with light blue eyes and hair. He is just wearing a casual T-Shirt and pants, unlike the others wearing clothes suited for battle.

Another individual sticks out to them, as he is just as towering in height as Brac, but bulky and built like a tank. He has a helmet on his head in the shape of a circle and carries an enormous club in his left hand. His footsteps are very loud as he steps, most likely being the footsteps they could hear. His voice carried just like his feet as well. The small one with the blue hair starts talking out loud again. "Very Interesting. Well, another team took this place, obviously. But something tells me-- this just happened. I think they are still here. They were pretty strong it seems."

Team Black start whispering to each other of their plan of action. Damien wants to start the jungle on fire again, Wu wants to reason with the blue haired man, Gasu says to Wu that the man with the light blue hair absolutely can't be trusted, and Brac just wants to kill them all. Suddenly they hear the Blue Haired one talking to his team again.

"Why don't you four go off to the boat and make sure it's safe. I'll stay here for just a moment. I want to look at the bodies a bit more." He talks calmly and confidently. He has a certain cunningness to him that you can sense just from the sound of his voice, the air around him, the way he moves.

"Are you sure, Boss?" one of the average looking guys responds. They look at each other confused at the blue haired man's request.

"Don't call me boss. I'm sure, just make sure the boat is safe. I'll replace the flag with ours. I'll be there in a moment." One of the other average looking guys hand him a grey flag. After the others disappear off into the distance, the blue haired man looks around at the area.

"I'm just here to talk. I'm not here to fight; I just want to talk. I promise?" The man addresses them, holding his hands up while appearing to be coming in peace. Hearing this, they all are ready for a fight, but Eden instead steps out with her shinsu bow already drawn. Damien and Wu tell her to give them the signal and they will start 'Operation Start the Jungle on Fire.'

"You want to talk, let's talk." She says after revealing herself from hiding.

#### **Chapter Four: The Blue Hair Man**

A smile forms on the mysterious stranger's face. "Hey there, pretty." He is visibly concentrated on Eden now, eyeing her up and down. With this man distracted while talking to Eden, Gasu circles around in the foliage to reposition himself behind the stranger in preparation for an attack. "Wow, you are a beautiful one. Err- I mean, wait- look. I just want to talk."

"What do you want to talk about?" Eden responds.

"Can I be frank with you? My team sucks, honestly," the man chuckles as he continues. "They are kind of the worst. I don't know what all this bad luck is all about, but I deserve a better team."

"Are you the leader of the team," Eden asks, curious by this strange blue haired man. He lets out a sigh in response to her question as she continues, "Did you press yes on your Pocket?"

"No- I didn't. I didn't want to be the leader because I knew this team was awful. If I was, then I would be stuck with them too. The big guy? He's the leader. They still call me boss, because I'm from one of the ten great families. Oh, did I mention that by the way? I would be a valuable asset to you all." He smiles as he tries to smooth talk her into letting him join their team.

"Yeah, you're very interesting," She says almost sarcastically, "Blue eyes, blue hair, Mhmm, I know what ten families you are from," Eden responds.

Damien says out loud, "Oh, I know them, I know the ten great families!"

"Shut-up, Damien!" she says angrily as she shushes him. Not just because he just revealed himself but also because he interrupted her flirting time with the blue haired man.

"Oh, so you have friends! Hello," he waves to Damien, "My name is Victor. Nice to meet you all."

Damien pops his head out from high up in the foliage of a tree and waves smiling; he is cheerful as can be. Wu and Eden just let out big, irritated sighs of frustration. Internally, Eden is saying "Oh.My.Gosh." All of a sudden Gasu rushes out of the trees behind Victor, rushing at him. Wu, seeing this, also leaves his hiding spot, rushing to block Gasu from attacking. Wu holds his arms up in Gasu's path.

"Gasu, don't do it," Wu pleads, but Gasu ignores him, whipping around Wu-- both moving at lunatic levels of speed, but Gasu being just too fast this time for Wu to stop him. Due to the commotion happening between Wu and Gasu though, Victor dodges Gasu's Sang-Hoon Style: Cross Slash as he does a back flip. Even though Gasu attacks him, the blue-haired man doesn't pull out his spear to defend himself.

"No attacking!" Eden shouts as she runs to also try to stop Gasu, but he ignores her as well. As Gasu slashes over and over again, Victor's smooth movements are able to avoid all of his lightning-fast sword slashes. Victor, still holding his hands up, unarmed, tries to talk to Gasu.

"Look kid, you don't want to do this. I'm on your side," Victor tells Gasu.

"Shut up," Wu tells Victor to shup up, then he looks Gasu in the eyes. "I understand how you feel, but this isn't going to get us anywhere. Just stand down for a second and let's see how this plays out." Wu rests his hand on Gasu's shoulder.

Gasu turns to Wu, giving him a disgusted and furious look on his face. "Trust me, you have absolutely NO idea how I feel."

Wu shouts back at him, "I DO KNOW, it is you who has no idea.." Eden gets between Victor and Gasu as well at this point.

Completely out of nowhere, Damien just falls out of the tree he was in, hitting multiple branches on the way down, getting tangled up with vines, then slamming into the ground with intense force.

*(He sees little Hresvelgrs spinning around his head instead of stars)*

The abrupt noise and sight of Damien's fall, surprises Victor even more. He is confused of what is even happening at this point. Eden's face turns red with embarrassment. Although she didn't see it happen, she lets out a great big sigh due to the knowledge of what happened behind her. Brac also looks around at everything that is happening and commends Gasu for his bravery.

"You guys are defending him?!" Gasu's voice reveals his emotions of anger, killer intent, betrayal, and hurt.

"I'm not defending him; I don't give a fu--!" Wu says, kind of fading off at the end of his sentence from the side effects of his gourd drink.

Eden angrily chews Gasu out for his outburst, "I'm the leader of this group- You elected me to be the leader of this group. Let me lead and stand down! I would like to have a talk with this gentleman and if we don't have any manners then where would we be?"

Victor smugly responds to Eden from behind her, "And if I had to be honest, you would be the one I would choose too if I had to choose someone among these five to talk to." Eden sighs.

"You're right," Gasu says stubbornly. He sheaths his sword again and starts walking back toward the boat without looking back. "You guys can talk; I'll be on the boat. I have nothing to say." Wu heads off after Gasu, also heading back toward the boat.

