Random student in the crowds #1: “...Hey… Wait – Wait a second there… why did Dome just…? I mean… they were…”

Random student in the crowds #2: “Dome called the match?? Why? They were doing so good!”

Random student in the crowds #3: “I think… I thought I heard one of the girls say something first. Dome, the referee, acted immediately after that, almost like following her words.”

Random student in the crowds #2: “Oh… that sounds very… weird.”

Random student in the crowds #4: “What did she say?”

Random student in the crowds #3: “...I couldn’t tell. Unfortunately everybody was far too excessive in their cheers, I barely manged to make it out as a muffle – a muffled conversation that didn’t even succeed going over 5 seconds in its duration.”

Random student in the crowds #5: “Regarding this… you keep saying you heard one of them speak, but… was it just that? You actually didn’t SEE who did the talking? How come?”

Random student in the crowds #6: “Uh… Yeah! Who was it?!”

…

Random student in the crowds #7: “In other words *pushes glasses back on to the bridge of his nose* Which one of them was speaking to the referee, and what did they say, specifically? Due to the even bout just now, and even prior, during that intensive close – combat clash of swords, both Gabby and the Rage Queen Nilia showed their skills and stalemated. Once in a while they even held the advantage over the other. This should go to tell us how skilled they both are: while leaves me to wonder…

...Why did one of them quit so early? Was winning… perhaps not their goal?”

Random student in the crowds #8: “Garen, please. I am trying to concentrate on what King Rhys’s initial actions were about! Who cares about these two brainless show-offs… *Mumbles* I’m sure it was rigged anyway. *Mumbles*”

Garen?: “Aww geez, Esmerelda, after I spent so much effort analyzing the situation… and you weren’t even listening. See if I analyze stuff for you ever again!”

Esmerelda?: “Shove it, Garen. I’m already mad enough as it stands. Hmph! These stupid and brainless zombie fans of Nilia’s just won’t stop hating on Elijah! He just can’t catch a break with those toxic people! I won’t forgive them… but more important than that, could King Rhys have been off-handedly ‘protecting’ him?” They are close, after all.

The possibilities… behind his actions are… practically endless~ Hehehe.”

Garen: “*Sighs* I already TOLD you, that was clearly a warning in advance and nothing more. This directly puts a ‘limit’ on those so-called ‘endless’ possibilities you mentioned. Also; Rather than protecting Prince Elijah, I have a feeling that he was instead, directly warning them because those three have been acting the most arrogant lately. King Harvey is a given, since, for one, he is an actual King who can defeat an entire gauntlet of 30 fellow strength enhanced students in a row with little else except for an occasional towel or bottle of water...or both. It’s the OTHER two who have little grounds to be cocks when they’re not even official Kings yet.

Or well, I guess its probably passable for Nilia given her strength equaling or smashing the current Kings from above their own crowned heads. Savannah though? No way, no way… she lost to a complete nobody before school started…! Ahm...well, at least… or so I heard. I’ve never confirmed that rumor as valid or not.”

Esmerelda: “It’s definitely true. A few acquaintances of mine happened to see the whole thing in person – it was at a certain Politician’s party over in Revenice. She was blown away by the guy who kept wearing a dazzling smile on his face.”

Garen: “Oh. I see.”

Esmerelda: “Hehehe, I often bring it up in my debates against her and Nilia’s fans, usually after Nilia’s toxic followers try to protect Savannah’s pitiful gathering in a forum exchange. It always shuts them up and diverts the topic of conversation.”

Garen: “...You have got to get out more, and stop wasting time arguing with the people that you’re supposed to be hating.”

Esmerelda: “Hmph! It’s my business how I spend my weekends! You just focus on tinkering with your toy robots and machines.”

…

Gabby: “I quit.”

...This was the line that decided her match against Nilia, and brought it to a startling and abrupt end.

