The Great

Aurora Maple: Something about that boy made me feel strangely on edge. It was mainly because he gave me a weird feeling…..He was strange, unpredictable, and it seemed like he just really didn’t…belong.

Evay seemed nice but he definitely wasn't the most eye-catching person that I had ever seen. He seemed to lack a lot of confidence for a warrior, but he didn’t seem insufferably arrogant—which I appreciated a lot, actually. That was the first thing I had noticed about him. It was something I admired very much. But that was the problem. He was a little too nice and didn’t really look the part. A school full of the top warrior recruits in the empire tended to have very fit students and so anyone that wasn’t tended to stick out like a sore thumb. Evay was that sore thumb and more than anything he just seemed a little….lost.

I made my way through campus grounds and saw the greenery everywhere. It was all really beautiful and since school hadn’t started yet all the kids were spending time with their friends outside near the fountains and the trees.

The battle range was a large half-cylinder shaped building made out of titanium–collected from the mines of Villona. The school paid a fortune to get the metal for the range and it seemed to pay off–since the range hadn’t been destroyed in a while.

There were several tiles in the floor imbued with liquor that could monitor our vitals and our energy output. I swiped my student ID card through a slit in between two wooden blocks attached to the wall. The wood had purple veins coursing through it—indicating that liquor had been injected into it.

The door opened and I saw two people standing inside the massive range. I walked in and saw Geon and Lila standing in the middle of the range. I ran to them and gave Lila a shout, “Hey I thought you guys were going to the ward!”

Lila looked at me and gave me a smile and wave, “Well that was the plan, but it was mainly because we wanted you to get some alone time with….you know,” she whispered into my ear and looked at me with a teasing grin. I gave her an eye roll and Geon looked confused.

Lila was always supportive of me and always outgoing. She was pretty, funny, smart, and a great person. Ever since we were kids we were friends and we were always stuck together. I really loved her but she could be annoying at times…..Especially since she had always tried to pair me up with random guys since our academy days. She had always been good at that love and dating stuff since she was so pretty but I couldn’t really get the hang of that stuff for the life of me.

I could talk to people….just in the sense that I could give orders. I’m not really sure if that counted as talking so depending on who you asked I guess I really couldn’t talk to people.

She laughed and started to walk over to the platform which contained the operating panel for the range. She sat down and stretched a bit before yawning and leaning back in a chair. It was the first time I really got to look at Geon and I wanted to see what he was capable of. Liquor acted like a trigger for a blueprint that was laid out within our bodies. Once this blueprint was triggered by consuming liquor, you would be able to continually activate your blueprint, and therefore we would be able to continually use our powers—taking fatigue into mind.

Geon had extremely fine control of his abilities—formally called ‘skills’—but I didn’t know what they were. I heard he had won a warrior youth tournament in the past and based on his composure and aura I could feel he was quite elite. He was taller than most—standing about a head above me—and he had messy soft gray hair that came down his forehead and flattened out at the back. He had soft gray eyes and a face that looked like it was always up to no good. He was undeniably handsome and would probably be pestered by a bunch of my friends this year, but he looked like a handful for my future teachers as well. I sighed, so you're one of those troublemakers huh…..

Actually he seems decent. Geon was no saint—I could feel that just by looking at him—but the way he took care of Evay and made friends with him so quickly made me think he wasn’t just some bombastic clown.

I need to find out what his abilities are though. If I was going to compete with people I need every advantage I can get. “Hey Geon, I want you to spar with me just a bit”, my voice was confident and ready. He looked a little taken aback but quickly smiled.

“Oh, ok. That sounds fun,” he looked completely different when preparing for battle. The usually happy-go-lucky grin faded into an almost psychotic smile. Lila looked a little worried but I gave her a reassuring nod. She looked at both of us and pouted while making her way to the spectators seats.

“If you guys die I swear I’ll kill you,” she shouted at us with annoyance from afar as she pressed a stone button on the wall. The ground trembled slightly as stone barriers were erected around the entrances.

