Now an ordinary teacher would have been filled with jealousy at the sight of Malcolm's abilities, cursing their old age and reminiscing about the good old days in their prime, but Ollie was different, he believed that in order to survive humans needed to continuously evolve and adapt to become stronger than their foes, so for him it was exhilarating to find such a capable young man.
And he wanted to see just how far he could go.
For the next two months I lived on a set schedule, I go to the cafeteria for breakfast in the morning, train for a little while, and in the afternoon I go to the arena to learn new techniques from Ollie, who finally gave up on making me his disciple, and was oddly enough the most interesting time of the day, everyday he would introduce me to a new spacial technique. He would first demonstrate it and after I copied it, he would give me a crash course into its strengths, weaknesses, and all around awesomeness. afterwards he would just sit back and watch me as I experimented with the new ability, looking like a proud father, if I couldn't create anything new, he'd ask why, and I'd simply explain it to him as he jots down notes, but if I succeeded he goes berserk, feverishly trying to gather every ounce of information about this new ability he could.
"It's fucking back." Lucille groaned.
The 'It' she was referring to wasn't Ollie as most people would assume.
It was Sam. This kid thats been following us around lately. I don't even remember when it started, he just kinda popped up one day, anyway Lucille hates the guy I don't know why but something about him just pisses her off.
"Hey guys, how's it going? He called out cheerfully.
To be honest, I also don't trust the kid, all the other students go out of the way to avoid me, but this kid stuck like glue. Now I could've inherited my father's paranoia, scratch that, I KNOW I have my dad's paranoia so till I figure this guy out I'm with Lucille, but that doesn't mean I won't play along.
"Nothing much, " I say casually.
"just got out of class, thinking of heading to the training rooms, wanna come with?"
"No thanks, " he shook his head.
"I don't think I'll ever be strong enough to even train with you."
"Well, what's your schedule?" I ask.
"I'll find you after I'm done training, show me what you can do and I'll give you pointers.
" Really? 'cause that'd be cool."
He said as he fished he schedule out of he bag.
"I'll see you later man, " I call back as I walk away.
"Why does it seem like you actually want to be friends with him?" Lucille asked.
"Because I do." I answer.
"Well something about him is off, " she says while frowning.
"I feel like there's a reason he trying to get close to us."
"And I thought I was paranoid, " I laughed.
"Everything's fine, " I assure her.
"You're probably just nervous cause the four are coming back next month. Just calm down and give the kid a chance, not everyone is an enemy."
"Alright alright, I'll try, but I'm not taking my eyes off him."
"Me neither." I thought to myself.
I looked at sam's schedule and memorized all the classes he was attending, looks like he should be headed to gym class, that's on the other side of the school. I expand my area of perception to encompass the entire school and look for sam's energy, I found him, but he wasn't in gym class he was following us, far enough so that we wouldn't notice him and close enough to be able to keep up. Seems this isn't the first time he's had to tail someone, he good at hiding in the crowd, I just smile and keep walking.
When we get to the arena Ollie is waiting for me but this time there was someone else with him, and his appearance was completely different from Ollie, he stood around the same height as me with long black hair he also had round glasses and an air of confidence.
"Why am I here Oliver?" He asked impatiently.
Ollie just rolls his eyes and points to me.
"That's the one I've been telling you about." He said his voice filled with pride like it always is.
"Well he doesn't look like much to me."
"Then it means I'm doing my job right." I say.
He scoffs and sits down to observe us. Lucille sits next to him.
"Alright laddie what I'm showing you today is spacial armor, let me know when you're ready."
"That's it? That's how you teach a student?" mystery dude laughed.
Ollie just smiles and takes his stance I observe his flow of energy and carefully watched as he releases a layer of pure spacial energy to surround his body, he looked like he had a black transparent suit on.
I copy it and the same thing covers my body as well.
It's at this point mystery dude's eyes bulge and he almost jumps up.
" Now as the name suggests spacial armor is a basic defensive type ability it puts up a barrier by distorting the very space surrounding you."
