

Clash, the greatest tournament

By: Shawn Stack

Published by Shawn Stack at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Shawn Stack

ISBN: 978-1-4581-1897-4

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Max meets Sandalphon!

Chapter 2 - Sandalphon's first battle!

Chapter 3 - Max's first tournament battle against the top ranked opponent!

Chapter 4 - Before the tournament started!

Chapter 5 - Introduction to the tournament!

Chapter 6 - Start of the tournament!

Chapter 7 - Conclusion to the first tournament fight!

Chapter 8 - The champions notice Max!

Chapter 9 - Big man on campus!

Chapter 10 - The Clash club!

Chapter 11 - Fight between the two avatars with the most muscle!

Chapter 12 - Lizzy: the strongest middle school Clash player!

Chapter 13 - The surprising conversation!

Chapter 14 - Field trip to the power station!

Chapter 15 - Battle for title of the strongest middle school Clash player!

Chapter 16 - From foe to friend!

Chapter 17 - Max and Lizzy: more then just friends?

Chapter 18 - Max takes on the first champion of Collis!

Chapter 19 - Gervasee's revenge!

Chapter 20 - Lunch with girlfriend and Davis maybe coming home!

Chapter 21 - Secret of the Clash arm bands!

Chapter 22 - Max fights to make it to the finals!

Chapter 23 - Degoth shows his power!

Chapter 24 - Being popular is nice!

Chapter 25 - Worse than a Clash fight, Max's first big date!

Chapter 26 - Showdown before the showdown!

Chapter 27 - Final training!

Chapter 28 - Pre-game confrontment!

Chapter 29 - Fight for the Champion title!

Chapter 30 - Trophy time!

Chapter 31 - To be continued!

Dedicated to my family, the Stacks.

Chapter 1

Max meets Sandalphon!

Max entered the Clash Center, feeling excited. He saw a friend of his from school at a game station, and went over to talk to him. Max's parents entered Clash Center store behind him. They went to the reception desk to get Max's new Clash arm band.

The Clash arm bands are used for the holographic fighting game known as Clash. The game is played by two people battling with 3D holographic avatars. The two players control the avatars using the arm bands. Controlling an avatar takes some mental concentration, but is a moderately simple thing to do. Players can make their avatars do anything they want them to do, as long as the avatars are able to do it.

"Hey Jonathan, what's up?" Max said. Jonathan was watching a Clash duel between two players at a holographic game station. The fight was between an elemental fire-man and a mutant monkey cyborg.

Hearing someone familiar calling him Jonathan turned and was surprised to see his friend Max. "Oh, hey Max. Here to watch some Clash matches?" Jonathan said.

"No, today I'm here to pick up my Clash armband; my brother Davis bought me one for my birthday. Today I should be seeing what my avatar is!"

"Awesome, you have finally gotten one. You must be the last person in our class to get a Clash band. You should play me first I've haven't won a match in forever and would love to pick on a nub like you."

"Yeah, I'll do that."

"Max come here, they need to scan you," Max's dad called.

"Be back in a bit Jonathan."

"Alright, I'll be right here," Jonathan said, as Max went to join his family.

Max walked over to the reception desk where his parents were. The clerk at the reception desk, opened a box and pulled out a brand new Clash band. The clerk said, "okay, sir, if you will put on this band, stand in our scanner over here, then we can see what your avatar is and save it to your band."

Max slipped on the band, it stretched over his hand and fit snugly onto his wrist. There were 4 holographic-emitters spaced evenly around band that would be used to project the avatar's hologram with. The bands were set up so that unless you completely covered them, your avatar should always have sight with the holographic-emitters and have a clear unbroken image.

Max stepped over into the scanning machine. The scanner reminded him of the metal detectors in airports. The thing slowly hummed on and Max could hear the machine moving the scanners around him.

Avatars are created based off each person's bio-signature that the scanner reads. A person's bio-signature never changes and so a person's avatar never changes.

"In just a second your avatar should be materializing in a hologram right in front of you," the clerk said. The avatar began to take form before Max. "It says here your avatar's name is Sandalphon".

Sandalphon's hologram solidified and he appeared as an angel dressed in golden steel plate armor with white angelic wings. He was holding two golden maces. A holographic data screen popped up that explained the maces were called Medens and Caliber. Max thought it was the coolest avatar he had ever seen.

"Alright the scan here is done. Your avatar is of the celestial type. Using the band you should be able to make your avatar appear anywhere you want up to forty meters from the armband. Also, if you link your band to a holographic-station you can use it to project your avatar onto specialized fields. If you lose your band all you have to do is buy a new one, get re-scanned and the same avatar will be loaded. That band will only work for you so you can not share it with your friends." The clerk said.

"Thanks." Max said to the clerk. "Hey mom and dad, I'm going to go play Jonathan in a match." Max said.

"Alright Max, let's see how you do" Max's mom said.

Chapter 2

Sandalphon's first battle!

Max and his parents walked over to where Jonathan was. They met up, then went over to one of the holographic gaming stations. The stations in the Clash Center were free to use for all Clash players. Max and Jonathan sat on either side of the station. Their bands sent out a signal that linked up to the station and then they materialized their avatars onto the station's arena battle field.

"Get ready to Clash, Telatron!" Jonathan said, as his avatar's hologram solidified first. Telatron was a blocky shaped robot warrior. His center body was a made of a solid cubic metal frame. Extending from either side were his robotic arms, each ended in two big clamps. He had two large treads instead of legs, to move he would roll around on them. He had a laser bazooka weapon mounted on his shoulder. For a head it had a rectangular metal box with two giant red glass eyes. Telatron's mouth was just a little speaker box.

"Eh, Get ready to Clash, Sandalphon!" Max said, as his avatar took form on the arena battle floor. Max stared at his avatar with surprise "Wait, something is wrong, that isn't Sandalphon." What stood on his side of the arena looked like Sandalphon, but did not have the golden plate armor, either of the two maces, or white angelic wings. Sandalphon wore a pair of sandals, bronze arm bands and a white fighting tunic belted on with a yellow sash.

"Aw, dude," Jonathan said. "You got a celestial type. Those are the rarest ones. They are also the weakest fighters. Your guy doesn't even have any weapons."

"Well, he had weapons a minute ago and armor and white glowing wings."

"My cousin has a celestial type and she is a terrible fighter, she said that celestials can make their weapons appear if they want them. Maybe it will come out during the fight. Let's get started." Jonathan pushed a button on his band to start the battle.

"Wait," Max said, stalling.

The station announced the start of the fight with a count down,"five, four, three, two, one. Clash!"

Max tried to make Sandalphon move around the arena, Sandalphon took one step and fell to the floor, the avatar was unable to keep its balance.

Telatron rolled over, closed his clamps around Sandalphon, picked him up, and then tossed him back to the floor.

Jonathan started laughing.

"Come on," Max said. "Give me a break here. I'm still trying to figure out how to get him to move, I don't need you beating me down." Max Struggled to get Sandalphon to stand up once again. "This is frustrating, I focus on keeping his legs under him and his whole body goes limp and he topples over."

"You can't just focus on one part," Jonathan said. "You have to move him like it was your own body. The best way to do it, is to imagine what you want him to do and he should do it."

Instead of focusing on the legs, Max just imagined Sandalphon's whole body standing errect, and to his amazement, Sandalphon stood up the exact way he imagined. "Oh, okay, I think I am getting it. Hey, what are you doing?" Max said, as Telatron pushed over Sandalphon again.

"Ha-ha, sorry, couldn't help myself. Stand up again and try to catch Telatron." Telatron drove away from Sandalphon, waiting for him to chase.

Max had Sandalphon standing again and tried to make him walk. Max never realized how little thought he put into walking when he did it himself. It was like being a baby all over again. The steps Sandalphon took looked like he was carrying a tremendous weight; every step was over exaggerated and looked unnatural. Telatron drove up close and started making circles around Sandalphon.

"Jonathan you aren't very funny," Max said, taking his gaze off the arena floor to look his friend in the eyes.

"I told you," Jonathan said. "You are thinking too much about the little things." Jonathan looked back at Max. "You need to stand up and walk around for a second and then visualize Sandalphon walking like that. Don't make Sandalphon take one step at a time. Try to ignore the little details for now."

Max stood up and walked around the game station once. He imagined Sandalphon doing a similar thing. Sandalphon walked perfectly. Max held up his right hand and Sandalphon did as well. Jonathan was laughing pretty hard.

"All the nubs do that when they first learn," Jonathan said, while Max and Sandalphon continued to mimic one another.

Max sat back down and tried making Sandalphon move while he remained still.

"What is a nub?" Max's mom asked.

"It means noob, it is short for newbie," Max said, with his brows scrunched in concentration and frustration. He stopped Sandalphon. Then took a deep breath and thought back when he had ran the hardest, fastest he had ever run before. He remembered pumping his arms and springing forward with every step of his legs. He channeled that thought to Sandalphon; the avatar started sprinting towards Telatron.

"Whoa, you mad? Oh no," Jonathan said, as Sandalphon crashed into Telatron. Sandalphon was much larger and easily knocked the smaller Telatron over.

"Yes, I got you," Max said. Sandalphon grabbed Telatron by the arm and lifted the robot over his head. Sandalphon spun around while holding him, then slammed Telatron onto the floor of the holographic arena with a metal bending, crunching blow. Telatron's head was smashed from the attack. Sandalphon put one foot onto the prone body of Telatron looking like a conquering hero. Cracks started to form all around Telatron's hologram, and finally it broke apart, turning into glowing holographic shards. Max was looking pleased with the turn of events.

"What? I lost to a celestial type? Oh man, Sandalphon is really strong. One hit and you flattened Telatron." Jonathan paused for a second thinking. "You got to enter into the Collis tournament." Jonathan's face was dead serious.

"You think I'm that good?" Max said. He turned off Sandalphon's image inside the arena. He used his band to create one on the Clash Center's floor, that he could make walk around.

"The tournament starts this weekend right?" Max's dad asked.

"Yeah," Jonathan said. "I entered the last one and got stomped. They do tests and rank you on how good you are. I was really low ranked and had to fight a high rank. They make all the low ranks fight the high ranks in the beginning rounds. The guy I fought went all the way to the semifinals. They do it this way so the final battles are usually between the highest ranks; the guys with the strongest avatars."

"Davis was telling me about that," Max said. "He says the rankings are a sham and it is just to way to let the returning champions make it to the final battles of the tournament. It is a way to boost ratings for the TV programs that cover Clash. It is not so bad in the local tournaments, but at the state and national tournaments they set up a lot of the fights in the champion's favor."

"You should join the tournament anyway. As long as you don't score in the bottom of the rankings you might win your first match. Just sign up!" Jonathan pleaded.

"Where does he sign up?" Max's dad asked.

"You can do it online or here in the store, the front desk should have all the information. They hold the battles every Saturday at the Collis stadium. You will also need your war cry; no one uses the standard 'Get ready to Clash.' in the tournaments. Coming up with your own war cry is like the best part. Mine was 'Telatron, reporting for duty.' in last year's tournament."

Max was getting excited again. He had finally gotten his avatar and it is a really strong and cool one. Strong enough to win a tournament match... maybe. Sandalphon stumbled across the floor. He was going to need more practice controlling Sandalphon though. He was also going to have to find a way to bring out Sandalphon's armor and weapons during a fight. Most of the people in the tournament had been playing for years. He was way under-experienced by comparison.

Chapter 3

Max's first tournament battle against the number one top ranked opponent!

"Appearing first is the number one ranked contender, Jason, with his avatar, Gervasee" the announcer said to the crowd.

Jason screamed his war cry, "Night has fallen! Become unleashed Gervasee!"

Jason turned on his band and his avatar that appeared was a black furred beast, Gervasee, a werewolf hailing from the necro type. He had venomous claws on his fingertips and pearly white fangs that could be seen through the ever present snarl on his face. The werewolf wore a tattered, brown, leather tunic and pants, over its black oily fur. Around his ankles were broken manacles giving the impression as if it had escaped imprisonment. Gervasee's muscles could be seen in spasms every once and a while as he stood there on the arena floor waiting for the fight to start.

It was Max's turn. "Iew," Max's voiced cracked. He saw Jason let out a chuckle and some of the crowd laughed. Max did not care what they thought; he was going to show them that being last ranked meant nothing. So what if he had the lowest chances of winning. He was going to prove his avatar is strong enough. He cleared his throat, activated his band and in the loudest voice he could muster, "I GOT THE WILL, YOU GOT THE POWER SANDALPHON!" His avatar materialized on the arena floor.

Something was different about Sandalphon, but Max could not figure out what it was. The announcer was starting the countdown.

"Five, four, three, two, one. LET THE CLASH BEGIN!" The announcer yelled.

Gervasee sprinted at Sandalphon, its claws leading the charge. Sandalphon widened his stance and as soon as Gervasee came into range let fly a huge right punch; that came no where near Gervasee. The werewolf ducked under the wide stroke and hooked its right arm around Sandalphon's shoulder. Sandalphon's right arm was then locked in a hold by Gervasee. Using its left Gervasee stabbed Sandalphon in the back through the white tunic with its claws, letting its venom enter into Sandalphon.

Sandalphon was much larger than Gervasee and so Max tried to have Sandalphon whip Gervasee off and get out of the hold. Gervasee was too strong and agile, managing to hold on. Until without reason Gervasee let go voluntarily and backed away from Sandalphon.

"In less than a minute that poison should sap all the power out of Sandalphon. Unless you can catch and defeat Gervasee within that time, you won't win this match," Jason said, taunting from the other side of the arena. "My Gervasee is much faster than your Sandalphon, so that won't be happening anytime soon." Jason was smiling.

Max would not believe it. He forced Sandalphon to move towards Gervasee, but Sandalphon stumbled and fell to the floor.

"Oh, wow, the poison is working faster than ever; I guess this match will be over after just a few seconds rather than in a minute." Jason said teasing Max.

Chapter 4

Before the tournament started!

Max,'s parents dropped him off at the Collis Stadium. He knew his way around having had been there a before. When he entered the stadium he saw people were having avatar battles all around, while they waited for the tournament to start. One of the biggest reasons Clash was so popular was it could be played anywhere, using the Clash armband's built in hologram projectors.

The Collis tournament was named after the town Max was from. Collis was a small town, on an island, just off the North American coast, in the Atlantic Ocean. Like most mainstream fads, it had taken time for Clash to make its way into the culture of the island. A Clash stadium had been built a few years back and was when the Collis tournament had been started. The stadium offered people a chance to see the avatars full-human-sized, for premium viewing. The stadium housed some of the best holographic projectors available. The tournament was one of the many local level Clash tournaments located across the country. The winners of the local tournaments would go on to fight in the state tournaments, and the winners of the state tournaments would go on to the final national tournament.

The national tournament finals were some of the most viewed events in the country. Although the Clash game was played mostly by younger people, the tournament finals were popular among everyone. They rivaled most major sports in their popularity.

Max saw the signs that were posted, showing where tournament participants should go to for the ranking tests. Max followed the signs and they brought him down to the stadium floor. On the floor there were special hologram projector stations with Clash officials supervising over the tests for the rankings.

Max talked to one official and got his registration checked. Soon he was ready to start the tests. The tests they had Max do with Sandalphon were simple things. Like how fast could he make Sandalphon run, or if he could make him fly. They tested if Sandalphon had weapons and if he did; how strong they were. Max did not know how to make Sandalphon bring out his weapons or wings so he failed those tests. Max was so nervous that during a lot of the tests he lost control of Sandalphon and ended up doing poorly on them. Except for the weight lifting test; Sandalphon did manage to lift a whole lot.

"Wow, your avatar is really strong. That is the largest amount I have seen lift today." the official said to Max. That had been true, until later when an earth elemental type beat Sandalphon's.

When Max had finished, he checked out the other contenders doing the tests. He recognized a few people from school.

The official told Max it would take some time to draw up the tournament brackets, based on the rankings. There were sixty-four contenders in total, making thirty-two fights total. Sixteen would take place today and the other sixteen tomorrow on Sunday. The first round of fights always went by quickly. The higher ranked people would pummel the lower ranks and end the fights pretty fast. Next week there will be sixteen fights from the remaining thirty two people.

It was typical tournament elimination. The people who won would go on to next week's fights and the people who lost were out.

tableofcontents

Chapter 5

Introduction to the tournament!

After the ranking tests Max wandered around the stadium to look for some of his friends, he spotted Jonathan and went over to talk to him. When he got closer he saw that Jonathan was hanging out with some other people from school. He could hear them talking about last year's champ.

"I really want to see how much Femur has improved," Jonathan said.

"Yeah," Chris said. "I played him at the Clash Center, and asked Kurk what new moves Femur has gotten lately, he wouldn't say."

Jonathan saw Max walking up to them. "Hey Max, how did you do in the tests?" He asked.

"I did terrible," Max said "I just hope they don't put me in last place that would be so embarrassing." The others were a little surprised he was in this year's tournament. Most of them knew that he had only recently gotten his Clash arm band.

"Jonathan was telling us about that," Chris said. "It takes most people weeks to learn how to control their avatars just right. He says your guy is really strong, can we see him?"

Max turned on Sandalphon having him appear onto the table.

"The strength test was the only one I was good at," Max said.

After a while an announcement went out over the PA, "The tournament brackets are now all set. Would all the Clash player contenders please confirm with the posted brackets for your match schedule."

Max said goodbye to his friends. He headed over to see the results, he mainly wanted to see where he was placed in the bracket.

Max could not believe it; Sandalphon had scored the lowest overall in the rankings. He was set to fight in the first match of the day, against Jason, with his avatar the werewolf Gervasee, of the necro type. Max would have to fight the top ranked contender first. He could overhear everyone talking about how it was no surprise that Jason got ranked first. Gervasee was known for being undefeated at the Clash Center and that this was his first time entering the tournament. He had won the inter high school tournament last month and was currently the best player in the district. He was the favorite to win the tournament.

Max was called on the PA to the prep area for the contenders. Max signed himself in and it was all set up for him to fight with Jason. Before any of the fights started the announcers went over the rules of the tournament. On all the screens around the stadium, a presentation of how Clash works started.

"There are four types of avatars; necro, elemental, robotic, and celestial. The avatars are holographic and are not real no matter how much they look it. Their life-likeness is due to the effects of the holographic-projectors. During the battles no one is hurt and no one can be hurt by the holograms. Every year the great Clash tournament is held lasting six months and the number of participants is unlimited. At the end of the local, state, and national tournaments; the person who is left undefeated will be the supreme champion. If you want to make it to the top, you have to win them all!"

