The next day, Nate woke up to his 4:30 training alarm he had set for the past three months. He promised Jarris he wouldn’t take his foot off the gas when he got to school so he rolled out of bed, took his daily supplements, and got on his training gear. He didn’t know if he would have all the gear available to him now that he couldn’t access Kalazan’s training room, so he would have to push himself in other areas. Nate walked outside from the dorms and out into the crisp morning air, began his normal stretches and looked around to see if anyone else was out training like him only to find that he was alone. At least no one out in the campus park. Nate set off for his morning run, pushing himself twice as hard. He completed his strength-based exercises and went back inside to get ready for class. Walking back outside the dorm building, Lindy was there waiting for him.

  "Hey Nate! I saw you working out this morning. You must have gotten up so early considering class is at 6 AM." She let out a huge yawn as if she was showing just how early it was.

  "Oh yea, I committed to a training regiment a while back and it’s been really nice. 4:30 AM every morning. You’re welcome to join me!"

  "Oh, maybe. I’m not really a morning person. This class is only as early as it is so it fits in with our normal class schedule. By the way, what classes do you have today?"

  Nate pulled up his schedule with an absurd slowness as they continued to walk to the lecture building. “Here sorry, I’m still getting used to this thing.”

  Lindy gracefully took the phone from Nate and flipped through the menus to get to his schedule. "Wow, we actually have a number of classes together, a nice coincidence that we met yesterday in a stadium full of people and have so many classes together. I also added the school interface as a button on your main page so you can get to it easier next time." Lindy said enthusiastically.

  "Oh awesome, thank you very much. Now we can go to class together." Nate replied, smiling.

  But it was kind of a fake smile. The smile you make when you aren’t actually happy about something. Lindy was gorgeous, but the novelty wore a little with how enthusiastic she was. For not being a morning person, she sure had a lot of energy.

  Nate and Lindy walked to orientation class and sat next to each other. The class went over everything Nate had read in bed the night before, so it kind of felt like a waste. However, the professor did point out that there was a gym that was open all hours. This got Nate excited as he wouldn’t have to miss out on every bit of his training.

  Class ended, and Nate walked out into the hallway, Lindy following closely behind. As she was coming through the doorway however, a large yellow mass of muscle bumped into and knocked her down. A number of students started laughing at her, but Nate sprung into action, picking her up off the ground.

  "Hey man, watch where you’re going." Nate said angrily.

  "What’d you just say to me?" The bullish man replied.

  "I said… watch where you’re going. You knocked down my friend here."

  "Yea? Well maybe she shouldn’t have put herself in my way."

  "Nate, it’s fine, really I’m…" Lindy said sheepishly.

  "What about if I stood in your way? Do you think you could knock me down, big guy?"

  One of the big guy's friends chimed in, trying to get his friend to back away. "C’mon Biff, this guy’s nothing. Let’s get some breakfast."

  Trying to catch Nate off guard, Biff looked back at his friend, then quickly turned and slung a punch right for Nate’s face. Without flinching, Nate leaned into the punch and activated his shield ability causing a disc of black to appear where the punch was supposed to land. The shield did its job and launched Biff’s fist backward, making him spin out and onto the floor. The students that had hung around to watch the drama unfold all started laughing at him.

  "What the hell was that?!" Biff screamed as he scrambled to pick himself up off the floor.

  Before Biff could do anything else, the orientation professor stepped into the hall.

  "What’s going on out here?" she asked.

  Lindy, cowering behind Nate, spoke up, "Oh nothing, we slipped on some liquid on the floor, but it’s gone now."

  Biff, glaring at Nate, nodded. "Yea, yea, somebody must have peed their pants or something."

  The professor, still flustered, exhaled quickly before barking orders. "Everyone move along then, time for your next class."

  The day went on and Nate was learning a ton. Classes covered everything from general civics lessons, history, biology, contractor law, ethics, and more. Most of the professors were dry, as if they had lost passion for teaching a long time ago. Some of them were more enthusiastic and responded well to all of Nate’s questions. Though he and Lindy spent most of the morning together, they had different classes in the afternoon. They met up again for dinner in the dining hall.

  "Hey Nate!" Lindy said, overflowing with glee.

  "Hey Lindy, how was your afternoon?"