"I'll just be here in this bush," Damien lets out in a faint, injured voice, not realizing that wasn't a bush but all the vines, tree branches, and other plant matter he collected on the way down out of the tree; vines wrapped up all over Damien.

Everyone seemingly ignores or didn't manage to hear this response by Damien, as Victor then introduces himself saying, "Khun Victor at your service."

"I had a feeling you were a Khun," Eden says to Victor.

"What can I say, we all look the same, am I right?" he modestly responds.

"Alright, so what did you want to talk about before my teammate rudely interrupted you?"

"Well, I couldn't help but notice that the rules seem to state that even though we start as five players, we can add a sixth. So, then I started thinking, 'Why would I stick around with this team knowing that I am most likely going to lose?' The only one with any actual potential on my team is Boulder, the big guy. The rest of them are.. lack luster to say the least. And so-- I've been looking for another team."

"If you WERE the leader, you could have traded yourself...," Eden responds cleverly, "I thought a Khun would have thought about that," as she smiles and gives him a victory wink.

"No, no no no no no no. In fact, I believe, according to what I heard, being a leader means you are stuck with your team. That is the impression I got." As he recalls the announcer of the test stating the rules, he continues, "Are you sure you heard the rules right?"

Eden scoffs, somewhat irritated by Victor. "We both had very different impressions. It said the team leader must agree to a trade; it never said anything about trading the leader."

"Ahhhh. That is true; I guess I never thought of it from that perspective," Victor admits without admitting him being wrong.

"They weren't very specific, so I thought that as vague as it is, the terms of trading were just as vague."

Victor chuckles slightly, "You must be new to the tower; everything is vague."

"Why are you stuck on the second floor of the tower if you are so good?" Eden asks, mockingly.

"Well to be honest, I like-- relaxing. I wasn't in a rush to climbing the tower, unlike most of you. We're all new to this, however I have experience. I grew up with many people who did climb the tower. You grew up on a farm or something right? No offense..." His tone of voice still sending the impression that Victor felt superior to all other regulars of Team Black.

Eden looks unamused as she displays her annoyance of Victor's over the top ego as she says, "You are doing a really good job at being offensive.."

"Most people who enter the tower are in your position; there's nothing wrong with that," he reassures her, not convincingly might I add.

Eden ponders his proposition for a moment. She wonders as she asks Victor, "What team are you?" Eden, having not seen or noticed his flag from earlier.

"Grey team: such a boring color," Victor quickly responds.

"Alright, how many islands does your team have?" Eden asks curiously.

"Well, as it stands, my team only has five islands. We spend most of our time sort of, scouting around. Oh! You do know where we are, correct?" His smug smile projects his arrogance and cunning intelligence, "I assume you do."

"--N-No, navigation was never my strong suits," she admits hesitantly as she feels embarrassed admitting this.

"Huh? So, you are telling me... You are smart enough to discern that there is a discrepancy in the rules that you could use to your advantage, but you can't even tell me where you are on the map?" Victor somewhat ponders this bewildered by the circumstance.

"That's a little embarrassing, honestly. No offense," he says as he puts his hands up and shrugs his shoulders with a cheeky grin.

"Like I said, directions aren't my strong suit, but brains are," Eden retorts back to Victor, standing up for herself, knowing that she is fully capable of preforming feats of intellect.

At this moment, Victor and Eden notice Damien walking over as he brushes off his clothes and cape from all the plant debris. "Directions are my strong suit, but I goofed," Damien replies as he gathers his composure with an awkward smile on his face.

Victor looks at him, confused at who he is. "Excuse me, what was that?"

"Damien Frog, nice to meet you."

"Khun Victor, it's nice to meet you. I can tell we are going to get along," as Victor shakes Damien's hand, causing him to light up instantly- Victor now being the second person since he started climbing the tower to shake his hand. He internally thinks of how excited he is to tell Hresvelgar about his encounter with the friendly blue haired man who shook his hand. Victor continued, kind of giving Damien a sideways glace as he turned back to Eden.

"If you truly don't trust me, I'm going to share something with you." He reveals his Pocket, "I believe the announcer mentioned it, but if I were to be one to betray you, I would never divulge this information: Our Pockets have compasses." He gives the lot of them a look as he waits for a response, a smile steadily growing bigger and bigger than before. "You didn't know, did you?"

Eden's face begins to turn red; it visibly becomes noticeable of her flustered frustration and embarrassment. She tries to keep a calm demeanor.

"Well maybe they did choose an inadequate leader. Maybe you would be better suited to be the leader of this group than the one you got attached with." She says this in a very sarcastic and annoyed tone, making it very clear to Victor that she has no chill when it comes to insulting her lack of any directional sense.

Meanwhile, Damien pulls out his Pocket, starting to tinker and observe all of the settings and functions of it. Hresvelgar tries to help him as he jumps on Damien's shoulder.

"I wouldn't like to be the leader, honestly. I like to be the support of the group; kind of laid back and chill. As long as those that I support, are," looking at Eden's team members that are present nodding his head, "Worthy. I think I would consider you worthy." Victor means this, but clearly enjoys talking while making himself appear to be the smartest one around.

"You consider us," she looks to the rest of her teammates, "Worthy? After insulting me, you think we are worthy? Alright, cool." She doesn't let Victor get a word in, as her eyebrow kind of tightens and twitches a little bit from her rising irritation of Victor belittling her and the rest of her team.

"You are not afraid to kill-- That is very worthy," Victor responds.

Brac finally ends his streak of silence, "I'd like to interject," as he walks over toward Victor. This behemoth of a man in lustrous blue armor, each footstep pressing on the ground heavily as he grows closer to the blue haired little man. Brac's movements not hindered at all by his wound as he seemingly acts as if he was never slashed in the first place. In a deep, confident voice Brac asks Victor, "What makes you think are you fit to join us, Blue Man?"

Damien, still messing around with his Pocket and some plants still stuck to his articles of clothing, he outbursts with his opinion, "I say he's plenty qualified."

Brac is irritated by Damien, "What has he shown? All he's done is hurl insults."

"He was able to notice that we were stealthed and got his team out of here without resulting in conflict other than Gasu's little... Outburst. Which I think he handled pretty well for an unarmed guy. Also, his arms are at least a little bigger than Boof's so he would make an excellent rower," Damien casually adds in at the end of his comments, referring to Victor.

"From one Blue Man to another, I have many things to offer," Victor says directed at Brac, "and as time goes on, I can definitely show you." He is confident of himself and his abilities, as well as his chance of being useful to Team Black.