The screens from the presentation changed to clips of past champion's battles. Max recognized the national champs that were shown first. After them the state champs were shown, none of whom were from Collis. Finally, the local champs were shone. Max recognized them all from the past Collis tournaments.

Max knew all of this already, having been to the tournaments before as a viewer. He noticed none of the champs were of the celestial type. Soon it was time for him to enter the stadium, and have his first official Clash tournament fight.

Chapter 6

Start of the tournament!

Max walked up to the stage entrance. He knew he was not ready; he could barely make Sandalphon walk, let alone fight properly in a Clash match. He had beat Jonathan, but he was only a beginner compared to these tournament guys. Jonathan did not know any advance moves. He was not sure Sandalphon was going to cut it in a real fight. If he does not get Sandalphon to learn how to use a special move during the fight, there will be no hope of him winning. The announcer said Max's name, and then his opponent's, both Clash players walk out onto the stage floor.

Max could see the other contender walking up to the stage, from the other side. He was the one everyone was talking about. How he was going smash through this tournament, and represent the town in the state tournament. Max looked around at the stands. Not a whole lot of people filled them. He saw his friends over to the side and nodded to them. He was glad there were not more people. With just this many he did not feel nervous.

_So I am just a stepping stone for this guy. Everyone already thinks that this fight is decided and that Sandalphon will lose,_ Max thought.

"NO!" Max said aloud.

I can't let myself believe that Sandalphon would ever lose.

Jason was staring at Max. Jason knew this fight was going to be an easy one. He could see the troubled look all over Max's face. A look he had seen many times before. Jason was the highest ranked and had an undefeated record. They called him a prodigy player in Clash, using moves and techniques that only pros could do. His plan was to stay undefeated all the way up to the national tournament. Against this kid, he would not have to use his advance techniques, he would save those for later in the tournament. The less the other contenders knew about his avatar's abilities, the better he would do.

Jason laughed at the other Clash player. A low ranked celestial type was going to be easy. Jason felt sorry for all the saps that got celestial types as their avatars. He wondered why the creators even made them to begin with. There had never been a Celestial type that had made past the state championships. He wondered if the creators try to balance the idea of good and evil in Clash, so to counterbalance necro types they added celestial? Young kids would cheer for celestials, but everyone knows they are always a disappointment; they always lose in the end.

Chapter 7

Conclusion to the first tournament fight!

"Oh, wow, the poison is working faster than ever; I guess this match will be over after just a few seconds rather than in a minute," Jason said, teasing Max.

Seeing Sandalphon fall had made Max's head spin, but he shook it away and looked at Sandalphon. It may have appeared that the poison was already affecting him, but the reason Sandalphon fell was because Max had lost focus. He had been looking at what was hanging from Sandalphon's side. It was a golden mace that had been there during the scanning in the Clash Center. Max knew Sandalphon was not done yet and forced him to stand up, ready to take on Gervasee.

"Huh, not finished yet?" Jason said a bit shocked. "Guess I can give you a little more attention, to finish this match faster." Gervasee stalked closer to Sandalphon getting in range for another strike.

Max had Sandalphon draw the weapon and activated its special property; healing and cleansing Sandalphon from all damage once a fight. It was Sandalphon's weapon known as Medens. Max was not sure how he activated the powers of the mace, but could see that the wounds on Sandalphon's back healed. Max sent Sandalphon into a flurry of swings at Gervasee. Forcing the werewolf to jump back, to avoid being hit by the golden mace.

"You are wrong if you think defeating Sandalphon will be easy," Max said, taunting back at Jason

"Ha! Talking big, Jason said. "Your swings are so slow I could have Gervasee dodge them with my eyes closed. The fans want this over, so it is time to end this once and for all". Gervasee jumped way back from Sandalphon, bent over, and grabbed the chains hanging off the manacles on his ankles. Gervasee pulled the manacles right off. "Imprison him Gervasee," Jason directed. The chain's links extended, growing longer. Gervasee whipped the chains out towards Sandalphon. The chains extend more in the air, and then wrapped up around Sandalphon. The manacles anchored to the ground, holding Sandalphon in place.

Sandalphon was trapped.

"Now, once the poison has finished running its course, this fight will be over," Jason said, as he turned smiling and waving to the cheering crowd.

Jason had not seen that Sandalphon was healed, this was Max's chance. _Come on Sandalphon you must break free._ Max pleaded. Max knew Sandalphon was strong, or at least stronger than most avatars, but breaking out of those think chains may be a little too much for Sandalphon.

"Ha, escaping from these chains requires a strength only the greatest Clash avatars have," Jason said, turning his attention back to the arena floor and seeing Sandalphon struggle. After a while the smile disappeared off Jason's face as he looked closer at Sandalphon. The one minute mark had past since Sandalphon was poisoned. "Did you... somehow remove the poison?" Jason asked Max. "Or is your avatar immune to it? There are some avatars that are. I guess I will have to finish this with another attack." Gervasee moved closer to Sandalphon, claws forward and ready to strike again.

Max was in trouble now. "Sandalphon, you must get free!" He yelled at his avatar. For a second it looked like Sandalphon had turned and smiled at him. Hope grew in Max, and he pleaded harder for Sandalphon to break the chains. Sandalphon's strength was still proving to not be enough though. Max refused to give up.

A light began to glow from Sandalphon.

"Whatever you are doing, it is useless," Jason said, as Gervasee was almost upon Sandalphon.

Suddenly the chains holding Sandalphon were burst apart, the links flew away from Sandalphon in pieces, as an intense light flashed from Sandalphon. Then from his back unfolded two angelic wings, glowing white, bright with pure intensity. Sandalphon stood with an aura that made everyone in the crowd suck in their breath, stunned at how majestic he looked.

Jason was stunned as well. Gervasee had backed away a few steps from Sandalphon. Max, seeing Jason stunned, took the initiative. Grabbing Medens with both hands, Sandalphon, using his wings to add speed to a dash, dove forward with blinding speed. He landed a blow against Gervasee right in his chest, knocking Gervasee flying all the way back into the arena wall. There Gervasee remained motionless and soon began to break up into holographic fragments. The crowd was shocked at first, from the change of events, but let out a cheer for the underdog winner.

Jason was bewildered; he sputtered saying, "this-is-is-im-impossible." He paused, unable to believe his eyes in what just happened. "Why were you so low ranked?"

"And it is over! Gervasee is out of the match. Sandalphon is the winner," the announcer said, leading to more cheering from the crowd.

"This can't be, over from just one hit? My Gervasee isn't that weak, to be taken out with just one hit." Jason sat on the floor, putting his face into his hands unable to believe his defeat.

"Yeah Sandalphon!" Max cheered at his avatar. Sandalphon turned to face the crowd with his wings spread full and his golden mace, Medens, held high. Max then had a dream, a vision of Sandalphon being on the top, the undefeated champion of Clash. A burning desire started to grow in Max to have Sandalphon become the best; never losing a single fight.

The announcer started talking again "Today, we have a first, never in the Collis tournament's history has there been such a win. A lowest ranked has caused an upset and beat the highest ranked contender." This had the crowd cheering even more.

Chapter 8

The champions notice Max!

High up in the stands, overlooking the battle of Sandalphon verse Gervasee, stood Kurk and Decon, two past champions of the Collis tournament.

"What was Gervasee ranked in speed?" With a concerned face Decon asked Kurk.

"He was ranked first overall, and second in agility. Gervasee should have been able to dodge that attack. I could have, and my avatar is ranked second in speed." Kurk responded. After a second, "that is crazy, how was it that none of his attacks worked? I doubt that Jason would let some kid beat him on purpose"

"He didn't. That kid, I think I know him, isn't he Davis's brother? We are going to need to find some more information on that one's avatar. We don't want to be caught surprised like Jason was. Celestials types are never ranked high, and rarely do they beat someone of higher ranking. His next fight should be against an earth elemental type, assuming there is not another upset. The one that was the one who was ranked highest in strength. Before we worry, let's see how he does after that fight." He then sighed. "I was so sure Jason was going to make it to the semifinals. Looks like one of us will be going to the finals again."

Chapter 9

Big man on campus!

When Max showed up for school Monday, everyone wanted to talk to him about the battle against Gervasee. His fight had been replayed, over the Clash holographic channel, a number of times over the weekend. His was the most talked about fight from the first week. Max received a few Clash challenges from people; they all wanted to play him after school. He had to decline because he had not brought his band to school. After classes started everyone seem to calm down. His fifteen minutes of fame seemed to be over.

During lunch break. Max bought his lunch from the school kitchen, and headed over to the cafeteria tables. He saw Jonathan wave him over so they could sit together.

"I knew you were good Max." Jonathan said, slapping him on the back. "You destroyed Gervasee. I heard the Clash club here at school talking about getting you to join."

"The Clash club? Any of them in the tournament?" Max asked.

"Well, they all entered the tournament. Most of them have already lost. The club leader, Lizzy, ranked pretty high, she won her first match."

"What kind of avatar does she have?" Max said.

"She has a water elemental type. I went to a club meeting once and fought her. Got beat pretty bad. You should just go to their meeting today and just beat them all.

"I didn't bring my band to school."

"Max, you got to bring it tomorrow then. Everyone has been talking about how they want to fight you."

Chapter 10

The Clash club!

The next day when Max arrived at school his fifteen minutes of fame were really over, no one said anything about Clash to him. His friends had moved on to talking about other things already as well. It ended up being a normal school day.

After school, he showed up to the Clash club's meeting. The club was held in a classroom that was unused during the day, set up just for the Clash club to use. Max walked into the room and saw a kid he did not know.

"Can I help you?" The kid asked. He was sitting at a table with his avatar standing on the desk. It was a fire elemental type, Max guessed, it had red skin and fire for hair. It wore black leather armor and on his back was a large sickle. On the table was an arrangement of blocks with boards running across them. It was a miniature obstacle course, set up for training Clash players in better control over their avatars.

"Yeah," Max said. "I had recently gotten a Clash band and I was wondering if I could hang out at this meeting today." Max eyed the course, as he talked.

"I bet you are here to fight Lizzy. Well, anyways I'm TJ"

"I'm Max, do you mind if I test Sandalphon on this?"

"Sandalphon? Are you the kid that beat Jason's avatar Gervasee? Oh man, I saw that fight. I talked with Jason; he is in the high school Clash club. He is the only one who Lizzy can't beat. He was so angry that he lost to you. He was here yesterday wondering if you were going to show up. I think he wants a rematch. But yeah, if you want to use this go ahead."

Max pulled up a chair and put on his Clash band. He switched it on and Sandalphon materialized on the table. All Clash bands have built in scanners that can read the layout of the surrounding area and allow avatars to interact with the real world. Sandalphon would not be able to physically move the blocks on the table, but he could climb on them.

Sandalphon scrambled up onto the blocks, Max had trouble trying to maintain Sandalphon's balance. Once at the top he had Sandalphon then try to jump from one set of blocks to another. Sandalphon just fell over and landed on the desk. TJ watched him intensely.

"How long have you had your band?" TJ asked, puzzled, wondering why Max so poorly maneuvered the course.

"I got Sandalphon last week, as a birthday present," Max said. He had Sandalphon climb up another set of blocks. He tried having Sandalphon walk across one of the boards. It was fairly narrow, about no wider than Sandalphon's foot. Sandalphon fell off the board. Max just could not maintain Sandalphon's balance. Max glanced at TJ seeing the confusion on his face. "I know what you're thinking: How did he beat Gervasee when he can barely do this course?"

"Well, not really, but... I was wondering if you would like to have a duel."

"Sure." Max supposed. Max switched off Sandalphon and followed TJ, to a cleared off table. TJ turned on his band and Max did as well. On Max's band a request to duel popped up from TJ. Max accepted the request. Max copied TJ and left his right hand on the edge of the table, so as to allow line of sight with the hologram of the avatars.

"Let my light guide your blows, Calson," TJ said starting the fight.

"I got the will, you got the power Sandalphon," Max said. The countdown to the fight started. In the center of the table, above both avatars, a spinning hologram number counted down from five to one. Max had Sandalphon go on the offensive; charging at Calson. Calson pulled out his sickle and took a swipe at Sandalphon. Sandalphon did a tumble under the swing and slammed into Calson's legs. The fire elemental fell to the floor, dropping the sickle. Calson kicked out at Sandalphon, pushing him away with his legs. As Calson was getting to his feet Sandalphon bull rushed him off the table. The avatar fell out of sight from both holographic-emitters on the bands and disappeared.

Max was a little uncertain what to do about a ring out.

"Aw, a ring out, I should have been more careful," TJ said. "Your movements were much better during the fight. I think you should practice more on the obstacle courses we have here". While the two had been playing, more kids had come into the room and TJ left to talk with them.

Max walked over to another table, it had holographic-emitters displaying a variety of constructs; much like you would see on a kid's playground. There were swinging rings, a jungle gym for climbing. There were also some tight ropes and a weight set. Max turned on his band and linked it to the controller of the table's. Sandalphon appeared on the board amongst all the constructs. The equipment could be interacted with, unlike the blocks on the other table. Max had Sandalphon swing back and forth on the rings. He also tried walking the tight ropes, but Sandalphon would always tip to one side and fall off, keeping balance on them was extremely difficult. Max had a way easier time crossing under the tight rope with Sandalphon hands rather than trying to walk across it.

Looking over the table's controls, there were other fields that could be set up. Max switched it over to soccer. The training equipment disappeared, Sandalphon remained on the field and around him a soccer field appeared with a ball in the center. He had Sandalphon run up and kick the ball. The ball flew wildly out of bounds. These kinds of games with avatars had never really caught on. People always had more fun playing real soccer and preferring to watch real people play it. The amazing powers of the avatars made the Clash tournaments always unpredictable and exciting, more than anything a human could do.

"That is Sandalphon?" Max heard from a kid on the other side of the room. He walked over to Max and asked, "Are you going to be joining our club?"

"I don't know I was just going to stop by today and check it out," Max said. He remembered seeing the kid during the ranking tests.

"A lot of people leave after losing in the tournament. Ten of us, from the club, started, and now there is only Lizzy and April left in the tournament. Only the three of us, here," indicating himself and the other two members behind him, "will be the ones showing up today I'll bet. Oh, I'm Punter."

"I'm Max."

A girl then walked in the room followed by a teacher. Max recognized them as Lizzy and Ms. Roundabout.

"I see that not everyone is here, today," Ms. Roundabout said, with disappointment in her voice.

"Every year they quit when they lose their first match," Lizzy said. "Next year's tournament will be cut in half again with only thirty-two people total I bet.

"Well, do you guys still want to have our in-club tournament, this week then?" Ms Roundabout asked.

TJ said, "What is the point? We all know Lizzy is the strongest. She wins it every week. It is always her and April in the finals. I would rather just play the other games. What I would like to see, is Lizzy fight with Max."

Lizzy looked over at Max. Then after a moment said, "I'm not fighting him we are in the same bracket. If he wins his next match, then he can fight me."

Max did not know that they were in the same bracket. He had not looked at all the people in the brackets too much, when he was at the stadium. He had been more focused on playing a good match against Gervasee, than looking up who he would fight in the future. He had left the stadium after his match, he did not want to deal with everyone wanting to talk with him about the upset win he had.

"Max, what are you doing here anyway? Hoping to see my Cleita's special moves, before our fight? You should be more worried about beating Terry." Lizzy got up from her chair and left the room, practically running out the door.

Max was a little dumbfounded. "What was that all about?" he said. "It sounds like you have fights between each other here all the time."

"Lizzy was pretty pumped about fighting Jason," TJ said. "She has lost to him a lot, and has been training to fight with him in the tournament. She was practicing like crazy. April won't be coming today anyway, so I don't think she's coming back. Max if you are going to stay, we should play a game."

"I'll go grade some papers, see you guys in a bit," Ms Roundabout said. She left, leaving the four boys to play in the room.

The four of them sat a table with a holographic-emitter that projected two raised circular platforms. There was a blue glowing ball on one of them. While holding the ball a player would stand on squares that randomly lit up all over the platforms by their feet. Once they touched all the squares that appeared they could throw the ball to the other player. The trick was that the ball was constantly growing in size and weight and the longer you take to hit all the squares the faster the ball grew. If you took too long to hit all the squares the ball would grow too big and your avatar would be unable to hold the ball up any longer. Dropping the ball causes you to lose the game. The idea of the game is to improve your avatar's footwork while helping to maintain balance all while helping you to understand the limitations of your avatar.

There were many other games like that; Clash players use these games to improve their control of the avatars. The club members were impressed at how quickly Max improved his control of Sandalphon as the games went on. Games that focused on strength more than balance were much easier for Max. The guys, wanting to test his skills, turned on a program that was similar to the rank tests. They were all impressed with how much virtual weight Sandalphon could lift. Not being as nervous, all of the tests went much better than they had at the stadium. Max figured out how to make Sandalphon jump, finally. He had stopped thinking about the exact movements to jump and just imaged him flying through the air from a crouched position.

The games and training exercises really helped with his overall control of Sandalphon. It was frustrating that he still could not make Sandalphon's wings come out, or his mace, or his armor. There seemed to be no exercises he could do that would allow him to practice using those abilities.

Chapter 11

Fight between the two avatars with the most muscle!

The rest of the week went pretty smoothly for Max leading up to his next battle on the weekend. He learned a lot from practicing in the school's Clash club. Lizzy showed up once more to a meeting, but left after she saw that Max was there. Saturday came around and his parents dropped him off at the stadium, wishing him good luck in his next match. His mom and dad were not big fans of Clash. Clash was mostly for the younger generation anyway. He signed in and while he waited for his battle to start, he met his next opponent at the sign in area.

He saw Max, and walked over to talk, saying, "Max right? I'm Terry. I was expecting a good fight today against Gervasee. I hope you don't disappoint me."

"I've been practicing all week you won't be disappointed," Max said.

"Ha-ha, sounds good kid."

Terry had started playing Clash years ago when he was still in high school. He was one of the veterans of the Collis tournament. He had participated in every tournament since its founding on the island. He had never made it to the finals of the tournament. But anyone, who had ever played him before, knew how tough of an opponent he was.

They announced that it was time for Max's battle to start. Max went over to the players prep area. He walked out onto the stage and linked his band to the station.

