Villains in Training

Chapter Nineteen: The Malent Talent Competition (Boss Battle)

Bella learned some arguably important lessons during her fight with the headmaster.

The first thing she learned was that if she suspended the movement of the atoms within something, she would change it's structure in a very specific way. She used her replacement power on the vines around her so that they wouldn't move, something she barely had to focus on for it to happen. Her control truly did translate to the new power.

She'd originally meant only to stop the growth, but found herself stopping the movement of every atom within the plant. Sure, it had the same result since a dead plant can't grow, but it wasn't her true intention.

It didn't die immediately, thankfully. It stayed alive for most of the battle, in fact. Bella was able to grasp onto the parts of the vines that didn't hold thorns and use them to climb over the wall the headmaster had formed around her.

Once Bella jumped down, she counted the seconds until the headmaster caught her again. Based on the initial catch, she estimated 15 seconds during which the headmaster would continue to torture her with elevating heat, but likely making sure her internal temperature didn't get so high that she might die.

Though, there was always the chance that the headmaster wouldn't care if Bella had brain damage or some other type of serious problem as long as death wasn't the end result, so Bella wasn't going to go ahead and let the torture continue for long.

15...

Bella focused her energy on using her power against the headmaster. Movement wasn't a necessity for her, clearly, but she was using three different powers at once: Mitch's ability to grow and control vines carrying poisonous thorns, someone's fire-related ability, and Bella's own telekinesis. It had taken her a few moments to realize, but her telekinesis alone wouldn't have been able to do damage of this sort. The telekinesis, Bella realized, wasn't even directly being used against her. It was being used to protect the headmaster.

It seemed the headmaster thought Bella might attempt something Bella didn't even know was possible, something Bella's imagination couldn't even fathom.

14...

The telekinetic field had been taken down by Bella's use of her power. They'd counteracted each other and so neither party could do much in the way of attacking each other that way. Unfortunately, the headmaster had the upper hand with the use of two other people's powers.

13...

Bella began to feel sick, as if she might throw up right where she stood. The room was beginning to spin and there was just about nothing she could do about it. Only one power remained in the headmaster's arsenal and she was using it to it's fullest power.

12...

And then she backed off a bit.

Just as Bella thought, the headmaster liked to play with her prey. It would be her downfall, her fatal flaw, so to speak. Bella didn't like to play, she liked to win. She liked to protect those important to her, she liked to get revenge, and she liked to win. She really like to win.

11...

Just as Bella felt another onslaught of the headmaster's "fun" with heat, Bella used her power on the ground beneath the headmaster. Stilling matter wasn't the only thing she could do with this power. That was something she'd learned while fighting Kaiya. It was the opposite of telekinesis in many ways, but it wasn't the exact opposite. There were similarities.