There was a reason why I wanted to face Geon, and fortunately I was lucky enough to run into him this early in the year. It was really unlike myself to challenge people to battles outside of practice and tournaments, but Geon was one of the three students in the last 150 years to get accepted into Edon Academy via full-ride scholarship. This was a special case–I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to spar a great warrior.

The only thing that caused the school to be a bit wary of him was his complicated family history which…..was rough to say the least. He was strong, really strong, and I wanted to see how I stood against the best. Geon stretched his arms while eyeing me closely for any additional information. He then dipped down into a low stance with his arms wide at his sides and gave me an intense smile.

“Alright Ms. Aurora, let’s see what you can do.”

Geon’s look did nothing to deter my determination. Lila looked at both of us and immediately activated another one of the billions of buttons on the wall beside her. Once the ‘start’ button was activated a glass cover appeared over the control panel which was responsible for all of the intricacies that operated the battle range. The timer started and a loud bell rang around the range which indicated the battle had begun. Geon wasted no time as he charged straight forward. He has no acceleration time. I can’t avoid him.

I crossed my arms to block his charge. I felt an explosive force slam into me, like a raging bull that was strapped with an explosive cannonball had just hit my chest. The pain was a lot more than just intense as I winced from both the impact of the attack and the pain caused by my back slamming into the metal walls behind me. I looked up and I couldn’t believe what I saw. There was an actual explosion as smoke arose like a black curtain around the battlefield. What in the world…..Were his powers related to explosions? That didn’t explain how he charged at me with such speed though. There was no explosion at the beginning.

I coughed as the smoke filled my lungs and made my eyes water--I needed to keep my guard up since the smoke covered his movements.

“Hey come one now, just one attack isn’t gonna end this right?” I heard his usual teasing-voice echo into the air. I used it as fuel for my motivational fire. I focused all my hearing into the sounds of his footsteps, the sound of his breathing, the wisps of smokes that flew as he pranced around me.

My usual auburn hair turned into a shade of electric blue and my arms were coated in dark-purple, lightning shaped markings which crossed into each other.

I had the ability to finely control electrons and create and manipulate electricity. It was quite the basic power compared to so many other of my classmates and friends over the years, but my ability had an extremely high skill ceiling. There was no limit to how high I could go and as I grew I seemed to grow exponentially while everyone else grew at a linear pace. Everyone at this school was brilliant. They had also always been at the top of their classes up until now. At age 15 I hadn’t ever seen too many people more fit to be a successful warrior than me, but I knew I would have to sober up entering this school year. Even knowing that, fighting Geon gave me a pretty unexpected reality check.

“Your smokescreen is annoying but this will have to hit you somewhere right,” I shouted at Geon and struck the ground with the palm of my hand. Intense white-hot electricity crawled all over the floor and spread rapidly like blue vines across the entire building. There was a loud crack of electricity as my attack had dissipated all of the smoke. I looked around with wide eyes as I searched for Geon. He wasn’t anywhere in sight……

I fired a strong volt of electricity to my right and heard the squeak of Geon’s shoes as he moved away to dodge my attack. I found you.

I sprang towards him and launched a volley of electricity at Geon who was in the air. These electric strikes were like bullets--they were smaller and much less powerful compared to some of my attacks, but they made up for it in quantity. He landed like a cat on both of his feet and moved rapidly in all directions. He dodged effectively as he ducked, jumped and slipped over my strikes. He dove and landed on his hands and then launched himself in the air as he seemed to float and he spun twice all before landing.

The small bullets of electricity all smashed into the walls behind Geon as they punctured holes through the range walls. My electricity usually spreads rapidly as the more positively charged environment heavily attracts my discharged negative electrons. Usually I get one hit out of my volleys, but I guess I need to try something else…..

I built up a concentrated charge of electricity and laced my entire left arm with it. Blue lightning flowed down my arm in the shape of my markings and wrapped around my fingers in an X pattern--while fully manifesting in my fingertips. I ran towards Geon and waited for him to jump as my last electric bullet from my volley barreled towards him.

