Brooke was bouncing in her seat. All things considered, this day was going better than she could have hoped. She met Gibbs, who later turned out to be on her team. She met Ibsen, who was apparently super nice and helped her get her welcome packet and guided her to their team meeting. Her team leader was her older brother, which opened up a whole world of adventures over the course of the year. Even the last member of their team, Savannah Serval, seemed like a cool person, even if she did walk past her on the train.

Now, they were just waiting for Sabir. The four of them sat in a loose circle at their meeting spot, a shady park a few minutes’ walk from the main campus. Ibsen was still standing like a statue in the middle of their circle. Gibbs leaned against a large tree, smirking as he silently took them all in. And Savannah was standing with her arms crossed a little off to the side.

Over the last few minutes, Brooke tried to get them talking, but it wasn’t quite catching on. Ibsen clammed up once the others showed up. Gibbs answered in short sentences, but he didn’t seem up for talking for some reason. And Savannah directly told her that she didn’t want to make small talk yet.

So, they waited for Sabir.

Brooke’s brother was nothing if not punctual. They saw him coming from far away, but he just smiled and continued approaching at a leisurely pace. “Good to see you all,” he said, putting his backpack down.

“It’s nice to meet you, Sabir Canin,” Savannah said. Her tone was formal, although it came out pretty softly. The others echoed much more casual greetings.

Sabir smiled, which Brooke recognized as a show immediately. Sabir didn’t smile. “We have a lot to cover, but I figured we should start with some introductions, since we’ll be working together as a team for a while.” He paused, taking in their reactions. “My name is Sabir Canin,” he started awkwardly. “I’m a fourth-year student. I use a spear to fight, and I—”

“Can we do something else instead?” Gibbs interrupted. Sabir was caught off guard for a second, but he recovered almost instantly. “I mean, I understand the whole introductions thing, but this is a Sentinel school. Maybe we could try something a little more exciting.”

Sabir nodded. “What did you have in mind?”

“How about some sparring?” Gibbs proposed. Off to the side, no one noticed Ibsen’s face go pale.

Savannah instantly perked up at the suggestion. “I would like to spar,” she admitted. “I’ve heard really good things about your fighting abilities, Sabir. I wouldn’t mind seeing them in person.”

“Yeah, sparring sounds awesome!” Brooke jumped in. “I’ll go first!”

Sabir shrugged. “If that’s what you want. Brooke, I guess you can go first.”

“I’d like to start as well,” Savannah said. Sabir agreed and let the two of them square off a few feet away.

Now that they were ready, Brooke fell into her typical Wolf Style stance. Across from her, Savannah actually took on a very similar position with no weapon in hand. The only difference seemed to be their hands. While Brooke’s hands were spread out for grappling, Savannah’s were narrowed, like she was ready to stab.

Brooke clicked a button on her Analyzer. After the entrance exams, Sabir refused to let her go around without it, so she was more used to it now. Unlike during those tests, her Analyzer was already connected to Savannah’s. She glanced at her new partner’s status.

Analyzer Status Report:

Name: Savannah Serval

Current Potential: Level 24

Core Ability: Staticcore

Proficiencies:

* Basic Combat (Advanced)

* Nerve Razor Style (Advanced)

* Combat Strategy (Advanced)

* Leadership (Moderate)

* Etiquette (Extreme)

* Cooking (None)

Alright, Brooke thought with a nod. She’s got a higher potential than me and better proficiencies in just about every field, but I’m the better cook, so that’s something.

“Are you two ready?” Sabir asked. He looked them over, although his face visibly cringed when it landed on Brooke. Trying not to let that vote of non-confidence bother her, she nodded. Potential and proficiencies were good predictors of who would win a fight, but they weren’t everything. Savannah nodded too. “Begin!”

Instantly Savannah moved forward. Brooke’s specialty was never speed (what was her specialty again?), but Savannah was much quicker than she could have ever expected. The girl was probably faster than even Sabir. So, it took everything Brooke had to just dodge Savannah’s first strike. She just barely made it, only feeling her hand gently graze the side of her right arm.

Feeling confident, Brooke decided to return with her own attack. She pulled back her arm, grabbed onto Savannah’s shoulder, and threw her to the ground. It was a devasting attack. Absolutely flawlessly executed.

At least, it should have been. Instead, Brooke’s arm just refused to move. It hung limply at her side like a worthless appendage. Brooke spared a glance at her numb limb, but it turns out that was a mistake. Savannah had a follow-up attack, which was planted directly into Brooke’s neck. Thankfully, it didn’t hurt, but that might be because everything went numb around the time everything went dark.

----------------------------------------

Ridiculous.

