Chapter 25: The Next Round

Chapter 25: The Next Round.

Xander is sitting in the waiting room with Claire. "Do you think he will be okay?"

Claire seems to be on her phone typing something "Yeah I think he should be fine, he might've overexerted his powers and just needs to rest."

Xander sighs "I hope that's all that's wrong with him, I never seen someone in so much pain before, and his powers were different from earlier..the creatures that he summoned had bits of pieces of this bulging flesh on it."

Claire looks like her interest has now peaked. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

Xander shrugs his shoulders as the door swings open with Evie and Jake walking in with Pravarasena and Scott behind them. Claire stands up "Ohh I forgot to keep tabs on the scoreboard, let me go on the computer to see who won."

Scott smiles "That means we don't know who won yet! We may have a chance!" He looks at Jake expecting to see a reaction out of him, but instead he walks towards Clarie.

"Claire, where is Leslie? I heard he is in pain." He says with a calm voice

"Uh..sure yeah he is down the hall to the right in room 64, i'm sure he is fine Jakey you don't have to go check on hi-" Jake and Evie both walk past Claire heading to room 64.

Claire shrugs her shoulders "Oh well..come on guys let us see who won this thing."

They all walk out of the waiting room into what looks to be a room filled with screens showing different parts of the island, a wall filled with monster names, all scratched out. Above the screens are the two teams with their respective bars above them, next to that is a time they both say 12:30.

Claire looks in disbelief "No way!" She smiles brightly "We get to go to the second round! Yes!"

Xander, Scott, and Pravarasena both in Unison say "What?"

Claire turns around a lot more giddy "The second round! It will be sort of a tag team match!"

Pravarasena speaks up "How is that exactly fair, they have five and we only have four.."

Claire looks at him with 5 fingers up "Well...Leslie isn't feeling so well. So he cannot attend the tag team match, so now it's even"

Xander tries to interrupt her "But Cl-"

Claire shakes her head "No buts! Now I'm going to need y'all to rest cause it's going to start in a couple hours, go rest in those healing tubes if you have to."

Xander makes an annoyed face "They aren't even called that…" he then sighs and leaves the room with Pravarasena.

Pravarasena and Xander are both walking down the hallway and go their separate ways, eventually Xander meets up with Amon. "Xander…if we have to do this tag team match then…let us do it with all of our might."

Xander looks down at his hand and is skeptical at first "I thought your whole group was like that Scott guy, but it seems he's the only trouble maker!" He shakes his hand with a smile.

Amon gives a small, but noticeable smile. "Let us try our best and fight to our hearts content…" he walks away "For both of our clans' sake.."

Xander raises an eyebrow "do you honestly think you can best the Miyamoto Clan?"

Meanwhile, Jaden is at a Vending machine trying to get a snackbar out. "Dang it man...I could really go for a Pwix right now.."

He hears a voice from behind him "You know you're not supposed to have those right? We are technically at a super detention center."

Jaden turns around and sees Bastet there with a glass cube in her hand "Oh hey!..sorry I forgot your name!" he says with an embarrassed smile.

She scoffs "It's Bastet Dubar. Be sure to remember it you imbe-"

"Bastet! What a lovely name! Hey can you do me a quick solid...and get me a Pwix out of the vending machine? I just need one!" Jaden says with a pleading tone.

Bastet looks at him with a look of disbelief "No. How would I even help you anyway?"

"Can you loan me a dollar?" Jaden says with puppy eyes.

"NO! You work for FATSN as well you should have more than enough money!" Bastet says getting more and more annoyed.

"I haven't got paid yet! Just a dollar! I'll pay you back!" He gets on his knees "I just need my Pwix!"

Bastet starts laughing while she looks at him. "Wow! You're really begging at my feet for a piece of candy, you are really pathetic!"

Jaden feels himself float in the air as he looks and sees sand coming from that glass cube. "Wha-! Bastet let's talk! You don't have to give me the Pwix! You could've said no!..you already said no!..uhh please don't hurt me too badly!"

He closes his eyes as he waits to be pummeled by Bastet but all he hears is "Here."

When he opens his eyes he sees that Bastet has a Pwix bar in her hand and is holding it out to him.

He takes it and she puts him down. "Hey..Bastet..why did you put me in the air?"

She starts to walk away "You were in my way...also I got news that we are going to do a tag team match to determine who will continue to be agents.."

Bastet turns and stares down at Jaden "Take me getting you this bar as a pity present,because today's the last day you'll be in the agency."

Jaden looks at her confused "I-uh.." he gets up staring at her then at the bar "Man..i'm not even hungry anymore."

Jake and Evie are standing around Leslie's bed watching him sleep as the nurse is attending to him.

"It was my call." Evie says as she sits down

Jake looks at her "What? What are you talking about?"

"It was my call to have Leslie come with us even when I knew that something was wrong with him." Evie looks up at Jake now "Am I a horrible leader? Shouldn't I have seen this?"

"Don't give yourself a hard time on this, you just started this whole leader of a team thing. I wouldn't expect you to be perfect overnight."

Jake sits down next to her looking at Leslie on the bed "Ever since we were younger you were always in front..taking charge and leading the way defending everyone that followed you, now look at you as the leader of your own squad."