"I got the will, you got the power, Sandalphon!" Max shouted. Sandalphon materialized in the arena and Max noticed immediately that Medens was not on him, neither were his wings, or armor. Max began to wonder if that meant Sandalphon would have to fight bare handed. While he could beat the guys at the school's Clash club barehanded, he was not sure about a tournament match. He had hoped that for this tournament fight Sandalphon would have some of his gear.

"Grind and pulverize, cut and chop, Abboud!" Terry shouted. His avatar, Abboud, was a mass of reddish brown rocks, that were constantly shifting around in a humanoid body; he was a rock golem. He had large feet that slowly narrowed up his legs. From his waist, he widened to a bulky chest and shoulders that extended to arms, as large again, as his legs. The golem's head only had two facial features, a large gapping mouth and eyes that looked like 2 erupting volcanoes, spewing lava, in rivers, all down his face. The centers of those eyes were molten pits of magma.

Slowly Abboud rose its immense arms up above its head, letting loose a screech, " _Crunch, crumble, crunch._ " it sounded like rocks being crushed. It was the largest avatar Max had ever seen, Sandalphon only stood up to his shoulders.

"Five, four, three, two, one. LET THE CLASH BEGIN!" The announcer yelled.

Slowly, then faster, Abboud started moving towards Sandalphon. After he had a good run going, Abboud fell forward and curled up. He became like a giant boulder rolling towards Sandalphon. Max had Sandalphon jump to the side, a split second before Abboud came rolling in, it was a technique he had learned at the Clash club. Abboud kept going and crashed right into the arena wall, breaking into pieces. After a few seconds, the rubble condensed and a reformed Abboud stood there, back together again.

Abboud started moving towards Sandalphon again, turning to a giant boulder once more. Max had Sandalphon dodge the same way again. He was not sure how to fight an avatar like this, and hoped somehow the situation would change.

"You dodged, at just the right time there. Any earlier and I would have had Abboud change directions right after you moved, any slower and Sandalphon would have been crushed into a rubble pile," Terry said, to Max. "Let's try something a little different now." Abboud raised both hands, reaching behind its back and pulled out a massive club, that looked like a stalagmite. "Now, why don't you pull out your weapon and we can see whose hits harder." Abboud moved closer to Sandalphon ready to strike with the massive club.

Max willed Sandalphon to produce something, to fight back with. Abboud moved within range and let out a wide swing of his club. Sandalphon jumped back away from the club, just out of range as it swung by. The club gave Abboud a lot of reach and Max knew Sandalphon would not be able to dodge it forever. Using Sandalphon's bare hands to fight back, would never work against an opponent whose hide was made of rocks. Abboud raised the stalagmite over its head in what would be a massive crushing blow.

Max noticed that Sandalphon's bronze bracers were glowing. In a flash the bracelets turned into golden steel gauntlets, running down Sandalphon's forearms and up to his finger tips. As the club came down over Sandalphon, Sandalphon punched up into the stalagmite. The stalagmite was blown into a dust cloud and tiny pieces of it fell across the arena floor. The dust cloud had obscured the view of both avatars, from the crowd and the players. When it cleared, Sandalphon could be seen unhurt from the attack, although a bit dirty.

"Whoa kid, where did you get those shinny gloves?" Terry asked from across the arena.

Max did not know, but taking the initiative had Sandalphon charge forward and started his fists swinging; scoring hits on the rock golem. Terry was still a bit surprised at the destruction of Abboud's weapon and Abboud stood there taking the hits.

"Oh, you want to have a fist fight, huh kid?" Terry asked shaken out of his stupor.

To Max's slight disappointment the gauntlets did not shatter Abboud when they struck, like they had to the club, but the hits were making cracks in the golem's rocky body. If that was causing any permanent damage to Abboud it did not seem to register on Terry's face.

Abboud began to swing his massive rocky arms out at Sandalphon. Sandalphon ducked under one swing, but Abboud came in with the other arm. Sandalphon held up his hands to block it and was knocked back by the force of the blow.

"Sandalphon, hang on," Max yelled.

Sandalphon stumbled back a ways, before regaining his feet. Max knew he would have to be more cautious regarding Abboud's strength.

"Not too bad kid," Terry said. "Not everyone can take a hit from Abboud and keep standing."

Abboud moved in closer to Sandalphon and began swinging his arms again. Sandalphon dodged and parried the blows trying not to take a directed hit like before. At first Sandalphon was completely on the defensive not being able to make any hits on Abboud. Abboud was slow though, and Max was having no problem dodging and parrying. Slowly he was getting used to the movements of the large, sluggish avatar. The larger swings were ones he dared not block afraid the power would knock Sandalphon back again. Abboud would make smaller jabs that Max could have Sandalphon use his strength to parry; turning aside the weak blows.

Sandalphon fell into a rhythm, completely stopping all of Abboud's attacks. Soon Sandalphon was throwing punches in on Abboud between the golem's slow blows. The frustration of not having Abboud's attacks connecting was showing on Terry's face. Abboud was making bigger and bigger swings at Sandalphon, which Max found even easier to dodge.

Sandalphon was also speeding up and making more hits on Abboud. Max was making Sandalphon's dodges smaller avoiding Abboud only by millimeters, giving him more time for more hits on Abboud. Sandalphon became a whirlwind of attacks, too fast for the slow Abboud. The attacks were crushing the rocks that made up Abboud's body and he was falling apart. There were chunks of rocks falling off Abboud after every attack. Max then had Sandalphon put all of his power into a punch, right into Abboud's shoulder; shattering the shoulder and knocking Abboud's arm clean off.

The arm fell to the floor and Abboud backed away from Sandalphon. The stones that formed Abboud's body were cracked and broken, all over gravel leaked out of his body. Max halted his attack, having Sandalphon stand back.

Abboud let out a screech, " _Crunch, crumble, crunch_ ". The rocks that had fallen off the golem rolled over to him and up his body, rejoining making him whole once again. Before Sandalphon could move in to continue the attack on Abboud, the golem began to break off pieces of his own body, and chucked them towards Sandalphon.

"What kind of move is that?" Max asked, almost laughing at the ridiculousness of the attack.

Sandalphon ducked under the thrown stones. Abboud grabbed another chunk of his body and pelted Sandalphon with a shower of smaller rocks. Sandalphon could not dodge all of the smaller rocks and was bombarded by them. The smaller rocks tore Sandalphon's tunic and cut into his skin. Sandalphon moved across the arena, away from Abboud, where he could more easily evade. Abboud moved to the middle of the arena and continued to break off chucks of his body to throw at Sandalphon. Most of the rocks were too small to do any real damage, but a few looked like if they were to hit, Sandalphon would be in trouble.

Abboud had diminished in size quite a bit from breaking off so much of his own body to throw at Sandalphon. Scattered around the arena were many pieces of Abboud. Max was getting worried that Sandalphon would trip on the loose rock. " _Crunch, crumble, crunch,_ " Abboud let out a screech and then all the scattered pieces began to roll and tumble towards the golem. His body reformed and he was back to his original size again, but among his body was much more gravel than solid stone that he had at the start of the fight. Max was unsure if this meant that the rock elemental was damaged or not.

Abboud raised his hands above his head and began to collect and form a giant ball of rock and stone from his body. After about half his body was collected into the ball Abboud threw the ball incredibly high into the air towards Sandalphon. Max watched the ball go up, but in taking his eyes off Abboud, he had fallen for the golem's trap. Right after he had thrown the giant boulder, lighting fast, Abboud had summoned and spewed forth a river of fast drying concrete from his mouth. The concrete sped towards Sandalphon, engulfing his legs up to the knee. The concrete instantly dried, and Sandalphon was held in place with the deadly ball of rock and stone still coming straight down for him.

Panic set inside of Max's mind, with no time to spare and nothing else to do he had Sandalphon punched out with his right fist at the boulder as hard as he could. The blow smashed the boulder, but still the broken stone rained down on Sandalphon doing serious damage. The quick thinking by Max may have saved his avatar from losing the match, but he was still in a serious jam.

" _Crunch, crumble, crunch,_ " Abboud let out another screech and began to collect his stone body once again.

Sandalphon struggled to break free from the concrete. His right arm would not move, damaged from the boulder. Max had Sandalphon punched down with his left on the concrete, to free him. Abboud had finished collecting his body and moved to the other side of the arena, giving him more room to pick up speed. After reaching the arena wall, he started in a charge towards Sandalphon. Picking up some speed, he once again fell into a ball, and became like a giant tumbling boulder heading straight towards Sandalphon.

"Game over," Terry said." I finally caught you and you will not be dodging this time,"

"Sandalphon, break free!" Max cried out. Sandalphon began to glow with a familiar light. The concrete, holding his legs bound, exploded apart, creating a cloud of dust. Abboud rolled into the dust cloud, and a large crashing sound came from inside. A bright light could be seen emanating from inside the cloud.

"OOOOHH," the crowd gasped, they assumed the light was Sandalphon's shattered hologram.

The dust cloud settled and there was Sandalphon floating in the air on his white shining angelic wings, flapping, keeping him afloat. Abboud was below him slowly collecting himself after having crashed into the arena wall. The wings had allowed Sandalphon to narrowly escape Abboud's rolling charge.

"Alright Sandalphon let's finish this." Max said as Sandalphon flew higher into the air. Then, using his wings, he became like a hawk speeding down to his pray. Sandalphon drove with his feet first landing onto Abboud's head with a great stomp. The golem was crushed into pieces from the force of the dive.

Sandalphon stood over the smashed rock, managing to look majestic to Max, despite having a torn and tattered tunic, dirt stains all over his body, and a busted up right hand. The crushed rock started to move together once more, but the damage was too much this time and Abboud's shattered body began to break apart into glittering holographic pieces in the tell tale sign that the avatar had received too damaged to keep going.

"Abboud is unable to fight. The winner, Sandalphon!" the announcer said as the last of Abboud's body flickered away.

"WOOOHHOOO" The crowd cheered.

Terry walked across the arena and stuck out his hand to Max. Max looked at it, then to Terry, and met him in a handshake.

"This is the first time I have lost to a celestial type," Terry said. "You and Sandalphon are tough, I used every last trick I had there. I got to ask. How did you get out of that concrete?

"I am not sure myself. It must have something to do with Sandalphon's wings," Max answered.

"You better win this tournament."

"Thanks. I do plan on winning it."

Chapter 12

Lizzy: the strongest middle school Clash player!

Max's fight against Terry had been the first one of the day so he hung around the stadium to watch the other fights. The Stadium was nearly full with most seats taken. After his match, Max just randomly chose a place in the stands to sit and watch from.

The tournament bracket was set so that Max's next opponent would be the winner of the next match. The two avatars came out on stage and were introduced as a necro type, minotaur warrior, and a mermaid water elemental type. The minotaur avatar belonged to an older kid, Mike, who was in the high school Clash club. The mermaid belonged to the girl Lizzy from the middle school Clash club.

"Rule them all! Cleita, queen of Atlantis," Lizzy said her battle cry, as her avatar appeared on the stage. Lizzy's avatar had a large green scaled tail fin instead of legs, and long slightly curly red hair. She wore a green fish scaled coat of armor, that matched her tail fin. The mermaid had a golden right shoulder guard, that stuck out to the side, over her right arm. She wielded a three spiked golden trident and had a golden tiara. On her back she wore a long transparent cloak that looked like it was made from water that swayed when she moved. Max thought she really did look like the queen of Atlantis.

"Hack and slash, stomp and grind'em, Kaz!" Mike said his battle cry. His minotaur wore a black steel breast plate with black chain mail sticking out from underneath it. He wielded a large two-handed flail with a black steel ball hanging off the chain. He had dark brown fur that covered his whole body, with white ivory horns on his head, and gray hoofs for feet. He was heavily muscled, tall. Cleita only stood up to his shoulder. If Max were to guess, his Sandalphon would only be slightly taller.

The countdown for the fight finished, and the two avatars went at it. Kaz was unrelenting in his blows, never pausing, swinging his flail around in a blur. Cleita was mostly on the defense, blocking and dodging the attacks. The mermaid was surprisingly agile, balancing on her fin. After a low swing of the flail, Cleita lay flat on the ground beneath the attack and swung her tail around to sweep the feet out from under Kaz. The large minotaur fell to the floor from the attack. Cleita hooked her trident on the chain of the flail and attempted to jerk the weapon loose. The minotaur was too strong and held on to its flail. Turning the move against her, it pulled and yanked the trident from her hands.

While Kaz was still prone, Cleita's fin disappeared and was replaced by a set of human legs. Then, holding her arm outstretched towards Kaz, she summoned a torrent of water that shot out and slammed Kaz, sending Kaz flying back. She ran over and retrieved her trident while Kaz was still recovering from the blast of water. Getting up the minotaur set its flail swinging, but instead of charging towards Cleita, the flail extended and the ball flew out towards her. She easily sidestepped the ball. Then quickly threw her trident weapon at Kaz. The trident was perfectly thrown, but bounced off the minotaur's black steel breast plate. The disappointment of the attack failing, could be read in Lizzy's slumped shoulders.

The minotaur retracted his extended fail and set it once again spinning. It charged at the weaponless Cleita. She reached up into her shoulder guard and produced a net. She flung it at the minotaur, entangling it. Then she circled around it and she retrieved her trident.

The minotaur's flail got caught up in the net, it took a moment for the minotaur to free itself. The minotaur look furious and red rage essence seemed to flow out of him collecting above him. The red rage essence looked like steam leaving the minotaur's body. The red rage took shape into a transparent, gigantic red minotaur wielding a giant sword. In a massive downward swing, the red minotaur sent a blast wave of power towards Cleita.

Cleita's water cloak shot out and intercepted the wave splitting it in half, the wave pounded past Cleita, on either side of her. The mermaid then could be seen taking in a deep breath; she unleashed a super sonic blast at the minotaur. The sonic blast could be heard by all the audience as a high pitched screeching sound. The blast stunned Kaz and he stood there in a daze.

"Goodnight," Lizzy said, in a sweet girly voice. Cleita walked up and in a mighty swing smacked her trident, in a critical hit, across the minotaur's head knocking him to the floor. Kaz's holographic body began to break up and shattered into pieces. Cleita had won the battle and so it was determined that Lizzy would be Max's next fight

Chapter 13

The surprising conversation!

Max was watching Lizzy after the fight. After disconnecting her band from the stadium, she seemed to look up right at him. She walked over to the stairs leading up to his seat. Max was freaking out.

_Is she coming up to talk to me?_ He wondered.

Max turned away as she came right up to his level of seats and then went one past them to the next level higher.

"Hey, how did you like that fight?" She said to someone behind Max.

"You-were-awesome," another girl said, Max thought he recognized the voice. "When the giant red bull came out I thought you were done for. He had never used that move before,"

"I was so surprised by that, he didn't do that in any of his fights before," Lizzy said, sitting down on the bench next to the other girl. "I'm so angry that the trident didn't finish him when Cleita threw it. I thought that attack would work even against his armor."

"I know, he must have had some strong armor."

Max thought for a second of whose friends Lizzy were in school. He put the voice with a face from memory and thought it must be her friend April.

"You got the last fight of the day, right?" Lizzy asked April.

"Yep, we are going to be here a while until it is time for my fight," April said.

"I wonder how Max got Sandalphon out of that concrete," Lizzy said, changing the subject.

"I was wondering that too. Oh, if you didn't notice Max is sitting right here," April said. The blood in Max's veins froze.

"What?" Lizzy said, and then after a while, "Max is that you?"

Max turned around and gave a weak wave. "Hey Liz, good fight," he said. He felt guilty for eavesdropping on their conversation.

"You were in the fight before me. You won too," Lizzy stated. She was a little shaken to have seen Max so suddenly.

"Yeah, I was astonished to see you were going to be my next opponent," Max said.

"Astonished?" Lizzy said, raising an eyebrow. "You don't think I'm good enough to be in this tournament?"

"What? No..." Max said really confused at her anger.

"She happens to be one of the best Clash players there is and she is going to win this tournament and play in the state championship," April said. Both girls got up and walked away to another set of seats.

Max sat there confused going over in his head what he said. He threw his hands up and thought to himself - _Women!_ Unable to comprehend what just happened.

Watching the remaining battles Max saw all his possible future opponents. April ended up losing her battle. It looked to Max that she did not really try that hard to begin with anyway. She had not even seemed disappointed at losing.

To Max's surprise there was another celestial type still left in the tournament. An older guy had an avatar named Guh, that was a white furred werewolf, dressed in white robes wielding a red crystal staff. The avatar he was fighting was a black scaled half dragon humanoid named Degoth. At the start of the fight Guh rushed in towards Degoth and swung his staff scoring a hit on Degoth's side. Degoth took and ignored the blow. Degoth's shadow then stepped out of the ground becoming solid and grabbed hold of Guh. The shadow extended and wrapped itself around Guh binding his arms and legs. Degoth then opened its jaws wide and released a black flamed, swirling inferno, that engulfed Guh. When the flames settled Guh's hologram shattered falling to pieces. The fight was announced over. Max was shocked to see a fight over in less than fifteen seconds.

Max overheard some rumors from the crowd going around about Logan, Degoth's player, and how he came to Collis just to play in this tournament. Supposedly he had fought Collis's last year's champion at the state tournament and thought that Collis Clash players were all weak. So he came to this tournament for an easy win to get back into the state tournament again.

After the matches had ended Max called his parents to come get him and he wondered if school this Monday would be like last weeks or if his win would go unnoticed.

Chapter 14

Field trip to the power station!

That school week started like a normal school week for Max. He hung out with his friends and the only special thing he did was go to the Clash club's meetings for more practice. He did not officially sign up to be in the club, but still used their equipment to practice on. No one challenged him to a clash duel first thing Monday like they had the week before.

One day during the week Max was sitting in his math class when he looked over and saw Lizzy staring at him. He stared back for a second expecting her to turn away, but she did not. After a while of the two staring at each other she made a face at him and looked down to her notes. After class he tried to talk to her, but she ran away when ever he got close. She ended up avoiding him like that all week.

Max did not care for the idea of having someone mad at him for a reason he did not understand. He decided to ask the guys in the club what was the deal with Lizzy.

"Lizzy won't talk to me, do you guys know why?" Max asked.

"She takes Clash very seriously. From what I remember she was one of the first people I know to get an armband," TJ said.

"She also really wanted to fight with Gervasee in the tournament. You ruined that for her," Chris said.