That was the only word Savannah had to describe what just happened. When she first saw the other girl on the train, she kept walking because she knew how many things she’d have to do that day. Besides just getting her welcome packet, she had to talk to a counselor about making plans for after Diamond Hope Academy. She just didn’t have time.

Once she realized that the girl was on her team, Savannah almost felt bad. That was, right up until she realized what kind of girl Brooke was. She’d dealt with girls like Brooke before. Bubbly personality, too much energy, excessively popular. She already had Ibsen following in her wake like he was a bodyguard. No, Savannah knew exactly what she was dealing with. It was one of the reasons she was excited to show the rest of her team exactly what she could do.

When she saw Brooke’s status, she thought there might be something really special going on. There were always things Analyzers couldn’t quantify, and she made her way into the school somehow. And then she found out that Brooke couldn’t even fight. For a moment, Savannah wanted to scream. The thought crossed her mind that Brooke somehow sweet talked her way into the school. It was the only explanation for that abysmal performance. Somehow, she managed to hold her tongue.

Credit where credit was due, Brooke didn’t stay down for long. Less than half a minute after getting taken down, she staggered her way back up. “Imokay,” she slurred. “Wait. Why can’t eh tahlk right?”

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Sabir walked over and started to guide the girl to a place where she could sit. “Savannah’s Core allows her to produce electricity,” he explained. “It might take a little while for you to get feeling back.”

“Goodtoknow,” Brooke replied, although it came out like a single word. As she sat down, she shot a smile in Savannah’s direction, followed by a thumbs up. Neither her mouth nor her hand worked well enough to properly do either.

“Alright,” Sabir clapped his hands together, “how about another spar? Savannah, would you like to go again?”

“I’d be happy to.”

“Ibsen,” Sabir said, turning to the larger boy, “how about you give it a shot?”

“I’m… not much of a fighter,” the boy replied timidly.

“You’ll do gweat!” Brooke said. Although she didn’t say it, Savannah could read the subtext: “You can’t do worse than I did!”

As much of a disappointment as fighting Brooke had been, Savannah was secretly hoping to take on the giant. She had to prove something to her teammates: she was the best. Despite going to a school for Sentinels, Savannah had no intention of being a Sentinel. She would train, but soon her skills would be noticed, and she would join Apex, an elite group that trumped even the Sentinels. But the only way she could do that was by proving that there was no one at Diamond Hope Academy better than she was. Starting with the most intimidating person was the fastest route to proving that.

Ibsen looked like he wanted to protest, but he didn’t. Instead, the boy took a few steps forwards and squared off against Savannah. Savannah dropped into the same stance she used before, while Ibsen just curled his fists and held them in front of his face. It looked almost like a boxing stance, but not like any stance Savannah recognized. This could be interesting, she thought briefly.

Analyzer Status Report:

Name: Ibsen Egre

Current Potential: Level 24

Core Ability: Damagecore

Proficiencies:

* Basic Combat (None)

* Combat Strategy (Minimal)

* Boxing (None)

* Medicine (Moderate)

* Leadership (None)

* Cooking (Basic)

That status took her off guard even more than Brooke’s. His potential was the same as hers, so he wouldn’t be weak, but his proficiencies were almost blank. She ignored the fact her Analyzer was displaying his cooking ability, which was probably due to Brooke messing with the settings. The fact that he had no basic combat or boxing proficiency was worrying. But maybe his moderate proficiency in medicine partially explained it.

Sabir called for them to start, but Savannah didn’t press the attack this time. Against someone his size, she could easily be walking into a trap. It was smarter to let him make the first move and react, allowing her to get some idea of what to expect.

Except he didn’t move either. The two stared each other down for the better part of a minute. If the lack of action bothered him, he didn’t let it show. He didn’t even lower his guard for a second. From the sidelines, she could hear Brooke whisper, “Is this tense, or is this just boring?”

Unfortunately, Savannah had to agree with the sentiment. Against her better judgement, she realized the fight wouldn’t progress unless she made the first move. Still being cautious, she made a feint to his side before jabbing him in the shoulder.

Ibsen just took it, which horrified Savannah. He made to block both but didn’t retaliate. Instead, she felt electricity sink into his shoulder, which felt as thick as her entire body. For a moment, she was too surprised to take advantage of the opening. What is he planning?

Shaking away any distracting thoughts, she attacked again. Like last time, Ibsen just blocked. This time, she shocked his other arm. With both of his arms hit, he should be defenseless. Sighing internally, Savannah went for his leg, hoping to just knock him to the ground without fully paralyzing him.

To her amazement, Ibsen could still move his arms. It was sluggish but more than enough to block the next attack, which he forced to go wide. In all her years of training, she had never met someone who could recover from a direct attack from her Core. Whatever he was made of, it was tougher stuff than most Sentinels.

