It had been months since any of them had set foot onto the grounds of the institution. With repairs and retrofitting being carried out in the wake of the cataclysm, the entire facility had been off-limits to the public. For this reason, Nicola’s orientation had actually been pushed back and was now taking place on the first day of the semester rather than one week before it.

As they entered the facility, Nicola’s eyes lit up, filling with wonder at the possibilities that awaited her. Roun and Tyler however, were filled more with curiosity than anything else. For some strange reason, the entire facility felt off. Tyler’s eyes narrowed as she surveyed the structures. From the looks of things, the repairs, rebuilding and retrofitting where necessary were all complete and the aesthetics of the campus had changed very little, if at all. But its energy signature was completely different.

Much like channelers, and even the exo-suits that did their best to replicate their abilities, each entity and structure through which zeta flowed exhibited a unique energy signature. From the simple phones to the massive reinforced skyscrapers of the capital, each signature was distinct and quickly recognisable to anyone with both the ability to sense zeta and the requisite familiarity with the construct. While all three channelers within the vehicle possessed the ability to sense the subtle energy signature of the compound; having spent the last three years of their lives attending the academy, only Roun and Tyler possessed the necessary familiarity to notice the blatant changes.

Some aspects of the change no doubt stemmed from the long overdue retro-fitting of the repaired buildings and the zeta-reinforcement of the rebuilt structures, but these simple additions could not completely explain what seemed like such a drastic change in what was usually a very subtle signature.

Roun’s eyes narrowed as he now pondered the change. Like most others, he was aware of the fact that buildings of the time were constructed with properties that allowed zeta to flow freely through their walls. With the right methods of technological manipulation, this zeta energy could be coaxed and cajoled into strengthening these structures. Such cajoling was colloquially referred to as ‘coding’, and it was the method by which latent and ultimately functionless zeta was transformed into the infinite spectrum of ‘energy types’ wielded by channelers and modern technology alike. In this instance, it was the code on campus that seemed completely different from what it had previously been. He couldn’t quite put his hand on it – but the code of the facility seemed completely rewritten since the previous semester.

“You alright Roun?” Nicola inquired, after noticing the look on his face.

“Yeah, I’m fine…” He replied somewhat reluctantly as the vehicle came to a halt and began to slowly set itself down. “I guess it’s just been a while since I’ve been here.” He attempted to play it off.

“Yeah I doubt that.” Tyler replied, having also picked up on the drastic change to the way that the compound ‘felt’. “Something is definitely up with this place; hopefully the changes are for the better.”

“Oh good, I thought it was just my senses freaking out again.” Roun breathed a sigh of relief.

“Sounds like that ZPD really did a number on you.” Tyler replied with some concern. “You sure you’re up for this?

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine.” Roun laughed lightly in reply.

“Good, I don’t need you getting PTSD on me.” She admonished him. Roun just laughed.

“Yeah, nothing to worry about there.” He smirked. “Getting blasted by a random in a mech isn’t going to give me flashbacks. I’ve been reverted by people with abilities slightly more impressive than knowing how to pull a trigger on a piece of tech that they don’t even understand.” He added smugly, causing Tyler and Nicola to chuckle. “Honestly – if anything – getting blasted by that Prowler’s left me a lot more pissed off than deeply scarred.”

Nicolar and Tyler just giggled in reply.

“Good to hear.” Tyler’s laughter continued. “Pissed off I can use.”

“Me too.” An unfamiliar voice drew the attention of both Tyler and Nicola, who were each surprised that it was not accompanied by a significant zeta signature with which they could identify its source.

Roun however needed no such signature to successfully identify the voice, turning and greeting its source with a less than welcoming tone.

“Stryke.” His voice was laced with venom, but his words only drew and amused smirk from their intended target.

“Roun.” That one word was laced with so much condescension it was sickening. “I’m surprised you could make it out of bed – I heard about your run-in with the business end of a neutrality-cannon.”

“Yeah, an unfortunate accident I’m told.” Roun replied dismissively.

“Right, I suppose that’d be the official story—” Xavier’s smirk continued to grow “—but I hope you’re smart enough not to buy that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Roun’s gazed narrowed at the cryptic comment; his curiosity serving to grow Xavier’s smug smirk into a small grin.

