They made their way to the training room, neither of them felt stressed but there was still a bit of apprehension, they were both going to use their power on a living being for the first time—and since they were friends they will not be able to go all out unless they want to kill each other.
They crossed the reinforced door and immediately Fin noticed that the molten mannequins was not there anymore.
"Someone must have cleaned here" he whispered
"What was that now?" Deryn asked
"Nothing don't worry."
"Stressed already I see." Deryn grinned taking Fin's elusiveness as a sign that pressure was getting to him.
He did not answer instead he posed another question
"How are we going to do this, I don't want to kill you so we should put on some rules."
"Any ideas?" Deryn responded
This time it was Ephy who answered
"I know how, Fin take off your shirt." Ephy said with a very serious tone
"What why!" Fin wrapped both of his arms around his torso, securing his shirt on himself
"Just do it will you, don't make me force you to take it off. And it's my shirt anyway, so just do as I say."
Fin reluctantly obliged and took of his shirt and gave it to Ephy
"You look good there is nothing to worry about." Deryn teased him
Fin's face turned beat red but not for long because Ephy ripped his shirt in half without warning. Fin did not have any time to protested because Ephy had already started to talk.
"So you will each have a piece of the shirt tied too one of your thighs and in order to win you have to grab the one tied to you opponent. Simple enough, any objection ?"
"No." they both responded at the same time
Then Ephy proceeded to gently hand out Deryn's piece while he nonchalantly tossed Fin's.
Fin tied the strip of shirt around his thigh, making sure it was tight enough not to fall but loose enough that it wouldn't cut off his blood flow. Across from him, Deryn was adjusting hers with military precision. She caught him looking and raised an eyebrow.
"Ready to lose?" she said with a smirk.
"We'll see about that."
They took their positions. Ephy stood between them, arms crossed, eyes serious now—like he was suddenly the captain of a sports team instead of the clown who'd just shredded a shirt for no reason.
"Begin!" Ephy shouted
They didn't move at first or at least it didn't look like they did. Just circled each other slowly, testing the air, reading body language. Fin kept his knees bent, shoulders loose. Deryn was lighter on her feet, like she'd already calculated five ways to take him down and was just picking which one to try first.
Then it looked like Deryn summoned a sort of staff and suddenly dashed forward. She closed the distance in a mere second and Fin didn't move she then thrusted her staff towards Fin's stomach and Fin barely moved—not enough for him to dodge but for some reason but the attack went right threw him with no resistance what so ever.
"What" she thought to herself
She continued to relentlessly attack him but none of them connected then suddenly Fin threw his first attack, he send a powerful kick in her direction—Deryn effortlessly dodged it, she saw it's trajectory coming from a mile away, but it somehow landed right in her stomach sending her flying across the room.
"Having trouble landing?" Fin taunted her
When Fin said that Deryn realised that the sound of his voice was not exactly tied to his body, it was about ten centimetres to the left of it.
"Yeah but I should be good now."
She spat on the floor and rushed back at him. She once again swung her staff at him but a little bit to the left, and this time she felt it—the sensation of soft flesh under her heavy staff.
Fin was the one who was sent flying this time, he tumbled a few times on the metal floor and only stopped when hitting the wall.
"How?" he asked
"I'll tell you later." Deryn grinned
Fin tried to get up but he couldn't, he was not injured enough to be incapacitated but each time he tried to get up it was as if his body tried too lower itself.
"Having trouble standing?" Deryn said sarcastically
Fin didn't answer not because he didn't want to but because his body was doing the opposite of what he wanted.
"Her staff must have done something to me." He thought to himself
Deryn proceeded to dash forward in order to grab Fin's piece of shirt, but just a second before her hand could reach it something that looked like a steel cable suddenly shot out of an insignificant corner of the room and tied itself around her ankles making her crash on the ground at incredible speed.
Then a spider revealed herself jumped towards her, grabbed her piece of shirt and delivered it to Fin.
"Never said it was a one versus one. Thanks spidy." Fin laughed
"That is not fair, not fair at all! How does your power even make sense it's stupid!" She continued throwing a tantrum for approximately five minutes until Ephy came back in the middle of the room to announce the winner.
He then took Fin's hand, he was still siting on the ground trying to get up.
"Winner Fin." Ephy said embracing fully his role as an arbiter
Fin leaned back against the wall, still catching his breath. Spidy had disappeared the second she handed him the strip of cloth, melting back into the shadows like she'd never been there. But the ache in his ribs—and the expression on Deryn's face—told him this fight was very, very real.
Ephy extended a hand to help him up. "You alright, champion?"
"Just peachy," Fin muttered, grabbing Ephy's arm and hauling himself to his feet. "Can't feel my spine, but I've got a piece of shirt to show for it."
Deryn groaned dramatically, still flat on her back. "I got outsmarted by a spider. A spider!"
"It's your own fault," Ephy said, grinning. "You assumed Fin played fair."
"I was fighting with honor!" she argued, sitting up and throwing her hands in the air. "He brought an assassin."
"She's not an assassin," Fin said. "She's just... helpful."
"You named her Spidy," Ephy reminded him, deadpan. "She's not exactly subtle."
Deryn stood up and dusted herself off, eyeing Fin with playful menace. "Alright, you won. But next time, it's just you and me. No shadow monsters. No magic tricks."
"Sure," Fin said with a wink. "Next time."
They left the training room still ribbing each other, the tension from before long gone. As they stepped out into the hallway, the hum of the academy returned. Life, even with everything looming ahead, carried on.
For now.