"This is getting boring." Xenon lamented as he slumped over the stone bars -around the fourth floor- he was leaning on. "I thought it would be thrilling to see a bunch of people fight at the same time but I got my hopes up too much. I should have expected it, a bunch of kids lunging at each other is bound to be not quite the spectacle, of course there are a few thrilling ones but still, I'm disappointed.
"Did I just waste all those months training my ass off just to be met with people who can't throw a half decent punch. Four rounds have passed and only 4 of the 100 clashes was half acceptable. I am so going to be furious if I one shot my opponent!" Xenon's head dropped down, almost drawn to tears by the disappointment.
He looked up at the fifth floor and saw that the professors and clones were also visibly bored and disappointed about the performance of the contestants in the concluded rounds.
"Uh, I guess they're surprised too, maybe it's just this year's aspirants that suck. Argh! I should have just spoiled myself to stupor at the manor." Xenon sobbed inwardly.
Professor Arkham called the fifth round of contenders, they got in place and all of Professor Franz chanted a half hearted 'Begin'.
The round started as usual and Xenon started to search for the usual one half acceptable battle.
"Uhn, that's strange. This fights in this round is actually somehow better than the previous rounds" He said as he watched in excitement, hoping that the upcoming rounds will be at least as good this round.
"That's impossible!" Xenon exclaimed as something unusual happened in one of the fights in the arena.
In one of the 25 stages in the arena, a girl with purple hair was matched up with one dude who could manipulate blue crystals generated from his body.
The crystal boy launched his crystals at her which she managed to evade with some effort and at one of her usual dodging episodes, she slipped, one of the launched crystals heading straight for her face, it was inevitable, but just the next second she was not slipping anymore and was just out of reach of the crystal.
A similar situation happened again a few times, she would be in the path of a crystal and suddenly in the next moment she'd be just out of reach, avoiding a collision.
Xenon ignored all the other battles and concentrated on this particular one, inspecting her moves carefully.
'Does she has super speed like me?... no that's not it I would still see her evading the crystal if that was the case'. He mused
'Is it a type of teleportation then, because she just seems to skip away from her position in an instant?... no it can't be, teleportation doesn't happen that fast' He kept pondering answering his own questions. 'This is interesting but also frustrating, and I can't scan her with the system, both because of that telepathic Professor and because scan hasn't reached the level to see people's abilities.' He concentrated on her studying her more.
'She just vanishing and reappearing somewhere else at the same time, how is that possible. That's n... hold on a sec, she vanishing, and reappearing, changing... no skipping metres of space in the span of a micro second, which is equivalent to almost no time at all, doesn't that mean she can either stop time or control it.' Xenon's eyes widened in excitement.
He noticed three of Professor Franz' clones sit up straight concentrating on the match he was watching. 'They noticed it too? That means I'm right, doesn't it?' Xenon abandoned the other matches and focus on the one that grabbed both his and the professor's attention.
The girl continued to dodge the crystals hurled at her then suddenly she dashed forward. She was unable to close in on her opponent previously because he didn't give her any chance to by assaulting her with his crystals, but she was running at him anyway ignoring the risk.
Two diamond shaped crystals shot towards her, when they were just in her reach, she stopped time, carefully grabbed the crystals and deactivated the time stop –all this was done in a second of stopped time.
She continued running forwards holding the crystals in her hands. The boy shot four crystals this time as she was getting closer than he would prefer. Her palms emanated a brown aura that enveloped the crystals she held and then hurled them at the ones heading her way, not stopping her charge. They two she threw collided with the incoming four and they all turned to dust.
The girl drew closer to her opponent, the boy panicked and used a fair amount of the generated crystals he used as armour around his body to form a larger diamond shaped projectile and shot it towards her.
The girl jumped, stopped time, landed on the crystal with her hands and used it as a support to lunge herself forward, resumed time, landed on her feet, ducked down to avoid another crystal, stepped back to avoid a punch from the boy, she spun on her left foot while the right one delivered a kick that landed squarely on the boy's jaw.
The boy staggered to his right, the crystal armour around his left cheek split and fell off. The girl moved away, grabbing her right foot in pain for a moment before ignoring the pain and charging at the boy once more.
The boy noticed her movement and shot two baseball bat sized, diamond shaped crystals at her. She used her ability to carefully grab the crystals once again, avoiding a cut and continued towards him. She dodged or parried other incoming crystals using the ones she held and closed in on the boy till he got within her attacking range.
Once in her range, she assaulted him with his own crystals which she had grabbed earlier, raining down blows on him. It was obvious the boy had very little experience in close quarter combat as he couldn't do a thing but raise his crystal covered arms over his face to protect himself.
The girl continued her assault until both the crystal she held and the one covering the boy's arms shattered. The boy was thrown off balance by the sudden explosion of crystals with some shards digging into his skin, the girl took advantage of his disoriented state and threw her right fist against his torso –with just enough force to gently press her fist against the crystals protecting him without injuring herself. The brown aura flowed from her fist unto the crystal armour disintegrating it to dust as it spread throughout the armour.
The boy fell backwards, landed and rolled to his feet, shooting another crystal projectile at the girl who was caught off guard. She dodged to the side but wasn't fast enough, enabling the crystal to smoothly cut through the sleeve of her dress and the skin of her left bicep.
She grabbed the crystal before it could cut deeper, ignoring the slash it made to her palm and flung it towards the boy with as much strength she could muster. The boy barely raised his arms in time to protect his face, overwhelming pain invaded his arms when the crystal struck –he didn't have enough time to generate crystals to protect his arms– and they dropped to his sides, overwhelmed by the pain. Before he could attempt to raise them the girl's fist struck his face squarely, he fell over.
He could see the girl stretch her right palm forward to grab his neck as he hit the floor of the arena, he generated crystals to immediately cover his neck out of fear. She grabbed his neck and lifted him up, choking him in the process, she disintegrated the crystal around his neck, grabbing his throat in her bleeding palm and whispered in his ear.
"You've seen what I can do with these". She said while tightening her grip against his throat. "Surrender now before I make you indistinguishable from the dust on the arena floors".
The panicking boy raised his arms almost announcing his defeat, but suddenly stopped and dropped his hands before whispering back.
"But that would disqualify you wouldn't it?" He smirked. "Don't forget I have magic hands too"
Her eyes widened, she released her grip in haste, pushing herself away from the boy, but the damage had already been done.