Wu, appearing suddenly out of nowhere without anyone noticing him, even though he had pursued after Gasu back to the boat, was now next to Damien. "Did you just call him a Blue man?" The group start reacting to the realization that Victor went there. "Woah, woah!" they respectively shout out, looking to Brac and looking back to Victor in preparation to what Brac would do to this 'Obvious' insult.

"Wait, I'm sorry if I said something offensive. It was not my intention," Victor responded, as he put his hands up in front of his face, palms open like he was a nerd about to get pummeled by a bully at school then stuffed in a locker.

"We need to pick up the pace, because we are wasting time. If you want to join our group, call your other team. Say that you were ambushed and that a trade must be initiated for them to remain alive." Victor nods his head, agreeing with Eden of her brilliant strategy for getting Victor on their team. "Then you lead us to the islands that you have already claimed, and we shall switch the flags."

"I don't think this plan is going to work," Brac quickly adds to the end of Eden's plan, as she finishes her sentence, "That will give us seven islands." Over the top of Eden, Victor, and Brac talking, Damien speaks over them all in excitement.

"Then-- THEN we burn the jungle down!" Damien is already holding sticks to start the fire which conveniently had stuck to his clothes from falling out of the tree. Eden sighs again, which has become her normal response to Damien's actions and statements.

"Damien, you will burn down the jungle in just a moment," sighing out as she says each word, finally giving up on any opposition in stopping him from 'Operation Start the Jungle on Fire'

Victor confused about this last suggestion to the plan, says out loud mostly to himself, "Burn the jungle? What would make you want to do that?" He is almost as disgusted by this suggestion as when Brac had first heard it, but now used to Damien and Wu's brotherly bond over fire starting and is nearly unphased-- Although, still opposed to the thought of nature being harmed in the process.

"We're going to burn it either way," Wu whispers in Damien's ear, the two looking like crazed, untamed children about to go on their favorite ride at the amusement park with anticipation and joy consuming them both in this statement.

"Combat advantage. It is solely because of that," Damien defends the plan, responding to Victor's bewildered confusion.

"It will burn for a long time, and not many teams will be capable of making it to the center to change the flag," the plan finally having worn off Eden, or just trying to justify Damien's and Wu's insatiable craving for 'Operation Start the Jungle on Fire' to be fulfilled-- mostly to justify it to herself though.

"I just want to say," Brac not trying to rain on their parade, "but the blue man said that the leader of his team is Boulder-- the big guy with the fishbowl on his head. I don't think he will be willing to relinquish a Khun from his team." Victor mostly just hears Brac say blue man. Victor, raising his hand with his pointer finger extended, somewhat hesitant to interject.

As he does, he thinks of how it had been a big deal for Victor to say blue man, but Brac did the same thing back to Victor. With his clever nature, he wanted to use his wit to say something back to Brac regarding this. Before the words could leave his mouth though, he thought of the big man's giant hands just folding him in half or stomping on Victor with his foot. He gulps at the thought. It was after these thoughts that he lowered his hand back down to his side without saying a word, figuring it was best to drop the interaction over just a simple descriptor. His shoulders fall as he feels defeated in this endeavor without even having said a word to Brac.

"Do they not know about your family lineage, or are they just that stupid," Eden asks Victor. Composing himself now, Victor responds to Eden's question.

He seems irritated as he rolls his eyes, "No, there was person on the team that managed to bring it up-- much to my dismay."

Brac quickly looks at Eden with bulging eyes and veins popping out of his forehead and neck as he says, "DO YOU SEE?!?!" Brac pauses for a moment and says in a less intense manner (for Brac anyway), "Why don't we leave little blue man with them, and we go our very own way. Should they, should they, should they decide to take this island, we have the MIDDLE island that we can go to. AND. WE. ARE. Running. Out. of. time.." His words trail off, being quieter and less intense with each word.

Eden sighs of frustration, as she is now starting to listen more to the other's plans of action. She looks at Victor, "Do you know whose flag is on the middle island and if it's close to here?"

"We haven't been to the middle island," he pauses, "But I do know that is where Boulder wanted to go."

"Seems like both big men have the same-- *small ideas*," as she mockingly looks over to Brac, her witty comment on full display to the group. A thought bubble appears next to Damien and Hresvelgr. **"DAYYYYYYYYYYMMMMMMMNNNNNNN!!!!"**

Brac now infuriated by Eden's comment starts to shout again, "He just told us that compasses exist. I say we use the compass, go to the middle island, and capture the flag!" Brac's skin tone in his face starts to really turn purple as he shouts, and spit is propelled outward. The metaphorical gears in his head start grinding from the slam dunk insult Eden just laid down on Brac and smoke comes from his ears. He stutters and grumbles some things, but no one can really understand him.

In this moment, Wu walks up to Victor to offer a drink from his gourd. Everyone seemingly now ignoring Brac as he melts down, continue their conversation of having Victor join the team. At first Victor inspects Wu's gourd, glancing around it, then sniffs it.

He shrugs his shoulders. "Why not," as he takes a decent sized swig of the mystery potion of sorts that the gourd contained. He shudders a little bit as he maintains his composure, shrugging the burn off. "Little strong for my tastes, but not bad!"

Wu's eyes light up as his secret power of Drinker Observation *(His hidden ability to tell anything there is to know about a person's personality and intentions by just watching them drink from his gourd)*. Due to this ability, he now knows everything he needs to know about Victor and his actions. Wu smiles as he pats Victor on the shoulder. All Wu says though, is "That tells me everything I need to know," then he walks away from Victor without explaining anything.

"He's a mysterious one," Eden jokingly comments in response to Victors sudden confusion. "With that being said," Eden is cut off by Damien just as confused as Victor.

"I don't understand what just happened," Damien says as he chuckles a bit, amused by this interaction between Victor and Wu. It for some reason reminds him of when Wu gave Brac a massage *(Man-ssage LOL)*, even more so than when Gasu took a drink of Wu's potion. This gives Damien much joy, as he had briefly forgotten about that awkward situation until that moment. "Was that approval or? I'm so confused," as he continues to slightly chuckle to himself. As they talk, Wu leaves to go check on Gasu again.

"I'll say from my experience, having a Khun in your party can be... A valuable asset or keep your enemies closer. I rather keep him closer than go up against him. So, if you are offering to join our team, then I, as the Leader of Black Team, accept. But we must get your team to accept the trade or we aren't moving forward from here."

