Thinking I could jump into a tidal wave and swim my way to the top without any issues might as well have been as stupid as me ending up in prison. Now, I’m not saying it would have been better to sit on an ant log and float my way to the top whilst fighting fish boy and sir summoner but, if I didn’t throw my entire handful of seeds at the spider, I could have produced a tree and clung on to dear life. But nooooooo, I had to go and set fire to spiders and clip wings off of earth dragons. Sometimes I wonder why I’m afraid of so many things, but then I remember it’s okay to be afraid of things because there will always be something new to be afraid of. For instance, I didn’t have a fear of piranhas or whirlpools but look at me now.

“Wonwoo, swim up to the surface!” Mingyu’s voice was barely audible over the sound of strong currents forming all over the arena. On the Brightside, and I literally mean the Brightside, the water was clear enough for me to see the muddy floor and the ant log on the surface of the water.

The water was fairly cold and it felt like the surface was a million miles away. The closer I got to the surface, the more my vision was beginning to fade. Just before I could pass out, something plopped into the water and sunk down to eye level. I extended my hand and the small object fell onto the palm of my hand and right away I knew it was a seed. Flipping it like a coin, the seed floated up in the water and burst in front of my eyes, placing a large bubble of air around my head.

I gasped for air and reclaimed my consciousness. The harder I breathed, the smaller the bubble got. By the time I had fully regained my normal breathing state, the bubble was roughly about the size of a watermelon. It should give me plenty of time to reach the surface and swim next to Mingyu’s ant raft. Quickly, I swam upwards toward the surface. Before I got there, something bit my foot and dragged me further under. As I was being pulled down, I saw Mingyu stick his hand into the water as to reach and pull me up, but I was too far away.

“Did you really think you’d have a better chance if you split apart from Mingyu?” Minghao’s voice came from behind me. I spun around to see Jun chomping down on my foot and Minghao riding him with two petite fairies carrying a bubble of air around his face. “You shouldn’t underestimate Mingyu like that, his ants can totally wipe this place out. By this place, I mean this prison. We don’t need you to escape this prison, we need him.” Minghao had his arms crossed and Jun still wouldn’t let my foot go.

“Then why does everyone say I’m a huge part of the plan?” I asked him.

“Because Mingyu doesn’t want to leave if he doesn’t have any motivation. He likes you. You’re his motivation, dummy.” Minghao gave off a twisted laugh and extended his palm outwards toward me. It shimmered and piranhas swam out at high speeds. Jun let go of my foot and swam away with Minghao on his back to a safe place as far away from the piranhas as he could get. As fast as I could, I began swimming upward toward Mingyu. The closer I got, the more the piranhas latched onto me. Mingyu’s hand was almost an inch away, until I was into a whirlpool.

I can probably see the frustration on your face as you read this. For that, I apologize. But am I supposed to tell you I swim to the top of the water and jump onto Mingyu’s ant raft? I suppose I could, but that’d be lying. I have to tell you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Even if that mean it frustrates you.

Upon being dragged down by a whirlpool that was probably made by either Jun swimming around in a circle extremely fast or Minghao conjuring one up, piranhas broke off of me, probably because they were getting as dizzy as I was. While spinning at a ridiculous speed, Mingyu’s ant raft looked as though it was growing a pair of tentacles. My air bubble was running thin, so who knows what I was actually seeing.

“Are you okay?” Mingyu shook me awake. He was standing over me, completely dry. I coughed up water and looked around. The audience was visible from wherever I was resting. “Can you still fight?” He softly caressed my cheeks.

“I can’t fight without seeds.” I said sadly.

“No worries. Do you really think I gave you all of the seeds? I’m not that stupid.” Mingyu laughed and exposed his pockets, revealing about two handfuls of seeds.

“Alright, I have my weapon. What’s yours?” I sat up and looked at my wounds. For piranhas biting away at me, they really didn’t do a great job.

“Isn’t that obvious? I’ll be using my precious ants. They just saved your life, don’t underestimate them.” He crossed his arms. So I did see his ant raft grow tentacles.

A fin popped out of the water and swam around us in circles at a fast pace. It was obviously Jun trying to scare us or search for an opening. Mingyu looked at his ants and whispered something to them. Suddenly, a branch of ants submerged under the water and grabbed Jun, pulling him under the water. I couldn’t see what they were doing for second, but that’s when I saw small electrical volts. When the electricity stopped surging, the ants came back to the surface and rejoined the raft.

“Did they just let out electricity?” I asked out of curiosity.

“Yeah, there are specific ants that eat away at electrical circuits and fight with small electrical shocks. When they get together, it can be similar to being struck by a lightning bolt.” Mingyu informed me.

