Chapter 15: Dance with the Devil

Snap! I snapped my fingers, once again absorbing all the heat from the lava, instantly cooling it. The lava turned into solid, black rock midair, and tumbled to the ground. The finger snap was admittedly for dramatic effect.

Thankfully, it did seem to fulfil its semi-intended purpose. Ignar’s eyes narrowed, cautious. He seemed the impulsive, reckless type, but I could feel his guard being put up.

Once again, he flung more streaks of lava at me, and again I cooled it down before it reached me. A smile tugged at my lips. That was some good energy being absorbed. It was a fun little back and forth.

“Seems like you’re enjoying this eh?” Ignar smirked.

I shrugged. “I’m literally quaking in my boots in fear right now. Please stop.”

Ignar roared in laughter. “You’ve got some guts! You seem proud of your little finger-snapping trick. Well, two can play at that game.”

Immediately, he did just that, snapping his own fingers. The hardened lava on the ground glowed red, and jets of lava spurted out of them in my direction. In my peripheral vision, I noticed him grinning, eyes glinting with malice.

This time, instead of absorbing the heat energy, I redirected the kinetic energy instead. The lava streams seemingly ricocheted off an invisible wall, and redirected back at its owner.

“HAHA! You’re full of tricks aren’t you? Don’t forget, the lava belongs to ME,” Ignar growled. I felt him try to wrestle control of the streams away from me, forcefully turning them back around in my direction.

It was then that I made my first mistake. I had created an invisible shield in front of me to absorb any dangerous projectiles, but Ignar wasn’t aiming at me. With a flick of his wrist, he deflected the lava over at Kaede, who immediately recoiled in terror.

“Shit,” I cursed under my voice. Just as I reacted, Kaede desperately thrust her hands into the air, a faint, purple plasma shield shimmering into existence just as the lava rained down on her. I managed to erase some of the lava, but the rest splattered onto her shield. With a yell, she blew up her own shield, extinguishing the remainder of the lava with her plasma.

I blinked in surprise. Did she actu—no, those thoughts would have to wait. My battle instincts took over, and I froze Ignar and his mates in position, keeping only their heads free so they could talk.

“That was a dirty one,” I scolded sternly. “Keep this battle between the two of us.”

Despite being in such a precarious position, Ignar showed no signs of fear. “No one said anything about it being a 1 on 1. Lumia?”

As he said that, one of his goons emitted a mild glow. I glanced over. A girl with blonde hair and icy blue eyes stared back at me. Suddenly, my vision was filled with pure white, along with a dull ringing in my ears.

I heard Kaede scream in the background as she collapsed to the floor. I blinked my eyes, trying to regain my vision. Was that a flashbang? My Ability had absorbed most of the light energy, but I was still partially affected.

They should still be completely immobilised. So why was it then, when my vision cleared, that they had all disappeared? I stared in confusion, trying to think of various possibilities. A teleportation Ability would make sense. One that could activate from a stationary position.

A pained moan shook me out of my daze. I turned around, searching for Kaede. She was hunched over, rubbing at her eyes. Unlike me, she did not have any defensive measures against that flashbang attack, so she had taken the full brunt of it.

I rushed over and supported her by the arm. “You alright?”

“I think the worst of it is over…” she groaned in return.

“Sorry, I should have played that better,” I said. I was agitated, letting Kaede come to harm like this.

“Don’t worry about it, as long as you’re alright. They’re gone again?”

I nodded. “We’re definitely on their hit list now.”

Just then, a sudden thought rushed to my mind. What happened to Spencer? Was he not affected? I glanced around, checking my surroundings. He was nowhere to be seen. I could only assume that he had turned tail while I had distracted the Horizon students.

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Whatever, I wouldn’t blame him for that. It was the most logical thing to do, and I would have probably done the same thing if I were him.

Kaede sat up and gave a feeble laugh. “If they appear again, make sure you don’t go easy on them, okay?”

I pulled her to her feet. “Don’t worry, they won’t cause us any harm again. You have my word on that.”

I felt her squeeze my hand. “I’ll be counting on you. Should we head back?”

I walked her back to our dormitory and stopped as we reached the crossroads separating the two gender blocks.

“Say, umm Cadel… how are your studies going? I was wondering if maybe I could one day head over to — erm actually never mind,” she gabbled.

“You wanna come over to my room?” I asked. “You know that’s not encouraged here.”

Kaede blushed furiously. “I didn’t say– I mean, it’s not illegal right? People do it all the time anyway.”

That was true. However, my social battery was fully exhausted after the long first week, and I wanted some time to myself.

“Maybe some other time next week,” I offered.