Brac says under his breath, "Looks like everyone wants to get stabbed in the back today, not just me..." After muttering this for the others to hear, he also heads toward the boat. When Wu arrives, they don't appear to see Gasu near the boat.

As Wu scans the shoreline for Gasu and the boat itself, Brac arrives to the shoreline too. Everyone But Victor suddenly starts hearing screams from the direction that Boulder's team went. Back with Eden, Victor, and Damien, they also hear the screams.

#### **Chapter Five: Trick of the Trade**

"Well Victor, if you really want to show us that you are on our side, you'll fight with us before you are traded," Eden says coldly to Victor, not giving him much of a choice as she starts to head toward the direction the screams came from.

"Oh, Absolutely," Victor responds, as he readies his dark blue and black spear. As he does this, Damien runs up, shakes his hand with a big grin on his face, then chases after Eden. Victor, confused, also follows. The three of them are the first to arrive, seeing Gasu, katana bloody with three members of Grey Team standing in front of him, armed. The last member of Grey Team, lays face down, cut to bits by Gasu's blade. "Looks like it's time to prove your loyalty," Eden says as they are all shocked, but maintain their composures as they enter into battle.

One of the other team members on Team Grey stand out to them now that they are closer and have a better look. He is furry, with bulky arms, horns and hooves of a bull, but being relatively short.

Victor looks over to Eden, winking, following to charge in at Boulder with his spear. "Victor?! What are you doing," Boulder shouts in shock and chaotic confusion. Victor smiles at Boulder as he takes a crouched stance, holding the back of the spear over his head, while the tip of it is closer to the ground. Then suddenly he jolts the spear forward with great speed and force, jabbing three times so fast that it appeared to be only a single jab. It doesn't pierce very deep in Boulder's thick skin.

"YOU SON OF A BITCH," Boulder says as he readies to retaliate on the traitor, Victor.

Gasu quickly reacts though, using Blade Style: Somersault. He spins through the air, his form looking like a spinning top going through the air. The blade comes down on Boulder, slicing him on his bulky arm.

"Nice one! Nice one buddy," Victor says as he turns back to Gasu, giving him a thumbs up. This disgusts Gasu, "Can it," he responds to Victor, with an angry look on his face.

Damien readies for battle as well, talking to Eden. "I have a crazy idea; I just need you to defend me." He points to her bow as he readies some sort of stance. He begins to charge some sort of attack as far as she can tell, seemingly doing nothing at first.

She thought to herself that this was just another one of Damien's theatrics as it was with the music box: with all this buildup of tension and dramatic emotion, for a very anticlimactic end. She wonders if this time he's going to pull out a frog that summons a music box instead or if he will just pretend that he is doing an attack when really, he's trying to preform '*Operation Start the Jungle on Fire*' while the others are distracted.

Either way, she listens to him, covering all directions from attackers, while also providing support to the others from a distance. Then a faint purple glow begins to envelope Damien, spreading to the ground around him and his scissors, that at some point he had stabbed into the ground. The glow from Damien's scissors feels ominous even with nothing happening yet. She shakes her head, talking to herself internally, "No, no, no! It's going to be like the music box. It's going to be like the music box." She puts it off to the back of her mind, out of her attention.

"I'm going to kill you, Little Man," as he charges at Victor, swinging a massive club the length of Victor's whole body. Victor is shocked by how agile and quick Boulder is for his massive size and lack of brain cells. The club strikes him in the side, forcing into his ribs and causing him to be pushed sideways, landing on his side but quickly recovering with his hand and foot on the side he landed on, springing into a new stance.

"Yup! Ughhh, that one definitely hurt a bit. Errghh!" Victor groans out in pain. "I think that broke a rib--- Oh boy." Damien and Eden look at Victor with concern for a moment, while Gasu is indifferent, somewhat letting out a single, very quiet chuckle.

"RAWHHHH, THAT SHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU," Boulder now even more furious at Victor for surviving that crushing blow.

One of the other regulars that are part of Team Grey quickly respond to the action, "Okay Boulder, you get that one, I'll get this one," looking at Gasu with revenge in his eyes. "I'm going to make you pay for what you did to Earl!"

The regular charges at Gasu, swinging his needle. Gasu and this man with red hair clash their weapons into each other. They go blow for blow after a couple of exchanges though, the red-haired man grabs his needle with both hands, as he bounces Gasu's katana backward, then in a quick movement, slashes Gasu across the stomach.

Surprised, Gasu looks at this regular with a blank face. "How'd you like that one, huh," as the red-haired man from Team Grey smiled, reading himself to continue fighting.

Meanwhile, as Gasu and Victor fight two members of Team Grey, the bull man, Gull, charges directly at Eden, dragging his hooves on the ground a couple times before initiating the charge.

He lets out large breaths in quick succession as he charges; his feet boring holes where his hooves hit the ground. Eden is struck by the bull man's head, ramming her backward and up. She lands just fine though, nimbly on her feet.

Wu and Brac arrive just in time to see the fight having already begun. Wu readies his staff, while Brac pulls out his trusty harpoon. As Wu readies his staff, he coats his body in a protective layer of shinsu, using Body Reinforcement Boost. In doing this Wu, notices that his shinsu use isn't as strong as it should be. He thinks about it for a moment, thinking maybe he just needs another drink off his gourd or a friendly massage, then quickly puts it back out of his mind.

He readies his attack Heavy Staff: Breaking Strike! He swings the staff around, sliding next to Gull the Bull. He brings his staff down into Gull's shoulder with momentous force, making the bull wince with pain. Wu swings his staff around again while keeping eye contact with the bull, then holds a new stance, ready to strike again.

Brac, standing next to Wu, enters his rage form, becoming resistant to some damage, gaining bonus power to his attack and damage. Immediately as Wu is fighting Gull, Brac charges into battle shouting, "I TOLD YALL THIS SHIT WAS GONNA TO HAPPEN! WHY DIDN'T

YOU LISTEN TO ME!" As Brac approaches Boulder, he tosses his harpoon directly at him with powerful force. It soars passed Boulder, missing him. The tip is buried into the sand as the surrounding ground is shot up into the air around the harpoon from the force.

"There's more of them!?" Boulder exclaims as he is caught off guard for a moment. Eden slides to the side away from Gull the Bull's attack range, then uses Ray of Arrows, creating three shinsu arrows one at a time. Using three bangs at once, she shoots them individually at Boulder. All three arrows strike Boulder, the first striking him in the back, the second one hits him the chest, the third hitting him in the foot.

