Piros was about to leave the stadium when the host called him. "Piros." The red-haired fisherman turned around to see the host walking up to him. "I'm sorry that you had to go through this. Rest assured, the one responsible is already fired." The host rolled her sleeves to prove her point.

"No," Piros started as he looked at the host as he faced her, her thick eyebrows slightly climb at his reaction. "Herring was the one who deceived me. Don't cast the blame on one of your workers. I'm well served to know that Herring got defeated in the arena beforehand."

"If there is anything that you need, all you have to do is ask." The host suggested as she headed to her office before he saw Herring enter there. He wanted nothing to do with him.

"The Piros I know wouldn't have stayed in the dark for long. He would've gone out and got back up to take his stance and fight! What happened? Who quenched your fire?" Herring's words stirred up inside him and he clenched his fists angrily.

Piros trekked towards the host's office, but Herring exited before the red haired fisherman came close to the office. Piros peered into the office and saw the host seated. "Are you here for the Redemption Round?" His puzzled expression discarded her inquiry. "Guess not." Piros heard a whirring noise coming from the printer. The host pulled the flyer from the paper.

"What does it say?" Piros inquired.

"Oh, this? I'm looking for volunteers to fight in the Redemption Round against the contestants. If you're interested, I could fill you in to fight any of the contestants. Is there anyone you have in mind?" The host asked him before Piros's eyebrows furrowed as he thought how Herring deceived him.

"There is." Piros stated.

The host had accepted his request and registered him to fight in the Redemption Round as one of the bosses.

“Thank you for accepting my request.” Piros spoke with a sheepish smile.

“Thank you for joining, I hope that you enjoyed your time here.” The host said in ernest. “The Redemption Round will start tonight at 8.”

Piros exited the host's office, he spotted the Reptilian talking to a grey dragon. “I love my sister, but she drives me bonkers,” Saw said wryly, “If I hadn't put a sleeping spell on her, she would be causing a ruckus, roasting everyone.”

“Oi, Scale.” Piros greeted him.

“Hi.” The Reptilian greeted back.

“Good luck.” Piros waved goodbye to Scale on his way out of the hallway.

Saw wasn't usually nosy like his sister, but he leaned on Scale's ear and whispered, “Is that the guy who dropped out earlier?”

“Yeah, that's him.” Scale confirmed.

“Seems like a nice guy.” Saw commented before he looked at the open door of Natalie's office. “Wish me luck, I'm going in.”

“Good luck.” Scale encouraged him as he watched the bicephalic dragon enter through that door.

Saw looked at the host type on the computer before he gathered the courage to speak to her, but nothing came, so he cleared his throat as she looked out from the screen and saw the Delbwöare duo, Claw asleep as her neck craned back, her jaw slack and eyes closed. “Oh hi!” Nat smiled, her dimples deepening and made her smile wider.

“Hi.” Saw gave a lopsided smile, his fangs came out awkwardly, though it didn't stop the host for closing in and giving him a hug. Her head in between their necks, Saw brushed his talons against her dark wavy her before and Claw's arm coiled around the host's back lazily as the snoozing dragoness let out a snore.

“I didn't expect you to show up so soon.” Natalie spoke as she looked up to see Saw's flushed cheeks.

“Neither did I, but Claw has been adamant in coming here.”

“She must've tuckered out on the way here.” Natalie guessed by the way she saw her.

“I had to enchant her to sleep. If she wakes up before the fight, she'll get cranky and blow a smokescreen.”

“I get it. Oh, I almost forgot, which opponent would you like to fight against?” Nat diverted the topic.

“I rather fight no one but Claw would fight anyone and everyone if you let her.” Saw rolled his eyes and then heard another snore from Claw. “If she wakes up now she'll be making mincemeat on the first person she sees.”

“You're right. I think I found the right opponent for both of you.” The host brought Saw next her as she showed a footage of Sora's match to Saw. “This contestant lost the match because she couldn't keep her eyes on her opponent. Her name is Sora.” The host mentioned as Saw watched the clip of her opening and closing portals.

