Chapter 20: Affection and Regret

In front of Violet, a sign came into view. Strangely enough, the 40th and 50th mile marker had no obstacles. This meant that the final obstacle was likely up ahead of them. Violet’s heart gave a small leap of joy, at last, the second selection could end. She forced back some tears that had entered into her eyes, it had been long, hard, and mentally brutal, but it was ending at last.

Leading the group, Roland held up his hand to signal everyone to stop. Violet allowed psychic energy to leave her legs, reducing her speed slowly. Unfortunately, she couldn’t see the obstacle yet as the path curved around a mountain.

Violet took a look at each member of the group. She immediately noticed Mark panting heavier than the rest of them. He had less capacity than Roland, Vivian and she did, keeping up with their pace was likely taking a toll on him.

“Mark, are you ok?” Violet asked him.

“Mostly… you guys are moving pretty fast. After the fight with those spirits, I’m a little drained.” Mark said through panted breaths. He rubbed the back of his head and gave a nervous laugh.

Violet saw Roland shake his head with a smile on his face. He turned towards Mark and placed his hand on Mark’s shoulder.

“Mark, we can’t have you getting exhausted on us. Because of you, we’re going to take a longer break than I originally planned now,” Roland said with a brilliant smile.

Mark’s face paled slightly, “You don’t have to do that man.”

“No! I insist,” Roland said, placing his hand up to Mark’s face as if to block him from speaking.

Mark weakly protested before accepting the circumstances and sitting down on the ground. He used his arm to rub off beads of sweat coming down from his forehead. Vivian sat next to him and they began to talk. Deciding to give them some privacy, Violet chose to stand next to Roland.

Violet saw Roland shifting slightly uncomfortably as they stood side by side staring forward. His face appeared ever so slightly red and his eyes shifted constantly, as if he were hiding something.

“Are you ok?” Violet asked him.

“Ye- yeah. I think I am.”

Violet felt Roland’s voice stutter and shift uncomfortably. Something was eating away at him.

“Are you sure?”

Roland sighed deeply and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Violet felt a strange sensation towards this nervous side of Roland she hadn’t yet gotten to know. But she couldn’t quite define what it was.

“Violet would you… wouldyouliketocometoAmeriacsometime?” Roland said suddenly. He spoke so fast that Violet almost couldn’t understand what he said.

“Sure. I didn’t get to see much of the country last time,” Violet said. She attempted to give a warm, comforting smile, as Mark usually gave. Roland however, struggled to make eye contact with her. It didn’t seem like he was hiding anything too important but he had something he wanted to say.

“Then how about you come to… visit me some time while there,” Roland said, his hands fidgeting with themselves. Violet tilted her head to the side, confused at what was making him so nervous. She had grown more and more comfortable with talking to Roland and had begun to adopt her own body language while conversing with him. The type of body language that could hold an entire paragraph of words but could only be understood by a close friend.

Roland blushed overtly, his face turning a bright beet red as he began to stammer over gibberish. Violet gave a politely small laugh at Roland’s reaction as she felt a wonderful sensation come over her, although what that sensation was she didn’t understand.

“Sure, if I’m in the area I’ll visit you,” Violet told him happily. While she was greatly amused by Roland’s reactions, Violet’s lack of social understanding prevented her from understanding why Roland was reacting in such ways. As such, when Roland blushed even harder at her words, Violet burst out laughing in surprise and amusement.

Unable to contain herself anymore Violet clenched her stomach as she continued to laugh. Roland on the other hand hid his face behind his hands, too embarrassed to look at Violet. Of course, this only helped to make Violet laugh harder and it took several seconds for her to restrain herself.

Violet grabbed Roland’s shoulder and forced him to turn face-to-face with her, but his hands remained blocking his face. She gently reached out, wrapped her fingers around Roland’s hand, and pulled them away from his face. She brought his hands down in front of her and continued to hold them softly. Roland’s jaw hung slightly open as he looked into Violet’s eyes. His bright and beautiful blue eyes seemed to show an ocean of incomprehensible emotions.

“I’d appreciate it if you would show me around when I come over,” Violet said, staring back at Roland.

“I… Uh… Violet your hands.” Roland responded stuttering.

‘My hands?’

Violet suddenly realized how it would look to others around them. A boy and a girl, holding each other's hands, looking into each other's eyes for a long period. There was only one possible conclusion to such an image.

Violet relaxed her grip and felt her face immediately heat up. Now Roland laughed instead as Violet hid her face behind her hands the same way Roland had done earlier. Violet peeked through her fingers and saw Mark and Vivian now looking at Roland, but neither of them seemed to see what had happened earlier.

