Monday morning, the recruits were lined up in the arena as usual. But the air was a touch more excited than the last month of extreme workouts. It was finally time for them to learn how to fight like real heroes. Aegis followed in shortly after them, but there was no Para to speak of.

“Okay recruits, we finally made it to Fight month! And not a single drop out either. Things are actually looking kind of nice for this class. This month will consist of training each of you to fight, either in your own style or in a more practiced one of your choosing. You still can’t use your powers on demand, we still need you to learn to fight without them, but don’t worry. Power month is looking to be special as well. Aaand, since Para took away the last week from me, I get to set the lesson plan for the month, starting with a full week of just my training.”

The trainees lit up, no more berating, no more derogatory nicknames, and… Seth perked up slightly to get Aegis’ attention.

“Yes. You can take the weight off your back.”

He beamed in excitement, ignoring most of his other trainees watching him with snide glances. He looped his thumbs under the leather straps that had been digging into his shoulders for far too long and yanked fast and hard, snapping them instantly. Letting the suit fall free like a ton of bricks, slamming down hard and kicking up a cloud of dust, to the surprise of the side eyeing trainees.

“What? You thought it was cardboard or something? The armor plates alone weigh a thousand pounds, add in the frame and all the internals and you’ve got…”

The trainees’ eyes were glazing over. Aegis cleared her throat to get attention back.

“Now then. You all probably expect things to be easier for you since Para is stuck on the sidelines, but-”

*bwoo* “BUT DON’T EXPECT ME TO FORGET ANY MISSTEPS I CATCH!!!”

The arena’s sound system wasn’t ready for Para to blare over it, and neither were the trainees.

*bwo* “I may not be able to dictate the regimen, but I’ll be watching you like a hawk, and counting each and every mistake you make! Once I get command again, you’ll be expected to pay for every single one! Got it!”

Everyone collectively lost most of the excitement they’d found. And Aegis, a little ticked off she was losing her trainees drive, refused to just accept this. Her hand flicked open *bwooiii* and a soft orange glow illuminated the control booth, followed by a few flashing sparks. She cut the microphone cord with her shield. Seth didn’t even know she could use them like that, let alone offensively.

“Now then. We got a bit of understanding of how you fight from your monologue performances. Sorry for leaving you in the dark about that by the way, always testing your preparedness. Though it was supposed to be something a bit less embarrassing, the results at least spoke for themselves. Heh, don’t be surprised if there’s a couple fan clubs waiting for you once you’re graduated. The League really likes making a show of things. But, despite all that, I’m still going to need a lot more from each of you. A light sparring session with a training dummy or five isn’t going to cut it.”

Seth thought back to the swarm of Para clones he faced, they sure didn’t seem like just training bots. Not to mention fighting Para himself alongside them, or… at least Seth thought it was him. No telling at this point.

“So, to get that better understanding, I’m going to need each and every one of you to fight me. Right now.”

The easing back atmosphere of eagerness suddenly flatlined, devolving into looks of shared surprise shared between recruits, and dread. A good chunk of reeling dread. Some knew full well what was ahead, but everyone was understandably apprehensive.

“What? No takers. Fine, I’ll make it easier, you only have to land a single unblocked blow. You can all fight as one or try your luck individually. Y-yeah that won’t really matter much. Here, I’ll even allow limited power usage, only movement related stuff, nothing directly offensive. And only blunt edges please, this suit doesn’t need any new holes in it. Huh… and of course, I won’t use my powers or my shield. Gotta keep things fair, you know.”

The apprehension was unabated, but slowly the reality that this was the best they had set in. And so the trainees fanned out around her. Seth left his suit behind and moved wide behind everyone else. And could feel that apprehension turn the air to soup. This just became a waiting game for whoever struck first, and what would happen to them for it.

