Chapter 6 : Entrance exams (3)

The 3rd round was delayed due to the unexpected event that happened at the end. Suddenly Reema's popularity had soared. Even the Raiders who had come to watch the event could not understand. This Display of strength was too unreal.

To a naked eye she had just kept her fist on the pad and shouted, the machine just ran and embedded itself into the wall. Though a ridiculous thought it still made as much sense to them as this display of power and yet one was true and the other was not. Some of the audiences were speculation if she would become the eighth one.

In the glass booth Ram stood up from surprise on seeing the most unexpected sight. Even Krishna was surprised by the sudden nature of if. There was something familiar about what she did but he just could not put a finger on it. Ganesh was imagining if she could beat Krishna with such a godly strength.

Krishna was just sitting brooding over that little itch but he just could not figure out where it came from, it's existence kept irritating him. Then it clicked to him. He got up and left the booth in a rush, Ganesh who saw him walking way asked "where are you going? Bring me some popcorn on the way back." but there was no answer.

_____

The whole focus inside the waiting area had shifted from a C rank showing impressive results to a B rank showing the results of an upper tier hero rank. Sudden loss of fame and attention was certainly something Anika liked but also longed for that fame, just a little bit.

Reema had been avoiding all those people trying to talk to her. She sat beside Anika, she was about to say something but Anika interrupted, "I am not asking anything about how you did it. You can relax." Reema felt like her words had somehow reached Anika and she had understood her.

This whole chatting came to a hold as the big Television screens on the walls of the waiting room came on and the Third event was about to be announced. The third event was also brought in by helicopters. This time it wasn't just heavy but huge. It was a metal mesh which filled up the whole volume of the massive middle ground of the stadium. The mesh consisted of multitudes of different shapes from a simple triangle to octahedron, making it like a full jungle if pipes.

Their beautiful announcer who had apparently changed her clothes to be even more edgier and revealing than her previous one came to the centre of the stage as soon as the mesh was in place.

She said in her sweet singing voice "Alright everybody, it's time for the final event of step 2, sorry to keep you waiting but you sure saw that there were some technical difficulties. But now I finally present to you this Cage of destiny."

She waved her hand turning 360 degrees pointing at the whole mesh."Out here the top 100 will fight for victory and after the last 2 events and an impressive amount of talent shown to us by these soon to be students it has been a real eye opener, never underestimate an underdog, you never know what they can do."

She left a pause here for an effect and let the audience comb through their memories of the unexpected and the strong they had seen, a way to increase the hype and tension

"the rules of this event are simple in this mesh will appear multiple targets. Their job is to hit them, either with an ability or just but their bare fists. These targets are holographic and will disappear unless hit under 10 seconds the one with most points in 20 minutes will win. The twist, this stage will be lifted in the air by 10 load bearing helicopters. If anyone falls down from the cage he/she will lose and their points will be given away to the one who made them fall."

Then she went on to announce a few rules of safety and a warning to not perform the tasks at home.

The other helicopters were arriving and when they din, a safety test with fuel check was to be conducted. The load bearing on 6 helicopter was to be conducted in case if one of the helicopters fails then there would be enough reserve.

A safety shield was activated around the audience side this time as the previous attempt showed that they should expect anything. They were lucky that that heavy machine had not penetrated the audience side fully and hence there were no injuries. This time they wanted to be sure that the audience was safe.

______

Reema came to the pantry till the preparation for the third even where going on. She washed her face and sighed, she was mentally exhausted from all the attention.

"Who taught you that technique?" Said a voice from the back, It was Krishna sitting at the chair holding a can."

"My master taught me."

There was a pause of a second and then Krishna said. "I used to know someone that could do something similar a long time ago." He then put the can down on the table and kept a finger over it. A second later the can pushed itself to the other side of the table where Reema caught it.

She realised what this man said was not bluffing, the can just slide down the table using the same technique she applied on that machine just a lot more smaller in it's scale.

"Who are you?"

"It doesn't matter " Said Krishna and left the room while Reema opened the can she caught and savoured the cold refreshing drink.

______

Third event was about to begin. Each applicant was getting used to being in the mesh cage and was taking position. Those that came before started taking corners. As that would mean less sides to lookout for. It was harder to keep balance smooth cylindrical rods and move to attack targets all the while keeping an eye on 99more potential attackers. Rajdeep took the centre and nobody dared to stand beside him. Everyone else took whatever place they could find.