‘Gods… this is so embarrassing.’

Yet, Violet was surprised to find that despite her embarrassment, she didn’t feel any negativity towards Roland. Rather, as Roland laughed, despite a growing urge to hit him, she couldn’t help but find his actions somewhat… endearing?

“Well, I think that it’s been a long enough break now. Let’s head out.” Roland said, recovering from his fit of laughter.

Violet finally brought her hands down from her face and saw Mark and Vivian stretching out to get ready. Violet sighed in relief, her embarrassment could end. Within a few seconds, they began to run once more, rounding the mountain and finally seeing the last obstacle.

In front of the group was a large building. It was extremely dull, made entirely out of gray concrete with no windows and with a few doors at the bottom. It stood out like a sore thumb in the environment around them considering a mountain full of trees was nearby.

“Hello again future stars.”

‘It’s the principal again,’ Violet thought to herself.

Welcome to the final obstacle. Walk through the doors to begin. If you pass this obstacle then you will officially pass the second selection. You are allowed to challenge this as a group or alone, whichever you prefer. Your current placements are 27th, 28th, 29th, and 30th. Good luck, future stars.”

With that, the principal clicked off and the team was left with just themselves and the building. Roland turned back towards the members of his group, eyeing each of them carefully.

“Well, I think we should leave this up to vote. All together or split up. All for together, raise your hands.”

Immediately all four of them raised their hands. They had made it this far together, they weren’t going to split up now. Each of them smiled affectionately at each other, over the second selection they had bonded greatly over their shared hardships. Calling them anything less than friends would be inaccurate now.

“Well then, in that case, which door should we take?”

Violet observed each of the doors. Aside from different locations in the building, each one was perfectly identical. She couldn’t decide which one to take.

“Well the middle would probably be the most common answer, followed by the right since most people are right-handed, so I say we go to the 3rd one on the left,” Mark said.

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Violet and the rest of the group nodded. They felt it was unlikely for AGH to change difficulty based on the door applicants went through, but at the same time it was AGH. It had become increasingly obvious from the past obstacles that they bordered on if not completely crossed the threshold of insanity and tested every applicant on even the most minute of reasoning.

“Well, in that case, let’s go,” Roland said, clapping his hands together as he led the group into the building.

Inside was a plain room with a singular light on the ceiling. There was a screen on the wall and a hole in the wall that had a basket with several wristbands in it. Strangely enough, the room was very small. Only large enough to fit about 8 people, whatever was inside the rest of the building was hidden away.

Violet’s attention was drawn to the screen as a set of words appeared. A computerized voice spoke them out for everyone to hear.

“Every applicant, please attach one wristband to yourself.”

The group did as they were told and grabbed one wristband each. The wristband automatically opened when Violet grabbed it. It was deceptively light for its appearance, despite seeming to be entirely metal it was as light as a feather. Violet slid her hand into the opening and it snapped shut, trapping her hand inside. Immediately she noticed a strange change, the band had somehow increased in weight. She looked around and found the other members of her team equally puzzled.

“Every applicant, please stand in one designated spot in the room.”

A series of lights appeared on the floor, each one was shaped like a foot and spaced out so applicants could stand apart from each other comfortably. Roland gave the team his approval and they all followed the screen’s orders.

“4 applicants. 2 male, 2 female. Beginning transporation.”

‘It can tell our sex? Actually, why does it need to know our sex?’

Violet suddenly felt the room lift upwards and she stumbled to catch her footing. Before she could even stand up straight again the room moved to the right and Violet nearly slammed into the wall. The speed at which the room moved was astonishing and Violet saw the rest of her team get thrown around as well. After one more direction change forward the room finally stopped moving and a door opened up.

Roland walked out first, leading his team through the room in front of them. It was a well-lit room, an entirely concrete room with an impressive height. The room itself was about 15 feet tall and painted entirely white. Without looking closely one could almost be fooled into thinking the room was an infinite plane of white.

“Greetings applicants.”

A voice called over Violet’s attention and she saw a group of adults standing side by side. Two were male, two were female, and they all appeared to be examiners for this obstacle.

Suddenly, Violet felt her arm with the wristband go limp and a tingling sensation lit up on her body. She felt herself grow weaker and weaker at a terrifying rate. She turned and saw the other three suffering from the same event, all of their psychic powers were being drained alarmingly fast. The wristband now glowed a bright green as Violet collapsed onto the floor.

