Maddison had done a good job so far of avoiding unnecessary fights; though she had been roped into four battles so far, including her last opponent who had manipulated those strange, stake-like objects, she had made sure to expend only enough energy necessary to end the battles as quickly as possible. This was still the preliminary aspect of the examination, after all. The part of the test where majority of the students would be eliminated. The real fight would begin on Level 3, where the students who had survived the initial onslaught would be bundled up, and she couldn't afford to meet them tired or excessively injured.

Still, she had one more chip to collect before she got to that point, and like her previous opponent, this one was proving rather difficult to obtain. She was facing a fellow female Hades student, a tall, willowy girl with blazing red hair by the name of Terra.

Maddison never looked down on her peers. Overconfidence was not a useful emotion: in her experience, it proved itself to be more dangerous to the wielder than nearly any power. Still, she did respect the objectivity of the power ranking system Helix employed, and the simple fact was, Terra was nowhere near the top of the class. She, on the other hand, was, save for a few competitors here and there. But while she wasn't among the strongest of their batch, Terra was no pushover. The problem was she had a troublesome power. One that, like her last opponent, allowed her to fight at a range, which was one of Maddison's biggest weaknesses. She was forced once again to maintain a wide distance for her own safety, but unfortunately, that distance wasn't enough as another huge explosion came ripping through the corridor, filling the narrow hallway with smoke and wisps of flame.

Had she not decreased her density to the point of being near-incorporeal, Maddison could easily have been taken out by the blast.

That was the single most urgent problem. A single hit risked more than simple elimination.

The smoke cleared and her opponent came into view at the end of the hallway. Beside her, a crater had been blown into the wall, so large that it appeared a tractor-sized fist had punched through it.

"Do we really have to do this?" Terra asked, coughing slightly and fanning away the remaining vestiges of smoke with an irritable look. "Can't you just, you know, give up, or something? That last one was really close, and even though I'm dialing back the force, there's still a really good chance you might get a lot more than a bad score if you get hit."

"I would," said Maddison, in a tone of mock-regret. "But unfortunately, this examination is too important to me to throw so easily."

Terra sighed dramatically. "I was afraid you'd say that. Oh well, at least I tried."

She thrust her arms outward, and from her palms bloomed several beachball-sized bubbles. They moved faster than their appearance would suggest, and inside a rich blue substance was crackling — the explosive element that sparked and detonated whenever the bubbles made contact with a physical presence. Maddison whipped out three knives, each of which hit their marks, letting off three colossal explosions that shook the hallway. This was getting them nowhere. She couldn't hope to outmaneuver Terra the way she had her last opponent.

She had figured out his pattern of attack and found a way to weave through it, incapacitating him after breaching his defenses.

Here, there was no such luck. Terra could produce up to three bubbles at a given time, and she could manipulate their movements as the boy had been able to do with his stakes. But while her bubbles were nowhere near as fast or coordinated, the range those explosions had was insane, and the power behind them even more so. A single hit and, if she was lucky, she would only be left a drooling mess in the Medical Wing for the next few days.

She supposed that was why Professor Wyatt was hanging around. She had only barely glimpsed him, and the image had flitted by so fast that she might have thought she had imagined it, but she would recognize that head of platinum-blonde hair anywhere.

She ignored it though. It didn't take a rocket scientist to understand that he was here specifically to keep an eye on Terra and ensure that she didn't accidentally blow up her opponents. However, there was a way to overcome this challenge. There always was, Maddison just hadn't seen it yet.

As the smoke cleared again, three more bubbles came soaring into view. They were too close for her to try to stop them midway: from this distance, the blasts would undoubtedly reach her before she could have time to do anything else.

She shifted her density again, this time pushing off with a minor levitational boost for good measure. One collided with the wall, setting off a chain reaction that resulted in three blazing pyres of fire filling the hallway again.

Unfortunately, there was only one way she could see this fight ending. She would have to disable this enemy as she had done the last, by targeting limbs and rendering them useless. Though she could more often than not do the job with swift, clean slices, many times it ended in screams of pain and pools of blood leaking onto the floor. It was why she had worked so hard to master her abilities, to perfect her precision, but reducing the kind of damage she needed to do when her only offense was powerful bone weaponry wasn't the easiest thing to do, even for someone like her, and especially not in the heat of battle where she didn't have the time or peace of mind to manifest the focus she needed to do it efficiently.