"She had all these new movies she wanted to use against him in the tournament. So she is probably mad at that she won't be able to reveal them against Gervasee in a match." TJ said.

"So she will be using them against me in our match this weekend." Max said.

"Yeah, good luck with that". Chris said.

Max's class had a field trip Thursday. They were to go see the island's electrical power station. Years back the world had switched off fossil fuels to renewable energy sources and they were going to study how the station produced power. The power station was located on the opposite side of the island from the town. The trip would be about the farthest they could travel without leaving the island. While they rode the bus on their way to the station, the students were allowed to use electronic devices to entertain themselves. This included the Clash arm bands.

"Ok Max, it is time for our rematch," Jonathan said, sitting across the aisle from Max.

"If you think Telatron is ready for another beating. Sure, let's do this." Max said.

Max pulled out his arm band and put it on. He switched it on and Sandalphon appeared on his lap. He reached out and cupped his hand around Sandalphon. The avatar was not solid, but interacted with his hand. He held Sandalphon in his hand and set him down on the aisle floor.

Jonathan switched his band on making Telatron appear in the aisle next to Sandalphon.

"In our first battle I didn't get to use Telatron's bazooka." Jonathan said.

"I don't think it will make much of a difference." Max said.

Max brought up the holographic projected screen display on his band. He found Telatron's link signal coming from Jonathan's band and requested a fight. The request went to Jonathan's arm band, he pressed accept. Max pushed the button to start the fight and a countdown from five was started.

Right at the start of the fight Jonathan's bazooka fired off a shot. His aim was off and the shot went past Sandalphon. It kept going down the aisle to the back of the bus and slammed into a girl's leg. She yelled out, not in pain, but surprise.

"Oh man," Jonathan said.

Sandalphon moved in closer to Telatron. The bazooka reloaded and fired off another shot. Sandalphon jumped over the shot, but he really did not have to, it was another wild shot. Telatron tried to run before Sandalphon got to him, but Sandalphon was too fast and grappled Telatron down to the ground.

"Okay, I give up." Jonathan said. He turned off his band ending the fight before Sandalphon could finish Telatron off. Telatron broke into holographic shards in Sandalphon's hands

"I think you could do with some firing practice, there Jonnie." Max said.

"It is hard to aim from this angle. If I could see from Telatron's eyes it would have hit." Jonathan said.

The bus got closer to the power station and the wind turbines could be seen from a distance. The teachers called for everyone to put away their electronics to watch the turbines as they got closer. Most of the students had seen the wind turbines before, but the teachers wanted to point out some facts about the wind turbines. The things were tall and could be seen from miles away. They stood 40 meters high and the blades of the wind turbines were 20 meters long each. When they spun at their fastest they could complete their rotation in less than 4 seconds. The base of the turbines was set up to change direction to always be facing the wind for maximum efficiency.

The wind turbines were placed up and down a hill on this side of the island. On the southern side of the hill there was also a field of solar panels. On the south side, they could better collect the sun's rays for more direct light to be used for electricity conversion.

The school bus stopped at the building that housed the giant batteries that collected the electricity for the power station. The students emptied out of the bus and went inside where Tim Smith, the manager of the station, was there to guide them through a tour of the plant.

"In this building we house the batteries that get charged all year long." Tim said starting a presentation of the building. "In recent years, our technologies around batteries have improved greatly. In the past it was a struggle to store energy created with daylight to last a single day. Now we can store energy that lasts for half a year. In the summer we collect much more energy than in the winter. So thanks to the giant batteries, we have here in this building we can save the energy collected to last all the way to spring."

"What are the new batteries made of?" A girl from Max's class asked.

"Excellent question. They aren't really batteries to be honest. They way the batteries here work are not like the batteries you know. Inside these battery tanks" Tim pointed behind him to large metal tanks "we have a set of little nano machines that make microscopic springs. Another set of nano machines use those springs to power tiny generators. We can store the microscopic springs into these large tanks like a liquid to use for later. So these are not really like batteries anymore, they are more like fuel tanks. The description of 'battery' carries over from when the station did have giant batteries." Tim said. "By creating these microscopic springs we retain 98% of the power that was put into making them in the first place. The microscopic springs can last up to years, but the longer you don't use them the less power you can get out of them. So the best time to use them is within 6 months."

"Are these tanks explosive?" Max asked.

"They can be." The class's eyes lit up. "But don't be alarmed the way we have it stored will prevent any explosions from happening. We use a special chemical solution to mix with the spring liquid that helps keep it inert. But that is enough boring stuff about the batteries. Now you are going to get your hands dirty helping us to clean and inspect the solar panels." Tim said leading them to the side.

Tim led them to an area to pick up cleaning supplies and electronical equipment. The panel's surfaces were to be cleaned with simple soapy water and a sponge, and then wiped off with a squeegee. The electronical equipment would be plugged into the panels to diagnose how well they were working. The teachers split them up into groups and each group worked on different panels. They took measurements before and after they cleaned the panels. The class was learning how the amount of energy that panels put out after cleaning was larger. Showing that cleaning them had an effect and how important it was to keep them clean.

After they worked on the panels Tim took them to see the wind turbines. Inside the towers of each wind turbine there was a stair case that could be climbed to access the generators at the top. It was too dangerous for the class to enter the towers, but they were able to explore the computers on ground level that ran them. The turbines put out much more power than the solar panels and maintaining them was the most important job in the power plant.

All the energy that was collected by the solar and wind was used by the Collis Township. Sunny and windy days would produce more energy and the extra energy would be converted and stored into the micro springs. On cloudy days that had little wind the plant would use the stored energy. The system worked by taking the average of all the power collected throughout the year and either storing or using energy on any given day.

The class would have to write a report on the field trip so everyone had been taking notes during the presentations. On the trip back to school Max downloaded into his phone videos of Lizzy's old tournament fights to watch in preparation for Saturdays match against her.

Chapter 15

Battle for title of the strongest middle school Clash player!

"I got the will, you got the power, Sandalphon!" Max said.

He looked over at Cleita who appeared on the stage before Sandalphon. Then he looked back at Sandalphon, he was still only dressed in only his white fighting tunic. Max prayed that Sandalphon would be able to take on Cleita with none of his equipment.

The countdown finished for the start of the fight. Right away Cleita lined up a throw and lunched her trident right at Sandalphon. It was a little unexpected and Max was sure Sandalphon was going to be skewered. Much to Max's surprise the spear bounced off. Light had flared up around Sandalphon and he was suddenly wearing his full set of golden plate armor. Max had assumed Sandalphon would not be able to dodge the weapon and unconsciously had Sandalphon equip the armor. Max was not sure how he had done it, but he was not going to complain. Sandalphon picked up the thrown trident.

"Give it back," Lizzy said to Max. Cleita held out her hand, waiting for Sandalphon to hand back the trident.

"What?" Max said, unable to believe she would ask such a thing during a Clash battle.

Sandalphon swung the weapon around like he was going to use the trident, but instead tossed it behind him away from Cleita. It seemed like his prayers had been answered now, Cleita was as weaponless as Sandalphon.

Max noticed that Sandalphon did not have his gauntlets on. He was a little disappointed that Sandalphon had not equipped his full set of armor.

_Gauntlets must be separate._ Max thought.

Sandalphon charged at Cleita regardless. As Sandalphon closed in Cleita held her palm straight out and blasted Sandalphon with a jet of water. The water jet was powerful and knocked Sandalphon back.

Max had witnessed that attack during her last fight and expected it. Cleita changed her fin into legs and started to run past the knocked down Sandalphon towards her trident. Sandalphon reached out and managed to grab her ankle tripping her to the floor. While holding on to the mermaid, by the leg, he stood up. Using his strength Sandalphon began to whip Cleita around as though she were a rag doll. He whipped her to the side, letting go, sending her flying across the arena. Cleita was agile and rolled into her landing preventing any damage to herself.

Cleita went to stand up, but the ankle Sandalphon had grabbed her by would not support her weight anymore. Sandalphon had twisted it when he whipped her around. Max, seeing a chance, ran Sandalphon over to the mermaid. Cleita morphed her legs back into a fin and then blasted Sandalphon with another summoned jet of water from her palm. Sandalphon withstood the blast and kept charging towards her. In one of her favorite moves Lizzy had Cleita fall low to the ground and sweep the legs out from under Sandalphon, he tumbled past her. Cleita, balancing on her fin, wiggled and flopped her way over to her trident.

Sandalphon recovered from his tumble and chased after her again. Cleita turned towards Sandalphon and shot a double blast of water from both palms. The blasts did relatively no damage to the avatar, but frustrated Max to no end. The double blasts had knocked Sandalphon further back away from Cleita.

"Come on Liz do something else," Max said to Lizzy.

"This fight was suppose to be over by now. Where did you get that armor from?" Lizzy asked.

Not really knowing himself, he just responded with, "It appears when I want it." Vaguely answering her question.

Cleita made it to her trident, picked it up, and turned to face Sandalphon. "I was saving this attack, but I guess I will have to use it now."

Cleita began to wave the trident around in front of her. From the tips of the trident water was summoned, pouring out of the points. Instead of falling to the arena floor, the water collected around Cleita into an invisible container of some sort. After the water had reached a level high above Cleita's head it stopped flowing. The water had formed around Cleita into a giant water golem. Cleita could still be seen inside the thing, floating in the center. From either side of the golem, two hulking arms formed, with three fingered hands. From the top just a little bump of a head popped up, with tiny whirlpools for eyes. The whole thing lacked legs; its torso just rose up in a standing wave from the arena floor.

The golem rolled towards Sandalphon riding the wave of water. Once in range it swung an arm at Sandalphon. Sandalphon grabbed the arm and to Max's surprise the water golem was solid to Sandalphon's touch. It swung the other arm over and Sandalphon grabbed that one in his other hand. Sandalphon and the water golem were then locked in a struggle.

The golem loomed over Sandalphon, being much larger, it looked like it was about to crush the avatar. Sandalphon was not as big as the water hulk, but he was just as strong. Pushing back at the golem Sandalphon managed to hold his ground. Forming above the hulking water golem, from its back, a third arm appeared. It swung down to hit Sandalphon. Sandalphon kicked up with a foot and blocked the blow. Then putting both feet on the things hulking chest, he jumped off its body doing a back flip away, breaking their grapple.

Immediately after landing Sandalphon rushed back in at the hulk slamming into its chest with his shoulder sending it rolling back. Sandalphon followed up with a series of punches and kicks. The golem's form began to waver; Lizzy was having trouble controlling the hulk.

_Sandalphon needs more power in his blows_ , Max thought.

As if obeying his desire the bronze bracelets of Sandalphon phased onto the golden steel gauntlets on his hands. Powered by the steel gauntlets, Sandalphon's punches started doing more damage to the water hulk. Where he now punched, he left holes that leaked water. The water golem grew smaller in size as more and more water leaked out of him.

Not waiting for all the water to fall out, Lizzy had Cleita stab out of the water hulk, at Sandalphon, with her trident. The rest of the water golem fell into a splash at their feet. Max had seen the move, and had Sandalphon grab the trident mid attack. The water hulk was nothing more than a large puddle now. Unable to pull her trident free Cleita reached into her shoulder guard and tossed a net at Sandalphon.

Sandalphon released the trident and caught the net in the air with both hands. As he caught it, he tore it in two. The net was just a momentary distraction and Cleita backed away from Sandalphon. Taking in a huge breath, she unleashed a sonic blast at Sandalphon from her mouth. Sandalphon held up his hands to block the blast, but it still struck him. The sonic blast stunned Sandalphon making him wobble in place.

"Got yah," Lizzy said. Cleita came over to finish Sandalphon off like she had done to the minotaur in her previous fight.

Max begged Sandalphon to move, but he just would not listen. He stood there wobbling on his feet. Almost all control over Sandalphon had left Max.

"Goodnight," Lizzy said in a sickeningly sweet girly voice. Cleita set herself to make a powerful two handed blow with her trident to finish Sandalphon off.

Max was desperate for Sandalphon to move away from Cleita. Every command he sent Sandalphon just turned into more wobbling. An idea came to Max. He just stopped trying to move Sandalphon at all. Sandalphon went limp and fell down right as the trident swung at him. It nicked Sandalphon as he fell, causing the trident to spin out of Cleita's hands. She overswung with the attack, having been expecting to hit something.

Her fumble of the trident had given Sandalphon time to recover, right as Cleita recovered and came in with a second swing. Sandalphon held up a gauntleted fist to intercept it and sparks flew as the trident bounced off his steel fist. Cleita sent a water blast at Sandalphon from an open palm, sending him sliding across the arena. She reared herself up to send another sonic scream blast at Sandalphon.

Max would not let her get Sandalphon this time. Swirling light formed around Sandalphon's left hand. He grabbed at it and materializing in his hand was Medens. Cleita sent her sonic blast at Sandalphon and this time he blocked it with Medens, completely absorbing the attack. A light bubble, surrounded Medens, flaring up as the attack hit. Cleita sent another sonic blast at Sandalphon and he blocked it with Medens again, a light bubble shined again around Medens.

Cleita sent out a double blast of water from her palms at Sandalphon. Medens blocked those attacks as well. The light bubble around Medens flared up when blocking the attacks.

Lizzy was shocked. "Are you toying with me? If you could block my attacks with that mace why didn't you do that before?" She shouted at Max.

"I wish I had," Max responded. He still was not sure how he got Sandalphon to summon the weapon. With two of her abilities now sealed by Medens, Sandalphon was free to intercept Cleita without being knocked back or stunned. Sandalphon dashed at Cleita. Cleita met him with her trident, Sandalphon was able to defect Cleita's trident easily with Medens. Holding her trident with Medens to the side, Sandalphon punched in at her with his right fist. Cleita tried to dodge, but Sandalphon was in too close on her, and his attack hit hard on the green fish scale armor she wore.

Reeling from the blow she dove down low and swung her fin out and around Sandalphon's feet to trip him like she had done before. Sandalphon fell to the floor and Cleita rolled on top of him. Holding her trident in both hands over her head, she was going to thrust the spear down right into his head. Sandalphon caught the attack in his right gauntlet though, and brought up Medens to connect hard with Cleita's right temple knocking her down. She fell off Sandalphon to the side and her hologram broke up into shards of holographic light.

The announcer claimed Sandalphon as the victor. The crowd cheered for Sandalphon who now stood alone in the arena.

Max walked over to Lizzy's side of the stadium. "Good fight Liz," he said, holding out his hand in a sign of good sportsmanship.

She barely touched his hand before walking out of the stadium, saying, "Whatever."

Chapter 16

From foe to friend!

Monday, Max showed up to the after school Clash club again. He knew that he needed more practice and that the club offered the best place for him to get that practice. The Clash Center offered the same equipment to practice on, but it was difficult getting there from school and it was further from his house. Max had made good friends with TJ as well along with the other members, making the Clash club much more fun.

"Max, great fight," TJ said, as the two met up in the club room. "I imagine Lizzy is going to be really angry though. She wanted to beat you more than she ever wanted to beat Jason."

Lizzy walked into the club room just then. She looked over at Max. Max could not read her face. It did not seem as though she was angry or anything. She walked over to the table he was at and sat across from him, ignoring TJ.

"Sandalphon is really strong," she said. "I'm not going to lie, I was really worried about fighting you. I don't know if it is luck or something else, but you ended up with a really strong avatar."

"Thank you," Max said.

"Why were you ranked last?" Her face was still emotionless.

"I had only gotten Sandalphon the day before the tournament. Gervasee was only my second Clash fight."

"What?" Her face came alive with surprise. "Are you telling me that I lost to someone who's only had an avatar for two weeks?"

"Not only that, but I can't make Sandalphon's gear come out when I want it to."

"What?" Lizzy sat there with a look of complete surprise. "Haha, I thought you were messing with me." She said as a smile appeared on her face. "So during our fight you didn't mean to summon Sandalphon's gear right when you needed it?"

"I don't know how I get Sandalphon to bring out the weapon or the armor. I wish I knew because outside of a match I can never get Sandalphon to do any of those things."

"So, if we were to have a rematch right now could you make Sandalphon do those same things as before?" Lizzy asked.

"If we had a fight, maybe, but there is no guarantee."

"I don't want to have another fight anyway. I really thought you were toying with me." her face got serious "You better not lose in the quarter-finals though." She said sternly. Then smiling again she said "So, you going to join this club? Every few months we have a competition against the high school club. With you on our side, we could finally beat all those jerks."

"The high school club is really good," TJ said. "They have four out of the top five ranked in the tournament. You already beat Gervasee and he was ranked first."

"Who is the other one in the top five that is not in the high school club?" Max asked. He pointed at Lizzy, but she shook her head no, she was not one of the top five ranked.

"That one guy Logan with the avatar Degoth. He is from the mainland, he is ranked second. He takes the ferry to Collis every weekend, just to fight in our tournament."

"I've seen him," Max said. "He wins his battles really quickly. With some kind of shadow attacks. His avatar is a half dragon or something."

"Yeah, it is a draconian," TJ said. "He breaths out black fire, kind of like a dragon. I've been watching all his battles. He is crazy strong. Gervasee would have been a really good match up against him. Logan is a jerk though. He is always talking a lot of trash to everyone he beats."

"Talking trash? What does he say?" Max asked

"He says things like 'you shouldn't even play Clash' or 'this island is just full of lame avatars.'"

After hearing that, a fire was started inside of Max. He did not like anyone talking down to his island and the idea of Sandalphon being considered lame made him ill. "I guess I will have to beat him," Max said, with determination in his voice.

"You should worry about your next two opponents both of them are the previous champs. Both of them are in the high school Clash club," Lizzy said.

"I remember that, Troo and Femur are their avatars. Troo the robot and Femur the necromancer. What were their rankings?"

"You will be fighting Troo next. He ranked fifth and he is really fast, maybe not as fast as Gervasee, but really fast. And Femur was ranked third, he is unique. I have managed to beat both of them at least once, but that was a long time ago. They have gotten new moves by now I bet. If you had joined the club a while ago you could have been able to play them."

"How do you know I will be fighting Femur after my next battle? Won't he had to win his fight first?" Max said.

"Femur will win. He was last year's champ. I am sure he will win his match," TJ said.

"Yeah," Lizzy confirmed.

Lizzy looked at TJ then back at Max.

"Hey Max, play with me over here," she said, as she went over to one of the holographic-emitter tables used for Clash. She switched the game table to Ring-Out, a game where you toss rings onto pegs on a wall from a line. The higher you throw the ring the more points, but the pegs stick out less making it harder to hit. TJ went to play with other club members. Max followed Lizzy to the table and linked his band making Sandalphon appear on the game field.

