Chapter 5
Noise began to burst in all directions as the Sean’s group began to approach a tall, rough building. They walked across dark brick road as Mr. Francis continued to lead them on towards the large building. They halted when the entrance came further into view and Mr. Francis turned around facing Darion and Sean with a blunt face.
“Alright, we’re about here. We’re about to enter Main Hall, the central building of the Millennial Tournament,” said Mr. Francis.
Sean looked up at the tall building. His eyes squinted in as he took a long stare at how tall it actually was. He wasn’t good at measurements so he just labeled it in his mind as a really tall building.
“Whoa, it’s huge. So wait…the Millennial Tournament? I don’t think I remember it being called that,” said Sean perplexed.
“Oh, right. I don’t think we ever told you the name,” Darion added, “the stadium we’re going to is called Main Arena and the tournament we’re participating for with these preliminaries is called the Millennial Tournament. The fighters this year aren’t too bad this time around and I would know since this year I’m serving as announcer for the tournament.”
“Wow, really? That’s pretty cool,” said Sean.
“Yeah. I expect some good talent coming out of these preliminaries,” said Darion.
“But, wait. Why is it called the Millennial Tournament?” Sean asked.
“Well, that’s a long story but basically it’s like a celebration for a founding of our planet. The tournament is held every one thousand years in commemoration of that and serves as a sort of national holiday for the whole country.”
“Wow, that sounds really important. I didn’t know something like that existed here.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty sweet. It also serves as a symbol for using the Star Medals and possibly getting a chance for your team to make one wish and go to the Promised Land.”
Sean face flashed with confusion. He bobbed his head to side while straining his mind at to what he just heard from him. “Hmm, wait what? What’s all that? One wish? Promised Land? Star Medals? I don’t get it, unfortunately.”
“I didn’t expect you too. My pops and I will explain it more inside, let’s go already, before you’re late any more than you already are.”
“Ok, will do,” said Sean.
“You boy’s done chattin’ it up? We gotta get goin’ now,” Mr. Francis said, waving his cigar too them in a follow him motion.
“Yeah, we heard you,” Darion responded.
The walked forward until they reached the sliding doors of the tall building and entered in without time to waste.
The group entered into the building to witness people of different types and races all walking in different directions and areas. Voices roared from every direction and they echoed far and wide throughout the enclaves of every corner of the building. A desk stood far to the side of the entrance that housed a several receptionist standing stiff in wait. Mr. Francis turned around to them as they entered the building and pointed his finger towards the wall on the opposite end of the reception desk view.
“Darion, you can go on over there and tell him about those there symbols on the whole since those will be important to tell him about before he enters the tournament if just so happens to win the preliminaries. I’m heading over here to the reception desk to get him signed up since he’s I’m part of the tournament committee and none of you here youngsters would be able to talk his way into the tournament on your own anyway,” said Mr. Francis.
“Alright, pops, will do. I’ll give him the run down over here,” said Darion.
Sean’s eyes wandered like curious little animal around the room. Darion’s fingers snapped near his face as he reacted to them noise and looked Darion into the eyes of his dark shades.
“Hey, man, you listening? Come over here for a sec. I’m going to show you something.”
“What? Oh, Alright then.”
They walked over to this colossal, straight burly wall. Three massive square figures stood against it in order from left to right like exotic paintings on display. Darion began pointing at the figure to the far left and Sean proceeded to follow his finger as he observed the figure’s contents.
“This thing right here is called the Sacred Holy Trinity. You could just call it the Holy Trinity for short. It’s meant to represent very sacred and holy relics that were founded in this world,” said Darion.
Sean looked up at the huge figure hanging from the wall in glass casing. He saw three rings interlocked together in a triangle shape fashion. The figure had a mosaic style design to it. Each ring had a different symbol placed within it, a silver cross at top, a red pentagram star on the bottom left, and a yin yang style symbol without the extra small circles on the inside of both ends that we’re usually apart of the original design, the two opposing colors on each piece we’re blue and black.
“What are those symbols on the inside of the rings? They look familiar to me because they resemble a few religious symbols I’ve seen before back on Earth,” said Sean.
