The following week at Hero High was a study in polarized realities. Two distinct atmospheres congealed within the Beta first-year cohort, separated by the empty desk that had become a monument to Brody Hendricks's transformation.
On one side, there was Brody's new regime. He held court not in the classroom, but in the training pits and corridors, his Galvanix Gauntlet a constant, gleaming presence on his right arm. He didn't just reclaim his cronies; he expanded his influence. Fear was a potent currency, and Brody was suddenly flush. Betas who had previously ignored him now offered hesitant nods. Some, driven by a desperate desire for protection or reflected glory, actively sought his favor. He held impromptu, brutal sparring sessions, using his enhanced metal manipulation to overwhelm and intimidate, "teaching lessons" to those he deemed disrespectful. His point total, fueled by his victory streak, was now among the highest in the entire first year, rivaling some mid-tier Alphas.
He didn't mention Ark. Not directly. But his every action was a loud, clanging rebuttal to their duel. He was building a narrative: the loss to the Null was an aberration, a moment of weakness. This—the armored, unstoppable force—was the true Brody Hendricks.
On the other side of that unspoken divide was Ark. He moved through the same spaces with a preternatural calm that was becoming his signature. He attended Felicia North's lectures, absorbing advanced theory on energy dynamics and tactical vulnerabilities. He trained alone in the early mornings and late evenings, his Foundational Grinding regimens growing more intense, his stats inching upward with glacial, inexorable certainty. He spoke little, but when he did, it was usually to Elijah, offering terse, practical advice on focusing his Terrakinesis or to correct a flawed assumption in a physics problem.
He was aware of Brody's ascendancy. His enhanced Perception (15) picked up every whispered rumor, every clang of metal from the pits, every fearful glance directed at the gleaming gauntlet. The System, ever analytical, provided a constant stream of cold data.
[Ambient Threat Assessment: Hendricks, Brody. Power Amplification: +47% (Estimated). Combat Style: Evolved from Brute Force to Controlled Aggression. Popular Support: Shallow, Fear-Based. Direct Threat to Host: High. Probability of Aggression: 92% within 7 days.]
Ark acknowledged the data and filed it away. He felt no fear, only a sharpening focus. Brody was a problem to be solved, a variable in the equation of his survival. But he was not the immediate priority. His priority was growth, stability, and understanding the limits of the System. Engaging Brody now, on Brody's terms and in his newly armed state, was not optimal. It was emotional, not strategic. So he remained indifferent, a stone in the river of Brody's posturing, letting the current of intimidation part around him.
This infuriated Brody more than any insult. Ark's silence was a denial of the new reality Brody was trying to enforce. It was as if Ark looked at the armored warlord Brody had become and saw only the insecure boy beneath. The gauntlet couldn't protect him from that.
The tension between the two poles of Class B was a palpable static in the air. It infected everything. Group projects were strained. Conversations halted when either Ark or Brody entered a room. The class was a dormant fault line, waiting for a quake.
The quake arrived, as they often did, in the cafeteria.
The Hero High cafeteria was never quiet, but today the noise had a different texture—a competitive, tribal buzz. The Alphas, confident in their tier, congregated in the central, sun-drenched sections with the best synth-food dispensers. The Betas and other tracks populated the periphery.
Ark sat with Elijah at their usual table along the wall. Kyle was detained by a practical lab, and Elster was in a psionic concentration seminar. It was just the two of them, a small island of quiet amidst the chaos.
Brody held court several tables over, surrounded by a dozen Betas—his core cronies and a handful of new hangers-on. He had the Galvanix Gauntlet on the table, a centerpiece, casually absorbing flakes from a spare alloy utensil and reshaping them into intricate, spinning geometric shapes. It was a display of control, a silent lecture on power. His laughter was too loud, his gestures too broad, demanding the attention of the entire Beta section.
"—and the look on that second-year's face when the cage closed around him!" Brody boomed, smirking. "He thought his little kinetic pulses would do something. All it did was make the metal sing. Pointless."
His audience chuckled obediently. Chloe, sitting close to him, laughed the loudest, her eyes glued to the gauntlet with a mixture of avarice and fear.