Beads of sweat ran down her face in vast quantities. While she physically didn’t feel tired at all, the absorption of all of her psychic powers into the wristband had caused her to break out into a cold sweat.

“Now then applicants, line up side by side in the middle of the room,” one of the examiners said.

Violet shook slightly as she stood up, her whole body shaking from the abnormal event that had just happened to her. She observed her teammates and found that all of their wristbands had begun to glow green as well. Strangely enough though, Mark’s appeared to be brighter than the others, and it was still increasing. Violet opened her mouth to ask Mark about his wristband when he pulled his sleeve over it.

‘Does he not want anyone to know about it? What is he hiding?’

However, Violet decided to respect Mark’s secrets for the time being. She had her own secrets after all, like her fake name. It was only fair to Mark that if she didn’t reveal to him all of her secrets, then he shouldn’t have to do the same.

The four teammates now stood in front of the examiners, Violet and Vivian faced the women while Mark and Roland faced the men.

“I’m Eric,” the man on the far right said. “The man next to me is Kione, the two girls are Hadley and Lin. You may have noticed your psychic powers are being drained by that wristband. Don’t worry, it’s the same for us, although ours have a much higher capacity than yours.”

Violet followed along carefully. Since they had higher capacity wristbands than the rest of them it was ensured that they were at bare minimum Low A-Rank psychics.

‘Not only that…’ Violet thought to herself.

The examiner women wore a sports bra and leggings while the men wore tight-fitting tanktops and their own set of leggings. What was immediately obvious from this was that each one of the examiners was exceptionally fit. Their tight-fitting clothes revealed the examiners’ muscular arms and legs and their astonishingly visible abs. Even the women had large muscles, they could easily be mistaken for the arm of a fit high school boy.

Violet saw out of the corner of her eye Vivian constantly eyeing the male examiners, whose arms appeared to be more comparable in size to a bear than a human. Violet herself felt her gaze be drawn slightly before turning back quickly. Her lifestyle as a member of the Woo family refused to allow her to look at men in such a way. She couldn’t see Mark and Roland but she was sure they would be struggling to focus as much as she and Vivian were.

“The final obstacle is simple, impress us. We’ll engage you in regular combat, no weapons, no powers, just fists,” Eric said, cracking his knuckles.

‘Wait, what?’

Violet hadn’t trained in the slightest in non-powered combat. To her knowledge, it wasn’t something heroes had to be especially proficient in since psychic powers would be the usual determining factor. Violet now began to recall some words Mark had mentioned the day before the second selection.

“You never know when you might have to resort to using no psychic powers. In such a situation being fit and muscular will prove to be quite useful.”

Violet felt herself immediately grow regretful at having dismissed Mark’s words at the time. AGH, Roland, and Mark agreed on the usefulness of fitness.

“We’ll start in 5 seconds…”

‘Wait already?’

“5…”

Violet looked at the woman in front of her. She was 2 inches taller than Violet and based on appearance alone, at least twice as strong. Violet on the other hand didn’t have an ounce of muscle on her body.

“4…”

Violet turned to look at Mark and Roland. Mark had already entered into a fighting position with his fists up and his body turned to the side. Roland quickly emulated it.

“3…”

Violet turned her body into the same position as Mark and so did Vivian.

“2…”

Violet felt herself begin to panic, even if the woman in front of her had no skill at all, the sheer muscle difference would leave Violet completely disadvantaged.

“1…”

‘Gods help.’

“Begin.”

Violet saw the woman charge towards her and immediately throw a punch at her face. Violet, who had no prior training in martial arts, failed to block the attack entirely. She felt the fist slam into her face and force her backward.

Without even wasting a single breath, the examiner, Lin, tackled Violet onto the floor and Violet felt her head slam into the ground. Her world began to spin and ring uncontrollably as the woman mounted her.

78%

‘This is bad.’

Violet felt hands begin to wrap around her neck and squeeze painfully. Violet attempted to breathe but all that came out were weak squeaking noises. She grabbed at Lin’s wrists and attempted to pull her hands away, but Lin was far stronger and only tightened her squeeze. Violet began to dig her nails into Lin’s skin and blood started to come out, but Lin didn’t do anything but wince slightly. Violet felt her arms begin to grow heavy and weaken. The world started to darken and everything felt so far away. The blood pumping into her head began to echo away distantly.

‘No…’

Suddenly Lin was thrown off of Violet. Violet immediately took a massive gasp of air and felt her mental faculties return to her. Roland had tackled Lin and now began beating Lin’s head into the ground until Kione came and pulled Roland back.

