Barging through the doorway, Adrian wasted no time in ricocheting his vision across the whole room to find where he could put himself to use. The room was just as large and worn down as the other, with the same dingy smell too. Flipped upside down, and missing some of its legs, was a long, oval-shaped wooden dining table, surrounded by a heap of broken plates and rusty cutlery.

On one side of it, and furthest from him, was Alex, hunched over in pain. A thick trail of Blood oozed down the side of his face, escaping from a cut on his forehead. Despite how bad it looked, keeping his amplification going steady seemed like his main priority.

Around his fists, thin streams of water flowed at high pressure. The illusion of a still, translucent dome was created, but it was surely sharp enough to cut through skin. It took a few seconds, but he finally turned and noticed Adrian standing at the door. He looked like he was going to blow a fuse at any second and his mouth did start moving, but Adrian instinctively turned away before any of the words started to register. To him, finding a way to act rather than listening to Alex's nagging was undoubtedly the better option.

On the other side of the table was a rogue spirit identical to the one he and Isabelle had beaten, struggling to push itself off the ground. A frothy purple liquid dripped down to the ground from a disgusting flesh wound in its neck. Spirit energy materialised around it as strands of glowing, purple silk, weaving with graceful precision to repair the damage. Adrian lifted his left foot, shifting his weight backwards and set his sights on that critical spot. His arm was stretched out behind him, ready to swing. And in one swift movement, he did just that, slamming his foot back down and emitting a baseball sized ball of flame with considerable force at the last second. Unfortunately, that force was the only considerable thing about it. In his haste he’d sent it slightly off course, much to his dismay.

The rogue’s expression morphed into one filled with vicious intent, locked on to Adrian as the flames blazed past its face. Its already gaping maw opened even more and a flicker of purple spirit energy flashed within its mouth. It was charging something. This new scenario, one that didn't fit the expectations set by Adrian's previous fight, sent an ice cold chill down his spine and caused him to take a quick and shallow inhale. His next action couldn't fail. Still holding his breath, he pointed his finger towards the speeding fireball, bringing the flow of spirit energy in his hand to a complete standstill. Flicking his finger upwards caused the flames to follow the path he traced, bound by their spiritual connection to him - the art of manipulation.

There was no time to think through what he was doing. With a wave of adrenaline coursing through his veins, he swung his arm again, sending the flames hurtling towards the weak spot. The instant they made contact, a powerful blast erupted from the rogue’s mouth, ripping through the air towards him. Every muscle in his body tensed up. He lifted his arms up to defend himself, not even registering that the projectile had already whizzed past him, creating a huge hole in the mansion's wall, and just barely missing his head.

…Holy shit.

Being sure that the danger had left, Adrian took the chance to exhale the tension out of his body, all of his senses returning to him at once. A body of light from outdoors filled the room fully exposing the rogue's lifeless figure laid out on the ground like a ragdoll. As it began to dissolve away, its dying screams faded into softer, pain-filled groans. It was almost pitiful, but once it had fully disappeared, he forgot about it entirely and walked over to Alex who was wiping away the blood from his injury with a sour look on his face.

“You good?” he asked.

Alex placed his hand against the wall and heaved himself up, glaring at Adrian with disdain. “I said not to help me. You're way too reckless."

"Well, you seem thankful."

"Don't start getting onto me after you almost got your head blown off. Rogues don't operate within set elemental abilities like we do. It could have had any type of ability. Imagine it had something that could have guaranteed a hit on you even after it died. Then what, hotshot?"

Adrian kissed his teeth. "Yeah, well you're hurt, right? I didn't have time to think about all that," he said, waving his hand, dismissively.

"And I would have been fine on my own," Alex snapped back, "Or what, do you just think you're that much better than me or something?"

The giggle that Adrian let out after this was a genuine accident, but the ego behind it was something he couldn't deny. He shamelessly covered his mouth to stop himself, and the thought of apologising briefly crossed his mind. Having already shown the way he really felt though, anything that involved him backing down would've been the same as admitting Alex really was better than him. It wasn't in the cards.

He then heard Isabelle's worried voice behind him, but didn't turn to look at her. "W-what's going on? Why are you guys arguing?"

Alex ignored her too, and reached into his pocket. He took out his phone and pointed the screen towards Adrian. "Why don't you come put those flames where your mouth is?" On his screen was the social media post they had seen before. The one of that weird purple figure in the forest. Adrian smirked at him, attempting to call any potential bluffs, but soon turned it upside down, seeing that Alex was firmly standing his ground. "What? Don't wanna go?"

They stared at each other for a second longer, then Adrian rolled his eyes and asked Isabelle how much time they had left for the exam.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Well, we have more than enough," she replied, "We could make it there in half an hour if we run, but are we… Are we actually going? Because I was just joking about that extra credit, you know?"

She smiled nervously and looked back and forth between the two of them, searching for some sort of solace that never came. Now with a deadpan expression on his face, Adrian placed his hand on her shoulder, knowing he couldn’t deny Alex's challenge.

"Isabelle."

"Hm?"

"My bad."

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

Adrian had dialled his focus all the way up to eleven. Beating Alex at his own challenge was an important stepping stone, after all. One that would give him more experience and get him closer to reaching the heights of his dad much faster. Why wait for more missions from the school when he could take the initiative for himself, right?

