Evaluation Competition

Aloha POV

It has been a week since I saw Joy, she must've made things better with her sister because her team didn't drop out of the evaluation. I guess, she was staying in it. Although, they had a change in teammates. Josh was gone and was replaced by someone named Cherri. I don't know who that was.

We walked up to the arena, my team wanted to get up early, to see Team "X-Emperor" as they called it. There was Vintage, Emperor, Omega, and Prince. This was going to be interesting, as well as Team Joy. Well, we'd see how good they could work together. We were going to have to go against them later anyway. Why not see their skills?

Army's Team wouldn't join us for a while, because they had some turf war last second to do. I sighed, not really watching the match.

"Whaaatt? That counts? That's not fair!" I heard one random person yell. A chorus of "boo" followed that comment.

"That was such a cheat!" Octo explains, I snap out of my thoughts, shaking my head and looking down to the arena. Emperor appeared to be snapping at Vintage who argued back at him.

"What's going on?" I ask Diver.

"You didn't see?" He asks. I kept quiet and he sighs. "Of course you didn't. Snap out of it, man. We really gotta see their skills. We're lucky that we get such an advantage like this. They won't get to see our skills because the remainder of our battles are after we fight them. This is good right now." He explains to me.

"Yeah, yeah, I got it. I'll watch, just tell me what happened?" I ask him once more. He smiles at me. "You can hold me to it. I promise I'll watch,"

"Good, now what happened was Vintage used Prince as bait, without him knowing, and then proceeded to order around Team Joy. He's so used to people listening to him without question. The enemy team was take out by Joy, Jello, and Vintage. Vintage got most of the hits, though. Seems like nobody liked that stunt he just pulled. Especially not Emperor." Diver explains.

I look down at the arena once more, Emperor had walked off- more like stormed off- to Prince, checking on him. Vintage stood, watching Emperor for a moment before he walked off to his two teammates. They needed to work together or this was never going to work.

...A few hours later...

They won, just barely. Emperor and Vintage made no communication what-so-ever. That was good for us, bad for them. They couldn't work together for the life of them. Meaning if we can force them to split up, they won't call for backup, because they're too stubborn. At least, Vintage won't. I don't know about Emperor, he's changed a lot since last time.

It was almost our turn to go against them. We were just waiting for their teams to arrive. Army's team had met up with us, so it was just waiting for Team Joy and Team X-Emperor.

"Hello, sorry we were late-" Joy called out, running up to us. "Oh, wow, hello, guys. We're late, aren't we?" Joy asks, embarrassed. I nodded a little. "I thought so." She sighs.

"It's alright, it was just by ten minutes," I said. Army's teammates had been counting every second that they were late and decided to tell everyone that they were late every minute that passed. Army didn't do that, not anymore. I think that's my fault...eh. It probably was. But, he loves me so it's okay.

Army POV

Joy ran up to us, or so I assumed it was Joy because she spoke for the people in her team. "Hello," I greet her.

"Oh! Hello! You must be Army, leader of Team Orange, part of the S4! It's a pleasure to meet you!" She responds quickly, shaking my hand.

I drop my hand and she crosses her arms, smiling. "This is my newest teammate, Cherri. She just joined us. That's why we changed our color." Joy explains, motioning to the taller girl with cherry red eyes. Her tentacles were long and she left them down, behind her shoulders, they were red that faded into a nice golden color at the tips. The rest of the team matched her color.

The team was no longer just Golden to orange but rather red to gold. I actually liked the change to it, it made them all look more noticeable.

I know what you might be thinking, you don't want to be noticed in battle, huh? Well, no you don't. But, outside of battle, being noticed is a good thing. If you're good, you'll get noticed and grow in popularity, meaning more opportunities will open for more turf wars or other battle modes, maybe they can get better as a team due to said opportunities.

We'll see if they are any good in our match.

"S-Shut up!" I heard Emperor's voice, he must've snapped at someone and ran, because he was the first one to reach us. He was flustered and seemed a tad bit angry. Vintage was the next one to reach us, he sighed, looking at Emperor.

"Can we stop fighting?" He asks the king. Emperor looks at him, still angry, frowns, then looks away once more. Vintage sighs again. "Come on, Emperor, don't do this, not now. We're about to have to go into a battle, you know I didn't mean anything by saying that."

"Sure as hell sounded like it! I mean, who am I to say that, anyway? Because I'm so arrogant, I don't understand anything, right?" Emperor quoted someone, Vintage I assumed by his reaction to that.

"I said I didn't mean that!" Vintage accuses.

"Sure. Because if I said, you and your petty X-Blood team sucks and the only reason you win is because of your cockiness and pure luck and then I turned around and said, oops! I didn't mean to say that, but I did say it! It makes it all so much better, right?" Emperor's tone was harsh and cold. His glare could strike someone down. Vintage even involuntary shivered.

"Tch! Fine! Be difficult. Doesn't matter to me." Vintage says, stuffing his hands in his pockets, rolling his eyes. Prince walked up to Emperor and Omega walked up to Vintage.

"Is this everyone?" I ask them all. Nobody answered. "Hello? Look, you can't just ignore me. Is this everyone?" I ask again.

Still, they stayed quiet. Joy's team looked around, at everyone, counting quietly for a moment before turning, to walk inside, for the turf war.

Then, Prince spoke up.

"Yeah, this is everyone." He replies to me. Then, he whispers something to Emperor who shot a glare at Vintage and Omega before following Joy and her team inside. We followed after them.

This was going to be an interesting battle. Especially if those two kept on fighting. This might be an easy win or a difficult and loud battle of arguments and the such. I really hoped it wouldn't be. I sighed, looking to Aloha who was watching Emperor and Vintage, frowning.

"Hey, come on, focus. Ignore them," I tell him, walking up from behind him. He looks back at me, smiling a little.

"I will, I'm just worried they might start attacking each other before the battle even starts." Aloha replies to me, chuckling nervously. "The way those two act, I wouldn't be surprised if they did attack each other."

"Heh...that's not too hard to imagine...I suppose you are right...it wouldn't be very surprising, would it?" I ask him, glancing over to the two.

"Nope~!" He chimes, then grabs my hand, smiling at me. I smile back at him.

"Let's get this over with, then, maybe we could hang out, yeah?" I ask him. He looks at me, smiling, then nods, pulling me with him, running onto the arena.

"Here we go, good luck to everyone!" I said.

"Good luck~!" Aloha chimed, followed by his teammates.

We split up, going our separate ways, ready for the turf battle.