Manifest War: The Weapons Within

Morning came as yellow light crept into the cave, signaling the purple sky’s shift to gold. They had just finished eating breakfast and were packing up their things.

“I wonder how many teams are left.” Carmen asked while sliding her boots on, making sure the laces were perfectly tied.

“I’m not sure, but I’d bet anything that the ones left have a ton of tokens for the taking!” Mariah replied loudly, amping herself up for the potential fights coming soon. Elise picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder, but as she did so, the token pouch fell out of it. She looked over and noticed that her bag had a pretty sizable hole on its side.

“Where did that come from?” Carmen asked as she picked up the token pouch.

“Probably during our last fight. So annoying…”

Elise sighed as she shifted the contents of her bag around, trying to cover the hole as best she could.

“Don’t worry, I’ll just put it in my bag.” Carmen quickly placed the pouch inside of the front pocket of her shoulder bag and the trio began to leave the cave.

As they walked deeper into the forest, the group noticed a commotion happening in a nearby clearing. Trees rustled and fighting could be heard among two groups deep in combat. Carmen, Elise, and Mariah hid in the bushes, silently watching as one team completely rolled over the other. It wasn’t even a challenge for them, dispatching the opposing team with brute force. Elise noticed the crest on their uniforms, seeing the outline of a Harpy.

“How are those Harpy students so strong?” She asked, looking a bit confused by their increase in power.

“Not sure, but they made that fight look easy. Let’s handle this carefully.” Mariah cautiously replied, thinking of a way to approach this team. Carmen took a closer look at the students in the group and noticed a familiar face.

“Olivia!?”

Carmen quickly stood up and blew their cover completely.

“What are you doing!?” Mariah loudly whispered, annoyed that Carmen just ruined their element of surprise. Olivia glanced over at Carmen with an intense face, no longer looking like the usual cheerful and innocent girl she knew.

“How’ve you been?” Carmen asked with a smile, completely ignoring Mariah's pleas.

However, to her surprise, Olivia aimed her hand in their direction and fired out a sharp blast of wind. Elise pushed Carmen out of the way just in time as the blast completely destroyed the trees behind them. Carmen's group got to their feet and looked over at the rubble caused by Olivia’s terrifyingly powerful attack.

“What the hell? Why’s a Harpy class student causing that much damage? I thought they were novices.” Mariah said, surprised by the mass of destruction that just occurred. The trio took out their Manifests and prepared for combat. Carmen swiftly set down her shoulder bag as Mariah gave out some instructions, taking the lead in this situation.

“Elise, I want you to take on the big guy to the left. Keep him preoccupied and at a distance. Carmen, you hang back and play defense. You’re the only one in our group with long range attacks. Support us from the back while watching our stuff. I’ll take on these other two and wear them down with my flames. Got it?” Mariah directed with great confidence. Everyone nodded and the fight quickly began.

Elise dashed over to her opponent and slashed at him with her electrified daggers, forcing him backwards and away from the group. He dipped and dodged her attacks, but she didn’t care since her objective was to isolate him without his knowledge. She found a brief opening and kicked the boy backwards.

He stumbled a bit before punching his fists together. Large silver gauntlets appeared on his hands and he smacked the ground with great force. The terrain beneath Elise broke apart as steel beams flew out towards her. She did multiple flips and evaded every attack sent her way, her speed still as impressive as ever.

As she eluded his assault, Elise noticed that he remained stationary with his fists still pressed against the ground. She quickly spun away from the final beam racing towards her and gracefully landed on top of it, having a great idea in mind.

She simply placed her hand on the beam and forced her Core Energy into it. Within seconds, a massive green bolt of lightning struck her from the sky, letting out a thunderous boom as it made impact. The electrified force traveled through the beam and zapped the boy in an instant.

The boy yelled out in pain as thousands of volts coursed through his body, but he eventually composed himself and glared at Elise menacingly. He broke free from the voltage assault and exerted his Core Energy outward, releasing impressively large amounts of power as though influenced by some outside force.

'What is with this guy? He should’ve gone unconscious from that amount of voltage.'

Elise created space between while she tried to why a Harpy student could have so much resilience. Moments later, he lunged towards her and wildly punched the air. Elise dodged the punches just as swiftly as before, but a rogue punch came and struck her.

She went careening back into a tree, breaking it as she collided with it. Elise slowly got to her feet, holding her daggers up and housing an irritated expression.

During Elise’s fierce battle, Mariah was going toe to toe with both Olivia and the other Harpy student. Carmen stood back in the distance, firing off void energy from Graviton’s Eclipse to provide ranged support. Mariah quickly hopped between both opponents and used her Manifest beautifully to keep space between them.

Olivia shot off a burst of wind towards Mariah and just as she blocked the attack with her flaming spear, the other Harpy student tried to assault her from the side. He raised his Manifest, a hatchet-like weapon with a squared tip, above his head and swung it downwards in her direction. In the knick of time, Carmen intercepted the attack with a flurry of void bolts and swift gravity manipulation.

As the fight continued, the temperature in the surrounding area increased greatly. The air became hot and stagnant, as though they were sitting inside of a smoldering furnace. Everyone except for Mariah was sweating profusely, suffering during this stalemate. Neither team was able to impose their will onto the other, causing the Harpy group to rethink their plan.