It was then that a group of five Alpha first-years swaggered into the Beta section. They moved with the unconscious entitlement of their rank, their uniforms slightly more tailored, their expressions a blend of curiosity and condescension. They were led by a boy named Marcus Valerius. Ark's System provided a swift, silent dossier.
[Analyzing Subject: Valerius, Marcus. Power Core: Kinetic. Designation: Impact Redirection/Dampening. Threat Level: Medium-High. Estimated Rank: C. Disposition: Arrogant, Territorial. Notable: Scion of the Valerius Hero Line.]
Marcus was handsome in a sharp, cruel way, with close-cropped black hair and eyes the color of flint. His power was a well-known one in his family—the ability to absorb kinetic energy from blows and either nullify it or redirect it back at an opponent. It was a perfect defensive-offensive ability, making him a nightmare for brute-force fighters.
His gaze swept over the Beta tables like a landlord inspecting a run-down property. It lingered on Brody's display of metal-shaping, and a slow, disdainful smile spread across his face.
"Well, well," Marcus's voice cut through the Beta chatter, smooth and carrying. "What do we have here? The junkyard brigade is playing with its toys."
The Beta section fell silent. Brody's metal shape collapsed into a inert lump. He looked up, his eyes narrowing.
Marcus ignored him, addressing his Alpha friends. "You see, this is what happens when you let defective cores fester. They start to believe their parlor tricks are actual power. They get… ideas above their station." He finally looked directly at Brody. "That's a fancy glove. Does it help you sort scrap metal faster? Must be useful for your future career in waste management."
Brody's face flushed a deep, mottled red. He stood up slowly, the chair scraping loudly. The metal on the table flowed up his arm, coating it in a slick, silver sheath. "You got a problem, Alpha?" he growled, the gauntlet's circuits glowing a warning blue.
"A problem? With you?" Marcus chuckled, not moving from his relaxed stance. "No. More of an observation. A lesson needs to be taught, it seems. The natural order has become… blurred lately." His flinty eyes flickered, almost imperceptibly, towards Ark's table before returning to Brody. The message was clear: the story of a Beta Null beating an Alpha-adjacent power had reached their ears, and it was an offense that needed correcting.
"The natural order," Brody sneered, taking a step forward, his goons rising uncertainly behind him. "You mean the order where you Alphas get the best of everything for doing nothing? That order?"
"We get the best," Marcus corrected, his voice dropping to a dangerous purr, "because we are the best. It's simple calculus. Your little winning streak ends here, scrap-heap. Consider this a free lesson in hierarchy."
One of Marcus's friends, a lanky boy with fingers that sparked with electricity, grinned. "Yeah, Marcus. Show these defects where they belong. The Betas have been getting a bit too cocky since that freak duel."
That was the spark.
With a roar that was more frustration than fury—frustration at Ark, at his own family, at the world—Brody launched himself forward. The metal sheathing his arm elongated into a heavy, blunt maul.
Marcus didn't flinch. He raised his open hand.
Brody's swing was powerful, driven by enhanced strength and the weight of the metal. It connected with Marcus's palm.
There was no impact sound. No crash. The maul just… stopped. The kinetic energy, the furious momentum, simply vanished. Marcus didn't even sway. A faint, shimmering aura, like heat haze, glimmered around his hand for an instant.
Brody stared, dumbfounded.
"My turn," Marcus said softly.
He shoved his palm forward.
A concussive wave of invisible force erupted, the sum total of Brody's own swing amplified and reflected. It hit Brody square in the chest. The metallic armor on his torso dented inward with a shriek of protesting alloy. Brody was lifted off his feet and thrown back across the table, scattering food trays and students, crashing to the floor in a tangle of limbs and twisted metal.
The cafeteria erupted. Betas screamed. Alphas whooped. It was chaos.
Brody's cronies, emboldened by numbers and fear, surged forward. The other Alphas reacted. The lanky boy unleashed arcs of stinging electricity, catching two Betas and making them convulse. Another Alpha girl gestured, and the air grew thick and syrupy around a third Beta, slowing his charge to a crawl.
