Chapter 40: And Your Enemies Closer

I scanned the trees around me, attempting to identify Eric’s whereabouts, but I knew it was futile. During Orientation, he had introduced himself as a 1-Star, with the Ability to project his voice from a distance. In his demonstration, he made his voice sound as if it were coming from the front of the classroom while he remained seated at his desk. At the time, I had dismissed it as nothing extraordinary—well, it still kinda was.

“It’s no use pretending, Cadel. I know you’re the real star of your group, not Scarlette,” Eric droned.

“What makes you say that?” I feigned innocence.

“Come on, let’s cut the nonsense. There’s nothing in this school that I can’t find out with a little digging.”

I couldn’t say I was too surprised by this. If someone was adept enough at searching for information, they would eventually find out. Eric certainly looked like he had the knack for it.

“If you realised the sashes were rigged, I take it you know who was responsible?” Eric asked.

“Mello,” I calmly replied, referring to one of the boys in Eric’s group. I had taken the liberty to memorise the Abilities of everyone in our class. If memory served me right, he had the power to inflict a debuff on objects, which when activated, caused whoever was in close proximity of them to succumb to fatigue. Since the sashes were all in her bag, Scarlette was the first to yield to their effects.

But what about the flag that Jonah had been carrying? He seemed fine, at least for now. I decided to question him on that as well.

“Flag?” Eric’s voice sounded ignorant of the fact. “You guys got one? Congratulations! Unfortunately, no, we didn’t rig any flags. Y’all probably really came across one by chance.”

“You seem awfully smug after we just ruined your plan.”

“Did you?” I could hear the glee in his voice. He thought he had us in his palm.

“Your team doesn’t have enough firepower to deal with us right now,” I reasoned.

His team consisted of five boys:

Eric: Ability to project his voice from a distance.

Mello: Ability to inflict a fatigue debuff from objects he rigged. Requires manual activation.

Rengar: Ability to breathe underwater.

Xavian: Ability to shapeshift into animals smaller than a large dog.

Malrowe: Ability to change the weight of objects to a certain extent.

Malrowe was the most obvious threat, but he wouldn’t be enough to harm us with me around. If Xavian could shapeshift into a venomous animal or insect, he could also potentially be a nuisance. More importantly, I had long deduced that Xavian was the crow that had been tracking us as well, given his shapeshifting Ability. So why was he able to tail us so freely?

Because I let him.

I had been aware all along that he was relaying information to Eric, but I had wanted him to. This was a classic tactic—luring your enemy into a false sense of control. They thought they were the ones pulling the strings, but I was the one steering the situation.

“Projecting your voice—that’s not your real power, isn’t it?” I continued.

There was a bit of hesitance as Eric spoke. “What do you mean?”

“You’re not stupid. You wouldn’t actually show up in person now when you know my actual Ability, right?”

Eric whistled. “I mean… energy manipulation… pretty neat power, huh?”

“Furthermore, I’m not speaking loudly at all. This means you must still be able to hear me, despite being out of range of my Ability.”

“Go on.”

“I can think of several options. The most obvious one to me is that you’ve somehow spawned a puppet which is currently hiding out of my sight at the moment.”

“… Impressive. If I may add, those who revealed their true Ability during self-introductions weren't very wise, including my teammates. It’s obvious you wouldn’t want to expose your potential, or lack thereof, in front of your competition. In that regard, we share the same mindset! However, since I know your true Ability, I suppose it’s only fair that I reveal mine as well. Besides, you’ve pretty much nailed it already.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Eric’s figure materialised in front of me. “Right now, it’s not me the real me you’re looking at, but a clone. Which can also go invisible, of course.”

He was wearing a smirk on his face, but it vanished with his next sentence. “So, just how much did you know?”

I quickly explained that I knew the crow was Xavian, that I had led them on, and that the sashes had been tampered with.

“You knew Mello had rigged the sashes with debuffs, and you still let Scarlette carry them?” Eric frowned. “You know… maybe you’re a little more devious than I thought.”

“Before you trick your enemies, you have to first trick your allies.” I neglected to mention that I had warned Scarlette about it during our break at Egg Hill. There was no data connection to send her a text message, nor did I want to risk being overheard by Xavian in case he was nearby, so I had typed out my plan on my phone before handing it for her to read. A flash of reluctance had briefly flickered across her face, but she had quickly played along without saying a word. The rest of it was just acting between the two of us. The debuff, its effects, and her collapse were real though.

In fact, I had feigned counting the sashes from her bag in an attempt to extract the debuff with my Ability just for the sake of trying, but as I had expected, my Ability was unable to remove whatever Mello had inflicted them with. It wasn’t a type of energy I could manipulate.

“If you trailed us with your invisible clone instead of getting Xavian to do it in crow-form, I wouldn’t have caught on,” I stated.

