The sky was covered by clouds that swallowed the moon.
Darius stood on one of the mountains on the edge of the island, his jaw clenched tight, eyes narrowed to slits, a vein pulsing at his temple. He looked at the horizon before disappearing.
Far away from the island of the academy, Darius appeared slightly above the water, but before he fell into it, the water froze and he landed on the ice.
"What's with the weird meeting spots? Couldn't it be normal in your office?"
"You look more annoyed than usual," Principal Elvira Stahl remarked.
Darius crossed his arms. "Take a sudden summons from the government in the first week of training and an insufferable student who thinks he's untouchable. You'd be annoyed too."
Elvira sighed, letting herself fall back onto the ice. "It's as if they want us to fail. Between the endless paperwork and the constant travel for the Ministry, I haven't even had a moment to give the winners their rewards."
"If this meeting is another waste of my time," Darius said, purple lightning flickering around his hands, "I swear, if it's useless, he will walk out with one less limb."
"He'll phrase it so you can't argue," Elvira replied. "It's his nature."
A heavy silence fell over the ice for a moment.
"They're taking their time," Darius muttered, glancing back toward the island.
She stood up, the ice beneath her feet groaning. "The island's new barrier is rated for Catastrophe-class impacts. Care to see if that's a lie?"
The lightning around Darius's hands increased. "The old way? No holding back?"
"Don't." Elvira smiled, a blade of ice crystallizing in her hand. "I want to actually feel it."
"You said it." Darius smiled, then teleported away.
Elvira didn't wait for long before she saw and heard it. The clouds moving, getting darker, lightning appearing everywhere, and the sound of thunder that would make anyone that close deaf.
Darius was in the middle of the clouds, aiming exactly at Elvira's head, his eyes looking more like that of a hunting hawk. Lightning was both coming out of his body and from the clouds around him. It was a rain of lightning.
More water around Elvira froze, creating a perfect circle where she stood in the middle.
The random lightning came together and made the shape of a dragon. Not the small one Darius used in his students' tests. The new one, the real one, was much bigger and more dangerous.
As the dragon was forming, more and more of its body cracked through the clouds, and at the end, the head of the dragon came out of the clouds, staring right at Elvira. A view that would have frightened most made Elvira more excited. Water came from holes in the circle of ice and rotated around her blade.
On the island, inside the academy, everyone from Class A was on the roof. Roy just saw Anton floating at the border of the island.
"These two really need to calm down. They're just giving me more work like this," Anton said, smiling.
Darius shot the arrow. The dragon dived right at Elvira.
For a second, Elvira's form changed. Her skin became pale, and her clothes changed into a full mix between a dress and armor. She took the arrow directly, blocking it with the ice sword. The ice circle completely broke from the impact, but at the same moment, the water under it froze to the ocean ground, all to just stand there.
Making all water around her blade move with enough pressure to cut diamond, the water pushed right at the tip of the arrow, turning it into shreds.
From the heat and pressure made from the lightning dragon and the break of the arrow that had all that power in it, the resulting explosion from them all turned the night into a terrifying artificial day for a second before going back to night. And now the shockwave of the explosion and a tsunami were coming toward the island.
"Activate, B12A," Anton said as the barrier started activating. "I hope you're ready for the bill that will come with this."
Anton began creating a circle with his arm motion.
The moment the shockwave hit the barrier, it started to crack, and the hit from the water next broke it completely.
At the same moment the barrier broke, Anton completed his circular motion, creating a shield from air and wind that protected the island.
Everyone in Class A stared in awe. They all already guessed that the lightning dragon was from Darius, but seeing how the real one looked, they were in shock. They thought they already saw it, that they really made him at least use most of his power, but they were mistaken and reminded that they were still just students.
Adding to that, seeing Anton, who most of them thought was just a strong engineer or a scientist, created that air shield that covered half the island. A shield made of wind moving in what looked like completely random ways and attacking each other. But they forgot that he also was a Rank 1A hero.