While they were alone Lizzy asked, "Max would you like to come to April's birthday party this Friday as my guest?"

Max thought about that for a second. "If April doesn't mind me coming to her birthday party, then sure," he said.

"Don't worry about a present or anything," she said.

"Okay, sounds cool." Max was trying to figure out what was Lizzy's angle on asking him to the party. He doubted that she was trying to get revenge or anything; if like, when he showed up he was going to get ambushed. Trying not to worry about it Max asked a question that was bugging him about their fight. "Liz, why didn't you use Cleita's cape to deflect any of Sandalphon's attacks?" Max asked.

"The cape doesn't work like that. It can only deflect flying projectiles that are used against Cleita" Lizzy responded. "It doesn't work on melee attacks.

"Ah, that was bugging me," Max said

Max and Lizzy played through other games on the holographic-emitters. The two ended up hanging out every day after school that week. They exchanged phone numbers and added each other as friends on some online social networking sites. In the morning he would head over to her locker before school. And at lunch he started sitting with her and April instead of sitting with his own friends.

Chapter 17

Max and Lizzy: more then just friends?

Max showed up to April's house more than a little nervous. He was greeted at the door by April's mom and he explained Lizzy had invited him. Even though he was told he did not have to get a present he had brought one was anyways. He did not see Lizzy right away so he called her with his phone. She came out of a back room and over to talk to him after the getting his call.

"I am so glad you are here. April's family demands all of her attention during her birthday, so I barely get to hang with her. Last year I had gotten her a Clash band and we weren't able to play a match for hours. Her cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles all force her to talk about everything going on in her life. They all have these crazy expectations for her. So because of that she is in like twenty clubs at school." Lizzy said.

"Ah, that must be why I haven't seen her at the club meetings." Max said.

"We are going to go see that new holographic-movie in a bit. You got here just in time because we were just about to leave."

"I had thought that maybe I was a little late." Max said.

Holographic-movies had replaced regular projection movies years ago. The benefits of holographic-movies were that they projected in actual 3D. It was quite the experience. The holographic images would sometimes fly into the audience making for breathtaking scenes. When he was younger Max remembered when a plane had flown into the audience. He had freaked out the first time it had happened, but since then had gotten use to it.

Max got a ride with Lizzy in April's Aunt's car to the holographic-theater. He called his parents to let them know before he left. The new holographic-movie that they were going to see was a documentary about the Jupiter space mission. Max had thought they were going to see Action Flick 10 when Lizzy had said new holographic-movie.

"Oh yeah. I forgot to tell you that April's family love documentaries." Lizzy said. "I hope that you don't mind."

"No, I don't mind." Max said. He just hoped it was not too boring of a movie.

While they were standing in line for tickets April got away from her family and came over to talk to them. "Sorry Lizzy, I hardly got to hang with you at all today." April said.

"Happy birthday April." Max said.

"Thanks Max. I see Lizzy really did drag you here. Good luck on wining your next match tomorrow."

"Thanks."

"I trained him good this week, he better win." Lizzy said.

They got their tickets and went into the theater. April's family ended up taking up a few rows. The three of them sat together in a row with Lizzy in the middle. Max had started too really like Lizzy since he started hanging out with her. He was feeling a little nervous sitting so close to her; he tried not to think about it.

The previews before the movie started and one of them was highlights of an exclusive interview with the creator of Clash, Peter Toggle. In the interview he is asked why there are so few celestial avatars and how is it that none of them have made it to the national tournament yet. Peter responded that when they designed the process of when avatars are created; their research showed that about one in five people would be of the celestial type. Most people that would be the celestial type do not care to play Clash nor do they want to try to partake in tournaments. They hadn't really expected that. Maybe someday the people that have celestial avatars would be more interested in tournaments. Or someone with a celestial avatar will rise up from the people to challenge at the national level.

Peter went on to explain that celestials were supposed to be just as strong as every other type. The fact that they seem weaker than most is not built into them, the players of celestial types can bring out as many powers as all the other types. The preview ended explaining that the full interview would be released at a later time in another documentary.

Some more information about celestials was a documentary Max could really get into.

The feature presentation started. It was not as bad a Max had expected. It started with the building of the Jupiter shuttle. How they would have to utilize a lot of recycling on the shuttle to make it all the way out to Jupiter. The shuttle would act like a mini farm. It would grow plants, have a few chickens for eggs and a goat for milk; all to be the food supple for the astronauts. The carbon dioxide that they astronauts breathed out would be turned back into oxygen by the plants and all the water would be recycled through sunlight distillation. Any human waste was also refined into fertilizer for the plants.

Max thought the idea of eating plants that grew in your waste was gross, but if it worked good luck to the astronauts. The round trip to Jupiter would take 6 years to complete; two and half years to get there and two and a half to get back, with a whole year at Jupiter for research.

Half way through the movie, it changed to scenes of outer space where the giant space shuttle was being put together. They started playing a lot of classical music during those parts. Max was getting bored and so he started looking around the theater having nothing else better to do.

Max noticed that Lizzy's hand was inches away from his own. He suddenly really wanted to hold her hand. He kept going over in his head if it would be ok: _Were they just friends or were they starting a relationship._ After pondering these thoughts, he finally just came to the conclusion that if it did not work out, no big deal his life would go on.

Not bothering to think about it any more he reached out and held her hand. For the next five minutes all he could think about was that she had not rejected him or pulled away yet. Over and over that went on in his head. After a while he got back into the movie when they started showing the moons of Jupiter and how the shuttle was set to orbit the four Galilean moons and explore the other sixty smaller moons with fly-bys and probes. Max calmed down and just enjoyed holding her hand till the end of the movie.

After the movie Max said goodbye to April and Lizzy, and was picked up by his parents at the theater. Lizzy said she would be at the tournament to cheer for him tomorrow. After he got home Max got a message from Lizzy on his phone that had a picture of April holding his present to her. Not really knowing April too well Max had gotten her a mix of sweet dried fruits, something he figured was a simple gift. Lizzy said in the message that she had a great time and would like to see a good movie with Max the next time.

Chapter 18

Max takes on the first champion of Collis!

Max showed up to the stadium ready for today's fight. Lizzy had sent him a message saying that a lot of the Clash club members had gathered in the stands. He went and signed in for his match, the first one of the day again. He had some time before it was set to start so he went over to hang with the club. Max climbed the stairs to where everyone was assembled.

"Max, we will be rooting for you," TJ said, waving to Max.

"Although you aren't an official member of the Club yet," Lizzy said. "You are the only one left from the middle school still in the tournament. So, pretty much the whole school is counting on you".

"Well, thanks, that doesn't make me uneasy at all," Max said.

"Thanks for the snacks," April said, holding up his present to her. "We are going to eat them during your match."

"Save me some."

Lizzy got up and pulled Max away from the group to talk to him. "Max you better not lose. Troo is strong. I know you have seen his fights before. He is going to have some new moves by now, so don't get caught surprised."

Max smiled at her. "We already went over this. Sandalphon will win don't worried about it." Max had full confidence in his avatar. It was getting time for his battle to start. Lizzy smiled back and went back to her seat. Max started back down the steps stopped and looked back up at Lizzy and the rest. She waved down to him and he waved back. Max felt ready for his fight.

"Blast off to the edge of the galaxy, Troo!" Decon said.

"Here we have a two time returning champion Decon, with his avatar Troo," The announcer said.

Troo was of the robotic type. It looked like a robot out of a Japanese cartoon. It had white plates all over its body, with black connection pieces for its arm and leg joints. On its legs were six disks that jutted out to the side. Sticking out behind its elbows were two long thin spikes. Its head had a helmet of metal plates that surrounded two optic eyes, glowing blue. From the top of the helmet he had more thin spikes that pointed up and back. Troo had a booster pack built into his back. He had tiny robotic wings, that extended from his pack to the sides, with additional boosters on them. Troo would use the boosters to jump around the arena in small bursts. On his feet he had treads like those of a tank. Overall, he was relatively short, only about two thirds the height of Sandalphon.

Sandalphon had appeared on stage before Troo and had his golden mace, Medens, out for the start of this fight. Max was glad to have the insurance of at least one piece of gear this time. Sandalphon was still a puzzle; Max did not know what he was going to get with him at any given time.

"Five, four, three, two, one. GET READY TO CLASH!" The announcer yelled.

They two avatars charged at one another. Troo was fast; he looked like he was skating around the arena sliding on his treaded feet. Sparks flew out behind his treads as he took sharp turns. As he got close to Sandalphon he curved about and began making wide circles around Sandalphon. Max kept Sandalphon turning to face Troo; not allowing him to get behind Sandalphon.

Troo unhooked the two spikes on its arms; they were hinged on its wrists and locked into place, sticking out past its hands to form blades. It cut in close to Sandalphon and took a swipe at his leg. Sandalphon raised his leg preventing himself from being cut. Troo then did a spin and brought its other blade up to slash at Sandalphon's back before skating backwards, away from Sandalphon. The blade had cut into Sandalphon's tunic creating a giant gash in it.

"Too shallow," Decon said.

Troo came back in straight at Sandalphon. Max did not wait for him to pull a similar maneuver. Sandalphon jumped at Troo. Troo did a series of small, quick swings at Sandalphon, who used Medens to block the attacks. Troo then fired up its boosters and did a swift burst to jump up and fly high up above Sandalphon to swipe at his head. Sandalphon blocked with Medens, one swipe, and grabbed Troo's other arm stopping a second attack. Sandalphon threw Troo back by that arm. Troo went tumbling through the air, it shot out its wings and the boosters on them slowed its fall, allowing it to stick a landing.

"You are moving better. But what I want to see is your wings," Decon said.

"I'll tell you what. If you give me a reason to bring out my wings, I will," Max said, a little conceited. Max still did not know how he got Sandalphon's wings to come out. He was relying on Sandalphon to always come through in a pinch.

"Okay, we got a deal then." Troo held is arms out to his sides. Then the blades began to glow and they burned red hot. Heat waves could be seen rising off the surface of the blades. Troo came rolling in at Sandalphon. Max did not wait for Decon to make the first move and had Sandalphon dash forward and delivered a kick into Troo's chest. Sandalphon was much larger than Troo and the force of the kick sent Troo flying back. Troo turned on the boosters and flew back and up away from Sandalphon. Decon was looking a little bewildered, not expecting Sandalphon to have made such a fast counter attack.

Decon recognized Sandalphon's power and knew he would have to use the move that had won him the Championship twice. The disks on Troo's legs detached themselves and began to hover in the air before Troo. There were 6 six disks in total and each disk linked up with another one to create a solid beam of light between them. There were 3 beams of light in total all about the same length as Sandalphon was tall. Decon sent the hovering beams of light towards Sandalphon surrounding him in a triangle of the light beams. Sandalphon swung at the beams with Medens, but his attacks bounced off, the light beams were solid to the touch.

Troo came skating in at Sandalphon. Troo swiped out high at Sandalphon with one of its blades above a beam. The light bubble around Medens glowed as he blocked the attack. Troo then came in low below the beam with this other blade. Max tried to have Sandalphon block that as well, but the light beam prevented him from moving Medens down fast enough. Tara scored a hit across Sandalphon's leg, leaving a dark burn mark across it.

Max was growing worried about having Sandalphon trapped in the triangle of beams and tried to have Sandalphon climb out over the beams. Sandalphon tried to step off a beam, but when he went to do so the beam gave way under him and he stumbled, and fell down. Troo came from around the beams and stabbed at Sandalphon's side. Sandalphon tried to make a counterattack, but Troo went skating away on its treads. Sandalphon now had a second burn mark where Troo had stabbed him.

The three beams moved in front of Sandalphon stacking on top of each other creating a wall. Sandalphon swung at the beams again, but they did not budge. Medens was not strong enough to break the beams. Troo came skating back and from between two beams swiped at Sandalphon. Max tried to have Sandalphon attack back, but the beams narrowed not allowing Medens to fit in between them.

Max was growing frustrated at dealing with the light beams. He had Sandalphon grab the middle beam and attacked the end of it with Medens. This caused the disked at the end to fly away, turning off the beam. Troo slashed out at Sandalphon's hand that had held the beam burning another mark across his arm. Sandalphon swung at Troo in the new gap between the two remaining beams scoring a hit on Troo's shoulder. The blow was not that strong and Troo simply rolled with the attack away from Sandalphon.

Max had been expecting these kinds of attacks from Troo. He had seen them used before in the past champion matches. Max hopped that if he kept up with his own attacks like this he could beat Troo.

The two light beams and the fifth disk, flew over to Troo. The beams disappeared, leaving the disks floating. They moved closer to Troo and snapped back into place on its legs. The disk that Sandalphon had hit was still lying motionless where it landed, leaving Troo with a blank spot on his left leg.

Troo had been a champion in Collis for a few years now, having won the tournament two years ago and three years ago. Nearly everyone had seen all of his special attacks by now. Decon deployed tactics that were hit and run maneuvers, like the ones he was using today against Sandalphon. In last year's tournament Troo had come in second place, losing the final battle against Femur. Troo was a favorite among a lot of people in the crowd. Nearly everyone was disappointed at his loss first loss in 3 years, but at the same time they saw that Troo had not achieved any new abilities. That loss had been a wake up call for Decon and so for the last year he has been working very hard to come up with new abilities.

Decon did not underestimate Max, he saw the fight against Gervasee and knew the speed Sandalphon could have when he used his wings. After seeing Sandalphon's strength from that one blow on Troo, he knew he would have to use his new ability now or suffer a loss. He had planned on using these new special attacks against his match with Gervasee. Because Sandalphon had beaten Gervasee it would be appropriate that he would unveil them today.

"Become energized Troo," Decon said. He held out his hand, quickly he snapped it into a fist.

The blades on Troo's arms swung back into their original positions. The little wings on Troo's back shot out and pointed up into the air. The spikes on his head started to glow a bright yellow. Sparks flew off the spikes into the air. Above the avatar a yellow light began to glow. The light formed into a large vertical ring, the ring began to swirl and from inside the ring a portal to outer space opened. The portal started to suck the air out of the arena, Sandalphon's hair and clothes could be seen blowing towards the direction of the portal. The ring of light began to move back, as it moved an object was slowly being revealed from the portal. The ring of light pasted the last of the object, revealing it to be a large set of white metallic wings, matching Troo's own metallic body.

The portal closed and the light that formed the ring exploded. The wings lowered onto Troo, connecting with his out reaching little boosters wings combing into a new set of wings. The new wings were large in comparison to the rest of Troo's body. All along the bottom of the wings there were many tiny little jets. As Troo fired them up, they each had little flames shooting out of them. Troo lifted off the ground and hovered in the air. Then the jet flames grew and Troo took off flying around the arena.

"If you don't bring out your wings now you will never catch me," Decon said.

"You can fly around all day, but you won't get Sandalphon," Max said, back at Decon.

From Troo's new wings, two gun turrets unfold from the tops of the wings. As Troo flew the turrets targeted Sandalphon and fired off some blaster bursts. Sandalphon intercepted the blasts with Medens. The light bubble that surrounded Medens flared up and deflected the attacks. Troo was flying fast around the arena, circling Sandalphonm shooting off bursts of fire continuously.

Decon had underestimated Medens' ability to block attacks, and had Troo change its attack routine. Once again Troo locked its blades into place and dove down at Sandalphon. Sandalphon jumped at Troo trying to score a hit as he came into range. Troo banked to the side and doing a quick loop came at Sandalphon from behind. Sandalphon turned to face Troo and meet Troo's double blade swipe with Medens. Troo lowered his blasters at Sandalphon's head and fired off a double burst. Sandalphon ducked under the attack, but was met with a kick from Troo to the face. Troo had the treads on its foot spinning and rode its foot across Sandalphon's face. Troo backed away and sent another volley of blasts at Sandalphon. Max was slow to bring Medens to block the volley and a few of the shots scored hits.

Max was growing worried about the damage Sandalphon was taking. There were now burn marks all over him. Sandalphon so far had only the one successful attack on Troo and it had been a glancing blow at best. Max tried to have Sandalphon use Medens' ability to heal, but nothing happened. As Troo came in for another attack, light emit from Sandalphon's body and both his wings and armor appeared on his body.

"I guess that means you are still able to fight," Max said, talking to his own avatar.

Troo flew in close and layed down some more blaster fire on Sandalphon. Using Medens to block Sandalphon, flew at Troo and kicked the robot, sending him flying back mid air. Sandalphon followed up with a series of attacks with Medens. Troo took off, away from Sandalphon, picking up speed, trying to circle around Sandalphon. Sandalphon flew after him. At first Troo seemed faster, but Sandalphon was catching up. Troo was making drives and cuts in the air, but Sandalphon stayed right on him. Finally Sandalphon caught up and smashed Medens into Troo's back sending him crashing down to the arena floor.

Before Troo could recover from the crash Sandalphon landed down on the robot's back, pinning it to the floor. Troo's blaster turrets swiveled around to blast Sandalphon. Max saw them and had Sandalphon smashed the two turrets before they could fire. Troo was at Sandalphon's mercy in that position, and the fight ended as Troo was demolished by a two handed attack by Sandalphon with Medens.

The announcer declared Max the winner.

Decon had thought Troo was going to win for sure. He had the upper hand the whole fight, Sandalphon was just too strong. Decon went over to congratulate Max on winning the fight. "Good fight. When I saw your fight against Gervasee I knew you were strong. I thought for sure Troo would be faster than Sandalphon in the air."

"That was a lot of fun. I was really worried there for a while. All the way up to the end you were beating me," Max said

"Your Sandalphon is just too powerful. Congratulations on making it to the semifinals."

"Thanks."

After his win Max went up into the stands to join his classmates and hang with Lizzy. When he got there they all clapped for him and congratulated him on his win. He sat next to Lizzy and they talked about his fight and the other quarterfinal fights. The next fight started and it was Femur the necromancer against Floosh the fire elemental.

Femur was last years Champ and he had no problem beating Floosh.

Max watched the battle intensely; Femur's attack pattern was a unique one. He summoned skeletal warriors to fight for him. If the warriors were defeated, he would summon a larger skeletal warrior made out of the bones of the defeated ones. If that got defeated, he would summon more skeletal warriors and then make an even larger one again. He would keep doing this until he had summoned so many skeletons that he completely overwhelmed his opponent.

