༄༄༄

An outstanding, perfectly symmetric, eye dropping smile.

Colin Queen and his breathtaking aura enveloped the room, his cocky, snake emerald eyes catching the sight of dancing flames, while his right hand continuously moved from side to side in circles, a satisfied, pleased grin plastered on his dry lips as he clashed his tongue with certainty of dominance and vigor.

The white-haired figure had been placed, much to his despise, on the same training spot as Myra and Novah, the four enclosed blank walls forming a square, in its center three small tables were each ornamented with black colored towels, burning candles on silver candlesticks, tiny round bowls of clean water and vases covered with grain and soil - invertedly, the room had been purposely decorated for exercise purposes, the several training mats on floor placed in order in front of each table resembled it. The room had no windows and no mirrors, but there was complete light inside it.

Novah had been the last one to enter the room and take a hold of the tensing scenario, her lips opening and pouting in sweet nervous movements while she tensed by the glass door, slowly taking her shoes off, and adjusting the zip half placket, black nylon unitard which covered her whole silhouette and legs.

Those were the typical as well as identical costumes for the feminine gender in the Academy, a black jacket built like a corset with a series of harness-style straps generally was another piece to match the unitards, complemented by a pair of combat leather knee high boots.

Nevertheless, Novah had added a peculiar four-finger shooting glove to the outfit, which attached her left wrist, leading the combating part of her personality to stand out through the bold significance of the bare material.

She reached for the last bootlace on her left shoe, although her attentive orbs were gazing at the familiar sharp face of Colin, who had been standing tall near the farthest table of the entrance, his chin slightly titled upwards, the long black eyelashes coldly watching his own fingers moving in order to expand the tiny fire from one of the candles and make it reach his hand. Then it was shown again, his pretentious conceited grin catching Novah's camp of sight once more.

"What a showoff,"

Myra hissed, sharply but quickly put, near the second table, her glamorous pretentious glare hoovering over Colin's smug expressions as his flames grew wider and taller beneath her sight, the attention of hers directly interacting with his presence.

A venomous, smug remark followed, as he looked over to her from where he was standing, a few feet away inside the tryout salon. The flames coming to an end as he did it out of his impatience.

"Wouldn't you love to try to beat me on my Fire Release?",

he hinted with coldness, no hint of sympathy in his voice but no sign of preoccupation either, and so the silent duel of challenging, daring stares had started between the two, stubbornness lifting the room up.

Colin was one of the greatest students at the Academy, his grades were outstanding, his intellect remarkable, his leadership skills were very praised, and he had that plus to his authentic prodigious figure, which were his conquering almost mischievous vibrant looks, though he usually presented himself through his obscure dusky aura.

The white color of his wild hair fully contrasted with his dark green eyes like snow melting in grass, but his lips held a surprising, lively twist of warmth and heat. Something that had been irritating Myra of a while.

"I'd won, undoubtedly. You should thank me for avoiding the shame of your loss."

The arms of hers rested on her chest, as she seemed to be holding her posture strongly, no sign of conflicting thoughts roaming in her head,

"You should know, I take training classes seriously. So don't disturb me."

The floor began to shake the second after, startling Novah who was watching the two talking from afar. Her arms reaching for the floor while she pressed her hands harder, ignoring the objects on the table meant for their usage. Her fire release would fiercely battle with Colin's one, but her earth release was also to bet for.

Myra's playful sabotage had brought a smirk back to her cool, collected attire - part of the floor had broken beneath the table and a dense root of a tree had popped from the hole.

She does know how to make an entry.

"Myra, Myra,"

Colin chuckled, his proximity to Myra now noted by Novah, as she reached for her position near the closest table from the entrance. Even though the floor was shaking beneath his feet, he kept walking in a very calm, relaxed rhythm, although always portraying mischievousness, like a snake crawling to catch its prey.

"You do not change, do you?"

Adjusting his nose while his features changed from playful to bitter, his gaze darkened altogether and his arms hugged his own torso, whereas Myra's blonde curls waved in the air as she rapidly restored her tallness, their bodies turned to one another.

"Just so you know, I'm itching to face you on a match. And I believe it'll happen soon enough."

He said roughly, narrowing his eyes to the girl who was sensing his teasing approach but choosing to remain collected. Myra knew. She almost nodded out of response – she wanted to fight him too.

Actually, his hostile behavior usually had a positive effect on her, giving the fact she understood him as much as she understood herself. He was fairly talented, and his skills had highly improved thanks to his hardworking state of mind. Everyone at the Academy feared him, along with his sense of coldness. A chilly couple of words like those resembled what he could not perform to say openly or clearly.

He acknowledged Myra, and therefore he was praising her, in a very, so to say, impolite discrete way. She received it as a compliment, to be named as one of his closest opponents.