“I guess not.” Xavier paused, his gaze drifting from Roun over to Tyler, before it passed over Nicola and then moved back to Roun. “Unfortunately it’s company policy not to discuss privileged information in front of… the peasants. Maybe some other time, eh?”

Roun’s gaze narrowed and a scowl grew across his face.

“Two scholarships, three military academies and you’re still a just a dick.” Roun shook his head, already growing tired of the same old Xavier that he’d come to hate.

“That’s funny – a decade beatings and you still haven’t learned to put some respect on my name.” Xavier’s gaze also narrowed, while he shook his head.

But Roun just laughed.

“Respect? Please. Nobody respects you. Some people are afraid of you, but you didn’t scare me when we were ten and you were twice my size—” Roun chuckled, sliding his hands in his pockets and leaning his torso forward slightly. “—what makes you think that’s ever going to change?”

Xavier chuckled in reply.

“Maybe you’re right.” His chuckle slowly faded back to the smug smirk with which he’d opened. “Fear’s a rational response for someone threading this close to mortal danger – but I’ve knocked so many brain-cells out of you, you’re probbaly not even capable of that.”

“Oh—”

Roun opened his mouth to deliver another witty retort, but before he could even utter the words his senses were flooded with an unimaginably potent spike of zeta energy. His instinctual reaction was to release the floodgates on his own internal energy, allowing his latent aesis to flow through his body and augment it as it was designed to do. These acquired reflexes undoubtedly saved him from a trip to the emergency room, granting his body the physical durability to survive being blasted into a newly reinforced wall some distance away, under the influence of a hazy blue ball of energy that had just erupted from Xavier’s right hand.

The air where Roun had been standing an instant ago now sparked and crackled with a wispy blue glow, while faint gold spirals lingered and danced around it; the remnants of Xavier’s and Roun’s energies still interacting in the seconds following the attack.

Just metres away, Xavier stood with his grin wider than ever, playing with the blue energy that raced along his right hand before running it through his wild, silver hair. This energy, which seemed almost electrical in nature, statically charging his locks, drawing them back into a neater style that was more suitable for combat.

Some distance away, Roun was still shaking off the effects of the surprise attack that had caught him square in the stomach. His exposed abdomen crackled as the electrical energy ran over it, having already torn through his jacket and undershirt to blast a hole in the green and black expansion suit that he worn beneath it all. As he looked down, he growled angrily and allowed his aesis to surge. First saturating his body and then permeating the energetic channels of the under-garment, soon the green glow emanating from its circuit-like trimmings was overrun by the gold halo of Roun’s aesis. In seconds his abdomen was covered by the skin-tight suit once again, before his gold shirt and finally his jacket were regenerated by the energy being pumped through them.

“Looks like you went overseas and got too big for your boots X – I’m gonna to cut you back down to size.” Roun snarled, drawing loud laughter from Xavier for the first time during the exchange.

“Ah, cheesy one-liners—” His laughter subsided to a light chuckle “—that’s the Roun Itami we know and love.”

With this, Xavier widened his stance and leaned forward slightly, raising his arms up to face level before bouncing his torso up and down. His stance was an odd one, heavily influenced by boxing but highly indicative of the fact that he was a self-taught fighter. Roun on the other hand sunk into a gracefully low stance, sliding his leading leg forward while bending his trailing leg to facilitate a stance indicative of his formal combat training. As he did this, his guard hovered just inches from his face, while his striking arm extended in the direction of his opponent.

The two paused like this for just a few seconds, causing Tyler to shake her head at the all too familiar situation while Nicola looked mortified. All she could do was grimace at the explosion of force that followed. Where Roun had stood moments prior, just indentations in the ground remained while a spray of dust erupted behind that location as a result of his push-off. Next, they saw a stream of gold streaks spinning towards Xavier, who crossed his arms and summoned grid-like half-sphere in front of him on which the gold streaks soon coalesced. These invidual streaks congealed into a powerful flood of aesis that crashed against Xavier’s barrier, before they eventually materialised into Roun’s physical form. In his this form, his stance had shifted into a more elevated front-stance from which he delivered a powerful straight punch. Unfortunately, this attack never actually hit his opponent, but instead the energy surging off of the attack collided violently with the energetic projection of Xavier’s guard to leave the two young channelers more than a foot apart while their energies interacted. This interaction went on for a few seconds as Roun’s attack attempted to overpower Xavier’s defense, before they both destabilised and exploded under the resisting forces.