Anika was stood besides Reema and said,

"How about both of us Team up. Until we take down that Rajdeep, that is."

Reema knew pulling off her most powerful move would be practically impossible here for her and taking out Rajdeep would mean their biggest problem would be solved and then they could start taking on the small fries who would have been collecting points for them.

"Let me join you guys too." Said Ashish from back.

"Why should we trust you?" Asked Reema in a harsh tone.

"I know I have been an Asshole. When I was a kid, I was too weak and was bullied by a group of strong kids. I would keep crying and nobody would come to help me. It all changed when the gates opened. I became insanely powerful when I awakened my affinity, the tables were turned now and when my rank settled at A a year back I became too drowned in my own strength. Losing to you reminded me of my roots and how I had become the same monster I once hated." He bent down on his knees and said, "You don't have to forgive me but let me have a chance to change my ways."

Anika looked at Reema and they both nodded at each other, Anika pulled him up and said, "I am going easy on you for once, but there will be no more chances if you fail this time."

Rajdeep on the other hand was doing pull ups and warming himself up. He wanted to especially keep an eye out for Reema as she would be the one person he believed that could make him fall. He saw that Anika, Reema and Ashish were planning against him right now. He could feel the anxiety and the excitement of a good fight coming up.

The whole cage was lifted up in the air, they were expecting it to go probably 10meters up but it kept going. And finally stopped 500meters above the ground. This massive hunk of iron was now facing immense gust of wind and shaking like crazy. The area of stadium was now filling up with a faint mist and big pillars rose from the sides which started projecting lasers from their body and a full holographic representation of the whole cage was replicated there. The mist would not go into the audience side because of the shield which effectively made it into a 3D screen.

One for the C ranks afraid of heights could not maintain his balance and fell down into the mist right away. "Now this will be fun." Said Rajdeep to himself looking at the shouting applicant who fell. There was a zeppelin flying around the cage with a big screen on it which now showed the number '99' in it. Anika was bamboozled by the setup of this magnitude, "Are you sure this is a university entrance test?".

Reema who was also shocked at this being as this was her second attempt to this exam as she failed in theory last time, but she had seen the tests as a spectator and in old video's "looks like they went all out on their budget this time."

Now the picture of their revealing singer host came on the screen of zeppelin, "the right corner of the screen will show you the timer." And a 20minute counter appear there which started ticking "and the big number is the number of people remaining, also the left side will give you the list of top 10 scorers. Best of luck and don't forget the timer is already running." The Targets started appearing and the chaos of 99 people started to move.

Reema had already made it clear she could not use the punch with the same strength at this moment, In a setting like this it would take her 15 minutes to prepare with her existing mastery of the skill and even so if she misses that punch it will all be over.

So Anika and Ashish were to attack head on while Reema was to defend herself and stay back. There was a low chance that anyone else would even dare to attack her after her flashy display but still there were fools that they were not counting out. The bigger problem was Rajdeep actually knew that Reema would be her biggest problem so he was the one most likely to take her on. But he had no idea that it would take her 15 minutes to get ready and that was the advantage they were looking forward to.

Rajdeep wasted no time and rushed towards Reema. Anika and Ashish both jumped on him from two sides hoping to change his direction while Reema could focus on her attack while showing that she was just going for the holographic targets.

Anika and ashish both came near Rajdeep in center so he pumped his muscles back and threw a punch towards both of them, but Anika and Ashish did a mid air kick bouncing each other in opposite directions and getting behind Rajdeep's back after bouncing off from two pole and kicked at his knee from back and Rajdeep fell at least two floors worth.

This went on from at least 5 minutes where these two would keep bouncing around just dishing out low blows that did not do much damage but irritated him. Rajdeep's power was simple, raw force buffed by his aura. His speed was good but his opponents were way more nimble than he was.

Ashish may have lost to Anika in race but his speed would not lose to Rajdeep in this setting and the two of them teaming up was even more difficult for Rajdeep to follow. He could move his large frame easily but the mesh was too restricting for him even if he gave it his all. Till now he had been focusing on Reema so his concentration was not so focused on his opponents so he knew he had to get serious.

He stood at a pole and started growling. His body started to heat up which could be seen on the pole getting red hot. Anika and Ashish had to stand back as they did not know what to expect and there was no way they were going to take his punch head on and survive. Small amount of steam rose from his body and then there was a blast of steam.

