But you should think in a different way, Amara. Life changed the topic with equal expertise. What if you have friends on your side as well?


    ‘You’re saying, I should make friends? Right now??’


    Not quite what I was suggesting. I meant to say that, before you enter a possible confrontation—since you seem to think that such a scenario is bound to occur—you should be prepared to have aid on your side as well. After all, one of the reasons me and Destruction hoped you would be able to find in this Academy would be trustworthy allies.


    ‘Neither of you told me that before.’ Amara was surprised. ‘The Academy part, I mean. Both of you sorta just told me to go, like my grandparents.’


    Did we? If Destruction had a hand and a head, he probably would’ve been scratching the latter with the former. The insomnia is getting strong.


    ‘Insomnia?’


    One thing at a time, my former colleague. Life sighed.


    Destruction’s dark purple orb shrunk a little in size. Fine, you do it then.


    Life sighed once more. Apologies if we had been confusing you, Amara. We assumed that, by letting you join the academy, you’d have a more stable education first and foremost. Then there would be other perks, such as meeting peers that are of more similar interests and capabilities as yourself, as…well, Amberwood was too small for you, to say the least. Your grandparents would agree with us about these reasons.


    ‘Gran and Gramps did say similar things…’ Amara admitted. ‘And honestly, it’s been kinda fun seein’ some different stuff, but also scary.’


    And on our own note… Life suddenly trailed off.


    ‘Yes?’


    Hopefully you remember that we’re just fragments of our former glory. Destruction picked up the conversation. And we’ve been conscious in your head almost nonstop. We want a nap too.


    One of the perks of talking to the deities is that Amara doesn’t have to try and be subtle with what she wants to convey. ‘Gods need naps too?’


    Back then no, for now yes. Don’t you worry, we’re not gonna say good night until you start taking math classes.


    Before that happens, though, do either of you remember that there is an ongoing exam?


    Amara jumped back to reality with a shudder, just as the eighth applicant was about to head off the stage.


    ‘Thank you!’ Amara thought, as she watched the ninth applicant, also the first boy she crossed, walk up to Jason’s podium.


    “I’m going to fight this girl right here!” The boy quickly declared to the whole audience, including Jason, as soon as his voice could be heard by everybody. “I want to start a challenge!”


    “You can do that?!” Amara blurted out in surprise before her brain could stop her. She simply assumed that this portion was a massive show-and-tell process, therefore she was not prepared for a potential combat scenario.


    The boy turned to stare at Amara face-to face, one finger pointing directly at her nose, clearly seething with anger as he continued to have his words broadcasted: “Nobody said it’s in the rules, but nobody said it isn’t allowed! I, Ramir, shall challenge you to a duel!”


    Amara felt her own temper rising. She did indeed feel regretful about the extent of her actions, but she did not consider herself the kind of person to forgive being repeatedly targeted over an incident where both sides held responsibility. She had said her apologies and never got any in return—which she was willing to look past—and was just going to forget the incident. Now with such a feud being publicized though, she was not planning to back down.


    “Wait, wait, about the rules—” Jason attempted to step in and intervene, but barely got two words in before several adults in the benches started to gesture at him. Looking blankly at the adults off the stage, Jason stayed completely still as he took in the body signals his colleagues were giving to him. After a few moments he began to mouth a few words quietly, as if to confirm the information he’d received through lip reading. Finally, Jason backed off and stepped back onto his podium, and asked Amara: “Are you okay with this? This is technically allowed, but you have full right to refuse the challenge if you aren’t comfortable with combat.”


    “If he wants a fight, I sure ain’t gonna say no.” Amara answered, already tapping into her energy pool, her eyes fixed on the boy who referred to himself as Ramir.


    “W-well then, in the simulator or—” Jason stuttered while raising an arm in the general direction of the metal pod.


    “You’re not that wimpy, are you?” Ramir taunted, not even letting Jason complete a full sentence.


    Amara smirked. “Of course not, ya borin’ name caller.”


    She would rather prefer to not use a simulator, as all of her past experiences with using her Talent had been in real life, and at the back of her mind she was also afraid to break some equipment from not knowing how they worked.


    Out of the three people that remained on stage, Jason appeared to be the most panicked, despite being the largest and the only adult. He glanced around at the benches for a few quick moments, then resorted to declaring a few loose rules: “If you’re both going to duel, t-then I’ll step in as soon as I see one of you in danger, alright?”


    “Fine.” Ramir narrowed his eyes.


    “Alright.” Amara spared a fraction of a second to give Jason a look to confirm she understood him.