The water began to shake and the raft began to lose its grip. I grabbed Mingyu’s hand as the ants began drifting apart from one another. Suddenly giant tentacles shot out of the water and pulled small clumps of ants under. I spun around to witness a large body appear out of the water. The creature had a beak like mouth and angry, wet eyes. On top of its head, Minghao sat comfortably, but he wasn’t at all happy.

“You think this is funny? Level one shots are way more painful than level three shots and yet you fight us!” Minghao yelled at us. The creature lifted one of its tentacles, revealing a passed out Jun, and placed it on top of its head, next to Minghao. “Now you get to fight my precious baby. He’s a kraken that destroys ships, or in this case, rafts.”

I grabbed a handful of seeds and tossed them at the kraken. Upon hitting the beast, a large sum of black liquid spewed all over the place.

“What’s that going to do? My kraken doesn’t mind a little discolored water.” Minghao said and extended his palm. A bead of sweat ran down his face as he knew exactly what was about to happen. He grabbed Jun as a large horse with wings shot out of his hand. I threw the remaining handful at the beast and the kraken caught fire immediately, reacting to the oil in a pleasant way. Minghao held onto the hoof of the large horse-thing while holding onto a passed out Jun.

I felt bad for him, he didn’t have many options left. He could slip off the horse’s hoof and fall directly onto his burning kraken, taking Jun with him. Or he could let Jun go and hope to climb onto the horse’s back. But both scenarios leave Jun falling into a fire. I can imagine the stress he must be going through. After a second, Minghao let go of the hoof of the winged beast and began falling, while holding onto Jun, toward the fire that wasn’t going out anytime soon. I saw a tear drop fall off Minghao’s face. Suddenly, Jun’s eyes opened and wings sprouted out of his back. He caught Minghao, right before he fell into the flames, and they flew up together and landed on Minghao’s bird-horse thing.

“I don’t know what I missed but it looked like you were trying to kill us.” Jun said angrily. He looked over at Minghao who was sobbing like a baby. I never thought I’d witness this tough cookie cry like that. I know I just met them both but it seemed as though Minghao was a thug. Almost losing his boyfriend must’ve really gotten to him. “You made Minghao cry. Looks like this battle just became a battle to the death!” Jun jumped off of the horse and lunged at Mingyu. “Since we are killing boyfriends, we’ll start with yours, Wonwoo!”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” I yelled. Everyone stopped and looked at me, even the audience that was witnessing the best show they were going to see in their entire lives. “I mean, he’s great and all but we aren’t officially dating.”

“Okay, but that’s really rude to say. I mean, do you know how rude it is when someone assumes your dating and you basically say ‘eww’?” Jun ranted and I looked at Mingyu, who looked a tad upset. Except, he winked at me and put up a finger, telling me to stay quiet. I watched as ants began climbing up Jun’s pant leg. “I feel so bad for Mingyu right now. I should spare him and attack you. You’re so rude. WHAT THE—” he was interrupted by the sudden burst of ants in his pants.

I exploded into laughter as Jun dropped Mingyu onto his half broken ant raft. Jun began scratching away at himself as his wings began shifting from extra limbs such as spider legs, monkey tails and elephant trunks. He fell into the water and Minghao summoned another water spirit, probably to make sure he wouldn’t drown.

“You know, every time you take out my boyfriend, I feel so attacked.” He cracked his neck. “It looks like you’ve forgotten who really holds the power in the relationship. Don’t you remember who created him?” Minghao smirked. “Me!” He faced the palm of his hand toward me and Mingyu and it shimmered. “Pegasus, fly higher!” The winged-horse known as ‘Pegasus’ flew higher up.

Creatures of all sizes began popping out of summoning circles of the water. First, creatures with big backs to carry smaller creatures such as imps, golems, and even zombies. Then, creatures in the air such as Phoenix, sirens, and large bats. Minghao was most definitely out to kill the both of us. I glanced at Mingyu, who looked completely overwhelmed, and extended my hand. He passed me the remainder of my seeds and I threw them into the air. Gas began to fall around everyone except Minghao, who was too high up on his Pegasus to be reached. One by one, creatures began falling asleep. Eventually, Mingyu fell asleep in my arms, and not long after, I joined him.

QUESTIONS:

Do you really think Minghao and Jun were trying to kill Mingyu and Wonwoo? Or were they just trying to avoid a level one shot?

Now that the really intense battle is over, do you think they can focus on important things such as escaping?

IMPORTANT QUESTION: ONLY TWO MEMBERS HAVE YET TO BE REVEALED: SCOUPS AND DINO. GUESS THEIR POWERS, IF ITS MORE CREATIVE THAN WHAT I HAVE, I MIGHT JUST USE IT. :D