Pallavi POV

  Muffled breathing filled the clearing as Pallavi sat on the ground, exhausted. She had been trying and failing to execute a Hindkick without planting her hands on the ground, working the motion until her hips trembled. Though she bent, coiled, and snapped her leg, it didn’t click—she couldn’t trigger the skill.

  She glanced at Rohan a couple of rows away. A veil of pale lights fizzled out near his palms, another Mana Web slipping apart. He met her gaze and gave a small shake of the head. Their shared failure eased a tight spot in her chest. She turned the other way and almost wished she hadn’t.

  Varun skimmed across the clearing in short bursts, shoes scuffing the ground. He kept aiming to halt by a scarred tree trunk and tried to stop without sliding past it. Each run ended with a shorter overshoot. He grinned as if the world weighed nothing. From the looks of it, he was getting better after every try. He’d leveled up his skill eight times; perhaps some were born for this.

  And then there was Sid. She had never watched him fight, only heard how he dragged his team out of an ambush. The way he carried himself made people give him space. When he crossed the clearing, he did not hurry, but others adjusted to his pace. Her instincts kept telling her he was the most dangerous man in camp.

  More than his skills, which she had only heard about, it was his mind that truly baffled her. The rest of them copied monsters and hoped for the same results, but Sid kept testing the limits of his skills. He treated them as tools to be bent to his will. The way he spoke to each of them about how to improve their skills was more like a teacher explaining to students than a discussion among peers.

  Pallavi pushed to her feet and turned in a slow half circle to see what he was up to. He was not where he should have been—on the far side of the lanes. For a moment she wondered if he was testing his stealth, but that brief assumption faded when a few stones suddenly flicked out from behind a birch and made the situation immediately clear.

  Earlier, she had watched him sweep the ground for loose rocks with the toe of his boot. When she raised a brow, he had only said, “For training,” and kept working.

  She walked toward the tree, slowing when she saw how Sid had set himself. He sat cross-legged, shoulders relaxed, the staff balanced in his left hand. A small pile of stones waited by his right knee. The staff was planted loosely in the ground, and he held and released it at regular intervals, in sync with the stones he threw with his right hand.

  Air rushed beside her. A figure blurred past and stopped with a sharp scrape of soles. She flinched and turned. Varun stood there, chest rising fast, dust clinging to his shins.

  “I figured it out. I am level ten now,” he called, grinning wide enough to show teeth. He angled his head at Sid, lifted one eyebrow, and let the silence hang. “What are you doing?”

  Sid rose in one smooth motion, taking the staff along with him. “How many times do I have to tell you to be mindful of others? You could have seriously hurt Pallavi or me.” He did not raise his voice, but the edge was clear.

  “I had it under control, Sid. I focus on the place a few steps before my target, then I stop almost exactly at my mark,” said Varun. He gave a small shrug, as if the method explained everything.

  “Should I be impressed by that?” Sid took a measured step forward. “Any idiot could have figured that out.” He tightened his grip on the staff, his knuckles whitening.

  “The problem is your flippant attitude, Varun. You are not as great as you think. The numbers going up on your status might have inflated your ego. To me, you are the weakest person on this team. A liability.”

  Varun’s grin collapsed. His jaw tightened and shoulders squared. “What the fuck did you say to me?”

  “That you are the weakest person on our team,” Sid repeated, voice flat. “Any one of us could beat you, even Pallavi.” He glanced past him. The look landed on her like a cue, and she felt the weight of it in her chest.

  Sid had asked her earlier whether she could hold her own against Varun. He wanted to show the others that she was a competent fighter and put to bed any rumors surrounding her. She also suspected he wanted to take Varun down a peg. After his earlier outburst, he was the most disliked person in camp right now, after her.

  Varun turned, pivoting on his left leg, and looked at Pallavi, the corner of his lips curling down. “You think your new girlfriend can beat me?”

  “I am not his girlfriend,” shot back Pallavi, the words coming out almost in reflex. She set her shoulders and kept her hands loose. She was not anyone’s anything. She was her own person.

  Sid glanced at her for a second and then gave a short, humorless laugh, looking at Varun. “Even Mahesh knocked you out. What are you even proud of? You ran after the goblins in the last fight when I asked you not to. You fell into a pitfall, and Aditi had to save your ass. The same Aditi you were berating every chance you got since we came here. Now she left the team because of you.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Rohan approached them with quick strides. “What is happening here?”

  “Shut it, Rohan,” said Varun, without even turning to glance at him. His gaze was fixed on Pallavi. “Do not expect me to go easy because you are a girl.”

  Pallavi returned his glare in equal measure, keeping a lookout for any sudden movement. “I will not go easy on you either,” she said in a deadpan voice.

  She turned to glance at Sid, a silent question hanging in the air. What now?

  “Do not use weapons. We do not want to bother Aditi again,” said Sid, pausing and glancing at Varun, holding it until he noticed. “You start whenever both of you are ready. And Pallavi, do not give him space to use his skill and you should be fine.”

