Out of curiosity Rhys followed Instructor Zora and Connor's group from a distance as they made they way to team 4. The group who had just won their match and by sheer bad luck would be fighting against Connor's group next.
Rhys leaned against the barrier of a pit a few meters away from the group and watched the scene unfold.
"Listen up team 4, your next match will be against team 25. You'll be fighting against them to earn a place in the second round." She gestured to the group of three guys and a girl standing behind her.
It was painful to watch as team 4s gleeful faces turned listless and depressed. Rhys had expected to see this kind of reaction but it didn't stop him from feeling bad for them.
Rhys squinted at team 4 and the familiar faces he recognised among them. Three members of this team had been in his initiation group a few days ago. They had been there when the room adjacent to theirs had lit up with electrical energy, and bloodied hands had banged desperately against the transparent walls. They already knew about Connor's terrifying ability, maybe that was why they looked so crestfallen.
[Name: Unknown]
[Aura: Telekinesis (weak)]
[Name: Unknown]
[Aura: Water manipulator (weak)]
The telekinetic guy from his initiation group balled up his fists as his face crumpled up in pain. The girl standing next to him had a similar expression on her face, she had also been in Rhys's initiation group.
She let out shaky breath. "We forfeit the match."
Her other teammates said nothing to oppose her, so it seemed like they were all in agreement.
"Huh?" Zora belittled them with her eyes. "You seriously don't even want to try fighting them?"
The telekinetic guy spoke up this time. "We can't win against them, so what's the point in risking our lives for a match? The best case scenario here is that we come out of this with a few injuries. The worst is that we die. It's not worth it."
He had obviously thought this through, they all had, and they were choosing to give up instead of going through unnecessary pain.
Zora once again glided her palm over her smooth egg head and grunted. "If you forfeit a match you immediately get put in the F category. Are guys okay with that?"
They hesitated for a moment. The telekinetic guy didn't looks so sure anymore, the threat of being rated as an F student had stopped him in his tracks. However the hesitation only lasted a moment, because his eyes dimmed again.
"Yes, we're sure."
"Suit yourselves." Zora rolled her eyes as she turned back to Connor's group. "Okay boys, since this team gave up, you've officially made it to round two of the tournament. The second round will start when all the matches from the first round are over. So just walk around, stay warm and you'll be called to fight in no time." With that said Zora speed walked to the other side of the gym where another soldier was trying to get her attention.
"Too scared to fight us?" The ginger haired teleported on Connor's team was all smiles as he looked at team 4.
"I guess being a smart coward is better than being a normal coward." He laughed so innocently that you would never be able to tell from his chuckles alone that he was insulting them. "Isn't that right Connor?"
When all he got was silence, he turned around to see that Connor had already walked away.
"Connor! Wait up!" He pouted.
Rhys straightened up a little bit when he realised that Connor was actually walking towards him.
Connor's long strides came to a halt a few paces in front of Rhys, who stared forward at the most feared freshmen on campus.
There was a stretch of silence wherein Connor stared at Rhys, and Rhys defiantly stared right back.
"I'm surprised that you made it to the second round." Connor looked incredulously down at his scrawny roommate. The guy whom had to save from having a panic attack in the bathroom, did it make sense that someone like that could be enrolled in the military college, let alone win a match against someone else.
Rhys deadpanned at the comment and felt all his anxiety fly out the proverbial window, it was replaced by annoyance. This guy had straight up ignored him when they were in their room but now he suddenly felt like talking...?
Rhys scowled at Connor. "I'm surprised you haven't killed anyone yet."
"Just haven't had the chance."
Rhys had to stop himself from laughing at Connor's reply. For someone who barely spoke he was surprisingly witty. Rhys was in the middle of thinking up a good comeback when an arm slinked over Connor's shoulder.
"Who're you talking to?" It was the red head teleporter on Connor's team, a guy who seemed to be trying to make friends with Connor like so many of the others had.
"My roommate."
"Oh?" The teleporter regarded Rhys with an expression he was all too familiar with. The 'seriously-this-guy?' Look.
"Hey, Ezra." Connor shifted his gaze to the side to meet the teleporter's eyes.
"Yeah?"
"Don't. Touch. me."
Connor's aura instantly doubled in size, it raged and crackled with a surging energy that was almost painful for Rhys to look at. Ezra immediately took his arm off of Connor's shoulder and jumped a few steps backwards.
Connor regarded him coldly, not in the way you would look at a friend, and walked away, leaving Ezra and Rhys to catch their breaths. You didn't need an aura detection ability to sense the danger that emanated from Connor. He was like a bomb that threatened to go off at anytime, at least Rhys now knew that touching him would be a potential trigger.
"Hey Rhys!" He snapped back to reality at the sound of Sampson's voice a distance away. Rhys jogged back to their match pit and was happy to find that both Sampson and Nim were fully healed. Nim's healing had taken a bit longer because of the tiny metal blades that had made it past her skin and needed fishing out, but she seemed completely fine now. Even the water manipulator from the other team had been treated for his burns and was heading over to the benches after staring daggers into the back of Sampson's head.
