Chapter 110 An Intruder

"What is— what is this?!" Clone X's jaws dropped to the ground as soon as the snow cleared up.

"This is— " Counter stopped short, trying to catch her breath due to the shock.

As for Fulfiller, she just gasped in exclamation. The scene that they saw was something out of an apocalyptic movie, no, it was even worse than that.

The pillars that everybody saw from afar... at first, everyone thought that the pillars were just part of the background, much like how these types of structures could be seen in rocky places. But they were dead wrong.

"Everyone! Stay where you are!" Plunder screamed. Fortunately, everyone heard him.

As it turned out, the Pillars were actually huge orc-like monsters carrying tree stumps as if they were wielding a light sword. Their fangs protruded from their mouths and their glaring red eyes were fixated on every superhero in the scene. They were fixated on where they were, not daring to move unless someone or something approaches them.

Furthermore, the orc-like monsters resembled the stones from a very classic tourist attraction on Earth— Stonehenge. Needless to say, Plunder and the others were hopelessly surrounded. What's even worse was that the boss— an orc-like monster the size of a mountain— was inside the circle of the other smaller orcs.

The boss was still sleeping though. Upon closer inspection, one could tell that it was holding some sort of orb and a huge sword was equipped on his back. Every time it breathed, it causes a huge gust of wind so powerful that it rivaled Tatsuki's combination move a couple of seconds ago.

"What do we do now?" Fulfiller asked in a whisper. The sight of the giant orcs was enough to make her heart faint.

"Nothing, let's stay where we are. Warper, get us out of here, and then we regroup." Tatsuki said.

Warper, who was standing in the middle of everything, didn't respond, much to everyone's surprise. He just stood there as if he were a statue in the middle of the park. Even a slight twitch couldn't be detected from him and his portals were still up. Somehow, he froze, and no one knew the underlying reason for it.

"Warper! Warper!" Splatoon called out, sending one of his drones to wake him up. But even the drone couldn't do anything to him.

The sudden unconsciousness of one of their teammates caused the nine of them to slightly panic although they didn't show it in their expressions. After all, you've already lost half the war if your spirit has been broken. Everyone was well aware of that so they decided to keep their unease to themselves.

And then, Warper moved. It was so sudden but everyone was just glad that he did.

After extending his hands, Warper deactivated his portals and threw a punch in empty air. In that split of a second, Warper opened another portal and his punch landed squarely on Splatoon's face.

"Be quiet, damned human." He said with a serious tone.

"Warper! What's going on!" This time, it was Technomarine who shouted.

Technomarine, ranked eighth, has one of the rare superpowers of shapeshifting. He can transform into any animal he willed to but he prefers transforming into aquatic animals more than anything else. As soon as he screamed at Warper, his body grew in size and he became a huge octopus. He didn't let give Warper a window to react to his movements and he immediately restrained him, albeit with great difficulty. Half of his tentacle count missed after Warper opened four portals while the other four got through.

"Stay just like that," Plunder ordered, using his superspeed and hypersonic superpower so Warper will fall into unconsciousness. However, Warper remained standing while the tentacles constricted him.

Tatsuki tried to attack Warper but he covered all his blind spots pretty well with portals. Although they reached a standstill, Warper just wouldn't budge.

"Fulfiller!"

"Roger," Fulfiller responded, fully knowing what to do.

Psychic Link.

Ting!

Much to everyone's surprise, Fulfiller's expression changed as if something she wasn't expecting happened right in front of her. For the second time, she closed her eyes and uttered her skill.

Psychic Link!

Ting!

"That's impossible... " Fulfiller said.

"What do you mean?" Clone X, who was beside her, asked concernedly.

By the time he said that Warper already slipped through Technomarine's octopus grasp by putting portals all over his body and teleporting a few meters away. Because of that, everyone's jaws dropped in bewilderment since the Warper they know wouldn't use his superpower on himself unless it was an emergency. Right now, however, he used it as if he had been doing it for a long time— as if he's used to it already.

"Warper... Warper's already linked to someone else!" Fulfiller said. "But that's impossible! I haven't used the Psychic Link on anyone. If I did I would've felt it."

"You mean... " Clone X muttered.

As soon as Fulfiller announced that, Plunder already realized what was going on. Slowly, he turned his head towards the biggest orc which was located in the circle with them. Well, the Orc Boss was still there, unmoving...

The only difference was its eyes were already open.

.....

Meanwhile,

Nighttime finally descended on a certain portion of the Earth, causing the starry skies to be much more visible. Compared to other countries, nighttime in Japan is exceptionally brighter due to the city lights and their overall affinity to brightness. It wasn't that different in the Saitama Prefecture where the Inter-High Tournament is currently being held.

Satoshi and the others just got back inside their respective waiting room after eating dinner outside. Since almost half of them decided to rest out during lunch, Satoshi decided that they should all eat out together for dinner to celebrate surviving the first round of the tournament. The others agreed in an instant since they were quite hungry as well.

And now, it was time to sleep. There were a lot of things that happened that day and they all deserved it.

The rooms of the boys and girls were pretty much identical— a spacious room with tatami mats on its flooring. It can fit at least six futons so there was no trouble with its space. Fuuka and Cherry were having a blast in their spacious room since there were only two of them there.

With eyes forcefully closed, Satoshi tried to get some shut-eye since everyone was already asleep. As usual, his routine didn't work and the only thing he could do was look through the window as the full moon shone brightly against his face. A couple of times, he got the urge to open the window and get some fresh air but it was cold outside, and doing so might wake up the others so he didn't do it.

A few minutes ago, he received a video mail from his parents, telling him about the current predicament that's happening all throughout the globe. Apparently, Gates started appearing and it was predicted to contain monsters. top superheroes didn't have any choice but to scout the insides of the Gate since no electronics like drones and the like could get inside. Satoshi felt a bit nervous and worried at the same time when his mom and dad's video mail came to an end. Although they were the top two superheroes in the whole of Japan, they aren't invincible. One can take it down a notch even and say that they're just humans, which is true in a sense. If they were to meet an even greater power in the Gate and they can't call for help, Satoshi was sure that his parents would risk their lives fighting to the bitter end.

"No let's not think about that and raise some death flags. Right now I should focus on the Inter-High Tournament so that when they return, they can be proud of what I accomplished." He told himself before shaking his head for the second time since saying such a thing is also a death flag.

'Let's just go back to sleep.' Satoshi said, closing his eyes once more. He told himself that if it won't work then he just had to punch himself so hard that he'll fall straight into unconsciousness.

Slide...

In an instant, Satoshi was up on his feet as soon as he heard the slightest sound. He didn't know what caused it but he knew for sure that the sound came from the windows. While his eyes tried to gauge whom the figure belongs to, he already grabbed the figure by his hand and neck and pinned him to the ground. 'An intruder? Why would an intruder go here? To sabotage us so we won't be able to perform well in the second round? Highly likely. Fortunately, I was still awake.

"Ouch!" The figure exclaimed. To Satoshi's surprise, the voice that came out of the intruder's mouth belonged to a girl.

"Who are you?" Satoshi hissed, hoping that no one would wake up and see him pinning a girl. That would most certainly cause a misunderstanding.

"I'm Emma Leisenberg... my readings brought me here." She simply responded.