13 ADMISSION V

HUNTING FOR THE ORB

After immediately appearing on the area they start to look for their own orb before moving out; but there seems to be nothing. Instead of worrying about the orb, they have to worry about their environment poses a threat as well. Now having of a somewhat control over the element of fire, Hans manages to warm themselves up, in this freezing blizzard. They walked through the snowy caps and into a winter forest, as they make their way to their orb.

"You guys can feel it right?"

"Yeah, we're going in the right direction, are you okay?" Sofia asked her brother.

"Of course, I'm used to it now" He replied with a smile on his face so that his sister won't be worried. The fire increases in size as Hans put more focus into it and maintaining it.

They can feel its presence and they all have to do is to go towards it, the triplets are also doing the same thing, in the scorching sandstorm. They looked up to see a bird circling around them, it is the birds that watches over them for the spectators to see their progress. Hans and his sisters continued to trek the snowy area that they are in for the next 25 minutes, until they can finally hear the orb.

"Where is that?"

"Its echoing around us" The voices of the orb seemed spread since part of their pseudo consciousness is stored in the orb. They can hear their voices around them, screaming, whispering, whimpering all the voices that a person can do in any tone and rhythm. Some of it were calming, harmonizing, and the others were bone-shaking, terrifying and unnerving.

"We need to focus" Sofia declared as she notices her siblings tremble.

The siblings focused on dense levels of Imperium around them, but it is hard, the whole area that they are in are wrapped around in Imperium and looking for it is a lot harder. The dense fog of imperium were the one's that are creating the voices, and finding the 'path' to the orb will be hard. They kept scanning the area but nothing came up to them, all they know is that they hear it, their own voices, like a radar they followed the noises, the louder it gets the closer they are.

"Are we even sure about following this screams?"

"Yeah, our darkest, most powerful emotions right?" Hans said as he held Sofia's hand, she can feel him tremble but not from the cold.

They walked more and they got deeper into the forest with massive towering trees and the sound stopped instantly. The sounds of nature acme bursting in as if they were deaf and regained their hearing. The howling of the snowfall, the creaks of the branches and their footsteps in the thick layer of snow. They looked around trying to hear even climbing up to the trees in order to hear it once more, but it is all for naught. Sofia ended up climbing on the tallest tree and she can see the whole area that they are in, on the other side of a massive river where the sun rays down on it the desert.

The desert has a stone forest on the other side of the river, completely identical to the woods that they are standing in. The clouds that looms over the snowy area of the arena ends on where the river flows through it, the river acts as a border for the 2 biomes.

"Incredible, I need to tell them"

Sofia gets off the tall tree and lands safely by creating a massive foam of snow under her, the snow melts down and she looks around and something feels different. Her siblings, they vanished out of thin air, their footsteps are in the snow but no sign of them. She called out to her siblings as she is in distress. She looks around but everything looks the exact same thing.

"HANS!"

"MILA!"

Nothing, just the haunting echo of her emotional call. There's no response from her siblings, with no way of tracking them all she can do is stay where she is. She starts to feel more anxious as she has no idea what to do and if she can continue without her siblings. As she continuously panic it was all stopped as she hears and sees something on the trees in front of her. She gets her guards up and creates a weapon, she can see a slender thing in the forest run and climb around.

"Wendigo"

3 Wendigos jumped around and charges towards her, she surrounds herself in water and creates ice spikes stabbing the creature through its brain and heart, but it was not enough to kill some of it. She pushed them away and freezes them in place and starts to run deeper into the tall treed forest, Sofia realizes that the sounds earlier mimicked their voices; it was not the orb. They start climbing around. Sofia loses her footing and enters a cavern, she hangs onto rocks on the wall and sees the Wendigo's on top looking down. They tried to enter but they ran away instead. She drops down and was caught off guard by the chasm being deeper than expected.

"Ow"

"Sofia!" Hans screamed in glee as they are reunited, her siblings looked scratched up.

"Hans, Mila.... what happened?"

"I'm sorry we left you, we heard screaming and your voice was suddenly on the ground, we followed it and well... here we are"

"No its fine"

"We have Wendigos on our backs, and we're now in this cavern, but so far, we're fine and nothing is as bad as we think it is"

They look around and they can see the roots of the trees above, a layer of snow covers this cavern. A bit of light comes through but it was dim. They looked down and they can see water flowing into the trees, the siblings followed it and they go deeper into the cavern. The trees seems to be taller than they expect it to be, and the cavern goes deeper. The snow on top starts to crumble with the movement of the Wendigos, the light got stronger and it bounced around the cavern. They followed a stream down to the bottom the pit in the middle of the cavern, and a deeper cavern meets them, the only reflection is being illuminated by the water; again it was dim.

"This is just a big hole in this arena"

"Yeah"

"This is deeeeeeeep"

Hans nudges Mila and he looks at her, she is terrified. She sees something in the cavern.

"Are you okay?"

"look" She pointed down as something caught here attention.

