Von begins to charge at me, and I immediately begin to pull my power into my hands to prep myself for what’s to come. I don’t struggle against the bindings, at least, not yet. The next blow has to finish it... I can’t afford to miss this opportunity.
Von rushes in to strike me, but right before he can finish his swing, I incinerate Clarissa’s wires, narrowly slip his punch, and counter by planting my palm against his chest. A surge of power rushes through my arm and my dark flames combust against his suit at pointblank range, the explosion shooting him back into the foreground. My new move, flash touch, was a success.
I fall to one knee and grip the base of my wrist, my hand still glowing with the eerie remnants of my flame. I used more energy than I wanted to, and I almost lost my head, but the tradeoff was well worth it. There’s no way he didn’t take serious damage. That was a direct hit.
Over the past two weeks, I’d been working on it, but this is the best I could do. The idea came to me after remembering all the times Tristen grabbed and burned me and Summer reinforcing her fist with ice. I still haven’t figured out how to fire projectiles, but this is a nice alternative. By stockpiling the energy into my palm and releasing it, I can make a shortrange blast that deals heavy damage. The only con is that releasing too much energy at once leaves me in a bit of pain.
I try to stand, but I feel the tug of Clarissa’s wires coiled around my leg. She got me again before I had a chance to recover.
I turn to face her, and I catch her just in time to watch her flex one of her fingers as if pulling a trigger. A crackling sound resonates from above me, and I look up to see a multitude of medium-sized branches fall from above me at different heights. Does she have this whole place booby trapped? There’s not enough time to break free and get out of the way, so I use my powers again to send a massive flare upward and disintegrate the wood before it can reach me. Next, I try to free myself, but my hand’s suspended in the air, unable to move—she got me again right after I finished my attack. She tries to pull me to the ground, but I summon another flame and press it against my wrist and then my leg, freeing me from her clutches.
“Aiden!” I glance back towards the origin of Erik’s voice and see Roy’s opened hand shoot towards me. I dodge it by twisting, but the sudden movement throws me off balance. Roy’s hand continues to travel past me, so I grab it, my palms still ignited with my energy. My flames lash away at his forearm, but he still manages to coil his arm around me. I send more of my energy into my palms, and Roy uses his momentum to toss me several feet into the air. I catch a glimpse of Von back on the move towards the fight before Clarissa’s fibers grab me by the forearm and sling me back into the ground, knocking the wind out me.
This isn’t good. I thought Von was done for. We lost Summer, and Erik’s struggling with Roy. I can tell from their attacks they figured out that I don’t have range. They’re trying to whittle me down, and it’s working.
“Aiden, are you okay to continue?” Mr. Hoover says from the earpiece in my suit. “Your vitals spiked for a moment.”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I groan once I catch my breath. I was hoping Mr. Hoover didn’t notice, but that last attack almost did me in.
“If you can’t defend yourself, I’m going to have to call this match.”
“No, not yet... I... can still fight.” I burn off Clarissa’s wires and hurry to stand to my feet despite my pain. Von will be back in the mix soon, and we were getting slaughtered while he was gone.
Clarissa shoots her fibers towards me again, and I incinerate them with an intense burst of flame before they can get too close. Making a blast that big took a lot of energy, but I had to do it to hide my actions.
I do my best to ignore the ripples of pain coursing through my arms. The fall I took was no joke, and I’ve been launching attacks constantly since the fight began. Big ones, at that... It’s starting to take its toll. I cut into the forest, away from Clarissa’s direct line of sight to catch my breath. My hiding spot isn’t ideal, but it’ll have to do for now.
I give it three seconds and I’m on the run once more. I push off from the base of the tree I was hiding against and check my radar. Roy and Erik are still fighting, Clarissa’s faded from my view, and Summer’s beginning to move, but she’s a lot slower than usual. It’s far from ideal, but it can work. I can use her to deal with Von, who’s hot on my tail.
