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She spat defiantly, eyes burning fiercely despite her battered form. "Weak? Maybe. But I'm still stronger than you."
Mia and Katya groaned, struggling weakly to their feet. Flora smiled bitterly, pain radiating through every muscle.
"The both of you apparently." Flora said spitting out blood from her mouth.
'Please don't get up… please don't get up.' Flora begged in thought, hoping her bluff was enough to see her through this.
The room swirled around Flora, colours blurring as adrenaline surged through her veins. Mia and Katya rose from the cold metallic floor, their eyes blazing with wounded pride, their bodies trembling with a rage that mirrored Flora's earlier beating. They lunged again, bodies slicing the air like twin blades.
'Fuuucccckkk.' Flora thought hating one of the favourable things about being a Viltrumite, the durability of a Viltrumite's body. It was something she appreciated, but right now didn't want.
Flora recoiled instinctively, heart hammering. Then, something impossible happened.
A second heartbeat echoed inside her—distinct, rhythmic, alien. Flora's eyes widened in panic; her biology was clear: one heart. She could distinctly hear the familiar pulses of the other girls' hearts, beating like distant drums, but now there was a fourth in the room, a stranger whispering softly from within her own chest.
'Am I hallucinating from the pain? Have I fainted already and imagined things?' Flora thought as she still put up a determined look on her face against her opponents. A training session that she wanted was now turned into a survival simulator, her chances of survival being one or zero, given the larger number of opponents she had to face now and the fact that she had already lost her makeshift weapon.
Before she could process the terrifying revelation, threads—shimmering strands of luminous silver—materialized from her fingertips, stretching effortlessly toward Mia and Katya's charging forms.
These threads seemingly made a connection to Mia and Katya's heads as if pointing a direction of combat.
'Please tell me I am not hallucinating!' Flora thought as she broke out in cold beads of sweat.
Flora felt a silent connection, an invisible force compelling her forward, like instinct. Her hands extended, gently landing on their heads.
Instantly, the chaos froze.
Time itself seemed suspended; Mia and Katya hovered motionless midair, eyes wide, mouths agape. Flora, paralyzed in fear and disbelief, desperately tried to withdraw her hands. But she, too, was caught in this strange paralysis, bound by the mysterious silver cords that shimmered like delicate spiderwebs between them.
She felt an intense pressure building within her, and just as suddenly as it had begun, it ended. Flora gasped sharply, as if she'd surfaced from deep underwater. Mia and Katya fell like lifeless dolls, crashing to the ground and trembling violently.
Katya's eyes flickered open first, locking onto Flora. Flora shivered involuntarily—Katya's expression was one she'd never imagined seeing directed at her. Raw, undisguised fear.
Mia jerked awake moments later, scrambling backwards on her elbows, eyes wide, terror etched clearly across her face. It looked like she had just seen a ghost and wanted nothing to do with that.
Flora took in the sight, pulse slowing, and confidence surging inexplicably. She rose, standing tall, and declared firmly, "I don't know what you girls thought you were doing, but there's a new leader here now. Try me again and you'll regret it."
With a defiant tilt of her head, Flora floated from the training room, pausing dramatically at the doorway. Her piercing gaze lingered just long enough to leave a lasting impression, then she vanished down the hall.
As the door closed behind her, fusing into a wall. She slid down to the floor, gasping and coughing.
'That didn't just happen, right?' Flora thought as she looked at her shaky hands.
'Do I have snooze hands or something?' Flora thought as she raised her hand to meet her eye, but soon felt sharp pain in her lungs.
'I have to get to the medbay!' Flora thought as she hugged her side with her right arm and hovered, but soon fell to walk to the medbay.
Only once, alone in the sterile confines of the medbay, did Flora succumb to the pain radiating from her battered ribs. "Damn, that stings," she hissed quietly as a sleek medbot hovered nearby, swiftly stitching her wounds and injecting a potent healing stimulant.
"What the heck was that?" she whispered to the empty room, bewildered. "What did I just do… and how?"
Her questions went unanswered by the sterile medbot, leaving Flora alone with her confusion and growing dread.
Elsewhere, beneath Viltrum's twilight sky, Selena hovered serenely over an abandoned glass-like tree, its crystalline branches refracting distant starlight, located in a district reserved exclusively for half-bloods. Mia and Katya floated before her, visibly rattled.
"You're telling me," Selena began slowly, her voice low and deliberate, "that when Flora touched both your heads, you experienced your worst nightmares—repeatedly?"
"Yes!" Mia and Katya blurted simultaneously, quickly scanning their surroundings nervously. Ruined structures, scars from an ancient Viltrumite civil war, cast eerie shadows around them. They were safe, alone—but paranoia lingered heavily in the air.
Selena's brow furrowed in deep contemplation. "Since when do Viltrumites possess powers like these?" she whispered more to herself than to the others.
"And she says she's the new leader," Mia added bitterly, scowling.
Selena folded her arms, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "Flora has always been quiet—a snake hidden in the grass, waiting for the right moment to strike. It seems that the moment has come."
A tense silence hung between them, broken abruptly by a distressed Mia. 'Ugh, I can't wait for Selena to destroy her for what she put in my head. I hate turtle spiders!'
Selena's eyes flickered sharply toward Mia, eyebrow arching skeptically. "You… hate turtle spiders?"
Mia recoiled instantly, defensive confusion clouding her features. "Wait. I—I didn't say that."
Katya chuckled softly, her fear momentarily replaced by amusement. "Yeah, she didn't say anything, Selena. But she does look like the type who'd be scared of turtle spiders," Katya teased lightly, trying to ease the tension.
But Selena's heart raced, her eyes widening in stunned realisation. She was certain—she had clearly heard Mia speak. Her gaze shifted rapidly between Mia and Katya. The sudden, jarring thought sent an icy shiver down her spine.
Was she… hearing Mia's thoughts?
A heavy, oppressive silence fell once again. The implications were staggering, reality itself twisting into something unfamiliar, unsettling. Selena felt the beginnings of uncertainty, something alien to her carefully maintained confidence.
Whatever Flora had done, whatever had been awakened, it was more dangerous than any of them could yet understand. A new game had begun—one whose rules were yet unwritten, whose players possessed unknown, terrifying capabilities.
And Selena was no longer certain where she stood on the board.
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