Abel was proud to be the most dependable member of the sub-royal committee. Alongside people like Holden, he helped the Royals with more menial tasks. While Holden gave Arlo reports and kept people in check while the Royals weren't around, he monitored the places people weren't meant to be in. That's right, he kicked out idiots that thought they had access to the Royals exclusive places like the roof, the Royal's meeting room and the Royal's lounge. If he ever saw someone who wasn't meant to be in there, then he would make sure they would regret being there.
Abel had heard rumors of someone spending their time on the roof. Typically it was Seraphina and her Cripple boy-toy, Josh or whatever, but he couldn't do much against them. Seraphina was a High-tier level 8.0 who could take him out instantly. Still, he had to check just in case.
He walked up the stairs, hoping, praying Seraphina wouldn't be on the other side of that door. The dark corridor he went up gave him anxiety. If it was Seraphina, he would just shut the door and walk away. Technically she was a Royal, the "Ace" so despite it being an Honorary title, she could still be there right?
Abel slowly opened the door, he took a deep breath and when he fully opened the door, he didn't see Seraphina.
"Phew" He sighed, then immediately hardened his expression. A black haired boy leaned against the green railing with his eyes closed. He looked to be quite at peace. If there was anything he knew about Wellston, it was who was a high tier, and who wasn't. This guy was most definitely not a high tier.
"Hey! Get out, this space is for Royals only!" The boy immediately opened his eyes, slowly. He ticked Abel off, but every Low-tier got a warning. "Get out now, before you start something you regret!" The boy looked Abel straight in the eyes and hummed.
He got up and began walking to the entrance. That's right, low tiers should know when to obey, after all they can't fight back. Those two troublemakers he'd heard of recently were nothing more than dust in the wind, sooner or later the Royals would get involved, and they would get beat up, then they would disappear.
He heard the door close, and took a few steps back.
"Just to be clear, what will you do if I don't?" Abel turned around, was he still there? Was he stupid? Abel only gave one warning. In a big space inside his head he'd been hoping for this. He loved putting idiots in their place. He raised his arm and activated his ability.
"I warned –?!" A sharp pain on his shin made him gasp for air. He'd been trained to take pain, but there was something wrong with his leg. He'd heard something crack, and now his left leg was too weak to support his weight. His ability's aim was disrupted and his explosion missed completely.
"Careful, pipe!" He mockingly warned. Abel got back up, attempting to ignore the pain on his shin. He'd hit right below his knee, and now his leg felt funny. Did he hit a nerve? It wasn't a hit to the shin, more like the lower knee-cap. "That's the common peroneal nerve. It gives the leg sensory and motor function. Hitting it like this makes your leg feel funny, right?" It began to sting, and burn as if a taser had been used on his lower leg. It was going numb, and yet he felt so much pain.
"Fuck you!" Abel raised his arm again and attempted hitting him with his ability, but once again, he was struck with the pipe. "–?!" He gasped for air again, an electrifying pain, then pins and needles.
"That was the ulnar nerve, it's right below your elbow, commonly known as your funny bone. It's responsible for fine motor control." He grabbed the pipe with both hands. This wasn't fair! He was an elite-tier! He was a whopping 3.6! The boy in front of him hadn't even used an ability! Abel used his other arm and activated his ability. It sent the boy flying. His ability allowed him to make explosions that were powerful enough to knock people off their feet. If the explosion didn't harm him, then the landing would!
The boy was about to land on his lower back, which would lead to a fracture, however, almost as if instinctively, he rolled backward, then immediately jumped sideways to dodge another one of Abel's explosions. He was like a scurrying rat!
Abel stretched his arm out, predicting where he would zig-zag to next, but before he could launch an explosion, the sight of a metal pipe covered his sight. He raised his arm to protect himself, then was hit on the lower chest. Any air Abel had in his lungs was promptly kicked out of him. He heard a scraping sound from the concrete, and fell on his side. Dizzying disorientation, everything around him felt like it was moving, and he had air-hunger. His ribs had definitely cracked.
Before he could get his bearings, something hit him on the back of the head, then his arm, and then his leg, and then, Abel closed his eyes, in pain.
