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"You guys have to see this," said Dustin Rajongo with an excited step to his walk. His normally clean-cut appearance was ragged from the branches and underbrush as he half-ran ahead of them into the forest north of the dormitory towers. Neither Joram nor Nick had known Dustin for very long, but they'd both gotten along with him well. They had met him in their History of Western Civilization Class, since they'd all flunked the mid-term exam together. "They're going to beat the Champions."
"How do you know that?" asked Joram struggling to keep up through stinging sticks and branches whipping back at him.
"Nobody's even come close to beating the Champions," Nick added with a skeptics look.
"They have some new weapons," Dustin said. Then he suddenly stopped so that they both ran into him. "And they have Chris Venatio."
"Who's that?" asked Joram, but knew it was the wrong question to ask as soon as it was out of his month.
"You've never heard of Chris Venatio?" asked Dustin incredulously. "YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF CHRIS VENATIO! He's the master inventor of the Venatio games. He's the one who started everything, and he's come back to Atraville to help us beat the Champions." Dustin started off walking again so fast that he left them both behind so that they had to run to catch him again. When they did, they had come to a clearing in the forest which was strewn with a few massive boulders and some tree stumps. There they found a group of about eight gathered in a large open circle, with two in the center.
"It's an energy fight," Nick said under his breath.
"Yeah, but look at them," Joram said, "What's wrong with them? They look so dark; like shadows.”
They watched as two darkened figures squared against each other in the middle of a circle that was yelling and cheering.
"You've got him Neal, now finish him off," a voice yelled.
"Slash with your weapon, Jeff. You've got to get under his shield," coached someone else.
The two figures lunged at each other just as Joram, Nick and Dustin joined the circle. Screams and cheers could be heard all around them. Several forceful blasts rocked the clearing and more people screamed. When the dust cleared, there was one dark figure left standing and another lying on the ground.
"Neal won!" screamed someone from the circle.
"It's Jeff's fault 'cause he didn't slash," said someone else.
“It's like this,” yelled a tall, thin man in his late twenties who looked a little nerdy. “You've got to make a slash. That's how you can get under his shield. That's how you'll get under the shields of the Champions.”
“That's Chris,” Dustin whispered to them proudly.
Joram and Nick continued to watch as one after another faced each other inside the circle, fighting and practicing over and over again.
"We need someone else to fight," said the burly Neal Groep. "Who's next to practice with these weapons? Remember that we all agreed that training was the key to beating the Champions, so who’s next?"
"We have newcomers," whined the wiry Werner Ryhma. He pointed a finger at Joram and Nick, "I think one of the newcomers should fight next."
"That's Nick Soek," said Neal admiringly. "He's on the Atraville air soccer team.”
“Everybody knows Nick,” someone else agreed from the other side of the circle.
“I want to see Nick fight."
“Who's the other guy?” Neal growled. "The skinny one with black hair?"
“That's his friend, Joram,” Dustin said.
"Joram Contendo?"
"The Joram Conrendo?"
"The one who-"
"Yep," Dustin said enthusiastically, "He's the one, all right. Murmurs swept around the circle.
"Let's have them fight each other," agreed Chris.
Dustin looked excitedly at his friends. "It'll be great, guys. You'll flip over the power of this energy."
Joram looked at Nick. "I'm not doing dark energy," he hissed. “Remember the Regnum.”
Nick nodded in reply.
"We don't fight with that energy," Joram finally said boldly, but didn't realize that he had said something terribly wrong for that group. There was a silence for way too long before anyone spoke again.
"You don't fight with THAT energy?" a voice said mocking them. All recognition for either Joram or Nick seemed to be suddenly lost.
"They don't fight with THAT energy," taunted another voice.
"You boys muons or what?" asked Neal rhetorically.
"Spinning massless gluons, I'd say," added Werner.
"Say the word, and I can finish them both from here," said Chris.
Joram grabbed Nick's arm, since he was turning dangerously red, "Let's just leave."
"Yeah," agreed Nick angrily.
They turned and ran from the circle back into the forest as they heard that word. It had come from their friend Dustin Rajongo, "Finish them, Chris."
Dark blasts rocked the area just behind them as they ran into the cover of the forest.
Narration provided by Howard Douglas, based on discussions with Mario Rassembler.
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