Charlie hadn't found an opponent yet, which he considered incredibly strange. Based on what Professor Elliott had said, the students were positioned close enough that meeting an enemy would be unavoidable, yet sufficiently spaced so there would be a brief period of peace before the inevitable confrontation. Why he hadn't stumbled upon someone yet was anyone's guess, though curiously he was both relieved and disappointed at the fact. The relief was because, despite the effort he had put into his training, he was still quite unsure of how well he would perform against the other heavy-hitters in the class. And the disappointment was evident because even though he knew he might not stack up so well against those higher-ranked students, he still wanted to see if he'd grown, and how much.

He strode through the corridors, reflecting as he went on how inconveniently narrow they were. Charlie didn't have the flashiest powers — at least, not the way he used them. As it was, it was more or less super strength with the addition of two glowing gloves. But he knew full well that he was a brawler by nature, and brawlers needed space to work.

Tight spaces like this prevented them from using the environment to their advantage. Though he supposed, if one were to look on the hypothetical bright side, the narrow spaces would make it easier for people who excelled at close combat. He wouldn't know for sure until he found someone to test that theory, but, almost as if the gods themselves had been listening to his wishes, as he stepped out into the corridor directly in front of him he glimpsed a flash of white. Halting dead in his tracks, he observed the boy standing at the other end, body tense and ready for a fight. The boy was from Zeus, rather small, both in build and stature compared to the usual mountains that hailed from the Sky God's Dorm. His gaze was fixed on the other end of the hall, as if he was waiting for something, then he cocked his head to the side and seemed to notice Charlie for the first time, because he jumped and spun around.

"Oh, sorry. Didn't see you there." He let out a nervous laugh. "Guess I'm lucky you didn't try a sneak attack, huh?"

Charlie scanned his face, his mental archives flicking back to the entrance trials from all those months ago. The students, as they often were, had been separated into different groups for the period. He was among those who had been tested in the second batch. This boy had either been among the first or third sets, which meant Charlie had no idea what he could do. But the eagle on his back spoke loudly enough on its own: this was a dangerous opponent.

"What were you doing?" he asked him at last. Despite the fact that an enemy had finally appeared in front of him, the boy made no move to fight, simply standing in place and grinning sheepishly.

"Trying to see if I could hear any of the further away students."

"So you have super hearing?" It was odd. Charlie was still tensed for battle, but it felt strange — wrong — somehow to rush this boy when he was acting so pleasantly. Right now, as awkward as it was, all he could do was engage in small talk.

"Well . . . no. I mean, not really."

What did that mean, "not really"? It was either he had the ability or not. Charlie let his hands fall to his sides, perplexed. "I'm confused. What are we doing here? Are we — um — going to fight, or what?"

"I mean . . . guess we'll have to, right? That's the point, isn't it? So . . . uh . . . let's go then." It seemed more like he was asking for permission than declaring a statement.

Charlie felt deeply wrong-footed, but assumed a fighting stance anyway.

"Before we start," the boy said, and his tone was suddenly grave, "I need to ask. Do you have any sort of defensive abilities? Enhanced durability? The power to heal, anything of the sort?"

"Well . . . durability, in a way," Charlie said, and he felt rather hypocritical for his earlier thoughts.

"Good. Because this is going to get messy."

Charlie's eyes progressively widened at the sight of what they were taking in. It had started as a shaking of the shoulders, as if a sudden muscle spasm had randomly hit him. Then it spread to his whole body, and he began to convulse as if every particle of his being was threatening to break their bonds and burst apart. His limbs stretched and enlarged, his skin became lumpy and grey, stretching too so that it covered his aggrandized limbs. The white and gold Zeus costume was torn to shreds as his body swelled to twice Charlie's already impressive size, now covered in bulging, vein-streaked muscles, with massive black claws protruding from his new paws. But it was his head that was the most frightening.

It was like a cross between a dog and a bear, though entirely hairless, with slitted eyes and a positively evil smile on its horrid face.

And now, as Charlie stared at the creature, he truly wished he had taken the boy out in a sneak attack earlier.

The dogman streaked forward, his speed boosted to incredible heights by the transformation. Before Charlie could even react, it was upon him, and with a single swipe of its humongous arm batted him into the wall. He bounced off the shiny surface and slid away, face pressed against the ground, back to the entrance he had come from.

