Clash Champions
Season 2 - Episode 21 - Part 2
Teammates 


Electra Blitzer's bleached and purple-dyed hair frizzed out from under her Burger World cap. She leaned her elbows on the counter and stared blankly into the empty restaurant. She was thinking of nothing. Nothing at all, until she heard the voice of Solana Sondager.

"Hey, Electra. Are you working?"

Electra answered with an uncharacteristic lack of excitement. "Yes. I work here." She stood up straight behind the register and waited to take Solana's order.

Solana smiled. "All right. I'll have a Crispy Chicken sandwich."

Electra apologised. "Sorry, this is Burger World. We sell burgers."

Solana knew that was not right. "I know you have the Crispy Chicken. It's number six on the..." She looked up and saw that there was no menu behind Electra. "What happened to the menu?"

Electra shrugged.

"All right..." Solana tried again. "Can I have a Number Six?"

Electra poked buttons at the register, and she answered with a smile. "Yes. That will be one hundred dollars."

Solana opened her purse, reached into her billfold, and withdrew a crisp $100 bill.


Sitting in one of the plastic booths, Solana moaned with delight as she took a bite of the Crispy Chicken sandwich. The chicken was jucier than she remembered. The breading was crispier and spicier than she remembered. The bread of the bun was fluffy, without the usual gumminess of fast-food bread. She had not enjoyed the sandwich this much since she was a little girl.

Solana stopped chewing and looked at the half-eaten sandwich. She did not remember taking any bites before that one. She did not remember taking the sandwich from Electra. She did not remember sitting down.

She looked back to the cash register. Electra was no longer standing there, and no one was at the grill. No one had manned the grill when she had ordered, so who had cooked the sandwich? And where was Electra?

"Electra?" Solana asked aloud. She turned her head to look around the empty restaurant and was surprised to see Electra sitting across from her with a half eaten Crispy Chicken sandwich in her own hand. 

Electra looked back with a happy smile on her face. "I thought I would join you, because we are a team."

"Move over!" said Cindy Burns, who had dressed in her 'Blessed Cindy' paladin outfit. Electra slid to the end of the booth to allow Cindy to sit down with a Crispy Chicken in her own hand. "Thanks," Cindy told Electra.

Zephyra Skye climbed into Solana's side of the booth and over her legs to reach the other side. The surprised Solana raised her arms to allow Zephyra to pass.

"Is there room for me?" asked Rio Waterman. 

Solana was surprised to see Rio, who was studying abroad. "You came all the way...?" 

Zephyra stood up and patted the bench below her. "Here!"

Solana shifted over, and Zephyra sat in her lap. It was a silly thing for grown women to do, but they had done it as teenagers many times. Rio passed a wrapped Crispy Chicken sandwich to Zephyra, then spoke to Solana as she sat down. "We had to get the whole team together!" Once seated, she began to unwrap her own sandwich. 

"Because we are a team!" declared the shrine maiden Shoni Puriti as she floated over the table and turned around to sit on the divider between booths, crossing her feet on the table in front of the napkins and condiments. Sitting on the divider beside her, the stage-dressed Metal Knight strummed one loud note on his purple electric guitar.

"That is right," declared Abraham MacLeod as he posed with his sword drawn at the other end of the table. "We are a team." Abraham raised the wakizashi and smashed it through the particle-board table which split in half and fell to the floor.

The girls all looked down at the demolished table that rested on their feet. "I guess we won't be sitting here anymore," Solana remarked. 


No longer holding sandwiches, the women all stood in a row in front of the booth with their arms interlocked around each others' waists, except for Zephyra and Shoni who put their arms on their nearest partners' shoulders. Solana did not remember standing up. She did not remember anyone standing up.

The destroyed table was no longer in the empty space behind them. Metal Knight continued to sit on the divider between the booths. He was silent. Abraham stood in front of them. No one touched him. 

Solana spoke to Abraham. "You know, you're not part of the team. You're not even a girl.'

Abraham answered with little emotion. "It would not be the first time I was the only man in group of girls."