--------------------------------------
Remi opened the door to the roof in a hurry. She slammed it open, and felt something stop it. She looked down and saw the body of the roof guy, Abel on the ground. His arms and legs were shaking and twitching and he was having difficulty breathing despite being knocked out. To the back of the roof was a boy who looked eerily similar to Vritra. The boy he entered the school with, and his potential twin, Azazel.
He was peacefully sleeping on the roof surrounded by debris, definitely caused by Abel's explosions. From the scene alone, Remi could guess what had happened. Abel spotted him sleeping on the roof and warned him to get out, once he refused… Azazel somehow beat him up. This was the less civil of the two according to Vritra. Still, he should be a low tier, that is how he introduced himself.
All Remi could remember from the introduction to the two was Azazel being arrogant. He looked down even on people higher tier than him. He had really good scores in the entrance exams, and that was about everything she knew about him.
"Hey." Remi called out, she hoped he would be sensible enough to apologize for overdoing it. She didn't have the guts to confront Vritra because of his demeanor, but she would stand her ground now. "Wake up, there's something important I want to discuss with you!" Remi quickly set Abel's body next to the door, making it so he was more comfortable. Just from grasping him, she could tell he had a few fractured ribs. She narrowed her eyes, no doubt he'd used some kind of trickery to fight him.
"Not another one… ugh," He opened his eyes and stared at Remi, revealing his piercing crimson eyes. He looked sleep deprived, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose like he had a headache. "What do you want?" There was not a modicum of respect. He didn't seem to care about tiers, or position. Even Vritra called her by her position and was polite at first.
"I came here because I want you to apologize to all of the people in the infirmary and the Doc." She readied herself immediately, despite him being sat down, she heard Vritra's warning.
"Did you talk to Vritra before coming here?" He looked unconcerned, immediately standing up, he looked down at Remi. He was tall, but not as tall as Vritra.
"Yes."
"What did he say?" He looked exhausted, and yet, there was a layer of hostility to him, like he was ready to fight. Much like Vritra, he was on edge. He activated his aura, she could tell from his eyes glowing, and yet, she couldn't see his ability's effect anywhere, was it not a visual-type?
"He refused to."
"So what made you think I would apologize?" Remi opened her mouth, trying to put some reason in his head, but he cut her off, "to begin with, why would I apologize to someone lower than me? They lost because they were dumber, and unskilled. Their arrogance made them careless and so we beat them up."
Lower than him? What was he talking about, he was one of the lowest ranked people in the school. How could he say something like that with a straight face? He did have a point, they did lose to him, but how did they lose? He mentioned carelessness, that meant that he used cheap tricks to get the upper-hand.
"Even still –"
"Spare me the Self-Righteousness," he interrupted her again! "They tried fighting me and other lower-tiers, so we beat them up. End of story…"he grinned, unlike Vritra who looked like a giant teddy bear, this guy looked like a cursed doll. His ear to ear smile was unnerving, and filled with malice, "Then again, I don't much care for the lower-tiers, the ones that mind their business. But putting mid-tiers and elite-tiers in their place is so satisfying," He looked up at the sky, "Aaaah. Kicking people from their fake thrones is always so rewarding. Where do they get the idea that they can look down at me? I had to break their shins so they'd see reality."
Forget bringing this person around, he was malicious, petty and incredibly vindictive. Remi's eyes widened as she took a step back, in that instant everything around her began to dim. The light reaching her eyes began to wane. A thick cloud set itself around her. It wasn't just her sight, she couldn't hear very well either, and for a second she felt like she'd gotten lighter – no, she'd lost part of her sense of touch as well.
So this was how. He'd blind his opponent and then fight them in the dark. Remi activated her own ability. A crackle coursed through her body as electricity surrounded her body. Her arms and legs felt energized.
He was in a general direction in front of her. He might try to hide, but Remi knew he was in that half of the cloud. That meant that she could simply shoot an area of effect lightning bolt in his direction. The current should be enough to immobilize him!
She thrusted her arms forward, she saw her lightning vanish, then nothing. The dark cloud only obscured part of her vision, but she could still see somewhat in front of her. The further back it got, the less she could see. After her lightning, she saw a blur move toward her, and then when the blur got close to her, she saw it, a brick?!
She enhanced her speed with her ability, electrifying her limbs to dodge out of the way just in time, crouching down to prevent herself from getting hit. Did he take the lightning head on without getting knocked out?!
