ADMISSION III

INTO THE SCORCH

The sun shined bright above them and they seem to be in a dry place of sorts. Seeing the environment, they are in a big disadvantage. The siblings are more inclined on using water, and in this scorching battlefield and a beast that breathes fire they need to think of a way to overpower the blaze. The creature does not get tired, feel pain, nor get hurt from its own attack, instead it enjoys it. It raises its head by using its front legs and its lungs starts to light up and breathes a spiraling flame that completely destroyed one of the pillars. The sudden burst of of heat makes it hard for the siblings to keep their eyes open, and they struggle to hear. Hans and Mila creates spears out of water to throw it back to the beast, but it melts right in their hand and only burnt them.

"Mila are you okay!?" Hans screamed from the other pillar, he can feel his whole body from the emitted heat. Mila barely replied with a nod as the sweat that they produce immediately as it secretes, they are running out of water; fast. Sweat, which is supposed to cool them down is only being a catalyst to their defeat.

The Lion is already a handful but they have to worry about the 2 other heads that keeps attacking them as soon as they move. The snake fires venom everywhere and the goat fires flame balls around them. All they can do is dodge and dodge as they struggle to hide behind the pillars. they also do not want to run away as the Chimera can easily pounce on them, they would throw rocks at it trying to stop it from attacking but that is all they can do. They hid behind pillars trying to think of something. Sofia takes a breather and shoots an arrow behind the creature, the arrow starts to burn as it gets to a certain distance towards the lion. Everything but the tip of the arrow continued to fly and melt, it landed on the lower part of the snake and it managed to hurt it.

The snake-tail starts to panic and it pulls the body of the Lion towards the direction of where the arrow came from. Sofia shoots one more and this time directly towards the Lion but it burnt and fell down before the arrow is noticed by the lion. She notices something about the heat that they feel, she creates a spear out of ice and throws it instead away from the Chimera. Mila notices what her sister is doing and they see the icicle land and it melts but not immediately. Its not hot on where the icicle landed.

"HANS!!!"

"w- WHAT?"

"THE BEAST RADIATES HEAT, ITS NOT THE SUN!!" Mila calls out onto her brother.

The Lion blasts the pillar that Sofia is standing and destroys it completely, she sees the pure power of fire and all that remains of the pillar is soot. The pebbles or and small ruble of the pillar did not even hit her, she can just feel the 'stinging' heat push her away. She almost fainted because of what she felt, the Chimera approached her and its tail linger above her. It hisses and as soon as it strikes she dodges it and stabs it right in the head. The snake's skin is like holding a hot metallic plate, for her fingers. Hans charged in and and stabs his searing dagger in between the snake's mouth. The Lion and Goat screamed as they feel the pain, the snake's head starts to disappear into ashes and the tail remains as a burnt flesh.

"Sofia come on"

"Thank you"

"No need, are you okay?"

"Yeah, that hurt"

The Chimera starts to increase in size as everything around it starts to feel hot, they got rid of the first layer of their jacket as they feel the heat accumulate. The heat starts to feel much painful and they have to break away, they run down hill as quickly as they can, they trip as they descended and the Chimera released a powerful heat wave and it destroyed the whole temple and part of the hill. It also released a shock wave that reached the other students who are fighting the other Chimeras. The grass around the hill starts to die away from the heat. The siblings got together once more as they see something break through the massive plum of dust.

"You've got to be kidding me"

"This is really hard"

They looked around expecting something to come crashing down, but nothing. It suddenly starts to cool and the siblings managed to heal themselves. They got up back to the hill and expecting to see a eradicated form of the Chimera. Using their weak element of wind they blew the dust away and all they can see is the molted flesh of the Chimera; it seems to beat.

They approached it and it still radiates heat that continued to sear them only to a certain distance.

"What happened, Hans?"

"I do not know"

Hans teared a piece of his shirt and threw it towards the fire and it burnt instantly, heat is still being radiated and it is hotter as expected. The molted skin slowly starts to melt down as they approached it, the smell reminds them of burn plastic. As they check around the skin in order to find a weakness the Chimera attacks them from behind. They barely dodged it and Sofia singes herself as she saved her 2 siblings. Mila starts to heal her using the element of water but the hot temperature evaporates on her singes hurting her even more.

The Chimera hovers above them and its wings blew the dust completely away .

"Oh no, that is huge"

Ahead of them they see a river and they start to run towards it immediately instead of thinking about it. Hans carries his sister and Mila creates a sheet of ice under them in order to slide across the Chimera starts to fly above and the siblings can now clearly see the new form of the beast. It now has 2 Lion heads, the goat head now erects on the back instead of beside it, the Chimera now has 2 full bat-like wings enough to carry its weight easily. The hind legs is now a goat's legs now being able to jump with its massive wing to propel up into the air, and finally the snake head now bigger and its reach increases. The original body has clearly doubled from its original form.

"WE NEED TO HURRY!"

