Chapter 31: So Begins the Final Selection

“Well future stars, let’s begin the final selection.”

Violet suddenly released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She was suddenly beginning to experience an intense amount of stress and anxiety moments before the final selection began. She turned and saw Vivian nervously fidgeting with her hands.

“For a quick recap, there are 68 remaining applicants and only the top 20 point scorers among you will be considered for AGH. Among those 20 only 10 will actually be accepted.”

Violet nodded to herself, she remembered all of this. Following the second selection she had racked up another 30 points to place her at 85 points. This meant that she was now ranked as the 26th highest-point applicant.

Violet’s roommates had also done quite well. Roland was at 168 total points, earning another 23, although he remained in 4th place. Vivian was at 99 total points, earning 19 more since the second selection, but she had dropped down a position to 13th. Mark was still the highest-ranked of them all, earning 24 more points for a total of 261 points. Yet the gap between him and first place had only widened as first place was now at 277 points, earning 32 points in just two days.

“Now, luckily for you all, the tournament will be a basic and regular tournament. No tricks, no traps, and no surprises, just a regular combat tournament. Winners progress and losers fail. Each win will net you 50 points and a loss will spell the end of your time in the tournament. The tournament will take place over this one day and each match will occur at the same time. Every match-up will be decided randomly. After the final match of each round concludes, applicants will be given a 10-minute break, during which they will be healed.”

The principal, whose face was on screen, smiled even wider than previously. The unhinged nature of his face, which was already usually present, somehow grew even worse. Violet felt a chill run down her back as this happened, fearful that the principal would reveal something dangerous.

He had said that there wouldn’t be anything unusual, but this was AGH, and the principal didn’t appear to be the most mentally stable person. At times he was comforting and kind, yet most of the time the applicants had seen him he was as unhinged as he was now.

“I’m very excited to see some of your performances, try not to disappoint me. Now, a little after I leave, the two doors will open, and each applicant will go through their own door. Any applicants who try to go through the same door will be deducted 75 points. Good luck future stars.”

The principal clicked off and Violet heaved a sigh of relief. The principal didn’t add anything to the final selection after all. That being said, she was curious as to the applicants the principal had taken an interest in. She suspected the 3 High B-Rank’s were likely options for obvious reasons, and Mark as well for his perfect test score, but she couldn’t think of anyone else. The principal was an SS-Rank psychic, it would take a lot for him to get interested in an applicant.

In front of Violet and Vivian, the two doors suddenly opened, silently sliding to the side. Behind each door was a dark room, large enough for one person to just stand in. On the floor of it were footprints flashing white, indicating where to stand.

“Well Violet,” Vivian said, turning to face Violet. “Looks like this is where we separate.”

“Yeah,” Violet responded anxiously, “good luck Vivian.”

“Good luck to you too Violet.”

Both girls then stepped foot into the small rooms in front of them, Violet on the right and Vivian on the left. As soon as Violet of them stepped on the flashing footprints on the floor the door behind her suddenly sealed.

‘Wait a minute… the second selection had something like this. Wasn’t it an eleva-’

Violet was suddenly thrown to the right as the room she was in was revealed to be an elevator, one that could go left and right as well as up and down. The elevator then lurched forward, sending Violet flying back into the wall.

‘Ah, my head…’

Violet rubbed the back of her head, she wasn’t thrown back hard enough for her to receive even a minor concussion, but it still hurt quite a bit. Following this Violet decided to stay on the ground instead of standing since she wouldn’t be thrown around that way.

As the elevator continued to move throughout the building Violet was in, Violet began to reminisce on the past few days in an attempt to distract herself from a growing anxiousness. It was on the first day of the application that her memory was drawn. Specifically, Mark’s attack on her.

‘I haven’t thought about it for a while now, but it’s very strange.’

Violet had originally suspected that Mark might be one of the strongest applicants in AGH due to the power of his mental attack. When Violet had attempted to observe deep into Mark’s soul she hadn’t just been blocked out, but the mental defenses that were naturally constructed with Soul Seer had been completely destroyed and the damage she received was on par with an A-Rank level attack. Violet thought that Mark had to be at least a High B-Rank while hiding some sort of secret that allowed his powers to receive a substantial boost to A-Rank status.