    Jason then grabbed onto the edge of his podium and managed to drag it to the side all by himself, hiding his trembling lips and nervousness from the upcoming duel behind the wooden structure. As soon as he reached the front row of benches, a slight warp in the air appeared all around the benches, covering the audience members in a net-like structure overtop, seemingly like some sort of transparent protection over every spectator.


    Stolen story; please report.


    Amara saw the whole process out of the corner of her eye, before she suddenly felt a chill down her back. Without thinking, she immediately dropped to the ground and rolled to the side, missing the flash of a projectile by mere millimeters.


    When she was getting up, a shockwave from behind knocked her down and sent her tumbling on the ground once more. Blasts of heat and the smell of something burning soon reached her senses, and this was not to be mistaken: whatever projectile she just dodged had exploded.


    Was that a grenade? That looked like a grenade. Destruction helpfully provided context while Amara herself still had the taste of floor in her mouth. Receiving the shocking information, Amara didn’t try to get up again, and instead angled her head to see where Ramir was at.


    Ramir indeed had a suspiciously round object in his hand. Meeting Amara’s gaze from the ground, he grinned rather haughtily: “Want another one?”


    Amara muttered things under her breath that would make her Gran have a heart attack. She didn’t know if the explosion was from Ramir’s Talent or some other source, but he was evidently not limiting himself to the rules of a simple duel, or even to the rules of general safety for that matter.


    This is the very first time Amara’s facing a complete stranger in combat, who wouldn’t hesitate to make sure she wouldn’t be seriously hurt like her Gramps, or hide away half of his gadgets to keep the explosions small like Pauley. This time, her opponent is someone with plenty of rage, and not a shred of caution or control. Once she came to that realization, Amara decided that there’s no need to hold herself back at all.


    Amara clapped her hands together. Without any warning whatsoever, multiple plant vines burst out of the floor around Ramir, and swiftly wrapped him tightly inside a cocoon of greens.


    One of the tendrils shot towards Amara, wrapping around her arm and yanking her off the ground, flinging her semi-airborne as she put as much space between herself and Ramir as she could. As she did so, she eyed her plant cocoon, imagining what Ramir’s body positions could be underneath all the plants.


    If she aimed off to the side or just the lower half of the cocoon, Amara definitely could take out a chunk of Ramir’s body that would make the boy deeply regret his attitude problem. But why should she do that? She could easily aim for the very middle, or even slightly higher up, right in the position where Ramir’s neck should be.


    Amara fixed her gaze on the precise location she intended to strike, and instinctively reached—


    NO!


    Destruction’s orb moved to block off her attempt to channel the purple energy pool. Due to the unforeseen interruption, Amara almost lost control of her movements, nearly tumbling to the ground once more.


    ‘WHY?!’ She screamed inside her mind at the meddling orb. ‘HE DESERVED IT!’


    You have no idea what you’re tampering with, child! Destruction’s voice was a mix of anger and…fear? You are NOWHERE near ready to use this force like you think you are!


    ‘But he could’ve KILLED ME!’ Amara kept screaming, but tapping into the green energy again to produce more plants to add to Ramir’s cocoon as she did so.


    That doesn’t warrant you retaliating with guaranteed murder! Life joined in. Her voice was full with genuine anger, which was a rare occurrence in and of itself.


    ‘What am I s’posed to do then?! Sit back and explode? I ain’t trusting anyone all the way in the seats to teleport ‘n save me in time!’


    Listen, Amara! Life commanded. What this Ramir child is doing is completely wrong, but his actions have absolutely nothing to do with YOUR own decisions! For you and you alone, you simply cannot control yourself properly! Not only would you end up regretting your choice in the heat of the moment, but you may very well end up harming yourself as well.


    The outside of Amara’s plant cocoon was rapidly turning brown and emitting smoke. Amara pumped out as many more vines as her energy channeling would allow her, while still fuming with pure rage internally: ‘As if letting him bust through right here wouldn’t harm me! I thought the both of you would at least care enough about me to not let me get splattered everywhere!’


    Seriously? Are you crazy? You think we would be any better off if you turned into a blotch?! Destruction was agitated.


    Both of you! Life raised her voice.  Now is not the time to fight each other! Amara, you of all mortals have not one, but TWO deities on your side, and you can’t even find a way to overcome such an average opponent? Think!


    Amara stared as her cocoon started to have small flames burning holes through the plants. ‘He’d just burn through everything!’


    Why limit yourself to just plants? I thought I taught you better than this. Life replied.


    Something about the Deity of Life’s words sent Amara into a momentary pause. The cocoon continued to burn down as she temporarily stopped to let her brain process a whirlwind of ideas, and Ramir emerged, coughing and covered in black soot, his haughty attitude toned down significantly.