The trainees surrounded Aegis in a loose circle, some bunching up into teams. Maya, Jacob, and David. Kabar and Cleo. It looked like Kaz and Razor were also working together, just from opposite sides. M.J.D. set up behind her at the opposite side from Seth, Zeleny on their right and Marco on the left. Kabar and Cleo stood in front of Seth, with Alex and Tabby flanking them respectively. Kaz and Razor in the center line flanking Aegis. Ohm setup behind M.J.D., but hanged back near the arena wall.

The tension soon became more discernible. Fists tightening, whispers passing between team members, knowing glances and careful signs for those spread about. Everyone scanned from Aegis to each other and back to Aegis, no one wanted to make the first move. Seth took the relative lull as an opportunity, because Ohm certainly was. Limited powers still meant he was allowed his, even if he was hiding it. He focused, tuned out as much of the tension as he could, listened inward. The whisper of the abyss seeping out at its edges. The chatter in the Garkah control room, they knew what he was attempting and were ready to regulate as best they could. He felt the whisper, let it flow into his hands, but didn’t pull at it. In one smooth figurative motion he cleaved the whisper from its escape, clenched it tight for what it truly was. That whisper became power, power he could use. But instead of flowing in and breaking down, for some reason it writhed, absentmindedly gave more than he wanted. He strained to keep it down, to keep it held tight as the trainees moved at last.

His silence was broken by Maya stomping forward, solid concrete armor formed around her. M.J.D. was stepping up to meet the challenge first and Aegis turned to accept, yet didn’t move from her spot. Maya set up in a blocking position, David and Jacob prepared behind her. Seth couldn’t lose focus on his control, but he could hear splashing and sloshing, David forming a water ball. All the while Aegis waited patiently for whatever was about to happen. Suddenly the ball was flung between Maya’s legs, rolling along and leaving a trail, a trail that quickly froze behind it. Without so much as a flinch, Aegis kicked the ball as it reached her, splashing it back as it froze, creating a spotty wall of ice.

“Eh, at least you’re working together, but that wasn’t much of a- SHIT!!!”

The ice shattered revealing a water jetting concrete Maya sliding at speed down the frost path, with a loaded punch ready to fire. Aegis was surprised, but not off guard. She met the punch with both arms blocking, but leapt slightly backwards into the air. The impact reduced, and all that momentum under her control. Her blocking arm rounded around Maya’s and midair pivoted her around. All that concrete slowing her down, and leaving her unable to react. Aegis let her foot drag the pair to a stop, but continued the pivot, swinging her around and hurling her back at her teammates. That concrete slab of armored rebuke was sent skipping back across the ice like a returned bowling ball, right into David and Jacob prepping a follow up ice slide. She rolled into them, bowling them over and splattering freezing water and ice all over them.

“Wooh, 3 down already. Just 10 more to go.”

Before Aegis could finish her celebration and her turn, Cleo and Kabar struck. Leather straps began shooting up from the sand all around her, nipping at her still pivoting foot like the world’s worst puppies. They wrapped around and held her in place as one of Kabar’s lines whipped past her face. But instead of striking and missing, it was targeted. Another leather strap formed in the air just behind her, and Kabar’s line wrapped up tight in it. A leverage point, for yet another flying kick. Aegis was stuck in an off balance crane like stance, but was obviously far from helpless. Mostly because her legs were longer. She swiveled in line, bunched up hard, and power stamped him in the face.

The sense and variety kicked out of him, Aegis grabbed his line and pulled herself hard out from the strap field, snapping the straps like they were hardly there. But she didn’t let go of that line just yet. She yanked its slack hard, pulling the still airborne Kabar face first into the field she just escaped. Straps slapped at anything they couldn’t wrap around, so mostly his already shoe printed face. One thoroughly stuck in place, Aegis wrenched the line free from the leverage strap and borrowed his technique, charging and pulling herself forward over the, only just now, disapparating field. She took Cleo off guard as she slammed the ground just short, line still gripped tight. Another hard yank, and Kabar came flying over, dragged by his own line and turned into a human missile aimed straight for Cleo. They fell together in a tossed pile just short of Seth still internally straining but now thoroughly regretting this lesson.