The wind slapped his face and Branches snapped underneath his feet with every step he took while narrowly dodging the trees and bushes in his way. Turning around would cause him to slow down, but he assumed Alex and Isabelle were tailing closely behind him. He didn’t have to worry about anything except keeping his eyes focused on the obstacle course of a forest in front of him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, however, a tiny, troubling thought was growing.

What the hell are we even running to in the first place?

He’d only taken a brief look at that photo, but it was enough to convince him that it wasn’t edited. Some human looking rogue really was out there. Wearing the clothes of what may have been one of its victims, no less. The more he stormed forward, the more he felt a knot begin to form in his stomach. Disturbing as the thought was, it wasn’t enough to make him waver. That’s what he wanted to believe.

While he was deep in thought, the other two had finally managed to pass him slightly. Alex from the left, and Isabelle from the right. “Getting tired?” Alex said, looking back at him smugly.

He clenched his fists and kept pushing on, not allowing himself to waste time on a response. Each of his breaths were gradually getting thinner and more hoarse.

Using spirit energy at a level acceptable for even basic combat requires considerable levels of physical strength in order to avoid self imposed injury. Even with his physically trained body, Adrian had been so tunnel visioned on getting to their location that the thought of pacing himself never even occurred to him, resulting in the fatigue his body was beginning to feel.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Isabelle periodically looking at him like she wanted to say something. “I think we’re getting closer to another clearing. If we don't see something straight away can we go back to school? Please?"

Adrian's eyes shut for a split second as a ray of sunlight passed by. The amount of trees in their path was decreasing rapidly, confirming what Isabelle said. "Y-yeah. We'll do that for sure,” he said.

He heard the sound of flowing water from his left and turned to see Alex surfing on a small wave he had created with his emission. “I’ll go on ahead.” The wave quickly grew taller, then disappeared, having launched Alex into the air above the trees.

Not wanting to be left behind, Adrian looked around for anything he could use to gain his lead back. Using his flames within the forest in a way that didn’t burn anything was possible for him, but risky. In the end it was Isabelle who ended up being his saving grace. "I'm going to do something so we can catch up," she said.

"Say less," He replied.

She stammered a bit before speaking again. "Y-you might get weirded out, though..."

He gave her a quick side eye, suspicious of what she may be planning, but ended up giving her the go-ahead. Her face flushed up for a second before she slowed down her pace so she was behind him. Adrian went silent and kept his eyes facing forward. He didn’t even have enough time for the idea of regret to enter his mind because of how quickly he was swept into her arms like a princess. He thought for a second about how he’d managed to find himself there, looking down at the ground whizzing past them, then back up at Isabelle. Her face was still coloured bright pink from embarrassment.

“I told you,” she said quietly.

“You did,” he said, “I feel like princess Apricot, but if you have a plan, let’s do it fast and promise to never talk about this again.”

“O-ok.”

With just her legs amplified, she jumped forwards, landing with both of her feet on the side of a tree, then kicking off of it and launching to the next one. She continued, bouncing between them like a pinball to gain further momentum and altitude. Even with her speed, she controlled herself near perfectly so Adrian felt minimal recoil from any of the impacts.

He covered his face and braced himself as she kicked one last time and launched them up above the forest’s ceiling, leaves and branches scratching past them both. Frantically kicking his legs, he broke out of Isabelle’s arms to regain some of his control while they flew through the air. Meanwhile, Alex was just ahead of them, keeping himself from falling by shooting out powerful streams of water from his feet whenever gravity started to do its thing. Adrian decided to do the same with his flames, wrapping his arms around Isabelle, who had no way to keep herself up there on her own. She held onto him tightly, as they finally managed to catch up.

"Long time no see," Adrian said with a sneer.

Alex didn't turn to look at him at all. His attention was being taken by something else in front of them. "What the hell is that?" There was a tinge of confusion in his voice that Adrian had noticed. A confusion he'd come to understand when he looked down for himself.

The rogue from the picture was there, a roughly fifteen minute sprint away from Grillber's diner, more or less where they expected it would be. Seeing it casually crouching there was enough to make him shudder, but the thing floating next to it was the real cause of concern. A white spherical object that was giving off a faint, pulsating glow. Thin trails of spirit energy appeared magnetised to it, spinning around it like the rings on a planet. Adrian quickly discarded his initial thought that it might have been just a regular core. The differences were only slight, but they were just enough to make the hairs on his neck stand up. "Isabelle," he said, "Do you have any idea what that is?" He figured that if anyone would have any clue it'd be the one who grew up in a family known for all things spirit hunting, and his hunch proved to be correct.

A whimper left her mouth, different from her usual nervous stutters. “A-a cluster?” she said quietly, “Something like that should have been reported and dealt with already… T-that means it probably formed recently..." She took out her phone and navigated her contacts, calling somebody named Jessie. The phone rang, and rang, but the person never picked up. “What did I expect?” she said, dejected, “I’ll text it instead.”

Adrian looked up at Alex, and for the first time, they were both unified. Unified in the confusion that was written all over their faces.

“I don’t fully get it, but that glowing thing is dangerous, right?” asked Alex, "What's the plan then, Ambers? We turning back or...?”

“We should. I-if we go down there to fight that thing… We’ll probably die.”