“Those are representations of what’s called the Sacred Relics. They’re sacred and holy symbols that have been discovered by the founders of our universe. Some people think it’s a legend because we haven’t seen or met them but apparently it’s rumored by the people that there are separate dimensions out there and that there are rulers ruling over each realm. Their job is also to protect each respective relic from harms way and they serve as sort of guardians of those respective relics and places,” said Darion.
Sean’s eyes wandered across the figure and then halted and switched over to Darion’s eyesight. “I see, so then what are these so called different worlds called then?”
“There both called the Promised Land and the Underworld. Those are the other two at least, were living currently in one of them right now. I guess you could call this one the Spirit World or just Other Earth, which is a part of the Spirit World, but sometimes that gets confusing because it feels like wouldn’t the Promised Land and the Underworld be a part of the Spirit World too, y’know?”
“Yeah that makes sense,” Sean responded.
“Anyways the names of each of these relics are called the Silver Cross, the Red Star Symbol, and the Duality Symbol, which I’ll get to in a second with the next one.”
“Ok.”
So, yeah, the point is these symbols are very sacred and the people here worship this plaque with great respect so be careful when your referring to these objects and this sacred symbol, you got that?
“Ok, right.”
“By the way, I didn’t tell you what these all are called together, they’re called the Ancient Symbols. We call ‘em that because there already ancient, sacred symbols that represent our nation as a whole and we really put them all in high regard.”
“All right, I see,” said Sean nodding his head forward.
“Ok, that was the Sacred Holy Trinity, now on to the next one.” Darion moved over a step and followed to point his hand to the middle-hanging figure. “This one here is called the Legend of Good and Evil, it also goes by the name of the Duality Scroll or just the Duality Symbol itself.”
Sean’s attention shifted towards the middle figure. “Ok, so what’s it mean?”
“Well what it means or represents is a couple things. This symbol here in the middle of the scroll is called the Duality Symbol, that’s what I mentioned here before. It’s supposed to represent the balance between natural spirit energy and dark energy.”
“Spirit and dark energy? I thought there was only spirit energy?”
“No, no. Weren’t you paying attention before? That kid explained to you how his car ran on what’s called wind energy. There are different versions of spirit energy than just the regular kind.”
“Oh, then what are all the different types of spirit energy then?”
“I don’t have time to run through all that with you right now, someone will tell you later about it. For now let’s worry about just this explanation.”
“Ok.”
“So yeah, basically natural spirit energy and dark energy seem to work hand to hand and in unison to each other.”
“All right, I see but why is that?” Sean asked.
“Nobody knows,” Darion responded, it just seems to be a natural occurrence in the world.
Sean proceeded to further investigate the scroll. He spotted a small drawing of two bird like figures clashing at beak point, Sean’s focused on the picture and squinted his eyes a tad to make out the picture of if he was seeing right.
“What’s this, then?” Sean asked curiously.
“That my friend is the dove and the raven. It’s the representation of the good and evil portion. The Dove represents good and the raven represents evil, obviously.” Darion turned from Sean and looked back over to the scroll’s view. “These symbols represent balance and reveals the question whether good or evil will prevail or not.”
Sean turned his eyes to him again. “So then, what does it all mean, I mean as a whole?”
“It means that there’s a constant struggle over good and evil, and this scroll represents a legend of two fighters coming to other one day every few thousand years to train for a fight over who’s better and whether good or evil will rule the universe. That’s what my pops told me anyway. Those supposed Sacred Guardians I was talking about earlier decide who gets the most control of the universe this way.”
“Wow, that sounds interesting!”
“It is, and like I said two fighters are destined to come to Other Earth test their skills and eventually challenge each other to a fight. This tournament is a good battle ground for them to hone their skills together and afterwards their supposedly meant to succeed the previous Sacred Guardians’ positions as well.”
“Hmm, if that’s all true then what are these two fighters called and who are they?” asked Sean.
