“Are you sure we both need to fight against this…Icy Hale person?” Ver asked when Lily gave out the information regarding the strongest squad to the group, “Even if she was capable of reaching Perfect Synchrony…”

“Even within the realms of Perfect Synchrony for Manifesters, Dominance mode for Channelers, and Flow Zone for Casters…there is still a hierachy.” Lily said, glancing towards Fatera who’s stretching her legs out while bouncing back and forth between different lunges, “I learned that in my battle against Fatera at the finals.”

“Is Icy that much stronger?” Ver asked, a warm pulse originating from the Kraken as it also chimed in.

“I shall consume her just like any of my foes.”

“You will see.” Lily smiled.

She was absolutely correct.

As Ver and Lily stood in a circle surrounded by a wall of flames, Icy Hale, the ice elemental Manifester had completely frozen everything in their region of the forest, as the individual particles from Principal Khan’s Casts also became a yellow powder which turned the soil into a painting.

As she pressed forward more and more with her blizzard, hoping to turn Ver and Lily into individual ice pops, Ver managed to get the two of them out of there through her Whirlpool Purple. The wall of flames stood for an instant later before it became completely distinguished.

“So yeah. An elemental manifester…and also a horrendous matchup for me.” Lily said, rubbing her hands together as steam came out from her mouth. Ver and her then emerged from the other side of the Whirlpool as Ver turned to face Icy with Kraken’s tendril stemming out from her body, the oils set ablaze by the Kraken itself.

“Frozen squid!” Icy laughed, looking up as her silvery hair organized into a mohawk sliced up through the air and her dark blue eyes locked onto Ver’s body. She threw her hands up, massive columns of ice growing from the ground before they slammed into the arms of the Kraken.

Typically, the Kraken’s tendril carried the incredible durability of the legendary monster itself, but Icy’s column towered unwaveringly in place, knocking Ver’s attack to the side right before she herself slid up along the surface of the column with a blade formed from ice in hand, preparing to slice open Ver’s stomach.

Then, Lily, her body bathed in flames, shot right past Ver and crashed into Icy’s body, her flaming fists clashing against Icy’s blades as an outburst of steam from the point of contact started obscuring the two fighters from one another.

“Lily!” Icy said coldly, “My inferior little sister in the elemental manifesting game.”

“You are going down, Hale.” Lily said, her eyes glowing red before the flames around her body exploded outward, swallowing Icy whole, “Perfect Synchrony: Divebombing Fire!”

A pair of massive blasts fired off from her feet, propelling her own body as a rocket as she pressed Icy straight down, the two of them rapidly falling towards the ground when suddenly, Icy’s body was caught by her own columns of ice. Turning the table, she flipped over on top and used Lily’s own momentum against her.

“Whirlpool Black Special: Sunder!” Ver shouted, standing on the ground with an enlarged Sky Splitting Sword set ablaze as she sliced horizontally, cutting through the massive column of ice that was supporting Icy’s as that bought Lily enough time to fire back against her.

“So you do need plenty of support to stand up to me.” Icy said with a tone of disappointment as more and more flames started filling the air and heating everything up. The ice melted into streams of water and the Water Weaving Sword in Ver’s belt started vibrating, sensing the call of battle and the existence of water around it.

“There is nothing wrong about surrounding yourself in a team.” Lily pressed back, shoving Icy high up into the air when the Fire Mecha surrounded her entire body. Then, she controlled it and slammed a fist into Icy’s body, launching her straight up into the air with a dome-cracking Flame Rocket.

“Ok. How did he use it again…” Ver murmured, holding out the Water Weaving Sword in front of her body as the body of the blade flopped limply in her hand. She pointed the blade’s tip into the water puddles around them and poured some of her Wave into it.

The sword shot forward, straightening up before nearly catching her own head with a whipping action. A tendril extended just in time to shield her face, and the annoyed tone of the Kraken filled Ver’s head.

“You have got to be kidding me!” The Kraken growled, “Testing something you have never used before in the middel of battle? What are you even thinking, little one?”

“It was just an idea.” Ver said, withdrawing the Wave back into her body before retracting the Water Weaving Sword, “Maybe next time…”

“Yeah.” The Kraken said, “Her ice…it’s tougher than the coldest ice of the North Pole. There’s…there’s a trick to it.”