“Where is her opponent?” Saw asked before he saw Violet appear on the video. “There she is.” Saw looked at the Morean and squinted at her.

“I was originally going to pair you and Claw against another contestant named Stella.” Saw then remembered the conversation Saw had with Scale.

“What about you, has anyone caught your attention?”

“There may be someone.” Scale replied, as he scanned the stadium for the beautiful Izarian that captured his heart. 

“Who is it?” Saw asked while the Reptilian hoped to see her since he couldn't see her nowhere in sight he gave a name.

“Stella.” Scale had described her as the prettiest person he had ever seen.

Saw could see why, Stella had vibrant red eyes, silky magenta hair, pristine grey skin that looked shinier than Saw's fur and from what he could see in the clip, she pinned down the Indoraptor in the sand in no time flat and Shadow nearly doubled Stella's stature in her Indoraptor form.

“This match was a hassle. Some of the spectators were arguing about the match. Two of the caretakers had to extinguish the fire one of the dinosaurs caused. Glen told me about the complaints one of them were having,” The host rambled as she rubbed her temples while Saw was focused on Stella, the host let out a groan as Saw snapped out from his thoughts, “that's why I made the additional matches on such short notice. I'm sorry for dragging you two into this mess.”

“Don't blame yourself.” Saw held her hand, “Things don't always come out as planned.” The host looked at Saw and curved the corner of her lips upwards, her dimples becoming visible. A trait he found appealing.

The host curled her fingers around Saw's semi-fluffy claws. “Thanks for being a good friend.” Saw blushed at the compliment. For a second Saw could've sworn that the snore coming from his twin sounded more like a snigger.

“It's nothing,” Saw said by the time Jecamiah walked in, “you can arrange the matches any way you see fit.”

“See you tonight at 8.” Nat said as Saw beamed.

“Great.” Saw exited the office while

Jecamiah walked to the host, for what she could see, the caretaker was not happy.

“Hi, Jec--”

“What were you thinking?! I knew this place was infested with monsters, but you're not any different!” Jecamiah stood in front of the desk and slammed his hands on it.

“Excuse me?” The host looked at him, brows furrowed.

“Not only have you allowed this place to become a hotspot for demons, you were talking with a literal dragon in front of my own two eyes.” Jecamiah admonished her.

“It's not what it seems--” Nat stood from her seat.

“May I remind you that we're nearing the apocalypse. The white horseman could gallop any day now and we're wasting valuable time which could be used to save many souls from literal hellfire. The dragon and the devil are the same for God's sake.” Jecamiah reminded her.

So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan who deceives the whole world.

“I tried.”

“No! Don't you dare lie to me! You already made your choice. This is not a friendly spar that you arranged for this circus you call a tournament. This is spiritual warfare!” Jecamiah bellowed. “If you want to become like one of the 5 foolish virgins, go ahead! But I won't let you lead the lost to the abyss. I came here to bind the strong man and set the captives free.”

“Jesus Christ.” The host spoke dismayed.

“The way, the truth and the life.” Jecamiah pointed at the heavens as he walked out.

As the caretaker exited the office and grabbed the cleaning cart full of cleaning supplies and bibles and pushed the cart.

🛡

Scale passed Annabell and Eros by the lounge and hadn't noticed them, the Reptilian had walked past a bearded man wearing a dark cloak akin to a Shadow Soldier but had an eerie look in his eyes. Eros had perceived a shift in energy, he couldn't quite place it, but he could sense it. He lowered his book and felt the dark presence come closer, his yellow eyes darted across the lounge as he pinpointed the presence within some of the bystanders. One had a scar above his eyebrow, another was a bald bearded man with tattoos around his ear.

Annabell was a quarter away from finishing the light novel. Eros felt loose at the sudden energy that surged within him, as if something buried within him rose up. He stood from the chair, the spike in power he felt was the same the magic bearers felt, the urge to strike when one of them casted a paralyizing spell before Eros summoned a forcefield. Annabell flipped the page to read the next one.