Roun growled under his breath at the result, dashing through the wake of the explosion and piercing the hazy energy and smoke that remained. The result was a halo of light and dust around the two men, clearing the air to reveal a high roundhouse kick from Roun, impacting Xavier’s guarding bicep and forearm. Roun’s gaze narrowed at yet another successful defence before completely reversing his spin to deliver a hooking kick with the same leg to Xavier’s other side. Each attack was faster than the last, but each time Xavier managed to guard – this time spinning to block Roun’s heel with his right palm. This time, the force from the attack removed him from his stationary position, pushing him in an arc for a few metres before friction slowed him to a stop.

Xavier’s reply was a wild lunge outwards with the same palm, swinging Roun’s heel away from his body and rearing back before lunging forward with a powerful haymaker. The strength of his attack threw Roun off balance, forcing the young man to press off of the ground with his grounded leg and take to the air, meeting Xavier’s energy infused punch with an aesis powered side-kick. Once again their energies co-mingled before exploding, blasting Roun higher into the air while skating Xavier backwards along the ground.

As Roun somersaulted backwards under the influence of Xavier hazy blue energy, which still crackled around his foot, Xavier was lowering his stance and driving his hand to the ground – raking it along with the residual aesis that still ran through the appendage. This allowed Xavier to come to a stop first, with friction being his aide, while Roun to spun uncontrollably through the air. As Xavier's momentum ran out, the streaks of aesis on his hand were replaced by his signature blue haze, before he slashed upwards and unleashed a powerful arcing projectile towards Roun. All Roun could do was envelope himself in his spinning barrier to shield himself from the attack, but after that single strike the barrier shattered.

His eyes widened at the realisation of just how strong Xavier had become – a frightening thought considering that his abilities had always out-stripped Roun’s. With this realisation, Roun spread out his arms and summoned a flat pane of aesis behind him, providing a temporary surface for landing. This canceled his momentum and provided a launching-pad for his counterattack. Once again he vanished, followed by a powerful gust of wind before materialising next to his opponent. The follow up attack was too fast to track for the spectators of the fight but the steams of aesis energy sweeping upwards and Xavier’s corresponding motion suggested that Roun had taken Stryke’s footing with his leg. Time seemed to slow during the attack, with Xavier floating in the air while Roun snapped his foot back towards the ground, locking his stance before attempting to drive his falling opponent into the ground with a punch. All Xavier could do was curl into a ball in mid-air and seal himself in his grid-like barrier. This cushioned both the impact of Roun’s attack and his collision with the ground, preventing the shock from stunning him and allowing Roun a free follow-up attack.

Instead, Xavier detonated the energy that he had just used to protect himself, blasting Roun away from him while he made his way back to his feet.

“Alright, you’ve gotten faster… but you still hit like a girl.” He smirked as Roun slid to a stop metres away from his location. “Anyway, enough of the warm-up. Let’s get serious.”

As he delivered this statement, the hazy blue glow that surrounded Xavier’s hands spread to engulf his entire body, significantly increasing the potency of his own energy signature. This caused Nicola’s eyes to widen in shock. So far, the fight had actually seemed relatively even and she was convinced that Roun stood a chance at winning the scuffle, but Xavier’s energy signature now made that highly doubtful. His power dwarfed that of Roun’s and she watched in awe as energy streamed from his body like missiles, hurtling towards Roun’s location and exploding on impact.

Initially, none of those impacts were direct hits on their target, Roun’s speed made hitting him quite the task. But even with his ability to dodge, the blast radius of each attack prevented him from being completely unaffected. Their previously even match had become a game of cat and mouse, with Roun bobbing and weaving between explosions, while Xavier sustained the relentless stream of attacks.

“I know for a fact that I can keep this up all day—” Xavier taunted as he continued his assault “—but can you?”