He jumped and I hopped slightly into the air and aimed my arm at his chest. Blue electricity, shaped like a long arrow flew towards Geon as it pierced through the air and speared him in the chest. I smiled widely as I knew the attack had hit. Heaven’s arrow was an attack that I had developed myself. It had amazing accuracy and could pierce through almost anything--as well as carry the same effects of my normal weaponized electricity. However, I only had one shot with Heaven’s arrow since it takes a long time to charge up. So I always had to make it count.

Luckily, I did make it count.

The recoil of the blast had launched me into the air—causing me to flip backwards and land on my feet. I looked up and expected to see Geon hurt or even on the ground but he was standing. He was more than standing, he was….unfazed.

How? That should have done something….I looked on with an impassive face. I thought that something like this might happen and I was still confident that I could win but….

I didn’t think he’d fend off the attack so easily. What are his abilities? I looked at his side and saw that my attack had at least put a small scratch along the side of his torso. It was bleeding slightly but that was a far cry from what the damage should have been.

“Ow,” Geon smiled at me and began to get excited. “I can tell you're confused so I’ll tell you what I did to neutralize your attack. I have the ability to control, combine, and bring forth any element that exists on this Earth. I guess it made me smarter since I had to memorize all of them from a young age, but anyways, I combined a bunch of different elements together–you know nitrogen, hydrogen, the good stuff–and combined a bunch of other stuff in order together in order to make an anti-static spray. I had to tweak some stuff in order to make it effective against your level of electricity but yeah, that’s the gist,” he began to inch towards me.

I spoke, “So the charge at the beginning, did you somehow cause the oxygen and carbon dioxide around you to lift you up? For the explosions, you combined certain elements in order to cause a blast right?” I knew what his abilities were now but that didn’t help me as much as I thought it would.

“Well that’s a lot easier said than done but yeah that’s pretty much it,” he strutted towards me and had that same psychotic look in his eyes. He launched himself toward me and I tried to blast a short range, web-shaped, electric net at him. This has crazy effective short-range damage–it needs to work.

Geon raised his hand and pulled a piece of the wall toward him—which came flying towards us and blocked my electric net. The walls are all made of metal…..I sidestepped and flew to the right, which caused me to come face to face with Geon. I laced my fist in electricity and my eyes began to glow blue. Electricity coursed through my body speeding up my reflexes and reaction time.

Geon threw a right cross with his long arms and I slipped it, ducking under him and launching into a takedown. He swiftly raised his knee and it hit me square in the chin—causing me to see black for a second. Even so, I grabbed hold of his lower body and jumped into the air. I let electricity run freely through my body and I began to glow blue. “Hey Geon, this one might hurt a bit more,” I smiled at him but in the midst of everything, he looked as calm as ever. The electricity began to make my blood boil as it seeped into all of my cells. My vision began to blur and my head began to steam. A little more, more, more……

Geon began to maneuver towards the wall and he constantly fought off my rising electricity.

I finally reached the maximum output point.

I let all the electricity in my body go free and I felt a rush of energy begin to expel into Geon. The air felt full of static electricity, blue glow began to illuminate the surrounding area, and white hot fire began to sear into Geon’s shirt.

I started to close my eyes as I awaited the destruction. Geon darted towards the wall and launched himself against it. He turned around and bashed me into the wall and pulled an entire sheet of the wall over us. The wall behind him began to vanish and I was being wrapped in a blanket of metal. I began to hold on harder but my physical strength was weakening. He grabbed my fist and a burning sensation began to rub against my wrist—some kind of acid? I couldn’t hold on and I let go. He jumped back and closed in the metal sheet, all in quick succession.

Geon jumped back and he unleashed an entire wall of red hot fire right into me.

It was about time. My energy released and a flash of violent blue light and lightning radiated out and a massive explosion rang out into my ears.

I felt a rush of intense fire spread around me and I began to fade out.

I grinned slightly and blacked out as I felt the very ground crack and the walls of the range began to tumble.