“They’re supposedly called the Spirit Disciple and the Demon Heir. The Spirit Disciple succeeds both Spirit Master and Guardian of the Promised Land and the Demon Heir succeeds the Demon King position, those guys I mentioned are the ones that live and rule the Promised Land and the Underworld, besides the Spirit Master of course who lives here on this planet with us,” said Darion.
“So, who’s the Spirit Master then?”
“He’s the head honcho of the planet. The protector of Other Earth and the strongest man on the planet, he’s also the guy who mastered all Spirit Energy or so I’ve heard.”
Sean’s face flushed with amazement. “Wow, he sound’s really important. I sure wish I could meet him.”
“I’d like to meet him as well, but you just might get your chance, I heard he might have left his sanctuary to watch the preliminaries today. Who knows what kind of stuff may happen today. Anyways let’s move on to the last one.”
“All right.”
Darion took a step further to the side and looked up again with his dark glasses, pointing towards what looked like a blue flag on the wall. That flag stood strong and had stars organized in the center of it, there we’re five stars all huddled with an Olympic game style design with three stars on top and two stars on the bottom just between each star. The stars had each of their own color being: red, blue, green, all on top from left to right and gold and silver stars placed under the other three. Darion pointed his finger towards stars and turned his face toward Sean.
“This here is called the 5 Star Flag, it’s the national flag of our country, continent, and nation of Moder, Neo-Pangaea, and Other Earth. These stars and this flag are very important to our country. They represent the zones themselves and the unity between them.”
“Ok.”
“Each star represents the five elements of nature and the respective zones of this country that represents them. The five basic elements of spirit energy again are fire, water, nature, electricity, and wind, and their matching zones are again the Prehistoric, Ice, Mountain, Industrial, and Air zones. These zones and elements represent our nation as a whole and are a direct reflection of nature itself. And those spirit energy types I mentioned before are the most common spirit energy types among spirit users.”
Sean began to bog his head to the side then he lifted it back and stared down the flag with his hand on his chin with perplexed look on his face.
“Hmm, I don’t know if I fully understand it yet. And what’s this thing about spirit users?”
“Oh, I guess we didn’t explain it before, so basically certain special people can use spirit energy in their bodies, most people can’t but some can based on a lot of complicated things I don’t have time to explain right now. But, basically certain people can use spirit energy to fight but most people can’t use base spirit energy to fight straight from their bodies. Spirit energy is really hard to control and master, so in order to do that people here have made these things called Spirit Weapon’s from the properties of Other Earth so we can use them to fight and protect ourselves, they’re just like regular weapons made by people back on Earth except their stronger and more durable thanks to spirit energy.”
“I see, I think I’m getting it now.” Sean said relieved.
“Good, because I wanted to get back on topic. So, fighters channel their spirit energy within their weapons so they can use them for battle and with that like I said before basic elemental types most people get are fire, water, nature, wind, and electricity. So be prepared for that if you make it in the ring.”
“Right.”
“Now back to what I was saying, these stars represent the unity of our nation and with these stars standing here on this flag we hope to live in harmony between nations and strive towards gaining world peace. That’s the main message of this flag. If we’re all going to be stuff on this planet and continent together then we might as well get along, y’know?”
“I see, world peace. That sounds real nice, I’d like to see that one day.”
“Don’t we all, so yeah that it’s these are the three Ancient symbols of our nation Moder of the continent Neo-Pangaea that resides on Other Earth. These are the most important symbols you should know if you’re planning to stay here.”
“All right, I got it,” Sean nodded.
“The front of the flag is colored with a medium blue and the back end here is colored in black.” Darion grabbed the flag and showed Sean both ends of each side. He took a step back in which Sean followed to get a clear view of the three symbols all together.
“The Ancient Symbols as a whole reflect the ideals of the people and from left to right each symbol represents unity, balance, and harmony. The Sacred Holy Trinity represents unity between worlds, the Legend of Good and Evil and the Duality symbol represent balance between elements, and the Five Star Flag of our nation represents harmony among nations and the ideals for achieving world peace. Hopefully with the help of these symbols, something like world peace will be able to be reached someday and won’t be only a dream,” said Darion.
