Across the other side of the blockhead, Lucas and Jayden t.
The air sparked with ozone as electricity coursed over Lucas's fists, casting sharp shadows across his determined features. Across from him, Jayden's hand moved to his hip, drawing a pale blade that seed to glow under the ergency lights—the distinctive ivory sheen of beast bone catching the dim illumination.
'Category 3 bone,' Lucas noted, electricity intensifying around his hands. 'Non-conductive. Smart bastard.'
The temperature continued to drop, frost crystallizing along the tunnel walls in intricate patterns. Jayden's breath ca out in visible puffs as he raised the blade, his other hand trailing along its length. Where his fingers passed, blue flas sprouted and danced, wrapping around the bone like hungry serpents.
"Rember this?" Jayden's voice carried that sa mocking edge as he settled into a familiar stance. "You always did hate my sword work."
Lucas shifted his weight, eyes tracking every minute movent. "Funny. I rember you hating my right hook more."
They moved simultaneously—Jayden's blade cutting a burning arc through the air as Lucas ducked and weaved, electricity trailing behind him like luminous afterimages. The first exchange was brutal and quick: sword ets lightning-charged forearm, sparks scatter, bodies pivot and separate.
'Still favors his left side,' Lucas thought, dodging another slash. 'So things never change.'
The tunnel filled with the sound of crackling energy—both electrical and thermal—as they clashed again. Lucas caught the flat of the blade between his palms, electricity surging, but the bone composition nullified any conducting effect. Jayden's smirk widened as he pushed forward, the blue flas intensifying.
"Having trouble?" Jayden taunted, breaking the blade lock with a sudden twist. "What's wrong? Can't shock what you can't conduct through?"
Lucas rolled with the movent, putting distance between them. The tal floor beneath his feet had beco treacherously cold, ice spreading in concentric circles from where Jayden stood. 'He's not just heating the sword,' Lucas realized. 'He's actively cooling everything else. Creating temperature differentials.'
Jayden pressed his advantage, blade weaving complex patterns through the air. Each slash left trails of blue fire that lingered for seconds before dissipating. Lucas was forced to backpedal, looking for openings while avoiding both blade and flas.
"You're different," Lucas noted between exchanges, deflecting a thrust with an electrically-charged palm strike. "Your control's better."
"Aww," Jayden mock-cooed, transitioning smoothly into a spinning slash. "You noticed? I'm touched."
The fight carried them deeper into the tunnel, their powers painting the tal walls in alternating flashes of blue and white. Lucas maintained his defensive stance, analyzing, waiting. Each clash sent cascades of sparks showering around them, ice lting and refreezing in their wake.
'His rhythm hasn't changed,' Lucas observed, counting the beats between Jayden's combinations. 'Three strikes, then reset. Always three.'
The next exchange was fiercer. Lucas tid his counter perfectly, stepping inside Jayden's guard during the reset. His lightning-wrapped fist grazed Jayden's ribs, earning a sharp hiss of pain. But Jayden responded instantly, the temperature around them plumting so rapidly that Lucas's next breath felt like inhaling needles.
"First blood to you," Jayden acknowledged, rotating his shoulder. The grin never left his face. "But you're still so... predictable."
The sword ca up again, but this ti Jayden's free hand shot forward. The air between them distorted with heat, forcing Lucas to dive sideways. Where he'd been standing, the tal wall behind him glowed cherry-red.
'Distance control,' Lucas thought, rolling to his feet. 'He's trying to restrict my movent options.'
They circled each other, powers flaring. The confined space of the tunnel worked against them both—Lucas couldn't fully utilize his mobility, and Jayden's heat manipulation risked becoming too concentrated. Ice continued spreading across surfaces, only to lt and refreeze as waves of heat pulsed through the space.
"You know what your problem is, Lucas?" Jayden called out, blade trailing azure flas as he gestured. "You're still fighting like we're in a training hull. Still pulling your punches."
Lucas didn't respond, but his eyes narrowed. The electricity around his fists intensified, casting his face in harsh shadows.
"The Harbingers changed everything," Jayden continued, his voice dropping lower. "The old rules? They don't apply anymore. But you? You're still trying to play hero, still trying to protect everyone."
