Aurora Over a Dead World

Chapter 6: Experience Against Raw Power

After actively securing a duel with one of the students, I led all of them to the designated training area in this wing of the academy — a training area sturdy enough that damage doesn’t easily escape beyond it.

The arena is quite simple, since its purpose is training, so it’s just a flat sand field with no obstacles. The sand was a personal choice of mine, since the field can simulate dirt, concrete, and obstacles can be added among other things, but I preferred a completely open field with an open ceiling letting the sunlight in so that Tanya won’t have any excuses after losing.

The other five students are behind a wall of glass reinforced by certain vectors, watching and listening to everything through audio capture boxes, and there are even super powerful cameras recording it all.

"I think I should introduce myself to you all, considering the beginning wasn’t opportune. I’m Zenith, your newest tutor who will give practical and theoretical lessons and teach you to be the weapons the academy failed to control." I snap my fingers, hearing the sound of metal.

"Ha! What a grand introduction, want a prize for it?" Tanya speaks with pure mockery and confidence. We’re 100 meters apart from each other — not the most advantageous distance for me, but so be it.

"Your face being ground against the sand is prize enough for me." I provoke her, breaking her concentration. She grinds her teeth, pointing at me.

"I’m going to kill you." Her words might even scare normal teachers considering her strength and attitude, but the difference between hearing someone with a real intent to kill is glaring.

"..." Unlike empty threats, I look at her with genuine murderous intent, and it makes her step back, her gaze losing some of its arrogance.

"That’s how you threaten someone for real. Take that lesson with you for life." Only the eyes are the real threat someone needs. You don’t look at an influential person and say "I’m going to kill you" — you imply it with your eyes.

"Pretty talk, too much of it. Let’s start this already!!" She grows impatient, but now she’s more serious, adjusting her black dress — an obvious disregard for the academy’s uniformed clothing regulation.

"Charlotte, activate the counter." I give a cold order that reaches inside the protected area behind the reinforced glass. A few seconds later, a holographic counter appears with 10 seconds that begin counting down.

Tanya readies herself, pointing at me and already starting to charge heat. It seems she uses solar heat mostly for attacks, which is strong, but a usage that could be better.

’3...2...1...’ When the counter reaches 0, I advance forward at extreme speed. Tanya fires extremely fast heat beams at me, but I drag the sky in front of me like a wall, blocking her attacks and changing their direction.

"...!!" Her composure shrinks and she fires a large heat beam. I leap upward, passing through the spatial deformation and landing on the ground. I advance quickly, avoiding overusing my powers while dodging small heat beams.

"!!!" She’s in shock at how fast I’m closing the distance while dodging all the heat beams. Her usage is very basic. I expected more from her considering how strong the vector she controls is.

"You think getting closer is enough?!" She taunts and advances toward me as well, releasing an intense burst of heat trying to superheat the atmosphere. With a quick movement of my fingers, I create seven points where space has deformed.

And then I draw electricity directly from the skies and nearby equipment, accumulating it in my fingers. Since it’s daytime, by deforming the sky it’s possible to manipulate lightning, electromagnetism, and gravity partially in the deformed area.

With that, I fire a lightning bolt that ricochets rapidly through each of the deformations, accelerating even more, and when it hits the last one, it explodes in a small and controlled but intense electromagnetic explosion that throws Tanya backward, ionizing the air which gains a characteristic smell.

Unlike Tanya’s explosive and nearly reckless usage, each of my usages is limited, efficient, and small, aimed only at closing the distance. Since it’s not a fight to the death, it’s more difficult than if it were just to kill her.

’If I wanted to kill her, I’d just need to tear her body like a sheet of paper... holding back is so frustrating.’

I notice Tanya accumulating heat in six small circles behind her. The circles fire beams forward and begin curving inward, uniting the six beams at a single point where the extremely condensed shot becomes a single, intensely hot beam.

’She’s desperate and trying to regain control of the fight... what an amateur.’ It’s a lethal attack, but I easily dodge it by leaping upward.

"Got you!!" She says with a smile as the heat laser begins to aim upward, but it’s so slow. I pull the sky and use it as a wall to leap, while using my metal tail as a spring to cushion any impact and ensure instant recovery followed by a rapid advance.