Still, as cruel as it seemed, it was all she had to work with. She would target her hands, to ensure she couldn't produce more bubbles, and her feet, to cripple her mobility, then seize her chip and advance to Level 3. All she needed to do was line up her shot. This was proving a little difficult, however: partially because the gigantic explosions made launching projectiles rather inconvenient, and partially because whatever she did, she had to do it as precisely as possible, as Professor Wyatt was watching.

With a spurt of her impressive speed, she was off. Already several daggers were blossoming in her hands, enough to detonate any bubbles that came her way and dismantle the limbs she needed to hit.

They were smaller than what she usually crafted, seeing as Terra wasn't as robust as her usual opponents, but they were still sharp enough to do their jobs. She needed to be quick and efficient, but she wasn't cruel.

As expected, Terra reacted, though the bubbles didn't come as quickly this time. A stream of them came bursting forward, more than Terra had created during this entire fight, but there was something else off about them now. Perhaps it was the light hitting them from a different angle, but the texture was different. They seemed more opaque somehow. Another person may have dismissed this new development as small and insignificant; Maddison was not that kind of person. Every detail, no matter how minute, was information that helped to tell a wider story about her opponent. Every pant, every grunt of effort, even a second's delay in reaction time. Individually they weren't very valuable tidbits, but combined they painted an elaborate picture of how fast her opponents were, whether they wee being drained by their abilities — a pattern she could analyze and then exploit.

No bit of information, no matter how small, was something she could ignore. Still, she had made up her mind, and it was time to act. Analyzing this new development had to come second.

Her steps didn't falter in the slightest; she barreled forward, this time steadily decreasing her density as she went to prevent herself from being hit, a ghost slipping through the flames. But it would be inconvenient if those bubbles came back to bite her when she had dealt with Terra. She launched her knives, intending to let the closest ones set off a chain of explosions, but no such thing happened. The bubble didn't spark. Instead, to her surprise, the knife was absorbed inside, rattling around in the transparent interior like a marble in a spray can.

That was when Maddison faltered. It was instinct, prompting her to take a step back and analyze the situation after it had randomly and completely deviated from the established pattern, but that instinct collided with the one telling her to ignore it and press ahead. The result was she wasn't fast enough to completely duck out of the way of the bubbles now crowding around her.

She didn't think to decrease her density this time; she had done enough stalling. With a practiced hand, she launched the blades in her hands. They flew through the air with a sharp whistling sound and, as she had hoped, hit their marks.

"Agh!"

Terra fell bodily onto the floor, blood seeping in rivulets from her wrists and ankles. But before Maddison could celebrate her victory, something soft and curiously cool pressed against her back. A second later, a sensation like falling onto a water bed overtook her, then a massive, transparent dome wrapped itself around her.

"What the —?" She banged against it, used her knives, and even tried to phase her way out, but the bubble remained as solid and unmoving as a brick wall.

"Bang all you want, you're not going anywhere!" Terra snapped from the floor.

"What is this?" Maddison demanded.

"Funny thing, you might be a one trick pony, but I'm not. My bubbles don't just explode. I can also use them as cages, and even some of the biggest heavy hitters in our class couldn't break out. I can accept that I've lost. You didn't get my chip but I can't move so I'll be disqualified in a few minutes. But at least I'm taking you with me." At that, Terra gave a positively devious grin.

A wave of hot anger flooded Maddison's stomach. She began pounding against the translucent wall again, hacking and stabbing for all she was worth. When two minutes had passed and not a scratch appeared on the surface, the bitter truth began to settle in. This was it. She wouldn't be advancing to the next level. . . .

As she looked around, the feeling of hopelessness settling in on her, her eyes raked over the corridor at the end of the hallway they were currently trapped in. Someone else was standing there, looking in at the scene. The face was familiar, contorted in an expression of amusement. Smirking, the boy turned and disappeared down the adjacent hallway. Anger came flooding back, filling Maddison with newfound determination. Physical impacts were clearly useless against this variant of her bubbles, but Terra was wrong: she was by no means a one trick pony.

There was no guarantee it would work, but she did have something else she could try. Maddison raised her left hand. She concentrated on her open palm, summoning that unpleasant feeling she had tried to abandon for so long. After a moment, she felt the effects kicking in.

Sparks of electricity danced along her fingers, but it wasn't enough. She needed more. . . . With every second she increased the charge, feeling more faint the further it grew. Then, with only thirty seconds left on her mental clock before elimination, she pressed her fingers against the abnormally solid bubble. The charge visibly ran through the transparent exterior, streaming all over the dome. There was a loud cracking noise, like breaking glass, then Maddison fell for a fraction of a second before her feet hit solid ground.