"See I was right when I said Femur was going to be your next opponent," TJ said, after Femur had won his fight.

"You beat Femur before right?" Max asked Lizzy

"I had beaten when he was still a beginner. Way back before last year's tournament."

Degoth the necro draconian won the next quarterfinal fight. An air elemental, Spirit, won the last quarterfinal. Next week the four remaining Clash players would meet in the semifinals to determine who the final two would be.

Chapter 19

Gervasee's revenge!

The day after the semifinal fights Max called up Lizzy, to hang out at the Clash Center and have lunch together. By meeting at the center Max was hoping to get some fights in against people there to increase his battle experience. Lizzy had said that his lack of experience against many of the avatar types was one of his biggest weaknesses. Unlike his inability to bring Sandalphon's gear he could fix his inexperience by just having more battles with different people. Max figured the Clash Center would be the best place for him to get that experience

Lizzy showed up at the center a little after Max had, and they went into the store section to check out some Clash merchandise. In the store Max saw Jason, his first tournament fight. Jason had been looking around and happened to look over and see Max and Lizzy together. After spotting them Jason immediately came over to them. "What you doing with my little sister? Jason asked Max.

"What?" Max was totally confused.

Lizzy had been looking at some T-shirts and when she heard Jason talking was surprised to see her older brother. "Go away, Jason." Lizzy said. She had her hands on her hips and was staring daggers at Jason.

"No Liz we are having a rematch." He grabbed Max by the arm and started dragging him out of the store and towards the gaming area. Lizzy came up and shoved her brother in the back.

"Jason, go away!" She said. Max could see she was getting pretty upset.

"Hey Liz, I'll play your brother no big deal," Max said.

"Max you don't have to."

"I want to. I want to show that it wasn't just a fluke that I won." Seeing the look in Max's eyes Jason let go of Max and took a step back. "I want everyone to know that Sandalphon deserves to be in the finals." Lizzy calmed down upon seeing that Max was willing to fight. "Let's go Jason." He walked over to a game station in the arcade section of the store.

"I've been watching all of your fights. If you think that holding out till the end like you do all the time will work on me, you are dead wrong." Jason turned on his band and Gervasee appeared on the holographic-field. Max turned on his too, and immediately got a fight request from Jason. He clicked accept. Jason looked at Max for a second, then pressed the button to start the fight. The station started the countdown to the fight.

"I thought I told you to start with everything." Jason said. Sandalphon once again had only his white fighting tunic on.

"Fine!" Max was growing angry at the fact he had to prove Sandalphon was stronger against someone he already beat. Max was not sure why, but it seemed that his anger got Sandalphon to equip his armor, Medens and his wings all at once.

Gervasee sprinted at Sandalphon. Sandalphon took to the air before he got close. Gervasee ripped off its manacles and shot the two chains from them into the air at Sandalphon. They caught him and wrapped around him like they done in their first fight. The chains shattered as soon as they wrapped around Sandalphon. Gervasee then shot out from its finger tips its poison coated claws. Sandalphon was flying too fast and maneuvering too much to get hit by them though.

Gervasee began howling. Above Sandalphon at the highest point of the holographic-field a full moon came out projecting light over the field. The light effected Gervasee and he began to grow larger, the clothes it had been wearing tore to shreds, falling and landing at its feet.

"This is new," Max said.

"That's transformation one, I got one more," Jason said.

Max was curious as to what the second one would look like. Taking his focus off the match he imagined a giant wolf that took up half the arena. Max was brought back to reality when Gervasee began spewing acid at Sandalphon's direction. Sandalphon dodged the acid.

"Come on fight me" Jason said.

Max landed Sandalphon on the ground, ready to fight back. Gervasee charged in and swiped at Sandalphon with his now transformed larger claws. Sandalphon blocked with Medens. Gervasee's increased body size had brought him up to the same size as Sandalphon. He shot a point black acid spit at Sandalphon. It was blocked by the light bubble surrounding Medens, the acid fell into a pool on the ground around Sandalphon's feet. Sandalphon used his wings to ascend and hovered above the acid pool. Gervasee came at him again with some more swipes. Max used Sandalphon's legs to block the attacks and smashed Medens down on Gervasee's head. The werewolf retreated back a step. Sandalphon flew up higher into the air.

"It looks like Gervasee can take at least one hit from Medens now." Max said taunting Jason.

"Alright, last transformation," Jason said, almost in a growl.

Gervasee fell down on all fours and became a wolf completely. It stared at Sandalphon and snarled. Then he howled and springing out from his body came a pack of translucent ghost wolves. They raced towards Sandalphon springing into the air teeth bared, ready to chomp down on Sandalphon. Holding Medens in front as a shield Sandalphon flew through them all and dove right into Gervasee slamming him back. He pushed him back all the way to the wall of the holographic-field. Sandalphon stood over him and, using his foot held Gervasee down. Behind Sandalphon the ghost wolves were circling around to attack from behind. Before they could get to him, Sandalphon, grabbing Medens in both hands, brought it down hard on Gervasee breaking its hologram body to pieces. The ghost wolfs disappeared into wisps of smoke right behind Sandalphon.

Jason stared at where his avatar had been defeated, with his mouth hanging open. He began to shake his head and with pain in a voice said, "Alright you're good." His humbleness ended there "But don't you think I will let you go out with my sister."

"Be quite Jason." Lizzy yelled at her brother. "I can date whoever I want."

"I'm going to tell mom and dad."

"Go ahead, you big baby. Go get a girlfriend and stop playing Clash all the time."

"I got a girlfriend..." The look on Jason's face said otherwise.

Lizzy raised one eyebrow "Who?"

Jason did not answer. He gave up. He sneered at Max then walked away. Lizzy turned to face Max; she was blushing a little, totally embarrassed. Seeing that some people were staring at them, she said to Max, "Let's go get lunch," and headed towards the exit.

Max was feeling pretty good at the moment. He won his match and then suddenly got a girlfriend. He followed Lizzy out of the Clash store. Although it was still a little early they looked around for a place to eat.

Chapter 20

Lunch with girlfriend and Davis maybe coming home!

Max and Lizzy had settled on getting some fast food at a burger place. While they were eating Max asked some questions to try and understand what was going on.

"So Jason is your older brother." Max said.

"Yeah, sorry I didn't tell you," Lizzy said. "Jason had thought that during your first match you were acting weak to show off. He found that we were in the same grade and he was bugging me to ask you for a rematch ever since his loss. I had told him that I didn't know you that well. Jason never wants to have a duel with me so I was a little jealous of you."

"Did you ever tell him that I only had my avatar for one day before our first match?" Max asked.

"Yes, and that made him really mad."

"So... this was why you had been avoiding me at school?"

"Yes, that and another reason."

"Another reason?"

Lizzy brushed some hair behind her ear and started to look embarrassed. "Don't make me say it." She smiled like she was holding back a secret.

Max took a bite of his burger. He wanted to know, but was not sure if he could get it out of her. He could wait and find out the other reason some other time.

"Will you be coming home for the finals?" Max asked, he was talking on the phone with his brother Davis.

"Yeah, Classes will be over a few days before the finals and I'll be able to come for a visit for a while." Davis said.

"Cool, so I just got to beat Femur and then I'll move on to the finals against Degoth or Spirit."

"Degoth? That name sounds familiar."

"Maybe you have fought him before, he is from the mainland. He comes to Collis just to participate in the tournament."

"Why does he do that? He should just go the tournament near him."

"I overheard people saying that he came to Collis because he thinks we are weak. And that he will be able to get into the state tournament easier by winning our tournament."

"The tournament system is so corrupt. Well, anyway, I'll see you next week. Later."

Chapter 21

Secret of the Clash arm bands!

Max spent the week practicing with Lizzy in the school's Clash club. Everyone from the club was really amazed at how well he controlled Sandalphon now. Max won most games, even when they went two on one against him. A lot of the kids, which had quit after the first rounds of battles in the tournament, had started to come back to the club meetings. Mostly they had heard that Max was going to the club meetings and they all wanted to have duels with him. Seeing them coming back to the club Ms. Roundabout started to get more involved as well. She had found an interesting article about Clash and wanted to share it with them.

Ms Roundabout gave them a summery of the article "In the article the author claims that avatars are more than just for a game. The author claims that avatars are your souls. The author continues saying that every time we let the avatars fight they end up destroying our souls. What do you guys think about that?"

"I don't believe that for a second." Max said. "The avatars are just holographic projections. Holograms are only light. The shapes for the holograms are made by computers. I don't see how computer data is a soul."

"In the article the author doesn't mention any of that. What she does talk about is how the Clash bands read your minds to control the avatars. The author claims that technology should not be advanced enough to be able to read your thoughts. Instead predicts that the bands are a channel to your soul."

"But the bands don't read our thoughts," Lizzy said. "They work off our nervous system. Our brains send millions of commands to our bodies, through our nerves every minute. The bands read some of those commands though the nerves in our wrists. They don't read our thoughts, they read our bodies."

"Is that how they work?" TJ asked. He held up his wrist and looked at his band.

"How did you not know that?" Lizzy asked.

TJ shrugged his shoulders.

"I did not know that either," Max said impishly.

Lizzy looked at Max "Well..." She thought for a second. "You are new to Clash. It is ok that you did not know that."

"So the author," Max said. "Does he want us all to stop playing Clash?"

"Actually, it was a female who wrote the article. And she does want everyone to stop. She use to play, clash and claimed it damaged her soul." Ms Roundabout said.

"Ms. Roundabout." Max said getting her attention.

"Yes, Max?"

"Why did you read us this article?"

"I thought is would be interesting."

"It was," Lizzy said. "But I think this lady is just mad that she lost a Clash match and is making up stuff as an excuse."

"I would believe that if it were true. If you guys learned anything from this article it should be that even adults are not perfect and say crazy things."

Chapter 22

Max fights to get into the finals!

Saturday rolled around and Max felt ready to start his fight against Femur. In a blink of an eye it was time for the tournament's semifinals already.

"I got the will, you got the power, Sandalphon!" Max said, as Sandalphon materialized in the arena.

"Rise Femur, my minion, and due my bidding," Kurk said, and his avatar appeared in the arena across from Sandalphon. Femur was a necromancer of the necro type; it looked like the figure of death. He wore a black robe over a bare human skeleton and carried a white bone sickle on his back. Hanging from his waist was a book that dangled off a thick metal chain. He drew the sickle and held it in his right hand, then grabbed the book, holding it in his left hand.

The announcer started the countdown to the fight, "Five, four, three, two, one. Clash!"

Right at the start of the fight Femur could be heard casting a summoning spell. Five summoning portals opened up, they were circles of glowing hieroglyphs that appeared randomly all across the arena floor. Rising up from the portals were human skeletons. They came out stiff and unmoving, but as the summoning finished they animated. It looked like dust fell off them as they came to life, as though they had just come from a dusty coffin. Femur held out a hand and pointed a bony finger at Sandalphon. The skeletons all began to move towards the celestial fighter.

Max knew of this attack. He had seen many other avatars fall from being overwhelmed by the onslaught of attacks from the skeletons. The way the skeletons had been summoned left them spread out around the arena. Compared to Sandalphon the skeletons were very small. Max, chose to fight the skeletons, one at a time, instead of running and getting cornered by them, had Sandalphon charged at the nearest bony construct. Using his long legs, he tripped the skeleton, and then smashed in its rib cage against the ground. Another skeleton moved into range and Sandalphon kicked it in the side sending it flying. The next one came in at him, he punched it in the head, popping off its skull, sending it flying away.

The last two skeletons jumped at him together, he caught the one by the neck while the other hopped onto his back. He smashed the one to the ground, and then reaching up over his shoulder, grabbed the other and sent it flying into the one he had knocked the skull flying from. The two skeletons collided and fell into a pile of broken bones.

Femur cast another spell from his book and a giant summoning portal formed under Sandalphon. All the smashed skeleton bodies fell into the portal. Once they were gone, arising, in front of Sandalphon, was a large bone construct made of all the skeletons he had just smashed. It looked like a bone ogre, with two heads, and it welded a club that had the three heads on it. The bone ogre was bigger than Sandalphon, with Sandalphon only coming up to its shoulder.

The bone ogre raised its club up as if to smash it down on Sandalphon. Max quickly had Sandalphon step in and catch the hand of the ogre, as it brought the club down. Sandalphon snapped off the hand that held the club. Sandalphon picked up the club. He threw the club at the ogre hitting its spine breaking it to pieces.

Femur began to cast another spell from his book. Five more summoning portals opened up around the arena.

Not waiting for the summoning to finish, Sandalphon ran over to the portals and began to smash the skeletons before they could move. He smashed three before the other two animated and ran over to attack him. Sandalphon grabbed one of the skeletons by its outstretched hand and flung it at the other. The two skeletons went flying and together smashed into the arena wall. Sandalphon then charged at Femur before he would be able to cast the next spell.

"That won't work," Kurk said.

Femur swiped out at Sandalphon with its sickle, as he got in range. It was a near miss. Then in a most inhuman fashion Femur sent the sickle into a series spins, in front and around itself, to stave off any attacks from Sandalphon. With no weapons or armor out yet, Max did not want Sandalphon to be hit by the sickle, and so held Sandalphon back

Femur cast a new spell, around him a ring of mini portals were made. Out of the mini portals popped out bone spikes that formed a cage around the necromancer. Sandalphon punched and kicked at the spikes, hoping to break them to get at Femur. The bone spikes were too tough, Sandalphon could not break them. Femur cast a spell that made all the smashed skeleton bones disappear into the arena floor, and then the largest summoning circle yet formed behind Sandalphon.

Out of the summoning circle rose a bone giant was twice as tall as Sandalphon. It wielded a massive two handed club. It swung the club down. Sandalphon side stepped the slow attack and grabbed the club. Sandalphon pulled it from the giant's hand. Before he could turn it around to use it against the giant, it swung in and slapped the club from Sandalphon's grasp. The giant then punched down at Sandalphon, he caught the blow, holding on he pulled the giant forward to the floor. Sandalphon ran over to the giant's club to use it to smash the bone spikes that protected Femur.

Femur had begun another spell and 5 more summoning portals opened up around the arena. The bone giant was getting back on its feet as Sandalphon readied its club to use it against all the skeletons. The club was a little big, but Sandalphon had no problem using it in two hands. He began smashing the smaller skeletons around him. The bone giant then came in range. Sandalphon attacked it with the club. First he destroyed its knees, then as it was falling destroyed its spine, and as it lay on the ground he brought the mace down on its head. The rest of the smaller skeletons came at him and he easily knocked them to pieces with the club.

Sandalphon went back over to Femur and brought the giant club down on the bone spike cage, attempting to break it to get to Femur inside. The club broke apart when it hit the cage.

"This bone shield is stronger than the skeletons," Kurk said. "It will take more than that to break it,"

"These skeletons are weak," Max said. "Bring something stronger out for Sandalphon to fight."

"Alright, I'll let you pick: the centipede or the knight?"

"Knight."

"How about both!"

Femur began another spell, all the smashed bones disappeared from the arena floor and two summoning portals opened up. Out of one came a skeleton dressed in steel armor with a shield and sword. The other was a 20 legged monstrous centipede whose whole body was made of skeleton's bones. Max noticed that it had a pincer for a mouth and a spiked tail, things he would have to watch out for.

Sandalphon rushed the centipede and tore off two of its legs, then kicked the bug back. The Knight came up behind Sandalphon; he turned and parried the Knight's attack with the centipede's leg. Sandalphon then kicked at the knight's shield, knocking the arm of the knight off. With a double swing, he smashed the knight to pieces with the centipede's legs. The centipede had recovered and came at Sandalphon, low with its pincer, and high with its spiked tail. Sandalphon jumped on to the centipede between the two attacks. Sandalphon stomped down through the centipede's back breaking it in two.

"Your skeletons are weak. Bring out the strongest guy you got, I'll even wait for it." Max said. Max was getting a little over confident. This was the first time he has had the upper hand in a fight while Sandalphon was not using any of his gear.

The bone cage around Femur disappeared as he began his next spell. This time two portals opened up in the air over Femur's head. Out of the portals appeared two colossal bone arms. Sandalphon stood only as tall as the hand of one of the arms. Max noticed that Femur had to keep channeling the spell to keep the portals opened. One arm moved in to slap Sandalphon; he drove forward ahead of the blow. The other arm came down to crush him, he jumped to the side. As he dodged the one hand, the other hand came in to grab Sandalphon. Sandalphon pushed the fingers aside and grabbed its wrist in a bear hug.

Max had Sandalphon put all of his strength into bending the wrist. The other monstrous hand came in behind him and seized Sandalphon. Max did not have Sandalphon stop trying to bend and break the wrist. The other bone arm tried to yank him off, but Sandalphon held on. Then, as Max bent all of his will into Sandalphon, the wrist broke, cracking the massive bone, the hand fell to the floor disconnected. The other hand yanked Sandalphon once more and he went tumbling across the arena floor.

Everyone in the audience was stunned at the strength Sandalphon had just displayed. Even Kurk was left with his mouth agape. This was something he had never come across. He had come up with a bunch of different strategies to defeat Sandalphon and any of his gear. He would never have imagined losing with his best attack, just to Sandalphon's strength.

In his bewildered state Kurk had stopped paying attention to Sandalphon. Where as Max had Sandalphon come over to Femur and with a kick crushed the necromancer to pieces. At the last second Kurk saw what Sandalphon was going to do, but he was already too late. He was not angry or sad though, Max and Sandalphon were strong, he felt that they could win the state championship.

He congratulated Max on a job well done. Then gave him a bit of advice. "Watch the next match carefully; Degoth is just as strong as Sandalphon. I would never have imagined there would be two avatars so strong in this tournament. After Jason sees this fight he is going to want a rematch. A lot of us were surprised to see Gervasee lose. At the club meets, he beats us all real easily, all the time."

"We already had a rematch and I beat him. And I am going to beat Degoth or Spirit or everyone else," Max said, wearing a boastful smile

"Ha-ha, you beat him already. No wonder he hasn't said anything about you all week. Congratulations on making it to the finals I guess my Femur's rein as champion is over."

Chapter 23

Degoth shows his power!