Roy looked at what just happened, and a thought came to him that made a smile on his face. 'They might be strong enough to actually—' but it was cut short with another one. He grabbed his heart, and his face returned to normal. 'No, they are strong, but they are still nothing compared to him.'
Deep inside Roy's mind, on the moon where the black ghost lived, the ghost stood, looking at the gate below. He saw a string of golden energy coming out, but it was cut down and disappeared.
"That's bad. Really bad."
After the attack was blocked and the water returned to normal, Anton flew fast toward Darius and Elvira.
Darius just appeared next to Elvira, stretching his shoulder. "It has been long since I did this."
Elvira cracked her neck. "I rarely get the chance to cut loose, but what if it was me attacking? Could you take it?"
Before Darius could answer, another one did. "For the sake of the island's existence, don't answer that," Anton said, landing down on the ice. "You two better have an explanation for this to give the students."
"Rebuilding the barrier would need a full year of our budget, not calculating how much we will need to pay the employees more for their extra work today to calm the students down," another voice came from behind Elvira. It was none other than Mila Torrence.
Mila adjusted her glasses. "Until the costs are covered, neither of you—Principal included—will be seeing a paycheck for the next three months."
"What? That's not fair. If you two came early, we would already be having the meeting, so it would be fair to cut it between the four of us," Elvira said, pointing to Anton and Mila while talking.
Darius pinched the bridge of his nose. "Can this wait? I want to get this meeting over with."
Back on the roof, the two groups were on one roof now.
"What are you seeing?" Marie asked Ren, who was using his super senses to make his sight better to see what was happening.
"I see our teacher Darius, the principal, Anton, and a woman that I don't know."
"Couldn't you make a telescope so we also can see?" Elise asked.
"If you want that, I need a rounded glass or something with metal in it, neither of which is here, and I am not going to get them. If you want one so bad, go get one."
"Are you sure they don't feel you spying on them?" Valeria joined in.
"I don't know, but…"
The voices were slowly fading away for Roy, and another voice appeared.
"There's something they did that made him move. We should go and see," the voice of the black ghost started, trying to convince him.
'N-no. I told Darius that I won't eavesdrop again.'
"He didn't see us the first time. He won't see us the next time."
'Even if he didn't, you think a Rank 0 won't?'
Omar noticed something wrong with Roy. "Hey, you okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, don't worry."
"You must know what made his power react. You need more information." The next moment, all outside noise was silent, and only the black ghost's voice was heard by Roy.
"Don't tell me you forgot what will happen if he wakes up."
Omar noticed Roy's eyes turning black and the shadows moving. "Shit, shit. I don't know what you're doing, but don't do it."
"What is happening?" Marcus's question was followed by everyone looking at Roy.
The shadows made a circle under Roy, and he fell into it.
"You think they don't know we can tell they're spying on us?" Anton asked.
"I don't care." The ice under Darius broke. "But they're going to regret this. Spying on their instructors isn't a habit I intend to tolerate."
"Don't be too harsh on them. It isn't like they really are spying. What can they hear from that far away?" Elvira smiled, trying to calm Darius down.
"Maybe there is a rat among them that has a way to listen?" Mila suggested casually.
"A rat." Elvira tried to laugh it off. "There isn't a rat inside the academy, Mila. I would kno—" But then she stopped laughing.
The atmosphere began to change. It became colder.
"What is it, Elvira? Something happ—" Darius then felt it. Something, no, someone in the shadows. "That idiot. Move!"
Elvira created a massive shard of ice in a second and threw it at the edge of her ice circle. Roy dodged it in the last second, moving and teleporting through the shadows.
"There is a fucking rat," Elvira said while she began to create another ice block.
Roy returned to the roof, breathing heavily. "What... what did I do?"
"Elvira, stop. You will destroy the island while trying to catch him," Darius tried to reason with her, even though he knew it was late.
Only one sentence came from her.
"I don't care."