Icarth stared at the opening door, his sleepiness slowly lifting. His senses picked up on the tens of wolves clamoring at the door.
*Badum* *Badum*
His heart started to pump faster and faster as adrenaline filled his veins. Crimson red eyes contracted to focus on each detail on the door. His blond hair started to dance as universal energy started to gather around him.
"Icarth, activate your gift." Gavin cooly reminded him about the objective of the practical.
"Tch." Icarth clicked his tongue, but he complied. He shifted his gaze from the half-open door, away from the first wolf that was bounding towards him. Time seemed to slow down as he locked eyes with Jade and activated his gift «Beast Merge». Reaching an understanding, Jade activated his gift «Acceleration» and disappeared into Icarth.
*Grrrr*
The wolf extended its claws, ready to slice and devour Icarth.
Finally, Icarth moved. His transforming legs, bunched up and released, as he jumped.
Clearing the wolf, Icarth didn't stop and used his momentum to dash forward into the pack of the wolves behind it. Icarth grinned wildly. The wind rushed against him with an even greater force as he sped up after his transformation was complete.
Now with a set of lithe rabbit legs, Icarth hit the ground with a powerful bang, cracking the material that the floor was made off. Using all the force he could muster, Icarth zipped forward like a lightning bolt. Reaching the front of the wolves in seconds, He extended his claws and ripped through the necks of two of the wolves.
Quickly changing his direction, Icarth proceed to cause confusion and mayhem as the wolves scrambled to get a piece of him. Not stopping for a second, Icarth maintained his ridiculous speed and continued to rip through the wolves one by one. His figure of racing through the wolves left a deep impression on all the people watching.
The arena was by no means small in any sense, it was big enough for an archer to run away from wolves the entire time and still have some room left to escape to. But Icarth's speed made the arena look tiny.
A few minutes later, clutching the last wolf by the neck, Icarth squeezed it, crushing its neck and killing it. Dropping it, Icarth started to walk back but the wolf started twitching and tried to get up.
'Oh?' Icarth thought, a flair of excitement running through him. 'I didn't put enough force I guess.'
Gathering all the power in his legs, Icarth blasted forward, but this time he flipped himself backward mid-air and shot toward the wolf's legs first. He landed on the wolf's head with such velocity that one would think it would burst apart. Surprisingly, the head stayed remarkably intact while it was ripped apart from the neck.
'Wierd, I put enough force that time. Oh well.' Icarth started to think that something was weird but discarded the thought quickly. Now that the fight was over, his excitement wore off just as fast as it had come.
".....Pass. Next." after a slight pause, Gavin announced the result and called the next person onto the stage. Gavin stared at the severed head of the wolf that Icarth had decapitated. Unreadable, his eyes continued to scan the corpse discreetly until he found what he was looking for. A small lump on the body of the wolf.
Satisfied, Gavin shifted his gaze onto Icarth who was walking slowly away from the arena, as he waited for the wolf bodies to be cleaned from the arena. With a burst of universal energy, the arena was completely wiped clean from the previous battle. All the corpses had disappeared while the cracks produced by Icarth were miraculously repaired in a short time.
Yawning slightly Icarth stepped off the stage, de-fusing with Jade. Jade popped out of Icath, not a single drop of blood on his dark brown fur. Landing on the ground, Jade dashed away from Icarth without a moment to lose right into Emmia's arms.
Icarth, on the other hand, was almost covered head to toe in blood. Not caring one bit, Icarth went back to his previous spot which Seifr had graciously saved by occupying it for himself.
"Move."
"No." Sefir refused without bothering to raise his head.
"Fine." Too lazy to argue, Icarth laid down in front of his friend and stared at the late afternoon sky. The sun shone softly, providing ample light and warmth, but somehow not the overbearing kind of heat and light. It shone just enough to keep the city lit and warmed as if it were the early morning sun.
Not interested in the following attempts, Icarth asked Sefir, "How fast was I?"
"You finished in 5 minutes and 5 seconds, give or take 2 seconds," Sefir answered while watching his fellow student. His eyes tracked their every movement, correcting them in his mind if they made a mistake and taking note of anything that was worth it.
'Should have slid towards the left.'
'I think an uppercut would have been better than a front kick.'
'.....That was a lucky fluke...but that movement is interesting.'
"So, was I the fastest?" Icarth asked, Interrupting Sefir's thought process once more.
"No. It was Ragnar." Sefir answered. Switching his gaze to Icarth he proceeded to say, "He finished the fight in under 5 minutes. You were sleeping at that time so you didn't get to see his performance."
"In fact, it was just as bloody as yours, if not a little more I think...."
Sefir continued to give highlights of Ragnar's fight against the wolves, but Icarth wasn't listening anymore. His stomach churned as he turned to the right gazing at a huge bulk of muscle.
Standing around 6 feet, Ragnar was a hulk of a man. Standing straight, he too was covered head to toe in blood. But unlike Icarth, the blood was a mixture of his and the wolves. While Icarth had a clean run, without getting hit even once, Ragnar had tanked each hit, bite, and claw, and gone head first into the wolves. As a testament to this, the dual axes hanging at his waist still dripped with crimson blood.
Noticing the gaze, Ragnar turned his head to meet Icarths eyes. Hazel-colored eyes clashed against Icarth's pale red as unseen sparks flew between the two. Suddenly Ragnar broke into a mocking grin, his smile looking especially frightening from his blood-stained face.
Breaking away first, Ragnar turned his gaze to watch the ongoing fight as if telling Icarth,
'Look all you want. I beat you.'
Retracting his gaze, Icarth returned to observing the sky, but this time with his thoughts and emotions in turmoil.