After a brief moment, the shinsu from the arrows fade away, but the damage they had done to Boulder remain. Boulder stumbles as the last arrow hits him in the foot, taking more damage than he thought he would take.

Victor sees this opportunity provided by Eden, "Nice one!" he calls back to her, as he readies his spear. "Time to show off!" He leaps into the air, very high. Boulder doesn't expect it at all, having Victor's spear bludgeon him on the top of the head, knocking his head and torso downward. "So Long," Victor exclaims as he uses his downward momentum to drive the spear into Boulder's back from above, piercing right through his heart from the back. Boulder dies almost instantaneously as Victor lands his feet on Boulder's, massive shoulders. Boulder coughs out one last plume of blood and mist from his mouth as his body collapses to the ground, sending sand flying up into the air. Victor backflips upward again while pulling out his spear in the same motion.

As he back flips through the air, he smiles confidently. His feet land on the ground, spear twirling between his fingers as everyone else sees this feat as impressive.

"Show boat," Eden says under her breath sarcastically and almost cartoonish. Victor grabs his side, trying to support himself after all that movement worsened his wound a little. He smiles at Eden. "That kind of hurt."

Meanwhile, Gasu and the red-haired man continue to strike each other's weapons. Gasu is able to find an opening, slicing across the regular's face. Part of his nose is chopped off after it drug partially across his cheek.

Blood comes out of his wound, as he grabs it, keeping his hand ready on his weapon. Suddenly, Gasu and the others overhear Damien shout.

"My charge is ready! You need to get out of the blast radius everyone," as Damien worries about committing friendly fire. Victor shouts to Damien, as he is too injured to move, and Gasu is held in place by the guy they named Red, unaware of his real name.

Purple light envelopes the area on the ground and around Damien, even more than before. They all start to see something emerging from the circle on the ground where the light illuminates the most, directly under Gasu and Victor.

Damien closes his eyes and releases his charged ability from activating-- causing the light from his ability to disappear, both from the ground and from around Damien. He thinks to himself that he almost used his special move even though it would have hit the others for one guy who was already injured. Sapped of energy, Damien rests for a moment. Eden kind of facepalms internally as she knew it was going to be a bunch of build up for a whole lot of nothing for some reason.

Red goes for another attack on Gasu, hitting him again on the arm, but hardly doing much more than cutting him a little. Gull The Bull sees Boulder's dead body lying on the ground--- his body emersed in his own blood and sand.

"BOULDER!" He screams as he is now desiring to get revenge then finish the game. "I'll pick this team back together!" He kicks his foot back as he begins to charge, setting his eyes on Wu. Gull charges full force as he lets out a yell of frustration and anger. Wu spins around the side of Gull very athletically causing him to run straight into a tree. This causes very little damage to Gull though, as he has a very thick skull.

Wu now irritated with the attempted attack; he readies an attack of his very own with his staff. He uses one of his staff attacks known as 'Weightless Staff: Forceful Thrust,' Wu spins his staff, thrusting forward, missing the bull slightly with each strike. He readies for his next stance.

During this time, Brac and Victor are over by Boulder's dead body still. With Victor still injured, Brac is still in rage mode, grabbing his harpoon out of the sand next to Boulder's lifeless corpse. He rampages toward Red, blinded by his rage. As he goes to thrust his harpoon at Red though, his harpoon flies out of his hand-- passing right by Red with both Gasu and Red watching as his harpoon dramatically in slow motion keeps twirling away---- away---- away---- and SPLASH.

It lands in the water along the shore of the island, much to the shock and awe of all three regulars standing there. Brac's eyes bulge dramatically as a bead of sweat rolls down his forehead.

He thinks internally, "...Hopefully at least my harpoon hit a fish. Raging is making me hungry." Unknown to him at the time though, the harpoon in fact, completely missed every single fish in the water, maybe snagging a dirty old sailor's boot.

Eden aims at Red with her shinsu bow, pulling out one of her physical arrows from her quiver. As Red and Gasu clash swords, Red dodges one of Gasu's katana strikes in a way that positioned his back toward Eden. As the arrow ripped through the air, making a very quick and short-lived noise from it. This is followed by the sound of the arrow plunging into his back, unexpecting of it as he focused on trying to survive every one of Gasu's quick and prestige sword work.

He falls down to his knees, clutching his needle still defending Gasu's katana strikes. Victor starts to approach the man with the red hair. For the first time, we learn his name as Victor says, "Nick... I always knew you were bad at fighting."

Victor does a strange movement with his spear, going for his Trident Spear Strike (or whatever it's called), jabbing his spear three times very quickly. Nick dodges the first two, but then the tip of Victor's spear pierces Nick's skull, right between the eyes. Blood comes out as the light fades from Nick's eyes. He pulls out the spear, then limps over to the water of the shoreline, beginning to wash the blood off of his clothes and spear.

He shouts over to the others, "I count on you guys to finish the last one," he sits down next to the water, "I need a break." His injuries seemed a little more pressing than he initially thought, but mostly just hindering his ability to move at the moment.

Gasu, now having no enemy to face anymore, turns and sprints to strike the last guy. He leaps into the air, going for Blade Style: Somersault. He flips through the air, bringing his katana down on Gull the Bull's back, slicing cleanly.

The bull man drops down a little. Damien then uses his Frog Style: Leap, jumping very far into the air. As he falls toward the last member of Team Grey, he is snipping his scissors very quickly. Unfortunately, his aim was slightly off, causing him to snip into the sand with his scissors, sending sand flying up all over Eden and Wu, who are nearby. They shield themselves from the flying sand. He looks back awkwardly to Wu and Eden, stating the obvious. "Uh, I missed."

Wu almost loses his balance from the absurdity of the sight. Damien continues, "I was trying to make it look cool for a finishing blow.. It didn't work out." Damien slowly looks up at the bull man from where he was looking at the ground where his scissors had struck, realizing he was standing very close to his face. Gull, unamused, lets out a big puff of breath out of his enormous nose into his face. The bull man swings at Damien, but then lifts himself up using his scissors as a pivot

point in conjunction with his Frog Style Leap to dodge it. This launches him away, putting some space between the two. Eden kind of just sighs at Damien, brushing sand off of her clothes.

"Whoow. That was close."

