Chapter 3: Class 101 – The Gauntlet Day
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Opening Scene – Arena Briefing
Kingtolio Academy's Grand Hall pulsed with quiet tension. Towering holograms displayed power types and squad names rotating over a pristine obsidian floor. Floating drones recorded every movement. Students stood in rows, grouped by their squads, beneath a glowing header suspended in midair:
> GAUNTLET DAY – DAY ONE EVALUATION
Phoenix Squad stood together. Mason, Arc, Crystal, Nicole, and Joe. Each one trying to look unreadable. Each one feeling the heat.
Instructor Appolon stood at the front, cloaked in his standard black combat coat, arms behind his back, expression carved in stone.
"This is not orientation," he began, voice carrying across the chamber without effort. "This is assessment. Every student will rotate through one of their registered class types today. You will be judged on control, clarity, and composure. Not raw power."
No cheering. No warm welcomes.
"Your instructors will observe. They will not save you. You are here to be evaluated—and remembered."
A chime rang out.
The gates opened.
> GAUNTLET DAY COMMENCE.
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Period 1: Elements Class
POV: Mason Kane
The chamber steamed with elemental volatility. I stood in a room designed to kill us—lava tubes, steel-cracked floors, and a roof that breathed electricity.
Professor Veyda floated like she was air incarnate. Graceful, powerful, silent.
"You don't command elements. You collaborate with them," she said. "Let's see how well you negotiate."
I exhaled. One mistake, and I'd light this whole place up.
Jason stepped forward. He partially shifted—not fully beast, but his claws glowed, fur bristling at his forearms. He launched into a predator's roll, pounced, then used a claw strike to explode a boulder.
Lila whistled. "Didn't know jungle gym class came with wolves."
Jason smiled. "Didn't know roots could talk."
Lila raised a hand. Vines burst from beneath the steel, wrapping around three different moving targets and snapping them into a cage.
"You do not want to see me in a forest," she muttered.
Miles stomped, sending seismic ripples that knocked down a row of concrete spikes. Controlled. Measured.
Max compressed air into a blade that spun like a disk before exploding in mid-air.
"Still can't beat the wind," he said, brushing dust from his shoulder.
Cindy summoned an incantation circle, calling forth a fire beast—a two-headed hound. It roared, then dissipated.
Austin stepped in. I watched closely.
His body melted, molecular strands reforming mid-motion. One arm stretched into a whip, the other formed a hammerhead. He duplicated himself—twice. One clone punched a stone pillar in sync with the real Austin. Power in harmony.
Professor Veyda whispered, "Reconstruction like that... is rare."
Then my turn. I raised a stone platform. Controlled. Then I summoned fire beneath it—fusing it into magma. I cooled it. Let the steam hiss away.
Veyda nodded. "You're holding something back, Mason. Make sure it doesn't break you before it saves you."
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Period 2: Scout Class
POV: Arc Kane
The Scout chamber was chaos—on purpose. Booby traps, rotating walls, zip lines, and ledges. I was born for this.
Instructor Rhaze materialized from the shadows. "Run like your life depends on it."
Challenge accepted.
Martins was first. Of course. He smirked at me, then launched.
He moved fast, but not quite sonic. Fast enough to blur, fast enough to bounce across platforms and dodge laser turrets. He hit every marker clean.
"I'll sign autographs after," he said, winded but cocky.
Crystal blinked in and out, tagging objectives like she was playing chess with teleportation. One step ahead.
Chris took wolf form to leap a wall, shifted to a hawk midair, then landed as himself.
"He's showing off," I said.
"You're one to talk," Crystal shot back.
Phoebe changed into a wasp-sized version of herself to slip through a crevice. Then re-emerged full-size and flipped off a ledge.
Zing opened a vertical portal, dropped through, and landed upside-down through a second gate like a magician.
Raven? I never saw her. Only when she reappeared at the endpoint.
Then me.
I let lightning fill me. Sparks in my joints. Time felt slower. I moved. Up walls, across ceilings. Bounced off a falling beam and hit my final mark.
Rhaze nodded once. "You run from something. One day it'll catch you."
Yeah. I knew.
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Period 3: Precision Class
POV: Crystal
Precision was silence. Clean, sharp, surgical. Like operating with a scalpel while blindfolded.
Instructor Delacour wore a white coat and a silver frown.
"Hit your targets. Miss nothing."
Martins vibrated just under his limit. Not flashy. He timed his strikes to the drone movement—clean hits.
Kayla shrunk to mouse-size, dodged through spinning fans, then grew and slammed the target.
Serra closed her eyes. Predicted movement before the targets moved. She struck. All bullseyes.
Then me.
