Chapter 27

"I thought you said I wasn't worthy of that title!" Jay shouts to Tide.

—The behemoth-sized player had just interrupted the group's joint conversation, cutting off Jay from explaining to Blaze and Sandra that he has no Aspect. It was good that Jay didn't have to explain himself, but bad because all of them were at risk of dying now.

Tide reaches for his weapon, the giant war axe that Jay has never seen him use in person. Sandra flinches at its sight, almost like she's seen it before, and so does Blaze. Jay still doesn't know how they know Tide, but he figures they must've crossed paths at some point during the tryouts.

"Oh, and you have company? They sure do look different than the last time you hung out with 'em." Tide ridicules.

"Shut up!" Blaze says, "You're thinking of his friends!"

"Yeah, we're just talking, is all!" Sandra follows up.

Jay still stares Tide down with fear. Blaze and Sandra will know that not one of them can win this fight, right? Hopefully, they don't try something rash. Sandra glances over at Jay, then back to Tide.

"Hey, if he's really your target, then will you just overlook the fact that me and the pink onesie are here?" Sandra asks.

"Hey!" Blaze complains, "It's a hero uniform!"

Tide turns to her, and even though his armored helmet covers his face, his bodily expression gives off confusion.

"I don't know what you mean, but I intend to slaughter all of you. If you want first dibs, that's alright." Tide says, leaning his axe onto his right shoulder.

"Aspect on." He mumbles.

After Tide says this, Jay and the others can feel a flurry of energy around the area. Jay looks over to see Sandra and Blaze in complete disbelief. Jay had never seen Tide's Aspect, so whatever can scare Sandra and Blaze like that must be robust. The moisture in the air around Jay started to become drier and drier, which wasn't a good sign. The warehouse starts to feel hotter than ever as Tide gathers every drop of moisture in the area and forms it into a single point above his head. It then rapidly expands as Tide uses his Aspect fully, and before they knew it, Jay and the others were looking at a large wave of water.

Before Tide says anything, Sandra lifts off the ground with whatever Aspect she has left, heading straight for Tide's face. Seeing this, Tide cancels his move and moves his axe off his shoulder. Sandra sent a chain blade for his leg.

'Please catch his knee!' She thinks.

In a quick turn of events, a bolt of water starts to emerge from the soaked ground where the wave of water Tide made previously was formed. This mass of water starts to shrink down in volume until it forms a makeshift wall, which catches Sandra's weapon, stopping it completely.

"Water Aspect, «Pressurization»!" Tide announces.

The water hand then pulls on Sandra's weapon, pulling her close to Tide's next attack. In the process, Sandra losses grip of her chain blades, letting them fall onto the floor as they keep her tethered to Tide. He arms his axe high into the sky as Sandra gets close to him, then he starts to let gravity take the wheel. He starts pile driving the massive edge of the axe straight for Sandra.

Right before the axe makes contact with her, bright light emerges in front of her, blinding her vision and separating Tide from Sandra.

"Burning Palm!" Blaze calls out, running to Sandra's side.

Jay watched in complete shock—not moving a single muscle— as Blaze did the same maneuver he laid onto him earlier. Blaze's Burning Palm blocks Tide's attack, but it wasn't going to hold on for much longer. Blaze himself had his shield at the ready to combat this, standing in the axe's way.

His pink flame cripples as Tide drives the axe straight for Sandra, who was already moving out of the way, and he drives it directly into Blaze's shield. Tide's weight behind his axe was too much for Blaze to handle, and he's sent flying backward, barely surviving at this point.

'He's probably at his threshold!' Jay thinks in a panic.

The damage threshold makes players get dizzy and lose their vision the more health points they lose. Blaze has lost so much HP already that he was no doubt going to hit his threshold. Jay was still frozen in place, afraid of this battle he was destined to lose.

Sandra stood several feet away from where Blaze was struck, and her eyes widened as she saw his body roll across the warehouse floor, thudding against the wall opposite of Tide's current position. She figured that Blaze was going to meet his damage threshold as well and acted in the heat of the moment, rushing to Blaze before Tide attacked him.

Sandra plants both feet in front of Blaze, standing up for him as he attempts to get back on his feet.

"Hey! Don't give in now! We need all of us alive to beat him!" Sandra says, lifting both of her hands in front of her.

"Y-yeah... but..." Blaze manages to mumble, planting one foot down and standing up straight, "I-i'm the hero here!"

Before Blaze walks in front of Sandra to guard her, Each player in the building starts to feel that same presence they did before. Their skin's moisture was being plucked from them, feeling the air start to dry out. Tide concentrates the surrounding water in the air and from the ground from the last move and pressurizes it into one ball floating above his right hand. Jay had no idea what would happen but feared Sandra and Blaze were most likely going to be killed off.

