Enchark: Tourney Round 2

"Are you sure you can fight? We can just forfeit."

Mimi was trying to be helpful and supportive but surrendering to an opponent was something that Karlyle would never want.

"I will fight."

"Alright as you wish, the fight is starting soon so get to the waiting room. I will still be scouting the other matches but Foster promised to watch, apparently he managed to make room in his schedule for each round."

"That's good."

"Just make sure to not exceed 20 minutes because he only has that much time to watch."

"No pressure then, huh?"

"Yep, let's go then! Housing exit."

Karlyle took a moment before also leaving the room. He was back in the tasteless waiting room with 5 minutes left before the second round begins.

[Arkana Network's tourney mode activating]

It took it 5 seconds to finish.

[Tourney mode activated]

The same names from last time appeared around him, including Dakhyo Park. He looked around to find the guy that was apparently his next opponent.

'Owen Reed'

Karlyle remembered how his kinetic is flyrokinesis so he assumed that he would definitely be taking a defensive approach. Mimi told Karlyle that he was on the attack at first but then switched to defending during his fight with the magma girl when she covered the entire room in blazing magma.

Shivering at the thought of fighting her, Karlyle prayed he wouldn't end up in the same arena as her. According to Mimi he wouldn't but the inner terror was still there.

The announcer spoke, "the second round will be beginning in [one minute]."

When the time was mentioned the voice became more robotic and didn't match the rest of the announcement. Karlyle got up from his seat and stretched a bit. It was about time to fight someone that wasn't as skilled as Mimi, hopefully.

This time around Karlyle wasn't as scared to take part as in the 2v1 he managed to hold his own against Mimi and Foster; though they were going easy on him until the end.

"The second round of the tourney is now beginning."

Like last time, Karlyle's vision went pitch black. After a few seconds passed, the veil of darkness dispersed and revealed the arena with Owen standing on the side opposite to Karlyle.

The scoreboard now had a point next to Karlyle's initials.

[KM 1 - 0 OR]

Although in this tourney wins weren't required, they were still accounted for and slightly used for some ratings.

The announcer started the five second countdown. Neither of the two fighters were doing anything during it, except staring one another down.

"Go!"

Without a slight bit of waiting, Owen created a forcefield wall and punched it forward. It moved at a high speed, reaching Karlyle within two seconds. Karlyle created his own wall, of fire, that clashed with the forcefield wall and pushed it back.

When the wall reached Owen, he stopped it with his hand and the fire was extinguished by the impact.

"Another one with heat?" He complained.

The wall shrunk vertically and split halfway to form two pieces. Both of the pieces shot at Karlyle but one curved to the left while the other curved to the right. Midway, the edges thinned and sharpened.

Before they could collide with their target, Karlyle boosted himself into the air. Jets of fire came out from his feet holding him up. He spun around once, creating a spiral of fire that extended around him. The spiral quickly finished its journey around Karlyle's body and compressed into a spark.

Karlyle flicked the spark that floated in front of him, causing it to explode into a flaming orb the size of a boulder which pierced through the air moving towards Owen. A forcefield dome appeared around Owen. Its sky colour was distorted by the flame that pushed against it.

The sole reason the flames didn't die out again was due to Karlyle's deep focus on them. Mimi told him to overwhelm Owen's forcefields with heat but she failed to warn him it wouldn't be as easy as it was with Dakhyo.

When the orb spread out to cover the entirety of the dome, Owen pushed the forcefield out. It expanded at a high pace and spread the fire out. The fire had spread out enough for Owen to take down the forcefield and remain unharmed.

'Looks like he has a size limit.'

Karlyle was analysing Owen's kinetic in his head. If he wanted to win he had to find a weakness he could exploit.

As he was about to drop down from the air and land on the ground, sharp spikes came out from the floor. Karlyle quickly pushed himself back up.

"You're staying up there."

Owen was commanding his opponent. He assumed that Karlyle using the fire jets would tire him out or limit how much of his pyrokinesis he could use. Unfortunately for Owen, that was false. Karlyle was lucky enough to only have a small limitation to his kinetic; he could only summon his fires within 6 metres of his body.

"Alright."

Karlyle flew around in circles around Owen, increasing in speed. After a bit, he got quite dizzy but was still able to aim. He continuously shot out balls of fire towards Owen and on impact, they exploded into ferocious flames. Instead of defending himself with another dome, Owen summoned a paper-thin cuboid in the air for each fireball that came towards him. They wrapped around the fireball to prevent the resulting flames from expanding.

The barrage of fireballs turned into a singular stream. A wall erupted from the ground and it circled Owen, keeping up with Karlyle and his stream of fire. The movement of the wall created a ring of shattered ground around Owen.

After being unable to melt the wall, Karlyle stopped moving and ceased the fire. The wall remained in its position.

"Are you going to keep being on the defensive?"

"I have a defensive type of kinetic..."

"You didn't seem to care about that earlier."

"Earlier was just to test what you have."

"So now?"

"I'm going to wait for you to tire out and surrender."

"That didn't seem to work in your last battle."

"Tsk, well you don't have magma do you?"

"I don't.

"Then I'll be fine."

Karlyle got annoyed, he had to complete this in 20 minutes and there were only 14 left. He didn't want to fight without at least one of his two friends watching. Already knowing that nobody from his family was watching, Foster was the only motivator he had; and Mimi occasionally.

A flame appeared behind Karlyle and it split into two. The two flames flew around Karlyle and stretched into another stream. It clashed with the remaining forcefield. The force released from the fire caused the forcefield to slightly bend.

"Finally some sort of progress."

Karlyle kept his dialogue in his head, weary of Owen catching onto his plans. The edges of the wall started to turn into a liquid and some feelings of worry slowly appeared on Owen's face.

Owen pushed the forcefield wall towards Karlyle but he didn't expect the fire stream to create enough force and push it back. He grasped control of the wall once more and held it in place. Owen curved the edges to form a bowl that contained the flames.

From the edges of the forcefield, spikes grew and separated from their source, flying directly at Karlyle's face. The origin point of the fire stream remained but Karlyle flew around like a pesky fly trying to avoid the spikes that were out for him.

After losing the spikes and flying opposite the fire stream, Karlyle created another one to attack from this side. Another wall had been erected from the ground and clashed with the second stream.

Karlyle continued to fly around and summon more of these streams until they practically covered every angle possible. He got a bit tired from all the flying around but quickly regained his energy after taking a short break.

"Surrender yet or are you gonna keep 'defending'?"

"Since when can someone emit so much of their kinetic?!"

Owen's forcefields were melting under all the flames. It wouldn't take long before he was fully vulnerable. He couldn't retaliate unless he wanted to compromise his defenses. One missing shield and he's scorched.

"Fine! I surrender!"

"Owen Reed has surrendered, and Karlyle Montgomery has won the second round of the tourney."

The score next to Karlyle's name went up by 1.

"I swear to god if my next opponent can also melt my shield I will sue the Arkana Network! It is just my damn luck that I go against two people in a row with practically endless stamina and heat!"

During Owen's tantrum, Foster and Mimi appeared in the arena and ran up to Karlyle. They hugged and showered him with a series of 'Congratulations,' and 'We're proud of you!' No matter what they were saying, Karlyle enjoyed their attention.

"Where are we celebrating this time?"

"It'll have to be tomorrow as I have to go in like 5 minutes," Foster interjected.

"Mimi, you pick."

"Alright, meet me at the entrance to the central tower."