‘Yet based on the second selection, he really does seem to be just a regular Low B-Rank.’

Violet shook her head, it didn’t make any sense. Mark couldn’t possibly have broken through Soul Seer’s mental defenses with enough remaining power to damage her at the level of a Low B-Rank. On top of that, it hadn’t happened since, meaning it was likely not a malicious attack since Mark would have been able to launch another mental attack on Violet at any time. The implication behind that though is that it was an instinctual attack or a third party intervened.

‘But that in itself opens up even more questions. An instinctual attack is far weaker than a prepared and intentional one, which means Mark has even more power than I previously thought. And if there was a third party instead who used Mark to try and shift the blame, how did the A-Rank bodyguard not notice them during their attack on me?’

Violet sighed as she felt the elevator shift to the left, throwing her right. Mark’s attack on her raised questions and deeper thought into it raised even more. Ultimately Violet decided to push the thought to the back of her mind for now, there were simply too many questions for her to confront right now, especially with the final selection just moments away.

“You have arrived at your stop, please exit the elevator.”

A computerized voice pulled Violet away from her thoughts and she stepped out of the elevator. Immediately, without her deep thinking to distract her, Violet was filled with anxiety. She felt her stomach drop and her palms quickly became clammy with a cold sweat. Each step she took felt overly impactful despite the shoes she wore like the ground was fighting against her. Everything felt unnatural and uncomfortable.

Violet sighed, ‘breathe,’ she thought to herself. She recalled how it had brought her out of the panic attack state she was in before and she used it now to keep herself calm. She was a Mid B-Rank, meaning that most applicants would be about her level or slightly weaker. Plus, she was an all-rounder, making her a more varied fighter.

‘If you just look at it that way, I have one of the highest chances of winning.’

Violet began to observe her surroundings, it was similar to the arenas that she had used a few days prior, although much larger. A fake urban setting surrounded her, filled with cars, shops, lights, alleyways, and anything else that would make a city identifiable as a city. However, while the practice arenas were only a single street, this arena was far larger. This arena was as large as a soccer stadium, and not just the field, but the spectator stands too. The buildings were larger as well, some of them being over 75 feet tall.

Stolen story; please report.

Violet looked around in amazement, AGH had already recreated a large portion of a ruined city from The Night of Massacre, but they would have needed to create dozens of these smaller arenas. The sheer amount of detailing on each of these arenas was incredible as well, even a few gum pieces littered the walls and the ground. Such a recreation of a realistic city could have only been done with some sort of unique power.

“The matches will begin momentarily.”

Listening to the computerized voice, Violet observed her surroundings to find an applicant climbing over a wall from a nearby street. AGH, it appears hadn’t placed the applicants near each other.

The other applicant was a boy with cherry-red hair and a freckled face. His arms were lanky and swung unnaturally as he walked around like he was out of sync with himself. Every step he took his arms lagged in their swing. Other than that though, he looked rather normal.

‘I guess the guys get black suits. They look to be the same material though.’

“Hello,” the boy said nervously, “I’m Ivan. N- nice to meet you.”

“I’m Violet, it’s a pleasure to meet you as well. How’s your day today?”

“Oh uh… I’m doing okay I guess…”

“Well, that’s nice to hear.”

As Violet continued the conversation she activated Soul Seer, causing her eyes to become a deep purple. By continuing the conversation Violet could divert Ivan’s attention away from the sudden change in her eyes. If Ivan noticed Violet using Soul Seer it might interfere with the thoughts Violet would hear while searching into Ivan’s soul.

Violet saw her vision change and Ivan’s body became a black shadow with a small white orb in the center of his chest. The orb appeared to swirl inwards in a slightly nauseating and illusory vortex.

‘He doesn’t have any black marks, that’s good. I can read his thoughts and desires without issue then.’ Violet then began to pull on Ivan’s soul and her mind was instantly inundated with Ivan’s thoughts.

‘Aaaaah, I’m so nervous. She’s beautiful. I didn’t get any sleep. Can I win? I don’t want to hurt her. Desyncing. What are her abilities? Is she a Mid, Low, or High B-Rank?’

‘Wait a minute,’ Violet suddenly realized. ‘Desyncing?’ Feeling a connection Violet continued to try and search deeper into Ivan’s soul, paying special attention to anything that could be related to ‘Desyncing’.