  Varun’s face twitched, shock flashing there before he masked it, as if he could not believe Sid had taken her side in front of everyone. He slid away from the nearest tree and moved to the center of the clearing, then he took a few steps back away from Pallavi. “Ready when you are,” he called out.

  Pallavi walked toward Varun at a slow, measured pace, keeping an eye on his movements. Sid had told her earlier that Varun did not have any real fighting experience, and they had all been thrashed in that one campus fight they had. When she was about ten feet from Varun, she paused and nodded. “I am ready.”

  “Why don’t you go first?” Varun asked, a smirk on his face. “Come closer. You can stop me from using Dash.” He cut a look at Sid to make sure the dig landed.

  Pallavi raised her fists to her chest and set her feet. She let her breath level and kept her eyes trained on Varun’s shoulders and hips, not his mouth.

  Varun’s smirk thinned when his taunt was ignored. He started a short jog, eyes focused on Pallavi.

  Pallavi shifted right, side-stepping just in time. She saw Varun stop right before where she had stood and his fists where her stomach would have been. She would have taken that blow to the abdomen.

  If Varun was flustered after missing his opening salvo, he did not show it. He followed with an overhand left, which Pallavi blocked with her right forearm.

  Varun hooked her blocking arm with his right, dragged her in, pulling her lead shoulder across her center. His left hand shot for her shoulder to hold her in place. She slapped it away and felt his grip shift. He re-secured her shoulder with his right and swung another overhand left for her ear.

  Pallavi dipped her head and slid under his pinning forearm, shucking it from her left shoulder to her right as she turned. She pressed his right wrist away with her left hand and tried to reset her guard.

  Varun snatched her returning forearm with both hands and intended to pull her towards him. She snapped a front kick with her right foot, aiming centerline. He flinched back, still yanking at her arm. She chopped down at his grip and felt his fingers peel—he staggered a step to recover.

  Varun was breathing hard, a baffled look on his face as he saw Pallavi was not even out of breath. He raised his fists to his chin, chin tucked to mimic a boxer.

  He snapped a straight right. Pallavi caught the cue in his shoulder and slipped to her right. The punch cut past her jaw. He followed up with a low right. She dodged it, caught his right wrist as it skimmed by, and flung it to her right to twist his shoulders off line. He tried to recover with a backhand punch from that awkward position, but she raised her guard quickly enough that the blow landed on her forearm, sending a sharp shock through it.

  Agitation sharpened his breathing. He rushed in with a flurry, mixing wide punches and hurried kicks. Pallavi kept her frame compact and met each strike on angles, forearms and shins. Her breath remained even.

  He broke off and backed away three paces, widening the gap. Pallavi’s pulse climbed. He had the runway for his skill. She cursed herself for letting him dictate the tempo instead of cutting him off earlier.

  Varun exploded forward and snapped a front kick, trying to let speed carry the impact. Pallavi crossed her forearms and took it on a firm cross-hand block. Her frame absorbed the impact.

  He threw an overhand right. She caught with her left hand and yanked his arm down to collapse his shoulders. He fired low left, then low right. She smothered both and shot a straight punch into his stomach. The air left him in a rough grunt.

  She leaned back to finish with a kick and felt her weight go farther than planned, almost to ninety degrees. The angle matched the repetitions she had drilled for the past two hours. She reached for the skill that had refused her all morning, but this time something clicked—Hindkick engaged.

  Varun was still stunned from the body shot when the heel smashed into his chest. He flew backward, struck the tree at the clearing’s edge with a bark-splitting thud, and slid down to a seated sprawl. Leaves trembled and settled.

  “Varun,” Sid called as he broke into a run. Panic edged his voice. Rohan chased after him and flashed Pallavi a quick, shocked look as he went by.

  Pallavi moved in as well. Varun hunched on one knee, coughing, his left hand clamped over his chest. Each breath caught and rasped.

  “Are you okay?” Sid asked, crouching beside him. He offered a hand to pull him up.

  Varun knocked it aside and dragged his gaze up to Pallavi, working a breath into his lungs as he swallowed and meeting her gaze with deliberate focus. “You win.”

  Pallavi gave a single nod in return.

  Rohan slipped to Varun’s left and steadied him by the shoulders. “There might be internal injuries. We need to get you checked.”

  “I am fine. I can walk it…” Varun tried to stand up on his own, then bent into a coughing fit, words broken.

  “No. We are taking you to the infirmary,” said Sid, his voice stern, leaving no room for negotiation.

  Rohan and Sid moved together, lifting under the arms in the same beat. Varun found his feet with their support, and the three of them started toward camp. Pallavi matched pace a step behind.

  Sid lifted his head and scanned. Naga stood ahead near the open ground, speaking to a man in a khaki shirt. Three others waited at a measured distance, their hands relaxed while their eyes stayed sharp, and the uneven spacing carried a rigid quality, like two groups feeling each other out.

  “Sid,” Naga called, forcing a tense smile. “I was about to send someone to find you.”

  The man in khaki turned. Sid stopped short, the set of his shoulders tightening as if he had walked into a wall. Pallavi watched his face go still.