Surprisingly, she still perked up. “Uh sure! I’ll stop by on… Thursday, maybe?”

I agreed. After a quick goodbye, I went back to my room. I still had a lot of things I wanted to try before the training camp. I thought about my team, as well as Daxston’s team of Kazen, Spencer and Raven. Raven in particular stuck out to me. She had always maintained a low profile in class, and I had always found her claim of only being able to do basic magic tricks odd. It was probably the cold yet confident aura she exuded, similar to Kazen.

As my thoughts drifted to Kazen, I decided to get on with my duel against him. I was keen on fighting Zoey as well but she seemed a little bit too high-key for me. At least with Kazen, I was sure he would keep our fight a secret.

Now that everyone was in an official class chat group, it was easier to contact him. I decided to search him up there and text him.

“Kazen, it’s Cadel. I challenge you to a fight.” I figured he was a no-nonsense type of guy, so I avoided beating around the bush and asked him straight. I then checked in with Scarlette to ensure she was doing fine, which to my relief, she was. She had also said that she wanted to do some self-practice before training with me. Something about not wanting to waste my time when she wasn’t up to standard.

I put my phone away, waiting for Kazen’s reply. In the meantime, I continued with my academic revision. Regular grades were not to be forgotten as well.

***

He finally replied on Sunday, almost 24 hours after I sent the text.

“I only accept challenges from 5-Stars,” his text read.

“You want proof that I’m worth fighting?” I replied.

There was a pause, then: “Go ahead.”

“Are you in your room right now?” I asked.

“Yeah, barely anyone is out now, given the weather.”

That was understandable. I looked out my window, at the ongoing thunderstorm happening over the campus. Rain was falling very heavily.

“Look at the rain,” I told Kazen.

“What about it?”

I reached my hand out my window and flicked upwards.

Instantly, the rain surrounding our dormitory stopped falling. Instead, it started rising upwards.

After a few seconds, I released my Ability, and the rain fell as per usual. I waited for Kazen to respond.

Another couple of seconds passed.

“So, when are we doing it?” he finally asked.

“Tomorrow night, if you could. 11 PM.” It wasn’t as late as my fight with Daxston, but I didn’t want to immediately put off Kazen with too late of a time.

“Alright,” he replied, going offline immediately after.

I wanted to keep this fight a secret, from Scarlette in particular. She had mentioned that she didn’t want me to interfere with her potential duel with Kazen, but I figured that it ultimately wouldn’t matter. In fact, if anything, it would level the field between them more if they both had a loss to me.

The next day, the gang and I treated school as per normal. The five of us ate lunch together again at the cafeteria, with Scarlette back to her energetic self. As we finished our dinner, she told us that she would be heading to the Colosso Dome for some self-training. This was met with a surprising offer from Kaede.

“Scarlette, if you don’t mind, could I perhaps join you?”

“Huh? Well, I mean, I don’t mind, but are you sure you’ll be okay without Cadel? Sorry, I don’t mean anything bad by that—“

Kaede smiled. “It’s fine, I’ve learnt how to control my Ability somewhat. I just wanna practice my aim a little bit.”

“In that case, I’ll come too!” Mira chimed in. “You know, just in case…” she said bashfully.

“That’s great, we have some insurance in case Kaede accidentally scalds me with her lasers.” Scarlette teased.

“Hey! I promise I will be careful!” Kaede complained. She turned to me and Jonah. “Are you guys coming along as well?”

I had a showdown with Kazen later tonight, so I had to decline. “Sorry, I’ve been having stomach issues today, so I think I’ll sit this one out,” I lied.

Jonah was silent for a second. “Uh, I think I’ll pass this out too. Honestly, I could train in my own room with my Ability!” he joked. That was unexpected.

“You sure? It’s more fun in a group,” offered Scarlette.

“Yeah, maybe another time!” Jonah replied.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kaede glance at Jonah. She looked mildly concerned. Personally, what Jonah said made sense. It was more efficient for him to just practise in his room, but at the same time practising in a group does have its benefits as well.

“Umm, okay…” Scarlette seemed a little hesitant, but she stood up. “That settles it then, us girls will be heading to the Dome, you two guys rest up alright?”

We left the cafeteria and went our separate ways. On the way back to the dormitory, I noticed Jonah being a little more quiet than normal. Just before we separated ourselves at the dormitory, I decided to check on him.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, just a bit tired, haha,” he replied.

“Okay then, sleep early tonight and rest well,” I said.

He smiled, gave me a thumbs up and set off for his room.

An uneasy feeling gnawed at me, but that would have to wait as I had a fight to focus on.