Magic Trick

"BANGKOK TEAM!" 

From the other side of the dome emerged the Bangkok team. I saw Ploy waving to everyone, while Beam and Ton were seriously walking to the center. They shook hands with Fei, Jia, and Haru and they seemed to be very gentle towards each other. 

Jang-mi took over the microphone from Jager Borg. "Thank you very much, Mr. Borg. Allow me to discuss the mechanics of the tournament. Now that the two teams have been chosen, we would like to ask the teams if they would want to challenge someone in the battle or if they would like our automatic selector to determine the matches. Teams?"

A few moments later, both teams talked. Then, they responded to Jang-mi.

"We would like the selector to choose the matches," Fei said.

"Same decision," Beam seconded.

"Very well. The selector will determine the matches. For our first match, we will have…" Then, the automatic selector picked… "Fei Xing versus Songsuda "Ploy" Suwannarat. The second match would be Jia Xing versus Kittichat "Ton" Watthana. And by default, our last match would be Haru Hoshino versus Channarong "Beam" Chaisongkhram."

"Oh, Haru's gonna fight the leader…" Ellis whispered, which somehow he recovered from the moment earlier that Haru called him Waffle.

"And Fei's gonna fight a girl," I reacted.

After a brief preparation, Fei and Ploy went to the center and shook hands.

Jang-mi continued speaking. "One winner must emerge from each match. It is determined when the opposing fighter cannot stand anymore after five counts. At the end of the day, the team that has the most number of wins will proceed to the next round of the competition. Starting the Level 3 of Krieg, Fei versus Songsuda. Commence!" 

Fei ran towards Ploy holding his sword and was about to attack. Ploy, on the other hand, brought out a whip, until…

Hello, wonderful fighters!" said a cute furry black animated cat with rainbow eyes who jumped out of a suitcase on the screen. "It's me, Beketi, your friendly cat!"

The dome was filled with the indistinct noise of people who wondered what happened. I looked at Jager Borg who was in the lower middle row of the dome. He was grinning. For sure, he knew this would come along.

"Beketi, thank you for joining us," Jang-mi said. "May we know why you are here?"

"I'm about to spice up the competition, Jang-mi," Beketi winked, and showed a slot machine that has three slots. "We have three things to add to the matches. Number one, we have here the dome slot. In the middle slot, we have here the power slot. Lastly, we have the time slot. Each slot can be advantageous or disadvantageous to you, so use them wisely."

Beketi then went up the handle of the slot machine and pushed it downwards. Then it went near the screen and explained further. "Let's find out what you got, guys!"

The slots ran very fast and it stopped one by one. "Yay! For the dome slot, you got the laser gun! This means that the center platform is activated with laser guns that can toast your body in just a split second, so make sure you don't go out of the platform. For the power slot, there's a 'no' sign and inside it is a weapon, which means, you'll have to fight without holding any physical weapons. Otherwise, you will be disqualified. Last, for the time slot, it says 15, which means, you only have 15 minutes to fight. After 15 minutes, if both fighters are still standing or not standing at all, the match will be considered a draw. Are you ready?"

"Fifteen minutes? Wow," I spoke. That beautiful stranger in the form of a cat really knows how to fuck up this tournament. Well, since the first level, it was already fucked-up. Whew. Somehow we managed to reach this part, at least. 

"Can Fei hurt a girl?" Ellis asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean… He's always been this sweet, gentle, loving guy, and so are the Thai. Must he really hurt the girl?" 

"Well, he must. This is a battle. He has to win," I said.

"So, that's it! I'll be appearing in every match, so watch out! Thanks, guys! Thanks, Jang-mi," Beketi said as the screen turned into a big countdown watch, with the symbols of laser gun and the no weapon sign beside it.

"Fighters, commence," Jang-mi stated.

Fei hid his sword and so did Ploy with her whip. Then, they both ran towards each other and fought with their arms and feet. I was wrong. The gentleness was gone when they both hit each other with that hand-to-hand combat. 

Ploy was impressive, because she's really fast in guarding all of Fei's moves. By the looks of it, I'm beginning to think that Fei wasn't taking her seriously. Is it because she's a girl?

"As you can see, right now, Ploy uses her feet in most of her attacks. That's because she's been training Muay Thai since she was five," a voice with a thick accent via microphone spoke.