Myra retrieved the locks of her hair blinding her vision, and locked eyes with his, battling them. The prey facing the snake.

"I will crush you at the Tournament. The warning is done." He called it, the electricity in the air making it unbearably dense as he kept staring her strongly and never breaking. She may be competition, that gives him pleasure.

"Myra would win."

Three penetrating words escaped the brunette's mouth, almost impatiently, as if she couldn't bear to keep quiet, while she reached for the scene with steady breaths, the lump on her throat claiming the opposite.

His head shifted immediately, he was fairly taller than Myra, but somehow it looked like to him as if they were alone in the room and it took him a while to notice Novah's presence.

"Should I know you? Who are you exactly?" His gaze lingered on her composed expression while his one was a very irritated one.

"Her name's Novah." Myra said, blankly.

His eyebrows knotted, his lips pursed,

"So I figured, not relevant to me in any way.", he interjected, ghostly mirroring Myra's troubled features, then looking back at her friend, cold as ice were his further words,

"Your name doesn't ring a bell. So, to my knowledge, you're a nobody."  Myra gasped, almost surprised at his obvious furious shift in demeanor.

"You really are rude-"

She was used to it by now anyway, Colin was not the one to mess with, but she had seen before that his heart was not made out of complete stone, contrary to what he made it look like most of the time. However, Novah was Myra's friend, maybe she had thought he would treat Novah with the same exact consideration he held for her. But then again, Colin was unpredictable, and most of the times, unsatisfactory.

"Don't- I can speak for myself." Novah cut Myra, the traces on her face shifting to annoyance, her voice clear. She was now practically standing on the side of Myra's mat.

Blinking in awe due to her own sudden courageous attempt, she spoke,

"That is what I think. She can beat you."

He gasped, also surprised at the brown-haired girl's bold comment, as if he were not accustomed to being challenged that openly, or ever.

"What you think? So, a nobody has an opinion. That's shameful, how nobodies like yourself would believe the crap you say."

His voice was harsh, not at all low, somehow he knew how to find the right buttons to press, and so he was testing the confidence of hers, the first stop having to be the open bitter words that would make her flinch, feel threatened and finally leave.

He watched in the next thirty seconds with his burning eyes how she did not compel herself to follow any of those reactions, now he was beyond pissed.

"Novah, don't listen to him. We should go." Myra attempted to cut the tension.

"You go. Take the shower first."

The blonde questioned Novah with an arched brow, but Novah had been too distracted to even say anything else. Leaving her alone with Colin in the room could result in bad consequences, however, Myra felt sympathy in her heart. Novah was defending her when she did not need to. And finally, the fierce girl who Myra had been worshiping since they were friends, was now in front of her, showing of her true ardent persona, disposed of any shield to mask her doubting thoughts.

Whatever would be the discussion between the two, at least Myra thought Novah would not commit any stupidity, she was too much of a good person. As far as Colin, well, even if he wanted to attempt something out of his wicked mind, he was still inside the Academy, and there were rules to be followed.

While sighing, Myra had left to room with a towel resting on her shoulder. The door closed and Colin spoke, his orbs had roomed over Novah's face traces and body the minute before,

"You know what, I think I remember you now. The perfect example that a pretty face doesn't stand out when she is nothing but a failure."

The word made her remove her stare from his uncomfortable one, the tongue inside her mouth curling,

"Have you asked yourself? What on Earth you're doing here?"

His venomous questions were making the chest of hers rise quicker and her nails were pressing on the palm of her right hand.

On the other hand, Colin was closer to his objective, he wanted her to crumble right beneath his eyes, crash to pieces if possible, run away if needed. He had remembered her. The Dante girl. An unvulgar surname he had taken notice of every time the Academy held practice simulations in the main arena with all classes.

He did not know much about her though, except for her silent and mysterious ways, yet ravishing beauty. She was older, taller, her brown hair was much longer, maybe that were the reasons why he could not identify her right away.

But anyway he'd see it, to him Novah seemed weak. Of all things, he despised weakness the most.

"This Academy is not for vulgar people, and definitely not for the mediocre."

Her fist grew tighter, her clear blazing eyes back at responding to his frozen ones,

"You talk about vulgarity... No one's unbeatable, Colin Queen. And if you believe so, then that is your weakness."

He got silent for a second, the stare he was giving her was so strong Novah had to switch the weight of her body to her other leg out of stress, the sweat on her ears forming bit by it, her mouth becoming watery.

But if anything, she was raging inside like a volcano, her mind full of all the twisted, bad things she could do to the man in front of her, and that feeling of urgency, that feeling of repulsion, malice, those, she was not accustomed to, and for some reason, those were growing on her that very instant.

"Will you beat me, dear Novah?" He spouted, so close to her body, their faces were mere inches away. His breath was cold too, every little thing about him screamed malevolence.