He punctuated the statent with a vicious combination—sword thrust transitioning into a heat wave that forced Lucas to vault backwards. The tal floor where he'd been standing bubbled slightly from the intensity.
"That's why you'll lose," Jayden pressed, advancing steadily. "That's why School 12 will always be second-rate. You can't win a war by playing nice."
Lucas's jaw tightened. The air around him began to charge, static electricity making his hair stand on end. "You done with the speech?"
Jayden's eyes glittered. "Almost. Just wanted to add—" He brought his sword up in a guard position. "Say hi to your sister for ."
The temperature spike was instant and massive. The very air seed to ignite as Jayden channeled heat through his blade in a devastating arc. But Lucas was already moving, electricity crackling along his entire body as he charged straight through the thermal attack.
Their powers collided in a catastrophic release of energy. Lightning t fla in a explosion that sent them both skidding backwards. The tunnel walls groaned under the strain, ergency lights flickering wildly.
'Now,' Lucas thought, seeing Jayden's stance waver slightly. 'Three strikes, then reset.'
He launched forward, timing his movent perfectly. Jayden's blade ca up, trailing blue fire—one, two, three strikes. As he began to reset his position, Lucas struck. Electricity surged through his right arm, condensing into a focused bolt that bypassed the sword entirely.
The lightning struck Jayden square in the chest, illuminating the tunnel in a brilliant flash of white. For a mont, ti seed to stop, their shadows stark against the walls. Then Jayden was flying backwards, his perfect stance finally broken, body impacting the frost-covered floor with a resounding crash.
The sword clattered beside him, its blue flas temporarily extinguished, and silence fell over the tunnel once more.
Jayden coughed violently, sparks still dancing across his chest as he pushed himself to one knee. The frost beneath him had lted in a perfect circle, steam rising from his superheated skin. His breathing ca in ragged gasps, but his eyes—those cold, calculating eyes—never left Lucas's form.
'Speed,' he thought bitterly, tasting copper in his mouth. 'Always that damned speed.'
Lucas stood over him, electricity still crackling along his arms. "I warned you about ntioning her."
A wet chuckle escaped Jayden's lips. "Still... so protective." He spat blood onto the tal floor, watching it sizzle. "How touching."
"The east wing, Jayden?" Lucas's voice carried an edge sharper than any blade. "Those were innocent people. Folks who had nothing to do with this."
'Should've drawn it out longer,' Jayden thought, fingers inching toward his fallen sword. 'The cold would've slowed him down eventually. Amateur mistake.'
"Consider this a warning shot," Lucas continued, either not noticing or not caring about Jayden's subtle movent. "Next ti you want to send a ssage, have the spine to deliver it yourself not over so live stream."
Jayden's laugh was hollow, echoing off the frost-covered walls. "Oh, I'll deliver sothing alright." His hand closed around the sword's hilt. "But not here. Not now."
"The tournant arena," Lucas stated, rather than asked. "Do it there in front of everyone. For the last ti, let this Lucas vs Jayden debate finally end. I grow tired of it,"
"Poetic, isn't it?" Jayden pushed himself to his feet, using the sword for support. "Where better to end this tired narrative, as you called it? In front of hundreds." His smile turned predatory. "Just like last ti."
Lucas's eyes narrowed. "Last ti didn't end well for you."
"Last ti..." Jayden straightened, rolling his shoulders. "Last ti was educational."
'You have no idea what that defeat taught ,' he thought, rembering the humiliation of watching Lucas's soul awakening form for the first ti. 'What it drove to beco.'
"You know what makes S-ranked soldiers like us different, Lucas?" Jayden's voice dropped lower, sothing dark creeping into his tone. "We may be rare but what we lack in numbers, we make up for with the sheer dog in us. We never surrender, we learn. We adapt. We evolve."
The temperature in the tunnel began to rise again, subtle but noticeable.
"And so of us?" He continued, his grip tightening on the sword. "So of us don't have that pesky little thing called conscience holding us back."
