They beat Samuel and his enslaved forces. Of Claude's entry team of twenty-five, he now had an additional ten. Most of which were his own fifth-wavers, with a few battered second , third-wavers and the poisoned sixth-wavers.
He won the battle.
His anxieties were no better.
A new war waged.
One that ruffled the already shaken foundations of his mind. He couldn't stop thinking of Tai's face as the goblin's hauled him away. How he'd changed in those moments. How Finn looked at the mention of him. What it meant for Ursula.
They moved at a jog— immediately after checking Finn's map.
The islands spread across the holographic imagery. Each one claimed by a student marked by their number on the leaderboard.
After the battle, Tai fell out of rank. But Claude knew Vantage-Island. He knew the topographical shape of it like he knew the scars on the back of his hands.
They headed north.
"Finn, what are you even doing here? You should be with Tai too." Claude said as he jogged beside him.
"I was. I had the guild-maker band and everything— but Tai is a merchant I think." Finn explained.
"What?"
"He had all of the animals for a reason. Same reason he was hogging weapons and students, the little rat-burger! He sells and trades with other island-lords. Mostly Samuel. Brothers in business woohoo!…... He scams everyone else. When they come to trade, he brings his strongest to beat them and take their points. Then they let Tai beat them. So he can take the points."
"Pyramid scheme of hell." Isaac commented as he jogged behind them with two poisoned sixth-wavers on his shoulder.
"He's probably promised them a good word to higher ups in the Onslaught Guild. It's what I would do." Darius explained.
Everyone spared a glance at him as they ran in a large group.
Darius didn't seem to care, "It's strategy and leverage balance. Then again, he wouldn't need to offer anything. People get desperate out here."
"Dont say that right now." Claude said firmly.
"I'm sure Ursula's fine." Reagan huffed. As a tank his stamina was waning, even in just his university uniform. He had a lot of bulk to move. But Claude couldn't afford to slow. Reagan continued anyway, "Tai's a prick. But like Finn said, he's been doing business here."
"Yea crooked ass business." Marion hopped through the crowd, skipping faster than most could sprint to catch up to Claude.
"When was the last time you saw him?" Claude asked Reagan.
"Uhhh….. I haven't. I've been with Samuel."
He shivered. The memories of Tai's face and mannerisms hit him with every footfall he made towards Vantage-Island.
It didn't take long for them to reach it. Claude pushed them— they pushed themselves to keep pace with him. His status as highest scoring member never looked so apparent then when they all came to a stop huffing and puffing as they clung to the cliffside walls of the island. Breaths heavy. Some students threw up in the low tide waters.
Claude had already begun climbing. Naz was right beside him. Isaac, Marion and Warren were close behind.
They were probably saying things to him, but he couldn't hear it over the screams. He couldn't hear anything else. Not even his directory whistles that sent the island-dogs around the island to charge head on as a distraction.
When he reached the top, the sight didn't surprise him.
He entered the island gauntlet full of hope— full of ideas. Then he was told the reality of things. Then he saw it. He saw both sides.
He saw people attack their allies like they were monsters over petty politics and possible future handouts.
On the other hand he saw heroes. Not on Vantage-Island.
There were nothing but bystanders.
They meandered awkwardly as someone raged in the shack— waking and riling up the animals sharing the space. Bits of snow and ice crusted the doorframe, cracking as it shook and rattled.
No one dared to look. But they couldn't do much else either.
Then Claude came sprinting out of the forest treeline lining the edges of the island. At the same time, Riptide, Rivera and Rover came sprinting up the hill, howling like the dead awakened.
Before the students armed with bows and rifles could even get into shooting stance, Isaac and Darius executed another flash-fire blast.
Far less powerful but just as blinding.
Claude ran without vision for a matter of seconds. Looking with his nose and ears. Hearing the horde of students at his back spill out onto the island, taking down the students swiftly despite their exhaustion. It's like Finn said. Tai was a business man. He acquired assets and scammed and guarded his loot. He wasn't building up his warriors and heroes. He made them full time security guards. Their muscles atrophied. Senses dulled.