"Oh, what is that"

A big fish like tale dives into the lake, Hans looks into the lake and it is deeper. Some of the reflected light is made by those scales. He looks 'dumbfounded' as it is clearly deeper than the pit that they have entered. He just looks down there and a beautiful woman swam up to meet him. Her face seems to be the embodiment of perfection, more of them, which she called sisters, come up to them. Their skins of color are different but one common thing about them is their impeccable beauty, Hans was attracted to the creatures as it sings to them. He comes down to their level followed by her sisters.

"You guys stink like fish"

He freezes the water but they all managed to fly away, completely unfrozen, all of them starts to screeching and it hurts the siblings.

"THEY ARE SO UGLY!"

They all fall down and Hans was taken into the air and throws him back down as he sets himself on fire. He fell through a sheet of ice, Sofia and Mila tries to help him but they are blocked by the sirens; now uglier. They are more of a woman than bird feathers and scaly feet. They carry lyres and harps that distorts the sisters' senses, their visions are starting to blur and their ears rung from hearing it. The sirens attack them and they barely block or parry the damage.

"We need to break those instruments"

"We need to get Hans"

Hans cannot pull himself out of the grasps of the Sirens now with fish-tail, Hans slowly gets pulled deeper into the abyss of this cavern lake. And immediately the siblings are all struggling to protect themselves from this creatures. The Sirens cackled an annoying laugh.

Enola and her sisters will also experience the same thing as they trek the scorching desert. They enter the rock forest, which are just towering rocks with different sizes, some are tall, short, big, and small others seems to be weathered out. As they explore more of the area they can feel a presence is watching over them.

"weird"

"Yeah... Don't mind"

They continued walking on the scorching sun and they have faced dead ends countless of times. They cannot climb the hills because they are getting tired easily even with just walking, and climbing will only drain them more of energy. As they walk longer and farther they feel that they have not moved at the same spot all. As they walk around the same place for longer they noticed little changes especially in the same ground that they have walked through, something must have crawled or dragged itself. Enola gave her sisters a heads up and they all prepare their weapons, a war-hammer Istas, a gauntlet for Enola, and a glaive for Halona.

Something is definitely stalking them as they walked around even more, and a pungent smell starts to accompany them. They see a puddle of water definitely out of place and it seemingly appears out of nowhere.

"Odd" Enola pointed out, the sisters agreed and their suspicion starts to give them an idea of what is happening.

They look at the puddle and something is following them, and they immediately know what it is. Upon the realization of what the creature that is stalking them is, Istas being on the last closes her eyes tightly and hits her hammer down in the ground. The earth shook as she hit the ground and the creature that stalks them are pinned into the ground. They hear the distinct low growl and Enola called it out.

"ITS A BASILISK!"

"Don't look directly in its eyes"

"GOT IT!"

The Basilisk's skin are tough and the spikes from the under the ground did not pierce its skin, with the added slipperiness of its skin made movement much easier and faster. It starts to go after the triplets and they hurl boulders at the snake but it dodges it or breaks through it directly, the scale on its head is extremely tough compared to its whole body. Its saliva is as venomous as its own venom that is stored in its glands. It bites on the hill as the sister turn every corner, and the potency of the venom is revealed. The rock is slowly destroyed as if it was something organic. It not only produces venom it also breathes something the sister felt unfair.

"FIRE!!" Istas calls out as she feels the warm air coming towards her.

The jet of fire has the venomous stench and toxic air, the triplets got tired even more. The Basilisk is trying to weaken them to easily devour their whole person. With no more choice they raised themselves using the earth on top of the stone trees. They are somewhat in a safe position as the snake cannot look directly at them and they look at it as well.

"What do we do Enola?" Halona asked.

"We try to pin it!"

"It won't work, the snake can just slip past it"

"We bury it, I can lead it"

"No, don't be stupid"

"We can't risk you, I can do it.. Just trust me" Istas volunteered and without a shadow of a doubt the Enola and Halona agreed to her. They share a deep bond and with it came along trust, as siblings should.

"You better make it back"

"Don't worry" Despite carrying a war-hammer, she effortlessly carry it; she is also the fastest among the triplets. She can easily chase after them. Istas volunteered to be bait as she is confident with her ability and her 2 sisters lead the way. As they start running, Istas jumps down whilst throwing rocks and eventually to massive boulders onto the beast. She manages to attract the beast and chases after her, "the fire is limited" Istas noticed. She dropped a huge boulder from the top of the hill and the snake hissed and strikes at her. For a split moment she sees its mouth wounded and healing but the venom slows it down.

"GIRLS!"

"Yeah?"

"ITS OWN FIRE HURTS IT!"

"Really?"

"Good going Istas!"

"YES!"

2 things does not seem to combine and all they can do is keep running, they got out of the maze of a stone forest and the snake slithers back instead of continuing pursuit. It seems to be defensive as it creeps back to whence it came, they can hear its slowly crawling back.

"Its lair"

"Yep C'mere"

The sisters shared a hug, a sigh of relief. "Can you think of something else?" Enola asked Istas as the sisters tear up but now is not the time. They start to think of a plan in order to kill the beast.

