New Game+

The Gryphon Squadron had the easiest battle, hands down.

Lanterk decided to experiment on the Covenant out of his hatred for Danny. Unfortunately, his direct manipulation and direction of the entire room made that battle a very difficult battle to overcome.

But of course, Lanterk was busy and only spared the least of his attention to that room. To bear the great burden of fighting and gather data for everyone's fight, he left his strongest Pioneers with a specialized Throne to fight against Lynd. Against Cliff, Lanterk sent another with a specialized Skinsuit which contained his attempt to recreate a Nefilus Suit. The appearance of the rumored Phallium suits inspired Lanterk to force something, but while the study drew no clear success as it simply acted similar to the throne, the skinsuit was still considered among the strongest weapon he had.

The weakest forces that Lanterk sent out were the ones who fought the remaining teams. But the weakest team, who barely had any Universe Energy coursing through the room was the one at the room where the Twelve Disciples and the three Captains of the Basilisk Squadron were.

The Supreme Exoskeletons had specialized suits to swim through metal and perform certain magnetic commands. But the Supreme could not use this magnetic power to control the Unlocked, who resisted the technology with their Realm.

Hank, Zidane, and Counter worked with the Twelve Disciples and managed to create a weaker version of Cliff's Basilisk form. With the assistance of Mark, who harnessed lightning, Jane, who created sound, and Judith, who released desolation, the Basilisk became a powerful vanguard that even managed to wound the pilots of the Exoskeletons.

The enraged Supreme Exoskeletons began to use the entire room, which was shifting and was like ghosts who slipped into the pillars of metal that were rising and dove down on the floor. And as the battle continued, the Supreme Exoskeletons were so annoyed at the serpent of the Unlocked that they created their own serpent to fight. A large metal dragon was created. It encompassed a huge space of the entire room, and it had many fans of the dragons and could shoot various guns and attack from numerous sides.

And while that was happening, the Supreme Exoskeletons would swim through the metal of this massive dragon and attack the team when it got the chance.

But even them, the Unlocked, were on the winning side.

The more the battle progressed, the more the Basilisk Squadron learned. Aside from the trio who wielded the imitations of Overcomers was Nathan, who had some of Lioncourt's realm powers but was required to be empowered by the infamous radiation pills. Petra also had another Overcomer's path, which was a controlled werewolf. It was weaker and slower, but it had the ability of extreme scent, and Petra could retain his sanity and not give in to the berserked desires of the wolf.

Other than these four, there was Andrea, who had the power of Meryl's brightness but not the heat, and Simeon had Typical's ability which he could create thorns and inflict sharp attacks.

But of all of them, the most important members were actually the four strategists of the team.

Matthew was the main strategist who followed in the footsteps of Arthur. He didn't have Instant Calculation like Lim of the Gryphon Squadron, but he could create an impressive plan.

Aiding him was another instinctive strategist who would make last-second corrections to Matthew's plan. Maddie rarely gave orders, but it would save a life or inflict damage to the massive dragons when she did. She often disappeared as she managed to stay within the Void Real longer and come out unscathed.

Jamie's role was confusing at first. She often clashed with Matthew's orders and had eccentric solutions for the fight. Whenever the Supreme Exoskeletons went for the kill, their attacks would be foiled by Jamie, who always appeared at the right time. Jamie didn't have a path-specific weapon but only had a strange gun that shot different kinds of attacks at a given time. But her power was finally made clear when one Supreme Exoskeleton charged for killing her.

"Progenitor! Thank goodness you're here! Save me!" Jamie cried, causing the supreme Exoskeleton to bolt to the sides in cowardice.

But when it was revealed that it was a lie, she became the team's primary target, and everyone had to focus on defending her.

Zidane figured it out and told his friends that Jamie followed Lowengren's path.

As the fight continued, only two more people seemed to have not shown their paths.

Thomas was the leader who decided whose plan to follow if the previous three clashed. It was as if he could balance between the three and see the greater picture.

"He reminds me of General Seeker." Zidane spoke through the unusual Realm link the three had. It had reached a point where they could somehow communicate and send their thoughts to each other.

"Maybe that's it. All that's left is James. What is his Path?" Counter wondered as they fought.

"When, James?!" Thomas suddenly shouted.

The Basilisk Squadron and the Void assassins were confused at Thomas's sudden question.

"In three seconds!" James answered.

"Maddie!" Thomas asked.

"We will also win once James' powers affect them!" Maddie confirmed.