Claude's only bloomed as he caught the scent of honey, iron and flowers.
Like a rabid wolf he charged, busting through the solid wood door of the shack. Due to the absolute cold brewing inside it was frozen solid, causing Claude to bust in with a clatter of icy wood shards.
As they slid across the floor, the caged animals raged.
He still couldn't hear anything. But this time it was because natures song was reaching its apex in volume. A green crescendo symbolizing his use of the element.
Tai spun around. The beginnings of embarassment clear on his face. Embarassment? How could he show such an emotion as if he wasn't standing over Claude's closest friend wrapped in so many guild-maker bands she looked like a musclebound mummy. So wild, Stella was hunched up at the back corner so she didn't catch a foot to the face. He treated them like…..
Claude charged Tai.
At the same time, the braided vines at his back slithered into the dark room, ripping through the cages and breaking the beasts of the wild free.
Tai brought up his aura defensively. Claude took that as a que to hit harder.
He slammed a frontkick into Tai's chest, hitting him so hard he flew out of the window behind. The same window Claude almost got crushed at by the bugbear.
Tai hit the ground and rolled in the grass outside like a tumbleweed. Before he could get up, the grass expanded and latched onto him with a hundred green fingers.
He was already working to free Ursula.
Stella handled herself, whistling to a jungle-cat to come assist her. Warily, the creature padded past Claude and began tearing at her bands with quiet growls.
"He's so stupid." Stella huffed.
"I'm….. sorry…. I didn't come earlier." Claude strained to speak as he tried to work around Ursula.
She was near convulsing. Skin red as beet juice. Veins alive and squirming. Eyes white and inhuman. Foam spilled from her mouth as she roared.
"Is she….."
"Class side effect. Happened every night. And every time she almost broke out, Tai put more bands on her. She could've died... because of that bastards ego." Stella explained as her new feline friend tore apart her binds. As soon as they fell, she shifted. Thin golden fur with black spots spread across her arms and shoulders. Her eyes took on a slitted shape and golden glow. Lightning danced on her curled claws.
Claude was so focused on freeing Ursula and recognizing Stella from the Astral Realm that he didn't even consider what she'd do once free.
Then he got the last few binds off.
She exploded from the grounds and ran through the wall, completely ignoring that she could've jumped through the window and been quicker.
Tai screamed for mercy— barely lasting a second before Ursula snatched him up by the leg and literally ripped him out of the earth.
She looked so large in her torn and sweat slicked uniform. Spirals of steam spun off her shoulders. Sweat dripped from her fingers and fell as snowflakes.
A monster in human form.
She slammed Tai around like he was a sock puppet. Every hit would've been enough to take Claude out of the fight completely. But Tai healed himself.
He could've sworn he saw Ursula smiling as a result. Like deep down, she was thanking him for allowing the beating to be savored a while longer.
And a while longer it went.
"Alright- Ursula!" Claude yelled to her as the students crowded to watch the event.
She didn't hear him and slammed Tai onto his back before lifting him back up by his leg. She gripped him so hard his ankle was twisted.
Ready to go again.
"URSULA!"
Darius and Brink focused the winds around his words, giving him a super shout that breached her enraged mania.
"WHAT?!" Ursula spun around, breaths heavy and eyes wild. But if Claude focused, he could see her golden brown irises rising to the surface.
"You got him, sister." Marion explained from behind him. "He's toast, alright?"
"This isn't what we do. I know you don't think it, but we're heroes…. Remember?" Claude said. "I found them. I found good people. They came here to help me get you."
He slowly took a few steps closer to her.
Ursula's breathing calmed. She dropped Tai in all his bruised and bleeding glory.
"You remember, right? Heroes."
"Out of spite." Ursula huffed.
Claude smiled, "Yea. I think you've done enough of that."
Ursula stumbled. He only just realized how much weight she lost in the near two weeks he'd been away from her.
Suddenly he wanted to pick Tai up himself.
"He's different." Ursula said.
"How?"
