Chapter 290 - 290. Rings
Louis had practiced this move only a few times. The only reason being that it took all the lightning he had in his body at once. This meant that afterward he would have nothing left and would be extremely exhausted.
When he had done this the first time he had reserved the gym by himself for an extra hour after the group had already done their new work out routine. He found a staff member of the school and requested the room to have its stronger security activated. After that, he went all out. The result was a little pricy for the school, but it was what they had built the room for.
The entire arena was silent. The lightning that was currently bursting from Louis was brighter than any that they had ever seen. It bounced through the dome and the clouds that had formed in the arena causing a spectacular light show.
The bang that followed the massive lighting explosion was enough to rumble the entire arena. There were even some of the spectators that shouted about an earth quake. They had not expected such a show of power and control.
Louis had made the lighting affect the water around and even how it would or would not bounce through the arena. The fact that he could control the size of these wild lightning bolts and when they would appear was something that put the spectators in awe. The judges themselves even found that they were stunned and were almost late in filling out the score cards.
Louis was on his knees panting as the clouds began to cool and the rain fell. He had managed to make his own storm within the protective glass dome of the arena. He took some time whole looking up and realized that the spectators were all still silent. Some were even crying while looking at him panting in exhaustion.
"Here in the elemental power demonstrations, we have found a hidden gem. The nicknamed participant, zap, has struck us with his lightning. The display of lighting coming from him and becoming a storm ending in a magical symphony of flashing bolts has caused a silence to come over the world here. The sounds of thunder only became understandable when we saw the final burst of lightning and the massive boom. We found Zap on his knees looking up at a rainy sky. The touching pain of young life clear to all here. This metaphorical performance has gone beyond just demonstrating the super power this youth possesses. It has made a world wide statement."
Unknown to Louis the announcer was taking his performance as a completely different direction than Louis had intended. The audience and the spectators in the arena had taken this contest as a flashy drama showing off super powers. This being the case, they all drew their own conclusions for what the performance meant.
"That\'s priceless!" Art was in his own waiting room. He was nearly crying himself at how the announcer and many of the surrounding participants were taking the powers that Louis had demonstrated.
"Are you laughing at that upstanding young man\'s performance? He had touched the hearts of many people by showing us his pain. That storm. The meaning it has. How could you laugh." One of the competitors in Arts\' waiting room was angry because of what he had decided was Art disrespecting Louis and the performance.
"Oh my god. You\'re serious." Art burst in to laughter again. "He-he...hahahaha, he was just demonstrating his power. You people all made up your own thoughts. He just wanted to show off his control of literal lightning. Ahahaha" Art couldn\'t contain himself. This was just too funny.
"You speak as if you know him. Any reason why?" A woman who was asking looked like she spent more time at the gym than any mand Art had ever seen. However, her entire personality and action exuded a cool and calm demeanor.
"Yeah, he\'s my friend. Same with a few of the other winners. We are going to be a hero group one day. But first, we will make an impact here and hopefully be able to skip a grade soon." Art finally wiped the tears from his eyes after the display had changed away from Louis\'s tournament.
"I see, so you are one of the group sweeping the tournaments. How many are there of you in this tournament?" The woman seemed as if she was worried this time. She had been preparing for this tournament for a while but seeing that those who no one would have ever picked out as the winners had taken the first place she was on edge.
"We all did our own. I am here and my other friend is in the random draw tournament. He is relying on me to come out on top while I am going to wait for him to come out on top. I just wish our tournaments weren\'t at the same time. Well, he might be able to see the last match here. He will most likely end his tournament early. He\'s a lucky guy."
The participants who heard didn\'t believe him at first but after realizing that they were in the same room as one of the student underdogs sweeping the tournaments they walked right out and decided that they would participate another year. Who were they to risk injury in this tournament if they were set up for failure?
"I understand. Then I hope we do not fight until the very end." The woman gave a nod then moved to start stretching. The man that had picked the fight, in the beginning, was now slumped on a bench. He felt that he had just poked a hornets\' nest with a stick.
"First batch is up. Proceed to your platforms!" Art jumped up and went t the number four platform he had been assigned. He was ready for anything that came at him. He watched as a referee come up and looked around for his opponent.
"Another drop out. That will be eight no shows. What happened in that waiting room this year?" The referee sighed as he send a notification to his superior and raised Arts\' hand as the winner of the first round.
"Wow, Art got a lucky first round." Asher wasn\'t even holding back any longer. He was openly saying what he thought of the matches. The other competitors had a mix of fear for when they would face him and also a desire to take him down.
"The first drawing is ready. Every participant will come to their designated arena and pull lots. There will only be twelve who make it to the next round." Asher was a little shaken to hear the dramatic cut down of competitors. However, he was sure that it would make things much faster and that was why they did it this way.
When he exited the room in to the massive arena he saw that it was split in to multiple risen circles. These were multiple arenas to have multiple battles at once. The only problem was that when Asher looked at the participants and at the circles he knew that there were to few arenas compared to the participants.
"Welcome to my favorite and I hope yours as well, the random selection tournament. I am your friendly copy cat super hero, reflection! I am here to see how these participants react to the randomness that can come at any moment in real life. This year we had a brilliant idea to change things up. This is random selections after all. The participants will choose their lot. They will go to the specified circle and the last participant remaining within will move on to the one on one matches. Goood luck and Bring it on!!!!"
The popular hero announcing this tournament had made his splash here and gave full credit to the Riktor tournament for him becoming a hero and getting the educational scholarships he needed.
Asher was fairly surprised but had set himself up to accept that there would be many surprises with this tournament. That was mostly going to be about those he faced, but the style of battle was now one of the surprises. He watched as the other contestants were shaken a little. Some even left on the spot seeing that they would not have an advantage. They thought it better to return another year than risk losing due to poor super power match ups.
On the other hand, Asher watched a few with different super powers get excited. One man that had rocks floating around him was nearly pumping his fist in the air in victory. Asher could tell that he was able to somehow manipulate stones in the very least and he would be able to easily knock multiple opponents out of a ring at once. "Ring four, remember. If you don\'t want to lose in style come my way!" He sent this challenge to everyone as Asher reached his hand in to the box of lots.
"And...I just pulled ring number four. Whoever said I was lucky might have lied." Asher walked toward the same ring the guy had just entered.