Annabell read a similar situation they were on at the moment on the light novel. Spellcasters of different ranks were in position to take down the protagonists while a white wizard summoned a forcefield. The only difference between the light novel and their reality was that in the physical copy she was holding, the chapter involved a mighty malevolent wizard with similar physical attributes to Eros, but with dark clothing and eyeliner. She was reading the part where the antagonist, the malevolent wizard, leered at the main protagonist, ready to rapture her, but before she could read any further Eros took the light novel from her hands.

“No!” Annabell shouted as Eros tossed the light novel haphazardly as he got rid of the forcefield he created only for the unruly spellcasters to shoot the light novel into the crisp as it fell on the carpet adjacent to the entryway in ashes. “I was getting to the good part!” Annabell whined.

“We have to get out of here.” They gray haired wizard grabbed her wrist and ran. One of the spellcaster with the tattoo around his ear summoned a horde of snakes as the spineless reptiles manifested out of nowhere to follow them. Eros paused and with a wave of his free wrist turned the snakes to stone.

Scale nearly tripped on one of the petrified snakes.

At Hayley's kiosk, Astrid opened the book she picked while Ash and Octavia were debating about books and ebooks.

“But unlike an ebook, you don't have to recharge a tablet or a phone, nor wait to skip an ad while you're reading.” Ash stated.

“There are ad blocks installed for a reason.” Octavia reminded her.

“You know that there is a monthly fee for the premium membership.” Ash countered. “My grandpa once told me of an era when U-Tube videos were watched uninterrupted without ads getting in the way.” Ash ranted while she took out a nacho chip from the bag, then ate it.

“That was centuries ago! Get over it!” Octavia remarked. Ash rolled up the bag of chips, then shoved it in her pocket before she grabbed a book and flipped the pages in front of Octavia.

“No glitches, no ads, no buffering, no excuses.” She closed the book in front of her.

“If you break it, you buy it.” Hayley responded, then spotted the colorant of the nacho cheese puffs on the edge of the pages, “That book costs 12 bucks.” Ash had to pay the book she ruined and Astrid bought the book.

Astrid opened the book before she heard the sound of her smartphone ringing. She put her phone on speaker. “Hey babe, how's the search?”

“Great, we got the drone back. The bad news is that we got teleported out.” Alexander said it as gently as possible.

“What!? Where are you?” Astrid asked over the phone.

“We don't know.”

“Activate your location right now!” Alexander heard Astrid yelled from over his phone.

“This is why I prefer to stay single, women are control freaks.” Logan spoke nonchalant.

“We had to drag you away from the janitor a half hour ago.” TR retorted.

“I was vulnerable ok!”

Alexander turned on the location of his phone while TR and Logan were bickering. Astrid checked on the GPS and from what she could find, they were in the stadium but when they walked to the spot they weren't there.

“They must be on another floor.” Octavia mentioned.

“We're trapped inside a magic barrier! This is all your fault!” Ruben II shouted.

“My fault?! You were the one who punched the engineer!” Logan referred to what the Cinnabarian did to Brandon, they both wanted to extract information out of him, but for different reasons. Logan wanted to gain intel about the bootlegged parts, and Ruben wanted to find the prize money. Neither of them expected to wind up detained within a barrier of an underground ruin beneath the stadium.

“Is there someone else with you?” Ash asked over Astrid's phone.

“Yeah, the same fake guard from earlier.” TR implied.

“Him again?”

“Who?” Astrid asked, her team mates had forgotten to tell her about Ruben II and his failed attempt to search for the prize money with a cheap disguise while she was focused on her fighting match at the time.

“Forget him, how are we supposed to get out of this barrier?”

“Have you tried finding the conduit that keeps the barrier active?” Octavia suggested.

“We already did, we are stuck in this barrier with no way out.” TR kicked the barrier as it pulsated in waves though it didn't do much else.