"There are only a handful of groups still fighting, so we should get ready for the next match. By the way what happened with that other group? Don't tell me their match is already over." Joel's eyes went wide at the thought.
"No it's not that. When the instructor told them they would be fighting against Connor's group, they decided to forfeit the match."
Nim's eyes drifted towards the floor as she gripped her wrist with her other hand. Although she was physically fine, mentally she didn't look all there.
"I usually wouldn't agree with just giving up, but in that case..." Joel's voice drifted to Connor's group standing a few feet away.
Sampson was silent and he looked like he was deep in thought.
"If we have to fight them in an upcoming round would you guys just give up?" Rhys wasn't asking the question to shame them, he genuinely wanted to know whether they were okay with fighting team 25.
"No way." Sampson was confident. "I'm not a coward and I'm not going to lose to that tattooed freak."
Rhys was also confident that he wanted to fight Connor. He knew if he did, he would definitely grow stronger, and that was something he desperately needed. However, if Joel and Nim refused to fight would they still be able to go into a match?
"I'll fight with you guys." Joel nodded earnestly.
"I'll try my best." Nim sighed still looking downward. This first match had been pretty painful for her already, Rhys could understand her reluctance but that really wasn't what he needed. He needed someone who wanted to fight and could actually fight. Not a healer who had no battle sense at all. If only the poison generation girl had been on their team...
The last couple of barriers were switched off in quick succession of each other, and medical staff rushed in to heal the injured people. Round 1 came to an end and round 2 began shortly.
Rhys watched from the edges of the gym while the new pits were being formed. It was pretty cool to see the floor panels closing up again and sealing off the 24 pits that had been there. After some mechanical whirring and churning noises were heard under the floor, the panels opened up again to revel 12 match pits this time. The pits were almost double the size of the first round and had more space around the pits so that people could spectate.
The large screen at the front of the hall displayed the 12 groups that were still in the tournament. Groups: 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 17, 18, 22 and 25.
A mini draw was displayed in the screen, where two groups were randomly paired together as opponents. Everyone was holding their breath and praying that they were not paired with team 25; Connor's team. Among those was Rhys. He did want to fight Connor but not right away. With the way things were with his team right now, if they were paired with team 25 they would lose instantly.
Rhys and most of the others collapsed to their floor in relief when they saw that they were safe, however one unfortunate group stared at the results on the screen with lumps in their throats. The board read: Team 18 vs Team 25.
Rhys was pretty surprised to see that Connor's opponent was actually the poison generation girl and her team. From what he had seen of her so far, he could tell she had a strong mentality. Little things would not break her. Even when she saw the result of the random pairings she did not despair and curse like her teammates, one of whom practically collapsed when he saw that he would be fighting against team 25. She was resilient and Rhys could not help but admire that about her. He would have loved to watch her match but he had a match of his own to get to.
"Dude hurry it up." Sampson was crude as ever as he hollered at Rhys from across the gym.
Rhys jogged his way over to their new match pit where his team and their opponents were already waiting.
As Rhys ran past the side benches he had no idea of the eyes that were watching him.
"I'm telling you man, I went right through him. He didn't even move or doge when I came at him. It's like he's not even there." The guy gripped his hair in his fist, annoyed that he wasn't explaining what had happened very well.
"He's telling the truth, Grey. I kept my eyes open the whole time, and I swear to you he's made of smoke or something because we went right through him. When we turned around he already had our flag in his hand."
The water manipulator, Grey, who had fought against and lost to team 12 was trying to pry the information of exactly how they had lost out of the responsible teammates. However what they were saying didn't make any sense. 'A guy made of smoke' what the hell did that mean?
Instructor Zora was discreetly listening to the trainees conversation while looking over the single document that had arrived on her desk this morning. A concerning document to say the least. It had been something like two years since a student had been put on the termination list, and never in her ten years at the Military college had she seen a freshmen on the list.
Even more perplexing than the idea of a freshman on the list was that his ability was not listed. At her level of clearance almost nothing was restricted information, and yet his ability and how he had gotten it been blacked out on the document.
She had been keeping an eye on him all morning. And she had been relatively unimpressed until she had seen the end of his match. From what she had seen, it really did look like what the boys had described. But she had never heard of anything like that, an ability that made him, untouchable...? Did it apply to just humans or objects as well? What about barriers...? What about energy? Most of the abilities on the market had been thoroughly research and were explainable scientifically, but an ability like this... it didn't even remotely make sense.
She would make sure to watch his next match and see for herself exactly what type of being he was that the military considered his life a threat. If she agreed that he was, well then, she would be more than willing to take the matters into her own hands. For the sake of Earth and humanity she would do whatever needed to be done, even murder.
She clutched the military tag around her neck and breathed in deeply.
'Killing fellow humans is noble if it's done with the permission of the military.' She repeated the words she had been taught growing up at the private military orphanage.
'The military has everyone's interests at heart.' She spun her tag necklace in her fingers, an action that always proved to calm her down.
'The military takes care of me, so I must take care of the military.'
'I love the military.'