Claudia's hand dropped.
Zic Toban moved.
Fast. Not Kevin-fast, not Marcus-fast, but fast enough that Ana's R-20 reflexes had to work to track him. He closed the distance in three strides, twin batons materializing in his hands—Artifice constructs, dark metal, no linking chain between them. Just two solid lengths of something meant to break bones.
He swung.
Ana blocked.
Her shields snapped up—small, tight, and precisely made. Not the full-body coverage most first-years used, just narrow hexagons of pale blue light that appeared exactly where Zic's batons were about to land; like she knew where he'd swing before he swung.
Practitioners could make their shields as big or as small as they wanted if they had the control. Most didn't. Most went for coverage, safety, the comfort of a wall between them and the hit.
Ana's shields were the size of dinner plates, and they never missed.
Still, Zic pressed.
Close combat. That was his game. Get inside, stay inside, don't let her breathe. The batons came in pairs—high and low, left and right, a rhythm that felt random but wasn't. He'd been doing this a long time.
Ana kept blocking, not striking back, not creating distance, just... blocking. Her shields flickered with each impact, reforming, holding. Her feet moved in small circles, always turning, always facing him, never once stepping into an opening.
The crowd watched. Some cheered. Most just... observed. A Black Mark getting worked over by a second-year Blue. Nothing special.
Zic's batons kept coming. Faster now. He could smell the win. His strikes lost some of their precision, but gained extra force. He wanted this over.
Ana's shield caught another hit. Then another. Then—
Her eyes flicked up.
Just for a second. Just long enough to see the crowd. The Gold Marks near the front, bored. The other Blacks against the wall, watching. Marcus, somewhere, not watching at all.
Her shield came up a beat too slow.
Zic's baton slipped through, and caught her across the ribs.
She went down.
Not crumpled, launched. Her body hit the stage thirty feet back, rolled a bit, then came to a stop on her side. Her shields flickered and died.
Zic was already moving in for the finish.
"Cease."
Claudia's voice cut through the arena.
Zic stopped, lowered his batons, and looked at the proctor's platform with something between confusion and annoyance.
Claudia's hand was still raised.
"Winner established."
The scoreboard flickered.
ZIC TOBAN – SCORE: 6/10
ANASTASIA COLLINS – SCORE: 4/10
The crowd moved on. Next fight, next name, next score. Zic walked off looking vaguely unsatisfied, like a meal that filled him but didn't taste good.
Ana pushed herself up. Slowly. One hand pressed to her ribs.
Her face was blank.
She walked off the stage without looking at anyone. Without looking at Alex. Without looking at the spot in the crowd where her eyes had gone, just for a second, right before she stopped blocking right.
‡"‡
‡„‡
More fights came and went. Wins and losses. Cheers and silence. The machine kept grinding.
ROUND 18. A second-year Gold crushed a first-year Blue in forty seconds. Score: 9/2.
ROUND 19. Two Blues traded hits for three minutes until one conceded. Score: 6/5.
ROUND 20. A second-year Gold everyone knew was going places handled her business. Score: 8/3.
Then the board flickered.
ROUND 21
ALEXANDER ARCHER | YEAR: 1 | AGE: 24 | MARK: BLACK | R-LEVEL: 14
SCARLET RIVAS | YEAR: 1 | AGE: 18 | MARK: GOLD | R-LEVEL: 18
Alex's stomach did something unpleasant.
Eighteen. She was eighteen. Six years younger, four R-Levels higher, and she probably hadn't even hit her growth spurt yet.
He walked onto the stage.
Scarlett Rivas was already there with a smile that looked like she was genuinely happy to be here. Her eyes tracked him as he approached—curious, not cruel, like he was a puzzle she was about to solve.
Her hands were empty. For now.
Claudia's hand went up.
"Begin."
The hand dropped.
Scarlett moved.