The shapeshifter (for there was no doubt that that was what he was) gave him no time to recover. In an instant it had swooped upon him again, seizing his legs and swinging him around above his head with only one hand as if he was nothing more than a sack of flour.

Even as the scream tore from his throat, Charlie knew what was about to happen next. It was a gut feeling, a minor prediction based on the continuously building momentum. And moments later, as he had expected, it slammed him headfirst into the wall. Charlie hadn't exactly lied when he said he had enhanced durability in a way. It just wasn't the kind of inherent endurance people with super strength tended to have. No, physically speaking, he was as vulnerable as someone like Reya. The only reason his head hadn't caved in on itself on impact was that he had managed at the very last second to erect a helmet of energy around his skull. It still hurt like hell, but at least his brain hadn't been turned to mush.

No one really knew the full extent of Charlie's powers outside of a very small circle of his family and closest friends. It wasn't limited to creating energy gauntlets; rather, that was his personal barrier he had yet to overcome. In actuality, he could manifest an entire exoskeleton of pure, vibrant, coursing energy around his whole body, his own personal armour.

The problem was that it was tremendously difficult to maintain. It burned both physical stamina and mental willpower combined, leaving him more worn out the longer he used it. Which was why he focused on the gauntlets. They were smaller and easier to maintain, yet inflicted the same amount of damage and fit with his close combat style of battle. Except it seemed that this time, that may not be enough. Energy hummed around his leg, coating his foot from the knee down in what looked like a blazing, semi-transparent galosh, and he struck at the creature's chest. Surprisingly, the force of the blow didn't do much other than cause it to stumble, but it loosened its grip and allowed him to wriggle free of the iron hold.

Turning his fall into a roll, he swerved to the side and leapt up, blinking stars out of his vision.

"Just curious," he said loudly. "Would you still have come on so aggressively if I didn't have superhuman durability?"

The dogman did nothing more than laugh: a high-pitched, shivering note of derisive laughter that sent chills down Charlie's spine. He was struck by a sudden thought. Maybe the reason this hybrid creature was so aggressive was because it didn't have much of the sheepish, pacifistic temperament of the body's original owner in it.

He stared at it uncertainly, body tensed in case it came rushing forward again. It did no such thing, instead mirroring his movements, tilting its head to the side and smiling that eerie, menacing smile.

So that was why he had asked. To ensure that his opponent wouldn't be left in pieces once his canine counterpart was done with them. "Bit of a risky gamble giving this thing total control of the Shift," Charlie said. As he spoke the energy from his helmet expanded, spreading smoothly down his neck, around his throat, and over his shoulders. "What if it kills someone?"

"Not total," said the creature, laughing again. "Just enough."

"Enough for what?"

"Enough to have fun," it said simply.

The armour wound below his chest, down to his kneecaps, and finally over his feet, until a warrior clad in what looked like a semi-transparent suit of blazing energy stood in the hallway, its blinding orange light showering the walls.

"You look fun," the dogman said, giggling.

"Buddy, you have no idea." Without any conscious effort, a smile of his own tore its way across Charlie's lips. "Anytime you're ready, Wolfman."

Maddison heard the telltale sounds of fighting emanating from all around her. Colossal thuds that sounded as if they were the result of the fists of students with super strength colliding with walls, and even the warbling sounds of energy bursts like the one that had wrecked the common room a few weeks prior. She ignored them all, however.

Maddison kept a steady pace, not too fast but not too slow, keeping her eyes straight ahead but her ears listening keenly. Normally she wouldn't have been so at ease, but Professor Elliott had been clear: there was no time limit to hamper whatever was going on down here. She had no reason to hurry, and this was a rather dangerous environment. Students from all three Dorms were down here, duking it out freely. She had witnessed what a large chunk of the first year body was capable of during the entrance exams, of course, just as everyone else had. But that had been months ago. Everyone had changed in some way since coming here, since training under their respective squad leaders and Professor Elliott. More people had developed better control, or a wider range of what they could do with their abilities. Better to go slow, play it safe and conserve energy until a fight came to her.