“8 left.”

Barely off relinquishing Kabar’s line, Aegis was flanked on all four sides by Zeleny, Marco, Tabby, and Alex. Tabby in the form of a lioness and Alex copying Aegis proper. They struck first and fast, rushing in and trying to punch through her defenses with a flurry of coordinated blows. Alex swinging in with a quick wide right and left jab and Tabby trying an overhead batting combo. Both were rebuked on the first swing, arm guards flashed up with perfect timing to throw their momentums off. They desperately continued their combos despite their ineffectuality. Each attack blocked with little movement on Aegis’ part, just meeting each hit with her forearms. Until Tabby swung her whole right side in an effort to get something through. Aegis pulled her right leg up alongside her right arm, meeting both of Tabby’s paws. Alex in the same instance tried to haymaker feint, but Aegis grabbed her hidden fist as her haymaker bounced off her forearm. This was when Zeleny and Marco finally made their move.

Zeleny had flown over to Marco and pulled him up by his feet for a dive bomb drive by. Now that Aegis appeared preoccupied, the time to strike was now. She dove down at her back as Marco prepped to slam an air fist into her, come what may.

Except, even as her hands seemed tied, Aegis turned her head as they gained speed. The air was whistling with powered flight, and their sneak attack wasn’t so sneaky anymore. She countered her immediate assailants, folding over her blocking right and grappling left, hooking them onto Alex and Tabby’s arms. She then forced her blocking right leg past Tabby’s, knocking her off her feet and giving Aegis control of her momentum as she pulled the lot of them around. Both trainees were swung and scrunched together into a human shot put and spun hard to the left. Zeleny could see and tried to pull out of the dive, but couldn’t turn away quick enough with so much weight tying to her. So she was a sitting duck.

Aegis completed her spin as Zeleny flew over, dipping slightly on the far end and releasing the doppelcat shot put straight up. Zeleny was slammed face to face, causing Marco to fall past his target. He managed to flow a current and right himself, landing on his feet. But landed right into Aegis’ range, the last bit of her momentum followed through with a foot into Marco’s side, and a kicking dismissal from the ring. The human fireworks fell behind her as she turned to regard Ohm juicing up at one of the arena’s power sockets.

“4 to go! You guys better pick your game up. And you better believe you’re paying that electric bill!”

Ohm let go of the socket, his body practically exuding the power he’d collected. Nerves visible even without any extra sight and illuminating his skin from the inside. Seth worried he might meltdown, but instead he just calmly stepped up to bat.

“So… I’m only allowed to use my powers for movement purposes right?”

Ohm was talking, but every word elicited a lightshow of sparks between his teeth. ‘Jeeze he’s over juiced!’ Even Aegis was looking slightly disturbed.

“Y-yup. No fancy electro punches here. Though… with how long you take to get ready, it’s not like you’d really ever hit me with it.”

Aegis made a show of smugly shrugging away from him, but it seemed like Ohm was too far gone to pass the opportunity up. She looked back down in time to see that he was already three feet in front of her, a burned streak of lightning in his wake propelling him. And his expression a cross between a manic episode and a cutlery set in the microwave. Even his eyes were sparking on the inside. The power in his legs was still flaring, he’d focused most everything there and shot forward at almost unimaginable speed. A small sonic boom resounded as Aegis blocked for dear life.

A charged right hook, three spread out left jabs, right round house, left crane kick, all this in just the two seconds after he shot forward. Aegis met each attack with a block, but he was getting faster as more electricity was discharged. One-two combos, no four-six, ten-twelve, this shit was getting out of hand! His combos were causing a friction fire, the padding on Aegis’ arms smoldering. Ohm finished his combo with a right sweeping kick across those smoldering pads, like he was striking a match with the sole of his shoe. Aegis was finally recoiled at this, head kept low behind her guard. And that was all Ohm needed, he used his kicks momentum to swing a massive right around.

