Chapter 5: Watching a Show

  The training hall had devolved into a Michael Bay wet dream. The young superhumans moved like gods slumming it at a demolition derby. Take the mountain masquerading as a person: a 10-foot-tall meat slab who bulldozed drones like they were cardboard cutouts. His biceps had biceps. When he punted a molten-wax cannon into the stratosphere, it left a crater that probably was deeper than Calum was tall.

  Then there was Katana Kid. He was some weeb’s fever dream brought to life. His blade sliced through steel like warm butter, leaving a trail of bisected drones that glittered with anime-grade impracticality. Calum half-expected a JRPG victory fanfare to blare every time he struck a pose.

  Worse was the girl with the disintegration aura. Things just… un-existed near her. A drone swooped too close? Poof. Now a pile of dust.

  And then there was her, Platinum Braid, the S-grade's apparent ice-queen commander. Her power had to do something with controlling movement. In her radius, drones froze mid-air like flies in amber, and pellets suspended themselves in the air as if you were to stop time in a rainstorm.

  The X-grades, meanwhile, were more avant-garde. Enoch in particular fought like someone had fed a John Wick marathon into a shredder and snorted the confetti. One second he was dodging lasers with Matrix-level flair, the next he was dismantling a drone’s circuitry with a paperclip and chewing gum. Was it super-speed? Precog? Superintelligence? Time manipulation? Calum gave up guessing after Enoch somehow produced a bag of Skittles mid-combat. The S-grades looked equally baffled. Katana Kid actually paused his anime protagonist routine to gawk as Enoch taunted a drone swarm by doing the Electric Slide.

  Calum had the best view of the entire field mostly because he was currently dangling 100 meters above them, trapped in a net suspended by a drone that resembled Wall-E’s meth-addicted cousin.

  Could he break free? Probably. But why bother? Down there was a no-man’s-land of rogue laser fire, eldritch disintegration fields, and a dude who produced supersonic shrapnel by barreling through everything within sight. Up here? Quiet. Peaceful. A front-row seat to the show below.

  A gel pellet whizzed past, barely missing his net. Looking down to find its origin Calum found Enoch waving from atop a collapsing obstacle, grinning like an 8-year-old visiting Disneyland for the first time. “C’mon, bro! The waters warm!”

  Calum closed his eyes and reclined in his nylon hammock. “Hard pass.”

  The chaotic battle blurred into white noise, lulling Calum toward a nap—until the net vanished beneath him. His stomach lodged in his throat as he plummeted, already drafting his obituary (Here lies Calum Vey, who thought napping mid-combat was smart).

  He hit the ground with a thud softer than a dropped pillow.

  Looking up, he found the entire class staring. Provost Cain stood over him, holding the shredded net like a disappointed parent with a broken vase. “Sleeping on the job, Mr. Vey? How… ambitious.”

  The S-grades snickered. Enoch mimed snoring.

  Cain tossed the net aside. “Now that everyone’s here—” he smiled at Calum, “—let’s proceed to Phase Two: Limit Testing. Based on your earlier flailing, I’ve devised educational matchups. Testing weaknesses finding limitations that kind of thing”

  He tapped his tablet and the screens flared: IVAN vs. CASSANDRA.

  The mountain—Ivan—lumbered forward. He moved like a glacier with each footstep cratering the floor as he stepped into a freshly materialized arena. The human-shaped boulder cracked his neck, the sound echoing like a tree trunk snapping.

  Cain yawned. “Cassandra, sweetheart, usually I’d say ‘hold back to avoid fatalities,’ but…” He gestured at Ivan. “Try your worst.”

  She quickly took her position her hands glowed faintly the air around them warping as if reality itself were fraying at the edges.

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  “Begin!” Cain barked.

  Cassandra struck first, hands sweeping outward in a lethal arc. A cone of distortion rippled forward, turning the floor to sand and the air to acid-tinged mist. A drone caught on the edge crumbled like a sandcastle in a hurricane.

  But despite the destruction around him, Ivan walked through it seemingly unaffected.