The bubble had completely disappeared, but most of her vitality had gone with it. Doubled over, she held her hands against her knees, feeling a wave of lightheadedness descend upon her.

"How did you do that?" Terra asked, dumbfounded. Maddison now saw that she had pressed several smaller-sized bubbles against her wounds, presumably to slow the bleeding. She did not respond, merely forced her way over to Terra's supine body and seized her chip, avoiding the blood that had spilled onto the floor.

"I'd worry about myself if I were you." She fitted the last chip into her compass and watched as the emerald arrows appeared to guide her towards a door that had opened up halfway down the corridor.

Professor Wyatt finally came out of hiding, bundling up Terra and clearly preparing to bring her to the Medical Wing. They locked eyes for a few short seconds, then Maddison turned on her heel without a word and began her way to Level 3, a flame of white-hot rage blazing to life in her stomach.

The longer he walked, the less noise Alec heard. At the beginning of the test, he had heard explosive thuds and bangs radiating from around nearly every corner. They were still heard, but the frequency in which they sounded out was definitely dimming, which meant more and more people were dropping out, and more and more were advancing to Level 3. This fight, despite the fact that it was composed solely of inexperienced superhumans with only a few months of formal training, was grueling and vicious. He could only imagine the kind of devastation the upperclassmen could cause with their level of advancement, if their examinations looked anything like this. Knowing Professor Elliott, they were probably much worse.

He rounded a corner, skin still morphed into a solid pane of dark grey stone, and found the floor drenched in a viscous green fluid. It looked like slime, but a not-so-distant memory of walking through a similar underground corridor and encountering a substance very much like this told him not to take any chances with it.

He came to a halt just a few feet away from the nearest puddle, concentrating deeply on the patch of ground directly under his feet. Elaborate movements and lengthy periods using this power weren't his strong suit yet, but he supposed something as simple as this wouldn't be too difficult to manage.

Alec reached out mentally, warping the field of gravity immediately around him, and felt himself rising slowly into the air. He continued to alter the waves, pushing himself forward as he hovered a few feet off the ground. A few seconds later and he had touched down, the pools of slime safely behind him, and began his journey anew. At last, a few more lefts and a right later took him within view of a new opponent.

This one was a tall, wiry youth with ink black hair and a crooked nose. His eyes were wild and fearful, an expression Alec could understand given the pandemonium reigning around pretty much every corner.

There was no pause to get ready this time, no polite conversation to ease their way into it. The moment they laid eyes on each other, the boy lashed out. Alec had been expecting some kind of energy beam, given that most of the people he had glimpsed so far seemed to have ranged abilities. Instead, the boy let out a strange battle cry and charged forward. His arm crooked, clearly ready to let a punch fly. For a moment, a mere second, Alec stood completely still. There was no way the boy hadn't noticed that his opponent was made entirely of rock and therefore his attack would be useless. That perception was changed instantly.

Not for the first, or last time that day, Alec was sent careening backwards into the wall. Thankfully, his rock body was incredibly durable, because judging by the state of the wall he was lucky he had armoured up. The metal was forced in on itself, caving in so deeply that it looked as if a black hole was on the other side sucking it in.

The assault didn't falter. A moment later, the boy came charging towards him again. Alec leaped out of the way, only barely managing to evade as the boy's hands made contact with the wall, this time completely blowing a hole through it.

It was absolutely an amazing ability to have, Alec had to give it to him. It was similar in the way Charlie could cover his arms in energy, but he used the gauntlets the way an actual boxer would, as an extension of himself, a simple accessory. This boy, whoever he was, had somehow managed to turn his body itself into a weapon, sheathing his arms in lightning and using them as powerful spears. But as amazing as it was, it didn't change the fact that this was a fight, and he needed to end it quickly. Though there was no time limit to the events happening down here, there was still no doubt that a lot of people were currently moving on or dropping out, and the longer he waited the greater the chance of the latter.

The boy pulled back, slipping his lightning coated arms out of the hole he had punched into the wall and staring at Alec with that same look of uncertainty and determination. They locked eyes for a few seconds once more, then the counterattack began.