  "Ugh, boring, nothing I didn’t already know. What about you?"

  "It’s almost too much information, I don’t know how I’m going to keep up, to be honest."

  "Well maybe we can help each other!"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, I’m pretty book smart, but I’m not great with training, especially fighting. But you seem to be pretty confident in that area considering how you handled that Biff guy."

  "Yea, that might just work out, Lindy. Let’s do that."

  "Ok, we can get started after dinner!" Lindy was giddy with excitement. She dove into her food, trying to make dinner go faster so they could get to studying.

  "Hey Lindy, what’s your attunement?"

  "Oh, Life!" she said, smiling. "What’s yours?"

  "Void."

  Lindy paused and brushed it off, asking again, "No, really, what is it?"

  Nate shrugged and said "Void," again, but more matter-of-factly this time.

  "Wait, really? But you’re from Earth? How did you get a Void gem? Literally no one from my planet has attuned to Void, at least that I know of."

  "I got lucky." Nate shrugged.

  "Is that why when that guy went to hit you, he like, flew away? Was that some kind of Void ability?"

  "Yeah, it’s called ‘repulsion shield’. It’s like a shield made of gravity that pushes things away from me.”

  "That’s incredible. You’ll have to show me sometime. Again I mean."

  "Well, when we train in the morning I’ll show you some moves."

  "Training?" Lindy asked.

  Nate chuckled with a mouthful of food. "Oh yea, if you’re gonna teach me, I’m gonna teach you."

  At 4:30 AM the next day Lindy was a zombie..

  "Nate, I don’t know about this." She said with her head hung low.

  "Time to run, let’s see if you can keep up!" Nate replied, trying to coax some life out of Lindy..

  Lindy could not keep up. Lindy could not keep up with any of the exercises. Lindy had a lot of work to do, as much as Nate had to study. After the morning workout, they had a little extra time to do some ability training. Lindy showed Nate her healing ability called “Healing Salve.". When she showed Nate, it appeared to work just like Yoli’s mending ability, but instead of her having to touch or hover right above Nate, she excreted a goo from her hand that she then rubbed on the injured area. She also had an ability called “Hunker Down.", which allowed her to summon a small wall of plant material, including wood, that they could crouch behind.

  "See, my abilities are so dumb."

  "No, actually they are awesome. Look, get some salve out."

  Lindy looked at her hand, and the goo gushed from the pores in her palm.

  "Now check this out." Nate scooped the salve out of Lindy’s hand and threw it at the wall. The salve was stuck to the wall but the viscous liquid started slowly sliding down like paint that was thrown against the wall instead of neatly brushed. Nate walked up to it and wiped it from the wall and onto his hand.

  Nate looked at the wall and then back at Lindy. "You just have to think outside the box sometimes. Here, give me some more, I have another idea."

  Lindy again produced the clear goo from her palm. Nate scooped it out and put it on his forearm where he had no injuries. The salve just stayed there, not moving, not glowing, not healing anything because there was nothing to heal. Nate then walked over to some gym equipment and scratched his upper arm. He scooped some salve off of his forearm and placed it where he scratched himself, and the goo immediately started to glow and mend the injured area.

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  Lindy looked with amazement as Nate’s arm healed.

  "See!"

  "Wow, that’s actually so cool. I never thought of using my abilities that way. Thank you, Nate!"

  Lindy lunged forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, embracing him in a tight hug. Nate hugged her back and smiled.

  "Hey Lindy, have you thought about what you are going to do after we graduate? Like, what line of work you are going to get into?"

  "I haven’t given it a lot of thought since I got here. The Disaster Outreach Division sounds interesting, I’d be able to help a lot of people that’s for sure.. What about you?"

  "I’m not sure. Treasure hunting sounds pretty awesome, but I think I’m going to let the Draft present different options to me and then I’ll go from there."

  "I like that. I know that you’re going to get scooped up by some awesome team and go on crazy adventures, being a hero and stuff."

  Nate smiled. "Thanks, Lindy. Speaking of the Draft, are you going to sign up for the arena?"

  "Oh, I’m not really a fighter, why?"

  "Well, I want to do both leagues, but I don’t have any friends here to team up with."

  Lindy perked up. "Oh, I’ll join you! I won’t lie though, you’re gonna have to do a lot of the work, but I’ll heal you!"