We can turn this fight around if she’s still healthy enough to launch an attack. Von’s defenseless against her ice—I just have to make it to her before he gets too close. Even injured he’s faster than all of us. Her blip on my radar shows her moving towards me, so we’re on the right track. It won’t be long n—
Mid-stride, my shin catches something and I fall to the ground. I look back and see the vague silhouette of Clarissa’s fibers from the sun hitting it at just the right angle. I try to scurry to my feet, but it’s too late. Von’s gaining ground on me fast, and I won’t be able to shake him at this point—I’m exhausted from sprinting, and I’ve been fighting nonstop since this whole thing began. The only thing I can do now is fight.
There’s no other option—I’m going to put everything I have left in this last attack. Summer and Erik will just have to cover for me until I recuperate.
I plant my feet into the ground and begin to gather my energy for another go of my new technique as Von continues to sprint my way with no signs of slowing down.
His battle suit is slightly damaged, so I must have hurt him. The crazy thing about it is that he’s still somehow able to move like he’s fresh... I must have underestimated his durability. I won’t make the same mistake a second time. “This time...stay...down!” I yell once he’s in my range.
“Make me!” I accept his challenge and release my stockpiled energy, causing a surge of purple and black flame to violently erupt from my palm. The flames are so dense that I can’t make out anything beyond my fingers and my arm feels like it’s being ripped apart by the sheer magnitude of the force rippling through me. “...Is that all you’ve got?”
No way.
Von’s blistered hand slowly emerges from my flame and he clasps his fingers over mine, completely disrupting my attack. His suit’s taken considerable damage, but he’s still standing tall—and I gave everything I had left. There’s no way I didn’t hurt him. It’s like he doesn’t feel pain. “For all that show, the first one was a lot stronger.” Before I can break away, Von twists my wrist, bends it back, and I yelp in pain from the unnatural position.
Then, with my body fully exposed, he cocks back his free hand and punches me square in the face.
“Aiden!”
“This concludes the exercise. Aiden is unable to continue.”
Chapter 10
“Aiden? Are you awake? Can you hear me?” I slowly open my eyes to the sound of Summer’s voice. “Aiden, we lost...” That’s right...I’m starting to remember. I was fighting against Von and he punched me. My vision clears and I notice that her right arm’s in a sling...and that we’re in a completely different area from where we were before. The infirmary. And something else is different, too. I’m laying down, and Summer is in her school clothes. I’m in a hospital gown, too. What the hell happened after I got hit?
“Summer I—”
“Hey, hey, calm down. You’re all right. You were hit by Von. He knocked you out and gave you a mild concussion. You’re in the infirmary—and you’ve been here for about four days now. I’ve been checking up on you after class.”
“Am...I okay? I’ve never been in a situation like this. How’s Erik?”
“Erik’s fine...and you are too. Mr. Hoover healed you, but he sent you over here to do the rest of the healing on your own. You had that concussion I told you about, your wrist was broken, and you had three bruised ribs. There was also some damage to your forearm from overextending yourself. The nurses have been rotating off and on to heal you in intervals, so you should be good now. Well, for the most part. Your body should be able to take care of the rest
without slowing you down too much.”
“What about you? Your arm? Is it okay?”
“It was dislocated and I had some tissue damage, but I’m not worried about it. It’s almost good as new... I blocked Von’s punch with my ice, which saved me from ending up like you, but I dislocated my shoulder in the process. The fall I took was no joke either. It made things a lot worse...and Clarissa wrapped me, so I had to break free of that. Her fibers were super strong so I had to saw at it with my ice and use brute force. I wouldn’t recommend it. It hurt like hell.”