I tested the new ability, as I did all the others, with a sparring match between me and Ollie, Spacial attacks only. I take off my hoodie as we stand on opposite sides of the arena and Ollie switches out his officer uniform to a kilt, arm guards, and combat boots.
"I swear, I will never understand how you fight in that thing." I chuckle pointing at his kilt.
"I'll never understand it either laddie, but it's been a tradition that's in my family since long before this war ever started."
"Cool."
15 minutes earlier.
While waiting for Malcom.
"Honestly Oliver, what am I doing here?" Mystery dude complains.
"Unlike you I actually have disciples to train."
"You don't wanna miss this." Ollie said smiling.
Now mystery dude found this weird, ordinarily whenever he made fun of Ollie's lack of disciples Ollie would fly into a rage and start cursing, but now he was acting like a kid who couldn't wait to show off his new toy. Mystery dude had never seen Ollie this excited before. He even began to suspect that Ollie might have found a disciple, but when he arrived mystery dude was not impressed. He expected Ollie's disciple to look a bit more like him, a huge hulking guy, but all he saw was some punk kid with a black mask who wasn't even wearing a uniform. The only thing noteworthy about him was that mystery dude couldn't sense his energy at all nor could he sense the energy of the girl that was with him.
Mystery dude sits on a log and Lucille sits next to him, he studies her briefly before deciding that she was unremarkable as well, he turned his attention back to Ollie and his student and burst out laughing when he saw the way Ollie taught, everyone knows that to learn a technique you need to do an in-depth analysis of the technique itself and learn its strengths and weaknesses, the way he was teaching was guaranteed to kill his student, he saw Ollie activate the spacial armor and as always he was impressed, now he will never tell him to his face but he always admired Ollie's talent when it came to spacial techniques. His talent was something you'd never see in again in your life time. But suddenly the kid he was teaching also activated spacial armor which nearly caused mystery dude's eyes to pop out. He calmed himself down once he thought about it and came to the conclusion that Ollie must have already taught this technique to him and was merely trying to show off, even if the kid is a little young to have already mastered spacial armor there was no way he just learned it, his skill was too perfect.
"Hmph, try to trick me will you?"
He grumbled to himself.
"You might want to put up a barrier." Lucille warns him.
"Why?" He asked.
"They tend to get a little too into it sometimes." She simply states as she nods in the direction of Ollie and Malcom.
What happened next was mind-numbing, they both charged each other, their clash creating shockwaves, and if he hadn't prepared a barrier before hand he would've been blown away, he looked on in amazement. He had known Ollie for a long time, they practically grew up together, and even though neither one would admit it, they were best friends as well as rivals, he has fought with Ollie and against him many times so he knew for a fact that he was going all out in this fight. Now the truly surprising part was that the kid he was fighting was matching him blow for blow, and mystery dude once witnessed Ollie overpower someone from the house of Fuerza.
"Where was he hiding that kind of power?" He wondered.
Suddenly Ollie summons his deadly technique 'Spacial Knives' mystery dude had seen this move countless times so he knew that Ollie could control ten at a time and about its massive destructive power, but instead of ten knives appearing twenty of them were summoned and mystery dude was nervous, since when can he control twenty?On the battlefield Ollie was near unstoppable when he used just ten knives, what happens when he uses twenty? But the kid once again blew mystery dude's mind when he summoned twenty black swords to intercept the knives.
"The second layer!?" He stood up abruptly. His hands were shaking and he was wide eyed. They started teleporting around the area and mystery dude had to use Spiritual energy just to keep track of them, the kid was even matching his speed, and his jaw nearly hit the ground when he saw them standing on the air.
"Even 'Air Walk'? He stood amazed.
As we descended towards the ground Ollie and I spoke.
"Its still hard to control twenty at once." Ollie grumbled.
"Relax, just evenly distribute your energy between the daggers and think of them as an extension of yourself, like each of them is a body part." I tell him.
Mystery dude approaches us and Ollie finally introduces us.
"Laddie, I want you to meet my life long rival, Clyde Vermillion, one of the current pillars.