With that, the entire distance between us is just 30 centimeters, and I’m outside the range of the heat laser. I smell a strange scent in the air paired with a crackling sound that occurs when I get too close.

"Using nuclear attacks on academy grounds was the most serious infraction you’ve committed so far, and you can expect punishment for it." I tell her as I punch her in the stomach with extreme force, interrupting her attack.

My tail grabs her leg and pulls, bringing her down to the ground. She tries to point at me, showing that unlike me, who can control my power with just my mind, she depends on prior hand signals as a catalyst to release the attack.

I only use my hands because it’s faster. However, I grab her hand and twist her wrist, making the shot go toward the open ceiling. My tail wraps around her waist, and with my legs, I put her in a kind of chokehold, immobilizing her between my thighs.

"If I twist my thighs a little, your neck will break. So I deduce you don’t want to continue, right? If I break it from this position, you won’t die, but you’ll be paraplegic. Maybe then you won’t call other people broken anymore." When I say this, her eyes tremble with fear.

"..." But her determination is commendable, because I feel her trying to manipulate vectors without using her body. But I’m not that nice. With my free hand, I place my fingers like a gun against her temple.

"Since it’s a beautiful cloudless day, I can’t get that much electricity, but I believe an electrical discharge of this magnitude from this close will stop your heart." I hear the electrical crackling sounds as a white glow and sparks appear very close to her head.

"Who do you think fires first?" Using electricity is less costly than deforming space, so I have more control. If it were a spatial deformation, I’d kill her by accident.

"G-Go fuck yourself!" A small beam is fired at my face. She used her right eye as a tunneling channel for the shot — creative idea, but still very slow, so I dodge easily by moving my head to the side.

"GYAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!" She screams as I simply release the electrical discharge, watching it course through her body while she convulses uncontrollably. But the discharge lasts only one second, and I control the strength just enough to leave her unconscious without killing her or causing permanent damage.

"I’ll give you some credit for not giving up, but it would’ve been better to be less determined in this context." I release her, standing up as her body remains stiffened on the sand from the shock. I look back, seeing the numerous holes in the arena wall.

’Even my electrical shots have a hard time piercing that, and yet she casually opened holes in the wall...’ With enough experience, she’ll become a true monster.

But from what I can see, the academy didn’t even teach her to use half the powers she has. She only used heat, which is the bare minimum of what her power can do.

’Charlotte...’ I look toward the protected area where the students are. Some are already starting to leave, but Charlotte stares at me, probably having noticed what my power is.

Since vectors control so many things, it’s hard for people to know what someone else’s vector does. My vector is a spatial vector, but because I can use lightning, electromagnetism, and even gravity, people get confused.

But Charlotte is also someone with a spatial vector, and she must have noticed that my greatest control of vectors comes entirely from space.

’Troublesome girl...’ I see that Rouge also stayed and is staring at me. She seems more curious than bothered. Neither of them seemed intimidated, which is good because it shows resilience, but it’s also irritating because I only showed that I’m not weak, yet I still haven’t gotten the chance to just give orders and have them obey without resistance.

"It seems I’m getting old." In the past, when I was younger, during my 20s to 25s, I would have ended this fight in the first three seconds. It seems losing my arms really made a huge difference in how much I can control space and electricity.

’At least this shows their level.’ As expected, the academy didn’t put effort into teaching them because they have no control over them, so strengthening them is bad.

"I can’t believe Astrid didn’t even teach the absolute basics." I mutter as criticism. Tanya was going to use nuclear vectors in a casual duel. Obviously, at some point Tanya will need to train nuclear release control since it’s quite strong, but this isn’t the time or the place.

After all, Tanya probably still doesn’t know how to remove radiation from the environment, and until she does, she shouldn’t be exploding things like that.

’Nuclear fission... this generation is starting to scare me.’ I can’t tell if it’s powers getting stronger over time or if it’s just this generation that’s too talented.

Obviously nuclear weapons are obsolete, but vector manipulations capable of freely generating explosions of that type are undeniably strong.

’Well, I’ll think about that later when they’re stronger. For now, I just need to do the tutor’s job and find some way to recover my commander post.’