"That's right, and Fei here is, I'm sensing, doing a mix of karate and tae kwon do, with his fast moves!" another one spoke, with a different accent, but lower.

When I looked down, there was a long table with two guys in front of a microphone talking. Are these commentators? When did they arrive?

"Oh, by the way, we haven't introduced ourselves. Good day, everyone! I'm Furkan Stylianos of Nicosia, Cyprus, your commentator for The Krieg Level 3," said Furkan.

"And I'm Shamil Mariyam of Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, your commentator as well for this prestigious and exciting part of the competition. Right now we're watching the first match between Manhattan and Bangkok teams," added Shamil.

"Whoa, where did they come from?" Ellis said.

"Cyprus and Kazakhstan?" I replied.

Ellis sighed. "Just watch your boyfriend being beaten by the Thai girl."

"Whoa!" Furkan exclaimed. "That was unexpected! Fei was hit on the mid-section with Ploy's straight foot jab."

Fei catapulted a few meters away with that kick. Ploy was really on fire with that fight. But then, Fei didn't hold back after that.

Fei created four balls circling on his palm, which are made of fire, lightning, ice, rock, and jolted it towards Ploy. But Ploy was fast enough to evade the attacks.

"Did you see that? Fei created these balls. What's our stand with that?" Shamil asked.

"Well, those did not come from a weapon, but it was emitted from his bare hands, so it's okay," Furkan replied.

"Ooh, good thing it's okay to use his powers," I said.

"About time. Look, they only have 11 minutes left," Ellis pointed at the timer on the screen.

I gasped. "Oh, shit. I forgot that there's a timer. The fight was so intense."

Fei continued to throw those power balls to Ploy, but she was just so fast! How the hell can she evade those attacks? Or then again, is Fei just holding back? Does she really not want to hurt Ploy because she's a girl?

"Come on, Fei. You can do better than that," Ploy said.

"I know," Fei smiled.

Ploy squinted her eyes. "Are you just playing with me?"

"Aren't we?" Fei teased her again.

I groaned. Oh, my. He was just fooling around. 

"Aaaaaah!" Ploy screamed and all of a sudden, her entire body was covered with scales. Her arms and feet turned into these blue, red, and silver flowing fins and her head and body became a fish. It even grew bigger and bigger until it reached a size that Fei can be devoured in just a blink of an eye. 

Then… it dove into the dome as if the dome was a body of water! 

"Can you believe it, Shamil? Ploy from Bangkok turned into a massive Siamese fighting fish!" Furkan reacted.

"Makes sense. The Siamese fighting fish is the national fish of Thailand," Shamil added.

"But not just a common Siamese fighting fish. It can swim on solid ground!" Furkan yelled.

Fei is currently standing on the middle part of the platform, keeping track of every movement below. However, he didn't expect that Ploy was…

"Aaaaaah!" The fish jumped out of the cement platform behind Fei and was about to devour him, but he had his power balls on both hands and threw them towards the fish! However, the fish used its fins to counter-attack the power balls! Now the balls are approaching Fei damn fast!

"Argh!" Fei was hit with all those balls that he created. He wasn't able to escape their speed.

"Unbelievable! It was like a soccer moment, man!" Shamil reacted.

"But with four balls!" Furkan added.

Fei stood up and grinned. This time, the grin wasn't the playful one he always does. It was sinister. 

"Playtime's over," Fei said as he put his palm on the ground. Suddenly, shards of ice emerged from the platform and created a wall around right before the edge of the platform which was as clear as crystal. After that, with his power, he filled in the platform with water. Now they're like in an aquarium!

"I believe a fish like you should be in a tank," Fei said, as he sort of drew a line on both sides of his neck, just below the ear, and instantly, gills appeared on both sides of his neck. 

"Oh, I remember that! He did that to me as well!" I exclaimed.

"He made you a tank?" Ellis asked. I groaned.

Then, Ploy the fish went out of the rock platform and swam on the water. I looked at Beam and Ton and they were grinning and shaking their heads. What does this mean? 

"Oh, gosh…" Isn't it common sense? The fish would just move more freely on the water! Why on Orkatta would Fei think about doing that? That would just give the fish the advantage!

Ugh…