...

……

*Clang!*

Leos: “...*Stares*”

…

……

………

*Crash!* – *Clang!*

Leos: “Hey. Shouldn’t you-”

Noel: “Shh. No.”

Leos: “…”

{He’s probably crazy, right?

.

.

Yeah, he has to be.

...There’s no possible way that I could...

That I could reveal myself on the FIRST day of school. Besides, does Rise even NEED any help?

.

.

.

I don’t believe he does.}

Everywhere Rise stomped, a small crater was formed. The young adult ‘4’ had enough speed to dodge swipes and kicks appearing a split second after noticing them: but Rise moved like a homing torpedo. He would change trajectory by jumping off of trees or swiveling a single foot to slightly rotate his body, redirecting his own strikes.

And true to his wild nature – he adamantly stuck to the man without rest.

This game of cat and mouse continued for a mere moment or two before the intruder started to twirl his fingers. He moved them in one specific motion like trying to draw symbols in the air.

Then, those same serrated scalpels headed for Rise.

Unfortunately, Noel wasn’t able to prepare him as he had before.

because now, Rise wasn’t the only target.

4: “I’ve... HAD ENOUGH! It took a while to gather enough material, but... haha, it finally came! Hurry up and DROP DEAD, all of you!”

It sounds simple: the ability to manipulate metal. Furthermore, having to ‘gather’ it makes this specific power somewhat inefficient -seeming for battle use.

But, one important note to point out…

...They’re in a forest. Forests have soil, minerals and dirt.

And metals are naturally found and formed within nature.

...or at least under it.

The entire wooden landscape began to change. The ground erupted in a myriad of spots where shiny pointed objects speared their way through the soil. It appeared to resemble a sea of skeletal hands crawling their way out from the ground below. The shapes nearly all seemed quite unstable, however they immediately transformed into spikes.

It started from the floor. These metallic spikes fully bore through the ground and without warning, rose to the sky!

Soon after, a new set of varying sized and unstably formed spikes took their place and, like missiles, targeted each of the children.

4: “HAHAHA! GO AHEAD! Protect them! But with this many spikes, I’d love to see you do so while trying to finish me off AND avoid getting struck yourself~ Hahaha. Oh, right.”

*RRRip!*

Leos: “AAAAAHH!”

4: “AHAHAHA! Did you think My own, personally made tools were all one – and – dones or something? They’ll tear through your arms and sever THE BONE as swift as slicing through butter! Just like your friend over the---

...What the?”

Yes. Leos received a serious injury and screamed because of the pain.

…

HOWEVER! The ‘pain’ inflicted onto him wasn’t from a serrated scalpel cutting through the bone that connected his hand to his arm. Nor was it due to the plethora of spikes flying about or stabbing at his feet from below. It was instead, from Noel kicking him out of the way, so that a trail of dangerous metallic weapons don’t chop him into little bits.

Noel: “Oliviera, grab hold of Leos and escape from this place. Try to call for help, and if you can’t, then run all the way back until you locate other students.”

Oliviera: “You want me to RUN?! ME of all people?? Do you even have any IDEA how far away we are from civilization??? Because I don’t!

When we were in the assembly I had full bars: FULL!! The SAME with that...stupidly long stadium! BUT do you wanna know how many bars I have out here..? Go on – take a WILD guess!”

Noel: “...I d-”

Oliviera: “ZERO! ZERO BARS HERE! Aah~ I knew this was a prison! They fed us to the sharks, these shark - like VILLAINS!”

*SWOOSH!*

Oliviera: “…”

By ducking, the overly spoiled rich girl just barely dodged a spike aimed at her head.

The spike kept on travelling and hadn’t fully stopped until three large trees were fully impaled – where it spun around and aimed at her head once again.

Noel: “Do you still wish to complain? Because it’s either that or you spend time with those tw...o?”

Funnily enough, a near death experience seemed to be the right medicine for her. By the time Noel reached the end of his sentence and took his gaze away from the spikes orbiting his head -

…

Oliviera was already nearly out of sight with Leos leaning over her shoulder.

{When she’s motivated she can move a bit: and while holding another person no less. Not impressively, but whatevs. So long as one more body that I’d have to protect is out of the way, then I can get to work.}

Noel: “Hey!! Don’t even THINK about going to the adults nearby!! Forget them for now, unless they’re Mr. Abrams or a man with different colored pupils named Aeron. We can’t be sure that they aren’t really working with these people in disguise – and THAT’S assuming that this man isn’t alone!”

