Chapter 11: The End of a Battle, the Beginning of a War
The next morning, Tom was the first one up and out. It was the big day and everyone was excited. The stadium had an unusual atmosphere. It felt excited, yet bored. “Will each guild please send up their last groups!” The loudspeaker boomed. Tom, Mike, and Derrick went up in their long awaited match. There was a loud gunshot and the guilds were off facing each other in a near death battle of wits, strength, and skill.

Power’s opponents were a group of four, which consisted of a priest, a hermit, a chief bandit and a spearman. Tom, Mike, and Derrick got ready for battle. Derrick immediately summoned a shadow partner. A huge aura came around him and vanished into a shadow. Tom and Mike got into their ready positions, stood with a heavy stance, and aimed their bows directly at the opposing member of the opposing team.

A loud gunshot was heard and the two teams were fighting each other. The opposing team had a strategy, as Power would soon find out. The priest was a guardian as the hermit knocked them down, the chief bandit stabbed them, and the spearman unleashed a merciless blow. Derrick soon noticed the pattern, as did the other members of the team.

They quickly made their own strategy by taking out their energy source first, the priest. The priest was busy dodging arrows and was taken by surprise when Derrick plunged six stars into him. The priest fell down face flat. Next, they decided on taking out the hermit, their only long ranged member on the team. Derrick went straight for the hermit, but their power was evenly matched. Mike charged up an arrow and used arrow blow, which cut straight through the star and hit the hermit’s right eye. Tom crept up and smacked the hermit on the right side of his face, knocking him out.

Now only the chief bandit and the spearman were left. Derrick wondered why they both had not attacked Tom, Mike, or himself and found a hawk and an eagle attacking both of them. Tom placed himself in front of the spearman. The spearman charged straight at him and stabbed as he felt his spear sink into Tom’s body, but found only a puppet that seemed to mock him. The spearman flung his spear around with great force as Tom shot arrows at the ground. He looked up as the spearman’s eyes met his. The spearman suddenly noticed why he had done that. A million arrows flew out of the ground, flung the spearman up 10 feet, and dropped him again.

Now, only the chief bandit was left. Mike, Tom, and Derrick surrounded the chief bandit, who tried to escape, but found himself trapped in the middle of them. Mike and Tom used strafe as Derrick used lucky seven. The attacks seemed to hit the chief bandit simultaneously as he fell to the ground. “The winner is Power!”

The crowed cheered, as they knew the next event would be the award ceremony. The judges tallied up the points and discussed them. A man whose whole body was covered stepped up onto the arena with the trophy. Kylie stepped out, as did the other chief bandit girl, as they were both the captains of the team.

“And the winner is…” Shouted the man with the trophy, “ME!”
He quickly pulled out three summoning rocks and plunged them onto the ground. They glowed and nothing seemed to happen. Then, the sky began to swirl and a raid of balrog ships flew down. Nearly three – hundred crimson balrogs flew out. The man with the trophy threw it onto the ground and threw off his cloak. “Mwuhahahahah! Go terrorize the crowd!” He yelled to the balrogs.

“Malfius!” shouted a judge. “Yes it is me to take revenge for shunning me from El Nath!” The stadium was now completely empty except for Power, Malfius, the judges, and Elite. There was the stench of dead corpses now hanging in the air. Rick looked around at the horrifying sight. “But Malfius, your ideas for Guild War was too violent! We couldn’t possibly have let each guild kill the other!” Shouted a judge. Kylie was shocked that her guild… her friends could have been dead because of her own wants. “And then,” The judge started again, “even after your idea was denied, you tried to put it into action! Think of those 5 people you killed!”
Malfius grinned an evil smile. “Those fools should have died! Only the strong may live amongst us!” Malfius yelled. He looked around at the balrogs waiting for his command. “Go attack the city of El Nath! We will take over it by sunrise!” Malfius yelled. The two guilds looked at each other and made a truce mentally.

Tom and Mike tied ropes onto their arrows then shot them at the balrogs to bring them down. Soon, Derrick and Elite’s hermit helped. To help, John froze many balrogs as Rick and Alex stunned others. Kylie dropped many mesos across the floor with the other Chief Bandit. After the whole stage was covered in mesos, they both counted then blew them up at three with a powerful meso explosion. Many balrogs roared as they died, laying their head on the broken ground. Will made a huge poison mist across the balrogs as the priests used holy attacks to end many other balrogs’ lives of being pirates. The balrogs slowly disintegrated into the tiles.

Everyone stood up and looked at Malfius. He was surrounded and trapped. He laughed a maniacal laugh. “You will all join me soon enough!” He yelled. Quickly, Malfius turned and slashed Rick down and threw a dagger at his chest. Malfius escaped with that. “Rick!” Everyone yelled. Allen rushed over to try to heal him. It was no use. He had lost too much blood and his heart was hit directly. “That’s another one down!” Tom yelled. Rick looked around. His vision was getting blurry. He laughed for some odd reason. Then there was complete darkness.

It had been 3 months since that incident. Tom was staying at Allen, Derrick, Kylie, and Alex’s house. They did not mind though. Allen and Derrick were asleep still. Kylie went out and Alex was still eating breakfast. The mail came in as Tom was about to leave, so he sifted through it. He came to one that was sent to him. It said :
Dear Tom,
You may not know right now, who I am. You may even think that I am dead
Come and meet me in the alleyway next to the house that you are staying
In. Bring all the friends you want. Someone close to you.

Tom was curious about who this mysterious person was. ‘It might be Malfius Tom thought. Nevertheless, Tom went to meet the mysterious person. Tom went straight to the alleyway. “Hello?” Tom called. He squinted and could make out a silhouette of a person. The silhouette moved out of the shadows. Then, Tom saw his face. “Pierce!” Tom cried out…

(This is the final chapter for this book! But there’s still two more books left! An antagonist is introduced!