But as he swung back around he saw that Aegis had released her guard, arms dropped wide to her sides. He disregarded this, as if he could do anything else but charged his fist in without care. A bolt of lightning shooting from his elbow, propelling him and his punch beyond his previous speed. But his punch hit nothing but air. Seth tried to keep up, hard fought power shifted to perceive what just happened, but it may as well have been a blur to anyone else. She’d stepped to the side, let Ohm slip past her like a charging bull, but dragged a left hand in the wake of this step, and raised it right in the path of Ohm’s face. And slammed that arm with a little too much force. She clotheslined him, body retaining its inertia and flowing forward, desperate to defy the force applied. But Aegis wasn’t done, she kept pushing forward and down, dropping a leg and dropping him to the ground. She slammed his head into the arena floor, undoubtedly knocking him unconscious and finalizing the perceptive disparity between them. She rose back up, the focused and cold expression she was wearing dimmed into facetious concern.

“Sheesh, it’s like he doesn’t understand limits or something. Having that much power is fine, but if you can’t even control yourself with it then what’s the point. Oh, and that’s 9. So who’s ne-? Shit! Shit!”

Aegis’ arm padding flared up again as she struggled to pat it down.

“Ugh, you asshole! It’s not like suits like this grow on trees or something!”

She said knowing full well that several of her trainees were wearing surplus suits exactly like hers. Seth, Razor, and Kaz, gave her looks saying as such.

“…Hey this suits special okay. You all got hand-me-downs you can just replace, mine can’t be!”

Through the embellishment Seth could see a hint of sincerity. ‘Don’t tell me that’s really the same suit after all this time.’ The weird thought broke his strain, but even the abyss found that odd.

“Anyway, you guys going to fight or what?”

Kaz and Razor both looked across her at each other, they could see they were outmatched, or Kaz could see it and Razor at least followed his lead. They lowered their weapons in submission to this very obvious fact.

“Ah come on, don’t chicken out just because everyone else failed. You still have a chance, those blades of yours are sure to give you some kind of advantage.”

Kaz smiled glumly a little, but Razor reprised his delinquent demeanor.

“And risk you killing us for cutting your suit slightly!?! HELL NO!!”

Aegis chuckled.

“Fine be that way. So then. All that’s left is you.”

She stared down Seth, still smiling.

“Let’s see if you’ve really improved since enrolment.”

Seth had kept his hold of the power he cut, kept it contained and under control despite its protests. It wasn’t much compared to its source, but it could still cause problems if left unchecked. Despite this, he held it and maintained himself. But now it was time to let it go and use it. He focused, the power shooting through his muscles, spread thin but still viable. He breathed in, tensing, he breathed out, releasing. The power following his every move, his every breath. It was his, and he was ready. He dropped forward, a somewhat feigned faint, but didn’t offer any time to mistake the façade. His foot stamped down and his eyes shot ahead, the slightest flicker of powered perception behind his eyes as a sudden burst of sand away like a piece of shrapnel leaving an explosion.

Running low to the ground, parting the sand with an uppercut as low as it could be, he charged Aegis at speed. An expected block, the upward fist harmlessly sliding across scorched padding to the right, but that momentum kept going. Seth spun with it, swinging his bunched up right leg over for a stamp. Aegis kept her guard up as the foot passed by without striking. A still extended left leg came into battery, threatening to hook a foot past her guarding arm. She shifted to catch his shin. But all were feints on feints. Seth twisted himself around, bringing his right back into place to stamp Aegis in the chest. She had barely enough time to pull her left arm up to block as he kicked off, knocking her back and flipping over. His momentum finally dying with his hands and feet clawing into the sand.

Another burst of sand shot him off immediately, both hands held to his sides. Aegis maintained her guard even as she still recoiled backwards. A flurry of punches were loosed into her charred guard, disrupting her balance further until she almost fell over, but then she really fell backwards. Her body pulled backwards like a gymnast, arms stretching out to catch the ground. Seth whiffed his last punch and fell forward, narrowly falling on top of the now backflipping Aegis. But instead he found himself between her legs, shins hooking under his arms like a violent forklift. She flipped with force, pulling him over and catapulting him away.

