Of Ancient Kings

Chapter 7

The gym was cold and echoes formed easily off the tall flat walls and glass roof. The earthworks around the gargantuan room let any heat in the room seep out faster than it could be produced from the eighteen shivering teens standing in the middle of the hall. One of them conjured a small flame to heat the air a little.

"Alright, today we are going to be doing some sparring. Each of you will pair up with someone of the same class as we don't want somebody who is in 'A' class destroying a 'D' or 'C' class student, huh Alice and Oliver, you won't be doing that again will you?" Grigorovich said as he addressed the class. He made it a point to stare directly at the shorter girl and the boy who wore his hoodie under his blazer, he couldn't wear it under a skin tight jumpsuit Robin guessed however that, he would if he could.

"Robin, as there is no one else who is S class in this entire school. I will have to pair up with you" The teacher continued. Robin caught a flash of what appeared to be sly eagerness slip across Grigorovich's face. The class drifted into pairs. Several of the fights, that had started, seemed very tame and rather anaemic compared to the one Robin had with Caleb not 3 hours before, not to mention the others going in the room. They seemed to be mainly consisting of weak blasts of an element and no advanced powers like cryokinesis, metallokinesis or plasmakinesis. Robin guessed these were the D's and C's. On the other hand, Alice and Oliver were engaged in what appeared to be a battle for the ages, with different blasts coming from both of them as they flew past each other at high speeds.

"Impressive huh?" Grigororvich asked rhetorically as he finished speaking to a student who needed to go to the toilet. "Alice and Oliver where the two most powerful students in the class until you came along, so I'm expecting good things from you," Grigorovich said in the most teacher like manner he could muster. "Shall we get started?" He asked as he squared off to Robin.

"Sure." Robin Snapped his fingers and the air beneath one of his arms superheated and jetted forwards in a two and a half metre wide blast of deep purple plasma that left a very strong smell of ozone in its wake. Grigorovich sighed and held out his hand. The blast stopped mere inches away from his palm and dissipated quickly.

Robin didn't give his opponent anytime, he stamped his foot sending a hunk of concrete flying towards Grigorovich from in front of Robin. The teacher grabbed the chunk with his mind, spun, and sent the boulder of material soaring back at Robin. He swung a right hook into the boulder and it shattered into a billowing cloud of dust. He followed this up with a left hook that sent a pulse of massively compressed air towards his teacher. Grigorovich let the blast hit him but it seemed to do not much more than ruffle his immaculate black hair and send his tie wild.

"That's a bit pathetic," Grigorovich taunted, "you're S class. Don't limit yourself."

With that, he flicked his wrist and the ground around Robin dropped, lava spewed around him. Robin responded by sending out blasts of icy air to cool the liquid rock then he screamed and swung both arms forwards, sending a gargantuan blast of fire and ice racing towards his target.

The two of them barely notice that the rest of the students had stopped their sparring matches and gathered to watch the two 'demigods' fight with a speed and grace that could only be described as truly terrifying. Even the newbie, who had only metarised five hours ago, was commanding forces so powerful that they could easily level a city if he wanted to. If that was what Robin could do, none of the students wanted to think about their teacher's power. Robin swung down with his arms, sending a large blast of pure plasma down on the teacher, boiling the concrete around him. Grigorovich cracked a slight smile when he saw the bubbling stone.

"Well done. I think that's enough for today." The teacher said as he brushed off the dust from his clothes, he gave up on this futile endeavour, then his clothes inflated with air, pushing all of the dust out of the weave.

"Go and get changed into your uniforms. Tomorrow we are going to do some asymmetric battles: S; A's and two B's versus the rest of the class." He said as the students filtered into the changing room.

Robin unstrapped his helmet and protective pads, he peeled off his skin-tight jumpsuit down to the waste and the brought it down slowly and carefully to ensure his boxer shorts didn't go down with it. Eventually, he got it off his feet after much hopping on one leg and acrobatics. Caleb was already dressed when Robin pulled up his trousers. He quickly put on his shirt, nearly missing a button, and tie, then he slung his blazer over his shoulder. He returned the jumpsuit and protective gear to the lockers and grabbed his bag.

"C'mon, let's go," Caleb said as he was waiting at the door with his shirt untucked and tie undone.

"Coming," Robin said as he rushed to the door as Caleb started to leave.

The two boys walked out the front of the school, following the large crowd. Robin absent-mindedly started moving towards the buses.

"Where are you going?" Caleb asked.

"Oh yeah.... I can fly." Robin said stupidly as his brain remembered that he was now a godlike metahuman. It obviously hadn't quite sunk in yet. Caleb looked up and the air folded around him, lifting him up above the crowd. Robin brought the air around him and slowly pushed himself up until he was about ten feet up, then he hovered there for a few seconds.

"I'll show you the way to your house," Caleb said as he began to fly in a direction Robin vaguely recognised as the direction for his house.

"Wait," Robin said as he maneuvered around. "I have less experience than you, it's hard to come up with all of the angles and that I need to push in."

"Don't think, you just have to feel it. You flew amazingly earlier. You just need to do whatever S class malarkey you did then, now." Caleb said as he laid on his back in the air, gently floating along beside Robin.

"Ok?" Robin said, unsure about what he had to do. He thought for a second and closed his eyes. His fingers felt the air flowing between them, viscous and thick like it could be held and controlled. His palms snapped at the air and shot him forwards at speed. He panicked and thought that he wanted to stop. The air around him switched directions upon the command and slowed him down about thirty metres away from where he started. Caleb shot off after him and caught up with him quickly.

"No need to push yourself, we can take it slow," Caleb said as the two boys left the school and flew over the roads towards Robin's house at a steady pace.

Caleb landed with Robin outside his front gate.

"See you tomorrow," Caleb said. The two boys hugged goodbye.

"See ya'," Robin said as he unlatched his gate and walked up the garden path. He realised as he stepped onto the worn concrete step in front of his door and looked into the frosted glass door that his eyes were a glowing red with none of his original blue left. He pulled out his key and unlocked the door.

There were sounds coming from the kitchen.

"Mum, I'm home!" Robin shouted.

"How was your day?" His mum asked from the kitchen, there was the sound of splashing and a tap running so Robin guessed that she was washing up by hand.

"Amazing. I have something to show you. Also did the dishwasher breakdown again?" He placed his bag down in the hall and quickly pulled out his new phone to check if his eyes were still luminescent.

They were glowing the colour of pomegranate seeds. It seems as though they were glowing brighter now he was out of the winter sun. He held his hand in front of his face and a faint red light shone onto it.

"Yeah, the repair man's coming round tomorrow to fix it. Bloody cheap thing, at least it has a warranty." Robin's mum said and he could hear the snap of marigold gloves being pulled of moist hands.

"What did you want to... oh my god!" She said as she came around the corner into the corridor and saw her son standing there in an all-black uniform, with glowing scarlet red eyes and tar black nails. Robin snapped his fingers and summoned a small flame.

"I've metarised." He said with mischievous glee.