“So it’s not just…water?” Ver knelt down, a tiny tendril extending out from her fingertips before it dipped into the body of water around them. The Kraken quickly confirmed their suspicions.

“It tasted different…so that may be how she was able to manipulate it that way.” The Kraken sounded like a picky wine taster, “Infusing the water with her own Wave, and special salts…Very clever.”

“I see.” Ver swirled her finger around, creating sets of different colored whirlpools around them when suddenly, the sky above her turned bright red as Lily shot out massive blasts of flames in all directions, creating a wide-spanning net before it all folded up and slammed into Icy in the middle.

However, even as the flames raged on, Icy simply encased herself in a single crystal of ice as she watched the rampage from inside.

“Are you done with your lackluster tantrum?” Icy asked, after Lily poured all of her strength into the columns of flames that repeatedly bashed into the crystal, yet none of that seemed to have done anything to Icy, “Then…it’s my turn. Perfect Synchrony: Ice Age!”

In a fashion fully intended to mock Lily’s own attempt, a white blast of ice and snow shot out as the crystal surrounding Icy’s body exploded. The bitter chill swept through the earth as Lily’s Fire Mecha suddenly started to shrink in size and Ver’s skin started cracking before the Kraken swept her up inside of its own mountainous body.

A thin layer of ice covered the forest, throwing everything back to its winter glory before Icy, herself propelled by a blizzard in her lower body, conjured up massive ice columns and dunked them down towards Lily.

“Tsk! Flame Rocket!” Lily shot back, massive columns of fire rising from her hands before she launched them straight up, however, the columns of ice simply crashed straight through Lily’s attacks before pinning the Fire Mecha into the ground.

After immobilizing Lily’s manifest, Icy then created a conic shard, ready to impale the Fire Mecha straight through the stomach when Ver opened up a Whirlpool Purple in the middle of the air, and the burning tips of Sky Splitting Sword pierced through the fluids, coming in straight for Icy’s back.

The tip of the blade itself was stopped just short of reaching Icy by an invisible yet impenetrable barrier. Icy half turned her body and grabbed onto the flaming blade with her bare hands before yanking it downward, forcing Ver to release her hold or risk getting pulled out as well.

Sending a barrage of tiny shards back through the portal, Ver severed the connection before stumbling back as the sharp tips pierced through her armour and dug into her skin.

“Shit.” Ver cursed, pulling the individual shards out as the temperature of the Kraken’s body helped warm her up again. That instant of her attack on Icy was able to nearly cause frostbite over her exposed fingers just from how cold things were around Icy’s body.

Freed from the distraction, Icy continued on with her planned execution of Lily when Ver opened a portal directly inside the body of the Fire Mecha. Lily jumped through right before the Fire Mecha was completely crushed underneath Icy’s feet.

After dealing with Lily’s Manifest, Icy then turned her attention to the mountainous Kraken before she smashed it to smithereens too, though that was not before Ver and Lily both got away from it.

“I…I need to push harder…go even hotter…” Lily said, her face reddened and her fingers slowly turning purple. The dark patterns over her right eye seemingly fading, “She’s…far stronger than I thought she is.”

“I…couldn’t find anything.” Ver said, looking down, “I was looking for an opening, but I had nothing. I couldn’t even hold a candle to you, let alone her.”

“That’s not the right way to think.” Lily said, holding onto Ver’s hand with her hardened fingers, “Not ever, and especially not in the midst of battle!”

“Why…why did you pick me with you?” Ver asked, “I…never made it to Perfect Synchrony, even as I keep trying.”

“Because I think you can do it.” Lily said, “And you can do it here, and now. And that will lead to our victory.”

“How do you know that?” Ver said, looking down at her hands when Lily also raised her own hand, turning it into pure fire and lighting up the dark abyss the two of them were both sitting in.

“Us Manifesters are special cases.” Lily said, “The anomaly to the normal way people think about using the Wave, and we also have the widest ranges of possibilities for how our powers may be like. That also meant one thing.

“We should be able to do whatever we envisioned, as we are the ones to manifest those into reality.” Lily continued, turning more and more of her body into pure fire until her own image are but an outline of the flames, “Become one with your Manifest, accept who you are, and fight.”

Ver nodded, opening up the other end of the portal before Lily fell straiaght through.

“Join me on the battlefield when you are ready.” Lily said, her voice barely coming through the blizzard on the other side, “I will buy you as much time as you need, as that’s what a senior must do for her junior.”