“Well, he has much more mobility, being able to fly and all. It’s easier to keep track of the lot of you that way. That said, we do swap roles at times, like now.”

His eyes narrowed. “So, I assume you have something in mind, now that you’ve exposed our plan.”

“Nope, nothing. I just felt like playing your game until I got bored.”

The smug look on his face returned. He held his hands up. “Alright man, I get it. You’re saving it for later, huh? Keep your secrets then. I admit, you got the upper hand this time around.”

Without giving me a chance to respond, his clone vanished. I could hear his footsteps disappear off into the distance.

I turned back to check on my friends. It appeared that Mira was able to alleviate some of Xavian’s effects. Scarlette lay weakly on the ground, but her eyes were slightly open. It also appeared that they had caught the later part of my conversation with Eric, for they were looking at me awkwardly apart from Scarlette herself. To the rest of them, it had probably looked like I had knowingly let Scarlette get afflicted with fatigue. Fortunately, they looked more confused than disappointed. It was noticeably different from the looks they had given me when I had duelled and froze Scarlette back at the training room in the Colosso Dome.

Scarlette stirred, trying to sit up in a rush to clear the confusion. “Relax guys, I was in on it. It’s part of Cadel’s ‘masterplan’,” she wheezed.

The mood immediately brightened up. “I didn’t catch the full story, but all I got was that while Eric was smart, Cadel is an actual genius?” exclaimed Jonah.

“Hey, if you keep complimenting him, it’ll get to his head!” Kaede winked as she squeezed my arm. “But is the part about being bored true?”

“Nope, I was kidding. In fact, I was anything but bored,” I admitted. “It’s just that for people like him—you have to hit them psychologically. Physically, we already outclass them by a mile. Now, mentally, they’re no match for us either. We’ve got them completely beat, so I doubt they’ll bother us again."

“I think you’re just built different,” Jonah murmured.

I knelt down beside Scarlette. “I’m sorry I forced you to go through that. Are you okay?”

She smiled weakly at me. “I’m gonna need compensation.”

“As long as it’s within my limits.”

“Next time you see Raven, you have to confess your love to her.”

My teammates stared at her, then at me. Jonah burst out laughing.

I stood up and turned away. “Looks like you’re okay. Let’s head back to camp.”

“Hey, you can’t ignore me like that,” Scarlette pouted.

“Unfortunately, I’m unable to fulfil your request.”

She grinned. “Fine. In that case, carry me back to camp.”

“I could just float y—”

“That’s not punishment enough for you.”

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We finally made it back to the campsite, both physically and mentally spent. Scarlette slid off my back as I laid her down in the girl’s tent. Not forgetting the sashes, I had floated them a little in front of us as we made our way back since it was still imbued with Mello’s Ability. I rested them beside our tent. Hopefully, the effect would wear out soon.

We still had quite a while before lunch time, but our rest area was already packed. After confirming that our egg was still intact, I surveyed the area around me, hoping to get some insight on how many sashes each team had. Over half of my classmates were already sashless. That made me feel better about our total tally of 14.

I peered over at Eric’s tents. It was occupied, but the lids were fully closed. It must have been hot and stuffy in there, but they were probably doing some private reflection, or perhaps more scheming for the upcoming days.

Just as the whistle rang for lunch, I noticed Kazen’s group trudging back from a forest trail. They looked pretty beat up. As they approached us, I walked up to them. I noted that all four of them had a sash each.

“Tough fight?”

“Some nerve to come up to us directly…” Kazen shrugged. “The other classes—they have some pretty good people. We cleared another 3 groups after our fight, but the fourth one… I think they’re from 1A.”

Raven jumped in. “The rule was that every group member has to wear at least one sash if we had enough, so that’s what we did after we beat our first group. From there, I stored the excess in my Void. The last group we fought managed to get Daxston’s and Spencer’s sashes, and we didn’t manage to get any of theirs before we had to escape. I had to take 2 sashes out of my Void for that.”

Hmm. If they cleared another 3 groups before losing 2 sashes, it meant that they now had a minimum of 10 sashes, and a maximum of 13. It was just a little shy of our 14.

“Anyway, just watch out for Zara’s group from 1A. I could tell you about her Ability now, but I’d hate to spoil the surprise,” Kazen sneered. “What I can tell you is that they’re rumoured to have a total of 43 sashes.”

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Administration Notes:

School: Waning Crescent

Name: Eric Lockhart

Gender: Male

Year: First-year

Rank: 3-Star

Division: Combat

Ability: Eric has an Ability befitting of his sly personality, allowing him to summon a single clone of himself. The clone can turn completely invisible but possesses no offensive capabilities. While any injuries inflicted on the clone won’t harm Eric physically, he still experiences the sensations, making him feel the pain indirectly.

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