It wasn't a duel. It was a brawl. A messy, escalating skirmish between the tiers.
Ark watched from his table, his mind a cold, clear lake amidst the storm. Basic Combat Analysis tracked every movement. He saw Marcus's calm efficiency, his power a perfect counter to Brody's. He saw the panic and poorly coordinated attacks of the Betas. He saw Elijah shrinking back, terrified.
A new quest notification, bordered in urgent amber, flashed in his vision.
[Urgent Quest: Contain the Breach]
Type:[Crisis Management / Stealth Intervention]
Objective:Defuse the inter-tier brawl without revealing the full extent of your capabilities. Neutralize the primary instigator (Marcus Valerius) as a demonstration.
Restrictions:Do not use any skill or ability that cannot be explained as peak human conditioning or luck.
Rewards:300 EXP, Increased covert reputation among Betas, Unlocks [Environmental Analysis] skill.
Failure:Forced public escalation, high risk of System exposure, disciplinary action.
The parameters were clear. He couldn't be the Assassin here. He had to be something else—something just plausible enough. The System was testing his ability to operate within constraints.
As he processed this, he saw Marcus, having easily repelled another clumsy Beta charge, turn his attention. Not to Brody, who was struggling to rise, his metal armor crumpled. His flinty eyes landed on Elijah, who was trying to edge away from the fray.
"You," Marcus pointed at Elijah. "The dirt-toucher. You're with the Null, aren't you? The one who started all this confusion." He took a step forward, his hand rising. "Let's see how your little pebble-pushing stands up to a real shock."
A bolt of electricity from his friend snapped across the room, not aimed to injure heavily, but to intimidate, to scorch. It seared the air towards Elijah's face.
Elijah froze, eyes wide with terror.
Ark moved.
He didn't explode from his seat. He flowed. His Agility 7 and honed muscle memory from countless grinding sessions translated into efficient, breathtaking motion. He was a shadow detaching from the wall.
He reached Elijah, hooked a foot around the leg of his own chair, and kicked it. It wasn't a powerful kick, but a precise one. The chair slid perfectly into the path of the lightning bolt. The synthetic material scorched and crackled, diverting the energy harmlessly into the floor.
In the same fluid motion, Ark stepped between Elijah and Marcus.
The cafeteria's noise seemed to dial down a notch. All eyes—Betas struggling, Alphas poised for more attacks, even Brody pushing himself up—snapped to the new development. The Null had entered the fray.
Marcus's eyebrow raised, his disdain deepening. "The anomaly himself. Decided to stop hiding behind your pet telekinetic and pyro? Good. Saves me the trouble of finding you."
Ark said nothing. He simply stood, his posture relaxed but ready, his hands loose at his sides. He was a stark contrast to the armored, powered combatants around him. He looked… ordinary. And that, in this context, was extraordinary.
"You don't have your bodyguards, Null," Marcus sneered, beginning a slow, confident circle. "And you don't have the element of surprise against a drunk oaf this time. You have nothing. So why don't you kneel, acknowledge the Alpha tier, and we'll call this a lesson learned for all your little defective friends."
"Your monologue is inefficient," Ark stated, his voice flat, carrying in the sudden hush. "You talk to compensate for a lack of certainty. If you were sure of your position, you'd have already acted."
The insult was surgical, targeting the intellectual pride of the elite. Marcus's face darkened. "You have a mouth on you for someone who's about to eat through a straw."
He didn't charge. He was too smart for that. He feinted left, then stepped in with a deceptively fast, straight jab. It wasn't a powered strike; it was a test, wrapped in the kinetic-dampening field. He wanted to see what the Null would do, to humiliate him with his own defensive power.
Ark's Perception 15 and Basic Combat Analysis made the feint transparent. He saw the micro-tension in Marcus's shoulder, the slight shift in weight. He didn't dodge the jab. He deflected it.
Using the minimal necessary force, his hand slapped the inside of Marcus's wrist, not to stop the punch, but to redirect its vector an inch to the side. At the same time, Ark stepped inside the punch's trajectory, his body flowing past Marcus's extended arm.
