141 Preliminaries (3)

Colin advanced slowly as Kirin and Foxie were challenged a third time by the Albatron Lord. The metallic electro-bird challengers didn't really stand much of a chance… but Colin suddenly realized that they weren't trying to beat him at his own game. They were changing the field entirely. They were challenging on speed and wit, but with so many of them lined up, the thing that would truly determine if he passed them all would be Kirin's and Foxie's stamina.

Sora, meanwhile, was in all-out battle with the Rockatauri but he seemed to be holding his own. At least, his Comrades were doing well enough; they were flying circles around the gigantic stone bull-men who weren't quite having fun trying and trying to hit them. {I guess he really does know what he's doing. It's going to come down to a test of endurance for them, a question of who tires first.}

It's going to come down to the same thing with me. Colin took one look and found Satrox facing a second Lord of the Wilds, with more in line to challenge him afterward. {And with Satrox, too. In the end, it's going to be all about fortitude.}

Colin didn't like it, but he had to admit it was a fitting test for those contesting to become the next Mountain Prince.

By the fifth challenger to Colin's advance, everybody was engaged in some form of duel with the Lords of the Mountain Wilds. Colin had a thought about that time. He stopped Kirin and Foxie. "Guys, we need to strategize."

They stopped, slightly winded.

"We don't really need to rush, do we?" Colin whispered. "I mean, we're supposed to reach the other side, but nobody mentioned a time limit. If we keep charging head on like this, you're both going to be exhausted before long. We can't just sit and rest either, though. We need to pace ourselves. Let's make it one challenge at a time for both of you. That way, while Kirin is racing, Foxie can rest. While Foxie is joking, Kirin can rest."

The strategy worked for a while, but by the time they were halfway to the south wall, Kirin and Foxie were staggering and winded. Colin had to stop and reconsider.

"Sonia." He called. "Eclipse."

The Sonic Wolf and the Shadow Hawk appeared.

"I need you guys to race the Mountain Wilds. We're going to challenge everything on speed." Colin said. "Kirin, you and Foxie take a break."

Sonia and Eclipse did okay against the Blobs and the Beetles, against the Prism Walkers and the Pillari and the Dandolions, but when they came up against the Wind Condors, Colin began to worry. Sonia was panting by then, and she was challenging a flyer while on foot. Eclipse wasn't struggling so hard, but she {was} struggling to maintain a lead.

He sneaked a glance ahead and found that the Lords of the Wilds ahead were all speed types. Typhoon Eagles, Craggy Cheetahs, Kinebullettos and at the very end, some sort of wispy figures that seemed to be made entirely of cloud.

{We're in trouble.} Colin realized. {There's no way Sonia and Eclipse can race those four clans in such conditions and win. Kirin's already tired out and Foxie's not that fast. Cour isn't going to be able to make it either. Shiro and Raiki aren't responding. What do I do? What CAN I do?}

Eclipse finished the race against the High Wind Condor, wining by a split second. Sonia, on the other hand, was barely keeping up with the Low Wind Condor, and appeared to be tiring rapidly. "Sonia!"

Sonia actually managed a response. [What?]

[Are you all right?] Colin asked worriedly.

[No.] Sonia replied quite bluntly, and almost stumbled as she and the Low Wind Condor neared the end of the sprint. They had been racing in a tight circle from East to West and back to the East side where they had begun. Sonia had lost her lead when they turned around; she had had to work to catch up on the way back, but now… now Colin wasn't sure she was going to make it.

[I'll make it!] Sonia insisted. [Just this one last race… I'm not going to lose!]

Colin felt rather than saw her do it. Sonia's powers stirred, something to do with sonic energy and speed. The Low Wind Condor saw or felt it too, even as Sonia started to take lead again, it responded in kind, and then it, too, sped up with the help of some wind-based power.

{Sonia…!} Colin gulped when she and her competitor sped up more and more. She had drawn a small lead, having started using her powers first, but this was a mountain, and the winds had the advantage here. The Low Wind Condor was catching up visibly, and Sonia was already giving it everything she had. {Come on! Just a little more! Almost there…}

Sonia howled. Colin jumped, thinking she'd given up and that all was lost. Surely, in a race, spending that much breath to make noise was a sign of hopelessness…

But no. Sonia wasn't giving up. She was, rather, making a desperate bid for more power. In her howl, she created Sonic energy, and even as Colin watched, she harnessed that power into speed, relying on her elemental strengths rather than her physical speed to finish the race.

{Just a little more!} Colin thought, daring to hope for one last moment before suddenly realizing that he was in trouble in a different sense now.

Sonia and the Low Wind Condor were coming in fast and hard… very fast, and very, very hard. He gulped as they hurtled towards him, neither of them showing the slightest interest in slowing down or avoiding anything in their paths.

