Show-Off

August 21, 2152

Monday had returned to normal for the group, though they were still rather awkward around Tethys and would probably continue to be for some time. Though when Emory woke up, she had a spring in her step. She even hummed quietly as she put on clothes for the day. Sam yawned, "Why are you so chipper today?"

"I have a good feeling about today," Emory shrugged, "Maybe we'll learn more about the assessment rewards today." Sam rolled her eyes and jumped out of bed. Everyone eventually woke up and made their way to the training center. After a few weeks of the same routine, most people would start to get complacent, but Emory was not most people. She had continued to improve and challenge herself every day with the results being quite clear. During the morning exercises, Emory had easily bested the drones made against each person, a feat not accomplished by anyone else in the group. Her martial skills alone were now almost as strong as Innes, someone who had spent years perfecting their craft. But Emory was the best student, figuring out how to apply her excellent learning ability to practice in the most efficient way possible.

What surprised the group most this morning was Tethys's effort. In the past, she had focused on staying at the back and practicing her barrier. Since the group knew about her real strength now, she saw no point in hiding as the frail support anymore. Today she had stayed with the fighters and made barriers around the aggressors whenever a stray attack would hit them. Truthfully, no one knew Tethys could make shields away from her own body, not because it couldn't be done but because she hadn't shown that much skill before. Strangely, it felt like for the first time the group wasn't individuals training next to each other, rather it was a collective training session this time around. After a fruitful session, they ate breakfast before heading to their combat classes.

When Emory arrived at her hand-to-hand class, Boyle was meditating like usual near the front. Feeling that someone had entered the dojo-esque room, Boyle opened her eyes and started moving towards Emory. Other students had begun to fill in moments later, but this didn't deter Boyle. Once she reached Emory, she asked, "Can we speak outside for a moment, Miss Reiss?" Emory nodded and followed Boyle out to the hallway. The two stood a little way away from the entrance, just out of earshot from the doorway.

"Emory, do you know why I pulled you aside?" Boyle asked nicely.

"No, ma'am," Emory replied, though she had an idea, "Is it something to do with the assessment?"

"Indeed it is. I've decided to tell you this information about the rewards ahead of time to give you more time to prepare yourself. As you may have guessed, the reward is a special mission for the winning students. However, there is a special reward that we haven't revealed for the top-ranking person in selected classes. I'm telling you because I believe you will be the number one student from our class," Boyle explained softly.

"Thank you, ma'am," Emory blushed, "I appreciate the support."

Boyle smiled, "The highest scoring person in three other classes as well as ours will get two significant rewards for the special mission. The first is information about the other ranking contestants which you will use to build your own team from the winners. The second is dependent on your rank amongst the other three classes' leaders. I'll leave it at that for now; you're too clever a girl to reveal the whole story to." Emory grinned and bowed to show her appreciation to Boyle as the two returned to the class.

When Emory returned to class, Innes quickly pulled her aside, "What was that about? Did you learn something about the assessment?"

"I'll tell the whole group at lunch, but yes, I did," Emory smirked as she could see Innes squirm at her response, but he didn't press her and just returned to his area. After class started, Boyle explained to the class that to prepare for the assessment, they would only be sparring the whole week. Although, there would be two unique parts to the sparring matches this week as opposed to normal. First, the sparring no longer needed to be one-on-one as long as all parties agreed to it. Second, if the sparring group wanted or if more than five participated, they could compete on the main stage in front of the entire class. At first, the class was nervous about the changes, especially the weakest of the class for fear that they would be picked on by multiple people. However, Emory wasn't scared; instead, she was elated. As soon as Boyle was done talking, Emory raised her hand.

"Serah Boyle, I would like to be the first to request the main stage," Emory shouted above the dull roar of the class chatter. Boyle nodded, and Emory made her way to the stage alone, exuding confidence with every step forward.

When she stood before her teacher, Boyle asked, "Excuse me, Miss Reiss, but you need another person to duel. Who is your opponent?"

"I'll take on the first ten people that make it up here. At the same time," Emory boasted. Students' jaws dropped as her words sank in which left everyone stunned initially. Then a few came forward, a group of friends, and several others walked up afterwards to fill out the ten going against Emory. Boyle smirked and shook her head at the confidence Emory was exuding. When everyone was ready, Boyle walked to the center of the medium-sized arena and explained the rules simply to the participants: the winner was decided by either knockout or judge's decision, magik was allowed, and lethal force was prohibited. The two parties nodded and returned to their respective sides; Emory took a wide stance, one intended to deal with multiple assailants simultaneously, while the side of ten took a variety of different poses, exposing the lack of teamwork they had learned up to this point. Due to the shocking nature of the spar, the rest of the class had yet to leave and spar on their own, so they stared breathlessly at the platform. Boyle gave a final look to each side before signaling for the match to begin.

