Zephyr increased his pace.
He moved quickly across the floor, clearly wanting to knock me out before his hidden timer ended.
His hands burned brighter, leaving a trail of light in the hall.
"You are out of time," I whispered, stepping right into his path.
'Let us see how you handle real pressure.'
I raised my right hand.
The ice encasing my fist shattered instantly into dozens of tiny, sharp particles.
I launched the freezing barrage directly at his chest.
Zephyr didn't even flinch.
He just swiped his right hand in an arc, turning the ice shards into a harmless splash of water before they even touched his uniform.
But the ice was just a simple distraction.
In the literal second it took him to melt my attack, I closed the gap between us.
I raised my left hand, and a blast of roaring fire exploded right into his face.
"Gah."
He stumbled backwards, completely blinded by the sudden heat.
I did not give him a chance to recover his footing as I stepped forward and drove my boot straight into his abdomen.
The air left his lungs with a gasp. I followed up immediately, raining a rapid series of blows across his jaw and cheeks.
Bam.
Bam.
Bam.
Blood started dripping from his nose.
His perfect, arrogant face was finally taking real damage.
I laced the fingers of both my hands together, forming a solid hammer and raised my arms high, aiming directly for the top of his skull to finish the fight.
Then, his hands shot up.
He caught my wrists mid-air; his grip was crushing.
'Fuck.'
I tried to rip my arms away.
But I couldn't release my hands from his iron lock.
A hollow sensation spread through my chest as my mana started draining away rapidly into his palms.
Zephyr looked up at me.
A crazy, smug smile stretched across his bleeding face.
"How does it feel?" he asked, his voice filled with arrogance.
His stupid smile annoyed me so much.
I didn't bother trying to pull my hands free anymore, just leaned back slightly and drove my forehead down hard, headbutting him squarely in the bridge of his nose.
A sick crunch echoed in the empty room.
But his hands did not loosen their grip.
So I did it again.
And again.
And again.
Blood started dripping down my own forehead.
It mixed with the sweat on my face and stung my eyes.
Zephyr's face was covered in red, but he stubbornly refused to let go of my wrists.
The guy had insane endurance.
My body was quickly growing weak. The power was practically draining out of my veins, and my vision started to darken at the edges.
'Just five more seconds,' I told myself, fighting the urge to pass out.
I pulled my head back, getting ready to hit him one last, brutal time.
But suddenly, our bodies separated without either of us intending to move.
'Huh?'
An invisible force wrapped tightly around my torso.
We both flew in opposite directions, but we did not hit the walls this time. Instead, we just stayed there, suspended and floating a few feet above the padded floor.
"Ah, it looks like you two boys have some serious history," a cheerful voice called out from the entrance.
Melissa walked into the training hall.
She was wearing a tight academy training uniform that suited her.
To her right side stood Mia.
The quiet, noble girl had her hands raised slightly. Her eyes were completely fixated on me, but there were no pupils visible in them right now.
'Telekinesis,' I realised, feeling the invisible grip holding me in the air.
'What an annoying skill.'
Across the room, the golden glow surrounding Zephyr's hands slowly flickered and died out.
His special timer was finally up, and his body slumped in the invisible hold, looking significantly weaker than mine.
"Are you guys done yet?" Melissa asked, crossing her arms under her chest.
Mia blinked.
The white faded from her eyes immediately, and the invisible force vanished instantly.
Both of our bodies dropped and hit the hard ground.
I landed on my feet but dropped to one knee.
I was panting hard as my mana core slowly tried to reboot itself.
Zephyr collapsed onto his side, practically on the verge of passing out from the intense mana drain and the heavy blood loss.
"We were just training," Zephyr muttered, weakly wiping the blood off his ruined face with his sleeve.
"If bleeding to death on the floor is your idea of training, then sure," Melissa replied smoothly.
She ignored the hero completely and walked straight toward me.
The click of her boots echoed in the quiet hall, and slowly crouched down so we were eye to eye.
"He ranked first in the entrance exams, and you just went toe to toe with him," she whispered.
Her soft hands reached out, warm fingertips gently grazed the side of my face, tracing the line of my jaw and wiping a drop of blood from my cheek.
The contrast of her gentle touch after such a brutal fight sent an unexpected thrill down my spine.
She leaned in closer, the sweet scent of her body cut right through the smell of sweat and blood in the room.
"Shane, the more I learn about your power, the more my interest in you increases," she said, her bright eyes staring deeply into mine.
"Why are you two here?" I asked.
I kept my voice low and steady, trying my best to ignore the heat radiating from her skin.
I looked past her shoulder at Mia, whose eyes had returned to normal, though her expression remained completely boring and blank.
"We are going to be in the same squad tomorrow," Melissa smiled, letting her thumb brush lightly over my lower lip.
"So naturally, I called Zephyr here tonight to talk about our strategy. I just didn't know you guys would start trying to kill each other before the meeting even started."
"We are in the same team?" I asked, my eyebrows raising in genuine surprise.
"Yes," she confirmed softly.
I turned my head and looked across the room at Zephyr.
He was slowly sitting up, glaring at me.
His sour expression made it completely obvious that he already knew about this arrangement.
That was the real reason he came down to the hall tonight.
He was waiting for Melissa, not me.
"Who is the other member?" Zephyr asked.
"Yallo, guys," a new voice drawled lazily from the shadows of the hallway.
A tall guy with long, black hair casually walked into the room.
He was wearing an oversized sweater, which made no sense for combat training or a midnight meeting.
He strolled in slowly, acting like he had been standing outside for ten minutes just waiting for the perfect moment to make his entrance.
It was Raven.
He was one of the major supporting characters of the original story.
'I have never seen so many important characters gathered in the same place this early in the timeline,' I thought to myself.
In my past life, this group never formed.
Zephyr, Mia, and Raven were all scattered across completely different squads.
The narrative was shifting at a different pace.
I slowly turned my attention back to the beautiful girl crouching right in front of me.
Her hand was still resting gently against my neck, her thumb tracing my throat.
'What is she planning?' I wondered, a feeling I couldn't understand.