ONE HUNDRED NINETY-THREE: Flashes V

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“This is Lexi,” said Torsten Klein, the wanted poster behind him expanding to show the Meister. The video clip started to play, and the four volunteers saw a chain extend and bend in an ‘S’ shape to slice two different incoming tennis balls in half. “Wonderful student. He’s dedicated, takes instruction well, asks thoughtful questions after reviewing his footage—”

“So much praise! You didn’t have anything to say about Haoyu.”

“He probably didn’t say anything about Haoyu because you talked about him for three minutes straight,” Hale Zhang-Demir said to her husband. “There was nothing left to cover.”

Haoyu’s father laughed and waved Torsten on. “Tell us about Lexi! How’s he doing now that he finally made it here?”

“Well from the looks of it.” Aparna Sethi wore an interested expression on her face. “I know Meisters have an advantage in combat, especially these young ones. I told my Ignacio he’d be cheating with those knives of his. But that’s impressive, and…I think I’ve seen that weapon before.”

“Then you’re in rare company,” said Torsten. “Lexi is only the second known Meister with a Mind Writher. The first was an unregistered who died decades ago after causing some trouble with his. You might remember it from new weapon reports released back in the day?”

Aparna nodded. “It’s harder to keep track now, with so many more exotic options being given to our Meisters. Back then, anything that didn’t closely resemble human weaponry stood out more and caused a stir.”

“This one caused a stir among the faculty. It’s got very obvious potential. He can cut a car in half with it and thread a needle, theoretically at the same time. And it gets hot, sometimes randomly.” One of the tennis balls on the video was smoking. “Fittingly for a whiplike weapon, it’s capable of supersonic speeds. That’s part of the trouble with it. For us and for Lexi. It’s overly responsive to him, in a way. Even his idle thoughts, or his moods, seem to change its motion. When he’s consciously controlling it, it’s actually much easier to fight him. Slower. More predictable.

“As he switches from conscious control to a more spontaneous, reflexive state in the heat of a fight…things get more interesting.”

The clip shifted to a new one, showing Lexi in a duel against Tuyet.

“This is a fast enough reaction to deal with anyone in the current class,” said Torsten, as he zoomed in to show the whip slicing a dart out of the air, its tip already coiling toward another one and just missing. “If that first dart hadn’t been a decoy, Lexi might not have lost this fight. However, he can’t respond this quickly deliberately.”

“Poor Lexi,” said Hale. “I’m sure that frustrates him to death. He’s not someone who enjoys being out of control.”

“He’ll get there,” Klein said confidently. “We’ll get him there. For now, though, don’t let him kill you with this thing, Aparna. It has two very different paces.”

The Adjuster smiled. “Controlled,” she said. “And <<mischievous>>.”

“Yes,” Klein agreed. “Now, moving on to Reinhard, we have a student who…”

******

******

“You chopped my girlfriend in half.”

“I am so sorry, Everly. I don’t know why…I can’t believe I—”

“It’s fine,” said Haoyu, holding Everly’s stiff form out toward Lexi as if to offer proof. “Look. Fine. You’re fine, right, Everly?”

“I’m not mad or anything, but I’ve been better.”

It had only been a few seconds, and the team was recovering from the attacks. Alden’s shoes crunched on a shard of the lamp Big Snake had thrown that hadn’t yet blown away. He was still holding his shield of woven webbing between Galecourse and the others.

We can’t stay here.

His heart was pounding; an attack from Klein had a tendency to do that. Thinking about the fact that if this were real, Everly would be dead, so quickly from a simple accident—that would get your adrenaline going, too.

And who knew how long they had before something else came their way?

Instructor Klein had left their team and pelted toward one of Heloísa’s teammates, a Vocal Brute who was running toward the middle of the gym. He seemed to be making a solo break for the finish line…unless he was just freaking out because Mrs. Zhang-Demir had barreled into his team and grabbed their captain.

Klein took the running Brute down in a similar fashion to Kon. Obviously it was leg-breaker day for him.

Is Klein’s arm stiff? It’s kind of hard to tell. At the rate he’s moving, he’ll be back here in a minute to hit us all again.

