The Big Debate

A week rolled around and it was now time for the big debate with the Templar Guild.

During the week Clarisse had practiced her now unlocked magic, Karson and Skinny were away doing some levelling job for a rich kid which left me alone with Steven.

I decided not to continue training Steven without Karson and Skinny around to help so he was glad to get most of the week off. I instead spent my time researching what a guild debate was and what it entailed by watching how the famous 'Britannica' guild handled them.

What I'd learned was that it was sort of a press free-for-all where journalists would ask any questions they wanted and both guilds would have to answer in a specific order, depending on how good they deemed the answer to be a point would go to one of the Guilds.

I'd decided that all 5 of us would attend but I would speak for the guild as my looping ability made it so that I could rehearse and practice any answers and now that Clarisse had unlocked her magic, that meant I had 1 minute and 30 seconds of time to play around with.

I had briefly considered leaving Steven behind as he didn't seem nearly as imposing or impressive as the other 3, but I also didn't want to leave him here on his own if there was an attack.

I didn't spend the week watching debates though, I also bought matching purple ties for Steven and Skinny to go with mine and Karson's. We needed to dress to impress after all.

Clarisse finally had to show me and Steven to the public bathhouse as we were beginning to stink up the basement having only had a sink to clean ourselves with.

I also managed to finally get my turn sleeping on the sofa, sure it was more comfortable than the table but it also stunk and during the night Karson and Skinny had returned from their job waking me up.

Then the next day we all had to dress up for the big debate. Karson and I wore the suits I had bought with both of us wearing a pauldron and gauntlets as well as some other small pieces of armour over it. Clarisse just wore her witch's outfit just without the hat, Skinny wore his filthy stained shirt and hideous trousers with the purple tie very loosely tied around his neck and a little of his leather armour tacked on in different places, and Steven wore his old work suit with the purple tie instead of one of his Association ones.

I told Skinny, Clarisse and Karson that they needed to bring their weapons and then we headed off.

I thought the idea of us wearing the dark purple would make us seem more professional like we were wearing some kind of uniform. Obviously I made sure that most of us wore a little armour over it to make us seem intimidating but also just in case the Templar guild wanted to send us off with a little duel of some kind.

We were all shown to a green room upon entering the Templar Guild, we gained some shocked looks as Karson had Excalibur sheathed on his hip and Skinny had his massive axe strapped to his back.

When we entered the green room I buzzed around making sure everyone looked good, luckily no one needed the sunglasses but I did have to undo my tie a slight amount, take off my jacket and roll up my sleeves. I had to make each of us stand out a little so Karson wore his suit perfectly as he was the leader and Steven just wore a shirt and tie with no jacket.

Standing out was a key factor in how we were going to beat the Templar Guild here. Sure they might be a vastly larger enemy compared to us but all we had to do is fool the press in to believing that we only seemed that way because we were more elite.

I had mapped out my key strategies for what to say to various questions as well as the various things I planned to mention throughout.

I flipped through the strategy that I had made on my notes app which consisted of:

 We are an elite guild that destroys dungeons,

the public hasn't hear anything big from our guild until now because our guild has been working on an intense secret training method,

Showcase Karson's incredible aura slash and Clarisse's dark magic,

 if Steven is brought up at all mention he is still in training,

 and if I am brought up talk about the guild's generosity.

It wasn't an amazing plan but it's all I could scrape together. I was really focused into reading each point over and over because once I went out there and began to use my time loop skill, depending on how much I failed I could be out there for days maybe even weeks. So it was important I committed each point to memory.

"Are you 5 ready?" a guy wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard asked.

"Yes I think we are, just give us a second." I turned to the other 4 in the room. "OK let's go over the plan one more time."

"You do all the talking…" Steven said a little irritated by the amount of times I had gone over this.

"If you say Sir you are referring to me and I can say something short…" Karson said fixing his hair in the mirror.

"If you say Ma'am you're referring to me and I gesture something like nodding or shaking my head…" Clarisse said dusting off every part of her witch's dress.

"If you say Blood-Axe that means me and I can grunt." Skinny said munching on one of the snacks in the room.

"And don't forget no one can lose their temper! I don't want to see the other guild riling up any of you understood? Just tune the other guild out because the only story the press will hear will be ours!" I raised a fist triumphantly which I thought was pretty stupid but it managed to get everyone ready to head in.

