Lucas Drake moved like water given deadly purpose, each step calculated to destroy everything Aiden thought he'd learned about combat. The heir's energy gauntlets hummed with power that made the air itself vibrate, and his smile held the kind of confidence that came from never truly being challenged.
"Let's see what your little trick can do against real technique," Lucas said, settling into a stance Aiden had never seen before—fluid, predatory, wrong in ways that made his borrowed instincts scream warnings.
The crowd's roar was deafening. Three thousand students packed into every available space, their voices creating a wall of sound that pressed against Aiden's skull like a physical weight. Above them all, the academy's elite sat in their private boxes, watching with the detached interest of gods observing mortals.
**Neural analysis initiated. Warning: Opponent's combat pattern is... unusual. Recommend immediate tactical withdrawal.**
"Can't exactly run now," Aiden muttered, wiping blood from his split lip. His ribs ached where Lucas's last combination had landed, and his left shoulder felt like someone had driven nails through the joint.
**Then try not to die embarrassingly. Your performance rating has dropped to 'tragic entertainment' level.**
Lucas struck without warning, moving faster than human reflexes should allow. Aiden's Adaptive Resonance kicked in automatically, analyzing the attack pattern, breaking down the mechanics—hip rotation, weight distribution, the precise angle of the incoming fist.
He copied it perfectly.
And it did absolutely nothing.
Lucas flowed around Aiden's mimicked counter like it was choreographed, his own fist connecting with Aiden's solar plexus with surgical precision. The air exploded from his lungs, and he doubled over, gasping.
"Disappointing," Lucas said, not even breathing hard. "I was hoping for more creativity."
**Warning: Opponent is using Counter-Resonance technique. Your copied moves are being predicted and neutralized.**
"Counter-what?" Aiden wheezed.
**A combat system designed specifically to counter mimicking abilities. Every technique you copy, he already knows how to defeat. Congratulations—you've found your hard counter on day one.**
Lucas proved the System's point by launching into a combination that should have been impossible to defend against. Aiden copied it anyway, muscle memory taking over, but Lucas was already three moves ahead. Each strike Aiden threw was met not with a block, but with a counter that turned his own momentum against him.
A knee to the ribs. An elbow to the spine. A throw that sent him sliding across the platform on his back while the crowd went wild.
"This is what happens," Lucas called out, his voice carrying easily over the noise, "when someone mistakes mimicry for mastery. You're a copy of a copy, Cross. Degraded beyond recognition."
Aiden rolled to his feet, tasting blood. Around them, the arena's displays showed his vital signs in real time—heart rate spiking, neural activity chaotic, pain levels climbing into dangerous territory. The medical team was already standing by.
In the stands, he caught a glimpse of Jay frantically updating his betting pools while shouting commentary: "Current odds on Aiden lasting another minute are seven to one against! Place your bets now because this trainwreck is about to reach its inevitable conclusion!"
**Your friend's optimism is touching. Also statistically accurate.**
Lucas moved again, this time slower, more deliberate. Showing off. His fists came in textbook combinations that any first-year student would recognize, but when Aiden tried to copy them, each movement felt wrong. Like trying to write with his off-hand while blindfolded.
"You see," Lucas explained as he systematically dismantled every technique Aiden attempted, "Counter-Resonance isn't just about predicting your moves. It's about making you defeat yourself."
Another combination, another perfect copy, another devastating counter that left Aiden reeling. His head was ringing, his vision blurring, and somewhere in the back of his mind, the System's warnings were becoming increasingly urgent.
**Neural load at 82%. Recommend immediate cessation of combat activities.**
But stopping wasn't an option. Not with three thousand people watching. Not with his future on the line. Not with Lucas Drake proving, once again, that Aiden Cross belonged at the bottom of every ranking that mattered.
"Having trouble?" Lucas asked, landing a precise strike to Aiden's shoulder that sent him stumbling. "Maybe you should forfeit. Save yourself some dignity."
That's when something shifted. Not in Aiden's technique—his copied movements were still being neutralized with embarrassing ease. But in his approach. Instead of trying to replicate Lucas's entire combinations, he began breaking them apart. Taking a footwork pattern from one technique, combining it with a block he'd seen Mira use, adding a counter-strike from his fight with Marcus.
It was ugly. Unrefined. It shouldn't have worked.
Lucas's next attack met not a perfect copy, but something entirely different. Something that caught him off-guard for exactly half a second—long enough for Aiden's improvised counter to slip through and graze his jaw.
The arena went silent.
Lucas touched his lip, looking at the blood on his fingers with something approaching surprise. "Interesting."
In the elite section, Mira leaned forward in her seat. She'd been watching with clinical detachment, cataloging Aiden's failures, but this was different. This was adaptation in real time. Evolution under pressure.
"Did you see that?" she murmured to her companion, a fourth-year student who'd been dismissed from consideration by most of the academy's scouts. "He stopped copying."
"He's still losing," the other student pointed out.
"But he's not collapsing." Mira's silver eyes tracked Aiden's movements with new intensity. "Lucas's Counter-Resonance should have ended this fight five minutes ago. Instead, Cross is... improvising."
Down on the platform, Aiden was discovering that improvisation hurt significantly more than simple mimicry. Each time he tried to combine techniques from different sources, his nervous system rebelled. Pain shot through his skull like lightning, and his muscles felt like they were being torn apart and rebuilt with every movement.
