"It's about time." Martyr thought to himself. He had been anticipating the moment where he stood in front of the light colosseum, and here he finally was.
"Aight, let's not waste any time." Martyr started walking towards the entrance to the right of the group.
There was a fancy sign outside the giant opening into the colosseum with two parts of the sidewalk leading into the door on opposite sides of the sign. The top had an arrow pointing to the left sidewalk "Visitors." and the bottom had an arrow pointing to the right sidewalks "Contestants."
The left sidewalk had a small line being held back by a group of guards wearing light themed knight outfits taking the fees to get into the colosseum. There was only one team going into the right and they looked like they were already done paying. It was a group of 7-8 guys and girls wearing very green themed clothes that looked slightly older than Martyr's group.
"Hey, maybe late registration wasn't such a bad thing." Blair said as the group started making their way down to the guards. "We don't have to wait in any line."
"Honestly you might be right." Martyr liked her optimistic attitude.
"Speaking about the line, Spectre gimmie the money?"
"Yup." Spectre handed Martyr a small pouch filled with opal coins.
"Holy crap, I've never seen this many opal coins in one place before." Martyr said, peering into the leather pouch.
"Yeah our little town is one of the only places that makes them." Blair said proudly. "It's like the only thing Umberville is known for."
"How much are they worth?"
"Half a gold coin." Spectre said without much hesitation.
He collected coins as a hobby and pretty much knew the worth of all of them. It was a useful skill, especially for the team because Martyr didn't know anything about it.
"Impressive." Samsara said.
The forest elemental group in front of them went inside the colosseum and the guards turned to Martyr's group. The tall guard in front with a scary face and long dirty blonde hair that went down to his waist put a hand out to stop them. "A team of 5 to 10 people is required."
"Oh uh… one of our teammates is a part of the entertainment part." Martyr said unprepared. "We have a doctor's note." He looked over to Blair.
"Oh right, here." Blair fumbled and quickly zipped open her front pocket, handing the paper over to the guard twice the size of her.
The guard looks it over making a long judgmental "hmmm"
"So you guys are on a team with Vanagloria?" The guard said after taking his time looking over the paper.
"Yup that's her." Martyr said getting inpatient. "Wait, do you know her?"
"Yeah I'm pretty sure she's presenting right now." The guard said in his very monotone voice.
"Wait what?!" Blair said.
"Why didn't you say this sooner?!" Martyr said, starting to walk past the guard.
"Wait you…"
Martyr shuts him up by shoving the bag of coins into the guard's chest. "Should be more than enough."
The group runs past the guards into the massive hallway underneath the first floor of bleaches. They go straight across it passing the group of plant element users into the opening to the stadium.
It was the biggest stadium Martyr had ever seen. He had seen videos of football fields from earth which looked massive, but this must have been twice, maybe even three times the size of that. The ground was pure sand and it had walls on stone leading up to the spectator stands like any typical colosseum, but this colosseum was filled with groups of pre-teens to adults in their mid twenties. Some of the groups seemed to have themes of elements, others like Martyr's group had a wide range of elements. It was pretty much what he had expected to look like but there was one problem.
The arena was dead silent.
The arena was so quiet that Martyr could still hear the city noises outside which seemed to have also gotten quieter.
"This means she is the only person from earth to touch Borealis soil." The voice of an old man echoed throughout the arena.
Martyr frantically looked around the arena to see where this was happening.
"There on the screen!" Blair points to one of the colossal televisions on the walls of the colosseum way above the audience.
The television showed a balcony with a row of gold chairs each holding a very colorful and strong looking god-like person that could only be the champions of each element. Above them stood a white statue of the legendary rainbow serpent. This was without a doubt a statue of the goddess of light, Yurlunggur.
In the center of the thrones was a very regal looking woman in silver with a spiky crown of white gems that was without a doubt the light champion. In front of her was an old man also in white contrasted to his dark brown skin that could've been in his 80's. He was behind the microphone that was speaking to the speechless crowd. There was no sign of any girl that could be Vanagloria though.
"Why do I bring up this girl you might ask? It's because she, along with me, found out she was from earth only a few hours ago."
"She didn't have an element so she came to my hospital 'Dr. Dread's Healthcare' to get her element test so she could compete in this very competition."
"At first I didn't think that she would be able to because of her DNA only being half elemental but…"
"We discovered after a very small shot of light element that it still works with her perfectly fine."
"So I brought her here to finish giving Gloria her very own element test. Right here. Right now."
The crowd starts to mumble.
"Wow he is really trying to hype up the crowd as much as he can." Spectre said not very impressed.
"This is exactly what I thought he was gonna do." Blair said her voice muffled, covering her mouth with her hands. "At least the crowd doesn't seem opposed to it."
"I know not everybody is not going to be okay with this. But Gloria has lived on Borealis ever since she was a baby, so she is basically one of us."
"I think she deserves as much of a chance of success as any of the rest of us don't you think?"
Very few cheers and whistles came from the crowd, while the rest of the crowd stayed dead silent.
"I would like for all of you to meet her."
"I present to you the first person from earth to come to our islands, Vanagloria!"
The center of the colosseum starts to rise out of the ground, sand pouring off the edges onto the groups of people near it. It was just a slightly elevated part of the arena, probably just used to make the fights more interesting but as it starts to rise more and more it reveals an entire room underneath the arena.