Anika and Ashish both got ready for anything, they had lost the site of Rajdeep in steam and it was very likely that he could aim for a surprise attack. Their amygdala was getting stimulated and adrenal cortex was doing its job, this was a fight or flight response, their muscles tensed up and palms were sweaty.

Lucky for them no attack came and Rajdeep was still right where he started, only his large muscle frame was reduced considerably. He stood up and freed his joint and looked towards Anika, in a Flash he was close to her. She instinctively put up a shield. Though she poured whatever she could in the shield it wasn't enough to brace herself for a throwing impact. She went flying out of the cage. Ashish was more now prepared but he wasn't sure if it was enough.

Rajdeep prepared to rush but then a familiar voice came from the back.

"I did not know losing weight was so easy," said Anika coming at a high speed. The high pressure air pockets she used in her strength test were what saved her. It would generally take some time to create these pockets and use them but she had already prepared them in advance and were present at strategic points on her body.

She saw Ashish wasn't mentally ready to take Rajdeep on so calling him out to distract him was the best she could do. Rajdeep again hit her and she went flying to another corner but held on to a pole in time. Anika wasn't damaged much because of the shield but even after 1 month her shield skills were mediocre at best. So keeping this up for a long time would be too expensive of a Gamble for her. She had to think of a plan and to waste some time she said, "Hey fatso what's your secret? You got a dietitian or something?"

Rajdeep smirked and said, "I will not use underhanded techniques like you. If have no problem is putting my secret out there. A human body has two types of muscle fibres white and red. What I did was, I shrunk my red muscle fibres draining their cytoplasm of all the water and hence putting them in hibernation using my aura, reducing their blood demand, that will now be directed to my faster and powerful white muscles. I can maintain this state for 15 minutes tops for now but seeing as we only have 15 minutes it would be a shame not to use this state."

Reema was still preparing while hitting the targets and throwing of some of the fools that thought to take her on. The targets were like a small hologram coming out from the edges of the different volumetric shapes of the mesh cage. She was also keeping an eye on the fight between Rajdeep and her two teammates.

It had already been 10 minutes and Anika was now using her fire to block out the view of Rajdeep by creating multiple walls. It wasn't working as before where they were able to land hits but it helped them avoid Rajdeep's attacks which were getting fiercer by the moment.

Anika and Ashish were dodging them only by a hair's breadth and if the trend was to be followed soon a hit from Rajdeep would land. Anika had a chance of coming back but if Ashish was hit it would be over for both of them as Ashish would not be able to make it back.

Reema looked at her closed fist and knew that it was only ready by 50% but would it be enough to get through Rajdeep's impressive defence. There was no other way to know but try because it was impossible for them to hold another 5 minutes and she felt really bad for pushing them so much.

Reema came to Ashish and stood beside him. Rajdeep stopped his mad rush seeing her. "So you are here finally. Seems like this punch of yours takes some time to be prepared from my observations." he pulled his now undone and sweaty hair back and said with a smirk, "you think your punch will make the contact? You don't have enough speed, I have been on the offensive till now but if I choose to defend you none of you could even touch me."

"We will see about that." said Ashish as both he and Anika rushed at Rajdeep. Anika reached out first only to get hit by a punch that again sent her flying into a pillar.

Rajdeep could sense someone approaching him from above. It was Reema, he was confident Reema's speed was in no way enough to catch up to his own, but when he tried to dodge he could not move, as if he were being held by some kind of rope.

It was Ashish's ability, with every hit he took on Rajdeep he attached an Aura string with it. After that he had been roaming all over the cage anchoring ends to different places. It was like a whole web of Aura strings was created. Ashish was confident in his strings as their tensile strength was unparalleled and even a Hero would struggle to break through them.

It was much more likely that the whole cage would give up first before his strings gave up but still to be safe he was continuously supplying them with Aura so that just made Rajdeep practically immobile. Downside was that so many strings wound require too much aura and maintaining them for too long would be impossible but he didn't need to much time, a few seconds of immobility would be enough for Reema to connect her punch.

The punch connected and Rajdeep was thrown with a massive force hitting pole after pole and breaking them in the process. It was not that these poles were weak just that they weren't strong enough to take the force created by Reema's punch at even 50%. Finest of the material from the demon world that was collected from countless fallen demons was breaking down like a flimsy wooden sticks.

Unluckily it wasn't enough, Rajdeep managed to stick by the last pole, all bloodied and bruised up. He spit out a handful of blood and said "that was close now, you would have won now if it wasn't for that dumb rope guy's ability. He was just a little bit late in undoing it otherwise this last pole would have broken too."