I took my stance. Notched three arrows. Blinked midair, rotated, and loosed.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Delacour blinked. "Teleportation complicates timing. You made it look natural."
I smiled. That was the idea.
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Period 4: Control Class
POV: Joe
Cold room. My kind of place.
Professor Quain barked orders like we were cadets.
Eli pulled in scrap metal, creating a cage that rotated with magnetism.
Ruth stepped forward. Everyone's powers dimmed. Even my frost. She just stood there, and made us feel powerless.
Miles stomped, splitting the ground beneath a dummy. Quain nodded.
Then me.
I formed a dome of ice. Thick. Then shattered it into shards that hovered midair. I froze them into a spinning ring, then fired three spikes precisely.
Abdul followed. He summoned a cyclone of sand, formed a ramp, and launched a fake opponent into the air.
Quain grunted. "Good. But the ground never stays still in war. Adapt."
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Period 5: Manipulation Class
POV: Nicole
Grimm's classroom twisted logic. Walls warped. Lights curved. Felt like walking inside my own shadow.
Diana began with a clinic. Telekinesis—six objects spinning like gears. Fire—tight flame held in perfect sphere. Super strength—lifted and tossed a tank dummy. Ice—created a wall to shield her exit. Shadows—sliced through a row of decoys.
Jon multiplied, each clone setting traps with eerie sync.
Candice made three clones, baited each dummy, then collapsed them in sequence.
Xavier messed with our eyes. Made me think I was fighting myself. I blinked, and he vanished.
Zing looped portals through a falling wall, reversed its momentum, and crushed a target from above.
Austin—finally. He walked in, turned liquid, became two smaller versions of himself, then pulled himself back together while dodging a shadow tendril trap.
I stepped forward. Shadows coiled at my feet. I sent them forward like serpents, wrapping targets, phasing through the floor, rising behind one.
One touch. "Neutralized."
Grimm smiled. "The quiet ones are always the loudest in the dark."
Diana looked at me like a mirror. I looked right back.
Location: First-Year Dorm Commons – Late Evening
The dorm commons looked like it had been hit by a low-budget superhuman sitcom. Someone had spelled "We Lived" on the wall in leftover energy gel packets. Candice's clone was passed out in a laundry basket. Someone had drawn a smiley face on Jon's forehead. It wasn't clear if it was a prank or self-expression.
Crystal was teleporting popcorn into her mouth from a bowl across the room. "If I teleport in my sleep again, call a medic."
Arc groaned from under a blanket. "We're calling a priest. You teleported onto my chest like a horror movie demon."
Joe sat nearby, sketching ice patterns in the air. "Quain said I over-control. Joke's on him—I under-control my sarcasm."
Nicole curled deeper into her shadow cocoon. "You do realize you almost flash-froze a vending machine... mid-transaction."
"I still got my chips," Joe shrugged.
Martins zipped by holding a loaf of bread like a trophy. "And I got bread for emotional support. Don't ask."
"Dude," Zing called from the mini-fridge. "You turned a full mission run into a bakery heist."
Austin leaned over the counter, casually peeling off a clone of himself. "If we're cooking, I can play sous-chef. Also, I can look like Mason if we need dramatic speeches."
Mason, walking in just then, raised an eyebrow. "I do not give dramatic speeches."
Crystal grinned. "You literally said, 'We didn't break, but we didn't bend either' this morning."
Nicole added, "While staring at the horizon like a philosophical anime swordsman."
Mason dropped onto the couch with a sigh. "Fine. I'm dramatic. Just... low-budget."
Jason, seated on the windowsill, snorted. "Low-budget's generous. I've seen better production in clone charades."
"Hey!" Jon's clones shouted in unison.
Candice's clone gave a thumbs-up from the laundry basket.
Jason grinned. "No offense. Y'all are my second favorite squad in this room."
Martins leaned against the armrest. "Jason, you've been quiet today."
Jason sipped from a mystery bottle. "Trying not to steal your spotlight. I'm in my support arc."
"Aw, he's humble now," Arc said, mock wiping a tear.
"Don't make it weird," Jason muttered, but he was smiling.
Austin high-fived his clone for no reason.
Diana, journaling nearby, didn't look up. "This feels like the prologue to a squad getting expelled."
Chris shifted into a bear just to sit more comfortably. "If anyone's getting expelled, it's Martins. Or that bread."
"Respect the loaf!" Martins declared, raising it overhead like Simba.
The room broke into laughter.
And for the first time since arriving at Kingtolio, they weren't squads. They weren't labels. They were just... teens.
Loud. Powered. Exhausted.
But real.
Mason looked around and finally allowed himself to smile.
"Okay," he said. "We might actually survive this place."
"Assuming Martins doesn't marry that bread," Crystal added.
"No promises," Martins grinned.