As her thoughts shifted towards the way people had changed so far, however, she reflected that she was still more or less the same. She didn't like the stagnancy; life was about change, about adapting to the ever-increasing tide of challenges it blew their way. Those who couldn't adapt were swallowed whole. Some would run, but eventually it would catch up to them. The path was clear: improve and ride the wave, or become its victim.

Though she had no intention of doing so, she couldn't deny what was right in front of her eyes. She had sat for days at a time, working, training, and recording the results. And they had simply refused to budge. No matter how hard she had worked, she couldn't progress beyond the walls she had hit. She had hoped that her time at Helix would help, but eventually she had come to the unavoidable conclusion: these aspects of her abilities were too detrimental. If she had control of them, she would be a far more powerful opponent, but as they were, the effects were too adverse to be used.

As such, she had given her abilities a simple classification, based on the timeless act of colour coding. She didn't actually need to; she knew her abilities better than anyone, and their effects, she simply liked to be organized. Green marked the first level, the powers she had sufficient level of mastery over and could utilize in battle with little to no drawback. These were the skills she employed on an almost daily basis.

Orange was a little trickier. They were powers that she certainly could use, as they didn't pose a direct threat to her, physically or mentally, but they were impractical, for a number of reasons. Acid spit was one of them: it was an almost laughable ability. She remembered using it against Professor Duncan only a few months ago, and he had perfectly demonstrated why her categorization of it was appropriate when he simply leapt aside. It was too slow, too small-scale to be effective. While the drawback was nonexistent, the same could be said for the benefits.

And then there were those coded in red. Abilities she must never use unless the situation truly demanded it, for they worked largely against her and did very little for her. Perhaps if she could only master these abilities, find a way to limit the costs to using them. . . .

No one doubted her current abilities, of course. They knew she was strong, and that was nothing to deny. It wasn't arrogance, it was confidence, pride. But not the sort of pride that bordered on bragging; the kind of pride that she knew where she stood and that she deserved to be there, and while she was happy with how things were, she knew where she could go. What she didn't know was how to achieve it.

She wasn't exactly lost in thought. Maddison was good at compartmentalizing, at multitasking, at being able to quickly but thoroughly analyze a problem while still keeping herself in tune with her surroundings, even under pressure, and it was this well-practiced skill that alerted her to the unseen presence.

She felt it before she saw it: an unpleasant tingling in the back of her neck that people usually felt when something got too close. With only a second to work with, she shifted the density of her entire body, letting whatever foreign projectile approaching her soar through her now air-light body and launching to the side, out of the path of any more incoming weapons. She rolled to her feet, hands that were empty only seconds before now laden with her enormous bone daggers as she glared at who attacked her.

The boy was as small as Ethan, but where Ethan wore a perpetually disinterested expression, this one was making his emotions plain as day, particularly his smugness.

"About as much as I expected. I knew you wouldn't go down that easy. I'd be disappointed if you did."

Maddison's eyes darted to the weapon he had used. It was a large, metal stake, rather like a gigantic nail.

"Oh, don't worry," he said, following her gaze. "It wouldn't have seriously harmed you. The ends are sharp enough to cause pain, but blunt enough not to do any serious injuries. Think of it like a jumbo-sized sewing needle. Can't say the same for any of those, though." He indicated her daggers. At the same time, Maddison noticed the long, ethereal string of energy flowing from his finger, attached to the end of the overlarge nail. There was one coming from each of his digits, all supporting a similar object in the air like a kind of strange puppetmaster.

"Interesting," she said, more to herself than him. "So, you've come to take my chip, have you?"

"Are you kidding? If I got yours, I could literally get disqualified five minutes later and I'll be sure to pass. Your reputation precedes you."

"Much appreciated —"

"Credit where it's due," he said with a nod.

"But that's still a big if."

"Well, that remains to be seen. You're impressive, Maddison, I've got no trouble admitting that. But even the best of superheroes sometimes have to deal with bad match-ups. And here, I've got you at a disadvantage."

To demonstrate his point, he twisted his fingers, tugging backwards on the strings. In contrast, however, all at once the ten stakes shot forward through the air, stopping at every different angle around her. Her head jerked from side to side, taking in the items' new positions and the surprising speeds with which they had arrived there.

