Making School History.
A few seconds of silence, then the arena came apart.
Thunderous applause, from every direction at once.
Steve lay on the ground and pushed himself toward getting up.
A hand covered in black metal appeared in front of him.
He hesitated a moment, then took it.
Los pulled him to his feet and said: “Don’t be discouraged.
You’re genuinely strong.”
He thought it over and added: “Your left side’s power output isn’t fully fluid yet.
Work on the corresponding exercises when you get back and it’ll come around.”
Steve went completely still.
He looked at Los, then nodded slowly.
“Thank you.
I appreciate it.”
“Nothing to thank me for.
We’re classmates.” In the noon sunlight, Los’s smile was broad and easy.
“We learn from each other.
That’s how it’s supposed to work.”
Whatever shame Steve had been carrying a moment before dissolved.
Then a figure came down from the stands and onto the field.
Los looked over.
It was Andre Anderson, the one from the previous night at the bar.
Rank 6.
Magnetic field manipulation.
“Foul.”
Anderson raised his hand in front of the entire arena and pointed directly at the armor covering Los’s arms.
“He brought a weapon into a public match.
That’s a serious rule violation.”
Jordan couldn’t stay in the stands.
He switched to his male form and dropped off the seating in one clean motion.
“That’s a joke.”
He laid it out plainly: “Los’s ability is object enhancement, which means enhancing other objects to augment himself.
The armor he built is completely legitimate combat capability, nothing more.”
He looked at Anderson with undisguised contempt.
“Tell me, when you fight, don’t you bring metal objects along?”
Anderson had no answer to that.
“Come on, Andre.”
Steve gave a good-natured laugh and rubbed the back of his neck.
“I wasn’t good enough.
Los didn’t foul anything.
A loss is a loss.
Nothing more to say about it.”
When the person who had actually fought wasn’t complaining, there wasn’t much Anderson could add to it.
He was just not willing to accept it.
Anderson started to object.
He didn’t get the chance.
The school’s most eye-catching blonde had stepped onto the field.
Cate looked at Anderson with a slight frown.
“Anderson, you’ve gone too far.
Are you specifically targeting Los?”
“Cate.”
Anderson looked at her.
Something sharp cut through him.
He had known her before any of this.
Why was she standing up for someone else now?
The noon sun was relentless.
The eyes from the stands were just as hot.
Anderson felt all of it burning across his face.
Golden Boy stepped out and put a hand on his roommate’s shoulder.
“Anderson.
Let’s head back.”
Anderson moved with him for one step.
Then stopped.
The more he thought about it, the worse it got.
The red was starting to come into his eyes.
He turned back to Los, and his voice had gone flat and quiet.
“Los.
I, Andre Anderson, am formally issuing you a challenge.
Here and now.”
Every student and teacher in the building went still.
At Godolkin, challenges almost always ran from lower-ranked to higher.
What Steve had done earlier was already an exception, and it had carried an edge to it, more bullying than challenge.
At the time, a lot of students had simply wanted someone to put Los in his place over the Cate situation.
But Los had reversed it.
He had the respect of nearly every person in that arena now.
“This is a challenge from above going downward.
This is pure harassment.”
“He’s top ten and Los just finished a fight.
What is Anderson trying to prove?”
“Unbelievable.”
The murmuring in the stands was one-sided and Anderson didn’t care.
He pressed toward Los.
“Do you dare accept my challenge?”
“Anderson.
That is enough.”
Cate’s eyes were cold.
Her voice was clear and sharp.
Anderson turned his head.
He couldn’t bring himself to look at her directly.
His mind was already settled.
He was taking Los down today, whatever it cost.
Jordan switched back to her female form and rolled up her sleeves.
“You want to challenge someone?
Come at me instead.”
“Andre.
Let it go.”
Golden Boy pulled at Anderson’s arm.
Anderson held his ground.
He moved forward another step, eyes fixed on Los.
“If you don’t accept today, there’s always another time.”
“That’s not necessary.”
Los shook his head.
He held Anderson’s gaze and said: “You want a fight, then let’s fight.
I accept your challenge.”
His voice didn’t carry that far across the training ground. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
But the moment those words left his mouth, the arena erupted.
The entire school erupted.
Coming from a ranking in the three hundreds, reversing a top-twenty match alone was already something to talk about.
And now immediately accepting a challenge from rank 6, still on the same day?
Never mind school history.
Come back in a hundred years and something this extraordinary might still not have repeated itself on this campus.
“You actually agreed?”
Even Anderson flashed with something close to joy at it.
What he had most feared was Los refusing.
Public match rules required both parties to agree.
Jordan and Cate both looked at Los with urgent eyes.
“It’s fine.” Los shook his head at them both, then turned back to Anderson.
“And there’s no reason to wait for another day.
Right now.
This moment.”
He wasn’t going to play it cautious in a situation like this.
They were all students here.
Just this once he could be young and go all in.
If there was a fight to be had, then fight.
The challenge agreement was made.
The school had no grounds to interfere.
The second public match began immediately, directly following the first.
Cate, Jordan, Golden Boy, and Steve cleared off the field one by one, leaving the stage to Los, who had never moved from it, and his challenger, Anderson.
In the stands.
Except for Golden Boy, the entire crowd threw their weight behind Los.
The noise was overwhelming, almost enough to rattle the structure above them.
Even if Los lost here, no one was going to hold it against him.
A non-combat support ability.
Bottom-tier ranking.
Two consecutive public matches on the same day, one against the top twenty, one against rank six.
Whatever happened next, school history had already been made.
Nobody expected Los to win a second time.
That was simply not the kind of thing that happened.
But even losing here would be its own kind of honor.
On the training ground, under the blazing noon sun.
Los and Anderson stood ten meters apart, facing each other.
Anderson watched Los, and inside him, the heat of a moment ago had already gone quiet.
Everything he had shown out there, the apparent rage, the relentless pressure to force Los into agreeing, had been a performance.
That was all it was.
A performance.
Anderson knew exactly what he was doing.
His magnetic field manipulation was a hard counter to a Los wearing metal armor.
Getting Los to agree to the fight was the whole point, because this was a fight he was going to win completely.
He was certain of it.
Win quickly enough and impressively enough, tear through Los in as short a time as possible, and the students who respected strength would come around to him regardless of how the challenge had been issued.
Win convincingly enough and no one remembered how you got there.
At Godolkin, strength was the only thing that mattered.
And Anderson had already privately decided he wasn’t going to stop at winning.
He was going to ruin Los’s hands in the process, leave them in a condition where they would never work properly again.
In a public match, losing control of your ability and injuring someone was treated as an unfortunate accident.
However loud the crowd is cheering right now, however high you’re standing at this moment, that’s exactly how hard you’re going to land.
Anderson held that thought and watched Los across the field.
I’ll leave you breathing afterward.
So you can watch what my future looks like.