GRAND SELECTION I

Scavenger Hunt

The Scavenger hunt begins with a bang and all students fly and run across the whole surrounding are of the school. The inverted Mediterranean sea is now a land mass, renamed basically as the Mediterranean archipelago. There are several other land masses north-east of the Islands; which were the Black Sea and the Caspian sea. In this Underworld the 'sea' is appropriately with changed with Island, like the archipelago. They hunt for items that has a trail of imperium, most of the students have figured this out, but they have no idea where to start looking.

Logan's team split into 3 groups in order to find it. They have dotted and crossed more areas as they really get to explore the Islands. Axar and Sofia went into the surrounding waters of the archipelago and swam deep into the ocean floors.

"'Sea', anything Sofia?" Axar asked. Sofia only stared at him to increase the awkwardness of his joke. She got back to the shore and shook her head, still wit the awkward stare.

Logan and Audrey searched the whole land as they are the fastest of the team.

"Nothing in this woods, just pine cones if you want them" Logan showed Audrey his trinkets.

"Sure, it might take a while to find the seed"

"Let us carry on, to the next grove, nearby the school, shit"

And Remi goes alone high in the sky in order to find it. There are also several homes floating above, and the tallest mountain in the archipelago, Calypso's peak.

"Nothing, nothing.... this is really difficult, right buddy?" She scratched River and he seems to reply.

The Quintets objectives are to find 4 items that has been imbued with Imperium, but with as different elements in it, they have to at the least find 4 different elements. The game ends when 6 teams have managed to finish the objective, the other teams that at least holds 3 will be moving on. Everything is already fix, 24 for the first 6 teams, and the other team will have 18. Though it is simple, the main objective of the hunt is too test the student's usage of clairvoyance, as there are some enemies that can hide their auras completely even without the usage of the mask, but a single slip of imperium can break the cover.

"So we're just walking to the town?" Audrey asked.

"Yes, we cannot let them see us, and I think this is the best option for now, after all we already have some of it on our person"

"But, we might get locked down?"

"We're heading to the town, no one would risk civilians getting hurt, you do not have to worry!"

"hmm I trust you"

"Thanks!"

"What exactly are we looking for Logan?"

"Something that is just there, we can pick the aura if we focus, its a matter of using Clairvoyance, our seniors have advantage over us but if we know where to look then we can find it easily"

"We should probably stop talking right?"

"Why?"

"So that we cannot attract any unwanted attention, no, I think it will help us focus"

They kept quiet hoping that it will help them find the item, within the town. As they walk amongst the crowd they sensed it walk pass them. Logan slowly turned around in order to keep his focus on the aura, but as he looks back he cannot see it as his vision is clouded by the people's own aura.

"Damn it, I missed it"

"Did you see it, I felt something"

"Yes, so did I, that was it"

The aura of that item is weaker than a person's aura, and it slowly inches away from them. 'Come on' Logan told Audrey, but she was not there standing beside her, he sees the top of her head amongst the crowd and he goes after her. He pushes along the crowd and he bumps into someone else.

"Ow!"

"I got it!" Harry exclaimed, he grabbed the items that Logan and his team already have.

"Cool" Logan grabbed the small totem from him.

"GIVE IT TO MEEEEEE!"

Whisper comes falling down to the ground, Audrey grabs Logan and they ran away from them. They tried to disappear in the ground but Whisper is jumping around them trying to find a way to pin them down. Harry floats up and he has 2 of the totems with him. Logan notices that the items are just totem-shaped boxes with locks on it, but it seems that keys will not unlock it.

"It needs a key?!" His mind concluded. Logan is distracted by this fact and Audrey had to bring him back to the situation. Harry charges them and Logan freezes him in place but he counteracts by melting it immediately.

"Did not get mem body"

"Yeah, thanks for these 2" Logan showed the 2 boxes and Remi comes swooping in to save them.

"Oh, can you giv- no they're flying"

"Hey, what was that?!" Hans sees Harry's failure.