“We take Everly back to the start and see if her suit goes back to normal,” Alden said. The wind stopped. Galecourse repositioning. He glanced over the top of the shield at her. “Kon needs to be healed, too, if possible. It’s really early in the class for him to be working with one leg, especially if this is the pace we’re going to be dealing with.”

“I don’t know how it happened,” Lexi was saying. “Instructor Klein was just so hard to attack, and he was right here in the middle of us all, and…”

Kon, Haoyu, and Alden exchanged looks. In Haoyu’s arms, Everly’s face was pointed straight up, the neck of her suit not allowing enough freedom of movement for her to do much else. And Lexi was too busy staring at her to notice them. His expression was devastated, and the murder weapon hung short and limp from his right hand.

“I could take her back by myself while the rest of you press forward,” said Kon.

“All together,” Alden said. “What if someone attacks you? And don’t you have to hop on one leg?”

“I hop like an S-rank. And I’m not the most useless S-rank despite what certain stories on the internet—”

“What are my parents doing to people?”

At Haoyu’s question, Alden looked around again. In the past few seconds, Heloísa had somehow ended up back at the starting line. Her remaining teammates were scattered like chickens. One of them seemed to be trying to join up with Mehdi’s team.

And Mrs. Zhang-Demir, who’d been grabbing Heloísa the last time Alden had checked, now had Astrid tucked under her arm like a stuffed animal with a surprised look stitched on its face. She was running toward the starting line with her Astrid doll while Max was dragged along behind them, clinging to Astrid’s ankle like he hoped that might make Haoyu’s mother let go.

Meanwhile, Jeffy was rolling across the floor from some attack Alden hadn’t seen, and Finlay was grabbing the heavy lifematter bag Jeffy must have dropped when he fell, snatching it up and glaring toward Winston Heelfeather, who was out on the floor now, still without a team.

“What the—?”

Before Alden could get the words out, his eyes skimmed past Winston and over to Reinhard’s group at the corner opposite from them, still very close to the start. He saw the archer raising his bow in defense as Haoyu’s dad ran toward him.

Mr. Zhang-Demir was currently in between their two teams.

“Possible arrow from four o’clock.”

Haoyu shifted Everly to one arm and lifted a fist.

Lexi turned to see the potential threat, but what he was going to do about it with his whip in embarrassed-mode was anyone’s guess.

Reinhard released his arrow. Haoyu’s father dodged as easily as Alden had expected.

Alden tensed, but although it had looked like the arrow might fly right at their team given the direction of the shot, a timely gust from Galecourse worked in their favor this time. It slowed and turned the projectile.

“Good call,” said Haoyu. “We need to watch the ranged people, too. And when Marsha finally gets out here and starts swinging…”

“Enough chatting. Alden’s right. Time to run. All together.” Kon bonked his brother’s shoulder with his forehead. “Stop being dumb. Get your whip out. Let’s go.”

******

******

“Excuse me, everyone. Everyone! I need some weights for my team! Some of you took more than your share. Søren…Søren if you’re not going to join us, then you know you should give Olive that sandbag—”

“What do you mean, Febri? You’d rather have the glow boy? I’m an S. An all S team would be a guaranteed win, and this is important. I already checked the volunteer list for the prize, and there are nine different people I want to train myself against. I’d like to win today and Friday. I know you—”

“Heloísa, Febri’s team is full, so I’ll be joining yours. I’ll replace your most cowardly member. That one that’s dead out past the midline.”

“Sorry. I’m going to beat Mehdi with an all A team, Jupiter. Hey, Haoyu! Your mom is amazing! I want to be her.”

“If you’re beating me with all A’s, I’m beating you with all A’s!”

<<Febri, we need to go. Tuyet and Vandy are ready. Leave Søren alone, Winston.>>

“I don’t need defending…”

Alden’s team had just arrived back at the starting line, and the situation here was so darn noisy. He tuned them all out and focused on his own teammates. Fortunately, Everly and Kon had been restored to full mobility, so that meant a trip back to the start was the reset they’d all been hoping it would be.

