Murderer

When Ren got back to his room. He took off his shirt and scanned his body. His body was covered in electrical burns and bruises from the blasts of lightning. However, they didn't look that bad, and they didn't feel as bad as it looked. In fact, Ren noticed that the burns were very slowly being covered with new skin.

About a week later at the American Authoritarian Association...

"Sir we have confirmation on what happened at Burtgundy facility," reported Mr. Walker.

"Good, what did the search team report," asked Mr. King.

"Well, all we have are a video, some pictures, and a small written report. We received these a while ago, but we decided to wait for the search team to come back to go over them before presenting it to you. However, we lost contact with them and they haven't returned."

"Do you know what happened to them."

"I'm sorry sir, but we haven't the slightest clue. They just disappeared."

"That's not good. They may now know that we are on to them," frowned Mr. King. "Well, let's see the video and the pictures."

Mr. Walker put a tablet on Mr. King's desk to show a video that seemed to be shot from a drone. The video showed an aerial view of what was left of the three buildings. There were scenes where the drone flew into one of the buildings to show some of the damage done to one of the floors.

"My God..." commented Mr. King. "Just what in the world happened?" Mr. Walker took back the tablet, put it on slideshow mode, then placed it back on Mr. King's desk. The tablet scrolled through pictures of the floors, littered with dead bodies, some of which were missing bodies parts. One of the pictures showed a close up on one of the bodies. It was missing its head and there was a hole in its side. Dried blood covered the floors, walls, and ceilings. Most of the walls had holes blasted through them, doors were ripped off their hinges, and there was always at least one hole in the floor and ceiling.

"This is insane," perplexed Mr. King. "This doesn't look like a freak accident. This looks like a massacre."

"Exactly sir," confirmed Mr. Walker as he slid his finger over the screen to reveal the small report: 'This was clearly not caused by a freak accident. This was intentional. Every one of the bodies had a hole in the side of their bodies where the core was most likely placed. Someone removed a core from everyone in the buildings. Body count is close to 8,000. No survivors.'

"That's not true," corrected Mr. King. "There was one survivor. Bring Ren Lennon in... NOW!"

Ren continued to get challenged by more and more people. Eventually, people started to recognize him as the true rank one. Ren went through day by day, exercising, fighting someone or sparing with Lorraine. At one point, Lorraine asked to practice with some new techniques she had developed with her ability. Ren, of course, gladly accepted. Every now and then, Ren would run into Eric. Ren would smile at him, but Eric always returned a scowl. Ren just accepted it and moved on.

This went on for a while. It had been about one and a half weeks since Ren arrived at the military academy. He maintained a strong hold of his top position while Lorraine clawed up to rank three, and Eric shot right back to his previous rank two position. He burned the guy he fought for his previous rank so bad, his body was basically black when he was done. Eric seemed absolutely determined to fight against Ren and win.

It was the middle of the afternoon...

BURST!

Ren broke out of the ice Lorraine had enclosed around Ren, he was breathing heavily, as was Lorraine.

"That one was definitely harder to break, and I think it felt colder," Ren complimented.

Lorraine collapsed to her knees, completely exhausted. Ren broke his feet free, then walked over to her. He helped her back up, then put his shirt back on.

"Want to grab a bite to eat?" Ren asked. Lorraine smiled and nodded her head. "Can you walk?"

"I'm just low on ability power, I'll be ok in a little bit." They both began to walk to the cafeteria. Lorraine looked up at the clear blue sky and began to think, "I've always had friends, but the only reason they would flock to me was because of how gifted I was with my ability. However..." Lorraine looked at Ren as they walked. "...he's different. He's not after protection from others. He enjoys my company for my personality, not my ability. It's... nice."

Ren and Lorraine talked and ate. It felt familiar to Ren, like the times he was with Alex and Marissa. He missed them, but he had finally found a new friend. "It's not good to go through life alone," Ren mumbled to himself. "Right Marissa?" Ren took Marissa's words into consideration about enjoying life. He decided to slow down every now and then and "smell the roses".

After they finished eating their food, they returned their silverware and dishes, said their farewells, and went their separate ways towards the dorms.

Ren entered his room, strolled into the bathroom, undressed himself, and stepped into the shower. After his shower, he slipped on some underwear and stepped back out into his room.

Knock, knock, knock!

"Huh?"

Knock, knock, knock!

"Who in the hell could this be?" wondered Ren.

"Hold on! I'm getting dressed!" Ren hollered. Ren put on some athletic pants and a shirt and made his way to the door. He looked through the peep hole on the door and saw five men in black suits standing outside his door.

"Those men are from the Association, what are they doing here?" wondered Ren. "I don't have anything to report, I'm not even in the military yet! That's a lot of men, just to receive a report." Ren began to go over all the scenarios in which they would have to send five men, but the only one that made sense was in order to bring him in for some reason...

Ren realized what was going on. "Fuck, they know it was me!"