"Get back!" Colin yelped, leaping out of the way just before those two passed him. The wind of their passing battered at Colin like a gale, almost knocking him off his feet as he stumbled back into Kirin's outstretched wing. "Whew. Thanks, Kirin."

Sonia hit the east wall explosively, and the audience seated on the front rows let out yells and a shrieks. The Low Wind Condor, flying higher and almost as fast, slammed not into the wall, but into the walkway between the audience seats.

Both Sonia and the bird she raced vanished. Colin gulped. {They died. They both died their way back to Home Base.}

There was a time back before Green Badge that Colin might have been able to touch his fallen Comrades and revive them like that, but once he had a proper Home Base, Comrades who lost all their HP respawned back there to recover like he did. {At least I don't respawn with them. I wonder though, whether one of Alicia's Comrades just respawned back at my Home Base with Sonia.}

Meanwhile, the Lord of the Wind Condors gave Colin a formal bow and stepped aside to let him pass.

"Thanks." Colin said. "But I think I'm done for now. Everyone's tired out. We need a break."

The Wind Condor thought about that for a while, then fluffed down with his clan, and from somewhere took out some finger-sized chocolate wafers. He broke off a piece and offered it to Colin. {What is that? Some sort of bird snack?}

"Uh… thanks…" Colin paused. "Eclipse, you're the one who needs the break the most. You take it."

So Colin and his Comrades sat down to rest for a while, and the Tournament Preliminaries raged on past them.

***

{They're done.} Satrox observed Noble, Frost and Dynast after the third challenge and knew it for sure. {They need a break. It's too much to ask them to keep fighting Wilds of this level one after the other non-stop. If I tried to bust through the Snow Tomatoes ahead, Frost isn't going to stand much of a chance, and it doesn't matter how harmless that opponent looks.}

Worse, behind the Snow Tomatoes were Gray Wolfcats, and behind those were the Albatron clan, having come over to challenge Satrox after finishing with Colin. As if that wasn't enough, the Dandolions thought they'd line up for Satrox too, along with the Gem Spiders and the Cloud Columnus.

{Noble, Frost and Dynast need rest.} Satrox tapped his badge and called. "Raker. Jasper. Ruby."

In warped a Gold Crested Falcon and two Crimson Condors. {Not quite my strongest, but I better save up the Chimeras and Wraith for later.}

He really should give up Wraith. That was the only one of his Comrades that didn't fit the 'feathered flight' theme. On that note, the Chimeras weren't all that comfortable with these others either. Satrox wasn't sure why; their wings were kinda feathery, but they just didn't seem to get along well.

Three-on-three, the birds and the tomatoes dueled. The birds pecked, the tomatoes splattered, and Satrox moved on to face the Albatron clan.

This time, he called in the Chimeras and Wraith. The black Lynxmouse looked at him rather vexedly when asked to fight cybernetic birds, but obliged with the full force of his gravitic powers. The Albatrons went down, and Satrox moved on to face the Dandelions.

It was Chimeras against flowery lions on the heights for two of those duels. The third one, Satrox switched Wraith for Raker and almost immediately regretted it when the Gold Crested Falcon barely escaped getting mauled. Satrox had a tense minute until the Chimeras were done with their fights and together moved in to settle Raker's opponent between them.

"Jasper, Ruby, you're up." Satrox eyed his other Comrades, most of whom were already exhausted. "Wraith? Can you manage?"

Wraith bristled at Satrox for suggesting weakness and then threw everything he had at the third Gem Spider. It was a Sapphire Spider, quite blue, and quite adept at spinning crystalline webs. It also proved quite good at handling high gravity situations and very, very good at webbing Wraith and wrapping up the black Lynxmouse in a sticky cocoon as if to be left for dinner later.

Jasper and Ruby had a better time of it, flying out of harm's reach, dodging spider-spit and webs, bombarding their opponents from afar. They were tired out by the time they moved in to rescue Wraith and all but done for after the black Lynxmouse was freed. It took all three of them throwing the last of their strength at the Sapphire Spider to finish it.

"Okay, that's it." Satrox sighed. Wraith and the Crested Falcons were exhausted. The Chimeras had a little stamina left, but not enough, nowhere near enough to handle the likes of Cloud Columni. Besides he was going to need elemental attacks to deal with those. That meant Frost, Jasper and Ruby, except Jasper and Ruby just used up the last of their power on the Sapphire Spider.

"I don't have a choice." Satrox realized. "I can't continue. Even if I threw Noble, Frost and Dynast against the Cloud Columni, physical, wind and water attacks won't do much against walking clouds. I need fire power. I need Jasper and Ruby."

He'd thought pretty much the same thing against the Sapphire Spider. It was as if these oversized Wilds saw the three Comrades he warped in and decided to bring out the Wilds that were hardest for him to deal with.