“Yeah, that’d be pretty great. World peace sounds like a great idea for everyone, all this fighting and killing is pointless. People should only fight each other for sport, fun, or self-defense.” Sean faced towards the symbols on the wall and took his hands in for a prayer stance and bowed over towards the symbols. He came up and then opened his eyes facing toward Darion.
“World peace shouldn’t be a dream, it should be a reality,” Sean said gracefully looking at him. “There’s no reason for pointless violence, even though I love to fight a lot myself, I never do it to hurt innocent people. I just do it for sport or to fight against bullies.”
“Well, yeah. Tupac for instance fought a lot for change, but it’ll be up to us as people to see what’ll happen there.”
Sean’s face brightened with excitement. “Oh, you’re a Tupac fan too! I’m a huge fan of him!”
Darion laughed upon hearing him. “Man, of course I am. Tupac’s been a huge influence on black people and all races as a whole. He’s been a huge inspiration for all of us, no matter what ethnicity or race,” said Darion.
“Yeah, he’s my favorite music artists. His music is so moving and relatable, it really helps you get through the day during rough times,” said Sean
“Yeah, well anyways, let’s save that conversation for another day, we should probably get going now, let’s check back with my dad.”
“Yeah, alright.”
The boy’s both turned around and walked towards the main desk area, halfway there they met with Mr. Francis and he stood there still with his cigar still lit up like a star as he blew dark shrouds of smoke back in the air.
“You boys ready?” Mr. Francis said with a smirk on his face.
“Yeah, we’re all set,” Darion responded.
“I’m ready to go too,” Sean followed.
“Well all right then, let’s get you to the equipment room,” said Mr. Francis.
Mr. Francis took his cigar into his hands and walked forward towards a straight hallway, Sean and Darion walked behind him as they both disappeared from the lobby entrance without a trace.
“Now this here is the room where you can pick your weapon of choice!” Mr. Francis huddled the boys at a barren doorway in the middle of that hall. He opened it and walked as they followed and saw rows and lines of weaponry all cascading throughout the room. Different wooden swords, gloves, and other weaponry hung from threads, hooks, nails and cupboards. Different labels of many kinds scattered across room all highlighting a different weapon type in each row. Sean looked at Mr. Francis with an eager look on his face as his face gasped with energy and joy upon viewing the beautiful sight he witnessed before. “This is the main locker room for the fighters to pick their weapon of combat, or at least one of them anyway. They have other locker rooms scattered across the building where the other fighters are, I figured this one would be good so we could have some privacy and you could get a chance to get comfortable and look around,” said Mr. Francis.
“Man, this place is insane! There are so many different types!” Sean said excited. He walked toward random weapons and started observing them from each angle and side, picking them up to hold in his hand for a moment and then placed it back when he was satisfied. “Wow, this place is like a dream come true for any fighter!”
Yeah, well don’t get too excited about these,” Darion interrupted, “these are just your basic standard weapons, simple training tools used for the preliminaries of the tournament. There not meant to be taken too seriously, there used so that each fighter can fight on equal turf during the preliminaries, that way no one has any major advantages over the other.”
“Oh, I see. Well they’re still pretty cool though.” Sean continued to look around in amazement, grabbing different weapons as if he were window-shopping. Darion turned around towards his dad and said a few words and walked towards the door turning back a little towards Sean on the way. “Well, I’m heading out now. I’ll go replace the announcer for the rest of the matches to give him a rest; I could use the practice anyway. See you later Sean, I’ll see you in the ring when you’re ready.”
“All right, yeah. I’ll see you,” Sean responded. They both waved at each other and Darion walked out the door in a flash. Mr. Francis turned to him as he kept browsing through the training weapon artillery. “Now I’m about to head on out too, but take your time you have a few matches before you’re ready to head out in the ring. I set you up to be the final preliminary match of the day, you’ll be one of the last contestants to go out there and fight,” said Mr. Francis.
“Ok, that’s fine,” Sean responded not looking back at him. “Oh, I think I like these! Sean took down a random pair of gloves from a hook stationed right in front of him, he turned it around casually to look at each side.”