  His boots disintegrated. His shirt dissolved. His pants became a very unfortunate loincloth. But his skin? Unscathed. Not even a sunburn.

  “What the—” Cassandra’s smirk faltered as Ivan kept advancing.

  “Hit him harder!” Katana Kid yelled, earning a middle finger from Cassandra.

  Meanwhile, Ivan had reached Cassandra.

  She backpedalled, sweat dripping as her power lashed out wildly. A support beam aged to dust beside them. Ivan’s fist swung—slow but inevitable, a continental plate in motion.

  Cassandra dodged… mostly. The shockwave of the punch’s miss sent her skidding, her disintegration field sputtering like a faulty neon sign.

  “STOP FUCKING MOVING!” she screamed, desperation creeping in. Her next cone attack flickered—weaker now, fraying at the edges.

  Ivan grabbed a chunk of collapsed piller —half-disintegrated concrete—and threw it. Cassandra vaporized it mid-air, but the debris became a sandstorm of particles that choked her.

  He was on her before she recovered.

  One hand closed around her wrist.

  “Yield,” Ivan rumbled, his first word of the day.

  Cassandra’s free hand flared, disintegration sputtering against Ivan’s chest…

  …and fizzling.

  In desperation she flailed around like a badger with its hand caught in a bear trap it was clear to everyone that there was no possible way of escaping his grasp.

  “Yield,” Ivan repeated.

  And after much reluctance, Cassandra spat a frustrated. “Fine!”

  The class erupted into murmurs. Enoch whistled. “Dude’s built like one of those old Nokias.”

  Cain clapped, grinning. “Excellent!" “Any key takeaways?

  “—Indestructible assholes ruin everything,” Cassandra muttered, nursing her wrist as she slunk back to the S-grade ranks.

  Ivan shrugged a tectonic shift of muscle that made his braid clink faintly, like a wind chime made of anvils.

  The Katana Kid raised his hand like he was in an elementary school " Don't get in a fistfight with a Bruiser?"

  “Yeah yeah, sure" Cain waved dismissively in this direction "But the real lesson? Ivan’s not just a meat castle. He’s a clever meat castle. Notice how he herded her into the debris cloud? Remember nothing is more dangerous than a person using their power with a little bit of forethought.”

  Cain’s grin sharpened as the screens flickered again. “ ENOCH vs. Lt. FINN!”

  Enoch was in the arena before anyone had even noticed wearing a pair of red-tinted circular sunglasses that seemingly appeared from nowhere. “Finally, a worthy opponent! Our battle will be legendary!”

  Enoch’s grin didn’t falter, even as Lieutenant Finn stepped forward. The S-grade telekinetic moved like a chess piece come to life—all crisp angles and cold calculation. Her platinum braid immaculate, her uniform starched to knife-edge, and her glare promised a very painful death.

  “Oh, hello,” Enoch purred, rotating the serpent ring on his thumb. “You here to teach me posture?”

  Lt. Finn didn’t dignify that with words.

  "Begin!"

  Enoch moved first to the naked eye, he simply flickered. A hailstorm of projectiles materialized mid-air: throwing knives, shuriken, darts tipped with neon gel, even a handful of screws stolen from the arena’s mangled drones. They hung suspended inches from Finn’s face, frozen in her telekinetic grip. The only proof the projectiles were thrown instead of just appearing was Enoch’s arm, frozen still extended in a follow-through, fingers loosely cradling another dagger.

  Finn didn’t flinch. Her polished boots clicked against the floor as she advanced, trailing a finger through the metallic swarm. She plucked a knife from the air, examining its edge with the disdain of a chef inspecting discount cutlery. Her power had Enoch stuck in place like a statue unable to move even an inch. She closed the distance like an Executioner's axe, it was clear to the observers that the fight was already over.

  She was five meters away when his sunglasses ignited. The lenses flared nuclear red, twin supernovas that punched beams of concentrated light straight through her torso. The smell of burnt hair hung in the air as Finn staggered, clutching the cauterized holes beneath her ribs. For a heartbeat, the arena held its breath—then the telekinetic crumpled, her rigid posture dissolving into a twitching heap.

  Art?