It was Alec's time to charge, morphing the stone of his arm as he went into a large, spiked mace. This he flailed around, very openly and obviously, to draw his attention, while behind his back the fingers of his other hand worked furiously. The distraction worked, as the boy's eyes were drawn almost magnetically to the spectacle Alec was stirring up. He dashed out to meet him, and their weapons clashed in midair. Sparks flew violently as they crashed against each other, dancing along Alec's earthen form. But as powerful as his stone arm was, this boy had managed to match the intensity. They were locked dead even, at a perfect stalemate.

That didn't matter, though. Impressive as the sight was to behold, Alec had finished what he was trying to do. He thrust his left arm upwards and the large ball of semi-solid earth he had been crafting behind his back now emerged into the air, splitting into a number of baseball-sized orbs. He kept them suspended in that state, malleable enough to morph at a moment's notice.

His opponent immediately drew back, pushing Alec off and staring around with wide eyes.

A grin split Alec's face as he morphed the balls with a thought, instantly solidifying them into a number of hands. The design was rather crude, a marker that he still had a ways to go, but it was certainly an improvement. Three weeks ago he had been quite hopeless when it came to this. The boy's eyes were roving around ceaselessly again, darting between each of the earthen constructs, and to Alec's mild surprise, he actually grinned.

"Not bad," he said. His voice was much deeper than Alec had imagined, but his tone was quite pleasant.

"You neither," said Alec.

He shrugged as if to say, "it's nothing," then resumed his fighting stance. There was another brief pause as they stood together, sizing each other up, and then he took off. As the boy took his first step, Alec leapt into motion, flicking his fingers at the nearest pair of hands. Both shot forward like bullets, their crude fingers outstretched and racing for his feet, which was when something happened that truly took Alec aback. The boy jumped — so high in the air that he may have been flying, and from his position underneath him Alec could see lightning on his feet in the same way it coursed over his hands, vibrant, alive.

He leapt from wall to wall, sticking much longer and much easier to the smooth metal than should have been humanly possible, as if he was some kind of mutated toad. He continued to scale the wall, moving up towards the ceiling, and finally Alec regained his bearings. All at once he sent every hand shooting up to the ceiling, folded into fists and flying with speeds that, in hindsight, would likely have been considered "excessive force." That would have been the case if they had actually posed a threat, however.

His opponent executed an elaborate flip and careened in midair, turning so swiftly and with so much grace that he actually managed to dodge the first assault. His feet touched the ceiling and he pressed off, his jump boosted forcefully by the sudden burst of lightning that once again overtook his legs.

He shot towards the ground like a rocket, and with his arms still blazing with lightning, he swung them outward, smashing them into the second barrage of hand constructs.

It was incredible how much force he had managed to muster: they shattered apart under the single blow as if they were nothing but cheap plastic. And he was still coming, not a single change in his momentum.

Alec jumped backwards, turning his fall into a roll and swerving out of the way just as his foe touched down. The metal rolled and warped underneath the force of his landing, but the truly fearsome sight was how his hands speared through the dense metal floor so smoothly, so effortlessly, that it was like a machete slicing through butter. He slid them out, two blazing lances of fiercely crackling electricity, and he came charging again.

He was not a Speeder, but the swiftness he moved with could easily have put him merely a tier or two beneath the slower ones.

Alec's eyes swept the field as he came barreling forward again, relentless. He focused on the dust and debris lining the floor, remembering his Precision training of a few weeks prior. Concentrating hard on what Crystal Zero had taught him, he tried to rein in the force he produced. He felt silly, given that he had no actual way to measure what he produced or even know if it was working, but he tried it anyway, reaching out to the broken shards around him. There was no reaction at first, then the debris rose into the air, taking the shape of a large hoop, like a mini-satellite ring. It rippled and morphed, forming into another wave of projectiles, which swept forward again.

The boy heard the sounds and whipped around, distracted. But for the first time in this entire fight, he was too slow. A barrage of fists pelted into his midriff and he stumbled, falling bodily to the floor. Alec had ensured that this time the force they struck with was much more manageable for someone not made of stone, but they still packed enough punch to ensure that he would be taken down for the count. Unfortunately, Alec quickly realized that he had miscalculated.

While the punches had certainly knocked the wind out of him, he apparently had excellent recovery time in addition to reaction speed. He rolled upwards, delivering a fierce uppercut that knocked Alec into the wall, and thrust his fist forward. It punched through the wall so ferociously that his arm actually got stuck halfway down to the elbow, buried in the shining metal.

There was a brief pause, the span of a few heartbeats, then the boy spoke. "Help me out a little, will you?" he said casually, hand still stuck in the wall and Alec still directly beside him. "Obviously we're both playing to win, but we're not animals, and this is still a test. I don't want to accidentally kill you because, well, that would suck for everyone involved —"

"Understandable," Alec said, in a similar nonchalant tone.