Another brick was thrown at her. She swatted the brick away, and another came in its place, and she did the same with that.
Remi tossed more lightning his way, and again, she heard nothing. The ability was still up, which meant he hadn't been knocked out, and the lack of grunts meant he hadn't gotten hit at all. How was this possible?
"Ugh, that lightning around your body makes you so annoying to fight against." His voice was low, muffled. Her sense of hearing was working enough for her to hear him, but it was hard to distinguish where his voice came from. "I wonder what you'll do against this though?"
A brick was thrown at her head again, she swatted it away, but then something hit her lower knee. It sent a chilling sensation down her spine. A burning sensation made her drop on her knee as she grasped it. What had just happened??? Another brick made its way toward her, and she swatted it away. Her leg didn't respond properly, it was numb. Did he hit a nerve? How accurate was he? She expanded her lightning to surround her… nothing.
"How do you keep doing that?" Another brick, she swatted it, and right behind it was another. The timing between the two was closer than before, so she just barely swatted it.
"Grounding. Lightning takes the path of less resistance, so I simply throw something more conductive than I am. You high-tiers sure are stupid about your abilities huh?" Another brick was thrown, Remi swatted it, but she was hit by another one hidden right behind the other brick. All of those tosses, Azazel had to perfect the timing! How had he gotten it this fast?!
Warm liquid trickled from her forehead into her eye. Her visibility was lowered yet again. Another few bricks were thrown her way, this time she dodged using her one good leg to leap side-ways, but as she did another brick hit her on the other leg. How had he predicted she was going to jump?! How did he know she would jump this way!?
"You're wondering how I knew you would jump this way… In all honesty, you're stupid if you ask that. The position you're crouching in, your other leg gets in the way, there's only a few other places you can leap toward." He sneered, he was enjoying this. "You high-tiers are all the same. You're so strong, but so stupid it irritates me." Remi's other leg was also numb now, she couldn't move it properly. How could he throw things like that so accurately? She couldn't comprehend it? If only he wasn't so accurate! How did he know her every move? It irked her to no end.
"You're losing so right about now you're trying to put the blame on something like my accuracy, 'I could beat him if he only wasn't that accurate?' or maybe 'This is so unfair, how does he know my every move? If he didn't know, I would win' right? You're all the same. It's always everyone else's fault. Guess what," the cloud began to dissipate, "it is nothing but your fault." The debris created by Abels explosion was what he'd been throwing at Remi, he piled them together. In one hand he had his pipe, it had scorch marks and was irregularly bending here and there, that was what he was throwing to ground her lightning and electricity. On his other hand he had one of the bricks, a piece of rock that came off from the ground or the walls.
"You were simply always below me. There's nothing else to it, you were defeated because you were inferior to me. Right about now you will make excuses and say I played unfair, or used cheap tricks, but that is all abilities are, an unfair advantage. Whoever knows how to use theirs best, wins… and you lost. My speed is lower, my ability is arguably worse, but I won. That's because of my timing, my intellect and my skill. That is why you lost."
Remi clenched her hands, and then her eyes widened. Wait a second. That was it! Timing! She flared her ability back up. The dark fog clouded her vision again, but it didn't matter. With one hand wave she tossed an area of effect lightning pulse, she knew he'd throw the pipe to ground it, which is why hidden behind that pulse, was another one!
"ARGH!" A groan came before the fog began to dissipate. Remi could barely move her legs, and her eye stung from the blood that got in during his monologue. Azazel Wodime, what a scary low-tier. If he were to climb up the ranks he would no doubt be someone worse than Zeke. She crawled her way toward him, it seemed like he'd notice what she would do so he reached out for the pipe, he was laying right behind it with his arm stretched out, twitching as some electricity crackled. Remi used all her strength to get up, her legs trembled as the motor function of her knees had been hindered. She would have to drag him to the infirmary the moment she got better.
"Guess you lost in the end." Remi said with a heavy breath, he was scarier than Arlo for sure. A chilling wind made Remi tense her entire body as a sigh came from the collapsed Azazel. "You're kidding me." A grunt came from him as he put both his hands on the ground. That was enough current to taze a low tier into a comma, how was he getting back up? His eyes locked into her.
