EQUINOX || The Catalysts Series, #3

XXII

He is leaning against one wall when Lena reaches the corner, lifting his gaze just as she takes notice of him, the timing perfect.

Fai has been waiting for her, as if he knew she'd be here right this moment.

"I have a set range of telepathy, and the moment you entered into my bubble, I knew where to intercept you," Fai explains, as if he can read the suspicion right off Lena's mind. Well, he can.

"I wasn't thinking about anything," she retorts, annoyed at this uncanny ability, disbelieving this is the case. "I just took random paths, and happen to end up here."

"There was only one possible path you could travel once you entered my zone."

Lena doesn't like the way he's speaking, and he can obviously tell even without her voicing it. So she asks instead, "So, what? Are you going to challenge me right here?"

Two virtual 'star's hover over Fai's head. He just needs the single one on top of her head to finish this thing.

He must be reading her mind, because he says, "You speak of the obvious."

"I did not speak. I thought it, and you had no decency to ask before entering my mind of your own record," Lena snaps back, irritated.

"Well, do you want to fight me for my insolence now?" Fai asks, quirking a brow in challenge.

And, admittedly, Lena does. If not for his arrogance from setting this entire thing up to the words coming from his mouth, then just because she is itching for a challenge—for a chance to prove herself. Besides, isn't this the point of the games, to compete for the 'star's?

Knowing her answer without Lena voicing it, Fai proposes, "Let's duel for it, then."

"You're on," Lena echoes simply, but her eyes are burning with determination.

Lena is surprised to see a red borders being drawn over one of Fai's 'star's, and the only one atop her head. It's like a wager the system helps outline, ensuring no further than one 'star' is put on the table. It's as if this whole simulation set up encourages the original, unofficial duels in Arcane Academy, using the fairest possible system to ensure only the best students win through their own strength and abilities fair and square.

Lena begins straight off the bat, throwing two daggers at him. She doesn't think about where it lands and throws it as sleek as she can manage, but still Fai sidesteps to a spot where the two daggers do not meet. It's expected; he's a telepath. But still, for him to predict the trajectories of her daggers and avoid getting hit in a single movement. The daggers were meant to hit different points.

Without thinking, she launches herself into motion. Lena throws her knives, then ducks for a kick, but all Fai does is dodge her attacks one after another. It's unclear how he's doing it—he surely can think what she is about to do next, but it's hard to avoid all of her attacks entirely if she's going about them randomly and rapidly. Lena concludes that he must have a mastery of this ability, and a well strategised, fast mind of his own to be able to execute his abilities so well.

Nothing conventional will work on him.

But then—

Lena stops thinking. Any thought will be purged from hers and transferred to his ever-working mind, and he will have the advantage forever.

It's not easy.

Every step involves some form of thinking on some level, and it's hard to set a mind into blankness and randomness unless one is hypnotised.

Fai has the audacity to smirk. "New girl, have you finally got the gist of it? My abilities—"

Lena teleports herself. She'd palmed a glass shard all this time and, in the series of random attacks she threw at Fai, had slipped one at the bottom of his feet. As usual, she drifts through what she knows now as time and space and all the words in between, her head spins through the possibilities of them all, spiralling into the unknown. They are hers to control, for her to command. Now that she understands the fundamental element of her powers, navigating these realms become much simpler than just pure vertigo and headaches. The wonders and mysteries of all these are ignored; for now, Lena has laser focus on that particular spot in the same timeline she wants to reach.