The next day, the students were woken up by a loud announcement, calling them over to the main oval room. One of the teacher supervisors stood there with a piece of paper in his hand. The moment everyone was inside, he began reading out the contents.
“Due to certain circumstances, the next assessment evaluation has been moved back and will take place in four days time rather than today. This also means that the students ranked 1 to 10 will have to keep their position for that additional time period if they wish to advance.”
As soon as he was done, the adult turned around and left the room. Since the ones mostly affected by this sudden change were the top rankers, the other students just smiled and continued doing what they would usually do.
“Has this ever happened before? Am I the only one who feels like they’re blatantly targeting us?” Wu asked, visibly annoyed at this kind of treatment.
“Who knows?” Apollo shrugged. “I’m not surprised that they decided to act. From the start, it was impossible for them to not notice that the ten of us haven’t really been fighting since we became the top rankers. If anything, I’m surprised that their approach is this lenient, given that we’re circumventing the rules.
“Still, we should be careful. Who knows what will happen in these next four days.”
The others weren’t sure what he meant by this, but when looking at his new favourite subject, Apollo noticed that there was a different air around the most prominent newcomer.
——
Izzy and Ian weren’t bothered by the announcement and simply performed their morning ritual of watching the fights that were happening before breakfast. She was watching them mostly to figure out how to counter her potential future opponents, while he was doing it to hype himself up before fighting himself.
As they watched, Izzy told her childhood friend about what had happened last night.
“Wow, I never thought you would actually go to him to ask for help.” Ian gasped at that shocking revelation. “I don’t think I could do the same, his presence alone makes me feel off. Still, let me know if there is some secret involved to his strength.
“Until then, I think I’ll just continue fighting until I hit a wall. The more I fight, the more I can feel that I’m getting one step closer to grasping my Altered form! Just you wait, once I can transform like the others, you’ll see me rising through the ranks!”
There was a smug smile on Ian’s face. He had gained a lot of confidence based on his recent fights. Originally, he had believed that he would have a hard time competing with those who had been scouted, but he was doing fairly well as someone who was unable to transform.
At that moment, two people came up to them from either side. Izzy and Ian wanted to move out of the way, but the two made it obvious that they wouldn’t let them, blocking them in with their bodies.
‘Damn it, what did we do to make the high rankers come to us?’ Izzy wondered as she stared at the badges of the brothers, rank 44, and rank 42. The former belonged to the long haired redhead, while the latter belonged to his short haired brother. They seemed to be fraternal twins, rather than identical ones.
“From what we have been able to gather, the two of you took the assessment along with that Broccoli Head, correct?” Rank 44 began to question them.
They hadn't turned their heads while speaking, pretending like they had just joined the duo in watching the fight.
“That's correct, but what’s it to you?” Ian replied, not liking where this was going.
“You see, we were told to gather some information on him. So we just wanted to know a few things about him, nothing you shouldn’t know. What's his Altered form, his fighting style and most importantly, what’s his backing?” Rank 42 explained why they had come to bother them.
It didn't take long for Izzy to figure out that these two had to be working for one of the top rankers. It seemed like Gary’s confidence had made them hesitate before acting, so they first wanted to verify whether the green haired teenager was someone they could afford to touch.
“Sorry, but we have no idea. He didn’t look impressive, so we didn’t pay attention to him during the first test. After that, he kicked all of our arses without transforming, so the only thing we know about him is that he is far stronger than us.” Izzy quickly splurged out a cover story, before Ian could accidentally spill the beans.
Just then the fight had stopped, and the female Altered was getting ready to move away, but her hand was grabbed before she could leave.
“Nice story, but we’re not buying it. You’ve been sitting together during the meals like real chumps, so I don’t believe that he hasn’t told you anything of value about himself. Let me warn you, if you don’t tell us exactly what we need to know, then starting today, we’ll make your stay here a living hell.
“Every day, the two of us will challenge you two, and during the fight, we will beat you before you can give up, and we’ll also make sure nobody else will fight you. We will continue to do that until you eventually leave!”
Pulling her arm away, Izzy continued to walk and Ian made sure to stand behind her and the twins.
“Fine, go ahead!” Izzy shouted as she walked away. “Your threats might work on others, but it's not going to work if I'm more scared of the other person!”
“Yeah, if you two want to get involved with that crazy person, then be my guest, but I'm not going to sell him out.” Ian shrugged and shivered as he thought back to what Gary had done to him on accident, as he had later revealed.
The brothers were left dazed as this was the first time their threats were ineffective. They couldn't believe that these two newcomers were actually more scared of this Gary person. It just didn't make sense, but Izzy’s words were true. After seeing him yesterday at night, she knew that she should never cross this person if she wanted to live.
As Ian and Izzy walked over to head to the library room, they soon saw another large figure stand in their way. They looked up, and gulped at the large person’s chest, as they could see the tip of his smile.
“Oh, here I was waiting for just you two. I was wondering if you could tell me a couple of things about your green-haired friend.” Apollo requested with a toothy smile.
“Umm, Izzy… I might be afraid of this person a little more than Gary.” Ian whispered to her.
*****
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