"Finally!" Matthew sighed.

"Any more, and my Realm would be gone, and we would have died."

"I'm stopping now." Jamie suddenly released her entire Exoskeleton, and her body fell flat on the floor.

The strange scene confused the Supreme Exoskeletons.

"Maddie? Are you sure?" Thomas asked again.

"Yes. It's not a vague feeling. I feel that we won..." Maddie answered.

Seeing that the Supreme Exoskeletons paused at Jamie's actions, Nathan followed and released all the energy of his Realm that was protecting everyone.

Instantly, Nathan fell to the ground too.

"I'm out. Just save me if anything happens."

"What's going on?" Hank turned to Counter.

Counter shrugged.

Mark, Juda, and Jane also stopped releasing their paths which fed the Basilisk Squadrons.

"You fools! I will- What...? My body...!" One of the Pilots of the Exoskeletons suddenly screamed as he noticed a horrifying decay and puss leaking out of his right arm.

"I bet you thought my powers were useless, right? This was Matthew's plan all along." Simeon laughed as the visible thorns around him began to disappear.

"Even you guys thought my needles were useless, right?" Simeon turned to Hank and the other two.

"...Yes. I thought it was too weak and fragile. It barely made a difference."

" With a little help from Jamie, I managed to trick you and these enemy pilots into not noticing that I could create a needle of great sharpness. It's small, but it could sting and even leave a small hole. It wouldn't kill the enemy even if I aimed for the head. And I'm sure those Supreme Exoskeletons have techs even to heal their bodies if I like, pierce the eye. So this very small needle was used to introduce something else into the bodies of our enemy pilots."

"It was my blood." James smiled.

"Blood? You have the power of Akasha?" Hank was amazed.

"No. Charles. I have a very sickly body." James laughed.

"Charles? You have the disease-creating powers of Charles?!" Counter was stunned. He knew that Cliff was scared of the current Charles and didn't even want to go near him because Cliff could remember everything he saw and could see every cell of Charles.

It was then that Hank, Zidane, and Counter realized what the Twelve Disciples plotted. The fight was to deal some damage against the Exoskeletons, and when they had weakened the armor enough, they attacked using Simeon's needles which had James's blood.

"We poisoned them?" Hank asked.

"Yup. But I don't get it, Maddie. How have we won?" Matthew asked as he looked up to the sky.

They were on the ground, and the three Supreme Exoskeletons were crying in pain and moving erratically in the air, hiding in the unmoving metal dragon.

"What do you mean, Matthew?" Thomas asked.

"That poison isn't enough to kill them. And with us too drained to attack, we can't deal any more damage than what we've already done. We're all out of gas." Matthew explained.

"What if Lanterk's zone messed up your Zone, Maddie?" Jamie asked.

"I... I don't think so. General Alean sent us here for a reason. She knew that we would fight zoneless enemies here."

"Then how are we going to win?" Thomas asked again.

BOOM!

A massive beam of golden light broke through the room and struck the metal dragons burning everything on its path, and the screams of the pilot of the Supreme Exoskeletons could be heard.

The entire room began to collapse. Unlike the other rooms, this room did not have Universe Energy empowering it, and the large hole caused the waters to rush inside.

The Unlock began to retreat and prepare for the sudden waters.

"That's it...? We won because of General Meryl's power?" Thomas was confused.

"Not really. We won because we managed to poison them, and in our exhaustion, we fell. None of us was moving around, clearing us away from General Meryl's destructive blast. If we didn't fight or poison them, none of this would happen. This still means we are strong enough to fight Presiders, and Maddie's Zone is indeed the real deal." Matthew explained.

"But we relied on Meryl's powers to win..." Thomas argued.

"Well, she IS our general. Who else would save us but her?"

"I... guess so."

The three members of the Basilisk Squadron were silent.

"That was... anti-climactic," Hank muttered.

"Yeah." Zidane agreed.

"Woah. Look at that radiation and energy! Meryl really went all out! Those Gryphon squadrons were lucky to have her in their team. They must have had it easy." Counter sighed in envy.

The Griffin squadron was huddled up together in one corner in the other room where the massive beam shouted out from. They were using all their techs to defend themselves.

"You're crazy!" Lim cried in anger and trauma. Fish was already unconscious from shock.

"What? I wanted to finish the fight in eight minutes and thirty-seven seconds, just as you said." Meryl chuckled as the power she released vanished, and she returned to her normal form.