“So you think you’d like to use gloves, eh?”
“Yeah, I love fighting hand-to-hand, gloves would just perfect for me.” Sean began to try them on and the fit him nicely as he gripped the inside and shifted his hand back and forth, clasping in and out to get comfortable with the fit.
“Well, those will work just fine for you then. Now your match will be coming up soon so stay in here until the intercom calls your name and then you can head on out this here hallway out these big doors to the stadium.”
“All right.”
“And don’t forget to pour your spirit energy into the object, it’s not as hard as you think it might be.”
“Well how do I do that?”
“Just visualize a fluid power flowing out of you, preferably your fist and just try to emit it out of your hand. Close your eyes if you need focus the first time, but after you do it once your body will adapt and get used to it, from then it’ll be easier to do.”
“Alright, I’ll try.” Sean closed his eyes and held his fist out with the glove as he held the glove arm with his other hand. He stood their steady and silent as Mr. Francis watched him, casually letting his smoke sizzle in the air without a word. Time stood stiff until a medium blue light encapsulated Sean’s hand around the glove and began to illuminate with bright color as he stood there in awe at the feat he just commenced.
“Wow, I really did it. So this is spirit’s energy?”
“That’s right, state of the art spirit energy.” Mr. Francis’ arms crossed as he watched Sean from their moderate distance from each other across the spacious bleak room, a huge smile masked over his face as he whispered to himself silent words just low enough for Sean not to make out clearly. “I knew it was him…”
Sean looked up quick at him. “Hmm, did you say something?”
“No, nothing, nothing at all. Alright boy I’m heading out now, I gave you all the things you need to know, now you’ll have to handle things from here on your own.”
“Roger,” Sean nodded looking back at him for a second. Sean continued gasping and smiling at the glowing energy in his hands and Mr. Francis smirked a little and then took one more whiff of his cigar and left the room. Sean stood there letting go of his hand and the energy depleted, as he stood there straight up looking around at the shelves.
“Well this is it, guess it’ll be my turn soon. I can’t wait! I wonder how big the stadium is?”
The crowd roared strong as the ongoing match continued, rows of people could be seen everywhere encasing every seat and stand high and low. A plethora of people stood up as some people sat, screaming at the top of their lungs cheers and cries as loud as they could make themselves. An announcer stood outside the ring, coaching the two fighter’s actions as they fought. A sturdy table stood strong at the side of the ring holding several men with paperwork and pencils in arm’s reach. They marked down notes and scribbles on the paper each time the fighter’s made an action, watching them close with every nuance in their movements. The fighters brawled on until a sudden clash struck hard on one of the opponents; he knelt down with vigorous breaths and began to attempt lifting himself back on his feet.
“The second contestant seems to be in a jam and is trying to recuperate himself from that last attack, but I’m afraid it’s too late because it’s about time to end this five-minute match. We will now consult the judges on who they think has won the match,” said Darion screeching as the announcer. Everyone’s attention shifted towards the judges as they continued scribbling down notes in feverous detail. The stadium stood silent as the judges waited and turned to each other back and forth, juggling their mouths in sharp, hazy whispers. They stood again silent and then one of the judges faced forward and took a white board while writing on it and stood it up high for the whole stadium to see. The white board had huge number one drawn on it in black marker and after a few seconds he placed his hand back down and crossed his legs inward waiting.
“Well it looks like the results are in, contestant one is the winner! Now we can move on to the final round of the evening! Please be patient until the next fighters are able to enter the ring.” Darion proceeded to guide the previous fighters out of the ring and lowered his mic as he chatted directions to them in his normal voice. The crowd lowered their tone and people began to sit down as the tranquil clear sky overcast the area with bright white light.
The two fighters treaded the light grass as they left the ring, the crowd abided by with immense patience anticipating the final fighters’ appearances at a moment’s notice. Darion adjusted his dark shades while then taking his microphone in close and smiled hard while facing toward the robust crowd.
“All right, ladies and gentlemen. Let me welcome in the final contestants for the Millennial Tournament preliminaries! Will the final contestants of the preliminary rounds please enter the ring?”