Wu, returning to his stance, prepares for his next technique, each stance leading up to a stronger, faster attack. His staff swings and swings, faster then faster; Even faster! "Weightless Staff: Cloud Cyclone!" Wu's spinning staff moves so fast, that you can visibly see the disturbance of air movement and pressure, creating an actual cyclone from the staff. He brings it down so hard and fast, Gull the Bullman never saw it coming, absolutely one shotting the guy as he is pulverized to the ground.

His bones shatter as he bounces off the ground with such force, he is propelled into a tree trunk. The tree breaks, falling over with Gull's body being sprawled out without the ability to move again --- completely shattered.

Wu sits back down and starts drinking from his gourd again with a big smile on his face.

"Good work," Brac compliments Wu.

Eden looks over in Victor's direction as now all of Team Grey is defeated. "Uh, you are now the de facto leader. Should we initiate the trade?" Eden asks.

Victor struggles to get up, hearing the strain in his voice as he responds to Eden, "That is true," as he confirms on his Pocket showing:

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**TEAM GREY**

*Number of Members:* 1

*Points:* 5

*Leader:* Khun Victor

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"I guess I am the leader," Victor confirms to the rest of the group.

Wu looks over at Victor after taking a drink from his gourd. "You weren't all that impressive though, what happened?" This flusters Victor as he scoffs and fumbles his words, "Look..."

*((\*NOTE\* I thought this interaction was funny because Victor just wasted two guys while Brac be missing every harpoon throw and he says this to Victor LOL))*

Damien comes to his rescue though, "He was pretty impressive." He gives Victor a big thumbs up and a smile.

"To be fair, you weren't here to see most of the fight--," Victor adds as he trails off, noticing his Pocket open. He gets a notification which reads:

"LEADER OF TEAM BLACK: Eden \*\*\*\* wishes to commence a trade with LEADER OF TEAM GREY: Khun Victor for member Khun Victor. Would you like to accept?"

Victor gratefully accepts as he hits the button saying, "Hope this works!" The Pocket makes some beeping noises, then with a confirmation message as he officially becomes a member of Team Black.

"Are you okay," Damien asks as he notices how badly hurt Victor is, to which Victor confirms that he is okay. Suddenly, their Pockets all light up and enter visible mode.

**Pocket:** *"Congratulations! You have been awarded five points for removing Team Grey from the game! You will now get their islands and points!"*

Suddenly they notice that their points raise by five points.

"Five points?! That's all we got?" Wu says, shocked by all the time and effort they had put in for five measly points.

"I told you! Why do you think I wanted to leave their team? This team sucks," Victor exclaims his frustration.

*(NOTE: earlier it was stated they have more than just one island, meaning either Victor had lied, or Team Grey was claiming zero-point islands for no apparent reason)*

"Well, that's true. We better get going then," Damien says looking at the timer on his pocket, but not relaying it to the rest of Team Black.

"Do you have any way of patching yourself up," Eden asks Victor, genuinely concerned for Victor.

"I can help myself back up, thanks," Victor replies stubbornly. He continues on his own.

"Here drink from my gourd; it might help," Wu says as he hands Victor the gourd. Victor takes multiple drinks off of it.

As this whole situation is happening between Eden, Victor, and Wu, they slowly all start to notice in the background that the jungle is on fire.

Wu's eyes light up with joy, as he looks at the consuming inferno where the jungle and dead bodies used to be, as it consumes everything in the area, aside from their flag. Wu rushes at Damien, giving him a big hug.

"YES, FINALLY," Damien shouts into the sky as Wu and Damien hop up and down like cheerful schoolgirls giddying over a boy.

As the boys are distracted by the destruction of mother nature by the act of arson, Eden peers around, noticing that Team Grey's boat is nearby, now draped in black flags. She goes to the boat, pulling all the flags off and handing them out to everyone. "We have two boats now. Should we go three and three? You know, cover more ground quickly?"

Damien hesitates at first, but then responds, "We probably shouldn't do that. We should go for the big island."

"I'm saying we go together, but each half takes a boat," Eden clarifies for Damien. Wu now checks his Pocket for time, then relaying this information to the rest of Team Black.

*(POCKET TIMER: TWO HOURS REMAINING)*

They discuss what to do with the boats, as Victor interrupts their discussion over it.

"We should take a second to align ourselves and figure out where we are first," Victor says to the group. Eden pulls out the map, with everyone in the group gathered around the boats near the shoreline.

"See that island there, and slightly to the right? If you go directly downward from the center island, that's where we are at," Victor says, as he points to the spot on the map.

Damien cheerfully exclaims in a sing-songy voice, "The south side huh. WE ARE THE RULERS OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS!"

The team starts to deliberate about what island to head to and what their approach should be, then Brac suggests using their Pockets to check the scoreboard.

**KING OF THE SEA SCOREBOARD**

**~~~Passing Teams~~~**

**1st** - *Green Team* **1st** - *Yellow Team*

**35 PTS** **35 PTS**

**2nd** - ***BLACK TEAM*** **2nd** - *Dark Blue Team*

**20 PTS** **20 PTS**

**~~~Failing Teams~~~**

**3rd** - *Orange Team* **3rd** - *White Team*

**5 PTS** **5 PTS**

**4th** - *Pink Team* **4th** - *Light Blue Team*

**0 PTS** **0 PTS**

**4th** - *Grey Team* **/x.x\** **4th** - *Brown Team* **/x.x\**

**0 PTS** **\---/** **0 PTS** **\---/**

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*(Take this depiction of the points loosely. I'll posted updated ones later in the story if I do more episodes in light novel form and adjust accordingly)*

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While viewing the points, the team discuss what to do further.

Wu addresses the group, "Can I make a suggestion?" He takes a sip of his gourd, now ready to present his idea, because all gourd-drunk thoughts are good thoughts.

I think splitting up is not a bad idea, but instead of splitting in opposite directions, what we should do is try and get three and three, going for some of the pink islands, going to the green island." On the map, these islands he is referring to is north of them, but still in the south-west corner, leading up to the mid-western area of the map.

"I actually don't hate that idea. If we keep three people on the eastern island, the pink island, we can keep an eye out for incoming ships," Damien says, also looking at the map. He points out the islands he is referring to while continuing, "Then the rest of the teams can go conquer the western islands."

"I do want to make a point as well; our Pockets can communicate with one another. I don't know the range, but my team was able to communicate a decent way," Victor points out.

"Mhm. And we saw that with the other team too," Damien agrees.

"Oh? The team you murdered," Victor says with a cocky smile, proud of them a little, but teasing them ultimately.