"Water Aspect," Tide says under his breath, shooting out all of the water he has stored up to this point.

Blaze grits his teeth as Tide's move rockets towards Sandra, who was also preparing to guard him. If she didn't, Blaze would die, and they wouldn't have a chance at beating Tide.

"Geyser." Tide finishes.

A large pillar of water barrels into Sandra and Blaze, pushing them so hard against the wall behind them that they go straight through it. Even from where Jay stood, he could feel the power behind Tide's move. Jay still found it difficult to move, focusing all of the energy in his body to maintain his composure.

"*No*!!!" Jay screams.

The torrent of pressurized water continued to sap out of the ball above Tide's hand, which was still gripping onto his axe. The floor inside of the warehouse was soaked, and as Tide's Geyser move started to subside, Jay desperately looked outside of the fresh hole—which looked more like someone leveled the entire wall of the building's structure—to see if Sandra and Blaze survived.

Mist had formed around the blast zone, and Jay could barely make anything out. It didn't look too great for his fellow prospects.

'If only I had just made a move! What have you been training for?' Jay thinks, 'Damn it!'

As Jay peered into the mist once more, his feeling of loss started to die down. He saw two figures crouched over on the ground, with one of them steadying their hand out in front of them, plans forward. It was Sandra.

"«A-air v-vacuum»..." Sandra mutters, barely getting words out before collapsing her left knee on the ground.

'She used her wind to block the water?' Jay thinks.

From the looks of it, her move didn't do much in the grand scheme. The force of Tide's move Geyser was powerful and even put a hole into the warehouse. If anything, it softened the blow by less than ten percent, but it was all she needed to keep her and Blaze alive.

Tide started to take heavy steps outside the hole he had created, keeping a solid gaze on Sandra and Blaze instead of Jay. There was still water left that was pressurizing above Tide's hand, which meant he could unleash that move again if he wanted to.

Seeing Blaze and Sandra crouched over like that, Jay knew they had to be entirely out of AP, which meant Tide would sweep them quickly in the state they were in. Jay scours the ground for a moment and spots Sandra's chain blades she had dropped earlier on the floor behind Tide. He then hatches an immediate plan.

Jay starts to run to the crippled Prospects' side, running straight towards Tide first. Jay readies his sword in his right hand for a lunge attack, which Tide didn't seem possible to dodge out of.

As Jay tries to drive his lunge home, a pillar of water shoots out of the ground, just like before when Sandra attacked, which creates a wall of highly pressurized water. Jay's blade seeps into it before it can taint Tide's armor.

"I wouldn't be so hasty if I were—*GRR*!" Tide cries out before he can finish his sentence.

Blaze, who could barely sit up at this point, watches Sandra's chain blades dig into Tides back. Sandra's face was in complete disarray as she saw who was wielding them.

Jay's face is tense as he flexes every muscle in his left arm to dig one of the chain blades into Tide's spine. He knew he cut through the armor because of Tide's shriek, but something was off.

'There isn't any HP leaking out!' Jay thinks, realizing that Tide was staring him down with dark intent, 'I guess I pierced his armor but didn't actually make contact with him. He must've just been startled by my attack!'

"You asked for this," Tide starts to say, "If only you backed away sooner."

Jay sees Tide start to lift his axe over his head, and at the same time, lifts his Aspect off, letting Jay have mobility over his sword. Instinctively, Jay brings the blade closer to him. With minimal time for action, Jay knows he's about to feel a pain like no other.

'I don't have time to dodge!' Jay panics.

Tide's large weapon was already shifting off of his shoulder, and like a sledgehammer, would be forced into his exact position like someone was doing renovations for their house. With these criteria, Jay has no other option.

'I have to block it!' He screams in his head.

With every single ounce of energy in his body, Jay swings his blade where the axe is falling in the hope of stopping its momentum. Sandra and Blaze gasp as Tide and Jay's weapons collide. Almost immediately, the shock from the two blades' impact causes Jay's arm to seize up in a cramp, but he continues to hold his ground as Tide puts his entire force into the attack. It felt like he was stopping a moving train with a car.

'J-just... a... little... longer!' Jay thinks in pain.

*CRACK!!!*

A loud metallic sound disperses itself from around Jay. Not knowing what it was, Jay looks up to only find himself getting more scared. His nerves creep up on him as Jy creates a horrifying expression. He didn't want to believe it, but it was right in front of his eyes.

A fourth of his blade had just shattered off of his weapon, spiraling away from Tide's axe as it broke from the pressure.