**Warning: You're attempting to synthesize incompatible combat systems. Neural damage accelerating.**
"Better than being someone else's shadow," Aiden gasped, dodging a strike that would have taken his head off.
**Philosophical but impractical. Your brain is not designed for this level of creative synthesis.**
Lucas launched into another combination, this one faster and more violent than before. But instead of copying it directly, Aiden pulled fragments—a dodge from Kade's style, a counter from something he'd seen in old tournament footage, a finishing move that was purely his own desperate invention.
It still didn't work. Lucas adapted too quickly, his Counter-Resonance technique turning Aiden's improvised style into openings for devastating attacks. But it was working better than the copying had.
And Lucas was beginning to smile.
Not the cold, dismissive expression he'd worn throughout the fight. Something else. Something that looked almost like... respect?
"Better," Lucas said, landing a combination that sent Aiden staggering but didn't drop him. "Much better. You're finally starting to fight like yourself instead of a poor imitation of everyone else."
The crowd was getting restless. This wasn't the quick, brutal demonstration they'd expected. Aiden was supposed to be unconscious by now, carried off by the medical team while Lucas received his inevitable victory. Instead, he kept getting up. Kept adapting. Kept refusing to quit.
"How long can this go on?" someone shouted from the stands.
Jay's voice boomed over the general noise: "Current betting pools have shifted! Aiden surviving the full fifteen minutes has moved from impossible to merely highly improbable! Also, medical costs for this fight have exceeded my semester's tuition!"
**Your friend's commentary is becoming more accurate than my combat analysis. This is disturbing.**
Aiden barely heard them. The world had narrowed to just him and Lucas, to the rhythm of attack and counter, to the constant pressure of trying to survive against someone fundamentally better at everything that mattered. But he was learning. Not copying—learning.
Every exchange taught him something new about distance, timing, the way different techniques could flow together. His nervous system screamed in protest, but his understanding deepened with each near-miss, each glancing blow, each moment he managed to stay conscious against impossible odds.
Lucas stepped back, breathing harder now. Still in control, but no longer effortlessly so.
"You know," he said, rolling his shoulders, "when this started, I thought I was fighting a fraud. Someone pretending to be something they weren't." His energy gauntlets flared brighter, and his stance shifted into something Aiden had never seen before. "But you're not pretending anymore, are you?"
Around them, the arena held its collective breath. Whatever Lucas was preparing, it was different from anything he'd used so far. More intense. More dangerous.
In the elite section, Mira found herself leaning even further forward. "He's going to activate his Resonance Overflow," she whispered.
"His what?" her companion asked.
"Lucas's true technique. Everything we've seen so far was just warming up." Her knuckles were white where she gripped the railing. "Cross has no idea what's coming."
On the platform, Aiden could feel the shift in Lucas's posture, in the way the air around him began to shimmer with barely contained energy. His Adaptive Resonance was analyzing frantically, but the data made no sense. It was like trying to copy a technique that existed partially in another dimension.
**Analysis inconclusive. Opponent's power signature has shifted beyond measurable parameters. Survival probability recalculating...**
Lucas moved.
Not the fluid, controlled movements from before. This was something else entirely—a blur of motion that seemed to violate basic physics. Aiden's desperate, improvised counter met empty air as Lucas appeared behind him, then to his left, then directly overhead in a sequence that should have been impossible.
The strike, when it came, felt like being hit by a falling building.
Aiden flew across the platform, crashed into the energy barrier that kept the audience safe, and slid to the ground in a heap. Blood ran from his nose, his ears, and somewhere behind his eyes. His ribs felt like broken glass, and his left arm hung at an angle that suggested things were very definitely broken.
But he was still conscious.
And somehow, impossibly, he was smiling.
"That," he said, spitting blood onto the pristine white platform, "was definitely worth copying."
The crowd erupted. This wasn't supposed to happen. Aiden Cross, the academy's designated failure, had just taken Lucas Drake's finishing move and remained standing. Barely, but standing nonetheless.
Lucas stared at him with something approaching shock. "You should be unconscious."
"Probably." Aiden pushed himself to his feet, swaying like a tree in a hurricane. "But I'm getting really tired of should."
**Neural damage severe. Motor functions compromised. Recommended course of action: Immediate medical evacuation.**
"Not yet," Aiden thought back. "Not until I land one real hit."
**Your survival odds are approximately 0.3%. This is not the time for dramatic gestures.**
But Aiden was already moving, drawing on everything he'd learned in the past ten minutes of systematic brutalization. Not copying Lucas's techniques, but creating something new from the fragments of everything he'd absorbed. It was sloppy, desperate, and probably suicidal.
It was also completely unpredictable.
The strike came from an angle that made no sense, combining Mira's precision with Marcus's straightforward aggression and something that belonged entirely to Aiden Cross. Lucas, caught off-guard by the sheer impossibility of the attack, took the hit square on his jaw.
For one perfect moment, the heir to one of the most powerful families in the academy stood there, stunned.
Then he smiled. Really smiled, for the first time since the fight had begun.
"Now," Lucas said, his energy gauntlets blazing with power that made the air itself burn, "you're finally worth my time."
The platform's displays flickered as they registered the spike in both combatants' power levels. In the stands, betting pools crashed as odds shifted wildly. Medical teams moved into position.
And somewhere in Aiden's failing consciousness, a final message appeared:
**Survival probability: 0.7%. Duration until neural collapse: 47 seconds. Achievement unlocked: Impressively Doomed.**
Lucas Drake had stopped holding back entirely.
The real fight was about to begin.