Entrance examination (part 2)

"Guys I'll handle this" Rani said, as she sprung to her feet and jumped in front of the boys. She immediately created a toxic mist just as she had been doing in her training and directed it out towards the 4 wolf like creatures sprinting at them.

"This is the easiest way to take care of them, I'll just put them to slee-"

She didn't get to finish her sentence before one of the wolves leapt through the mist and went straight for her. She was shocked, so her reactions were delayed.

As it was about to pounce on her, Rando's steel covered fist smashed into the head of the creature, causing wires and various pieces of metal to fall about followed by the sound of something mechanical powering down.

"Robots!" Rando exclaimed.

Yashiro increased the size of both his arms, "That explains why poison didn't work. Rani, you okay?"As he asked this, one of the wolves attempted to pounce on him. He grabbed it by the neck and flung it at another wolf who was about to attack Rando. The collision destroyed both of the robots, mechanical parts flying everywhere.

Rani who had fallen to the floor laughed and dusted herself before responding.

"Yeah, I'm good. I just wasn't expecting them to walk right through."

There were now more snarls coming from the forest just as Rando got rid of the last wolf.

The trio stood as they watched the forest get filled with red glaring eyes and menacing growls.

"guys, they aren't biological creatures, my powers won't work." Rani said as she took a few steps back.

Rando looked around, crouched and smashed one of the robots he had already killed, ripped one of its legs out and handed it to Rani.

"Here you go, use this"

"thank you"

A few more students had just come out of the river and quickly realised what was happening and got ready. One of them said in a frightened voice, "there's gotta be like 20 of them in there. What are we going to do?"

The wolves charged forward after he said that but as the students were about to all charge at the wolves, someone stepped out in front of everyone.

Yashiro thought to himself [What is she going to do by herself?]

She crouched, touched the ground with one hand and took a deep breath, waited for the wolves to get close enough and she released a huge wall of ice that enveloped all the wolves there in less than a second.

Everyone froze in amazement, shocked to their cores.

[she got rid of those things in one go. That's some crazy power] everyone who saw what had just happened were filled with similar thoughts. They couldn't believe what they just witnessed.

She got back up and immediately started jogging deeper into the forest.

A few seconds later, some of the other students followed.

Yashiro turned to his friends and restored his arms back to its normal size.

"Guys, game faces on. Let's get a bit serious. We're falling behind"

Rando and Rani understood exactly why Yashiro's tone had changed. The power display they just saw reminded them that they were competing with the "best of the best" and they had to give it their all.

After he said this, they nodded at each other and immediately, started running at the pace their usually ran at when they were exercising.

They overtook a lot of students within a few minutes and were making great time. They had run 5km and as it stood, they were going to finish with a few minutes to spare. It was the usual pattern, Rani was in front, with Rando a few metres behind and Yashiro just behind him.

As they ran, they destroyed every robot that tried to attack them, Rani swinging the leg of one of the wolves like a baseball bat, Rando and Yashiro smashing them with their fists. They tried not to slow down too much as they did this. They had just overtaken the girl who was now referred to as "ice girl" when they were brought to an abrupt stop.

In front of them where a bunch of what looked like brown bears sleeping in a huddle in front of the only path they could take to go further into the forest.

Yashiro looked around, and thought to himself [a big ice blast won't work this time. I'm sure she knows if she were to do that again, our path will be blocked. I'm just going to assume it'll be bad news if they were to wake up. ]

He looked again. [We can't go over them either, too many trees in the way. This is ridiculous. There are only 4 of us here at the moment, and 3 of them. what can we do?]

"if you guys see an opening, make a run for it. It'll take too long to fight these things" Rando said, in a hushed tone.

Afterwards, they all suddenly looked back at the sound of a twig snapping. They didn't have to turn back around to know that the bears were awake.

Rando jumped backwards just in time as one of the bears swiped at him.

In a sheepish voice, Shihata said "my bad guys, didn't mean to wake them up "

"Shihata?" Yashiro and Rando said, with surprise written across their face.

"Hi guys" she said, with a bright smile on her face.

Yashiro was about to ask her a follow up question when a bear leapt at him.

He dashed quickly to the side, causing the bear to miss him completely. However, he lost his balance and fell to the floor. The bear pounced again but before it got to him, it was covered in Ice and completely frozen.