As soon as Boyle's hand dropped, Emory took a deep breath and covered her body in a layer of Arcane magik. Her eyes focused on the four students charging towards her. These were the four friends that had first signed up to spar and had clearly practiced a little bit of teamwork outside of class since they spread out to attack Emory in a wide arc. The four boys were varied in stature from small and stocky to tall and chubby and took their time approaching her once they were within five feet. Emory extended her arms and hands to motion for them to attack, but instead, the entire encounter slowly began to turn as the tension grew over who would attack first. Finally, an average boy sprung forward from the middle with a wild haymaker that Emory could have easily dodged but chose to catch under her arm instead. She had assumed a plethora of her classmates knew she was a competent fighter, and the punch was meant to distract her. So, she twisted her hips, causing the average boy to become unbalanced, and shoved him to the ground with a downwards palm strike. He gasped and skidded along the floor towards the chubby boy who had started to move on Emory, perfectly deflecting his attempt. With the chubby boy delayed, the short boy jumped in and threw a jab directly towards her ribs. Unfortunately, she was quick, throwing a sharp knife hand chop that steered the short boy into the ground. Emory followed this redirection with a straight kick to the short boy's shoulder, and a crunch rang out in the hall followed by a scream. Finally, when the lanky boy and the chubby boy tried to strike at the same time, she ducked and landed a palm strike in each boy's chest that sent them back by the feet of the six yet to join in. In the first minute of the bout, Emory had successfully knocked out four of ten fighters without taking a single hit.

Using the pause in combat, Boyle jumped in to pull out the defeated four and recruited four students to take the injured to the infirmary. The sound of chattering teeth grew from group that hadn't gone yet, so Emory decided to go on the offensive instead and dashed towards them. They all froze with fear until two girls in front yelled and charged in response. Though they didn't have the same teamwork as the first four, the chaos made it a more difficult challenge. Just as Emory launched herself over the two girls, she had to dodge a fist from the side and another from above. It looked, for a brief moment, like she was being overwhelmed as the fighters continued to dogpile on top of her. Then a sweeping kick spun under the group, connecting with half of the combatants, followed by a jumping roundhouse that caught the rest. All six people flew backwards several feet with Emory standing in the epicenter of the attack. Boyle called out, "By knockout and judge's decision, Emory is the victor. Now that the fireworks are over, please return to your own sparring."

Emory helped the other students off the floor before returning to the floor. It was a small gesture, but it made a big impact as many victors wouldn't help the losers. Bullying wasn't prevalent in the current society, yet there was a certain understanding amongst the people: those with power didn't concern themselves with those without power. This belief was especially rampant among the youth since they constantly competed and were ranked against each other. Still, Emory didn't think like that; instead, she believed it was the duty of the strong to protect humanity. As she walked through the crowd back to her spot, the masses congratulated her before she arrived at the smirks from her friends. Innes was the first to remark, "Don't you think that was a bit over the top?"

"I may have gotten a little carried away," Emory admitted, "I've never really considered myself strong, so I guess I wanted to really see how strong I am."

"Sure, you can beat ten randoms. However, I doubt you'd have such an easy time with just the three of us," Gwen snorted, pointing to Innes, Sam, and herself when she said this. Since the class had settled down, the four returned to their normal part of the dojo in the back corner.

Innes cracked his knuckles and chuckled, "I agree with her. You've seen the caliber of the students here; Mars is known for its technical and agricultural strengths, not its armed forces. Sam, what do you think?"

"Well, I'm okay with it if Emory is too," Sam smiled, "It didn't look like you got tired from the showboating, and your head is growing at an alarming rate." Sam stuck out her tongue as she moved to a fighting position. As if all their bodies had wanted this outcome, they had all moved to a square formation with each of them in a different corner.

"I don't know if I'll win against the three of you, but just remember, you all challenged me. Don't hold back," Emory smirked. She prepared herself for whoever would attack first with an open stance, but it didn't take long for the regular suspect to make her move.

Gwen dashed in, using her superior speed to close the distance since she was coming from the far corner, and lunged at Emory with a crimson fist. Emory pivoted on her opposite foot to avoid the blow and wind up a roundhouse kick to Gwen's hip, but Innes had jumped in and used both of his forearms to block the attack. Yet it wasn't enough and shoved Innes backwards who in turn knocked over Gwen. Once Emory stopped spinning, she only had a moment to react before a furry, white claw slammed down to try to squish Emory; however, the moment had allowed her to narrowly avoid the swipe. A wild beast, part tiger and part bear, stood where Sam had been and roared loudly enough to cause the groups near them to give them more space. Several gasps were heard from the crowd as they realized the extent of the fight taking place in the back corner. Following the trio of attacks, Emory had hopped back and covered herself completely in a thin layer of magik that caused a shimmer to come from her pale skin. In front of her, Gwen and Innes had also covered themselves in crimson aura and flames respectively while Sam had transformed into a Siberian tiger the size of a polar bear.