"Small, petite, fragile, Novah from the back of the class... ever so irrelevant."

She gulped harder, not out of fear, certainly out of hate. The eyes of hers were still linked with his, though most of her sight was blocked by his nose because of his predominant tallness. He talked more calmly, yet much more haunting, puckish, and his mid smirk had come back to his lips, as soon as his fingers caught a loosened lock of Novah's long brown hair. 

Her whole body froze the moment he did that, the disrespect of him for playing her so hard like that... Her heart was beating at tremendous speed because she was afraid, yes, his presence terrified her.

And then, that damned smile... So devilish. Her mind had told her to defy him, as if her conscience is drawn to him, fueling off of him, consuming his hatred and then turning it on hatred of her own.

"Myra is ten times stronger than whoever you are and even she won't stand a chance against me."

His finger left her hair, and his face was not as close as before, his patience ending as he wanted to put an end to the subject once and for all. He had lost too much time already, although in his opinion, it had been funny. She had not crawl like he wanted to, but he had managed to intimidate her, so much she was out of words.

"Give up. You are average." More air was granted, his hand reaching for the white hair strands on his forehead, unpreoccupied. "That won't chance."

His expression was blank now as he blinked, the image of Novah in her clean training suit, with her hands folded to her sides, tight jaw, and eyes that showed revolt but did not protest. To him, she looked defeated.

Pathetic.

He went for the door to leave, while he was passing by her side, he added,

"A nobody remains a nobody. Really that says it all in your case."

Vulgar. Average. Irrelevant. Fragile.
Mediocre. A failure. A nobody.

Her eyes closed shut, the hand which had the glove loosened its grip, the fingers opened, and she slowly lifted it up. Her breath was so out of control she was almost fainting, her teeth were applying brute force on her lip.

Her body was numb. If she felt any pain, she would not have been able noticed. All the energy from the blood vessels to her bones, muscles, flesh, skin, was directed to a single member of her body, her shaking hand.

The air. Wind release.

And so her mind took complete control of her system. The accumulated hatred escaping its vessel. It took three seconds for her hand to close again, a grip so hard it was crushing the blood of her fingers.

Sweat on her chin, the back of her body shaking, a dense tear making its way to her cheek, but she could not stop herself from desiring the bothersome feeling – the momentarily pleasure it was giving her of witnessing the man behind her getting strangled by invisible forces, the choking sounds of his here ballads to her ears as he was suffocating against the door, hands on his throat pleading for life.

The air she manipulated had become so dense around him, it was virtually impossible for Colin to breath in sufficient oxygen to plump his blood. A few more seconds would be enough to knock him out of his senses.

Novah had stepped over the line, especially as far as the Academy's inner rules system, but she still had not process her last moves, at least emotionally. If anything, she wouldn't had stopped the power from growing wider on her hand if not for the abrupt piercing pain that cut the flesh of her upper back. Almost immediately, she was on her knees, trembling legs touching the cold soft of the mat, the panting started.

Her back curved as she attempted to breath slowly and steady, the brown locks of her hair making her view tarnished. The mark was hurting like it never did before, consuming, flaming, pain strokes leaving her weaker as time went by.

She bit her lip with brute force, although she could not hear anything or concentrate on something else besides the ache she was sensing. She felt like ripping her clothes off, even her own skin, that's how uncomfortable it made her feel, the affliction so intense it made her convulse a few times.

She gulped hard, trying to maintain her consciousness, but her whole body froze the moment after, as if all the life had been sucked out of her body. A chilly, icy lump of air touched the right side of her head and cheek, and because of the fear growing from the insides, now she felt like her senses were way heightened.

"A-Attacking... from behind. You are fucking dead, dear Novah."

Those were Colin Queen's last words – a wish, a promise – and those came out so gelid, only someone as stony-hearted as the man beside her could be able to perform. She was sure, if it wasn't for the hair of hers which blocked her side view, green hateful eyes would be giving her the ultimate death stare. His bare voice held that much repulsiveness, Novah's entire body hair formed goosebumps.

He left the room, but she couldn't guess if it took him a while or not, for she could not count the minutes or have any sense of time.

She had had the urge to spit out all the hate growing on her, so to make him feel cornered, tiny, just like moments before she was feeling too. However, as much as automatic she had controlled such amount of power, a horrible realization came with it.

She had almost killed Colin. Without hesitance. Without thinking even. Since when was she able to do such evil thing, that indifferently...?

"AHH-"

The mark manifested its agonizing existence again. She moaned out of pain, loud, and sobbed too, the chin of hers reaching for the mat now, the arms opened. Screaming took forever, but no one could listen to her inside the four walls.

So small, so petite, so fragile...

༄༄༄