Not at him—not yet. Her hands came up, and the air around them shimmered, bent, then solidified into two rings. Circular blades, sharp on the outer edge, open in the middle where her fingers curled through. Like miniature chakrams, but lighter, faster, and part of her instead of separate.
She grinned.
Alex's pole axe materialized in his grip. Seven feet of haft, curved blade at the top. He settled into a low stance, weapon angled, keeping distance.
She closed it in the blink of an eye.
Fast. Not Zic-fast—more... cleaner. Her footwork was precise, each step more deliberately done than the last, the rings spinning lazily in her hands as she came.
She threw one. He dodged. Barely. The blade whistled past his ear, dissipated into light, and another one was already in her hand, formed from nothing, like the first had never existed.
"Oh, that's bullshit," he muttered.
She laughed, actually laughed.
The second ring came. He caught it on the haft of his pole axe—metal ringing against metal—and used the momentum to swing. The blade end arced toward her midsection.
She ducked. Rolled. Came up inside his reach.
Third ring, fourth ring, they kept coming. He blocked, dodged, retreated. The haft of his pole axe took hit after hit, the metal singing with each impact. She was everywhere—left, right, low, high—and every time he thought he had her pattern, she changed it.
But he was still standing.
Thirty seconds passed. Forty. A minute.
He got a hit in. Just one—the flat of his haft catching her across the shoulder as she overextended on a throw. She stumbled, recovered, and the grin got wider.
"You're slower than you look," she said.
"You're shorter than you act."
She snorted. Then came again.
The rings flew. He blocked, pivoted, swung. The crowd was actually watching now—not because he was winning, but because he wasn't losing fast enough to be boring. Scarlett was all speed and precision, a blur of motion and sharp edges.
He was just... there. Holding ground. Not dying. For two minutes, he held.
Then she changed angles.
A ring came high—he raised the haft to block—and she was already low, the second ring sliding past his guard, the flat of the blade pressing against the side of his neck.
He froze.
She was breathing hard. Hair stuck to her forehead. Grin still in place. "Gotcha."
Alex's pole axe dissolved.
Claudia's voice cut through the arena.
"Cease. Winner established."
The scoreboard flickered.
SCARLETT RIVAS – SCORE: 7/10
ALEXANDER ARCHER – SCORE: 4/10
Claudia shook her head. Just once. Small, and tired.
Alex saw it.
Scarlett pulled her ring back, the blade disappearing as she stepped away. She tilted her head at him, curious.
"You're not as bad as people say."
He wiped blood from his lip—when the hell did she cut me?—and shrugged. "High bar."
She laughed again, then walked off.
Alex stood there for a second longer than necessary. Four out of ten. Better than one. Better than nothing.
Still a loss. Still not enough.
He walked off the stage. Didn't look at Claudia, didn't look at the Gold Marks, didn't look at anything except the spot on the observation tier where Veronica had been standing.
She was watching him, expression unchanged.
Then she yawned.
Small. Polite. Completely devastating.
[Boredom: 75% → 76% ↑]
Alex stared at her for a second. Then muttered, low enough that only he could hear: "Wow. Just... wow."
‡"‡
‡„‡
The rounds kept coming.
ROUND 22. Blue beats Blue. Score: 6/5.
ROUND 23. Gold destroys Black. Score: 9/1. The Black walked off with his head down. Alex recognized him, didn't know his name.
ROUND 24. Another Gold, another win.
ROUND 25. A draw. First one of the day. The crowd actually clapped.
Then the board flickered.
ROUND 26
FRIEDRICH GUNTER | YEAR: 2 | AGE: 27 | MARK: GOLD | R-LEVEL: 51
VERONICA CROFT | YEAR: 1 | AGE: 22 | MARK: GOLD | R-LEVEL: 44
Alex coughed.
Twenty-two? She's supposed to be twenty-two? I mean, yeah she does look twenty-two-ish but—let it go Alex, she's a devil queen. Numbers are suggestions.
The crowd's reaction though, was slower to build. First just murmurs. Then heads turning. Then actual conversation.