Satrox glanced over the others in the arena. Colin was to his right, taking a break with the Wind Condors as if they were old friends sitting down to tea. Sora was to his left, and he was winning his all-out battle with the Rockatauri. It had taken a while, as the Rockatauri were tough, but they were slower than Sora's birds and most of them simply couldn't get in a good hit. Satrox never had any doubt that Sora would win that bout. The question was how many more battles he would be expected to fight before the Wilds allowed him to pass.

Meanwhile, other candidates were getting eliminated. Some of them lost three-on-three duels like Satrox had fought, duels that ended only with the last Comrade standing. Others tried Colin's method; to challenge on a specific ability like speed or strength. If the Candidate lost to the Wilds, the Boss Wild he faced simply wouldn't let him pass. Any attempts to do so was met with lethal force, and Satrox saw at least three Candidates killed back to Home Base in a minute.

{Twelve.} Satrox thought. {That's all that's left of the ninety-three who started on the Preliminaries. And not a single one of us have made it through yet. But it appears we are permitted to rest. Nobody is invoking a time limit… so far.}

Satrox considered those who remained, and remembered that Skycrown Mountain had a powerful network of Comms Towers that covered its entire height. He tapped his watched and called on a datalink to the J-Knights servers, checking up on the identities of the remaining Candidates.

As expected, most of them were Mountaineers. Satrox and his friends appeared to be the only exceptions (though, come to think of it, Sora was a Mountaineer too).

Smack dab in the middle, Big Tim, Mountaineer of Soft Snows, appeared to be the farthest ahead. He had challenged the Boss Wilds with five-on-five rather than three-on-three, and it seemed fewer Boss Wilds had stood in his way. He was almost to the end now, and finishing off a fight with the Golden Bell Golems. His Comrades were stone-types; golems, stonatauri, a single Obsidian Pillara and a Rainbow Rock Walker.

Ian, Mountaineer of North Hour, was about as far as Sora, both of them having gone into all-out battle. Sora started earlier, but Ian had a dragon, some wyverns and such - his Comrades had less speed than Sora's, but way more firepower.

Ezri, Mountaineer of South Hour, had taken the same route; all-out battle, but his Comrades were household-types; mostly Pillara, with a flying carpet, a helichair, and an Aquariumime. They all had good fortitude, but less attack strength and speed.

Makoto, Mountaineer of North Spiral, was the guy who should have the Comrades with the most speed and firepower. He had a Kinebulleton out, a sort ofgigantic bullet that flew around at high kinetic speeds. The problem was he had only one out, and was challenging the Wilds one-on-one in speed. There was a huge line of Boss Wilds all waiting their turn to challenge him.

{So… maybe that's it. The less Comrades we send out at a time, the more Wilds want to challenge us.} Satrox figured.

His hunch proved true when Sora and Ian finished their battles and the Wilds let them pass without further challenge. {Send out everything and you only fight one battle. Send out five like Tim, and you get five or six challenges. Send out three to fight duels, like me, and you face ten or twelve. Send out three to challenge on a non-combat ability, like Colin, and you face twelve or fifteen. Send out one… well… I think there's at least twenty Boss Wilds still waiting for Makoto.}

In the distance, Benny, new Mountaineer of Granath, had a Howling Crag Cheetah leading a charge of similar mountain cats in a four-on-four duel challenge. He wasn't far behind Big Tim.

Little Tim (in contrast to Big Tim), Mountaineer of Foggy Heights, had a trio of Cloud Columni in three-on-three duels. At least, Satrox thought he had three; that was how many opponents he was confronted with, but with Cloud Columni, it was a bit hard to tell.

Shinji was there too, almost at the end of the row. Like Colin, he was challenging the mountain Wilds on speed and his storm swans were beating the competition flat. Still, he'd sent out only two, and there were a lot of challengers waiting.

Farthest on the west side was Malcolm, Mountaineer of Numero, who had an Albatron, a Calculowl, and some sort of bird-with-built-in-speakers that Satrox never met before. He, too, appeared to be in three-on-three duels. Or maybe it was in an ability challenge. At this distance, Satrox couldn't be sure.

Most of them were taking it slow. None of them were being hurried, or even looked hurried in any way.

{They just seem… patient.} Satrox thought, eyeing the Mountaineers. {Might be a Mountaineer thing. But they're mainly just taking their time, and in a way… it suits.}

Yet they appeared to be farther along than Colin or the boy with the blue bunny, the blue-winged horse and the blue crystal lion. Satrox wasn't sure why or how, but he had a strange feeling that in this Tournament to determine the Mountain Prince, the Mountaineer guys had a distinct advantage. Sure, they might be slower than Satrox, but Satrox had been all but charging forward from the very start. These guys were just taking it easy.