"You're welcome"

He looked up to see an outstretched hand. He grabbed it and got back up to his feet.

"The name's Minako by the way", the "ice girl" said.

Meanwhile, Rani, Rando and Shihata struggled with the other two bears. Rando was trying to protect the two of them because their powers were not as useful for fighting robots.

After dodging another bear swipe, he looked up and saw that the bears were not as close to the entrance of the path anymore, so he picked Rani up and threw her in a safe manner, she went over the second bear and into the path. He shouted for her to go and without hesitation, she started running.

He looked at Shihata, indicating that she was next. Just then, as Yashiro and Minako were about to come and offer help, they heard a crumbling sound behind them.

They turned around, and to their surprise, the bear was breaking out of the ice.

Yashiro said to himself "you've got to be kidding me"

Rando turned around briefly to see what was going on and then immediately ran at Shihata. As he grabbed her, her eyes glowed, a deep purple colour.

Rando grabbed her and threw her over the bears just as he did with Rani. A second after he threw her, a bear swiped at him, but he couldn't evade in time. The bear hit him hard and he dropped to the floor, blood trickling from his head.

Shihata's eyes stopped glowing and she gasped. Immediately after, Rando threw her.

"DUCK!" she yelled, as soon as she left his hands.

Rando did as he was told and the claws of the bear went over his head. He quickly shuffled to the side and sprinted for the path, dashing past the second bear as he did so.

"Minako, Climb on my back" Yashiro said

"excuse me?"

"Just do it, we can't win against these things"

She got on his back and wrapped her arms around his chest. She was shorter and lighter than he was so having her on his back wasn't a problem for him. The attentions of the two bears were now on him and behind him, the last bear was about to break free.

Yashiro squatted a little, and increased the sizes of the muscles in his thighs and calves. Then shot himself forwards, leaving a trail of dust, debris and a gust of wind behind him. He dashed past the two bears in front of him, Rando and Shihata, then ended up a few metres behind Rani, in one swift move.

Minako let go of his chest, dropped from his back, and laughed. "My Knight in shining armour"

"Never got round to thanking you for saving me back there, but we're even now" Yashiro responded, then noticed Rani in front of him.

"good to see you're in one piece" she said.

"Yeah, you too." He said, with a smile on his face. He turned around, "um- Rani, meet Minako, Minako, Rani"

They waved at each other, as Shihata and Rando caught up to them.

Yashiro introduced Minako to Rando and Shihata. The group walked for a few minutes, trying to catch their breath and regain some stamina.

They discussed and joked about how vicious the bears were and talked about what would've or could've happened if they decided to fight the bears. Rando brought up Shihata telling him to duck and thanked her. She then explained to him that when he touched her, her powers activated and that's how she was able to tell him to duck at precisely the right moment.

After a few more minutes, Yashiro looked at his watch and saw that the timer he set at the start of the second test only had 1 hour left on it.

Then looked at the pad, which showed that they still had more than 6km to go.

"guys, we need to go. We only have one hour left "

He said to the group, as he started running again.

The last part of the run was smooth, there weren't any more robots so they only had to focus on running. They all finished with roughly 10 minutes left. They were one of the first few students to get there and were congratulated on making it to the final part of the entrance examination. Rani, Yashiro and Rando all felt a familiar sensation, but didn't know exactly what it was.

There were several hut like structures in front of them, with each one serving a different purpose. There were also benches outside where they could rest. They sat there and drank beverages they got from one of the huts.

Closer to the cut off time, a lot more students started pouring in, most of them completely flustered. After the 3 hours had been completed, two men stood just outside the entrance of the camp redirecting students who didn't finish on time to a different location so they could be taken home.

30 minutes after the last person finished, Hirowa came out from one of the huts to address the students. However, as he was about to speak he noticed commotion coming from the medics hut.

He calmly walked towards it to see what was going on and found one of the students being aggressive and yelling at the nurse.

He adjusted his sunglasses again while simultaneously releasing non toxic white smoke from his body, it enveloped the student and then hardened, which prevented him from moving.

Rani saw this from the bench she was sitting on and thought to herself [What amazing control. He didn't even look like he was trying].

As the student struggled in vain, Hirowa asked in a calm but authoritative voice.

"Does someone want to tell me what is going on here?"