"Are they sparring with their spheres active?"

"Must be. Can you believe the size of the creature that girl transformed into?"

"It's bigger than any animal I've ever seen! Won't somebody get hurt?"

"Don't you know those four? They're the strongest in this class. Besides, I'm sure Serah Boyle will jump in between them if it looks like someone will get hurt."

Boyle was indeed watching over them, trying to hide the smile on her face. It gave her great joy to see her students grow to this strength. "Surely with kids like these, the future is in good hands," she thought to herself.

"Good, you're taking this seriously," Emory grinned as her three opponents began to encircle her, "Now you're in position, so who's going to attack first?" Surprisingly, Sam leaped towards Emory first with both front claws extended to their fullest. Though Emory was confident she could hold up the oversized tiger, she opted instead to duck and roll forward which avoided all the giant cat except its tail. Emory latched on to the tail's end, dug her feet into the ground, and rapidly swung the feline into Innes. But Gwen had grown more cunning, using Sam's shadow to launch an attack from the shadows. She spun her body like a drill and finally struck Emory hard in the stomach who stumbled back a few feet. Yet this left Gwen completely exposed, a fact Emory capitalized on quickly. She clasped her hands together as she was shoved and dropped a double axe handle punch on Gwen's back as Emory steadied herself from the drill dive. The punch made a cracking sound as it connected with Gwen, whose body bounced on the ground like a rag doll. Emory took the moment she had to jump backwards and ready a counterattack while Gwen coughed before struggling to rise to her feet. Small droplets of blood stained the mat where she had coughed.

"That was a good shot," Gwen hacked up a little more blood, "But it won't happen again."

"More importantly, you dropped your guard, a mistake you're unlikely to make again," Innes whispered in Emory's ear as he threw a cross punch into her face. To add insult to injury, he added a flame to the back of his elbow as he connected which propelled his fist harder and faster than she had expected. Her body spun as she tumbled to the ground, but she quickly reoriented herself and rolled back onto her feet.

Emory's grin had turned bloody as she calmly said, "So not only did Gwen use Sam as a distraction, but you too, Innes? Good, I'm glad you all aren't holding back." She tensed her muscles for a moment, causing her magik covering to glow a little and ripple like a breeze had blown it. After a deep breath, Emory motioned for the others to continue. Sam lunged in first, but instead of dodging completely like last time, Emory used a knife hand chop at Sam's neck to bring the massive cat to the ground right in front of Emory. Gwen and Innes had already moved to target Emory from her blind spots; however, she was ready this time. In his fire form, Innes was as fast as Gwen except his reaction speed remained the same speed as before, a fact Emory had figured out after watching him during their extra training sessions. At the very last possible moment, she sprung towards him with a spear hand strike directed to his knee. The combination of her jump and the jab to his leg knocked him off course and moved her out of the path of Gwen's attack. Not only that, but she had also timed it just perfectly to cause Innes's flaming fist to impact Gwen's side, sending her skidding across the floor several feet. Unfortunately, Sam's tail had swung around and smacked Emory's leg but the force was only enough to move it back a foot. Still, the focus needed to fend off three skilled fighters was draining Emory quickly. All four of them returned to the original four corner formation.

"Not so easy, is it?" Gwen giggled, "But you've done well so far. Though, I do wonder how long you can last." This time Sam and Gwen ran in from the left and right of Emory, hoping to cause an opening for Innes to exploit from the front. Once they leaped forward, though, Emory could see Sam was moving just a bit faster, so she cradled Sam's assault and flung the giant cat over her shoulder right on top of Gwen. Innes, seeing his attack window closing, sprang forward with a fiery fist. With no options left, Emory bent her signature spear hand jab into an elongated fist and attempted to counter his punch with one of her own. The two punches connected and produced a shockwave of magik that pushed back on the two girls and the crowd but left the two combatants at a standstill in the center. Shock bubbled up in Innes as he exerted more strength to overwhelm Emory, yet she didn't seem to budge in the slightest. Without a solid plan, Innes swung a wide haymaker with his other hand to try to break the deadlock; unfortunately, this was a mistake as it was exactly what Emory was hoping for. Emory delivered a swift knife hand chop from below straight to Innes's elbow, directing his entire body upwards and leaving him open to a counterattack. A single shove with both of her hands sent Innes flying towards the crowd, but he came to a stop right at their feet. Yet Gwen had managed to get out from under Sam and tackled Emory with the little stamina she had left just after Emory had pushed Innes away.