    “Is that the best you’ve got? If so, I’ll—” Ramir began to speak,


    “Hold on.” Amara cut off Ramir’s words right before his most threatening comments. “I’ve a question.”


    “What?!”


    Amara took a long moment to examine her opponent. “Where’d you get the grenades from?”


    “It’s my Talent, idiot!” The color on Ramir’s face reminded Amara of an overripe tomato under the sunset. “I’m gonna blast you til you regret ever coming to the city!”


    “How do you even do that?” Amara was genuinely intrigued, anger temporarily making way for curiosity.


    Ramir sneered, flashing teeth that were surprisingly clean and straight despite his soot-covered visage. “I want to have grenades, I get to have grenades. Any other words before defeat?”


    Amara had absolutely no clue what Ramir meant, but decided against asking him another question as she already anticipated more insults. Agitated once again from the brief interaction, She channeled half of her remaining energy into producing more vines, but instead of making a second cocoon for Ramir, she controlled the plants to bear fruit as fast as possible.


    “What are you doing?!” Ramir backed several steps away from a vine that tried to wrap around his ankle. He had one more grenade in his hand, though he did not try to detonate it. Judging from his hesitant expression, he was probably worried about getting caught in an explosion as well.


    Amara didn’t bother to answer, instead focusing on channeling all of her energy into more and more fruits, until there was a mini orchard separating her and Ramir, forming a semicircle shape around the latter.


    Likely seeing a possibility of having another cocoon around him, Ramir decided to throw his grenade high over the plants, attempting to burn the vines from behind and as far away from himself as possible.


    Right at that very moment, Amara finished channeling the last of her energy into creating fruits. She snapped her fingers just as Ramir’s grenade was about to land, and called out: “Fermentation!”


    A force akin to a large invisible hand grabbed around Amara’s body and pulled her backwards before she had any time to react. When she could feel the ground underneath her again, she found herself getting pulled inside the protective bubble covering the audience members. Just outside the barrier, the arena space was fully ablaze, her plant vines and cocoon remnants being the fuel to the flames.


    The room remained silent until the fire gradually died out by itself, leaving the whole empty space charred black and uneven. Miraculously, the transparent protection barrier remained perfectly unchanged, still as transparent as clean glass, putting the wreckage on full display for everyone to see.


    Amara spotted Ramir under the barrier as well, seated on the first row bench right beside Jason. Half of his hair was burned away, his shirt full of holes and burn marks. In comparison, Amara only had some soot on her clothes and hands.


    Jason awkwardly began to speak again through the dead silence: “Well, congratulations to the two applicants for a, uh, spectacular show of Talents.”


    A few adults on the sidelines started to wildly gesture at Jason again, their movements contrasting against the rest of the stunned and silent audience. However, Jason had his back turned against them and therefore missed out on every single one of these attempts at communication.


    “Unfortunately, both parties had to be removed from the stage to prevent injuries. Now, could all of the top ten applicants please move toward the exit that is flashing green to proceed to the next section of entrance exams? The rest of you will be called up by name, after a short maintenance of…facilities.”


    Jason directed his arm towards his side, the forced smile on his face returning once more. A small door with its frame fitted with flashing lights opened up following his words, right in the wall furthest from where Amara was at. She was about to take the long way around the arena to the door to avoid walking past Ramir, before he shot her a menacing look and ran towards the exit before she did, creating as much distance between them as possible.


    Now feeling multiple gazes upon her, Amara quickly turned her head down, letting her hair cover her face. She walked at a speedy pace, moving fast enough to escape the stares but not enough to accidentally catch up to Ramir.


    Her head was spinning with multiple emotions and fragments of thoughts, not only for the explosions she experienced, but also for how she should face the deities. Both had been quiet for a long time by their average standards, and Amara isn’t sure what their present reactions would be. Angry at her for being brash? Disappointed because she didn’t fight as well as they expected of her? Or were they shocked because she showed off a brand new side of irrationality to them?


    We can hear you. Life commented, startling Amara out of her daze and almost had her trip over herself.


    ‘This is going to be awkward.’ Out of all of Amara’s thoughts, her first reaction was to state the obvious. She stepped through the flashing exit and into a large, rather dimly lit waiting room, where the other eight applicants were situated. A different doorway led to a brighter area, where Ramir’s sooty hand could be seen shutting the door behind him.


    Did he run away because he’s scared or angry? Amara didn’t know, for her brain power was mostly used to be anxious about the deities’ responses. Out of what little thought she could spare though, she had decided that no longer detested Ramir, for he had already suffered a loss against her; despite that, she was certain she still didn’t like Ramir in the slightest bit.