Seraphina was the strongest. That's all there was to it. Her ability made her so powerful in Wellston no one reached her toes in combat. It was expected from someone with the ability to stop, accelerate and revert time. Once upon a time, everyone kept their heads down, with some exceptions no one had the – frankly awful – idea of throwing glares or insults her way… with a few exceptions. The first was Arlo, because he felt slighted, and was too arrogant for his own good. The second was John who was her friend, and a complete anomaly, a cripple who stood up to bullies. The third and fourth were the new transfer students.
She had no idea where the hate came from. They appeared out of nowhere and began treating her like the devil… Azazel in particular. Anytime they had a project together, he would act like he had to get full scores on it or it would be the end of the world… in that sense, he was much like her before she met John.
"I am absolute. I always win, that's why." Is what he told her when she asked him.
Azazel was flippant, egotistical and arrogant. If Seraphina had to guess, she would say he was a narcissist.
Vritra glared at her, but always treated her with kindness. Not the double edged kind, the kind you would feel from others in this school. It was a dichotomous treatment where he was genuine about being nice, but being spiteful… if she had to guess, he was bipolar.
John had gone home for today, earlier than usual. She wasn't quite sure what was going on with him. Ever since he witnessed that fight between Howard, Clio and the two stooges, he's been acting differently.
"Was it that impressive?" She did a bit of martial arts before, but she couldn't quite grasp just how impressive what Azazel had done was… after all it all seemed inefficient to Seraphina. He should have just ended the battle immediately like what Vritra had done.
How did Seraphina feel towards both of them?
Vritra seemed like an alright guy. He protected the low-tiers, and helped out where he could. Despite his bipolar behaviour and his temperament, he wasn't all that bad.
Azazel on the other hand. Seraphina felt like he was too much of a perfectionist. She couldn't help but feel some resentment toward him. After all, a few days back he beat up Remi enough for her to confine herself in her room, and now she went to deal with family related things. Thanks to his little stunt, several rumours of a possible regicide began spreading. People thought he was going to start dethroning every member of the Royals. If that were the case, Azazel would have started with Blyke, or Elaine, the weakest members.
He was probably just angry at something and took it out on Remi, and Seraphina wasn't sure she could forgive him just yet for that. Remi had been kind enough to escort him to the infirmary after their fight too, at least the rumors said so.
Passing by the Royal lounge, Seraphina peeked inside. She wondered how the Royals were taking things. It had been only a few days, but Remi left without much notice. Inside the room, she saw Arlo being briefed by Blyke and Isen about something. She was close enough to hear what they talked about.
"The main issue is definitely Vritra. If you let his ability buff him too much he'll get too powerful and beat you, his own level increases the longer you let him get stronger. According to Azazel he can't keep it up for a long period of time." Isen grabbed a whiteboard and stuck several charts and bar-graphs. Seraphina stepped in and sat on the bean-bag. The two looked surprised she was there.
"Keep going. Don't mind her."
"Ahem," Isen put photos of Vritra and Azazel on the whiteboard and kept them up with magnets. "Azazel is the easier of the two to win ability-wise, and the hardest to win in pure hand to hand combat." He put several photos of Azazel punching and kicking other students, "He has definitely been trained in mixed martial arts, and has defeated mid-tiers without activating his ability."
"Anything else?" Arlo grabbed the pictures. Vritra's dragon form was on one and Azazel's smoke on the other.
"At one point, Vritra's ability allows him to breathe fire and he begins to regenerate his body. So ideally you defeat him as fast as possible." Isen then pointed at another picture with Azazel in it. Smoke covered half the picture, making it blurry. "The smoke slows you down and as far as we know, he can see inside it."
"Composite abilities. To think they were born from cripples."
"I'm more surprised they aren't related." Blyke commented. Seraphina shared the sentiment. She knit her eyebrows at that. They looked the same, and were transferred the same day. They weren't related? Well, if Isen said so, it meant he did his research, she felt like a DNA test was needed. The resemblance was uncanny.
"Why are you so determined to gather information on them?" Seraphina knew Arlo, and when he began digging information on others it spelled trouble. Was he putting them on a potential threat-list? Maybe he was taking the fight to them?
"They beat up a Royal, constantly bad mouth them, and are going against the system." Arlo put the photos of both of them down. "Despite being low-tiers they have managed to defeat Mid-Tiers, and in some instances even Elite-tiers by themselves. If we don't do something everyone will begin ignoring the way things work, and when that happens it'll be a massacre. Low-tiers will stand up to mid-tiers thinking they'll win, and get beat up, mid-tiers will do the same to Elite tiers, and it will keep going. Eventually everyone will be beaten, and in the infirmary the cycle will continue. They are dangerous."
"Do you think you can make them follow your orders if they get beaten up by some mid-tier?" Seraphina raised an eyebrow.
"Forget it. I've been shadowing Vritra, if you beat him up he'll just get more angry." Blyke crossed his arms and looked at the charts, "besides, if you throw a mid-tier with an ability that isn't attack-oriented at him he'll just shrug-off the attacks and get stronger."
"Azazel's the same, he just seems too arrogant." Isen was wrong. Seraphina had a feeling he was. If she was right about Azazel, and he was really like she was in the past, then he was one defeat away from a spiral.
"You've been sending people after them right?" Seraphina heard they had been getting attacked more often recently, and that all of them were sent by Arlo, promising them he'd owe them one if they defeated them. "Did you expect them to win?"
"No." Arlo answered truthfully, "If they did, I would be glad, but we're talking about two people who somehow defeated a Royal and Elites, I wanted to make sure how. Now we know. Azazel's ability allows him to have a complete advantage, and Vritra stalls the enemy until he is stronger than them… by blinding and slowing Vritra, Azazel can create a situation of absolute threat which ramps up Vritra's ability exponentially. If they're going down, it's individually."
"Alright, good luck with that." Maybe if it had been someone else, Seraphina might have felt more sorry… she just couldn't help but dislike both of them. Vritra through association mostly.
Seraphina got up and walked to the entrance. She was curious, curious about today, and of Arlo's plan. She turned around and asked.
"Who did you send after them today?"