Much like Tyler’s MX, channelers’ abilities were powered by a practically infinite supply of energy. As a result, their effective stamina was limited only by their mental and physical resilience to the strain that channeling put on them. Unfortunately for Roun, this was an area in which Xavier excelled from a very young age and what made things worse, was that he was still recovering from his ordeal some months prior. If this kept up he was going to run out of power long before Xavier did.

He needed a plan.

Slowly, he began to energise his entire body, dissolving his physical matter and replacing it with aesis. This was a slower process than what he would usually perform for his silhouette slide, since he still required energy to augment his agility and avoid Xavier’s attacks. This allowed Xavier to witness that transformation as it progressed and prepare for Roun’s inevitable hail-Mary. When Roun subsequently vanished, Xavier’s long ranged assaults promptly ended and he once again expanded the grid-like shield that he used for defence. This time however, he left no opening, enshrouding himself in a sphere of blue light and sparks.

As expected, the gust of wind from Roun taking off gave away his trajectory and he was heading straight for Xavier. Soon, the resulting impact on Xavier’s barrier came and along with it the expected explosion of gold energy and and incredible force. Reflexively Xavier detonated the barrier at the point of the contact with Roun’s attack, but surpringsly he caught nothing. It was only then that it dawned on him; the attack was much lighter than he’d expected for a last-ditch hoorah. His gaze narrowed as he scanned for Roun’s energy signature, struggling now to collect the energy necessary to reform his barrier.

Before he could however, a powerful crash of energy impacted him from directly above, slamming him to his knees with incredible force. With no barrier for protection, the energy with which his body was reinforced strained under the force of the impact that proceeded to throw him onto all-fours. A smirk broke across his lips as Roun rematerialized, standing over him and breathing heavily.

“That was a nice trick.” Xavier coughed as his barrier finally reformed, seconds too late to stop Roun’s attack. It was however, more than enough to trap him within it. “Too bad it’s time to end this.”

Suddenly Xavier’s energy signature peaked. Roun’s eyes widened as he watched the residual glows of hazy blue energy that had been lingering since the beginning of the battle begin to intensify in colour. The look on Roun’s face as panic set in was ample consolation for the sucker punch he’d managed to land with his sneaky attack. Xavier just laughed at the sight as he made his way to his feet, powerful streams of energy racing from all parts of the battlefield into his barrier to increase the potency of his energy signature even more. Roun cursed under his breath, trying now to collect his own energy for a follow up attack, but he knew it was in vane. Xavier’s entire body shone with an almost blinding light as the energy density withing the spherical barrier became uncomfortably high. Roun’s clothes began to smoke and his skin stung as the powerful surges of levin bore down on him and heralded the end of the scuffle.

In that moment however, the eerie differences about Titan Academy’s zeta signature were explained. All across campus the energies used to reinforce buildings and shield open space from the disastrous effects of cataclysms began to increase in intensity. An effect that started from the walls quickly spread out to encompass the rooms within, then the corridors before spreading out to all the open spaces on the compound. At their peak they created a powerful disruptive field that had a profound effect on the same freely available zeta that had become the cornerstone of this modern society. In seconds this source of unlimited power had been rendered completely inert.

Roun’s aesis returned to free-flowing, uncoded zeta just as Xavier’s hazy blue levin did the same. Their phones powered down and their clothing returned to their default colour schemes, becoming grey and lifeless. Even Xavier’s hair, which was previously statically restrained, jolted back to the wild mess that it had been minutes ago.

Immediately the crushing and seering effects of Xavier’s traps subsided, allowing Roun to fall to his knees. Xavier on the other hand just looked around curiously at the effect, which now enveloped the entire campus. All he could do was chuckle lightly, dusting his hands and knees off as he acknowledged the fact that their sparring match had been brought to a premature close.

“A DMZ…” He chuckled, taking a brief glance down at Roun who was still panting heavily. “You’ve gotta be the luckiest person I know.”

Roun had no words; in fact he could barely even breathe. This brief scuffle had pushed him past his limits and with the deprevation of zeta setting in; his already taxed body was in the process of rebelling. His heart pounded audibly and his lungs burned, making it impossible to catch his breath. Xavier just chuckled at the sight, resting his hand on his rival’s head and shaking his own before turning to make his way off.

“We’ll finish this another time, Itami.”