"Forty-four?"
"As a first year?"
"Is that even possible?"
"That's super rare."
"Her Mark's Gold, so... I guess?"
"Friedrich's gonna eat her alive."
Marcus, seated with his faction near the front, blinked at the board. His mouth was opened.
"What the hell am I looking at?"
On the faculty platform, Claudia tilted her head. Just slightly.
"The first-year students this session," she said quietly, "seem to have a disproportionate number of prodigies."
Quill didn't respond. He still looked like he'd rather be anywhere else. But his eyes stayed on the board for an extra second.
Forty-four. He'd confirmed it himself when he scanned her. High for a first year, sure—but not impossible. Gold Marks pulled numbers like that sometimes. Just... rarely.
"Define 'prodigies.'" Quill finally said.
Claudia didn't answer.
Friedrich Gunter walked onto the stage.
He was built like someone had stacked bricks inside a human suit. Broad shoulders, thick neck, hands that looked like they were designed for breaking things. As he walked, the air behind him shimmered, and a mallet solidified.
Fourteen feet of haft and head. The hammer end was the size of a small car. The whole thing looked like it weighed more than Alex's entire dorm room.
Friedrich grabbed it with one hand, and dragged it across the stage.
The sound was awful. Metal on stone. But it was its own kind of statement.
Veronica walked onto the stage.
She looked... bored. Not nervous. Not focused. Just... present. Like she'd wandered into the wrong room and hadn't bothered to leave yet.
She stopped twenty feet from Friedrich. Hands at her sides. No weapon. No shield. Nothing.
Friedrich grinned.
Claudia's hand went up.
"Begin."
The hand dropped.
Friedrich moved.
Fast. Too fast for someone his size. The mallet came up, came around, then came down—a vertical arc meant to end the fight in one swing.
Veronica raised one hand, the mallet hit her shield. It wasn't a big shield, wasn't flashy. Just a disc of pale light, maybe two feet across, floating an inch from her palm.
The mallet struck it. And cracked.
Not her shield, the mallet. Spiderwebbed fractures spread across the hammer's head. Friedrich stared at it. At her. At the shield that hadn't moved an inch.
She was still standing exactly where she'd started.
Then she moved.
One step. That's all. And she was in front of him. Her fist—just her fist, no weapon, no Artifice, nothing—drove into his chest.
Friedrich left the ground. Not far. Ten feet, maybe. He hit the stage, then came to a stop on his back, gasping. The mallet dissolved into light, its wielder too stunned to hold it together.
Silence.
Claudia blinked.
"...Okay." She raised her hand. "Cease. Winner established."
The scoreboard flickered.
VERONICA CROFT – SCORE: 10/10
FRIEDRICH GUNTER – SCORE: 2/10
The silence held for one more second.
Then someone in the back—Alex didn't see who—said exactly what everyone was thinking.
"What in the actual fuck."
Veronica walked off the stage.
She didn't look at Friedrich. Didn't look at Claudia. Didn't look at the board. Just walked, steady and unhurried, through the crowd that parted without anyone deciding to move.
She walked to the wall—to the spot where Alex was standing—leaned against the railing next to him, then pulled out her tablet.
[Boredom: 76% → 77% ↑]
Alex stared at her.
Every eye in the arena was on them. On him. The Black Mark standing next to the girl who'd just one-shot a second-year Gold top five in his class, R-51. Someone who'd been favored to make it to the final rounds of the Inter-Academy Combat Duels this semester—without breaking a sweat.
Alex swallowed.
He looked at the crowd. At Marcus, still frozen in his seat. At the Gold Marks, finally finding their voices in confused murmurs. At Anastasia, watching from the wall of Blacks, her green eyes unreadable.
Then he looked at Veronica, scrolling through something. Boredom up one percent.
Maybe, he thought. Maybe I could learn from her. Maybe this whole thing isn't just a disaster waiting to happen.
Just... Maybe.
‡«»‡