Violet looked around and saw that Mark was on his feet still fighting with Eric, however, Eric was landing every hit while Mark couldn’t even hit Eric a single time.

On the other hand, Vivian had been pinned down face first and was being easily overpowered by Hadley. Violet got up to help when she was tugged back and trapped by Lin again. Lin wrapped her legs around Violet’s and lifted them, preventing Violet from touching the ground with them. Violet attempted to break away but without being able to push off the ground and with Lin being so much stronger, all Violet could do was squirm around.

Violet saw Eric finally take Mark down onto the ground and slam his head into the floor, putting Mark into a daze. Roland too had been pinned down, Kione easily overpowering any struggle Roland put up. Roland was 6 feet tall and had some muscle, but Kione appeared to be almost 6’ 4 and had far more muscle than Roland did.

‘This is bad, this is really really bad.’

All four of them had been completely overwhelmed in less than a minute by the examiners and were now completely helpless. In a real fight, knocking out or even killing all four of them in this state would have been easy.

“Well I’ll say this, I think Mark here did decent in our fight. But from what I saw the next best feat was Roland running away to tackle a woman with half his muscle mass. Looks like this obstacle isn’t over yet.”

Unfortunately, Violet acknowledged, that Roland saving Violet from Lin was barely a feat on his part. There were undeniable biological differences between men and women. While psychic powers made these physical differences largely irrelevant, now, in a situation where everyone had no powers, the difference was clear. Over the past 20,000 years since the advent of psychic powers humanity hadn’t changed much physically at all and men were still physically stronger and taller than women were. It was obvious that Roland, who even had to rely on a surprise attack, was able to overpower Lin who was caught off guard.

“Well now, do you all quit?” Eric asked.

“Like hell we do.”

Eric slammed Mark’s head into the ground to silence him and blood began to drip out of Mark’s nose. Eric looked around but nobody seemed to surrender. Violet saw him shake his head and look down to the ground with a regretful look on his face.

“I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this… Hadley.”

The woman holding Vivian turned towards Eric and pinned Vivian harder onto the ground. Despite Vivian’s struggling, Hadley barely budged.

“Which one Eric?”

“Left arm elbow.”

Hadley took out Vivian's left arm and placed her knee on Vivan’s elbow which was facing upwards. She reached out with one hand and grabbed Vivan’s wrist while the other kept Vivian’s head pinned down. Mark began to yell as he realized what was about to happen.

“Wait no! Don’t do it!”

Violet and Roland soon came to the realization as well and Hadley began to lift Vivian’s hand upwards while the rest of her arm remained pinned.

“Don’t hurt her!” Violet yelled.

“Please don’t!” Roland said.

Violet, Roland, and Mark all began to fight harder against their opponents but they simply couldn’t escape. For all of Violet’s struggles, without any martial arts experience, she was completely helpless.

Violet felt the scar on the palm of her hand. It was just like that time, she was helpless. Someone in front of her was in danger and Violet couldn’t do a single thing. She was weak.

Violet’s eyes widened in horror as Vivian began to scream out in pain. Hadley continued to slowly move Vivian’s hand upwards, her arm now bent backward unnaturally. Yet it continued to rise more and more until…

‘Crack’

Hadley suddenly pulled back hard. Mark, Roland, and Violet all froze and stopped screaming. Vivan’s cries grew louder and her arm fell onto the ground. Her elbow had finally snapped and was now bent unnaturally backward completely limp.

Violet felt rage begin to burn in her as she struggled harder against Lin, only to be choked more and be forced to stop. Similar things happened with Roland and Mark as well. Meanwhile, Vivian cried out harder as her unusable arm flared in horrific pain. It was as though a fire had been lit and was consuming her arm.

‘I’ll kill them, I’ll kill all of them,’ Violet began to think to herself. What they had done was unforgivable. They would pay, all of them would pay for what they had done to her friend.

Eric looked to the ground, pain etched onto his face. Every one of the examiners had flinched and looked away when Hadley broke Vivian’s arm. As brutal as their line of work was, they were still human and they still had human emotions. But this was AGH, there were reasons graduates were always so impressively strong.

“Would anyone like to surrender now?” Eric said.

“GO TO HELL BASTARD!!!” Roland yelled.

“YOU SON OF A BITCH I’LL KILL YOU!!!” Mark screamed.

Eric sighed and shook his head once more. When he spoke again his regret was audible in his voice.

“Kione…”

Roland began to struggle again as Kione brought out Roland’s left arm. Violet felt an overwhelming fear come over her as she realized what was happening.

‘They’re going to torture us into submission…’

End of Chapter 20