“...I almost had him. He completely tanked my move. I thought I knocked him out with my first attack, but he got up way too quick. I knew he could take a lot, but the battle suits made it even harder to get anything done.” I stare at my wrapped hand, curious as to why I couldn’t finish the job. I’d expelled more energy the 2nd time around, but he said it was weaker. Was he lying? I was hurt, but I wasn’t useless. Von walked through my attack and cancelled it. For me to lose that much power that fast, it doesn’t make any sense. His suit was shredded, too.
“Don’t overthink it,” Summer voices. “There’s more to it than that.”
“What do you mean?”
"Don’t go running around telling everybody I told you this, but I think Von’s been juicing. I’m almost positive that he’s on Dox.”
“Dox...? What’s that?” At this point I can’t even be sure if I’m awake. Nothing’s making sense.
“You haven’t heard of Dox? The first week of school? That whole thing that happened with the upperclassmen?” She gestures in the air and shakes her head. “None of that rings a bell?”
“...No?” I answer, puzzled. “Should it?”
“What were you doing back then?”
“Trying to duck Tristen and his goon squad,” I grumble.
“Oh, wait...yeah. You’re excused,” she backtracks. “I guess... But still, you should pay more attention to what’s going on.”
“I was fighting for my life.”
“If you say so.” Summer shrugs nonchalantly. “Anyway, a brief history lesson—during the first week of school, some of the upperclassmen were caught doxing. What’s Dox, you ask? Well, it’s a performance enhancing drug that can up the ante of the user’s power. It’s highly experimental, and given that all of this is pretty much kept undercover, it’s not the most regulated substance. That being said, it’s highly addictive, and to be frank, it works. Side effects include manic and depressive episodes, extreme rage and aggression, vomiting, euphoria...it does a number on your brain. So, yeah, the students got busted and kicked off campus—I think. I don’t go looking for the latest scoop. Didn’t even get their names, but there was a bust.”
“And you think Von was using this stuff? Dox?”
“I honestly do, and not because we lost. He’s been really erratic lately, like, overall acting weird, in a scary way. Super aggressive, like he’s tweaking. I saw him in the gym last week and he was making a scene over in the weight room...but what really got me thinking was after he knocked you out.”
“What happened?” I ask, slightly leaning forward on my bed.
“You ravaged him. You don’t remember any of it?”
“I mean, a little bit before I got punched, but it’s blurry. He said my last attack was weaker than the first one and then he punched me in the face. He walked through it and stopped it.”
“Aiden, that blast you created wrecked everything around it,” Summer responds soberly. “There was, like, a cone of destruction about five feet wide. His suit was ripped and the earth was torn up... It’s hard to imagine it being weaker...there wasn’t anything else like that on the battlefield.”
“The first one was more concentrated...I was desperate the second time around,” I confess, slowly lowering my head.
“If that’s the case, I think he was lying. You being desperate was what made your powers unlock in the first place. Maybe you pushed yourself past your limits and found a new threshold. I seriously think that the only reason he was able to shake it off like that was because he was amped.”
“You think so?”
“If I’m right, yeah. You did say that your blast wasn’t as concentrated, but even with that being taken into account you managed to have enough force behind it to damage the environment. That takes some serious force. You wouldn’t have been able to do that last month, I’m sure of it.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” I find myself beginning to smile, but for some reason I resist letting her see it.
“After he knocked you out, Mr. Hoover called the match and he went to heal you along with the medical crew. They treated everyone in descending order. You were first...and Von should have been second. He refused to be healed because he said it would help hone his abilities. He’s highly durable, but his durability is only tested when exposed to something. It has nothing to do with him recovering naturally. If anything, being healed would have helped him grow stronger. He would have skipped out on suffering from his injuries and would’ve been able to train some more.”
“So why did he refuse treatment?”
“You should know this.” Summer growls. “More adept healers can sense abnormalities in the body. They can sense foreign substances that alter the body’s chemistry. There are scanner types, too. They can pick up on it easier, obviously, but Mr. Hoover is topnotch, so it doesn’t matter in his case. Von’s lame ass excuse was so that he didn’t get caught. The crazy thing is that I think he ended up going anyway a few days later—after the Dox left his system.”