Remi felt a deep, primal chill run through her entire body. The fog, thick and heavy, clung to a figure like a shroud, but it wasn't the mist that froze her—it was him. Azazel. He stepped forward, dragging his leg like some broken marionette, each movement agonizingly unnatural. His eyes, bloodshot and hollow, locked onto her. A kind of gaze Remi had never seen before, hungry, starved. It pierced her and looked far beyond who she was.
Blood streamed from his wrist, his mouth, and trickled down his legs. HIs body violently twitched. Electricity still crackled around his body, in no way should someone even be able to move after something like that, and yet… he kept going. The uncontrollable twitches of the human body when struck by electricity typically cause fractures or broken bones. By the blood in his mouth, and the limping, he had leg fractures and a punctured lung, and yet he kept going.
The pipe scraped against the concrete, causing a shrieking sound that made Remi's blood run cold. For an instant she saw the pipe as a scythe, and the concrete below it as a tombstone. He raised the scythe, like a reaper coming for her head.
Remi's breath hitched. She had fought Cecile, Blyke, Isen and Arlo, – countless others, and yet none of them were as crazy, as insane as Azazel was. Were Arlo a low tier and he'd gotten hit with this, would he have gotten up despite fractured bones?
In her fit of fear, she questioned it, how had he gotten back up? If Arlo had gotten hit by it he would have trouble shrugging it off, his motor functions would be impaired too. If he did so with no aura, and without his passive, he would not wake up for a day, maybe two… so how? How was he still up?
Remi looked closer and widened her eyes, crimson liquid flowed down from his arm. The blood felt alien in his body.
"D-Don't tell me…" Remi looked in horror as she stared at the person in front of her. Had he really sprayed blood at the last second to ground the second wave of electricity? How much blood did he spray? It was flowing out of his wrist like a fountain. Azazel didn't seem to notice, he sneered again, it seemed as though he didn't have the energy to talk. But from his smirk, she got the sensation that the explanation was more complex than that. The blood on the pipe, and the fact there was none between him and the pipe… Remi got a clear picture of what he did, what a crazy gamble! Only a suicidal maniac could come up with something like this.
Right as the Pipe was struck by a wave of electricity, Azazel cut his wrist and sprayed the pipe with blood as it fell.
Since he knew the electricity would pass by above the pipe if he did nothing, he extended it's height to make sure it would hit it. The blood acted as a connector to ground the lightning through the pipe.
The blood extended the height of the pipe. But blood, though conductive, also has a low boiling point, so when it got hit with the current it evaporated, only mitigating the electricity before it hit him, lowering the overall effects it had on him.
He thought of all of that instantly and acted accordingly. His towering figure made Remi's eyes widen. If he was willing to hurt himself to win, what wasn't he willing to do to get a hit on her?!
Was Azazel even a human? Was he even a person?
"Are you really willing to die for a stupid fight?!" Remi yelled, tears welling up in her eyes. She accepted the attack, deactivating her ability to prevent him from being electrocuted from it.
His bloodshot eyes were fixated on her. They pierced right through her. The fog she had been hidden in was covering his body, which meant that he couldn't feel the pain he was in. He talked in pain. Every step he took toward her was followed by a crack. That reminded Remi, while she was inside the fog, her sense of touch was reduced, but she still felt it, which meant he couldn't fully remove his sense of pain.
The shrouded fog around his body, the scythe in his hands, and the blood covering his body all warped Remi's sense of sight. All she saw in front of her was a skeletal robed figure swinging a scythe down at her head.
"I…" The fogged robes were sliced in half. His voice was barely a whisper, had he been further away Remi wouldn't have heard it. It was no more than a breath
"Won."
Azazel's body fell forward, slamming on the ground next to Remi's with a sickening thud. The metal scythe in his hands tumbled as Remi saw its true form again, nothing more than a pipe with a jagged end.
Remi stared at his unconscious body, tranquil, the exact opposite of what she was feeling. Her hands couldn't stop shaking. She turned her head to look at Azazel's wrist, still bleeding. Remi just stared for a few seconds, processing things. She was the last one conscious, but there was no triumph in this. Azazel was a broken human being… calling humans felt like a stretch.
Remi snapped out of it, and put pressure on his wrist to stop the bleeding with one hand, using her body weight to keep it in place. With her other hand, she grabbed her phone – the screen had cracked, but it still worked – and messaged Elaine to get to the roof immediately before he bled to death.