  "I can manage that. Thanks, Lindy, you’re kind of awesome, you know that?"

  "Thanks." Lindy replied, her cheeks blushing a bright red. "How do we find our third though?"

  Nate and Lindy finished up at the gym and walked back to the dorms, where there was a large TV-sized link mounted to the wall in the entryway. The board was plastered with digital ads for clubs, frats, sororities, and partially formed teams looking for a third member. Nate tapped the screen to place an ad for his and Lindy’s team, looking for a third member.

  "Hey Lindy." Nate turned around, "some of these teams have names, should we put a name down?"

  "I think you actually have to have a team name to register, so I guess so."

  "How about The Arcane Operators?"

  "You mean like THE Arcane Operators?"

  "Yeah, why not?"

  "Oh, I don’t know, they’re kind of a big deal but I guess we can."

  "Do you have a better idea in mind?"

  "What if we just did Team Arcane?"

  "Good enough for me, it won’t be our forever name anyway once we leave here." Nate finished posting the ad and turned back to stand next to Lindy. "Now we wait, I guess."

  "And sleep." Lindy replied. "If you're going to keep waking me up so early, I need to go to bed earlier."

  She yawned, letting out a big stretch, then casually turned that into wrapping her arms around Nate in a hug. "Thanks for the fun day, Nate. I learned a lot. See you tomorrow." Lindy held Nate tightly for a long time before separating.

  Nate couldn’t help but smell Lindy’s beautiful pink hair wrapped in a messy bun, the scent of perfectly ripe peaches filled his nose. "Goodnight, Lindy." Nate said softly.

  Nate went back to his dorm, thinking about the day. He was grateful that he had found Lindy and that she was willing to join up with him to take part in the arena.

  The next few days went the same as the last two. Lindy struggled with training a bit, but was already showing signs of improvement. Nate thought it was strange that the gym was empty in the early morning before class but didn’t mind as it allowed him and Lindy plenty of room to train. Nate practiced repetitions of his moves Jarris had taught him, while Lindy worked on throwing her healing salve at a target from various distances. They also worked on joint moves, where Nate would warp next to Lindy and Lindy would lift a barrier for them to hide behind. The training room had an old, beat-up version of the rubber ball turret Kalazan had in his training room, so they got actual real practice in trying to avoid being hit.

  Later, after training, they went to class together. This was where Lindy excelled and Nate was the one needing help. Lindy took copious notes with a pen and notebook, even though there were comprehensive study guides available on the link. She said it helped her remember what she was learning and tried to get Nate to do the same. Nate tried to keep up but couldn’t write nearly as fast as Lindy.

  The two ate lunch together and parted ways to their differing afternoon classes. On his way to class, Nate got a message on his link responding to his recruitment ad for a third team member for Team Arcane. Nate felt relief as it was the last day for registering for the Arena, though he was registered for the Solo league, he couldn’t register for the Team league until they had a third member.

  The message read, "Meet me in the training room after dinner." Sent by Darindra. Nate met up with Lindy at the dining hall after their afternoon classes where he told her about the message. They quickly ate, changed into their training gear, and headed for the gym.

  Once at the gym, they were taken aback by how busy it was. They were not used to it since they were always training early in the morning, they stood there looking around, having no idea who they were supposed to be looking for. Nate did, however, see Biff and his douche brigade from the other day sparring in the training area away from the gym equipment. Biff was screaming at his teammates and pointing vigorously at him and others as they lifted themselves off the mat.

  Nate felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around to meet a Firan with a black mohawk, a tiny steel ball nose piercing and multiple ring earrings piercing her ear. She had a dark red skin tone that was a deeper shade than a typical Firan. Her arm length fins that were another dead give away of the species had little bits and bites missing, not enough to really notice though unless you were looking for it like he was. Nate also couldn’t tell if her clothes were stylish or just plain tattered but he figured it’d be impolite to ask.

  “Nate, right? Team Arcane?” she asked.

  “Hey, yes, I’m Nate and this is Lindy, and we are Team Arcane. What’s your name?”

  “Darindra Voss, but you can call me Dee for short.” Dee said curtly.