“We can't get out.” Alexander said.

“There has to be something. Can the barrier be destabilized from where you are?” Ash asked them, Logan already looked.

“No, the beams are on the walls and we can't get through the barrier to deactivate them.” Alexander affirmed.

“Logan, you can hack through the security system and--”

“Already did that, the guy secured his network and locked it with a combination within his software after the last hack.” Logan interjected as she heard Octavia huff over the phone.

“Damn!”

“There has to be a way to get you guys out.” Astrid said while they figured out how they were going to help them escape.

“The last option we have is to teleport them out, but how?” Ash pondered as she and Astrid thought of ideas to find something they could use to track them and teleported them out. Octavia turned around and got distracted as she recognized Chris's blue suit from afar and walked up to him. “This is really complicated. Octavia, what other ideas do you have? Octavia?” Ash looked around until she spotted their team mate flirting with Chris. “Octavia! This is not the time to flirt!”

The guys heard Ash huff from the other end of the line before she was out of earshot. Astrid spun to see where Ash was heading only to see Octavia gawking at Chris.

Of all the guys she could find it had to be him. Astrid rolled her eyes before she remembered something, the only one she knows who can teleport them out from wherever they're trapped in is Chris.

Alexander heard Astrid hang up. “She hung up.” Alexander blinked.

“As if she do anything through that box.” Ruben II sneered, gritting his teeth then crossed his arms.

“It's called a smartphone.” Alexander stated.

“It should be a called a phoney.” Ruben II scoffed.

“This is the kind of stupidity that got us in here in the first place! You don't know what a drone is, you don't know what an automaton is, and you act like you've never seen a smartphone in your whole life! Do you live under a rock or you're naturally dense?!” Logan ranted and raved at the Rubrum as the fat Cinnabarian stood up and glared at him.

“I rather be a dense stone that an arrogant prick.” Ruben II remarked sardonically while TR and Alexander exchanged glances as they felt the tension spread throughout the barrier before they heard a ring from Alexander's phone.

It was a video call from Astrid, when he accepted the video call and saw her first.

“Alex, good news! Chris is going to get you out.”

“How?” Alexander asked before Astrid passed her phone to Chris. TR snarled the second he saw Chris take over the video call.

“I just need to see how many of you are to get you all out in a snap.” Chris replied.

“There's only four of us.” Alexander turned the video camera to show TR, Logan and Ruben II before focused the camera for the Venusian to face Alexander again.

“I don't see how he's hoing to pull it off.” Ruben II was proven wrong when they got teleported out of the barrier and stood in front of Ash, Astrid, Octavia and Chris.

“Thank you so much.” Octavia wasted no time and hopped to give Chris a kiss. TR still didn't trust him in the slightest.

“Thanks Chris.” Astrid said.

“Don't mention it.” Chris gave a wholehearted smile.

Alexander walked up to her in close proximity, his blue eyes looking at her sheepishly, “Are you mad at me?”

“No, I was worried.” Astrid wrapped her arms around her boyfriend. She was worried that she couldn't get them out of there. She was mad at herself because she couldn't get them out on her own.

When Astrid hung up the phone she and Ash walked up to the Venusian while Octavia was ecstatic to hold his arm like a lovestruck school girl.

“What a pleasant surprise,” Chris looked at Octavia's friends and then his sky blue eyes casted on Astrid, “I wouldn't have known you were close.”

“Our friends are trapped and we need your help.” Ash requested.

“That depends, in what situation they're in?” Chris queried before Ash explained their predicament.

“Can you get them out?” Astrid asked since he had previously mentioned that he

had all the powers.

“Leave that to me.” Chris grinned, “I just need to see them to get them all out with the snap of my fingers.” Astrid let out a smile as she picked up her phone to give the good news and clicked to send the video call.

It all worked out, she embraced her boyfriend whom also reciprocated the warm embrace. “I'm glad that you're ok.” Astrid whispered into his ear.