And why was this confident angel of beauty and destruction willing to bring an undesired early conclusion to her match? One she had a seriously good shot at winning? Should she have continued and won, couldn’t she have earned a spot among the 10 kings of Hero High? By effectively stomping the unbeaten Rage Queen into the ground, Gabby could have instantly rose to fame! After all, Nilia hasn’t ever lost a match yet, even against other schools’ Top freshman!

Although she hasn’t fought too many of them just yet. Regardless, defeating her in battle is the same as beating almost all 10 original Hero High freshman Kings! So tempting!!

…

Alas, her only goal, was to grab attention here today. Even if this victory would bring her greater attention, she needed to confirm whether to follow through with it, or forfeit the match. She first needed to confirm this with her seniors!

… Which she did, immediately after taking flight. Both Mickaela and Rafael signaled for her to quit the match.

This led to her distraction, led to her getting injured…

And led to her begrudging compliance with forfeiting to the ref.

Of course, she immediately stormed away and back towards her companions for a proper explanation; leaving behind a stunned victor, Nilia, and a satisfied referee, Dome, who is feeling happy that this match didn’t last too long.

Gabby: “Mind telling me what the reasoning was, behind me forfeiting back there? Does SOMEBODY mind explaining this to me?!?!”

Rafael: “You… do realize she wasn’t using a majority of her strength… right?”

Gabby: “Obviously! And neither was I! Both of us used weak tactics and poured in much more energy than needed in order to make them more flashy and appealing! Even if I haven’t mastered that feather attack yet, I DO have skills that are more suitable for one vs one fights. You should know about this. What I want to know, is why you pulled me out from winning! Regardless of her real strength, I was confident at beating her today! So why did the both of you do that?!”

Mickaela: “Haah. We know your strength is high for a freshman, even more so than those Kings if we haven’t been fooled by some of them into believing what they’ve shown us today is all that they can do. The point in today’s forfeiture, is to attract LESS attention, while still gathering some of it to our door. You’ll understand in the coming days.

Gabby: “What… What are you --- that doesn’t even make sense! We WANT attention, right?? then why don’t we want too much of it?!”

Rafael paused in his steps, while Mickaela observed their surroundings for a while in order to confirm that they were truly alone in the participant’s corridor that led directly to the arena. After a few moments of silence and once he received an ‘okay’ gesture from Mickaela, Rafael moved in closer to Gabby, before whispering some specific sentences into her ear.

Rafael: “For one, there was no guarantee you’d be able to defeat her, should you both get serious. At least this way, it looks more like you held back against her and only desired to test her skills for a bit. The second reason is her background. We can gather immense fame and sure, you’d be able to steal away her spotlight as the strongest freshman of our school, but that would be the equivalent of earning her group’s intense desire for revenge. It isn’t a wise move for us, until we finish recruiting…

.

.

.

And that leads me to our third reason for having you retire early: This mysterious and uncertain strength will surely earn you a steady flow of fans, and grant us interested students or staff members who wish to join our camp. Because inside Herotopia, regardless of the school’s infamy, TRINITY has decided to create a youth’s division for combat purposes, and train them while simultaneously allowing them to spend time in schools specifically suited to bringing up champions. The military academies will have our future ‘Templars’ enhanced and trained to perfection, while every mainstream superhero school will have the organization’s future Heroes Of the Light: Youth division. Or as they’ve already begun calling us by: HOLY. This is the best method we could empoy, to not attract a bad rep nor earn the negative ire of an unwanted third party.

Besides… you can just beat her up in the future after some of our plans have manifested into fruition. We attend the same exact school, after all.”

Gabby: “HOLY…

...Why do I feel like they didn’t put enough thought into our name?”

Mickaela: “That’s probably because they didn’t *Shrugs* most of them don’t really care what we’re getting called, so long as we don’t shame the TRINITY.”

Gabby: “...(If I knew so much thought was put into my match today, and so little was given to our new superhero team name, I wouldn’t have introduced my match against her as ‘fun’. What a bothersome school year this is starting out to be.)”

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