Lucas took a step toward the tunnel's exit. "Save the monologue for the arena, Jayden. I've got teammates to find."
"Ah yes, your little rescue party." Jayden's smile widened. "Micah and the others, right? Currently entertaining my n?" He lifted his sword, examining its edge in the ergency lighting. "I wonder how they're holding up,"
Lucas paused, shoulders tensing.
"You know what your problem is?" Jayden called after him, heat beginning to shimr in the air. "You always assu the fight's over just because you landed one good hit."
The sword in his hand began to glow, not with the previous blue flas, but with sothing different—sothing that made the very air around it distort.
'Show you sothing new,' Jayden thought, feeling the familiar surge of power building in his core. 'Sothing I learned after you humiliated . After you showed everyone your true power.'
"Running off to help your friends?" His voice carried through the tunnel, dripping with malice. "That's adorable." The heat continued to build, tal walls groaning under the thermal stress. "But who said I was letting you leave?" Jayden said already charging with the sword now ignited with a new dangerous looking fla.
The flash of intense light caught Lucas's peripheral vision first—brighter than any fla he'd seen before, casting harsh shadows that made the tunnel walls look like they were bleeding. As he turned, ti seed to slow, giving him a perfect view of what Jayden had beco.
The sword wasn't burning anymore. It was screaming, surrounded by a sheath of superheated matter that made the air itself warp and twist. Plasma—the fourth state of matter. The sa stuff that made up stars.
'He's ionizing the air,' Lucas realized, his combat-trained mind racing to process the implications. 'Converting normal matter into plasma through extre heat manipulation. When did he learn to—'
His thoughts cut off as Jayden swung the plasma-wrapped blade in a devastating arc. Lucas instinctively channeled lightning through his arms, raising them in a defensive cross-guard. It was a mistake.
The collision was catastrophic. Plasma, by its very nature, was already ionized—a soup of electrons and ions in a high-energy state. When Lucas's lightning t this superheated, ionized matter, physics took over. The electrical discharge found a perfect conductor in the plasma, creating a feedback loop that neither of them could control.
The resulting explosion sent Lucas flying backward, his skin tingling with residual energy. He slamd into the tal wall hard enough to dent it, electricity crackling erratically around his body as he slumped to the floor.
'The rules have changed,' he thought through the haze of pain. 'Everything's different now.'
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Jayden's voice carried over the humming of his plasma blade. "The interaction between plasma and electricity? It's simple, really. Your lightning might be powerful, Lucas, but it's still just moving electrons. And plasma?" He chuckled. "Plasma is what happens when you strip atoms of their electrons entirely. Create enough heat, and matter fundantally changes."
Lucas pushed himself up, wincing. "Since when did you beco a physicist?"
"Since you showed I needed to be better." Jayden took a asured step forward, the plasma blade leaving afterimages in the air. "You held back because you were afraid of killing ? How noble. How weak." His smile turned cruel. "I held back because I wasn't ready. But now?"
The temperature in the tunnel continued to rise, tal surfaces beginning to glow dull red.
"You know what the funny part is?" Jayden continued, gesturing with his free hand. "Yesterday's attack on your school? That was just the bait. And you?" His laugh echoed off the walls. "You walked right into it, bringing exactly who I expected you to bring."
Lucas's eyes narrowed, a cold feeling settling in his stomach that had nothing to do with the temperature fluctuations.
"Bailey's sound manipulation? Countered. Oba's energy redirection? Planned for. Micah's gravity control?" Jayden's smile widened. "Child's play. And your lightning?" He gestured with the plasma blade. "Well, you just saw how that works out."
"You're lying," Lucas growled, but uncertainty crept into his voice.
"Am I? Your team is scattered, facing opponents specifically chosen for them. Even your surprise addition—" Jayden paused dramatically. "Noah, was it? The year one you brought along?" His eyes glittered with malice. "He's currently entertaining Diana."
Lucas's eyes went wide, genuine fear flashing across his features for the first ti since the fight began as he heard the last na. The na hit him like a physical blow, making his breath catch in his throat.
Because Diana wasn't just another student. Diana was sothing else entirely.
And Lucas had just led Noah straight to her.
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