Chris waved farewell and blew a kiss at Octavia while Ruben II rolled his eyes at the PDA and went off looking for Ratu.

Just when the Venusian was out of sight, a cadre of spellcasters came out of the blue in dark hoods and sporting silvery white masks.

“Good timing, I could use a new punching bag.” TR took out his weapon.

Astrid and Alexander break the embrace, just when they solve a problem, a bigger problem drops on them unexpectedly. The Rave Hunters take out their weapons and attack them while they dodge the waves of spells that were thrown at them. As Astrid unleashed her time stopping power at the spellcasters they rounded up the opposition and took them down.

💎

Chris walked down the hall on his way to the men's restroom.

He checked on the gem he hid while he noticed something move from behind him. He feigned to ignore the presence while he sensed more of them approaching. He entered the men's restroom and stood in front of the urinal, he unzipped his trousers when he saw a man enter the restroom and into the stall and latched it. Chris lowered his boxers to urinate, another man entered the bathroom as he snagged a glance at the Venusian, the cloaked man lowered his trousers and stretched the cloak to cover his privates and whistled.

After Chris urinated and covered his pelvis, he heard another whistle in sync while he headed to the sink to wash his hands. The whistling got louder and heard the cloaked man get closer. The stranger pressed the soap dispenser and whistled at a higher pitch.

Chris recalled the pitch some Venusians would use to lure others into following the tune, and this was long before his father had went off into a killing spree. Only a small number of Venusians had the ability to manipulate the other to follow a command with the right frequency as it reverberates within the nervous system as the signal is sent to take control of the body and mind with a crescendo. As he perceived their intentions, Chris whistled out of tune on purpose and ruined thier endeavor in inducing him under mind control.

The Venusian shook his wet hands, some of the droplets turned into sulphuric acid, burning through the cloak as the cloaked man flinched.

Chris tore the papel towel as he heard the hooded stranger wail from the pain and dried his hands. The man that was inside the stall opened the door to see Chris walk out of the restroom while the cloaked man winced from the pain.

The Venusian walked across the hallway and witnessed magic users of different powers fight against each other like wild animals. Spells being shot like darts at all sides while some of the employees try to neutralize them. Chris walked casually to the lounge as he dodged a stray spell that aimed towards his head and missed to hit a potted plant, the pot disintegrated out of existence leaving the roots of the plant exposed.

After Eros and Annabell had ran from the lounge they had been cornered by 4 mages, 3 wizards, 2 witches, and a sorceress.

The four mages had casted a barrier to keep Annabell prisoner to prevent her from using any elemental magic, the 3 wizards had Eros bound and silenced, the 2 witches leeched them off of their magic powers and the sorceress recorded the whole thing for her channel. Chris happened to be passing by when he saw the live stream occur.

“You see this here folks? This is how you successfully weaken your adversaries.” The gorgeous sorceress showed the live stream as she received feedback from the first viewers that were watching.

Annabell was looking at Chris, imploring fpr help while Eros was being drained to the bone, her body aging and his veins more pronounced. The Venusian found this scene to be barbaric, he couldn't stand to see was a lady in peril.

“Well hello there handsome. Enjoying the show?” The sorceress bit her bottom lip.

“No, it's terrible.” Chris spoke nonchalant.

“Let the losers go, we found our next target.” The sorceress ordered before her associates complied. “Any last words?”

“Goodbye.” Chris said before he snapped his fingers. The sorceress, the two witches, the three wizards, and the four mages were teleported into the barrier where Ruben II and the male members of the Rave Hunters were preciously trapped in.

Annabell knelt next to Eros who was exsanguinated, “Eros, are you ok? Answer me.” The grey haired wizard could barely speak as his yellow eyes opened as he looked at the corner of his eyes to see Annabell. He rasped, “My lady, forgive me. I couldn't protect you.”

Annabell held his head to her bosom. “Don't say that.” Anabell laid her hand on his forehead, hydrating him while Eros gazed at her wistfully.