Tide drives his axe down—but because of Jay's block—it scars the road nearby instead of Jay's body, just barely missing. A cloud of asphalt puffs out of the impact. Jay is left standing in complete shock, watching part of his bland sword skid across the road. It was the top section of his blade, where Blaze had put a crack in it earlier.

"I-I-m—" Jay mumbles to himself.

In a split second, after Tide drives his weapon into the ground, Jay feels the wind get knocked out of him as Tide forces the butt of his axe straight into his chest. The pain from the force alone was so immense that Jay coughed up over half of his HP, sending him closer and closer to death. Time slows down for a couple of seconds as Jay gets rammed in Sandra and Blaze's direction.

'I'm gonna lose this fight...'

Jay tumbles on the road as Tide's forceful bunt sends him backward with a lot less HP. He gripped what was left of his weapon as he tried to stop himself from rolling around like a ragdoll.

Eventually, his momentum stops, and he's left crouched over just in front of Sandra and Blaze, weakened just like them. Tide gives him a cold stare but doesn't look too good either. The pulsating ball of concentrated moisture next to his hand was shaking more and more violently. Jay tried to stand himself up as fast as possible, but the pain was too much, so he continued to stay low to the ground like the others.

"How did that feel?" Tide asks with no emotion, "It didn't feel good, that's for sure."

"S-shut up..." Jay says, weakened and with no one to lean on.

"that's not very nice, considering I made you my target."

"And w-what does that even mean?" Jay asks, glancing over at Sandra and Blaze, "You went after them first!"

"It's because you have something they don't, but the other way around. You've gotten this far without the use of something everyone so far has power over in these tryouts."

Jay grows still as he knows what Tide is talking about. Sandra and Blaze look at Tide from behind Jay with confused faces.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Blaze groans, trying to lift his shield.

"We have something he doesn't?" Sandra asks, trying to pick herself up.

"Yes," Tide says,

"He hasn't used Aspect in the entire tryouts."

Jay doesn't say a word as Sandra and Blaze are completely stunned, not believing what Tide has just said. Blaze starts to overthink things, not once seeing Jay use his Aspect, and Sandra recalls asking Jay what his Aspect was before Tide showed up. He never actually answered them.

"I-its that true? you don't use Aspect?" Sandra asks Jay.

"And you've gotten this far?" Blaze asks.

Jay continues to stay silent, his broken sword dangling in his weak grasp. Although he can see the audience of his match, he can't hear them encore or cheer or hear anything for that matter. He knows from their faces that everyone was confused, even Stan, who was commentating on the other matches and everything up to this point. Jay just keeps his focus on Tide, not answering Blaze or Sandra.

"How about this, Jay," Tide starts to say, pointing at the prospects behind him, "I'll give you an opportunity since you must have some actual skill to be able to compete with those losers."

"...an opportunity?" Jay asks Tide.

"Yes, it's a pretty simple one too. If you move out the way of those two, then as my target, I'll let you live until it's just you and me left. Then we fight one on one."

"...!" Jay stretches his eyes in understatement.

"What!? Then he would pass the tryouts!" Blaze yells.

"Don't you understand the rules?" Sandra calls out.

They were right. If Tide was serious, Jay could pass the tryouts. It was precisely what he needed, a guaranteed way to become a Slayer and take the first step to save his mom.

His sword was broken as well, which meant fighting at this point was not worth it. The players he wanted as his teammates, in the end, were too weak to fight at this time either. Tide was undoubtedly charging Geyser as Jay went over every possible scenario, and he estimates Sandra and Blaze would need a couple more minutes to regain some AP. He still would feel guilty if he stepped out of the way, but then he would lose!

"It's either you or them, don't make it be all three of you." Tide says, "Be a smart guy and step out of the way."

"H-how can I trust you?" Jay asks, losing grip on his sword ever so slightly, "A-all you've ever done to me at this point is t-treat me like I'm worthless!"

"You'll just have put your trust in me forcefully. Now get out of the way without moving them, or I'll blow you all to smithereens in an instant!" Tide announces, charging up Geyser.

The ball of water above Tide's right hand starts to shake out of control, spiraling into a massive beam of water that would shoot in Jay's direction. If he moved, in the best-case scenario, he would become a Slayer. However, if he did, Blaze and Sandra would've done everything for Jay up to this point in vain.

"I don't... I don't have AP to protect you!" Blaze says, "B-but I can't move out of the way..."

"Just leave us! You can't do anything against that 'Geyser' move!" Sandra says, "It would be stupid to throw away a chance like this!"

Jay would need to make a choice and fast.