"I'M TRYING"

They continued to slide on the sheet of ice as it starts to melt. The Goat starts to fire fire balls at the sheet of ice to melt it down, but Mila reacts faster than them. The Chimera goes down to their level and lands it attack behind them, the ground around him is destroyed.

"Did it die?" Hans turned around as she continued, the plum of dust shrouded everything and there seems to be no sound originating from the impact. Hans uses clairvoyance in order to see through it.

"No idea, keep going!" He said, but the snake-tail strikes. The scales of the snake opened up and making its skin elastic. The snake head first jumps out of the dust and it repeats striking them but it just about misses; it bit the lion in order to wake it up. The Chimera's front paw is buried down into the ground, it screamed and it bit its own paws off. The wings opened up and it struggles to get front up off the ground.

"Oh no way" Hans sees it and easily chases after them, utilizing its thumbed bat wings it chases after them. The front paws regenerates as it chases after them.

"I'M GOING FASTER BROTHER!"

"THIS IS BAD!"

They get near to the river and all they can do now is get faster, they cannot stand up and get a much better position to attack the Chimera.

"MILA!" He pushed them off and the Chimera stands in front of the sisters. The snake strikes directly behind Hans and he jumped on its head. The Chimera jumps after him and it flew into the air.

"HANS!" Sofia screamed.

Wanting to kill the beast Hans raises his right hand as if he is throwing something. Imperium starts to accumulate in his palm. His palms evaporate the sweat on his it and it starts to feel hot from the inside; its heating up. As it heats up he clenched his fist and punched the air in front of him. All he can see is the roaring flames coming up towards him, but he barely dodges it and he gained a few burns from it. And Just like the Lion he releases a jet of fire from his left hand. The Chimera opens it mouth and flew towards Hans.

"EAT THIS!"

The jet falls directly into the Chimera's mouth. It damaged the Lions lungs and they both plummet down to the ground. Hans struggles off under the beast. The lion's fang went through his shin.

"Take Sofia and go to the river I'll catch up!" Hans screamed as Mila started to run away, she cannot do anything but listen to her brother. The sudden burst of flame depleted his energy and he starts stumbles away from the Chimera; his healing weakens. The Chimera flinches in pain.

"What are you doing? Go!" A voice in his own head said, but he cannot determine the gender of the voice and it ended up sounding like his.

Mila carries her sister and she runs toward the river. As they gain distance the Chimera gets back up and targets the sisters. "NO!" Hans panicked and threw a sharp rock towards its wings, it went through. It provoked the Chimera to go after him once more.

"Good boy, just me you ugly shit" The Chimera growls and it grew tired facing him, it snarls.

Mila looks back to see her brother cornered, he held firm on his right forearm, "this will hurt" he whispered to himself. He summons a jet out of fire but unlike the Chimera his own creation hurts him. His palm starts to burn up but he is took all.

The Chimera screams and the 2 exchange attacks, Hans throws jet of fires from his palm towards the lion who directly headbutts it, the snake keeps striking towards his wounded leg but misses. His body starts to be heavy because of the damages he sustained. And the warm air damages his throat, and without time to think he starts running towards the other side of the river - farther away from his sister. He pushed on the air with his open palm and before he knows it he is on the air, he propelled himself using fire by aiming downwards and setting it off. But with every land it just hurts him even more.

"You got me"

The Chimera jumps towards him and looks like the snake is about to bite him, from his right side he sees a giant slash coming his away. The slash slid right through the snakes and part of the Lion's head, slicing them cleanly; as if the part did not realize it was already cut open. He runs towards a grove and he looks toward where the Chimera was and it is already healing; faster than he thought. He starts to run away as the Chimera starts to regenerate, "Oh no" He kept screaming as he hears the weak hissing to the most loudest hiss he has ever heard. He gets into the river where his sisters are catching up to him, Mila is already healed but Sofia is nowhere to be found.

"Are you ok-"

"LOOK OUT!"

Mila sends a wave of water that helped them dodge the attack of the Chimera, the heads has fully regenerated and it is furious.

"Not again"

"Come on" The river starts to heat up.

"All right we hold our ground here" Hans declared to his sister.

"In between the goat and 2 lion heads radiates heat, the snake is not able to bend down and it needs to elongate itself"

"So we can beat it"

"In a way, the regeneration does not increases its strength, but it weakens as it keeps healing, the heat does not do anything but heals it faster"

"Meaning its destroying its body quicker?

"Yes, and soft spots will appear"

"What do we do?"

"We wear it down, we have water"

"We need to strike in between the heads right Sofia?"

"Yeah" Sofia comes walking up behind them but she still feels a bit weak.

The Chimera charges is attacks and the lungs starts to light up as it steps into the deeper part of the river. Mila generate spikes of ice towards its lungs and it poke through. The build up of fire exploded inside the beast but it was not enough to destroy it, and the wings shows its effect. The sun ray behind it starts to poke through completely, its not risking to heal itself anymore.

"All right, we can kill it" Sofia declared, she created a plan at the spur of the moment and not even sure if it will work. It all now lies on their execution to deal a strong blow or a killing one.