It wasn't that the Mountain Wilds were friendlier with them. Satrox eyed the boy with the blue bunny sitting down to rest under the shade provided by the Big Highvine. He looked at Colin who had all but picnicked with the Wind Condors. Even the Gem Spiders in front of Satrox appeared to just chill and hang out with Satrox's Comrades. They seemed rather… at ease. Easygoing.

No matter. The point was, as long as they paced themselves, every one of them would probably make it. Including Satrox himself.

"Okay." Satrox scratched his head as he fed his Comrades. "Dynast, you, Jasper and Ruby are going up against the Cloud Columni."

Big Tim was done and Benny nearly there by the time Satrox got up to face the last of his challengers. Colin and the boy with the blue bunny, too, were done with their break and were moving forward. Makoto had finally given his Kinebulleton a break and had warped in three other Kinebulleta, two flying swords, and a helibook to challenge the Wilds five-on-five. A great many of them had moved out of his way now that he challenged with more Comrades.

{Yep. That's definitely it. It's all about how many you send out. Satrox sighed inwardly. I wish I figured that out earlier. But I'm facing my last challenge now. There's no point changing my numbers. Let's just finish this.}

***

Colin saw what the guy at the far end did, and he saw the results. {So that's it. It's about how many we send out…}

"Kirin, Eclipse, you two race. Foxie, back to your jokes." Colin said, doubling his numbers as they moved forward to challenge the Typhoon Eagles.

Sure enough, with his numbers increased, his challengers decreased. The wispy figures at the very back and the big flying bullets both left the waiting line. {We can do this! Just the Typhoon Eagles and the Craggy Cheetahs left. We can do this!}

Others had gotten the idea now. Comrades were challenging five-on-five or six-on-six. Suddenly, everybody was facing just one or two clans in their way, and all the Wilds were moving aside.

Colin won his way past the Typhoon Eagles, two out of three. Kirin and Foxie won their bouts; Eclipse lost her race by a sliver, but they let Colin through anyway. Colin had a moment to consider if he should shift back to two-on-two against the Craggy Cheetahs, let Eclipse rest while the other two challenged, but doing so might incite yet another challenger in his way.

{Better not.} Colin decided, and said, "Go!"

They won two out of three again. Colin sighed, patted Eclipse on the head as she fluffed down on beside him in a huff. "Don't worry, Eclipse. It's okay. It's okay."

Colin strode over to the south wall and touched it with a sigh. "And we're done."

Satrox made it at about the same time. Sora was already there and talking to Lucy. It seems that they were allowing friends of the participants in at the north end. Lucy had brought Sora a bottle of water and a whole lot of birdfeed.

"Thanks." Sora said. He glanced at Satrox. "Need anything?"

"Just some rest. I can warp in my own supplies…" Satrox began, but when Lucy tossed him a bottle of water too, he shut up and drank.

Colin sighed. I don't think anyone will be bringing me anything…

"Hey." A familiar voice said.

He froze. Turned.

There was Katrin. She had two cans of soda and dry towels. She tossed him a can and a towel.

"Katrin…?" Colin stared, uncertain as to what to say or do.

Katrin punched him in the shoulder. "You could just say 'thanks'."

"Thanks." Colin said, still surprised to see her there.

She continued on, past him, towards Satrox, he guessed. She did have another soda and towel with her. They must be traveling together or something…

She passed Satrox. Passed Sora. Passed Lucy. Colin's eyes widened. {What…?}

Beyond Sora, Shinji and another guy in heavy furs and a yellow scarf were arriving. Katrin passed Shinji as well, and went straight to the guy with the yellow scarf. She gave him the soda and the towel.

{Who…? Why…?}

"Hey, Colin! Colin, right?" a voice behind said. Colin turned around to see another familiar face. Sort of. "It's me! Benny! Benny from Granath!"

Others were arriving on that side too. Some of them looked somewhat familiar. Some, Colin had never seen before. But he didn't really care about that now. "Excuse me, Benny. I need to… excuse me."

He went over to Katrin and asked, "Who's this?"

"Colin?" Katrin blinked. "Don't you recognize him?"

"Recognize him?" Colin frowned. He passed her back the towel and peered at the guy again.

"This might help." The guy said, taking off his fur hat, and his visor. He looked at Colin with soft gray eyes, brushed slim fingers through short, black hair. "Or this." He said, and picked up a blue bunny.

Colin frowned. He {did} look uncannily familiar. "I know you, don't I?"

Katrin whacked him on the head with the towel. "Don't you remember, Colin? The night we first started, there were {eight} of us! The eight of us even now hunted by the Cult! Yellow scarf! Blue Bunny! Remember?!"

"It's you!" Colin stared. "We didn't even know if you were still on Nakama World… wait. Wait a minute! I've seen you around before! The blue bunny…"

"Yes! That's it, exactly!" Katrin exclaimed.

"But still, I don't get it." Colin had to say. "I mean… where have you been… Phillip?"