‘When is it going to start? I’m only a Low B-Rank. I barely passed the second selection. Do I even want to be a hero? I can only hold it for a minute or so. It’s so exhausting.’

Violet inwardly smiled as she found that she was able to retrieve some information about what was likely Ivan’s unique power, which Violet assumed was called Desyncing. It seemed like Desyncing was especially draining in some way, causing Ivan to only be able to use it for about a minute and it would likely leave him exhausted.

‘It’s valuable information, but I still have no idea how it works. It’s probably not a one-hit K.O. because then he would be more worried about whether or not it would work on me rather than how long he could hold it for. But I can’t deduce anything more than that, not to mention I have no idea of its drawbacks that I might be able to take advantage of and Soul Seer is too exhausting to be use-’

“Are you ok Violet?”

“Huh?” Violet was dragged out of her brainstorming by Ivan who was looking at her with some concern in his face. Violet realized she had become so engrossed in her thoughts that she had forgotten to carry on her conversation with Ivan.

“Uh, sorry,” Violet began to rub her eyes, hiding their purple hue while she turned off Soul Seer, “I got something in my eye.”

‘Shoot, he might be suspicious now. Hopefully, that doesn’t give him an advantage somehow.’

“The matches will begin in 1 minute. Please prepare yourselves, applicants. A set of lines will show you the minimum distance each applicant will start at from each other.”

Violet removed her arm from her eyes with Soul Seer now deactivated. She felt a slight pulsating feeling in the back of her eyes, a side effect that could sometimes come about while using Soul Seer. Looking around, Violet saw two glowing white lines floating in the air, about 30 feet apart from each other.

“Well,” Violet said, “Good luck on the match Ivan.”

Ivan didn’t respond but nodded, his eyes were narrowed into slits of suspicion. The two of them separated, moving behind the floating lines.

Violet began to use her psychic powers to forcefully tense her muscles, warming them up for a fight. The last thing she wanted was to experience a cramp amid combat. Even a moment of hesitation could prove to be devastating to her.

“The match will start in 10 seconds.”

‘Here we go.’

“9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…”

Violet saw Ivan suddenly crouch to the ground. But from this distance, she couldn’t tell anything out of the ordinary. It just appeared like Ivan was getting into a starting position for a track event.

“BEGIN!”

Violet didn’t even have enough time to blink when Ivan launched himself at her. He covered the 30 feet separating them in less than a tenth of a second. His body slammed into Violet, sending her flying away.

Violet crashed through a building, breaking through 3 walls before coming to a stop in a nearby street. She felt herself cough up blood as her abdomen suddenly roared out in pain. She could feel every single one of her ribs screaming in their fragmented state. Violet had barely managed to instinctively put up a weak barrier to soften the blow, yet Ivan had still caused so much damage.

Violet moaned painfully as she began to heal as fast as she could. Her entire stomach felt like it was ablaze. She felt her ribs painfully being rearranged to return to their original state and her flesh slicing open as the ribs moved past.

‘How did he move so fast? The amount of energy he must have charged up in his legs to move that fast should have taken a longer build-up time. It was instantaneous.’

Violet slammed her fist into the ground, sending psychic energy into the earth and causing it to cave in. As she fell she saw Ivan running through the holes in the buildings she had been thrown through. She quickly closed up the hole as she fell, hoping that Ivan wouldn’t notice it. Just in case though, she created a tunnel in the earth and shifted the ground to move her through it, changing her location out of Ivan’s view.

‘I need to buy time for my healing. If I face him like this now then I’ll lose for sure.’

As Violet healed herself she felt the earth shake. Small pebbles and dust began to fall from the ground above her.

‘Ivan, he must know that I’m underground. He’s trying to cause a cave-in on me!’

Violet quickly ran through her options. If she didn’t reinforce the earth then she could heal faster, but Ivan could cause a cave-in before she was completely healed. On the other hand, if she did reinforce the earth then the psychic power Ivan was outputting into the ground to shake it would interact with hers and Ivan would find her location.

After a few seconds of consideration, Violet placed her hand on the ground and began to reinforce the earth. The ground stopped shaking for a moment, the pebbles and dust settling down. For a few seconds, there was silence as Ivan began to locate Violet. Then, Violet heard the sounds of the earth opening up,

‘He fell for it.’