It was a move that spoke of impossible confidence. He had entered the pocket, the space where Marcus's redirection power was most dangerous.
A ripple of surprise went through the onlookers. He'd touched Marcus and wasn't thrown back.
Marcus, surprised but not flustored, pivoted, his other hand coming up in a chopping motion aimed at Ark's neck. This one carried intent—a kinetic charge, ready to be dumped.
Ark dropped his weight, letting the chop whistle over his head. In the same crouch, he drove a fist into Marcus's solar plexus.
Thud.
The sound was solid, but Marcus only grunted, rocking back half a step. A shimmering haze swallowed the impact. He'd absorbed it. A cruel smile touched his lips. "Feel that, Null? That's the difference between us. You hit me, and it's nothing. I touch you, and you break."
He reached down to grab Ark's still-extended arm, intending to unleash the stored kinetic energy directly into his body.
Ark didn't try to pull away. He went with the grab, using Marcus's own pulling force to surge upward. His forehead smashed into the bridge of Marcus's nose.
Crack.
This was kinetic energy Ark generated with his own body, a close-quarters strike Marcus hadn't had time to consciously dampen. It wasn't a superhuman blow, but it was perfectly placed, driven by Strength 7 and ruthless intent.
Marcus cried out, stumbling back, blood streaming from his nose, his concentration shattered. The shimmering aura around him flickered and died.
"You absorb deliberate impacts," Ark said, his voice still calm, clinical, as he reset his stance. "You have to consciously activate your damping field. A reflexive, non-telegraphed strike in your blind spot bypasses it." He had analyzed the power in seconds, identified its flaw, and exploited it.
The cafeteria was dead silent. The Alpha who had been toying with Betas was bleeding, his invincibility punctured. The Betas stared, hope warring with disbelief.
Marcus wiped the blood from his face, his flinty eyes now blazing with pure, unadulterated rage. This wasn't part of the script. "You… you little worm!" he snarled, his voice thick. The air around his fists began to warp visibly as he pulled kinetic energy from the environment—from the vibrations of the room, from the residual momentum of the fleeing students. He was going to unleash a wave of force that would shatter bones.
Ark braced himself, his mind calculating angles, the tensile strength of the nearby tables, the trajectory of the blast. He would have to dive, use the environment, minimize the damage. He couldn't counter it directly.
But the blast never came.
The air between Ark and Marcus solidified.
It wasn't a wall. It was the sudden, absolute absence of motion. The warping air around Marcus's fists smoothed out and died. The noise of the cafeteria was sucked away, replaced by a profound, pressurized silence. Everyone in the immediate vicinity froze, not out of fear, but because moving felt like wading through solid titanium.
Felicia North stood at the entrance to the cafeteria section.
She hadn't appeared. She had simply manifested, as if the probability of her being there had finally crystallized into fact. Her expression was placid, but her soil-brown eyes held a disappointment so deep it felt colder than any anger.
"That," she said, her voice not loud but imprinting itself on the very stillness she had created, "is quite enough."
With a subtle flick of her wrist, the immobilizing field shifted. It gently but irresistibly pushed the clashing students apart, separating Alphas from Betas, creating a perfect, empty circle around Ark and Marcus. The kinetic energy Marcus had gathered dissipated harmlessly into the field.
"The sanctioned duel system exists for a reason," she continued, walking slowly into the center of the space. Her gaze swept over Marcus, over Brody who was now on his knees clutching his dented chest, over the cowed Betas and Alphas. "It provides structure, rules, and oversight. It prevents… this." She gestured at the scattered trays, the scorch marks, the blood on Marcus's face.
She stopped, looking first at Marcus. "Valerius. You initiated inter-tier aggression outside the duel framework. Using your power to intimidate and assault other students en masse. Explain."
Marcus, his nose still bleeding, tried to muster his arrogance. "Proctor North, they were getting out of line. The Betas, they needed to be reminded—"
"Reminded?" Felicia's voice remained calm, but it cut like a laser. "You are not a proctor. You are not an administrator. You are a first-year student. Your role is to learn, not to enforce your personal interpretation of 'order.' Your actions have earned you fifty disciplinary points deducted, and a week of custodial duties in the Bio-Hazard containment wing. You will also formally apologize to the students you targeted."