"Well, yeah... we did kind of just execute them," Damien replies, not having thought of it like that before.

"We do have to remember, three of Light Blue are still alive," Victor reminds everyone.

"So, I think we should go to the pink island, but we should go together. Take both rafts, but just in case something happens, especially with other teams out there, like Victor had pointed out," Eden states to the team, making their decision.

She continues, looking at Victor's injuries, "Also Victor's pretty banged up, and I am as well. "

Victor shakes his head up and down in agreeance, as he looks at his ribs on one side, "We can try to heal on the way" Eden continues with the plan, "So stay together. I don't think we will worry about the further islands and just stay close to the central island; in case we need to take that as a last ditch. There could be other teams hiding on the satellite islands."

During their conversation of the plan, Brac is shamefully grabbing his harpoon back out of the water, trying to keep it in. The others, also standing at the shoreline by the boats, see this too.

Wu pretends like he didn't see it though, trying to be a good friend. He does chuckle silently to himself though, thinking of how Brac missed every harpoon through thus far. Brac internally says to himself, "Caine wouldn't be happy about this shit," as he stares into the very atoms of the harpoon with such sorrow and shame. He inhales deeply to suffocate his sadness out. He clears his throat, pretends that no one can see him, and he scuddles away-- preforming his famous dramatic sneak while his armor chinks as he tiptoes loudly out of sight.

As they are about to split up into groups to take each boat, Gasu draws his katana, pointing it at Victor. "I'm the one that killed them when I started this fight with your entire team. You have no allies; not here. If I even think that you are going to turn your back on us, You're dead."

Victor looks at him for a few seconds, then nods in agreeance. "I'll keep that in mind, thanks buddy." He reaches out to pat Gasu on the shoulder, but then suddenly Wu grabs Victor's hand before he can reach Gasu.

Wu looks Victor dead in the eyes saying, "You're fine for now, but don't piss me off." The two walk away from Victor after that, going towards one of the boats.

"I guess that's my bad," Victor admits.

"I'll ride with you Gasu. I want to talk to you about something," Wu declares as he looks at Gasu. The two of them notice Damien and Hresvelgr in a boat already, attempting to row, but aren't going anywhere, as Hresvelgr can't pick up his side's paddle, with Damien only stroking it by himself.

The boat is just going doing circles while maintaining the same spot it had been since they arrived at the island. Gasu and Wu stop for a moment to see this, turning their heads to view this expressionless. They turn their heads to the other boat, walking over to it without even giving Damien a response.

Victor and Eden get into the boat with Damien, Eden just shaking her head at Damien's antics. Brac, still in 'Stealth Mode' comes clanking over to the boat with Gasu and Wu in it.

"I don't mind riding in this boat," Victor says as he winks at Eden. She rolls her eyes in response and grabs a paddle so her and Damien can start rowing.

As Team Black has decided to take two boats, they start rowing side by side with a little distance between the two boats to avoid collision. They paddle off into the distance, with Damien and Eden paddling on their boat, with Brac and Gasu paddling on their boat as Wu sits back, maxed out relaxing while drinking from his gourd. The sun is shining down on them as a beautiful day on the sea. The gentle breeze, refreshing after a fresh kill from combat. The water is still, hardly having any waves to speak of. Everything calm as could possibly be. Then suddenly, Brac feels something on his oar, pulling or stuck to it.

Brac looks down in the water.

***END OF EPISODE ONE***

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##### ***END OF CHAPTER NOTES***

Most of these are notes I typed up with my own personal perspective of things added in, with some information that is learned about the characters.

I do want to point out characters in the story, etc., and minor details like that with each Episode as well with full descriptions of each.

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###### ***General Notes/Opinions***

-Damien loves fire, with Wu at first thinking he was insane, but following in suit soon finding that he too enjoys fire almost as much as Damien. This interaction causes them to develop more of a friendship than otherwise would have, which the payoff comes full circle during the crown game when Damien hurts Leaf as Damien is in conflict of what to do: Betray his friendship with Wu or reinforce his friendship with Gasu who Damien seeks approval from (Best Buddy Gasu) (Damien/Wu/Gasu interactions)

-Eden though good at applying her smarts toward decision making, rallying others together and getting to follow her, well rounded showing to know techniques both long range and far range (with some show case of shinsu control) she lacks any sense of direction or knowledge of it. She is somehow sassy, sarcastic, proud, and confident all while still being forth coming, kind, trusting of others, and tolerate of Damien, Wu, and Brac's comical and sometimes borderline insane actions very often seeing the humor in them and sharing in it. She is very flirtatious with Victor as well, which is why as far as i can tell most people ship them. When Victor and Eden interact, it is often a flirty battle of wits and quips with both saying harsh things to each other but meaning them in sarcastic or teasing manners. Eden is also well balanced in personality, easily being one of the "Sanest" members of Team Black, for lack of a better term to phrase it.

-Even though pockets are commonplace in the tower, it is strange that none of them really knew what pockets were, as Damien explains it as an inventory more than as a Pocket. With Damien having lived on the 21st floor this is confusing,

as well as Brac who was trained by a High Ranker and growing up in the middle of the tower--- somehow never seeing a pocket previously. Just a funny note i wanted to add in that i noticed :P

-Damien is QUICK to want to become friends with anyone. I feel like this is due to his own loneliness which could be in part of why he is an anima: searching for friendship to quench the empty whole of loneliness that he feels. He is always optimistic, humorous, and easy going while being an over-the-top class clown. This goes without saying but usually those kinds of people seek attention from the lack of getting it elsewhere, whether it being acceptance from others or a cry for help. With Damien, this makes sense as he climbs the tower to look for his loving and wonderful father who disappeared without a word or trace ten years prior to the story starting. Following this, he had to work hard at a low paying job as a clerk/convenience item salesmen at a convenience store while having to still pay for bills, groceries, and everything else required to make a life. In doing so he would likely lack time for friends other than Hresvelgr, especially with him stalking Adori and training in his spare time. With all of this said, it may not be true at all, but I thought was worth mentioning due to his character development during and post crown game, where he feels deep conflict, wanting to do good for both of his friends even though having just met all of them, treating them instead like family. As this conflict grew, he made a decision that he didn't want to make in the heat of the moment, leading to Leaf's injury--- Which even though hardly shown, he feels great despair, regret, and pain over, not even having known Leaf prior to the event. The importance of her to Wu though, his friend, made her important to him as well. This show of empathy and caring is what leads me to believe that Damien puts on a smile for everyone else, taking part in childish or outlandish antics being minor theatrics for those around him to disguise the pain and loneliness that he feels in his heart, as well as his own sense of loss and not knowing where he fits in. All of this being just speculation of course. With all of that out of the way, Damien is one of my personal favorite characters as he brings everything to the table that a main character from a Shonen would, as he embodies the power of friendship and diversity in a character, being flexible enough for battle, smarts, comedy, and character interactions.