“But you have no proof,” I remind her. “All of this is just speculation.”
“It is, but I mean, if I could catch it, I think Mr. Hoover can, too. Our suits display a bunch of different parameters and gives him information in real time... Something was definitely off about him, and has been for a while. He was even arguing with Mr. Hoover after he knocked you out. The hit he gave you could have ended your life. It sounded like he was trying to stop him but he hit you anyway.”
“...Really?”
“That’s what I gathered. Worst case scenario, he’s on Dox. Best case, he’s a psycho and needs to be expelled. If you think about it, you were fighting for your life without even knowing.”
There’s a light tap on the door. Summer and I look towards the handle while it moves. The nurse takes half a step into the room before cutting her gaze towards us. “Oh! You’re up! I’ll give you two your privacy and send for the doctor in a bit.”
“It’s fine. We don’t—”
“That won’t be—”
“You got a real keeper on your hands, young man.” Keeper...? “This young lady has been checking on you since you got here, and making sure you’re being taken care of. It was so sweet. You better treat her right.” She sternly points her index finger at me. “Good girls are hard to find these days. I try to tell my sons that all the time, but they never listen. All right, I’ll leave you two to it. And get her a nice dinner when you can.” Dinner...? Summer being sweet?
The nurse backpedals out of the room and shuts the door, giving us our space. There’s an awkward silence between us. I had no idea that Summer was doing that, and I’m not sure if she wanted me to know...or if she didn’t care...or if it really even mattered.
“Than—”
“Don’t say a word,” Summer voices between clenched teeth. “She’s old. She can say what she wants.” Summer bats her hand into the air as if shooing away the nurse’s words. “The only reason I’m here is because I felt bad for you. None of this would have happened if I would have stayed in the game longer.” Summer scoots back from the side of my bed. “It is kind of crappy that no one else came to visit though. I guess they still think you’re a loser. Some of them sent you cards though.” Summer points over to the assortment of cards by my bed. I’d noticed them before, but never had the chance to piece it all together. “Spoiler alert, Von didn’t say shit.”
“Wasn’t expecting him too.”
“Hmm. Oh
, and your homework from all of the classes you missed is on the other side of the bed.” Summer stands up from her chair and slings the strap of her bookbag around her back.
“Summer you didn’t have to do any of this...”
“I know, but who else would have? Erik?” She scoffs. “You’re welcome... Better hit those books, Mr. Cross. We have a quiz coming up next week. Peace!”
“...Yeah...I’ll get to it,” I mutter to myself as I watch Summer head to the door. She opens it and dips out without saying anything else. “Crap... I forgot to ask her about the performance review from the exercise.” I gently lay back into my pillow, and after a minute or so passes there’s another knock on the door before it opens.
“Aiden?”
“Dr. Kresnik, hey. I’m assuming you were the doctor the other nurse was talking about?”
“Sure am.”
“One of my friends was in here earlier...she said I was fine. Did you speak to her, too?”
“I did,” Dr. Kresnik nods. “She was around when it first happened...and I told her you’d make a full recovery. The nurses on staff along with your teacher helped make that happen. I’m just going to do a final check on you to make sure everything is going okay with your body’s natural healing process.”
“Four days wasn’t enough?” I ask.
“Were you made aware of your injuries?”
“I think so. My friend told me.”
“A broken wrist. A mild concussion. Three bruised ribs. Slight nerve damage... Not to mention the minor things we dealt with along the way. Arm please?” I stretch out my arm, the one that I’d injured, and Dr. Kresnik begins to examine it while prodding my forearm with his fingers. “You overexerted yourself, too... At least the day of the injury. The swelling has gone down. So, you’re almost back to normal on that front. Virtually snapping your bone in half didn’t help with that either.”
“He snapped it in half?”
The Loner Page 12
