Returning to the training room, they all dragged their chairs to surround the folding table Albion had brought out. On it sat five water bottles, one for each person, along with a first aid kit, some snack bars, and a tablet in case an observer wanted to note or record something.

Up first in the sparring order, Titus and Conrad didn’t take a seat and instead walked back to the center of the training room—where they had been before Conrad interrupted. Getting into ready positions after putting a chunk of space between them, they looked towards the table for a signal to start. Albion, taking a certain delightful glee in the fact he wasn’t fighting first, elected to act as the judge and raised his hand.

Turning his right hand into ice and augmenting its length to make it more visible, Albion paused before swinging his hand downward. Smashing the tip of his ice spike into the ground, he yelled a “Start!” before sitting down. Transforming his hands back into flesh, he put them behind his head and kicked his feet up onto another chair. “Now this is the good life.”

Nyssa, without much to say, just nodded along and gave Albion a quiet thumbs-up before turning her attention to the fight at hand. She could tell both Conrad and Titus were much more... experienced than her.

Conrad stalked around the circle of flames gushing out of Titus in liquid-like waves. With his sword unsheathed, he scanned every inch of Titus as his muscles were tensed and ready to leap off in any direction.

Titus, on the other hand, was wreathed in flames. His eyes glowed orange as he reached into the pool of fire at his feet. Grabbing clumps of fire, he began shaping them in his hands to form a hammer. The flames, after a couple seconds of shaping, took on a form indistinguishable from any other hammer—well, other than the fact the head glowed red-hot of course.

“Oh, so that’s why he’s in this class...” Nyssa murmured to herself as she felt the heat emanate all the way to where she was sitting.

“Hammer of Hephaestus, I call upon thee,” Titus whispered as his voice, nonetheless, echoed through the room with supernatural force. His protective disk of flames faded as he rushed forward to meet Conrad head-on.

Wincing as the sound of clanging metal echoed through the room, Nyssa watched with interest as the two began their duel in earnest. Flames trailed behind each of Titus’s hammer strikes and engulfed Conrad in—what she presumed to be—scorching heat.

Conrad, though, put his ‘protagonist’ energy on full display. Rushing through the flames, his aggressive sword strikes met, and even pushed back Titus’s hammer strikes. He was strong, there was no doubt. Titus, like any oldest brother, was strong, but he couldn’t withstand Conrad’s neverending onslaught of pure swordsmanship.

One step. Two steps. A leap back. Titus was outmatched. That’s what Nyssa guessed. The supernatural hammer Titus had, though powerful, was a poor match for Conrad and his meticulous style of fighting.

Armed with nothing but his body and an unbreakable sword, Conrad stomped into the ground, creating a dent, before shooting forward like a bullet to close the gap. Titus, to his credit, leaned back to let Conrad sail over him, but Conrad’s system had already realized Titus’s intentions long before any physical movement was made.

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Grabbing Titus’s hammer midair, Conrad torqued himself midair and flipped behind Titus, and... before Nyssa realized it, the duel was over. Conrad stood behind Titus—withstanding the flames—while holding his sword at Titus’s throat.

“I concede,” Titus sighed as his hammer, along with flames, dissipated into air. “I can never beat you Conrad.”

“Yeah, you match up badly against me,” Conrad grinned while pushing his hair back. Patting Titus’s back, he walked along with Titus as they made their way back. “Whew, those flames were hot though. If I didn’t spend the break training my heat resistance I don’t think I could’ve lasted through that. Your flames got hotter, didn't they?”

“By a decent bit,” Titus nodded with a smile. “What type of ridiculous heat resistance do you have to survive the heat of fire like it’s nothing?”

Activating his system, Conrad scanned his own stats for a second. “Just got it to level nine.”

“Wild...” Titus shook his head. Grabbing his water bottle, he took a long drink before taking a seat. “Who’s up next again? Albion and Celeste, right? Also, hand me the tablet please, we should write down the fights and the results.”

“One and ‘O’ baby,” Conrad laughed and grabbed his own water bottle. “How does it feel to start the new term ‘O’ and one, Titus?”

“It feels fine,” Titus smiled, “I learned a little more about hammer combat from that duel so it was worth it.”

Nyssa too, didn’t feel like the win or loss defined the situation. Well, it was cliché to say, but she had learned more from the whole spectacle. It was like a hero fighting through a storm of fire! Plus, it gave her some insight into who she’d be fighting later, Conrad. She was pretty sure her first match was against Conrad... if the fight after hers was Albion and Titus, it should be him, right?

Dismissing the thought, she refocused to watch Celeste and Albion.

Albion, once more, had frozen over half his body. Celeste though, was the more interesting one. She could now hear Celeste’s heartbeat from where she was sitting! Celeste was in the center of the training room!

Accelerating, Celeste’s heartbeat became a drum as her own body was forced through ascension. The empty lines on her suit filled with glowing energy as her hair and eyes turned to a translucent, starry look. Floating into the air, she stood back as Albion took his place.

Urged to speak by Titus and Conrad, Nyssa stood up and copied Albion. Transforming her hand into a longer, carapace-covered appendage, she raised it up before slamming it against the ground. On the sound of it colliding with the ground, she shouted “Start!”

Sitting back down and transforming her hand back into her normal human one, Nyssa watched as Titus and Conrad made eye contact with each other before both shivering. Titus, turning back to Nyssa, chuckled and gave her a pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong, just... we were a little surprised.”

“Yeah, no offense, it’s just a little more unsettling than Albion’s ice pike.” Conrad pat Nyssa on the shoulder as well.

“No, I understand,” Nyssa bobbed her head up and down. “I don’t like bugs either, I just couldn’t think of anything else to transform it into.”

“I hate them too, all's good though...” Conrad trailed off as he turned back to face the fight.

Nyssa, taking a mental note of Conrad’s supposed dislike for bugs, also turned back to watch the fight.

Go Celeste!

Warmth should always beat cold!