Deciding not to underestimate him, Savannah pressed the attack. She exploited every opening but couldn’t get more than a few glancing shots on his arms again. In return, Ibsen just blocked everything, taking steps backwards when necessary. Never once did he press an offensive or take a step forward.

After the twelfth solid hit, which still didn’t paralyze the huge student, Savannah felt her frustration start to build. Was he just hoping he could survive the onslaught until she ran out of stamina? The scary thing was that he might be right. She could feel energy draining from her Cell quickly, and her body was getting heavier. She could keep going for a while, but Ibsen didn’t look like he was about to fall either.

“Fight back!” Savannah yelled despite her best effort to keep it in. He was toying with her, she could just tell. If he really was better, she wanted to get the fight over with. And, if he attacked, she might be able to exploit it. His rigid defense was the worst thing she could fight.

“I’m sorry,” Ibsen muttered, but he didn’t change his style. It felt like Savannah was fighting against a brick wall, but defense wasn’t always the best offense. Despite his ridiculous endurance, eventually the culmination of all her attacks wore Ibsen down. His arm sagged and Savannah managed to jab both her hands into his neck. No matter how tough he was, that much electricity to the head was enough to bring him down.

“Good fight,” Ibsen said weakly. Even though he went down, he didn’t fall unconscious. In some ways, that only made Savannah angrier. Her best attack to his weakest area still wasn’t enough to actually take him down.

“It was not a good fight,” she spat. “Why didn’t you fight back?”

Ibsen curled into himself, but he didn’t answer. He merely offered another apology and hauled himself off beside Brooke. The girl offered him a pat on the shoulder.

“Alright,” Sabir said, rubbing his neck. “I don’t think this sparring session is going quite the way any of us hoped. Maybe we should just call it quits until we can sit down and talk about a few things.”

“Hold on,” Savannah said. She felt her hands clench in frustration, but she controlled her breathing and brought her temper down. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be rude or a bad teammate, but I would like some explanation now. Brooke,” she said turning on the girl, who yelped in fear, “you went down after my first attack. And Ibsen didn’t even take a swing at me.”

“There’s a few things that I need to explain,” Sabir said weakly.

“I know you’re a good Sentinel, Sabir,” Savannah continued. “I’ve heard about you and your old team.” Sabir winced. “Is there a reason I’m the only one on this team that can actually fight?”

“I can fight,” Gibbs said. He took a leisurely step forward, his entire body swaying with each step. “And, honestly, I don’t like the way you’re talking about our teammates.

“Fine,” Savannah said. “How about we spar then?”

“I don’t think—”

Sabir’s concerns were ignored when Gibbs kept walking. “Sounds good to me.”

Gibbs stood across from Savannah again as the girl fell into her same stance. Gibbs didn’t even bother to adopt a stance. He kept his hands in his pockets, bouncing lightly on his heels. For a moment, Savannah wanted to demand he take the fight seriously, but decided against it. Instead, she ran forward, ready to end the fight quickly.

She was only halfway across their arena when she felt a sharp impact on her shoulder. Her eyes widened when she realized it was a knife. That was all she was allowed to realize, because the next second, a dozen more blades were flying towards her.

Gibbs seemingly pulled the knives out of nowhere, and once they were in his hand, he threw them with pinpoint accuracy. Savannah suddenly had to spend all of her effort just to avoid the metal storm. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t get away from all of them. She had trained with people who used throwing weapons, trained to read their movements and predict their throws, but she couldn’t read Gibbs at all.

When it looked like he was going to throw left, it went right. When it looked low, it went high. Trying to follow his eyes was no use because they drifted lazily in every direction. Once she thought she had a pattern figured out, it flipped and suddenly a throw to the right actually went right.

Savannah partly hoped she could last long enough for her teammate to run out of weapons. That hope was dashed when halfway through the fight, Gibbs opened his coat, revealing a second jacket underneath. This one wasn’t made of cloth though. Instead, dozens of throwing weapons, from knives to kunai to shuriken lined his person. It was at that moment that Savannah realized she lost.

A minute later, Savannah was forced to concede. She felt the Cell on her arm running low on energy. Any more damage and it would shatter, leaving her at the mercy of dozens of pointed objects with no protection. Savannah fell to her knees panting heavily. A part of her mind wondered who this kid was that could beat her so easily. She looked at his status page, but it just raised more questions.

Analyzer Status Report:

Name: Gibbs Hylobat

Current Potential: *Hidden*

Core Ability: *Hidden*

Proficiencies:

* *Hidden*

She was about to press him on it, but Sabir decided that it was time to take control of his team again. “That’s enough sparring for today,” he announced with a loud clap. “We were supposed to do a few other things, but how about we skip to the end of the tour and talk about what just happened?”