Chapter 10: The Plan

"Of all the insufferable! Indignant! Repugnant acts you've could have done, ruining my hair like this lies ranks as the worst!" screamed Derek as he punched cracks into the stone floor, "Damn! I had this custom made too!"

Derek was back, his aura was no longer the perfect layer of thick red, now it resembled an inferno, surrounding his body as a raging fire. Far larger than it was before, this type of energy output would not last for very long, but when the guy could punch through the stone in the floor, it wouldn't take very long for him to take the three out.

"That's your plan, lead Derek into the wall?" Krista questioned.

"Make him touch it, is what I said," corrected Damien, "and no, that's not my entire plan, but you'll only need to hear the parts that you'll be interacting with. I said it before, it's called delegating. Speaking of which, Amelia, I'll need you to-"

"Stand by and keep my distance as a healer, also keep watch for any more strange changes in Derek's wattiez," she finished.

"That and while Krista is fighting Derek, you're going to continue our lessons on using multiple affinities…" Damien said before pausing, "How far into that particular lecture were we?"

"The very beginning!" protested Amelia, "I hardly think now would be the best time for-"

"Excellent!" Damien yelled, "In the meantime, Krista, you sure you got this?"

"Of course!" Krista stated, "But what about you, are you sure that you can learn something like that in such a short time?

"Absolutely not," He said simply as he started to walk away, "but you know me. I'll be doing what I do best, something asinine!"

"Sounds about right," commented Krista, "Alright big guy ready for round-"

Within an instant, Derek covered the 20 feet between the two, creating a crater in the floorspace Krista was occupying, in fact, she was confused as to why he missed as she couldn't even react to this attack.

"Crap, I need to recalibrate!" complained Derek, "I'll never hit anything at this rate. Hey, if you don't mind could you just stand there for a bit longer, I need to work on my aim."

"Y-Yeah!" Krista shouted with false bravado, "Just try to hit me, I can take whatever you can dish out."

Derek stood tall, towering over Krista, from here she realized that if Amelia stood on her shoulders, they'd still probably be shorter. He definitely wasn't this tall when the test started, but she just chalked to it up to another problem she'd just have to deal with.

Krista slowly began to circle to Derek's right, doing her best to get behind the behemoth while avoiding his one good hand. Rather than jump at Krista or even turn to face her, Derek stood still, even as she took his back.

"So, you three figured it out," he started slowly, "or at least you think you have. As a little hint, you're heading in the right direction, but don't think that I'll just make it easy for you. I will not just let you lead me around-"

"Just shut up and come at me you big bald bastard!" interrupted Krista.

A moment of silence before Derek turned around to face Krista, "You're done kid."

At least it looked like her plan worked. From all her exchanges with Derek, she came to the conclusion that he's not a fighter, at least he didn't practice any fighting discipline. Krista knew the type, a brute who only relied only on their natural physical abilities, a tough opponent to beat, but one that was easy to manipulate.

With the full intention of backing up his claim, Derek charged forward with wild abandon. More akin to a hurricane than a man, Krista found herself once again at the backfoot of his attacks. Dodging and blocking with her sword to avoid the immediate KO that any one of his blows would conclude to. Krista made a mental note to herself to steer clear of anymore of Damien's 'plans'.

Even in Derek's fit of rage, Krista noticed that he was still cognizant enough to avoid touching the wall behind her, something she had to take care not to touch herself. In fact, it was starting to feel like he was trying to push her into it, understanding that if he did, Krista would end up in that trance like state Damien was talking about before.

As Krista began to realize this, she attempted to move herself back to the other side of Derek, but he never let up. Even though he couldn't be called a skilled fighter, his strength and speed were the real deal, and it was more than enough to keep Krista on the backfoot. With his increased speed, Derek was able to react to each and every movement she took, taking care to avoid the sword that could cut through stone, while also being able to initiate three or four attacks of his own forcing Krista to play to his rhythm. It wasn't long before Krista felt her shoulder hit the side of the corner wall.

"Son of a-" cried Krista before she narrowly ducked under a fist meant to introduce her face to the wall, instead it just simply left a crater in the wall.

Krista knew she was out of time and had very few options if any. In mere moments, she'd either be paste or put in a trance, just moments more away from still becoming paste.

In a moment of panic, Krista considered jumping onto Derek's back like Damien had done with a griffin until she heard Amelia strangely cry out, "Throw your sword over here!"

Without even a hint of hesitation, Krista took her blade and threw it as hard as she could past Derek, albeit she attempted to hit him along the way. With less than five feet between them, she had hoped to at least scrape him, but to her disappointment, it was a complete miss. Now she stood there, weaponless, and with her back mere inches from the trance wall. Not the most opportunistic of circumstances.

Derek glanced back to see what the other two examinees would do with the blade, but to his surprise, all he saw was the girl sitting in front of the boy as he practiced circulating his wattiez. A basic task and not something he'd seen any other test taker preform in all his years of proctoring. Watching for a few moments, he was a bit weirded out to see a blue aura surrounding the boy. Thinking back, he remembered the boy using augmentation and elemental affinity based wattiez, wait no, Derek remembered that he also carried a green aura at some point.

" Just how many affinities does that kid have ," Derek thought. Though it mattered very little, if those two stayed preoccupied doing circulation training, that was less he would have to think about. Instead, he could keep his focus on the girl in front of him, the only real danger so far. Though that was only because of the sword now lodged up to its handle into the wall beside the other two.

"Time to finish this," Derek finally said.

Suddenly, he slammed Krista into the wall, knocking her off from her legs. Then, with a sick smile, He rose his one arm high ready to bring it crashing down when he saw Krista hold her hands towards him. A feeble attempt to block his strike.

Derek didn't even have enough time to scoff at her actions when he saw Krista smile back at him and say, "Game over."

Then Derek felt it, a sharp incision coming from his abdomen sending him stumbling forward. Quickly looking down, he saw the blade sticking out of his gut. Even while inside him the sword continued to push him forward, Derek was only mere centimeters away from the wall before he managed to get himself to stop, he was not giving up yet.

"It is not over just yet!" Derek shouted as an explosion of red aura surrounded him. The pigment began to change the very color of his skin, he looked more like a tomato than a human. Regardless, slowly but surely, he inched away from the wall, using every bit of his power to keep away. "Keep it coming I hope this isn't all you go-"

He felt another hand touch his back, the boy had simply walked up behind him and started pushing against him with a red aura surrounding himself. Though even with his added strength, it was only enough to stop Derek from moving.

"Aw too bad, so sad!" Derek mocked, "So close yet it's not enough, and it doesn't look like the other ladies can help you!"

A heavy sigh came from Damien as he spoke, "I didn't like the way this felt, but here goes nothing!"

Abruptly, the aura around him went berserk, shooting off him almost as wildly as Derek's, but there was something different. The red aura started to meld and change, red to yellow, yellow to red over and over before finally settling on an uneven patchwork of the two surrounding Damien's body.

"By Iroh, I'm going to hurl!" He gasped, "Wind!" An added boost of power pushed against Damien's out back into Derek, sprawling the giant backwards millimeters from the target. Just one more insignificant push would send him back, but Damien couldn't muster up any more power.

Understanding that it was now all up to her, America sprung into action. She jumped at the wooden floor under Derek's foot and with a cry she yelled, "Weaken!" her own orange aura grew larger than either Damien or Krista had ever seen her go, though it still considerably smaller than Damien's own, but it did the job. The floor wilted and cracked until Derek's foot broke through, finally sending him tumbling into the X.

"Well, isn't this just terrific!" were Derek's last words as he went crashing through the… cloth?"