The wind blew strong through the air, as the arena grew silent with mild chatter among the colorful crowd. Time passed like a flowing river as the atmosphere grew fiercer anticipation for the upcoming fighters. Several minutes went on until a dark silhouette began to form on one side of the ring. A tough, dark guy came walking down the lane of the building and stepped on the sharp grass until reaching the main stadium arena. His atmosphere gave off a gloomy and dark demeanor coupled with a strong morbid hint to his personality and physique. The dark guy’s arms were crossed in together and he stood there in the middle of the ring with great confidence and fortitude. The seriousness in his face as he crossed his arms expressed intense intimidation to the crowd. Darion greeted him without fear and the dark person did not respond to him as he kept staring straight in the distance.”
“Our first contestant Vladimir has now entered the ring! Out of personal request we will refer to him as Vlad for short and now we will proceed to wait for our second contestant!” Another silhouette summoned at the opposing side of the stadium. A light skinned boy with a white t-shirt, jeans, and a red and white hat worn backwards walked gracefully along the grass and joined the two men in the stadium grounds. Sean looked over at Darion rubbing his head while smiling.
“Sorry, I’m late. I got distracted practicing controlling my spirit energy,” said Sean.
“No worries, what matters is you’re here now,” said Darion in his normal voice. “We will now be able to begin. This here is your opponent, Vladimir. Although he said he prefers being called Vlad for short,” said Darion.
“Ok,” Sean took a look at him and stuck out his hand, “how’s it going Vlad, my names Sean. Nice to meet you!”
The dark haired boy glared at with a grimacing look. He stared him down for a few seconds and then turned his eyes to side while closed. His arms stood crossed in as he stood there silent while Sean’s arm stood awkward like a stick extending out in the open. He took his hand back and gave an awkward smile while rubbing his head. He didn’t understand what he did wrong but he took it in and smiled back at him as they stood there for instruction.
“I am proud to announce to everyone the final contestants, Sean versus Vlad. Originally our contestant Vlad was opted to continue on with an automatic victory because of a lack of an equal amount of fighters for the preliminaries. But now with the sudden arrival our of our lovely contestant Sean we can finally be under way!”
Sean smirked upon hearing Darion’s praising words. Vlad’s face stood stoic as he closed his eyes waiting with a patient demeanor around his body. The crowd sat anxious as the fighters stood in the ring as vigor emitted heavy from both sides. Darion backed up a few steps and gripped his microphone strong as preceded to speak.
“All right, now will both contestants please make some distance from each other so we may commence the match.”
Both contestants turned their backs and walked several feet in the opposite direction. They both turned around and proceeded to stare off each other until Darion began to speak toward them and the crowd, shifting their focus on the following instruction.
“All right, without further ado, let’s get this show on the road! The fighter’s will have ten minutes to duke it out in the ring until the time limit. If either side says I give up during the match, then the opposing contestant will be the winner!
The crowd stood stiff, Sean and Vlad stood silent facing each other, glaring with confidence.
“Ok, let the final preliminary match begin!”
Vlad placed his right hand on his neck and cracked it. “This shouldn’t take too long,” he said. He stared down Sean across the stadium with ferocity and jumped with a sudden leap as he blasted forward directly toward Sean.
Sean’s face alerted at the sudden dash he took towards him. He shot himself into a defensive stance as Vlad appeared right in front of his view. Vlad thrusted his fist forward, launching them back and forth in rapid fire as Sean struggled and shifted around them in dodging motions. The crowd began to roar with excitement as the atmosphere’s mood shifted sharp as the two fighters kept throwing their punches.
Sean’s face lit up with excitement as he continued dodging each rapid swing. “So, is it my turn yet?” said Sean laughing.
“Hold still…” said Vlad annoyed, launching punches faster hoping for one to connect.
“Alright, so it is my turn now…” Sean slowed down and grabbed one of Vlad’s arms in a rapid motion. Vlad’s face became flushed with shock as he struggled to rip his arm back in possession. Sean gripped his arm hard, clenched in his other fist and sprang a huge punching blow to his face, launching it