"Man?" Solana questioned that description. "You're like twelve." Solana remembered Abraham's unusual history. "Oh, that's right. You're like 400."

Siobhan Minh meekly spoke to Solana. "Pardon my interruption, but if I recall correctly, I believe that you said that I could be a part of your team?"

Solana thought of taking that back. "I said that... well... if we're short a girl, you use all of the elements, so you can fill in. And if you're just here for a burger, sure. You can join us."

Siobhan happily smiled and stood next to Rio at the end of the line. Solana looked in her direction and smiled at the sight of how happy she was. Then she faced forward again and her smile went away. Sitting alone at one of the small tables, eating a hamburger, was her archnemesis.

"Dark Queen Lirazel! What are you doing here?" Solana asked in a voice that carried too much surprise to have the hostile tone that she had intended.

Dark Queen Lirazel wiped her mouth with a napkin and turned around in her chair to respond. "Do I need your permission to enter the Solar System to have a hamburger?" she asked sarcastically.

Solana considered the question. "You technically do, but if you're just here for a burger, I don't really care, so go ahead."

"Good," Lirazel said. She turned around and bit into a hamburger again. The sound of crunching lettuce echoed throughout the room.

Every seat in the restaurant other than the empty seat at Lirazel's table was now occupied by one of Lirazel's Claymen eating a hamburger. The faceless human-shaped monsters somehow managed to devour their meals without having mouths. Solana looked around at all of them. She turned her head to look toward the entrance. Lirazel's three useless minions Wanafyte, Trilobyte, and Helatyte stood outside the window looking into the restaurant with sad puppy eyes. They had not been allowed in. 

Lirazel continued gossiping to her dining companion. "I was supposed to be Verino Sarveti's third fighter this year, but the job went to that space man instead."

Solana looked to see who Lirazel was talking to. Sitting in the seat that she was certain had been empty was now a Chinese woman who wore a Western cowboy hat and a shanku, the traditional Chinese dress of jacket and pants. A leather belt around her waist carried a holster with a six-shot revolver that she had acquired on a trip to America.

The Chinese woman met eyes with Solana and smiled at her knowingly. "You wish to know who I am, so I shall tell you. I am an enemy of Hong Wu." Solana recognized the name of one of the tournament's referees.

So did Shoni. "Hong is really nice!" Shoni said from behind Solana. "He saved me. I was hurt really bad."

Solana turned to listen to Shoni, and stepped back in shock at what she saw. Blood dripped down Shoni's face from a gash than ran from her forehead through her right eye and across her cheek. Her right forearm was missing, ending at the elbow in a bloody stump. Her own blood covered her torn dress.

"... but I got better!" Shoni added. Her new dress was clean. Her right eye was now an amethyst gemstone encasted in soft amber. A scar remained on her face. Her missing right arm had been replaced by a prosthetic made of living wood resembling tree root or the branches of a bush.

Solana was still shocked by the rapid changes she saw. She saw how badly Shoni had been injured. She had seen Shoni die in the future before Hong rescued her. She was grateful to see Shoni smiling again and looking better.

Solana turned to the mysterious Chinese woman who she presumed might have something to do with what she had just seen. "So... who are you?" 

The Chinese woman smiled mysteriously. She raised her hands and produced a small amount of magical flame. "I am a living goddess. I am the Fire Woman."

Solana overheard Cindy speaking to one of the restaurant's other guests. "So you are also a Fire Sorceress?" Cindy asked General Min Di of the Gibbs Empire, who had a Southeast Asian appearance. Min Di nodded.

"So am I!" happily added the coffee-skinned sorceress Melanie from Eric's and Natasha's world. She cast small trails of flame from her hands to show off her powers.

Somehow, Solana knew that it was wrong for one of them to visit her world. "You..." she pointed to Min Di, "you should not be able to be here. You can not leave your dimension without dying." She stopped to think. "How did I know that? I don't even know who you are."

Rio spoke calmly. "Remember what your manager Antonius Zexler told you."

Solana turned around to speak to Rio. "How would you know what Zexler told me? Unless I told you later."

