Los had a rough read on what Anderson was thinking.
Magnetic field manipulation was a hard counter to steel armor.
That was simply true, no argument to be made about it.
Even with matter conversion, converting all the titanium alloy in his arm guards to non-metallic material quickly enough to matter was not something he could do.
And even if he could pull that off.
The training ground’s overhead lights, its perimeter fencing, and the floor itself all contained metal.
In other words: before the fight had even started, every piece of metal in the arena was already Anderson’s weapon.
Including Los’s own arm guards.
No path to winning?
Los’s mouth curved upward slightly.
He left the arm guard material exactly as it was and asked Anderson casually: “Who calls the start of the match?”
“You go ahead.” Anderson’s confidence was total.
He put his full attention on Los, his magnetic ability already quietly extending across the field, taking in the armor on Los’s arms and every metal object in the surrounding space.
The moment the match was called, Anderson would maximize his magnetic manipulation: tear the arm guards off Los’s hands at the joints, then finish him with everything in the field at once.
Victory was a certainty.
He just had to make it clean and fast.
“Match.
Begin.”
The words left Los’s mouth and he immediately threw himself backward, moving hard away from the center of the field, like he was trying to open distance.
“Too late for that.”
Anderson grinned and spread his hands toward Los’s retreating figure.
The ability didn’t even need a full second to activate.
Victory in 0.1 seconds.
Boom.
Anderson felt the floor lurch violently beneath him.
The sound was deafening.
A wall of searing fire erupted out of the training ground floor without any warning at all.
His ability hadn’t even finished activating.
His perspective started to drift upward.
In the stands, from every student’s angle at once:
The moment Los called the start of the match and stepped back out of the center of the field, the floor in the middle cracked open and exploded, blasting Anderson off his feet and several meters into the air.
The explosion consumed both his legs where they had been in contact with the blast point in an instant.
“No.”
Golden Boy’s cry came out of him before anything else.
His whole body ignited and he flew into the fire without hesitating, pulling Anderson free.
The lower half of Anderson’s body was a bloody ruin.
Dean Shetty raised one hand.
Three members of the school’s medical team moved with practiced efficiency, lifted Anderson’s unconscious body onto a stretcher, and carried him off the field.
Flames still rising.
Heat still rolling.
At the edge of the destroyed section of the training ground, Los stood with his hands in his jacket pockets and watched the fire, the wreckage, and Anderson being carried away.
His expression didn’t change.
“But I was playing a completely different game.
Still too young.”
He shook his head as Anderson disappeared around the corner.
Through matter conversion, all it took was rearranging the internal chemical composition of a material, restructuring the molecular configuration into the right ratio of charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur.
The material became explosive.
He had completed the conversion before the match had even been called.
It had started as a backup plan for dealing with Steve, something held in reserve for the first fight.
That fight hadn’t needed it.
So it had been sitting there, waiting for Anderson.
The second match was over in under a second.
An explosion moved in milliseconds.
Faster than magnetic manipulation could activate.
From the moment the challenge was agreed, Anderson had never had a chance.
Jordan stood and stared at the figure outlined against the fire, and realized she barely knew this roommate of hers at all.
Los had been genuinely something else today.
But when, exactly, had he planted it?
She started running the lightning match back in her head, trying to locate the moment.
Across the field, Steve went still as a thought hit him.
Was it the warm-up push-ups?
Before their fight, before either match, Los had been down on the training ground floor doing push-ups to warm up.
Had he already put his ace in place then, in those first few minutes, before any of it began?
A chill moved through Steve.
His legs started shaking without him deciding to let them.
He spent a private moment being thoroughly grateful he hadn’t been strong enough to force that card out of Los.
“Los, I’m so glad you’re okay.”
A tall figure ran through the smoke and debris still covering the field and pulled Los into a tight hug.
Cate, obviously.
The warmth pressed against his chest.
Los looked down at her, golden hair brilliant even through the dispersing smoke, her face flushed and her usually composed eyes gone soft and slightly glassy, like she had been genuinely afraid for him.
He was fairly sure most of it was a performance.
Today’s display had probably been enough to make her decide he was worth committing to entirely.
It didn’t matter either way.
Even as a performance, it landed.
That was worth something.
Los’s mouth curved up and he wrapped his arms around her, easy and unhurried, like someone holding a trophy they had already won.
Winners take everything.
Today at Godolkin, there was only one person anyone was watching.
“Los.
Los.
Los.”
Every student in the stands came to their feet simultaneously.
They clapped, they shouted, they chanted his name in waves that built on each other, for the person who had just beaten a top-twenty and a top-six back to back on the same day.
It carried into clear blue sky and stayed there a long time.
That afternoon, once everything had settled.
Los sat in his desk chair looking at the arm guards he had pulled off and set on the table in front of him.
Winning both fights cleanly hadn’t been about matter conversion alone.
Stark’s knowledge had been part of it.
And so had the abilities from Injustice Superman: [X-ray Vision] and [Bio-Force Field].
The X-ray Vision had let him see through everything, read weaknesses, and control the tempo of both fights from the opening.
The Bio-Force Field had given his ability reach.
It let him complete matter conversion through his gloves and through the armor itself, without direct contact with whatever he was converting.
The outcomes had been exactly what he expected.
But.
“Anderson.” Los said it quietly, to himself.
He had only intended to beat Steve and build a standing at Godolkin.
He hadn’t counted on Anderson forcing his way into it, which had made the whole thing larger than planned.
The school administration had certainly noticed.
“Looks like the plan to take over this school needs to move faster.
Having Superman’s full strength behind me would make things considerably easier.”
He let that thought settle, leaned his head back against the chair, and closed his eyes.
He sank inward, toward the deepest part of himself.
Soul space.
New York.
The Endgame battlefield, a landscape of rubble and ash.
Iron Man’s ghost watched Los arrive and stroked his goatee once.
“Not bad.
Today’s win didn’t go to your head.”
Then the expression shifted.
“That said, I’m not wild about how serious you are all the time.
You’re a student.
Act like one occasionally.
Being young doesn’t last.”
If it had been him at this age, he’d already be out somewhere with someone.
That was what being young was for.
You had the energy, you had the reasons, you used them.
“I don’t have time for that right now.”
Los shook his head and said plainly: “Stark.
You know what I need most right now.”
“Fine.
No appreciation for living.” Stark waved a hand like the whole thing bored him.
The moment he did, a wave of knowledge flooded into Los’s mind all at once:
Computer code and programming.
The Mark I armor schematics.
The Arc Reactor, palladium configuration.