"Well, it has fire and venom"

"It also is slippery"

"The skull seems to be hard, but not its lower jaw, the jaw seemed fleshy"

"Maybe it has the venom, all I know is that the mouth was wounded, too wounded"

The triplets concluded with nothing, they just hang around there thinking of something. In order to defeat it they have to study it even more, they start to prepare for 'studying' the Basilisk. Although they are in a trial there has no time limit, the trial ends when the objectives are done. They completely have forgotten about the fact that there is another team that they have. Both triads are in a predicament, and the enemies are already a handful for them.

They climbed on top of the hill to another taller hill and they clearly see the whole stone forest. To their right they see the river and the tall snowy forest, they can hear distant screaming echoing from the forest. Then they remembered their real task, "we need to hurry" Enola said. They looked over the maze of a forest in order to find the Basilisk and they did, they can see its body crawling across and through the stones, they almost miss it before it descends, an indicator that there is a hole down there.

"We now have our bearing"

They slid down by hanging onto Istas' war-hammer and they are met with the awful stench. They landed on the hills and separated. They jumped across each gap and erecting walls. After several obstacles they managed to get to the hole, they can see the Basilisk's tail end enter the hole. It obviously looks deep is no light, Halona slips and a rock fall down into the hole. The Basilisk slips slowly and it sees them above, it strike towards them and they almost got the end of it. Halona falls down on the beast itself and into the hole.

She stumbles and sees the orb in its' lair. The snake attacks the other 2 above as it thought that she was just a debris falling to her. Halona jumps down as she was about to get the orb the snake's tail hit her to the wall and just then the beast was alerted. Its attention is now divided, Enola and Istas noticed it and they try their best to attract the Basilisk but it was smart enough to ignore them. The Basilisk opens its mouth and breathes fire, it was just an instant but the flame was massive.

"ITS VENOM IS THE LIGHTER FLUID!" Enola called out as she faced down the massive threat.

The snake seems to understand human speech and crazily strikes at Halona. It jumps in front of her trying to get a glance but she manages to dodge it, the snake is aggravated even more and destroys the pillars that held its lair. It crumbles down on them, the orb creates its own forcefield and now floats above the rubble.

"HALONA!!!!!!"

"HALONAA!!!"

"WHERE ARE YOU!!"

The beast comes through the debris and Halona is on its tail, the beast is smart enough to not strike towards itself, as its own venom is the only thing that can destroy itself. It spins around as fast as it attempts to get rid of Halona who hold on to it as hard as she can with her glaive. The beast is also preoccupied with them, trying to get rid of the one on its body and attacking the other on top with its eyes. They kept on going like this for the next 5 minutes and Halona manages to hold on without getting nauseated. Enola and Istas throws boulders at the snake, Halona breaks it when she opens her eyes for a split second.

The snake uses its tail and it manages to hit the other 2 above it, Halona lets go and the 3 of them are reunited, in a way that they did not intend to. The Beast once more gets into its biggest and fires up.

"Now or never"

They closed their eyes away and depended on their other 5 senses. Closing their eyes they can clearly see the beast's brain and heart and the fire being accumulated in its mouth. As it opened its mouth Enola punches the wall behind them and a spike came through, as the snake continued to move forward the spike hits its mouth, Halona breaks the spike off by using the sharp end of the glaive and hurls it towards the snake. As the spike break off the wall Istas hits the back of spike and strikes it into the Basilisk's mouth.

With the mouth healing, and the venom gland is only a layer away, they popped it using the spike. The fire set it off and the snake's inside explodes, its skin kept its body intact, smoke comes out from its mouth, its hard skin opened up a bit. The triplets cheered and hugged each other, after the kill they approached their orb.

"We smell bad"

"Right?"

"Finally, I wonder how our opponents are doing"

As Hans gets pulled deeper into the water he starts to get angry over the fact that his sister will get hurt, he starts to blame himself even more. He is pulled down into the bottom of the lake and he starts to get angrier even more. As the siren prepare to attack him they notice bubbles around him, more start to pop up, they ignored it and as they get close to him the water around them starts to burn them, its boiling. The biggest siren awakened from its sleep and their orb acted as her necklace.

"Pathetic daughters"

She reached for Hans and is unaffected of the warm and heating water. Hans grabs one of her sharp fingers and starts to increase the heat, the lake starts to evaporate. The sisters notice it and as the ice around them starts to melt, they froze the unsuspecting sirens and they fell into the water. The lake bursts with radiating heat and the Queen of Sirens starts to dry up immediately, its "real" beauty shows up and reveals a disgusting and helpless creatures. Hans stops his 'radiating heat' and threw the Queen with his bare hands towards his sisters. Sofia destroys the brain and Mila destroys the heart and grabs the orb from her necklace. The lake dried up immediately and the air around them warms up.

"Nice!"

"Awesome"

They cheered calmly as the Queen and her daughters go away into dust and so did the Basilisk, one of the objectives has been done and something felt odd about the orb as they picked it up. It has some weight into it.

"Wasn't it lighter?"

"huh, the color, is a shade of brown"

"This is not our orb"

The siblings looked at each other and that is all they can do.