"But I can't gauge how hard I need to hit to pierce your armour without doing serious damage unless I — well — do a bit of a trial and error thing, which I guess you wouldn't be entirely comfortable with."

"No. No I don't think I would," Alec said, shaking his head.

"You mind giving me a rough estimate of what you can manage?"

He pulled his arm out, still completely at ease, and Alec leaned against the wall, thinking, but still keeping an eye on him in case he decided to try something. "I'd say . . . around the same force you used to shatter the hands I sent at you earlier."

While it may not have seemed a great idea to tell his opponent exactly the amount of force he needed, it seemed even less smart a decision to let him try to figure it out himself. If his hands could lance through solid metal so easily, there was no telling what would happen to him if one hit actually connected.

His opponent paused too, thinking. "Yeah . . . yeah, I think I can manage that. . . . Go again?"

"Your move."

And like that, they shifted again, moving from casual conversation to heated battle as easily as if they had changed a television station. The longer they fought the more Alec found himself catching on to his opponent's rhythm of movement. Despite his superior speed, Alec found that he was able to better anticipate the oncoming punches and kicks, and therefore put up a better defense. He was nowhere near as skilled as his enemy, whose forte was clearly martial combat, but he had had enough practice with Maddison to at least keep up. Hits were landed on both parties, some glancing blows, some fierce connections, and Alec had to give him his just dues. He had kept up his part of their agreement to a remarkable standard, managing to strike with the same consistent amount of force each time.

Cracks were starting to appear in his stone covering now, but it was, strangely, not much of a problem. Despite the fact that this was his most challenging opponent so far, Alec found that he was actually having fun.

That feeling dimmed slightly as an arm dancing with lightning slammed into his throat, but fun nonetheless. Alec retaliated by aiming a sharp kick at his shins, which was met by a slathering of protective lightning. From what he had gathered, the electricity could also function as armour too. As the thought crossed his mind again, an image of Charlie flashed behind it. He wondered briefly it was just a coincidence that so many people he knew of had such similar powers, or if some of them had actually taken inspiration from some of their classmates.

He didn't have much time to ponder the position, because a voice inside his head — one that sounded remarkably like his mother — suddenly snapped at him to focus. He knew for a fact that a large portion of the underground population had moved onto Level 3 already (Maddison, Charlie, Javon, Reya, and Ethan hopefully included), and it was time for him to do the same.

Luckily, he spotted the opening he was looking for soon after. The lightning-coated left hand of his opponent came soaring towards his chest. He raised his own left hand in a feint, not actually intending to hit him, but throwing a punch to the left so that he would move towards the right, where Alec's right foot was waiting in place. It worked as he had expected, with his enemy swerving his body slightly to the east, and Alec kicked out at his ankle. Instead of tripping him off balance, however, he wrapped his foot around his ankle, bringing the fiercely crackling left hand off course and veering towards the ground. The fingers sank smoothly into the metal, but just as he was about to pull them out, Alec clapped a hand onto his back.

The motion was swift and simple, and one he had ample practice with. It was the same move he had used to repair the wall of the common room that the Powerball game weeks ago had destroyed; he let the stone from his hand dissolve into a semi-liquid state, flowing from his fingers over the boy's body.

He was fast, but Alec was faster. By the time he regained his footing, his entire upper body was coated in rock, which instantly hardened over him, insulating his hands and bringing him crashing to the floor under its weight.

"And that's game," Alec said cheerily, reaching to pull his chip from around his neck.

"Son of a . . ." The boy grumbled furiously, but made no moves to protest. "It was a lucky shot," he added, one final attempt to save his pride.

"Sure it was." Still grinning, Alec waved his hands and the earthen straitjacket completely crumbled. Brushing dust off himself, the boy reached into his compass, pulled out a second chip, and handed it over with a sour look.

"All I needed was one more for Level 3," he said with a sigh. "But of course. . . . Oh well, at least I took four down before I got cut. I'd wish you luck but, I'm still bitter." Despite his words, he gave a playful smile and then headed off down the direction the flashing red lights of his compass were pointing.

Alec set the fifth and final chip into his own compass and stared at it for a few moments. Green lights flared in the center, taking the shape of several arrows that were pointing eastward. Steeling his resolve, he set off, towards the door that had randomly slid open in the wall beside him, leading to Level 3.