"They got the empty ones, do not worry"

"Where are the 2 thingies, w-"

'Here' He handed a ruby and sapphire covered in a layer of water, he used his own Imperium in order to hide it and put his own on the 2 boxes. He smiled cockily, Halona thinking he did something awesome, she corrected him by saying that it was stupid and reckless. His smile stayed the same, it made Halona uncomfortable. Morgan drops by and says that he now has one more of the item.

"I opened the box and I got an Opal, but I have no idea what element is imbued"

"We need to wait for the other 2 to drop by I guess" Hans said.

"Yeah, they are at the waiting spot, they already have 2 with them, but the other one has no aura that was felt, someone absorbed it already or we have a dud"

"Oh cool, I guess we need to go"

Harry whistles to Whisper and landed down on the ground, it transformed into a Chinese dragon and flew away. Harry holds down the 2 gems on his hand it seems to grow brighter as they ascended, Whisper seems to be moving in the wrong direction.

"I said, AFTER LOGAN, WHISPER!?"

"Whis-"

Harry looks down to him and his eyes are closed, he seems to be asleep. Harry tries to wake him up, noticing this Morgan and Halona helps him with waking up the shifter but it is nothing. The 2 gems on Harry's hand starts to shine in a white glow. Some of the teams under them noticed it, "OVER THERE!" they screamed.

"After them now!" They started to hurl things at them just to bring them down.

The 2 noticed that they are being chased down and they gave Harry a heads up, but not before the 2 gems starts to crack opem and a lightning came out from it, for a split second Harry sees Logan and then disappears, Whisper finally wakes back up and they hover mid air.

"You guys saw that?"

"The lightning?"

"Or the light, OR THE GUYS THAT ARE AFTER US.. HARRY WE HAVE TO GO" Morgan pointed out the bigger things that they need to focus on.

Harry notices a surge of lightning above the clouds and sees it. The lightning travels behind them. Morgan and Halona defends them from falling off the sky as Harry looks at the lightning that seems to be flying away, he screamed Logan's name and asked Whisper to chase it down. They flew quickly towards the surge of lightning and it starts to go faster.

"Remi, I need you're help!"

"On it.. Axar, Sofia.. are you guys ready?"

"Yeah, is this safe?"

"Yes it will be fun!" Audrey said.

They held firmly on River's tail and he flings them up to the sky, they covered themselves in a sphere of water, Audrey ejected a gust of wind and hits the other 3 above.

"Got'em! Let's circle Above Remi"

"Got it"

All of them starts to fall off the dragon. Both teams struggle to stay balance in the air as they fall quickly by the second. Logan comes back as the surge of lightning and grabs the 2 gems and his 2 teammates off them, he apologizes to the 3 as he pulls his teammates away. A massive spark occurred in between them and Logan's team disappeared, Harry and his team just hovers there with their one gem. Halona gets angrier at Harry who just smiles and says 'don't mind' in the most pathetic way possible.

Logan and his team grouped up in a small cove at the other side of the continent, there are a lot more students fixed near the school as compared on the whole archipelago, the teachers used it for this task. Logan's team puts down 5 gemstones, 2 rubies, an emerald, sapphire and a amethyst.

"Right so, MVP is obviously Remi"

Audrey crowned Remi as the MVP for her massive contribution to the team. They managed to communicate by a small device, just like an earpiece that she imbued with her teammates' imperium in order to communicate in vast distances telepathically.

"But, how did you guys steal from them?" Axar asked.

"A sleight of hand" Logan replied.

Earlier when Logan and Audrey encountered Harry it was the perfect confidence, Harry is a bit cocky because of his massive shifter, the town.

When Logan froze him earlier, he was the one melting it instead of Harry and at the same time stole the imbued Imperium in the gems. The water easily seeped into the locks and he managed to steal the imperium.

Logan needed to put it back in the gems as he might absorb the imperium and therefore becoming a target by whoever sees them. With the small earpiece it gave them enough time to take the gems and put it back, the earpiece is made out of wood meaning it has no more life force. Logan learned to do it with Remi's wooden dolls.

"So, Ryker, and the other guy, how did you control them?"

"Imperium, is like life you know, and I sort of give them, my will. It was to fight you guys that made them alive, I also used this"

"A wooden earpiece?"

"Yeah, that is how my will was easily transmitted, if you will, to them"

"So how are they alive?"

