Air Hero

Support Competition

“Max, I got through the support competition.”

This time, Max is more surprised than believing that he himself got through the top 50 rounds. When he asked her whether there was a competition for support and suggested that she join, it was more of a passing remark rather than real encouragement. After all, he needs to keep doing that to build Marie’s confidence.

“Way to go, Marie! How’s your result for today?”

“I don’t believe it myself, but I managed to secure a seeded spot for tomorrow.”

“Wow, congratulations! Can you tell me what kind of competition you have today?”

Since Max has very little knowledge about the Hero Olympics and especially competition for the supports, it is normal for him to ask about it from Marie.

“I also joined the newcomer competition for supports. It covers the basic of Information gathering, support, hacking, and judgment. Since it’s more specified, each category has its competition and winner. Support competition is more like a battle simulation mode. Hacking will test someone capabilities in hacking the system and how fast they are. As for Judgement, it’s a case study where a simulation of a disaster is produced. The one that managed to save the most people with their judgement wins. As for Information gathering, it is more of a quiz.”

“I never know that it will be that crazy. So you managed to be the fastest to answer the question today?”

“Yes. However, starting tomorrow, it will be a versus battle. This means I will face another support and tried to be the fastest to answer the question. As for hacking, two support will try to hack each other. The same with support and judgement, they will enter a simulation and lead two sides. The better side will win, but support and judgement are graded by different categories. Judgement will consider the number of survivor and efficiency while support is more on the overall condition and the aftermath.”

Since Marie knows that Max doesn’t know anything about the support competition, she explained it to Max in full.

“Will they be re-broadcasting it again?”

“It’s not a re-broadcast as you can stream it online.”

“Oh! I will watch it later then. I’m interested in it.”

This is another learning session for Max as he could understand better what support can do. After that, he ended the call with Marie and headed back home. On the way home, he suddenly remembers his parents. He is glad that he now has people that he could share the good news, but his parents' existence is just irreplaceable.

He misses his parents since he still remembers how happy they were when he talked about his dream of becoming a hero. If they see him now, managing to enter the competition and securing a spot to compete for the top 32 newcomers, what would they say?

Would they be proud of him and encourage him to try his best? Or would they remind him to be careful and not to get hurt in the process? Max wiped the tears that are forming at the edge of his eye and make a fist. He steeled his heart once more.

“Mom, Dad, I’m doing just fine, and I will make you proud of me.”

*******

The next day, it signifies the second day of the Olympics. The whole world rejoices as many events are done and make people excited. Like regular Olympics, they have events like gymnastic, archery, and swimming for C-rank and above. However, the rules are modified as they allowed abilities to be used on it.

Of course, it increases the favourability of the watchers. Most of the time, archery wasn’t done by using regular arrows anymore. Instead, elemental arrows are used, and it tested the accuracy of the participants.

The gymnastic aesthetic is even more enhanced as sparks of fire, and other elements beautify their routine. However, what is grabbing the world attention the most are heroes’ events. Just like what Max have for his newcomer competition, there’s also a hero arena for the C-rank heroes and above.

Siege the castle and save the hostage are also some of the popular branches of the contest included in the Olympics. Max, however, doesn’t have a TV in his apartment, so he can only watch it later in the office through the computer that he bought for Marie.

Right now, he is more excited to participate in the newcomer competition: the top 32, top 16 and top 8 competitions that are held today. Not to mention that starting from the top 32, each match will be done individually. It means that he will have the chance to witness every match his future competitor done today. Although it also means that they could also saw his match and examine his weakness beforehand.

So far, Max hasn’t got the chance to witness Giovanni’s battle style except for the first team stage. As a result, he doesn’t know what kind of attack or ability that Giovanni could do.

Arriving at the venue, the arena for today is more extensive than yesterday. After all, there will only be one battle at a time. There are also audiences sitting on the viewing seat since, starting from today, people are allowed to see the live match.

Yesterday, all of the matches were broadcasted online. For the public hearing and audience at home, what they hear is the name Air Hero. Max name is announced only for him. The same thing applies to everyone else. They are not known by their real name by the people but by their hero name.

“Good morning, everyone! Your cute and lovable Elrisa is here! Today, we will have the battle for the top 32, top 16, and top 8. Do you have any favourite newcomer heroes that you are rooting for? We also have some merchandise from the United Heroes Association that you can buy at our merchandise booth. It includes our S-rank hero, Miss Alexandra limited edition photobook and video that is signed by her. So, don’t forget to drop by and check out other goods too!”

As the people attending today’s matches are from the public, Elrisa didn’t forget to promote the United Heroes association's product. With her cute style, she is a top commercial promoter.

“Without waiting any further, let’s bring out the tournament bracket.”

Once again, everyone can see the tournament bracket floating in the air. This time, it wasn’t as crowded as yesterday, where there are 200 names on the list. Today there are only 64 names, with 32 on each side.

“Let the shuffle begin!”

The names begin to flash as they filled up the tournament bracket. This time, the spot random lottery went longer than usual. After all, the bracket will continue until the final. It could be the deciding factor, whether one could proceed smoothly until a later stage or stopped early when they get strong opponents.

One by one, each spot is filled, and finally, Max can see his name showing up there. The name for his opponent also revealed consecutively. Air Hero versus Shadow Dancer.

Max tried to remember where did he heard the name of Shadow Dancer. He finally recalled that he heard it yesterday from Jhonny’s mouth. Linda, the shadow dancer. He didn’t know if fate is playing a joke on him. After facing Chloe yesterday, he is facing Linda now. Two former teammates in a row. However, he couldn’t go easy on them as he knows that each one of them are powerful heroes with capabilities.