Marcus paled, the punishment hitting his pride and his point balance like a hammer.
Her eyes then turned to Brody. "Hendricks. You engaged in unsanctioned combat. While responding to a provocation, your escalation turned a confrontation into a brawl. You are fined twenty-five points. And you will report to the medical wing immediately; internal bleeding from kinetic redirection is not something to ignore."
Brody glared but nodded sullenly, unable to meet her gaze.
Finally, her eyes settled on Ark. They held that same penetrating, unnerving quality, as if she were looking at the equations that composed him. "Greystone. You intervened in a conflict you were not initially part of. Your methods were… effective, and within the bounds of unaugmented capability." She paused, and Ark felt a shiver—did she suspect more? "However, you also escalated a brawl into a personal duel. Ten point deduction for participation. Consider it the cost of your… tutorial."
The message was clear. She knew he had been testing Marcus's weakness. She was acknowledging his skill but punishing the context.
"The rest of you," she said, her voice encompassing the entire stunned cafeteria, "who participated will report for disciplinary review. This kind of tribalistic brawling is a luxury humanity cannot afford. The enemy is beyond the Gates, not across the cafeteria." She let the words sink into the silence. "Now, clean this mess. And remember: the next time such a 'reminder' is deemed necessary, it will come from the faculty, and it will not be nearly as gentle."
With that, the oppressive field vanished. The normal sounds of the cafeteria rushed back in, feeling deafening. Felicia North turned and walked away, not towards the door, but simply fading from view between one step and the next, leaving behind a room full of chastised, fearful students.
The fight was over. The hierarchy, for the moment, was forcibly re-set by a higher authority.
But the lines had been drawn in the sand, and they were deep.
Marcus, shooting a look of pure venom at Ark, turned and stalked away with his Alpha friends, already whispering urgently. Brody, helped up by a crony, shuffled out towards the medical wing, his gauntlet still gleaming but his aura of invincibility tarnished once more.
The Betas slowly began to clean up, their glances at Ark now filled with a new, awe-struck intensity. He had stood against an Alpha, a powerful one, and made him bleed. He had done what Brody and his gauntlet could not. He had been punished the least.
Elijah let out a shaky breath. "Ark… you… your nose… you headbutted him…"
Ark touched his own forehead. A slight bruise was forming. A small price. "It was the optimal move," he said simply, his mind already replaying the encounter, analyzing his own performance, filing data on Marcus's power for future reference.
The quest notification in his vision updated.
[Quest: Contain the Breach - COMPLETE.]
[Rewards: 300 EXP awarded. Covert reputation among Betas significantly increased. Skill: [Environmental Analysis] unlocked.]
A new layer of awareness settled over him. [Environmental Analysis (Lv.1)] – a passive skill that allowed him to instantly assess a battlefield for tactical advantages: structural weaknesses, usable debris, light and sound sources, escape routes. It integrated seamlessly with his Perception and Combat Analysis. He was becoming a complete tactical system.
As he helped Elijah right their table, he saw the looks. Not just from Betas, but from other tracks—Gamma support techs, Delta logisticians. The story would spread, mutate. The Null who had beaten a Metal-Skin, then bloodied an Impact Redirector. The anomaly was becoming a legend, and legends attracted both followers and hunters.
He had avoided a full-scale brawl. He had defended Elijah. He had gained EXP and a new skill. He had, in the eyes of many, won.
But as he sat back down, the taste of synth-food ash in his mouth, he knew the cost. He was now firmly in the crosshairs of two powerful enemies: Brody Hendricks, armed and vengeful, and Marcus Valerius, humiliated and vindictive. And both would be looking for a sanctioned, rules-compliant way to break him.
Felicia North had stopped the fight, but she had also, in her own way, given it her blessing. Consider it the cost of your tutorial.
The tutorial was over. The real competition, under the harsh but clear rules of Hero High, was about to begin. The serpent had been spotted, and now the eagles were circling, waiting for their chance to strike from within the bounds of the law.