“If my parents are grabbing people and hauling them back here, do we need to rethink tying ourselves to each other?” Haoyu was asking.

“I want a minute for making another ice weapon. If I had hit Klein with something that was more like a morning star, maybe….”

I’m surprised it was so easy to get back here. Alden turned to look out over the gym floor while the others regrouped. He still had his shield preserved. The fifty-kilo sandbag was attached to the front, and his zip bag full of dirt with a couple of temper spheres added in for good measure was stuck to the back so that he could reach it if he wanted it. He had loops of spare paracord around his waist like a belt. That was enough prep for another attempt, and he expected there would be a lot of attempts now that they’d seen what it was like out there.

He’d actually thought it would be a fight just to return to start, but other than him shielding the team from Galecourse while they ran, they hadn’t had to deal with anything.

Why didn’t they hit us again on the way back?

Instructor Klein and the Zhang-Demirs were still attacking. Alden saw Haoyu’s parents going after members of Heloísa’s group and Reinhard’s. And Klein was greeting Mehdi’s team—which had just entered the floor a short distance to the right of where Alden now stood—with an aerial approach only slightly different from the one he’d used on them a minute ago.

A few voices quieted as the owners realized something interesting was going on beside them. Alden watched as Klein swung off an invisible block positioned about twenty feet in the air…one-handed…then hit the starting line barrier right over their heads. Mimicking Mr. Zhang-Demir’s earlier move, he launched himself powerfully toward Mehdi’s fleeing team.

Mehdi made the bold decision to tackle one of his own teammates out of the way roughly. The instructor let him dodge several strikes himself before taking him down with a brutal kick to the knee.

“He hates legs today,” Kon muttered. “What’s he got against our legs? Can’t he break arms to start with like a friendly teacher?”

Mehdi with a broken leg still moved noticeably better than most people as he tried to get a hit of his own in before Klein sprang away from him.

“And he’s doing one-handed handsprings to spite us,” Astrid grumbled. “His time will come…”

“Everly hit him in the butt!” Kon announced.

Astrid whirled. “What? Someone landed a hit?”

“It was just an ice ball,” Everly said, layering ice on another small weight to make a new weapon. “I should have given it spikes.”

“Astrid, we’re about to go! We need to get back to the others,” Max protested as his Morph Brute bounded into the middle of Alden’s team to give Everly a celebratory hug.

While Astrid shook Everly back and forth enthusiastically, Alden kept trying to get a visual handle on what was going on.

Mehdi was ordering his team to move forward. The huge sandbag on his back and his own high agility were helping him deal with the wind, but Alden thought it was a strange choice for him not to just launch himself back over the starting line to fix the “broken” leg. Big Snake was lifting something that looked like a boulder made of dried paint out of his eclectic ammo collection. Mrs. Zhang-Demir was going for one of the scattered members of Heloísa’s team who was belly crawling toward the finish.

Ahead of the belly crawler, there was another wispy flare of the strange light that had to be caused by Ignacio’s grandmother, since she didn’t seem to be doing anything else from her perch against the barrier at the midline.

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This is a lot to process.

Students on the floor out there, people who hadn’t even made a first attempt yet raising their voices at each other back here. Galecourse lowering her hands and taking a lap for another reposition, Klein taking out a runner’s leg…and Haoyu’s parents were both running this way now, each of them with a superpowered teenager in their arms, their victims’ struggles being ignored as easily as a sleepy toddler’s would have been.

I don’t think I can follow it all. He took a step that put him as close to the starting line as possible without passing through the barrier. If they’re moving this fast and there are this many of them and I don’t even know what those light wisps do or how many she cast while we were under attack by Klein…

It felt like there was more action happening on the floor in ten seconds than he could unravel in a minute, and it would only get worse once the others got out there, got their bearings, and started getting serious.

What do we do to cross? Assign one member of the team to monitor every adult?

But the whole team had to respond when under attack if they wanted to have any chance of repelling the trouble without injury.

He’d thought maybe the volunteers and the instructors would deliver punishing injuries that would slow progress without halting it. But broken legs and stolen teammates was a little more potent than a slowing.