“Ugh, our time limit is almost up. We need to finish this.” Olivia muttered to her teammate, looking slightly concerned.

Once he acknowledged her with a nod, she raised her hands to the sky and expelled a large amount of Core Energy. The wind began to grow incredibly unstable and fierce, blowing in every direction as though a terrifying tempest had just arrived.

Moments later, a large tornado formed around Olivia and quickly grew in size. It eventually engulfed Mariah as well, trapping her inside with the Harpy students.

“Mariah!!” Carmen yelled out with great worry.

She stepped forward and squinted through the heavy winds, barely making out what was going on inside of the tornado. As Carmen struggled to maintain her footing, she could see Olivia and her teammate rapidly attacking Mariah. Their flurry of slashes were much stronger than before, as though they had been granted a new source of power.

Mariah could barely keep up with their quickened pace and she couldn’t produce her flames anymore. The fierce winds were creating some kind of vacuum inside of the tornado, easily snuffing out her fire. She would swing her spear in retaliation, but her opponents would fade into the wind as though she were fighting afterimages of some sort.

‘What the hell is this ability? It’s like I’m fighting people that don’t exist. There’s no way these guys should be in Harpy class!’

Mariah leapt backwards and assumed a defensive stance, trying her best to endure the rest of their attack. Her body began to glow a deep orange as she held her Manifest close, heating herself up with each passing second.

While the Harpy students continued their windy assault, Mariah noticed that their attacks were becoming more sporadic and rushed. No longer were they calculated and precise, but instead they were all over the place and missing their mark.

‘Hmph, seems like you guys can’t keep this up forever. Just a little bit longer and I’ll strike.’

Mariah continued to charge her body, biding her time for the perfect moment to retaliate. However, seeing that Mariah was on the ropes, Carmen quickly jumped into the fray.

Carmen had left her defensive position and dashed into the tornado, sending a barrage of rapier stabs towards their opponents. Olivia and her teammate backed off, but something seemed strange about their retreat.

“What are you doing!? Go back outside!!” Mariah yelled, wondering why Carmen was here instead of protecting their stuff.

“No, I’m here to help! Let’s get these guys!”

Carmen was determined to show her worth in this battle, even if it meant taking matters into her own hands. Unfortunately, to their surprise, the tornado wall grew stronger and thicker. As they looked up, they noticed that the other Harpy student was missing. Carmen dashed forward and thrust her Manifest outward, unleashing a powerful burst of gravitational energy.

However, Olivia dodged the attack effortlessly and she began to fade away within the tornado. Carmen stopped her approach and looked around confused, wondering where Olivia had disappeared to. Moments later, Olivia reappeared next to Carmen and shot a powerful blast of wind at her. The direct hit sent Carmen flying into Mariah and the two careened out of the tornado, crashing into a few boulders in the process.

The tornado quickly subsided and the two Harpy students were nowhere to be seen. All of their belongings, including Carmen’s bag with the token pouch, were missing as well. Elise was still fighting the other student when he suddenly retreated, blocking her approach with a wall of steel as he fled towards the nearby treeline.

‘Why did he leave?’

She put away her Manifest with a perplexed expression. Elise rushed over to Carmen and Mariah, wondering how their fight went. Once she arrived, Mariah pushed Carmen off of her and she quickly got to her feet in an irritated panic. She went to the spot that had their bags, frantically looking around to find them.

“Damn it!! They took our tokens!” She exclaimed with loud, justified anger. Carmen stood and slowly walked over. Mariah, in a rage turned towards Carmen and pushed her, going off in the process.

“What were you thinking!? I told you to stay and play defense!! We literally just lost all of our tokens and failed this midterm because of you!! Gah, Is it seriously that hard to follow simple instructions and trust your teammates?!?” She yelled with an intense scowl, feeling incredibly pissed that Carmen failed to do her job.

“But you looked like you needed help, so I just-.”

“I didn’t need help! Their attacks were filled with desperation. It was obvious that they were rushing and trying to do one last attack before fleeing. The fight was pretty much over until you came and left all our stuff unguarded!”

Mariah stomped her foot into the ground in a rage, letting Carmen have every piece of her mind.

“Now that’s it, we’ll be getting teleported soon… UGHHH!” Mariah added with a dramatic palming of her forehead, unable to find the words to express her feelings. She wanted to hit the top ten so bad and now that opportunity had seemingly been lost thanks to this situation.

“Calm down will you. It’s not over yet.” Elise said, reaching into her pocket and taking out three tokens.

“I put these in my pocket just in case something like this happened. C’mon, I can still sense them so they can’t be too far away. If we hurry we can catch them.” She added, looking off into the direction the Harpy team fled in. Mariah breathed a sigh of relief and calmed herself, regaining a small amount of her composure.

“Well, let’s go!”

As Mariah walked passed Carmen, she gave her one last irritated glare before bumping her shoulder into her. Even though the situation had improved, she was still incredibly upset with Carmen’s mishap.

Carmen had no reaction other than letting out a soft sigh as she looked down at the ground, knowing that she messed up big this time. Her screw up affected not only her, but also her teammates and this fact rapidly ate away at Carmen’s mind. She quietly followed them, hanging back in the rear while continuing to look down at her feet in silence.