He is very close to Hresvelgar, regarding him as more than just a pet or a summoning ability. He counts Hresvelgar as part of the team and a buddy; an equal. In this sense, even people who aren't on his team he whole heartedly would accept in a heartbeat, as with Boof when he immediately asks him to join their team, even with everyone else's detest. If you aren't one of his buddies or teammates, he will fight you though, but has hardly shown any lethal feats, most of which being only against Brac during the crown game (other than his ultimate move) otherwise in this chapter, he didn't really harm anyone. He mostly spectated the fights or made attempts to fight but missed or preformed a different action. Meanwhile the some of his team was quick to violence such as Gasu and Wu. The fact that his question for the announcer is about the possibility of violence with Damien's full response showing Damien's true feelings toward violence. This may change as the story progresses but could be something to keep an eye out for. Damien is very observant as well, even though sometimes he just chooses to ignore things or doesn't share with the group due to his simple nature.

-Wu loves his gourd, which he drinks from quite frequently. The fact that it doesn't run out, and the way he has other people drink from it to see everything he needs to know about a person from the interaction, could be an ability of his own or an ability of the gourd. The gourd itself could be used to produce whatever liquid substance Wu needs such as truth serum or high proof booze, but the abilities or use of the gourd is not shown other than to keep Wu drunk, which in itself isn't explained either.

Wu refers to what is in this gourd as "A Potion of sorts." If this is taken literally than it means what is in it has some kind of magical, healing, or toxic nature to it that benefit Wu. This could mean that he gains extra powers, stamina, healing, or abilities from it, or he himself gets a bonus from consuming alcohol from his innate abilities with the gourd having its own set of abilities or properties. Not much is known, and Wu's gourd is still one of the most mysterious things that I have notice (Other than Damine's infinite frog inventory) Wu trusts Eden's judgement and most of the time doesn't really care what decisions the group makes. He is somewhat lazy, requiring others to row, but does show some friendly encouragement such as when he gives Brac a massage. He also likes to scout ahead and prepare for battle, as this could be foreshadowing his position after the positions test (:

-Brac is uneasy with water and has little experience using an oar or sneaking. He is very confident in his own abilities, as he sees himself as one of the strongest and mightiest in the tower. He takes danger as challenge, welcoming it whole heartedly. He is a bit simple minded at times, but has much tactical sense, being battle hardened from his teacher and experiences growing up. He is a tank for lack of better word, with humor, strength, armor, and rage. He is skilled at both long range and short-range attacks, being capable of both with his trusty harpoon, although he has not yet landed even one harpoon throw in episode one. He is shown to be able to use shinsu and his colossal power to create a blast of wind pressure and shinsu. Brac's very tall, very manly, very intimidating, but has a lot of comical moments. He is a little salty that Eden is leader even though he didn't vote for her, and he makes that known. Brac loves a battle as well. He likes Gasu and Wu a little bit more than Damien or Eden though, with him not trusting Victor much either.

\*There is more for me to add but will add at a later time\*

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#### Characters

***(As by introduction unless i goofed up the order or forgot someone):***

**Headon** - as Headon.

**Damien, Brac, Eden, Wu, and Gasu** - main characters (Descriptions in Wiki)

**King Of the Sea Announcer** - a voice that comes from over the pocket describing the rules of the game and answering questions for the regulars, making announcements to keep the regulars informed of events or rules.

**Beach** - Brown haired regular from the Team Light Blue that Team Black. Uses a needle as a weapon. He must be good friends with Booth, as Booth has an adverse reaction to Beach's death. Beach is killed by Wu.

**Booth** - Orange haired scrawny regular from Team Light Blue that uses a needle. He must be good friends with Beach, as when Beach dies, he continues to attack even though he is outnumbered and out skilled. In the end though, he surrenders and offers to be the groups bitch, saying he will do anything to survive as "He must climb the tower." He is killed by Gasu.

**Hresvelgr** - Damien's best friend and froggy compadre. He hasn't shown to do battle yet so not much is known other than he is Damien's best friend and will do a lot for him, although can make dramatic sighs at Damien just like everyone else lol

(Usually expressed as exaggerated Ribbits)

**Victor** - A regular from the Khun family. He has blue hair and wields a spear, having good fighting technique. He starts off on Team Grey but kills his team with Team Black in order to join Team Black's team.

**Boulder** - A regular who is a bulky huge man with a giant one-handed club as big as Victor is tall. He is the leader of Team Grey, until he and the rest of team Grey are killed by Victor with Team Black so Victor can be traded over.

**Earl** - A regular who is solo killed by Gasu that initiates the fight between Team Grey and Team Black. He is soloed off screen before he is introduced. He must have been closer to Nick, as Nick specifically name drops him and says he's going to make Gasu pay.

**Gull The Bull Man** - A regular who is a short furry bull man with big horns. He is a member of Team Grey and uses mostly just charging attacks and horns. He is killed by Wu.

**Nick (Red)** - A regular who fights with a needle from Team Grey. He has red hair and is referred to as Red or his name, Nick. He is killed by Victor.

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###### ***Kill counts:***

Gasu Killed two people: Earl and Boof

Wu Killed two people: Beach and Gull

Victor Killed two people: Boulder and Nick

Brac couldn't even kill a fish with his harpoon

Damien snipped some sand after summoning a baby frog

Eden assisted from range with a bow, mostly providing cover and support for Damien

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***Weapons/Inventory:***

Most people were shown to use needles.

Boulder had a massive one-handed club.

Gull used his own horns and hooves.

Gasu has a katana.

Wu uses a special staff, his gourd, and shinsu.

Damien has giant golden Jahad scissors, frog leaps, Anima powers, and has been shown to be able to use shinsu

Eden has a shinsu bow, shinsu arrows, and regular arrows as well as some form of martial arts.

Brac has a harpoon, his fists, and strong armor. He also uses shinsu and gets a power boost/damage resistance from an unexplained rage ability.