Seth tumbled into a half-baked summersault, bouncing off the sand on his butt rather than his neck. He was tossed over once more before he cut his momentum, sliding to a stop on his back with his heels and elbows dup into the sand. He craned his head back to reacquire, but found Aegis still backflipping and threatening to stick the landing on top of his head. He twisted to the left, narrowly avoiding both feet stamping the sand to dust. He pulled his legs back behind him as Aegis shifted out to kick him while he was down. On all fours, he swept forward under the kick, striking at the other leg with his own. Aegis threw herself forward to avoid, target leg slipping away as Seth pushed himself backwards. He was back upright as she tumbled forward in a somersault of her own, both back face to face.

A beat passed. The preceding tussle was over in seconds, but both already appearing winded.

“Well.” Aegis rolled her shoulder with a halfhearted smile. “You’re certainly more limber than I expected. Nothing weighing you down right? But you’re still not quite there yet. And… the thing is we still need to see if you can take as much as you give. So sorry about this.”

‘The hell?’ Seth tensed, but suddenly Aegis shot forward with almost no notable motion, a fresh guard firmly in place, and a slight whistle in her wake. He tried to meet her charge, tried to catch up, but a right kick came screaming into his side before he could react. He was shot to the side, rolling uncontrollably. A forcible seethed breath and some clawing hands skidded him to a stop face down, but a shadow followed him the whole way. He whipped over violently, flipping into the air and bringing both arms together in a desperate guard, just as Aegis slammed back down to earth. The impact rippled the floor, aerosolized the sand, and emptied that desperately held breath.

What perception he had pulled together was thoroughly bashed to pieces, Seth left hacking as Aegis leaned down and pulled him up back upright by his collar.

“*hurgh* So much for *hrr* not using your powers.”

Aegis recoiled slightly in surprise.

“Hey I said you could use your powers for movement and most of these guys broke that pretty quickly. And so what if I did the same… a little. And besides, you-” *flick*

Aegis blinked off facetious lecturing with Seth's hand in her face. He'd just flicked her on the forehead. A pained smile growing to meet the blank look she gave.

“I win.”

“…”

Aegis looked annoyed for a second, but quickly grew wide eyed.

“Th… That- That doesn’t count!”

“You said all we had to *hu* do was hit you once without getting blocked. You didn’t block that so… I win.”

Seth kept smiling, a slight drip of blood running out of his mouth. Aegis half smiled trying to laugh off her technical defeat, but quickly deflated and set Seth down out of concern. She probably over did it. He wobbled a little, holding his chest in mild pain. ‘Yup that’s not where a rib should be.’ He felt it realign under his hand as he focused and pulled it back into place. But couldn’t really do much about the taste of his own blood in his mouth, or coming up with every breath. Thankfully the pain subsided into warm waves as Mediknight broke through the falling dust cloud around them. Seeing if he was needed, but only seeing an unscathed Aegis slumped and disappointed in herself and a still slightly hacky and internally bleeding Seth smiling in pyrrhic victory.

“Do I even want to know what happened here?”

The cloud dissipated and the rest of the flash triaged trainees came back into view, most slumped against the nearest wall of the arena. Aegis turned in mostly exaggerated defeat.

“Nothing… I just lost. UGH!! Para is really not going to let this one die.”

Seth hacked a little, but laughed.

“Heuh. Just wait, he’ll probably say I just got lucky or something. S-speaking of which… I’m gonna go lie down now.”

Seth took a step toward the triage wall but lost the strength in his foot and his entire body. He faceplanted into the ground unconscious. The Garkah taught him to heal the pain away, not block it. And he’d also used up a lot of energy in that fight just holding all that power back. But, that was that lesson down at least.