I let everyone else leave first whilst I checked my phone one last time.

The guy with the clipboard came up to me after a second or two and told me it was time to go.

Well this was the last chunk of normal flowing time I might experience in a while so I better enjoy it.

I climbed the steps to get onto the stage and walked past the rest of the guild who were all standing ready at the microphones that hopefully wouldn't be used that much or even better, at all.

I had activated time loop the second I took a step just in case I tripped or something and harmed our chances but thankfully I didn't need to use it.

My peripherals were lit up with constant flashing lights and my ears could only pick out a cacophony of camera shutters and a bit of murmuring coming from the crowd to my right.

When I took my place at the Microphone at the very end and the crowd became in front of me there were noticeably a lot more lights and chatter, I could have been blinded!

"Well," I said into the microphone. "Shall we begin?" I smiled to the crowd in front of me and they turned into a frenzy of picture taking and excited chatter.

I turned to see that the guild leader was also in the main talking space at the Templar's desk to my left and I smiled at her and gave her a wink so the press couldn't see it.

Since this was the Templar Guild's press room, they had the home advantage and would be answering every question first before us.

"Yes!" She called out to the crowd, "I believe that is a splendid idea."

Boy did she look smug. All I could think about was how dumbfounded she would look when she had to admit defeat and hand over our new dungeon.

Behind us was a screen displaying 2 zeroes one on the left above us and one on the right above the Templar Guild. In front of us were maybe 4 rows of chairs all filled with different reporters and camera men and some were even standing to the sides of the chairs.

In front of the crowd of journalists was a microphone where they would come up to ask questions to the both of us. But at the back of this large room was a small amount of empty space that I was sure I could utilise later.

The journalists must have a pre-arranged order because without saying anything somebody from the first row came up to the microphone.

I couldn't make out much more than that as I had a bunch of stage lighting and camera lighting shining in my face.

"I have an introductory question and a main question." A man's voice rang out from the microphone.

"Go ahead." Said the guild leader as though she was doing something charitable.

I just nodded.

"Why isn't the Orion guild leader doing the speaking?"

My opponent was able to answer first as per the rules and she made the most of it by saying, "Obviously because Karson needs someone to do his work for him."

This got a few slight chuckles from the crowd but I let them die down before I answered.

"Sir has given me the opportunity to speak to you all on his behalf. Isn't that right sir? I said turning my head to my right and looking at Karson.

"Yes, that's right." He said into the microphone.

"As for why, it's because at this moment our guild leader is incredibly exhausted from trying to train himself to enter the third stage of his innate skill. He has also allowed me to speak to you all as I have become sort of the catalyst for our guild's reputation for destroying dungeons."

There was an incredible amount of chatter and a lot more pictures of us taken after I finished talking.

"Now for my main question. How are you able to destroy these dungeons?" the silhouette from the microphone asked.

"Well clearly they have only discovered some kind of trick to temporarily disable dungeons. We all know that it is impossible to destroy them, even if we could why would we want to it generates more money for all of us." The guild leader listed, clearly she had been anticipating this question.

But unfortunately for her it only took about 4 loops for me to fully look into each of her arguments and come up with a rebuttal.

"Oh come now, Guild leader, you should know that all of what you said is a complete lie." I looked over to her and could feel my wicked grin stretch over my face.

Turning it back to a charming smile I turned my head back to the people in front of me.

"There is no trick sadly, just a lot of incredible hard work and dedication on our end. It is not impossible to destroy a dungeon within the past 3 weeks we have destroyed 3 dungeons, 2 of which were infamous for killing the people who went inside." I turned my tone to one full of sadness and fully turned my body to my opponent, "Are you telling me those lives were worth the money you were making?"

"As for how we are able to destroy these dungeons sadly that can not be disclosed to the public. I had discovered it be accident the first time and it had nearly killed me. Our guild is the only one that will ever be able to destroy dungeons with no casualties, I would be willing to stake my life on it."

I finished my long rebuttal to the tune of insane chatter and murmuring but not long after that I heard a 'ding' go off behind me signalling that we had gained a point.

I heard some feet shuffle and someone sit in a chair so I understood that it was now time for the next question.

"If the Orion guild is so special to this process why have we not seen anything from them since it's creation 2 years ago?"

Thank god for my talking points I knew I was going to be able to win this one.