Ursula shook her head like she didn't fully understand it herself, "I don't….. he's desperate. Rash. I thought it would've made him panic and screw up when I raged but he just put more bands on me. I was so hexxed I almost lost my System."
Claude cringed, "That can happen?"
"You're only allowed to put one band on a person. If they're strong enough to break out, then that's that."
"So where are the Professors? He's a cheater…." Claude mumbled.
"Do I have to answer that?" Ursula said knowingly.
"Nope." Claude replied.
"Another question!"
Claude turned to face Finn. He stood with Brink, Darius, Carmen and Isaac at the front of the crowd. "What?"
"Where is Tai?"
Everyone spun around to find a space in the floor where Tai once laid unconscious.
Claude ran to the edge of the island with everyone else and found him on the shores, being dragged to the ocean by nothing….?
Then Claude focused his senses and found footprints pressing into the sand.
"Burp." Claude grunted.
"What a garbage nickname!"
"Sure, Brink." Darius replied.
"He's such a weasel." Juli said.
"I remember now…." Ursula said from beside Claude as they watched the invisible student drag Tai into the waters where golems would convienetly assist them.
"What?"
"I know who he is. He's been at my house." Ursula said in a hoarse voice.
"He has?"
"I'm sorry for your loss." Reagan commented.
"His name is Nathanial Newt. Or at least it used to be….. he was noble— his whole family was. They were close with Ronin— his dad was about to join The Nine before Ronin's detectives found out Nathanial's dad, Nolan, was a servant of the dragon."
"What, like kobolds?" Claude asked.
Ursula nodded, "He wanted their power. So they stripped everyone of the Newt name and took all their royalties. Nolan was executed. Nathanial and his mother went into poverty."
"And that's why he's so eager to please Samuel and Tai."
Ursula nodded, "He's trying to restore his name."
"Not much to restore if they all get last place." Isaac commented.
"HAHAA!" Brink caused the crowd to split at his outburst and flaming Mohawk, "WE'RE GONNA WIN!"
Naz smiled, "Careful, Brink. We still have a few weeks left, and there is only three winners. Anything can happen….."
Claude didn't appreciate her words. It did nothing for bolstering unity among the new and old members. He would've smelled the rising tensions if the most pungent wave of petrichor didn't rip its way into his nostrils.
Shadows washed over everyone like waves in high tide, drowning them in humid windy darkness.
The students looked to the skies, where clouds spun and lightning crackled in bright white fissures through the fog.
Hurricanes howled in the distance— a familiar sound to the early wavers. It came almost every night— when the ocean awakened.
The only problem was, the sun was still out.
"Professor Brennan said we had until night time…." Warren yelled over the increasingly loud winds.
Glowing ice crusted fins of glacial-sharks cut the waves in the distance as they stirred anxiously.
"We usually do." Claude replied as he and everyone else backed away from the cliff edge.
"Then what is this?"
"A reaction." Everyone looked back to Darius in the middle of the crowd with Carmen. "All the elemental warfare between students. It's messed with the already delicate and volatile weather patterns here. All the cold and heat was given more in higher doses today….. in less than an hour. We triggered the storm."
Claude stuffed whatever encroaching guilt he might've had somewhere deep and inaccessible in his mind as he looked around.
"Ok, everyone in the shack." Isaac said.
"The one with the broken wall full of dog-shit? Id rather burn!" Brink protested.
"You've slept in worse." Darius jabbed.
"It won't work." Claude said.
"I can fix it!" Finn smiled, squinting through his one non-swollen eye from the winds and rainfall.
"We can't afford waiting this out. Everyone's low on Mana, stamina and we have to heal the poisoned students. They need nutrients and medication. Something we can't grow in a hailstorm full of hurricanes." Claude yelled over the now screaming winds.
"So what's your idea then? We don't have our boars, we can't run back to End's-Island." Isaac replied.
Claude cringed— he could feel their reactions to what he was about to say before he even said it. But at the same time— almost psychotically, an inkling of excitement rose within him. If only at the prospect of diving into the otherworldly phenomena for the first time. Even with the current roadblock.
"Let's make a boat. We're entering the Tangents."