"They do not really need a lot of imperium for the body, the main focus is on the earpiece, its like 10% of the imperium I gave the mannequins are used for the main body, the remaining 90% is for the connection that we have. Giving them a personality, language, like being the ALIVE like a person"

"10% is just, for it to be alive?"

"Yes"

Logan imbued 90% of the imperium into his wooden earpieces, which he has 2 off. The remaining 5% is within him, and the remaining 5% is an exit for the imperium when he is to imbue it into the gems.

"Well, what was the elements on the 2 Logan?"

"No idea, I didn't get much, but I'm just thinking 2 because that is what he had"

"Well, let's see"

They tapped it one by and the middle starts to disintegrate and remained hollow. The imperium starts to spin and go up and turns into different elements, the amethyst has a tongue of fire above it, one of the rubies have a ball of water and the other has a small ball of lightning, the emerald has a ball of magma and the sapphire has 3 pieces of rock revolving around each other.

"We got it!"

The team hugged around and the elements balled into one, except for the magma. The emerald reverted back to normal and the sand surrounds it into a rectangle. It shakes around ridding of the sand and they put the gems into it.

"By the way, Audrey... how did you get the other one?" Axar ask.

"Oh, I just picked it up from Halona she almost caught me.. my b!"

"B?"

Their team celebrated as a dove flies down on their spot, signifying their win. The bird landed in front of them and swallowed the box. It opens its mouth wide open and sucks them in. They were holding each other as a table rises in front of them.

"What is this?!"

"Oh I HATE THIS I HATE THIS" Audrey repeated.

6 of the teams appeared in front of them, 4 of them seems to be sitting on the Nosebleed section of the arena. A 12 team bracket single elimination board is projected from the table, and their groups are being shown.

"Oh this is a team fight?" Logan asked.

"Yep, but unlikely the first one, we are fighting, humans, not wendigos, chimeras, humans"

4 teams will be fighting, the winners of the past round. For Logan's team just barely made it, being the 6th team to finish the task, and unfortunately they have to fight against Ruth's team. Remi bites her lip as she sees her elder sister looking down on them.

"This will be hard"

The stare down between sisters seems to be tense enough to cut something in half, no one wants to go in between them in fear of being hurt by one or the other or both of them. Ruth summoned her shifter as a falcon, River came out as a snake from her hood and it appears to be threatened. Still even if the 2 is showing hostilities to one another, and someone will get hurt, no one dared to even move. Both shifters grew in size and attacked one another.

"My my, just you wait you 2, you 2 can fight out since after all, if team 6A wins, you get to fight 4A.. How does that sound?"

Harriet jumps in front of the 2 shifters, the falcon's talons that grew twice its size dug through her right palm, the snake bit her left fore arm. The 2 shifter let go and went back to their masters, her palm heals and her uniform seems to not be punctured at all by the sharp weapons of the shifters.

"Very well for me, Lady Harriet, after all my sister is still weak, but surrounded with stronger allies, and she does not choose to properly train with them"

"You seem to be showing a bit o-"

"Arrogance? No, its a fact and she knows it.. I will see how strong you have become, use your dolls instead of that shifter, you'll hurt so many people around you"

"Dolls?!" Logan felt angry.

"Its not you Logan, Logan"

"She sounded derogatory, oh look"

Fauna and Kiosk called them and waved at them, the 2 apologized on her place if it sounded a bit rude, they just agreed to it. Eir appeared from one of the elevators and asked all the students to go to their respective rooms, but they have no idea where.

Maids came out from behind her and they are shocked as they are a lot of them from such a small elevator. The maids stands in front of them and pointed towards their rooms, the others jumps up to the nosebleed section and does the same thing. As they walk the maids walk, and as they stop they also step, Axar walks back but the maid just stood there.

"Not gonna work buddy"

"Sorry, I tried to make a jo... never mind"

They followed them and they see the other teams in front of them entering their rooms, they walked passed them. The others were nice enough to waved hello at them, and they had to reply. They enter the room which is just parallel to the them, the rooms looks much bigger in the inside, the outside is clearly misleading. The room is about 2 storeys tall, they fly around the room and the maid claps once and they got into the middle of the room sitting down properly.