That was it, there was no time for Reema to get another one of her attacks ready. Ashish and Anika both were running dry now and they were not sure if they could take on even an injured Rajdeep. Just then Anika noticed a little fact they had been ignoring till now. The zeppelin now showed that there were only 10 people left.

While they were busy fighting the other Rank A's had teamed up and divided the cage in four quadrants among themselves and had been cleaning up and hitting targets all along. Those were the four in top 5 while Reema had 3rd rank.

Then the big number in the middle showed 8. All the four were at the top of the cage now while Anika and his team in the middle while Rajdeep at the bottom. One of the four A ranks in blue said, "you fools, did you even pay attention to the rules? Sure you can make someone fall and get their points but did you consider what happens if you yourself fall off?" he chuckled and said, "you keep those points" and he jumped off. The leaderboard on the zeppelin confirmed what he had just said.

They stared jumping one by one as jumping off from such height was no joke. When one of them jumped off Rajdeep managed to catch him and then he left his grip on him. That just bumped Rajdeep into the leaderboards. The other one jumped off from the adjacent side and a little further to avoid the mistake his comrade made but Rajdeep swallowed the pain of his aching body and put all his might to jump off towards that guy kicking him down in midair. That was enough to put in on the top of the list.

There was still one left and he was the second rank. Reema was already in top 3 so she had nothing to worry about and jumped off. But if Anika were to get into the top 3 she would have to get the last one. Because only the top 3 had the chance to get free scholarship. She had no idea that she would be able to get to such a point before but now it was in her sight but just one step away.

It would surely reduce the burned on her already not so rich family. The last one jumped off from the opposite side of Anika, she let off all the air pockets she had left and boosted herself with amazing speed. This time the last one had jumped much further but he was afraid to miss the smoke screen where there was hopefully some kind of cushion to soften the landing, so it wasn't impossible to catch him.

The wind was cutting through her exhausted body as she went through the air while manoeuvring herself to catch the target. In the end even though she made her best effort she was not able to get a hold of him. She could feel the instant disappointment but she wasn't unhappy as she kept falling now past the cage with no air pockets left to pull herself back up.

She closed her eyes thinking this was more than she could have hoped for. Once upon a time she could only dream of being at this stage but now, she wasn't just in her dream she was living it. How did it all change? The face of that man came to her mind who saved her once and the words he said in his soothing voice 'let it go, you can rest now.' those echoed in her mind as she gave in to the fall.

The sudden shock woke her up from her daydream.

"Not a good time to doze off." said Ashish as he held her buy an Aura string with himself hanging on a string too. He swung her and got her back on the cage. He started pulling himself up then as Anika waited for him there. She gave him a hand, he looked at her and said, "I had fun today." and he let her hand go shouting "I can do without the scholarship." She kept watching as ashish fell into the mist bellow.

She sat on half broken pole as the sun was setting and twilight hit her. The zeppelin moved from there showing the big number 1 in the middle. The top 3 in the leaderboard showed three familiar names. (1) Rajdeep (2) Anika (3) Reema. The twilight reminded her of the end of her training sitting beneath the tree's watching the man she starved and kept awake for 7 days straight sleeping. A faint smile spread across her face as clenched her Fists and said to herself, "I will never let go."

She sat there for a minute then a holographic picture came from the edge, it was where the targets were appearing. "Jump down whenever you feel like it." it was their host. "Don't worry about the fall it will be a fun ride. Your fans are waiting for you."

She jumped down into the cloud which felt like entering a fairy tale. The fall slowed down like there were layers of something reducing her speed and she came to a halt on the ground, just like an autumn leaf gliding down to its glory.

The smoke started clearing up and Reema came and hugged her "you did it."

Rajdeep came in now covering his bare top with a towel but the bruises still showing, "I guess you were right, you need nobody to protect you." he turned back and walked away drinking water from a bottle while also carrying a full case them bottles. She could see Ashish in the far giving his salute as he disappeared in the crowd of other applicants cheering for him.

When the smoke was gone there was only the crowd cheering for them but she was trying to look for familiar faces. She saw ganesh cheering for her in a glass box but the glare of the glass hid the man next to him. She waved at Ganesh and tried to look through the glare, squinting her eyes hard. Krishna stood up from his seat still not visible to Anika and walked away without looking back.