Challenge

"Dino, you better not overestimate your abilities!" The blue haired boy called Cody snarled at the boy with red hair and red eyes.

If Adrian were here, he would have recognized the red haired boy as the one who had beaten Cody and his lackeys several days earlier leading them to retaliate towards Adrian in return.

Dina raised his hands in a gentle shrug. "Hehe, blue haired chicken, I am challenging you to a duel. Don't yap so much with that frivolous mouth of yours."

"Asshole, if your ability didn't specifically restrict my strengthening ability, do you think you could be so daring?" Cody yelled in anger.

Dino had a peculiar manifestation of a mental ability which could nullify the physical enhancements of any other ability user of the strengthening type. While its use was rather narrow, most ability users in the world happened to be of the strengthening type and as such it was an excellent countering ability.

As the school had declared that challenges had to be accepted, Cody could only sigh and accept the lopsided battle.

"Meet me in an hour at the Arena!" Dino laughed as he flicked his red hair and walked away. Cody grit his teeth when he saw this rival of his looking at him like an ant.

"Boss, are you really going to fight with that bastard?" One of the lackeys whispered.

Cody snorted. "Do I have a choice in the matter? That bastard is really overconfident. He thinks he can defeat me by nullifying my strengthening enhancement? You, go and get be that glove from the storage room." He ordered one of his lackeys.

The news of the first fight had spread through the third years, and many were going towards the arena. When Adrian heard about it, he felt bitter. The first declared match happened to be between his bully and the bully's rival.

In the student's council room, Lear looked at the news on the school web forum. "Dino nullifies the ability of Cody. He isn't half too bad."

Cran smiled. "Those two have a known rivalry. That guy Cody is one of the strongest strengthening talents in our third year, but his personality is particularly terrible."

"What do you mean?" Lear asked with interest.

Janice yawned. "He is particularly fond of sending our grade's famous cripple to the infirmary. I believe he already sent that poor brat to the infirmary four times in the previous week. The vibrations are particularly disgusting, the cripple doesn't even try to fight back."

Lear frowned. "That is very excessive. Why hasn't Adrian made a complaint to the student council if he is being bullied in this manner"

Janice just made a 'hehe' sound and ignored Lear, while Cran looked at Lear as if he were looking at a fool.

"What?" Lear asked in confusion.

"If that poor guy hadn't associated with 'her', he wouldn't have half the trouble he faces from others. It isn't like he is the only one who hasn't yet awakened in the third grade." Cran explained.

When Lear heard Cran mention 'her', his face paled a bit before understanding hit him. "No wonder."

"Anyway, let's go to the arena. We can't possibly miss the first match." Cran yawned as the five headed out of the room.

On the arena, Dino and Cody stood opposite each other. Dino looked confident, while Cody was gritting his teeth. The referee on the arena was a fat teacher, who was relatively young, but was one of those unlucky people whose abilities had unintended consequences. The referee could get stronger the more fat he was, and thus he had ended up into an obese fatty.

"Ready?" The referee asked to two combatants, who shrugged to indicate that they were. The referee blew the whistle in his mouth to indicate the commencement of the battle.

Cody immediately began to surge with a powerful life force. His body began becoming extremely thick and his muscles began bulging and all the veins on his body began popping out. He suddenly moved and the air around him left an afterglow.

Adrian, who saw this from afar felt his pupils constrict. He realized that Cody had never taken him seriously when he beat him up. If that blue haired boy had used this extent of his ability against him, Adrian would probably die immediately.

Dino, on the other hand, looked at Cody with a condescending grin. This fired up Cody even further and he rushed towards Dino even faster.

"Cody is really strong."

"You don't say? I heard he has potential to become an elite ability user in the future and he already has a few companies interested in hiring him."

"Unfortunately, he went against Dino, who perfectly neutralizes him." Someone replied with pity.

As if Dino had heard that comment, he simply snapped his fingers and within an instant, Cody began to deflate like a balloon. His muscles shrank and his bulging veins disappeared. Hot sweat was evaporating off of his body in a mist like fashion that reminded onlookers of a burnt out candle.

However, while Cody slowed down, he didn't stop. He removed his hand out of his pocket and swung it backwards in preparation of a punch. When Dino saw the hand, his eyes turned cold.

Cody was wearing a black glove which was covered in extremely sharp metallic spikes. Weapons, after all were allowed in the battle. While Dino had nullified Cody's physical strengthening, he himself had an ordinary body and he didn't seem to have any weapon on him.

"Despicable!" Someone yelled.

"You are ignorant. Weapons are obviously allowed. Dino is allowed to fight with someone he can completely counter and Cody isn't allowed to take countermeasures"

Cody showed a evil grin to Dino. "So what if you can counter my body? Your body is just ordinary itself!"

Dino readied himself into a combat stance, as Cody swung a powerful punch towards Dino. The referee looked on in worry, on whether to call off the match, since the spikes on the glove looked terrible and Dino wasn't known to have any defensive abilities.