Hans and Sofia being the fastest breaks away from Mila who stayed in the river and tries to pull the beast back as it tries to run away. Sofia enters the grove and runs towards the Chimera, while Hans runs on the open field. Mila creates a wall of ice around the Chimera in order to hide her siblings and isolate the beast. With one target in sight the beast approaches her slowly.

It seems to be not smart enough to figure where it is or what is happening to it. It starts to move in towards her but she did not show any fear. It starts to heat itself up, probably its most destructive power, the ice wall, the river starts to evaporate even quicker. It opens its mouths widely, until the siblings make their move. The wall behind starts to have water tendrils and it hold the snake-tail down, on both sides spikes came down pinning its legs and the head.

Mila holds the beast firmly on its place as the spikes punctured its lungs, the water around it starts to freeze instead of evaporate. She controlled the evaporation and released steams that took the Chimera's vision. The Chimera starts to move around and it starts to destroy everything as it radiates heat once more; it attempts to molt. Its wound starts to heal up and the core starts to become brighter.

Sofia launched her self into the air carrying a wooden pole that she created quickly, water starts to spiral around it and stabs through the beast and down to its core. A spike of ice appears directly under her, the spike came from Hans who turned himself into water and permeated under the Chimera and stabs through it. Mila pulls her siblings off the Chimera as it starts to bubble up and explode. The ice walls broke off and flew into the air. Mila encases the Chimera's body in a sphere and they obtained the core.

Just like the other triads they managed to get the Imperium Core is stuck on the wooden stick that Sofia holds.

"What's that?" Hans pointed.

"No idea"

They examined it and they completely have no idea what it is, Mila grabs the orb and it absorbs the core and they immediately are transported to where they are now.

"Are you okay now Sofia?" Harry asked.

"Yes, thank you for your worry, but I am healing faster"

"Yeah, and sorry to be rude but who are you girls?"

"I'm Enola, this is Halona and this is Istas"

"I'm guessing the only way to separate you guys are from your hair?"

"Yes, we appreciate you now more for noticing"

"So, you guys just got here?"

"Literally like 10 minutes ago, Wanna hear about our fight?"

"Of course"

Harry and Hans starts to talk about their encounter with the Wendigo, and just like the first encounters that they had with other minions, he exaggerated some of the details in order to entice and 'brag' to Hans. For some reason Harry sees Hans as competition and rival. Sofia looked the most tired out of the siblings and Logan switched his sits with Mila. Still being introverted even in this new world starting a conversation is hard for him, fortunately for him Sofia was the one who started by looking sad.

"Are you okay?" He asked with clear awkwardness.

"I almost killed both of my siblings?" She replied in a monotoned voice.

"If it makes you feel better, you, kind of managed to save them at the end, you pulled Hans off, and you dealt a killing blow?"

"Thanks, that helps a lot" She said in a tone that Logan completely misunderstood.

"I'm sorry"

"Its that since our parents have died, I have always been dragging... Hans either has to carry me or Mila has to support me.. Its either I cannot do anything or I find it difficult to do anything, maybe I should have just died there"

"....."

"Its hard, I don't hate them but I feel bad for them that they have to look after someone who is incredibly weak, I feel sorry for them they have to bear with my existence"

"Woah, I mean I have yet to know you and your siblings fully, but I think-- Okay I have no idea what happened in there"

"Hans just told you what happened"

"Okay, let me rephrase, I meant.... I don't know"

"Seems its not even the fact that you don't know me... You never know how to deal with someone weak, you guys are strong you stand higher than me, all of you including those triplets"

"Well, from what I heard from Hans, it seems like you carried your team, I mean all of you have to execute it but you managed to make a plan, and you just pulled it out of your head"

"By warning Hans I gave away my position, and almost my life"

Not knowing what to say Logan can only feel bad for her.

"If you did not get to call it out then you guys would have stayed there for long and you will not be able to kill the Chimera quickly"

"We had no plan"

"But it fell right into place though, if it weren't for you getting 'hurt' you won't be able to go to the river?"

"ohh noo" She said and she starts to act gloomier than earlier.

"No, that's not what I meant"

Harry, Ava, Hans, Mila, and the Triplets looked at Logan who thinks he made her cry, but he mouthed off 'I got this'.

"I think you made them stronger"

"By being a support?"

"sort of, but because they wanted to protect you"

"Being weak then"

"Not really"

"What are you trying to say, your just leading me on aren't you?"

"Well it was brave of you come up with the plan, and finding the core, it was radiating heat it would have been hard to see when it got cold, or something"

"....."

"You're cool, that's like you're awesome"

That complement alone gave a smile to Sofia's face, other triads starts to appear as well. Out of the 40 groups there are only 20 groups left, they all seemed shock. The same thing with the orbs happened and the man in front stood up and congratulated them, the man was a woman, and her face starts to look more human than earlier. She turns smaller and the robe was too big for her

"I am Themis, I congratulate you 20 triads for passing the first trial and now there are only 3 more. You do not have to be worried about the other 20 as they will be sent home with no memory of this event"