Violet heard Ivan begin shaking the earth once more as he began to try and start a cave-in once more. But Violet had already moved herself to the surface and sealed Ivan underground. She began to reinforce the earth, ensuring Ivan would expend large amounts of psychic energy to escape.

‘It worked.’

Instead of reinforcing the earth directly above her, Violet had reinforced the ground a distance away. A psychic needed direct contact with the earth to manipulate it. But, once contact was established the element could be manipulated from a distance as long as there was a continuous connection of earth. It cost more psychic energy, but in this case, it was worth it. When Ivan had dropped down into the false location Violet had made, she launched herself back to the surface and sealed Ivan inside.

‘Now heal. You have to heal.’

Ivan wouldn’t be able to be trapped for long, Violet could only reinforce so much earth, but it would be enough. As the ground quaked violently beneath Violet, her ribs began to rapidly heal. She just needed a little bit more time.

The quaking ground began to grow faint as Ivan moved horizontally away from the range of Violet’s influence. Violet healed herself further, racing against Ivan. If Violet could just reach a functional level then she could heal mid-combat against Ivan, but if Ivan escaped before that then it was almost certainly over.

‘Heal, heal faster.’

Violet began to use up more energy to heal her injuries. But this caused her to lose focus on the reinforced ground, allowing Ivan to move a little easier, he left Violet’s sphere of influence.

‘Damnit!’

Violet released the psychic power reinforcing the earth, putting all of her focus onto healing, just as Ivan popped out of the earth. Violet saw Ivan’s eyes immediately focus on her and he got back into the same starting position from when the match had started.

‘Damnit all!’

Violet gritted her teeth and forced herself to stand and move. Violet couldn’t see Ivan using any psychic powers, but Violet knew what to expect this time. She needed to form a barrier and reinforce her body. But as Violet did this she couldn’t help but feel a sense of helplessness come over her. Ivan had an inhumanly fast charge-up time, it looked like in just a second Ivan was able to fill his legs with enough psychic energy to severely injure Violet in one shot. Violet just didn’t have enough time.

Violet’s eyes widened as Ivan’s legs bulged up, suddenly rippling with muscles, his veins protruding through the suit he wore. His face contorted in pain for a moment and then he was off. In an instant Violet saw a blur go from a distance away to right in front of her… and then past her.

While Ivan flew diagonally through a few buildings, Violet fell onto the ground in pain. Ivan had grazed her side, breaking her arm and injuring the left part of her ribs again. But even as her arm and chest flared up in pain, Violet smiled. She no longer needed to fear that attack.

‘I don’t need a barrier.’

Ivan’s missed attack caused Violet to remember her sparring match with Vivan. In it, Violet had launched herself at Vivian in a similar way that Ivan was about to. Instead of making a barrier though, Vivian had merely redirected Violet’s direction.

‘I don’t need to block, I just need to give him a nudge.’

Violet got up again, turning to find Ivan lying on the ground over a hundred feet away. She could see his arm stabbed with a metal bar and blood ran down his face. He screamed in pain as he tore the metal bar from his arm. A mixture of anxiety and fear showed on his face as he looked at Violet, who was smiling at him confidently.

…

Shamus Eliseo, The Tailor, felt an overwhelming smile come over him. A giddy and insane joy mixed with fear and apprehension. He began to laugh, clutching his side painfully as he looked at the data one of his suits was recording.

“It’s incredible,” he said to himself, struggling to hold back his laughter.

Sever had told him to keep an eye on a few applicants. But he could have never expected to find what he did. It was an incredible development by any interpretation. Jewon Woo, her unique power was special. The last time an applicant had such a unique power they changed the world.

Shamus picked up his phone in a mix of apprehension and excitement. He scrolled through his contacts list until he found Sever Fowl, and he gave him a call.

“Shamus,” Sever’s voice came out on the other side of the phone. “What is it?”

“Sever… come inside my room now.” Shamus could barely contain his excitement. He was practically jumping in

“What, why?”

“I’m an S-Rank and you’re an SS-Rank. Our call is obviously being monitored right now.”

“... I’m coming, Shamus.”

End of Chapter 31