Logan, with his avatar Degoth, was the other semifinal fight and his opponent was the air elemental, Spirit. Spirit wore tight fighting white clothing, that covered every inch of its body, except for a small slit around its white glowing eyes. Spirit was ranked the third fastest in the tournament and everyone was waiting to see how Degoth would handle a fast opponent. Right at the start of the fight Spirit took off moving across the arena floor, as it moved it left translucent afterimages of itself, the afterimages made it hard to determine what direction it was moving in. Spirit got close to Degoth, then disappeared for a second and a set of afterimages moved to either side of Degoth. Spirit reappeared in front of Degoth, and hit Degoth with a double punch to the face.

Degoth's shadow stepped out of the ground and grabbed at Spirit. It looked like Spirit was caught, but it had only been one of his afterimages. The real Spirit could be seen floating across the arena floor far from Degoth.

Degoth raised one of its maces and sent out a black shadow wall across the arena to Spirit's side. Quickly it sent out another black wall to Spirit's other side. Spirit was trapped in between the two walls. With its other mace Degoth sent out waves of black energy between the walls at Spirit. As they came flying in Spirit dodged them and only its afterimages were hit. The black energy passed right through the afterimages to hit the far arena wall.

Being trapped between the two shadow walls Spirit had no where to run to, and one of the waves of black energy finally hit it. It did not do much damage, but it looked like it slowed Spirit down and its afterimages disappeared. More waves of black energy hit Spirit and Spirit fell to the ground. Degoth breathed a torrent of black fire down at the prone Spirit, engulfing the avatar in flames and destroying its hologram body.

Degoth would move on to the finals.

Chapter 24

Being popular is nice!

When Max showed up to school Monday, it was just like after his first battle with Jason, when Sandalphon beat Gervasee. Everyone wanted to have a Clash duel with Max after school. He had so many challenges he had to set them up across multiple days that week. Everyone said that they were rooting for him to win against Degoth.

Max went over to Lizzy's locker to hang out before class started. Hanging out at her locker in the morning was starting to become his daily routine. He had learned that she was not a morning person so he always made sure to be extra nice to her. "Hey Liz, you are looking really cute today."

She waved to him as she yawned, then turned back to her locker to grab her bag. They went over to a bench to sit down while waiting for classes to start.

"I have had like twenty people ask me for duels today," Max said.

"Good. You can get some more practice in before the finals," Lizzy said. She closed her eye looking like she was going to fall asleep.

"You want to do anything this week for fun?"

Her eyes opened back up. "We could go shopping at the mall." She said with a smile.

"That sounds good. We could also go see that new movie."

"Action Flick 10? I still can't believe they couldn't come up with a different name then that."

"It has to do with the history of holographic-movies. The first Action Flick was just to test the holographic projectors to see how well the people would respond to actual 3D movies." She was closing her eyes again. Max kept talking not sure if she was going to fall asleep or not. "The movie didn't have a good plot or point, so they just called it Action Flick, all action no plot." Lizzy leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder and grabbed his arm hugging it. Max stopped talking. He felt a little embarrassed having her cling to him in the hallway with all the other students walking by. He was still getting used to having a girlfriend.

After a few minutes the bell rang for class to start and the students started emptying the halls. Lizzy did not get up. Max really did not want her to. April saw them and came over and woke Lizzy, they had first period class together. Lizzy started rubbing her eyes.

"See you later Max" Lizzy said as April shuffled her off to their class. Max got up and went to his first class too.

After classes were over for the day Max met up with Lizzy in the Clash club room. They started playing some games while Max's dual challenges started to show up.

"You totally fell asleep while I was talking to you this morning," Max said.

"Did I really?" Lizzy said. She had forgotten what had happened.

"Yeah, I was going to leave you sleeping there and go to class," he said teasing her.

"Whatever," she said.

They were playing a game at one of the holographic-tables. The game had their avatars riding boards that flew threw the air. The goal of the game was to collect the most coins. The coins would randomly spawn all over and fly all across the game field. Lizzy was currently winning and Max was trying to distract her so he could catch up.

"Third win in a row." Lizzy said as the game ended.

"One more game," Max said. He really hated losing.

"Max people are waiting to duel you."

"Alright, but after these we are playing again." He got up to play the people that challenged him this morning. He thought of something and went back to ask Lizzy "You want to go see Action Flick 10 this Friday?"

"Sure." She said smiling.

"Okay, it is a date." He left again, to play his challengers. Their avatars put up a good fight, but Sandalphon crushed them all. Max was a little disappointed that the fights lacked the feeling of pressure that the tournament fights had.

Chapter 25

Worse than a Clash fight, Max's first big date!

Max was waiting for Lizzy outside the holographic-theater that Friday. After school they had gone to their homes and gotten rides to the theater separately from their parents. Max's brother, Davis, was coming home to visit today as well. He was going to meet up with him at the Clash center after his date.

Max got a message on his phone from Lizzy saying that she was here. He looked around and saw a car pull up with her inside. When she got out of the car Max noticed she had changed into a nice dress. It was a white dress with pink roses for a pattern and she had a white little jacket over top of the dress. It looked really stylish and perfect for late spring. Max was still wearing his clothes from school. She said goodbye to her mom and Max waved to her as she drove away.

"I already bought the tickets so we..." he stopped mid sentence when she turned at him and smiled. "I didn't realize you were going to change." He looked down at his own clothes. He was in a red T-shirt and blue jeans. Before he looked up again, he saw her shoes. She had white shoes with pink little roses on them that matched her dress. The heels on the shoes made her a little taller than normal, which was really throwing Max off. "So I got the tickets and we can just grab some snacks and then sit down."

"Ok." She walked up and grabbed his arm leading him inside.

"I really like your dress." Max said.

"Thank you and I really like the same clothes you wore to school." She said.

"Ha-ha, sorry, didn't know you were going to change." Max said.

They bought some popcorn and some drinks, then went to find their seats. Immediately they held hands and passed the popcorn back and forth.

The plot of Action Movie 10 was about a cop chasing a criminal. The criminal was constantly stealing vehicles to escape with. The movie started with a chase scene through busy city streets. The criminal had stolen a transit bus and was using it to ram through traffic. The hero cop was in pursuit with half the city police patrol cars behind him.

The chase scene worked out really great for using the hologram special effects. As the bus knocked over cars they would fly up into the audience. Other times you would have the view from inside one of the wrecked cars and feel like you really crashed.

The chase scenes continued with the criminal getting on a train. The cop followed him onto the train and they had a fight while riding along the top. They went on to continue the chase in airplanes. The views the holographic-projector created gave the impression of the viewers flying through the sky.

After the movie they walked over to a restaurant and had diner.

Lizzy called her mom to come pick her up after they had finished eating. The two of them were just standing outside the restaurant among the rose bushes that lined the outside walls of the restaurant. Max had insisted that the both of them take some mints from the tray as they were leaving.

_Ok Max, this is a good time to have our first kiss. The setting is great: she is in a rose patterned dress and there are rose bushes all around us. We both just had breath mints and now have great smelling breath. I got about Five to seven minutes before her mom gets here. Don't let this opportunity go to waste._ – Max thought to himself.

Max moved in closer to Lizzy and leaned in, bringing his face closer to hers. He closed his eyes.

Lizzy shoved his face back with her hand.

"You know Max I was thinking," Lizzy said.

He had no idea what she was going to say, but was sure he would not like it.

"I think our first kiss should be after you win the tournament." She said.

"What?" Max was at a loss for words.

"Wouldn't that be great?" she said. "You win the tournament then I meet you on stage for our first kiss." She clasped her hands together over her heart and stared at him with big romantic eyes.

Max gave up. Inside his heart, was a twist of emotions. He regretted missing out on this chance, but at the same time she looked so cute he could not refuse her. "That would be super romantic." He said.

"I know, wouldn't it?" She said.

Max gave out a little laugh. "Well, we could kiss right now because there is no way Sandalphon is going to lose. So it is like I already won."

"Ha-ha, nice try." Lizzy said as she pushed him further away.

Max remembered something from before. "Remember you said there was another reason why you were avoiding me other than your brother?"

"Yeah," she looked at Max suspiciously.

"When I win you have to tell me what it was."

She thought about that for a second, then said "Okay, that sounds fair."

Lizzy's mom got there and Max said goodbye. Then he headed over to the Clash center to meet up with his brother.

Chapter 26

Showdown before the showdown!

Max got a text from Davis saying he would be showing up at the Clash Center a little after 7:00. It was 6:45 right now so he figured he could get some Clash battles in before his match tomorrow against anyone in the center. When Max showed up to the Clash center he saw that Logan happened to be there. He was bugging everyone to play him in a match. It looked like a bunch of people had already lost to him and Logan was being a real jerk about it. One kid pointed out Max saying Sandalphon could beat Degoth.

"Why wait for the match tomorrow, let us see who is stronger now," Logan said.

"Sorry Logan, I don't want to fight you yet." Max said.

"You scared kid?" Logan was much older and much bigger than Max.

"No, my Sandalphon can't lose."

"Come on dork, play me in a match, maybe you will learn how to beat me tomorrow."

"I would rather wait and see."

"You got a celestial type right? Your avatar is for kids, he would never be able to handle the players at the national level. Everyone knows that celestial phase out at states. Angels are a dumb concept. Sandal-pansy won't stand a chance tomorrow."

Max could handle being made fun of, but making fun of Sandalphon was not something he would tolerate. "Okay, let's do this."

"Alright," Logan said. They went over to a game station to have their match. The other kids were cheering Max on. They linked their bands up to the station.

"Don't fight him Max," someone yelled from the side. Max thought he recognized the voice. Max turned and saw it was Davis who had yelled. Max disconnected from the Clash station and walked over to talk to his brother.

"Why shouldn't I fight him?" Max asked his brother.

"I am going to fight him. You watch and learn what you can from him," Davis told Max in private. "Logan if you want a good fight, I'll take you on." Davis said so everyone could hear.

"Do I know you?" Logan asked Davis.

"No, but I know you. You're a member of Team Gold."

Logan's eyes grew wide. "How do you know that?"

"I was asked to join, but I turned them down. I don't play in the tournaments."

"You were asked to join?" he stood there thinking for a moment. "Okay, I'll duel you." Logan said.

"What is Team Gold?" Max asked his brother.

"They are a group that is trying to stack the state tournament brackets. They each have gone to different tournaments around the country to try to win the qualifiers for states."

Davis linked his band to the table. His avatar, Trebor, materialized on the table. Max remembered the avatar having seen Davis play with him in duels before. Trebor was a robot type; he had a gray blocky metal plated body. He had black blaster canons, on each arms He had long legs that made him a very tall avatar. He wore a gray helmet around his head and his face was human-like, gray with red mechanical eyes.

Right at the start of the fight Trebor began shooting his blasters canons at Degoth. Degoth held one of his maces out in front of himself and created a black wall that absorbed the blasts. From under the wall Degoth's shadow could be seen creeping along the floor towards Trebor. Trebor used his blasters on the shadow shooting holes into it, forcing it back.

"Not too bad. I may have to make Degoth move for once," Logan said.

"If you think you can pull that stunt with me, you are wrong," Davis said. Trebor opened up his chest plates and released a salvo of missiles, they arced high towards Degoth. Trebor ran to the side and quickly followed up with some blasts from his arm canons. Degoth created a black wall up high to block the missile salvo. The blaster bolts came from around the first wall and forced Degoth to dodge to the side to prevent from getting smoked. "Looks like I forced you to move."

Logan glanced at Max then back to the holographic-field. Degoth started flapping his wings and took to the air. Trebor started firing at him again. Hitting an airborne speedy target was much harder, most of the blasts did not even come close to Degoth. He flew directly above Trebor causing his Shadow to be right under the robot.

"Davis watch out," Max said.

The shadow spiraled up Trebor's legs and around his whole body locking him in place. Degoth went into a dive ready to smash his maces on top of Trebor's head.

"No," Max said. Degoth's maces collided with Trebor breaking his hologram to bits.

"I can't believe you fell for that. Are you sure they asked you to join Gold?" Logan asked, smiling.

"Maybe they didn't," Davis said as he shrugged his shoulders. "Want to play again?"

The smile faded from Logan's face. He could not read Davis and was thrown off by what he said and how he said it. "No, I think I am done for the day." Logan looked from Davis to Max. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Chapter 27

Final training!

Max and Davis got home and Max had a bunch of questions.

"Degoth is strong; He may go all the way to the nationals. If you are going to beat him Max you are going to have to learn how to bring out all of Sandalphon's powers"

"I try to," Max said. "But when I practice on my own I can't get Sandalphon to bring out any of his gear or abilities. Most people I duel are not any good. I don't have to use Sandalphon's abilities to beat them."

"Well, you are going to duel me." Davis said.

"Sandalphon verse Trebor. Okay, let's do that. Sandalphon is going to destroy Trebor though."

"Talking big are we? You and Sandalphon are a hundred years too young to be thinking you could beat me." Davis pulled out his arm band and turned it on. Trebor appeared.

Max turned on his band and Sandalphon appeared, dressed only in his white fighting tunic like always. Davis sent a duel request to Max's band. He accepted and started the fight.

"Trebor, dominate them all!" Davis said.

"I got the will, you got the power, Sandalphon," Max said his battle cry.

A holographic 3D counter appeared between the avatars. The counter counted down from five then flashed 'Fight' and the brothers began the duel. Trebor began to fire his twin blasters at Sandalphon. The blasts traveled slowly through the air and Sandalphon sidestepped and dodged them. The blasts kept coming and Max had Sandalphon totally on the defensive, just dodging the blasts. Davis would wave his arms around and the blasts would come in from all around. Max had to completely focus on avoiding them.

"Come on Max, you got to do something other than run away," Davis said.

"Well stop firing your lasers and I'll do something," Max responded.

"Okay, how about some missiles instead?" The chest plates on Trebor opened up revealing the hidden missile silo. The missiles shot out in all directions at Sandalphon leaving smoke trails. The missiles were fast and Sandalphon would be unable to dodge the spread of missiles.

Light swirled around Sandalphon's left hand and Max had Sandalphon grab at it. Medens materialized out of the light and into his hand. He held Medens in the path of the missiles to block them. The missiles landed all around Sandalphon in a series of explosions. Medens had saved Sandalphon from any direct hits.

Davis noticed the light bubble around Medens. "Is that a shield?" Davis asked, pointing at Medens. "Block these attacks with it." Trebor shot out a few blasts from arm mounted blaster canons at Sandalphon. Sandalphon held up Medens and the light bubble deflected the blasts. "That is interesting. Most weapons are meant to have an attack of some kind. That mace acts more like a shield, than a weapon."

"I won a lot of battles using Medens as a weapon," Max said. "I don't understand what you mean."

"Here is what I am thinking Max, I think you can summon a different mace, that you could use to attack better with."

Max thought about that for a while. Back on his birthday when he had first seen Sandalphon he did have two maces. "I think you are right, when I was in the Clash Center picking up my armband Sandalphon was dual wielding maces. I kind of forgot about that."

"Degoth has two maces as well, I am willing to bet you two are opposites of the same coin."

"Huh?" Max said, a little confused.

"Degoth and Sandalphon have probably the same attacks. The only difference is Degoth is necro and Sandalphon is celestial. I have seen this happen a few times before. When the creators of Clash set up the powers of the avatars they copied a lot of abilities. They had to, there are so many Clash players there are going to be avatars with similar abilities. I think that we can assume that anything Degoth can do Sandalphon can do as well.

"Can Sandalphon produce fire from his mouth like Degoth?" Max found that idea a bit amusing.

"I doubt that, breathing fire makes sense because his avatar is part dragon. Sandalphon would have another way of shooting out flames for sure though." Davis said. "Anyway, let's finish this fight.

Sandalphon chased after Trebor. Trebor's attacks were having no effect on Medens. Trebor tried to run, but Sandalphon finally caught Trebor and took the robot out in a two handed swing from Medens. "Undefeated huh?" Max said. He raised his chin up and gave his older brother a look down his nose. Trebor's holographic image broke up and faded away.

"I haven't been undefeated in a while. You know Max, the way you fight is so frustrating to watch. If Sandalphon has these abilities you should be using them from the start of the match. It looks like you are teasing your opponent. Finishing the battle sooner is better. Dragging it out like you do will result in you making a mistake." Davis said.

"I wish I could make Sandalphon start 100 percent, but all that comes out his him in his tunic and if I am lucky sometimes Medens."

"Yeah, celestials really do work differently from everyone else. Most necro, elemental and robotic types start battles with their weapons out. And the players don't have trouble making them doing so. The research I've done shows celestials won't start that way unless you learn how. Here is what we are going to do Max. We are going to train you to learn to start with your full powers. Because if you go into the fight against Degoth like you did against me, you are going to lose, fast. Degoth is crazy strong. But Max, you know what I think? I think that Sandalphon is stronger."

"How can you say Sandalphon is stronger after this one duel?" Max asked.

"I watched all your battles over the holographic-net. There has been a lot of talk of the number one ranked losing to the lowest ranked in the Collis tournament. Last week they showed a replay of your match against Gervasee over the net." Davis said.

"What? Sandalphon is now nationally known?

"Yeah, there was been big talk about how you had only registered Sandalphon the day before the match. So they didn't challenge your rankings. It is pretty rare to have a lowest rank beat a top rank. Even more so if the lowest is a celestial."

_Sandalphon is famous that is so cool,_ Max thought. "Maybe Sandalphon will make it all the way to the nationals." Max said.

"He is strong enough." Davis said with a smile. Then the smile vanished as he said "Max I have a request."

"What?"

"Well, I was going to join the tournament for the first time at the stadium near my college, in protest of the ranking scale I did really badly on purpose at the rankings. When I won my match, they challenged my rankings and had me removed from the tournament. Saying I had stacked the match. Sandalphon is strong enough so I know you can do this. I want you to do as bad as you can in the tests that determine the ranking at the state level. If you do that they will put you up against the last year's champion. And I want you to crush him." Davis said. "I want you to show everyone that the rankings are unfair."

"I know Sandalphon is strong, but do you really think I can beat the state champ?" Max said.

"Well, I think I am asking a bit much. Defeating Degoth is going to be a lot of work and you are going to have to do that first. Talking about getting to states is getting a little ahead of ourselves. Degoth and Sandalphon are like complementary opposites. More so than any two necro and celestial types I have ever seen. Degoth uses dark shadow attacks, and Sandalphon bright light attacks. Any attack that Degoth can do, I am guessing that Sandalphon can so as well. So some of the things we are going to practice are having Sandalphon copy Degoth's moves."

"Okay, let's do it." Max said.

"First step is going to be getting Sandalphon to start with all his equipment out. So go ahead and turn on your band and try to imagine Sandalphon wearing all of his gear."