After a minute of the room dramatically rising to the same level of the rest of the arena it finally stops making a screeching mechanical noise that echoes throughout the arena.
The sand pouring makes it hard to see anything inside the room but as it starts to slow down Martyr can start to make out two figures standing inside.
One of the figures is what seemed to be a biracial woman in her early 30's with long dyed light blue hair. She wearing very ice themed clothing. She was holding a big needle in one of her hands and a plastic chair in the other.
She looked unamused and almost bored. The onlooking crowd seemed to not affect her in the slightest.
Of course he recognized this woman.
She was one of the most famous people on
the islands. The most powerful woman walking the islands, one of the most important members of the legendary seven heroes, the record holder for the youngest a girl has ever gotten into the hall of fame.
This was the water champion, Kryphia.
The other figure, he had never seen before.
Martyr is looking at an athletic girl around his age with messy blonde hair and extremely bright blue eyes piercing steadfast through the sand falling before her. She's wearing a neon yellow shirt with the sleeves rolled up and deep blue jeans. She looked like she was at the top of the world, her body language and expression showed nothing but confidence and excitement. It was such a strong image, Martyr was wondering why Blair had worried about her at all.
He had never seen this girl before, yet he knew exactly who she was.
The group had a perfect view of the whole scene, they were still standing by the entrance which had a clear path to the middle. Most of the groups had moved towards the walls or clumped up in bigger groups.
Blair starts to wave over hoping to grab her attention.
As Vanagloria walked onto the field unfazed by the sand she walked through. She seemed to be looking through the crowd of people for them. Her eyes eventually caught the group of them and she waved back, laughing happily at Blair's excitement.
"She looks amazing right now." Blair said, her amethyst eyes couldn't seem to look anywhere else.
Kryphia came out of the room behind her. As soon as both her boots touched the sand the room started to come back down into the ground with a loud creak, not shocking her at all.
"Right before your very eyes the water champion Kryphia will give the first earth human her element test."
"Holy shit she's with Kryphia?!" Samsara said, completely shocked, walking forward to get a better view. "I've always wanted to meet her."
"Next to Vanagloria they both look like champs." Spectre says amazed as well.
The floor finally snaps back in place with another necessarily loud noise. Kryphia casually walks onto the floor and puts the plastic chair in the center of the entire arena facing the entrance where the group was standing.
Vanagloria sits down on the chair and rolls up her left sleeve even farther than before revealing a band-aid covering where a previous shot had been put a few hours before. Powerful element tests are usually done within two shots, one to get the body used to the element and a second to fully seep the element into your bloodstream. The shot Kryphia had looked way bigger than the one Martyr had and he couldn't make out exactly what was in the shot either. They were still too far away.
Vanagloria leaned forward putting her arms on her legs and stared down the other teams, like she was challenging them. When she eventually ended up locking eyes with Martyr she smirked at him. She was too far away to tell if she was staring at him but he couldn't help but feel intimidated by her glowing sapphire eyes digging into his soul.
Kryphia leaned down with the somehow less intimidating needle in her hands that was stuffed with elemental juice. It honestly didn't look like it was a very healthy dose to be putting into somebody but Vanagloria looked like she could take anything right now.
As the needle pierced Vanagloria's skin not only the crowd but the city went completely silent. It felt like the whole world was watching.
Then Martyr looked up at one of the TVs to see if he could get a better view and from a very zoomed in camera, he could finally see the color of the shot.
It was bright yellow.
"Um guys what does yellow mean?" He asked.
"The shot is yellow?" Blair said worried.
"Yeah, look up at the TV. I don't know any of the elements that are yellow." Martyr said as Kryphia started to push down on the shot, not even making Vanagloria flinch.
"It's probably a combination of two or maybe even more." Spectre says. "I mean if it's yellow, that sounds like it could be a combination of fire and light."
"Fire and light." Blair said making eye contact with Martyr.
"No shot shes has the element I think has getting..." Martyr said.
As Kryphia takes the shot out of Vanagloria's arm, completely drained of any yellow liquid. Sluggishly, she puts a band aid on the small hole in her skin.
The arena, still being completely silent, watches as the liquid travels through the veins on her arm.
Vanagloria for the first time reacts to the shot by putting the other arm onto the arm of her chair propping herself up. It looks like she's using effort to prop herself up as well, the shot clearly affected her.
The arena starts to shake.
Vanagloria almost falls over, still holding onto the plastic chair. The water champion backs up with a look of shock as she watches Vanagloria's right eye burst full of electricity.
The crowd gasps as they watch the extreme power Vanagloria was given show itself.
The sky darkens.
A strong breeze starts to blow throughout the arena.
Little electric sparks start to show themselves on Vanagloria's skin as she stands up with her back straight and the same confidence as before as she was in control of what was happening.
Her hair starts to glow and stand up at the surge of electricity going through it.
The colosseum lights start to flicker.
Dark clouds crowd around the opening in the roof of the colosseum.
The whole arena feels like it's about to cave in on itself, with Vanagloria being the very center of it.
She starts to raise her arm directly towards the eye of her storm…
...as a downfall of lightning comes crashing down through the roof of the colosseum, striking Vanagloria.
…
.....
"So it is her." He said to himself, staring down from his perch atop the colosseum walls, unfazed by the raging storm right above him.
"I'll have to keep my eye on that paradox."