"The Orion guild is a guild of outcasts, misfits and losers. It serves as the only place that refuse like them can belong. They haven't done anything in 2 years because they simply couldn't."

I could practically feel the rage seeping from the rest of our desk. I needed to say something quickly to alleviate the pressure before we had to be kicked out for trying to kill the other team.

"There is no need to directly belittle your opponent. Our guild functions as a family and we see each of our members as such, so please don't insult our family."

I think I managed to get everyone to calm down a little so I could get on with my answer.

"Sir here, has spent the last 2 years creating a flawless training method to bring out hidden potential, harness greater power and unlock what abilities may have been lost." Karson turned to me with a little green tinge in his cheeks but one look was enough to get him to turn back to acting stoic.

"When sir was forcefully removed from the Templar guild he originally sought to just improve his Innate skill but after a year he knew he needed to enter into the second stage. Luckily Ma'am here was a witch and she worked together with him further on his training." I gestured over to Clarisse who nodded her head.

"Before long they enlisted the help of the Blood-Axe to further combat potential and bring more experience into it. Sir, would you mind showing these fine people what you have been able to accomplish?" I pointed down to the open space and Karson immediately left the stage and walked over to it.

A few camera's took still kept taking pictures but other than that a hush fell over the room as Karson entered into his combative stance. The second he grabbed the hilt of Excalibur you could feel that the energy in the room had changed.

He drew out the sword in a flash and flexed his arm. Then like a cannon it propelled forward gleaming with the camera light until that became overtaken by a purple hue which only built as he propelled the sword further forwards into a great tide of purple energy.

Then he sliced backhanded and the tide became a crashing wave of beautiful fiery purple that extended out marking the walls and floor in the corner he had set himself up in. Once it had scattered he sheathed Excalibur so quickly if anyone blinked they would have missed it and simply walked back to his place on the stage.

"… And that's only the beginning of what the guild has been able to work on."

Even though the room was completely silent and even the cameras had stopped flashing it was broken up by another 'ding' coming from behind us. I should have put a bet on this…

"Is it true that one of your members, the witch, was forced to leave the Waterlily Guild because she was unable to produce magic?"

"Yes this has been well documented in several articles exposing this farce of a guild." I imagined that the guild leader believed she may have finally gotten a point.

But I simply said, "Ma'am if you would demonstrate a small spell please?"

Clarisse nodded and then walked to the same spot where Karson had been standing a minute ago. She brought out Loki's wand and began to cast she seemed to almost dance as purple lightning and thick dark clouds surrounded her. It continued to surround her gaining more and more speed until it became almost a consistent tornado like cocoon coating her.

A second later lightning struck out from the cocoon, shattering it, and exploded the room for a second in complete darkness. The lightning danced up into the sky as though it were fire works creating a beautiful display and then the darkness just slithered it's way all back into her wand, like it was some kind of vacuum.

She followed in Karson's lead and took her place back at the desk without saying a word, keeping her same blank expression the whole way.

"Yes she was kicked out for losing her magic. But as I have said our guild's secret training method is able to bring back lost abilities and now she is more powerful than ever."

This whole act had been a complete lie me and Clarisse had practiced this magic routine for a couple of the days, 'small spell' had been the signal for her to perform her routine.

Another ding shot up behind us and I prepared myself for harder questions…

It was actually really easy after that, people wanted to know my story, who Steven was and why the Skinny had decided to go back to being a berserker; all of which I didn't even need to loop for I could just tell them. However, there were some unexpected questions after that like: How Karson got his hair so perfect? Was Clarisse single? Was Steven Karson's dad?

At the end of the debate we were up 10 to 0 so we had completely secured the rights to the dungeon. The guild leader had to walk over to Karson and pretend to smile whilst shaking his hand, that was the best part.

We left the guild and we all went out to a nice restaurant to celebrate our victory, we ate lots, drank lots and had a great time. Jokes and stories were flying from us faster than we could drink and we ended up staying out at a bar for most of the night.

We all stumbled our way back to the back alley, Clarisse and I had to support a very drunk Karson whilst Steven had to ride on Skinny's back.

We were still laughing and having a good time when I smelled something, "Hey do you guys smell something burning?"

"The restaurant must suck!" Steven yelled out slurring.

But we all stopped laughing when we rounded the corner, the whole building was engulfed in flames…