To hell with the Plan

The last fight, although they had won, went incredibly bad for Darius. He hated the fact that he was made weak by that...that brat, although he hated being a Ripple even more, the fact that he would reach somewhere in his life and his power would stop expanding sickened him, why should he be dawned upon by this rough and unfair future. His main objective for coming to the military was getting stronger and stronger.

Many had the same aim but they knew later on, their dreams would come to a halt as they could no longer push their technologically infused fixture to go beyond its limits. Some trained their bodies with the hope of strengthening it so that it could contain the fixture but that was just a useless gamble, it was either you were compatible or not.

In fact, these very gambles had caused a huge death toll on the planet. It was sickening to think that you had limited options so many went for the more life threatening but very rewarding one, infusing with a fixture naturally. Be it that they were confident enough to go through the process, they were not stupid, many went for much less harmless but still fatal fixtures like those bore by plants, or those infused by animals. In this way, they had a slim chance of survival and their life didn't completely pave way for death.

All these fixtures were ranked the way humans were ranked, according to energy spike. Technology had been invented that could measure the energy spike in anything with life. This was a way of ranking anything that absorbed shock waves from the Clash, in this way, the people with a rather low concentration of manna could go for the ones with a lower rank while the ones with high concentration for manna could go for ones of higher rank, other wise if it were not for this discovery, many would have died from failure to infuse with a fixture of higher rank and over millions had before discovery of infusion and spike measurement machines.

"Gather" Darius said firmly but friendly. Although this seemed to be the case, many did as they were told quickly because they knew that although the boy before them seemed friendly, In this world, everyone was a hypocrite and a sheep in wolf's skin so no one dared to be disrespectful to those more powerful than them except the few daring ones. Noah followed behind closely as Althea was closely behind with a faint smile. Once again, Noah was confused as to why this girl kept a smile hiding her true personality but the reason was very simple, the act of underestimation.

"I believe everyone is well versed with the plan~" He stopped mid sentence to see if anyone disagreed. Noah, who was at the back of the group, was pretty much not disturbed as he would just go along with everyone. Although he had not paid attention during the plan speech, he was already clever and a fast adapter, so he wouldn't have a problem. Thinking about the topic of smarts, Noah remembered the quest, he had already reached level 7 but didn't get a reward of finding new information because the system had been rested for his matches. He resented Kastiel for the predicament he had been put in, he could have defeated opponents easily if he had his full set of skills.

No one showed any signs of unpreparedness as they all knew the plan, of course, Darius tweaked the plan a bit in accord with the new environment. The water conjurers were told to gush out water on the floor once the match began, Noah was to pave way for most of the team to avoid accidents of slipping on the water using his fire while the water manipulators were told to manipulate water to cause the down fall of many students. Overall, Noah thought that it was a nice plan and actually very well thought.

Everyone was strongly advised not to activate even a small part of their powers as they wanted the element of surprise on their side. For this particular plan, there was no formation so as not to give out any clues to the opposing team. A whistle was blown and the match commenced.

The opponent's team sent out an elephant enforcer which quickly made the ground tremble due to the vibrations he caused by stamping on the floors. This caused Noah's team to lose a bit of balance but the eagle enforcer, with his wings, was able to get higher ground an distract the guy with his attacks. Taking the chance, The water conjurers did their part of the plan and quickly sent out water gushes that looked like they were aimed for the opponents except, that was not the case.

Surprisingly, a team member of the opposing team scoffed at their attempt and quickly, together with other four fire manipulators, sent out flames that were detoured to reach every single drop of water making it evaporate. Many team 31 team members were stunned but a few saw this coming including Darius, and that was why he had set up a back plan. While the fire conjurer and manipulator where still distracted, the air manipulator started gathering a bit of oxygen from them making them a bit drowsy and unable to properly fight. Noah then sent out a swirl of flames which were further enlargened and extended by the air manipulator's oxygen and wind supply. The team tried to fight back but in the end were overpowered due to the fact that Noah gave out flames dependent on oxygen while their fixtures survived on manna giving them a huge disadvantage. Screams of agony rang out in the room. The opponents soon went unconscious due a huge surge of pain.

The eagle enforcer soon finished off the elephant enforcer who had a huge amount of claw marks all over his body leaving only four opponents left. One would think that the team would be over joyed at the discovery but they were just as worried. They had lost the water manipulators and conjurers in the fight and they all lay there unconscious. The air manipulator had also taken a shot to both arms by one of the remaining opponents who held a beast weapon, bow and arrows, during the fight and was rendered useless as he passed out. Noah's team now only consisted of three members while the other had four putting them at a greater loss.