Rio answered by continuing. "Ideas and concepts can cross dimensions and appear in the imaginations of artists, or in dreams."

Solana understood now. "So this is a dream? Damn it, I really wanted that Crispy Chicken--"


Solana opened her eyes with a gasp. She had been startled by a vivid dream, but she could not remember any of it. She was fully awake now and there no chance of returning to sleep. The morning sunlight passing through her window told her that she had a full night's rest. It was time to start her day. She raised her head off of the pillow and lifted the blankets off of her pajama-clad body.

Solana sat on her bed and looked around her room. The shelves were nearly empty of the items that she had accumulated over the years. These were in a suitcase and two cardboard boxes. This room would not be her bedroom for much longer. She was moving out later, maybe within the month.

After breakfast, a bath, and a change of clothes, Solana walked into Zexler's training arena to go to work. Her work was fighting, and she needed to practice. She might not have made the postseason, but the postseason was over. It was now time for the team matches.

The team matches were a short second season that would be over in a few weeks. Not every manager would send their fighters to the team matches. Not every manager who had a full team of three fighters could get them all to agree to come back. Some fighters felt that they were done when the season ended and were reluctant to return. In that case, a manager might send a replacement. 

Solana met her replacement standing silently in the arena, waiting for orders. Rinn-B was a robot, an android girl with a small fighter jet attached to her back and a laser rifle in her hands. Solana looked her over as she anticipated fighting the robot for her job. Her job was already gone. She had been sold to another manager, effective at the end of the year. She still wanted to fight in the team matches. She wanted to show everyone that she was better than her losing record.

The arena's doors opened as Abraham entered. Metal Knight hopped in after him, wearing his wig and visor but without the face paint. The paint took time to apply and was not necessary for a practice match.

Solana opened her purse, withdrew her wand, and flicked it forward. A bright flash of light surrounded her, and then she was the white-robed Sun Sorceress wielding the full-length Solar Staff in her hand.

"Everyone is here," said Zexler's voice from the control center. "Good."

Per Corporate's regulations, no one could enter more than three people into the tournament. Their accountants checked to make sure that no one worked through a proxy to submit more fighters than was allowed. The three people that any manager entered would train together and come to think of themselves as a team. Someone had the bright idea of making these teams fight each other in a second tournament, and that became an annual feature.

A group of three would usually train by having two fight against each other, and the winner would fight whoever had been resting. Adding a fourth fighter allowed all four to train at once. Most training arenas were large enough that the pairings would not interfere with each other.

So all four fought. Abraham nimbly dodged flying music notes while zig-zagging toward Metal Knight and the two speakers that he had summoned. Rinn-B's jet engine gave a high-pitched whine as she hovered sideways before firing her laser rifle. A beam of light knocked her out of the sky by spinning her body around such that her jet's forward thrust sent her down into the ground.

The fighters switched up in their next match. Metal Knight leaped upward to dodge a beam of sunlight and used his guitar to shield himself from another beam as he landed. Abraham brought his sword upwards in a leaping swing that knocked Rinn-B's rifle out of her hands.

The fighters switched up again. Rinn-B stepped aside Metal Knight's thrown guitar but did not think to dodge a second time. Metal Knight's telekinetic power pulled the guitar back into Rinn-B's head, and he leaped forward to slam into her body at the same time. On the other side of the arena, Abraham easily bypassed Solana's attempts to guard herself with her staff. Solana transformed into her normal self and swung her purse around Abraham's sword. Her purse spilled a couple of pens because she had left it open before transforming, but her plan worked. Abraham pulled his sword back to remove the weight from it. Solana stepped forward and delivered a high kick to his face that knocked him off of his feat.

After the training session, Solana carried Metal Knight in her arms as Zexler led three of the fighters into to the house. Rinn-B stayed behind in the arena until she would be used again. Once inside the house, Zexler turned left to head into his study.

Solana apologised to her manager. "I'm sorry. I could have done better."

Zexler stopped and turned around to answer her. "Solana, that was an improvement."

Solana smiled nervously and gratefully. "Thanks."

"Continue improving," Zexler muttered before he disappeared into his study.