The Ambassadors Academy cafeteria was a symphony of chaos. Hundreds of students were crammed into the massive hall, their chatter creating a dull roar that echoed off the high ceilings.
The air smelled of fried food, disinfectant, and the faint, electric tang of teenage ambition. For Alex, it was just another workplace.
His current mission, one he considered to be of extreme importance, was to eradicate a stubborn ketchup stain from a tabletop. He was armed with a spray bottle and a rag, waging a silent, lonely war against condiments.
He was so focused on his task, mentally debugging the chemical composition of the stain, that he didn't notice the atmosphere around him shift until a sudden pocket of silence formed at his table.
He looked up from his work. Yuna Kwon was standing there, holding a tray with nothing on it but a single bottle of water. She looked at him, then at the empty chair at his table, and with a look of grim determination, she sat down.
The nearby students immediately fell silent, their eyes wide with disbelief. Yuna Kwon, the Ice Princess, the S-Rank prodigy, was sitting at a table with an F-Rank janitor.
It was like seeing a majestic eagle decide to have a conversation with a pigeon. A few students discreetly pulled out their data pads, no doubt to post about this bizarre event on The Node.
Alex sighed internally. So much for staying invisible. He gave her a polite, slightly confused smile. "Table's still a bit sticky, miss," he said, holding up his rag as proof. "You might want to...."
"It's fine," she cut him off, her voice sharp. She wasn't looking at him, but at the noisy crowd, her brow furrowed in annoyance. "I need a quiet place to think, and for some reason, people seem to be avoiding you."
Alex almost laughed. It was true. A two-foot bubble of empty space had formed around their table as students steered clear, not wanting to get caught in whatever strange event was unfolding. "One of the perks of the job, I guess," he said cheerfully, going back to scrubbing the ketchup stain.
They sat in an awkward silence for a full minute. Alex scrubbed. Yuna stared into the distance, her jaw tight. He knew she hadn't sat here by accident.
She was a creature of purpose. She wanted something. He decided to wait her out. He was a master of patience. He had once spent three hours waiting for a self-polishing floor to finish its cycle just to see if it would miss a spot. It did.
Finally, Yuna spoke, her eyes still fixed on the crowd. "This duel," she said, her voice low. "This ridiculous spectacle between Kaelen Thorne and... Zero." She said the name 'Zero' as if it tasted like sour milk.
"Oh yeah, the big fight," Alex said, feigning mild interest. "Heard about that. The guy with the spear versus the guy with the pipe, right? Sounds like an interesting matchup."
He was now an expert on this particular ketchup stain. He decided it needed a circular scrubbing motion, counter-clockwise.
"It's not interesting, it's idiotic," Yuna snapped. "Kaelen is a fool. He thinks he can solve every problem by hitting it with a bigger stick. He's going to get humiliated."
"You think so?" Alex asked, genuinely curious about her perspective. "He's a B-Rank. He's got a powerful artifact. The other guy just has... well, a pipe."
Yuna finally turned to look at him, her gaze sharp and analytical. It was the same look she'd had in the hallway, the look that said she was trying to solve a puzzle.
"Power isn't everything," she said, almost quoting him. "This Zero... he's different. He doesn't fight; he exploits weaknesses. He's efficient. Annoyingly so."
Alex nodded thoughtfully, as if this were a brand-new idea to him. "Huh. Like a fly. You know, buzzing around. Too fast to swat."
Yuna stared at him. "A fly?"
"Yeah," Alex said, warming to his own ridiculous analogy. "You can be the strongest person in the world, but trying to swat a fly is frustrating.
You swing with all your might, and it just zips out of the way. You get tired, you break things, and the fly is still just buzzing, waiting for you to make a mistake."
A flicker of understanding crossed Yuna's face. "So how do you beat the fly?" she asked, her voice intense.
She was leaning forward now, her previous annoyance replaced by a laser-like focus. She wasn't just making conversation. She was asking for a blueprint.
Alex had to physically stop himself from smiling. This was perfect. The great Yuna Kwon, prodigy of her generation, was asking the F-Rank janitor for a strategy to defeat his own secret identity. The irony was so delicious he could practically taste it.
He put down his rag and leaned against the table, adopting the air of a simple man sharing his homespun wisdom.
"Well, miss, I'm no Striker, but if I had to catch a fly... First, I wouldn't chase it all over the room. That's what the fly wants. You just get tired and knock over lamps."
"So, don't follow his movements," Yuna murmured, her eyes distant as she processed the information.
"Exactly," Alex continued, now thoroughly enjoying himself. "Instead, I'd close the door and the windows. Make the room smaller. Give it less space to buzz around in."
"Control the battlefield," Yuna translated, her fingers tapping on the table. "Limit his mobility."
"Yep. And then," Alex said, leaning in as if sharing a grand secret, "I wouldn't try to swat it. I'd get one of those bug zappers.
You know, the kind that makes the whole area around it dangerous? The fly doesn't have to hit the zapper directly. It just has to get close. You don't aim for the fly; you make the air dangerous for the fly."
Yuna's eyes widened. "Area-of-effect attacks," she whispered, her mind clearly visualizing a blizzard of ice shards filling an entire arena. "Don't aim for him specifically. Aim everywhere."
"That's the ticket," Alex said with a final, confident nod. "You make the battlefield small, you make the air itself his enemy, and then you just wait.
Eventually, the fly has to land. Or it makes a mistake and zips into the zapper. You just have to be patient." He picked up his rag and gave the now-defeated ketchup stain one last, triumphant wipe.
"That's how I'd do it, anyway. But what do I know? I just clean stuff."
He had, in the space of a minute, outlined a perfect, comprehensive strategy to counter Zero's current abilities. He had effectively just taught Yuna Kwon how to beat him.
Yuna was silent for a long time, staring at the tabletop where the ketchup stain used to be. The complex puzzle of Zero was suddenly clear.
She saw his weaknesses, his limitations. She saw a path to victory, a path paved with logic and strategy, not just brute force. The plan was so elegant, so effective, it was almost beautiful.
And she had gotten it from a janitor who compared super-powered Strikers to houseflies.
She finally looked up at Alex, her expression unreadable. The suspicion in her eyes was still there, but now it was mixed with a new, grudging respect. "That's... a very insightful way of looking at it," she said slowly. "For a janitor."
"I see a lot of things from down here," Alex replied with a harmless smile. He slung his rag over his shoulder. "Well, my work here is done. Good luck with your... thinking."
He picked up his spray bottle and walked away, disappearing into the noisy cafeteria crowd.
Yuna sat alone at the clean table, her mind racing. She now had a perfect battle plan. She had no intention of sharing it with an idiot like Kaelen Thorne.
This was her secret weapon, a key to be saved for when she inevitably faced Zero herself.
She still didn't know who Alex Vance was, or what his secret was. But one thing was becoming terrifyingly clear.
The most dangerous mind in Aegis Academy didn't belong to an S-Rank Striker or a brilliant professor. It belonged to the quiet F-Rank who cleaned the floors.
And for reasons she couldn't possibly understand, he had just decided to help her.