"That's the trouble, Maddison. As good as you are, your skillset is unfortunately very limited. You're a close combat fighter. Meaning a long-range opponent is your Achilles' heel. Sorry, I would have loved to have a longer match, but this fight needs to end as soon as possible."

Before she could even move, all ten stakes came ripping towards her. With the speeds they moved and the different locations they were striking from, blocking was impossible, even for someone with reflexes as honed as hers. This time, she did the opposite of her defense earlier, and instead increased her density, hardening her skin. Though there was no telltale clang, for all it seemed, the stakes might have collided with a block of metal. It was the logical play; she had long since learned to switch tactics throughout a battle, to keep on her toes, to ensure that she didn't fall into a pattern her opponent could read. Unfortunately, that didn't slow her opponent down one bit. In fact, he seemed to have been expecting something of the sort. If she didn't know better, she'd think he was hoping for this result.

As the stakes ricocheted off her abnormally solid body, they immediately redoubled, but this time their aim wasn't to pierce. With mind-boggling swiftness, they wrapped themselves under her elbows, around her calves, and around her wrists, restricting her movements. She changed her game plan yet again, trying to phase through the iron grip, but again he seemed to have been anticipating such a move.

"Ah ah!" He gave a violent tug towards the left, and Maddison felt her feet go out from under her as she was heaved into the air and smashed into the wall.

He didn't let up, instead following up with a sharp toss to the right. With her density increased as it was, physical impacts did significantly less damage, but taking hit after hit wasn't smart. Eventually she would have to revert to her natural state, and she'd definitely feel those hits. Once again she tried to move her density down the opposite end of the scale, lightening so that the stakes slipped off of her. It worked, for only a second: the stakes fell limply away, but they immediately snapped up, aiming hits all over her body. Though none of them connected, though they all phased through her body as if she were nothing more than a ghost, their movements were ceaseless, stabbing and jerking in an endless cycle. She tried to move, but the stakes followed her every step, completely unrelenting.

"That density shifting ability is highly useful, but I've fought against actual intangibility wielders before. It's something you need to concentrate on to keep up, right? Can't do that if you're being poked and prodded on all sides. Stalling's no good either." His hands were still flashing wildly, the stakes whipping all over the scene. "I'm pretty damn sure I can keep this up longer than you can stay intangible. Eventually you'll run out of stamina and get hit."

He was right. Though the stakes phased harmlessly through her phantom-like body as was, if she wanted to make contact with her opponent, she would have to become solid once again. That, or the natural toll of her abilities would exhaust her, at either point the stakes would gore her before she could clear them with the way they were moving. Maddison gritted her teeth. This kid was good.

"Please surrender. I don't want to hurt you, but it's highly likely in the current situation."

"God, will you shut up?" Maddison snapped. Though the expert movements of his fingers didn't falter in the slightest, she could see for a brief moment the expression of shock that slid its way over his stoic visage. It wasn't the reaction she had expected, or even intended to cause; she had simply lost patience in the face of his incessant chatter. But she didn't let the opportunity slip by her either. In his state of momentary shock, she spat, hurling a wad of acidic spit in his direction.

She very much doubted he could have known she possessed such an ability; it was one she rarely used, after all. But this boy was proving himself to be quite an adept foe, and unsurprisingly, he clearly registered that this was an odd move for any warrior to make in the heat of battle, and understood that even if he didn't know the specifics, he was clearly missing something.

He ducked out of the way, watching in horror as the saliva splattered onto the ground and the metal began to sizzle. To his credit he recovered quickly, but Maddison was faster. She backflipped out of the way of the tightly spiraling projectiles, adopting a fighting stance once more.

"I see, you yelled at me in an effort to startle me so you could break my concentration, follow up with that last move and escape. Clever."

"No, I was genuinely telling you to shut up. I sincerely doubt you haven't heard this before, but you are absolutely insufferable."

He didn't respond. There was no need: the look of rage on his face now was answer enough. He raised his hands, marshaling his forces once more. "It's your move." His tone was cold now, a fresh blast of icy wind.

Maddison produced two more knives, larger this time than normal. "Such a gentleman," she said, with a huge, fake smile. Then she darted forward, throwing the knives with her usual deadly accuracy.