"That was..."

"Woah"

"Children, I will be taking a record of your bodies"

"Okay, why?"

"We need to ensure that none of you are going through something that will affect your body, we do not want you to get hurt even more"

"And if we are?"

"You will have to go to the healing chamber, and get out literally a minute before your fight, it will not ensure that nothing bad will happen in the future. You will be trained by the top 7, and they expect your physique to be on the highest level it can be for now, and your mind in the hardest it can be"

"Uhm..."

"I like that joke" Axar said.

"You kids and your minds, get up and open your arms side wards and your feet apart"

They did so as they are ask and the maid puts out a chrome disk, there seems to be a black circle on it, she puts it out directly to Logan's chest first and it starts to spin clockwise, it went from his chest to his palms, to his face, up to his head and down to his legs, and it shined gold, meaning he is fit. The 4 did it one by one and their results are all the same, they all let out a huge sigh of relief.

"Well, within 5 hours you will train, but for now eat at the dining hall, follow the purple light on the ground. And also switch to a just the vests, take the coats off"

They all laid down and waited until the purple light comes on.

"Right get up!"

"Yes"

Audrey pulls Axar up but he is really tired, she pinched him and he pulls her hair. The 2 siblings ended up fighting each other and no one stopped them and instead told them that they were living, the cousins continued to fight until one of the elites encountered the other 3, they rushed back up and stopped the 2 from fighting and dragged them outside, as if they were against eating because they are tired.

"Good morning sir, ma'am?"

"Sir" The Elite replied.

"SIR!" They all stood suddenly straight like soldiers.

He does not have the same gold, silver, nor platinum accents on his outfit, despite not having those accessories they are still not be underestimated. Those accessories after all are indication of their power, they stood there and just looked at each other, he nodded and left, they stood there until he disappears into the corner. They all rushed to the dining hall and everyone seems to be assembling, they all sat in the same long table. They sat down by teams, and soon as they sat down, appetizers are served in front of them.

"So, Logan" Harry's team sits beside them.

"What?"

"Were you the one who knocked out Whisper?"

"Yeah"

"How?"

"You know that weird, no flavor drink from the summer festival I guess?"

"Yeah, the root thingy why?"

"Apparently they used to use it as an anesthetic for shifters specifically"

"Why?"

"No idea, I just read it somewhere in the Library"

"So how did he... consume it?"

"Just kidding, I have no idea, I guess it was luck, or your just a bad friend to him?"

"Wow, oh maybe I am"

Themis appeared in the front of the hall and clinked a spoon and glass in order to draw everyone's attention. There are other 4 chairs in each side of one chair where Themis seems to be standing, the elites come in and wearing the same outfit as they are and this time without the masks, and they get to see their faces, they applauded one another. Everyone seems to be there except for 1, probably the man Logan and his team met up earlier.

"Good Evening, all of you, seems to have passed and is fit for the selection tomorrow.. Now all of you must enjoy this evening, and rest afterwards. The whole school will be watching all of you tomorrow and you need to show that you are capable of protecting us, we need to know that we are in safe hands.. Now Enjoy"

Delicious meals are sent out to them after they finished up their appetizers, they start to enjoy the night and as soon as the day come, they are all filled with nervousness, especially because it is not just students from their schools will be spectating. Students from other schools watches over them, they have more students than the school the Logan is admitted in.

"This is... wow"

Harriet floats up to the middle where everyone can see them. The Elite 7 came from different schools such as theirs, and they are the strongest students in the Underworld. She took off her mask and everyone cheered on louder, everyone who will be participating were level headed the whole time, except for Harry and Logan's team who are on the brink of breakdown. Harriet announced the final part of the selection and the first quintets that will go up against one another are the green teams, the teams who managed to obtain 3 elements. It is Harry and his team who goes up first.

"So this is not, a school.. Axar?"

"Yeah... sorry, okay. Well this place where we are is not, they call it the Golden Sun Arena. There are 10 schools like ours that exist in this Underworld"

"Oh"

"And for this month, its our school, the last school to be chosen a candidate for the Elites, then they choose 1 to replace them"

"Oh, interesting"