Oliviera: “Okay! Anything else? Anything IMPORTANT I need to be aware of to ensure my own safety?”

Noel: “Uhm…

…

……

………

Oh! Yeah that’s right, there IS one SUPER IMPORTANT thing!”

Oliviera: “Yeah? Yeah? What is it?!”

Noel: “If you speak to anyone about what you overheard between me and Leos -

…

I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

Oliviera: “YAAAAHH! EEEEK, DADDY DADDY NOEL JUST – NOEL JUST--”

Noel: “Aahahaha! Cheer up, I was joking! You looked so serious just now, so I thought about sending you off in smiles. Take it easy a bit~”

Oliviera: “...*Sniff* It was… it was a dry joke. Hmph!”

.

.

.

{Now. I think I can speed this fight up a bit before help arrives. But I shouldn’t make it THAT noticeable since I dunno how much Rise overheard.

...What to do… Ah! That’s right I have THAT skill! The one ‘Fragment’ bestowed on me thanks to taking my first step on the Origin Path...or something.}

Overwhelmingly black and purple energy danced around Noel’s fingertips. Thanks to Seiran, Seifan, Seigan, Seiman and Seiyan thoroughly play—err.

.

.

Testing the limits of Noel’s Destructive touch, they learned something very interesting in regards to the power their little brother received from becoming that crazy man Dr. Watts’s test subject.

It can ‘melt’ or ‘disintegrate’ virtually anything. This was NOT an understatement. On one mission, Seifan brought over an origin energy captive who walked the Chaos path and made him release a highly concentrated blast of origin destruction energy towards his baby brother.

And the result after contact was made...was Noel disintegrating it with a single touch from his little index finger.

Validation came at last! This man’s origin energy percentage reached 6%, the absolute limit for mortals! Sure he was an enemy their bratty brother couldn’t beat right then, but in terms of destructive prowess alone? Noel’s ‘gift’ in the way of origin energy is already stronger than what other mortals embarking on the same path can produce, let alone destruction energy created by REGULAR, NATURAL energy which in turn, could be found permeating everywhere throughout the multiverse and inside of everything that breathes life.

This means that, unless a demigod strikes or there’s ANOTHER freak out there who had their soul tuned up to, and fused with, a high ranking other-dimensional being…

Noel’s destruction energy can’t be beat! Not in the mortal realm, anyway.

…

Rise: “...Dammit, this would’ve been so much harder if I was forced to cover for that useless girl and guy pair! *Sniff* Strange, Why do I still smell the revoltingly putrid stench of bloo—

...Oh. He’s still there. That’s why. HEY kid! Go on and follow those two quickly! Before you get killed by this guy’s atta-”

*Swish!*

Without hesitation: Noel leapt into the air and caught two metallic spikes!

Then…!

He stuffed them into his pocket.

4: “...Does this runt think I’m handing out souvenirs for him to play with?!”

Rise: “...Noel, what are you doing...?”

Noel: “Shh, I’ve got a plan. You just focus on winning. I’ll be fine – since I’m a smaller target than you, I’m a lot harder to hurt~”

Rise: “Pfft! Haha! Never thought I would see the day when you outright call yourself short..!”

Noel: “Th-That isn’t what I-!”

Rise: “Yeah yeah. You’re average or whatever. A shortie’s still a shortie in my eyes. Okay, time to concentrate on thrashing this piece of shit that finds it fun to target kids!”

Rise was already doing well dodging 30 spikes from above and 40 from below – always stepping quick and not maintaining longer than 2 seconds per foothold. Now his pace increased to barely a second per step. Even a cheetah would feel embarrassed with how easy he made it look to utilize his abnormal speed to outmaneuver all those spikes.

Noel too, had a plan in motion. Every time he placed a spike inside his pockets, he would instantly focus his intent on disintegrating it completely!

In the past, he learned that he can willingly coat an object in his own energy, or simply choose to eradicate it. An example of ‘coating’ is when he used a needle imbued with his newly empowered energy to strike at Alianne. The needle wasn’t destroyed, but that’s only due to him not registering that possibility in his mind. Had he thought about destroying the needle, it would have disappeared before reaching Alianne’s anti-power barrier.

---