Max started up his band and Sandalphon appeared before him in his normal white tunic. "Shoot. Come on Sandalphon," Max said.

"Hmmm, try to imagine his wings unfolding out from his back."

Max imagined Sandalphon growing wings, but Sandalphon did no such thing. "When I am in battle I don't always imagine these things happening. I just need them to happen and they do. Every time Sandalphon gets trapped the wings pop out and free him."

"Okay, let's try beating Sandalphon up then." Davis turned on his band. Trebor appeared in front of him. "Let's duel. But you are not allowed to fight back. Sandalphon will have to stand there and take the damage until he loses or you bring out his equipment."

"What do you think? That I am going to let you beat on Sandalphon?" Max said angrily. Sandalphon's tunic began to glow and his golden armor materialized.

"What did you just think of?" Davis asked

"I thought of Sandalphon being hurt and that I didn't want you to hurt him" Max answered.

"I think I am starting to understand. I think it must be something about Celestial types. The way you imagine Sandalphon using abilities is a little different from everyone else." Davis paused for a second thinking on how to describe what to say next. "Instead of imaging the wings coming out I want you to think that Sandalphon is tied up. His arms and legs are tied up with rope and he's struggling to break the bonds."

Max imagined all of that. Sandalphon remained standing there, no difference. "Maybe we should tie him up for real," Max said.

"No. Close your eyes and try imagining it again."

Max closed his eyes, he thought of Sandalphon tied up.

"Nothing still," Davis said. "Let me think here for a second." Davis looked at Trebor for a moment and then turned off his band. "Let's change the way you are tied up. Instead of your hands and feet tied up, you are tied to a post. Now a truck is speeding towards Sandalphon. He has got to break free. The truck is coming. You got 10 seconds to get out of the way. 9 seconds; it is a big semi. 8 seconds; it is an angry trucker he had been through a divorce and he wants Sandalphon dead. 7 seconds; he doesn't care who is smeared on the front of his truck. 6 seconds he is picking up speed." There was no reaction from Sandalphon yet. "Here he comes five, four, three, two, ONE!" Sandalphon wings burst out and he took to the air. "Open your eyes Max".

Max opened his eyes and looked at Sandalphon flying through the air before him. As always he thought that Sandalphon was the most amazing avatar he had ever seen.

"Remember that feeling of urgency. Turn off your band and remember that you need Sandalphon to appear with all of his equipment, then turn it back on." Davis said.

Max switched the band off, and Sandalphon faded away. Remembering the need for Sandalphon to have all equipment out he turned on his band.

Chapter 28

Pre-game confrontment!

The final day of the tournament had come. Everyone who was a fan of Clash in town, had come to pack the stands at the Stadium. All the tournaments from across the state would be ending today and would be broadcast live on the arena floor before and after Collis's Final match.

"So, Max, did you hear?" Came a voice from behind.

Max turned around and saw Gervasee's player Jason standing there. "I'm sorry, no I didn't." Max said a little confused.

"I am in third place in this tournament. The only person I lost to was you. I won the 'losers' tournament." He referred to the tournament that goes on for all the people who did not advance through the tournament brackets. "The one that takes place before the real tournament made up of all the people who lost a fight in the tournament. I beat all those other losers." Jason took a very threaten pose and poked his finger right into Max's chest. "If you lose to Degoth you and are going to have another rematch. I underestimated you twice now. I will never do that again." Jason abruptly turned and walked away.

"I will win Jason," Max said, watching him walk away. He thought back to that first battle. He recognized that he did not know how to control Sandalphon very good at all back then. He and Sandalphon had grown a lot in the tournament. His next opponent was strong and he would need to use all that he had learned in his previous fights to beat him. He may not have had a real purpose when he joined the tournament; nothing more than wanting to see just how strong his avatar really was. Now he had reasons to fight. He was fighting to prove to the people that he beat in this tournament that he could represent them best in the final fight. He owed it to them to show that they were not weak, that they deserved to be in the finals just as much as him. He was fighting to prove that the ranking system is wrong and it is just a system used to rig fights in favor past champions.

Chapter 29

Fight for the Champion title!

Max walked out to the stadium floor ready to start this last fight. He was not nervous. He was never nervous before the fights. All he thought about was how Sandalphon would mop the floor with the opponent. Sandalphon could not lose, would not lose.

"I've got the will you got the power, Sandalphon," Max said his battle cry, for the last time this tournament. Davis had worked Max hard the day before. The results of that hard work could be seen on stage. Sandalphon appeared in his full set of armor, glowing white wings out, and Medens hanging from his side. Starting a fight with full gear was only the beginning. He still would have to use all of Sandalphon's powers if he wanted to win this final match. Degoth was crazy strong. He knew that. He had re-watched Degoth's fights; they were all terribly one sided in his favor. Max knew that Sandalphon was stronger.

"Death to those that oppose us, Degoth!" Logan said. Degoth appeared on the opposite side of the arena floor. It had both its maces out and was leering at Sandalphon. All over its body, black scales shimmered. A black serpent like tongue rolled out of its mouth. It raised its maces up high and its leathery black wings stretched out wide. That devilish shadow of its could be seen below it, solid black, absorbing all the light around it.

The announcer started the count down "Five, four, three, two, one. Clash!"

At that start, Degoth's shadow crawled out towards Sandalphon across the arena floor. It wrapped itself around Sandalphon binding him by the arms and legs. It seemed to the crowd that in the first moment of the final fight it was already over; Sandalphon had been trapped like all the others and would not escape. Then, Sandalphon's wings began to glow, the shadow shattered and broke off Sandalphon, falling like water into pools of black goop onto the floor. The shadow pieces retreated back to Degoth's feet forming into its shadow once again.

"Hmmm," Logan started to speak. "Somehow that didn't work on you. Now that I think about it whenever your wings are out you break your entrapments. Wings of freedom?" He guessed while laughing. "I'm not so stupid, to not research my opponent before a fight." Degoth started flapping its wings and took flight. Not wanting to be left behind Max had Sandalphon take to the air as well.

The crowd cheered at the spectacle of two avatars taking flight in a battle. Degoth flew towards Sandalphon swinging its maces at him. Sandalphon caught Degoth's hands in his gauntlets stopping the attacks. Degoth opened wide its jaws and let loose its terrible black flamed breath weapon. Dodging low, Sandalphon kicked up at Degoth's head redirecting the flames and dove under the draconian. Degoth followed him in a deadly dive, swinging its maces towards Sandalphon. Max had Sandalphon draw Medens and blocked the blows, as both avatars landed on the arena floor, a distance apart.

Degoth swung out with its left mace, unleashing a shadowy wave of energy. The light bubble around Medens blocked the attack.

"Nice block," Logan said, as Degoth charged towards Sandalphon.

Degoth became a whirlwind of attacks left mace, right mace, a tail swipe, shadowy black wings, all swung out at Sandalphon. Sandalphon parried, blocked, and dodged. Unexpectedly Degoth's shadow jumped up, pierced the light shield of Medens and grabbed Medens, wrenching it from Sandalphon's grasp. Casting aside the stolen weapon Degoth came at Sandalphon again. Without the mace, parrying and blocking Degoth's attacks was much harder. Degoth's maces gave him a reach advantage. Max tried to have Sandalphon step into range of Degoth to punch back, but when he did so the draconian scored a good hit on Sandalphon's side. His armor saved him from any serious damage, but from the mace shot out black shadowy energy that slammed into Sandalphon knocking him back.

Sandalphon backed further away, and took flight to escape the onslaught. Degoth was right behind him though, and when Sandalphon tried to fly towards his mace, Degoth intercepted him. Both went tumbling down to the arena floor. Sandalphon ended up closer to Medens than Degoth, and dashed towards it. Degoth shot out from his right mace a black shadow wall that engulfed Medens. The mace became locked inside and Sandalphon tried to break through the wall, but his punches, even powered up by his steely gauntlets, had no effect on the black wall.

"Now that your weapon is out of the way for good, we can end this fight," Logan said. Max ignored him and had Sandalphon beat away at the wall, trying to free his mace. Degoth swung his left mace out towards Sandalphon and the black wave of energy slammed into Sandalphon, knocking him back. "You tried so hard, but this is the end." Degoth sent out another black wave of energy out and Sandalphon tried to dodge, but it came at him in a wide arc, making part of it still hit him.

Max tried to ignore the damage, and think of a way for Sandalphon to fight back. To Max, Sandalphon appeared to move on his own; he held up his right hand with light swirling around it. Sandalphon then pulled out of the light another mace, Caliber. Light emitted from the mace, a different light than that of Medens. Where as Medens emitted a softer gentle light, Caliber's light was harsher, sharper, it pieced the eyes.

"Oh? You have two maces too," Logan said, unimpressed.

"Yeah, and this mace is a bit different," Max said, Sandalphon slammed the mace down on Degoth's black wall that surrounded Medens, the wall fell apart into chucks of black rubble.

Logan had always thought that Degoth's black wall was indestructible; he was stupefied watching Sandalphon shatter the shadow wall.

Sandalphon picked up Medens and charged at Degoth leading a set of attacks with Caliber and defending with Medens. Degoth was on the defensive for the first time this tournament. Feverishly trying to block all of Sandalphon's attacks. Degoth set its shadow to snatch away Sandalphon's maces like he had done before, but Caliber flared up and its light threw back the shadow. Then, point blank, Caliber launched a wave of white energy out at Degoth slamming him in the chest. Degoth stumbled back a few steps. Quickly recovering, Degoth breathed in and unleashed a black inferno of flame, towards Sandalphon.

Max was not going to let Sandalphon be done in with that. Sandalphon pointed his wings forward and from them unleashed his own white flames to intercept the black flames. The two streaks of flames combined and ended in a tornado of white and black between the two avatars.

Logan began to shout "What is this? You going to copy me all day?" His face became a mix of emotions; anger, fear, annoyance and surprise. Calming down, he said, "fine, then I'll do something you can't do."

Degoth folded itself in its wings and its tail curled around its legs. Its shadow came up and wrapped around it, forming into a giant black ball. Then the black shadow expanded and grew. To everyone in the crowd, it was a spectacular transformation. Degoth had turned itself into a full fledged Dragon. Its body looked like it was pure black no details could be seen other than its outline. And over the outline tendrils of shadow rose off its body. Its extended dragon wings spanned four times as long as Sandalphon's.

Sandalphon sent a wave of white energy towards the monster. Not even bothering to dodge the wave bounced off the dragon's shadowy hide. Sandalphon then flew towards Degoth, but the dragon whipped out its tail and slammed Sandalphon back tumbling through the air. The dragon reared up and from its giant maw breathed out a torrent of flame, impossibly large, at Sandalphon. Sandalphon raised up his wings and released his white flames to counter, but the white flames were no match this time and Sandalphon was engulfed in the black inferno. For a few seconds Sandalphon was not able to be seen, until the black flames died down and there Sandalphon stood amongst the dissipating flames. Medens' light bubble had saved Sandalphon's body from most of the flames. Sandalphon did not escape unscathed, his wings were burning with black fire. When the flames finally died out completely Sandalphon's wings were burnt and useless.

"HAHA, this match is over," Logan said, claiming victory as Sandalphon stood there grounded without his wings.

"Why is it that all my opponents talk so much?" Max said. "The fight is over when Sandalphon hologram is broken. And there is no way Sandalphon is going to break before Degoth!" Max said, ending in almost a shout.

Logan sneered at Max. The shadow dragon reared up for another black flame burst from its mouth, as it did so Sandalphon sent a wave of white energy from Caliber at the head of the dragon. The energy slammed into its head disturbing its attack. Sandalphon charged at the dragon. Degoth accepted the charge and swiped out at Sandalphon with its claws. Meeting the swipes with Medens, Sandalphon pressed his attack and connected Caliber on the beast's chest. The hit warped the dragon, its shadowy body began to wave and ripple from the blow. Max used Medens to hold off the dragon's claws and bite attacks. Caliber connected over and over again onto the dragon's body. Then in an immense blow the dragon's body fell apart and Degoth was revealed inside.

Degoth came at Sandalphon and the two exchanged blows. Medens blocked Degoth's attacks, but Degoth had trouble blocking Caliber; the golden mace scored many hits on the draconian's scaly body. Right when it seemed that Sandalphon had the upper hand Degoth's shadow came up from the ground and bound Sandalphon. With his wings burnt off, he could not break the binding shadows like before. Logan knew this, and using the shadow, Degoth stretched Sandalphon arms out wide. Caliber's light only kept the shadow at bay to a degree. Degoth started to draw in a deep breath. Sandalphon struggled harder, but the shadow's grip was too strong.

"A good fight, but this is the end," Logan said. Then he yelled to the crowd throwing up a fist, "I'm going to states!" No one cheered.

Max panicked and pleaded for Sandalphon to break free. Max then could swear he saw Sandalphon look his way and smile. A river of light pored out of Medens encircling Sandalphon, the light healed him, restored damage to his armor, and best of all re-grew his wings. The wings burst out and shattered Degoth's shadow's grip, then, as Degoth unleashed its black flames, Sandalphon unleashed his own. Their flames met again; this time Max did not have Sandalphon stop. He wished for Sandalphon to produce more and more flames. Degoth ran out of breath and Sandalphon's flames overwhelm it.

The flames burned Degoth. Its scales were singed and its black leather wings were full of holes. Sandalphon took to the sky. Degoth attempted to follow, but was grounded; no air would fill its tattered wings. Degoth unleashed waves of shadow energy at Sandalphon, but they were easily deflected by Medens. It unleashed its black flaming breath once more, but Sandalphon was too fast to hit.

Circling around Degoth faster and faster, from his wings ,Sandalphon left a trail of white flame. Sandalphon was moving so fast the trail was overlapped once, then twice, then again and again. It became a hurricane of white flame filling the whole of the arena. The flames blocked the view from everyone and no one could see inside the arena.

"It is over Logan," Max said

As the flames died out, there stood Sandalphon over the prone body of a defeated Degoth. He had clonked the half dragon on the head with Caliber and the white flames burnt its body even more. Sandalphon held up his maces, his wings outstretched, as Degoth broke and shattered into tiny holographic pieces. There was silence in the arena as the fight ended. Then, a great cheer rose up from the crowd.

The announcer that had been speechless the whole fight finally spoke, "We have our new champion Sandalphon!"

Chapter 30

Trophy time!

Lizzy ran up to Max and throwing her arms around his neck kissed him.

"Congratulations champ!" she said.

"Ha-ha, you didn't wait at all did you?" Max said.

Max's brother Davis and his parents came down to the stage as well.

"That was one crazy fight Max," Davis said. "They are going to be playing this fight over and over again for a long time."

"It was pretty intense," Max said. "Oh hey." A trophy was brought over and handed to Max.

"YOU CHEATER!" Logan yelled at Max coming over to his side of the stage.

"What? How did I cheat?" Max asked.

"You used your flames to block my view from Degoth. That is a violation of the rules."

"He blocked everyone's view," Davis said. "Including his own. You messed up by not moving your avatar."

"Yep, I had Sandalphon attack where you were standing last. If you had moved, I would have missed with that last attack."

"Cheater. Team Gold is going to crush you," Logan said. An official came over to hand him his second place trophy. He walked past the guy not bothering to take it, going straight out of the stadium.

"Ignore him Max, let's go celebrate," Davis said.

The rest of the Clash club came down to congratulate max on winning. Max looked at his parents and asked "Party at our house?"

"Sure, we can hold a party," Max's dad said.

"Just got to stop and pick up some snacks and drinks," Max's mom said.

"Party at my house!" Max said to all his friends.

Chapter 31

To be continued!

A lot of people from the tournament ended up coming along with Max and his friends to the party at his house. His parents had been worried about so many people showing up to the party, but Davis promised to clean up afterwards. They turned on the holographic-channel and re-watched the game as it was broadcast over the holographic-net.

"I am going to study you and train just to beat you for next year's tournament" Lizzy said.

"Wait, what does that mean?" Max said.

"It means I am going to watch all your matches, but you can't watch any of mine."

"That is so unfair."

"Too bad." Lizzy said giggling.

"Hey Max, can I talk to you for a sec?" Davis said as he came over interrupting Max and Lizzy.

"Yeah, sure Davis. I'll be right back Liz." Max said following his brother to the side.

"So, you going to register for the state tournament?" Davis asked.

"I plan on it."

"I know we talked about it before and I don't want to pressure you. But I really think you should do poorly at the rankings at states. Max, you and Sandalphon are strong enough to win no matter who you fight. So if you do badly in the rankings no one will expect much. Also, because they have a low standard for celestials no one will think much of it. It would be so cool to take out the state champ in the first fight too."

"Honestly, I think you are right. I think that a lot of people that do bad on the ranking tests are cheated out of their first round fights. They are scaring away people from participating in the tournaments. If they don't understand that I'll make them change the system. Also, I think it will be fun to take out all the Team Gold members if I go to states." Max said.

"Alright, sounds good." Davis said.

Max walked back over to Lizzy. She was talking to her brother and the two previous Collis champs: Kurk and Decon. "Just give up Jason, he won the tournament and he has beaten you twice." Lizzy said.

"I don't care, I know I can beat him." Jason said.

"Hey guys," Davis said, walking up to the guys.

The three high school clash club members recognized Max's brother.

"Why don't you guys come and duel me over here. I haven't beaten you guys in a long time. I don't want you getting full of yourselves. And Jason you ready to play me finally? When you got your band a year ago, you said you wouldn't play me, until you got better." He took the high school Clash club members off to the side.

"What is he talking about?" Lizzy asked Max

"Davis was always undefeated at the Clash Center before he left for college," Max said.

"I remember hearing a rumor about a guy that would show up there and beat everyone from time to time. I guess it was your brother."

"Yeah, let's go watch him beat your brother."

"Okay," Lizzy started to go over there where they were dueling.

Max stopped her remembering something. "Don't you have to tell me what that other reason was?

"Do I really have to?" She was looking really embarrassed

"We had a deal. And you kissed me practically in front of the whole country. I think I deserve to know."

"Okay, the other reason I was avoiding you was that I have had a crush on you since fourth grade."

That blew Max's mind. "Wait. Have you been avoiding me since fourth grade?

"Yep."

Max felt like he was not in control of his own life.

"WHAT? I LOST ALREADY!" Jason yelled. Lizzy and Max looked over at Jason and Davis then at each other. They could not help themselves and laughed.

###

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