Evie gives a small smile as she puts her hand on Leslie's bed "I'll make it up to him, and to the rest of you guys..i'll be a better leader."

Jake puts his hand on her head "That's all I needed to hear! You're cat-"

Evie glares at him and starts hitting him vigorously "DON'T TOUCH MY HAIR!"

Jake tries to defend himself "Ow ow ow ow My bad Jeez!"

Xander comes in and has a disappointed face "Guys...stop fighting near Leslie you might hurt him even more than he already is.."

Evie and Jake stop fighting as Jake fixes his hair. "Claire said that Leslie is out of the second round, so it's going to be a tag team match against the other squad since the first round was a draw.."

Evie looks surprised "A draw...how?"

Jake looks at his arm grabbing it "It must've been from when Scott and I were fighting, by some chance we must have killed an equal amount of monsters as collateral damage.."

Jake's eyes widen as he realizes "Iro!" he jumps up and rushes out of the infirmary heading down the hall. Evie and Xander follow after him.

Xander looks at Evie as they run "Who's Iro?"

Evie shrugs her shoulders "I have no clue but he just got out of an intense fight with Scott I don't think he should be going out there by himself."

They follow Jake all the way to the mountain and pass all of the destruction that Scott and Jake have caused. Xander and Evie seem to be on their guard as they cross through the biomes.

"Jake, wait up!" Xander shouts but they don't seem to reach Jake at all.

Evie sighs "This better be worth it, when we get back we'll decide who will be on what team."

As they go through the scorched forest Xander spots what looks to be an infinite amount of eyes watching them from the darkness. "Eve watch yourself." He says putting his guard up.

"I should be telling you the same thing." She gets prepared as well

As they continue forward they notice that the monsters don't seem to be stepping forward at all, keeping themselves concealed in the darkness of the wilderness. Xander looks at them with confusion in his eyes as he turns his eyes ahead towards Jake. "Is he..making the creatures afraid of him? What happened out here Jake." He says out loud as Evie takes notice of his words.

"You think Jake has something to do with the way the monsters are acting? I've seen monsters attack him so I don't think that's it." Evie says in Jake's defense

"Yeah that's true..but my father had this saying "We may fear the monsters that lay in the dark waiting for their time to strike, but even monsters fear bigger and badder...those are the ones we should be wary of." Xander says with the same look of concern on his face that he had at the church with Giovanno.

Evie notices this and stops him "Don't even think about it. Not. One. Thought."

Xander face changes from a look of surprise to something much more desperate "Bu-"

"Xander. He is a member of our team and I understand that you don't understand him, I myself don't even know what he is or where this came from. I do know this, Jake will never be like these monsters, he has more compassion and humanity then all of us and you just don't see it."

Xander is left speechless, not knowing what to say.

"Now come on he is already up the mountain, let's hurry and follow him before it gets too dark." she says as she goes ahead of Xander using her yellow energy barrier as step stools to run up the mountain.

Xander astral wings appear on his back and sighs "Why..why can't anyone see how dangerous he is..what if he..damnit." He files with Evie as they reach the top.

The sun starts to set as the cloud above them has been cleared, no longer stormy and grey but a warm orange red sky. They reach the top to see Jake standing in front of a group of Rakashas.

"Hey Iro! Are you okay? What about the people that were frozen from the snow?!" Jake says in a panicked and concerned demeanor.

Iro looks at Jake then towards the sun setting "They are fine Jake...We have you to thank for that...and to think that all humans were monsters.."

Xander is watching "He's talking to these Rakashas? What are they thanking him for?"

Jake laughs a bit rubbing the back of his head "It's no problem at all! Scott has problems but I'm sure he won't be messin' with any of y'all anymore!" He says as the kids surround him and hug him "H-Hey! What are y'all doing??"

Iro laughs loudly "They are grateful that you saved their village. We are forever in your debt." They all kneel "You will be our new leader."

"Uh..No thanks." Jake says staring at them "I'm not a leader type anyways but you don't have to just give me your title for helping y'all out. You were just living your lives and we came into your home and caused all this trouble."

He smiles and holds his hand out for Iro to grab. "How about this?I will come visit more to learn more about you and your culture...oh and If I need your help I'll come and call!"

Iro looks up "Well…" He stands up and shakes Jake's hand "It'll be an honor to tell you more about what we Rakasha people do, and as for helping you goes..it'll be no trouble at all."

Both Jake and Iro laugh as the village starts to celebrate. Iro smiles at Jake "You are a strange human Jake, I've never met anyone like you before."

Jake lets go of his hand and looks into the sunset "I got it from my Pops...he raised me in the middle of nowhere and told me over and over again 'Jake...in this world no one is inherently good nor evil...the same thing applies to the creatures that people call monsters… everyone just wants to live, so why not live together?' Jake reaches out and grabs at the sunset. "That's what I want to do..Unite both humanity and monsters.

Evie is just standing there smiling "See.." She looks at Xander "He's more human than you give him credit for."

Xander looks at him and the Rakasha "Uniting both Humanity and Monsters, huh Jake?" He looks down with a smile of disbelief on his face. "I don't think that can even remotely happen but I would love to see it, you are really something else Jake, let's see what you can do."

Chapter 25 End>