  Nate picked up that Dee was kind of bugged with the overall interaction, but he was kind of desperate, so he kept the conversation going with their “kind of." attitude to the exchange..

  “Hi Dee, nice to meet you!” Lindy said with her normal high-pitched enthusiasm.

  Dee rolled her eyes rudely. “Yes, hello. So, can I join up, or do you have some kind of initiation like some of these other weirdos?”

  “Um, no, no initiation, but we want to make sure we’re a good fit, and I’m not gonna lie, you kind of seem… annoyed?”

  Dee looked Nate up and down. “Sorry." she said scoffing. “I’m not good with… people.”

  “That’s okay! I love…” Lindy cut herself off before she could continue, as Dee held a hand up.

  “Look. We need each other. Registration is due tonight, and no one will pick me up, and you don’t have a third or you wouldn’t be here. What do you say we register so we can at least compete and then we can get to training?”

  Nate looked to Lindy, who was clearly upset by Dee’s rudeness. She shrugged, not really knowing what to think. Nate turned back to Dee.

  “Alright. But a year is a long time to be working together if you’re going to have a shitty attitude. You’ll need to work on that for us to have any chance at this.”

  Dee actually looked slightly apologetic as she nodded silently.

  “Let’s go to the training area and see what you can do.” Nate added.

  The trio headed over to the training area where Biff was still yelling at his team. Biff quieted down, however, as he noticed Nate, Lindy, and Dee walk in.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the shit stain, his clumsy whore, and his new friend.”

  Nate turned slowly to meet Biff’s eyes from across the room when suddenly a small stone shot from his side and hit Biff square in the forehead. Nate turned to see that Dee had produced the rock and had flicked it with her finger. Biff, now enraged, let out a scream of anger and started quickly stomping toward Dee. Nate stepped in between them and held his hand up.

  “Hey now, big guy, we are here to train just like you. What do you say we let this go and you go back to yelling at your team before you get knocked on your ass again?”

  Biff looked down at Nate and, through gritted teeth, said two words: “Spar. Now.”

  Biff was a Yorgan, which basically looked like the Hulk from Earth comics but with yellow skin. Even though Nate was confident in his abilities, Biff still towered over him and was significantly naturally stronger than him. Nate nodded and the two walked over to the center of the training area.

  “Count us off, Pete.” Biff barked at one of his friends. Pete, a Firan like Dee with red skin and small yellow spines on his arms, walked to a perpendicular position between the two but kept his distance.

  “3, 2, 1, Fight!” Pete yelled.

  Biff roared with his veins popping slightly all over his body and charged at Nate. Nate put his hands out in front of him and stopped Biff in his tracks, but he wasn’t thrown back like last time. Biff smiled evilly.

  “Looks like momentum overpowers your little shield.”

  Biff raised a fist and punched down. Nate rolled out of the way, wanting to conceal his warp step ability for as long as possible while he was in school. Something Jarris had taught him: always keep something close to the chest to surprise an enemy with.

  Nate formed his shield in front of his leg as he attempted to sweep Biff’s feet from under him. Nate was too slow as Biff jumped over his leg and came down, punching into Nate’s chest. Nate felt all the air exit his lungs in an instant.

  Biff, now hunched over Nate, came down again with another fist, but Nate held up a shield and stopped him. Nate shifted his shield to his leg and kicked Biff’s leg out from under him, causing him to do an involuntary split. Biff toppled over, grunting and grabbing his groin in pain having overstretched the muscle between his groin and thigh.. Nate used this opportunity to stand and catch his breath.

  Biff was slowly getting back up to his feet, growling at Nate. As he got to his feet, Biff charged again with full force, preparing a punch as he closed the distance between the two of them. Nate noticed Biff was moving unnaturally faster with each step he took and saw that he wasn’t planning on stopping when he got to him. Nate rolled out of the way and Biff crashed into the wall behind him, putting his fist through it.

  “That’s it.” Nate thought. “He mentioned momentum. He must have some kind of buff ability to make him stronger and a momentum attack. That’s the reason his punches don’t get thrown back right now and did earlier this week because he’s using his ability. I need him to crash into a wall again.”

  Biff twisted around with anger plastered on his face. “Coward!” he screamed.

  Nate pointed and laughed at him, positioning himself in front of another wall. “I should have realized that day in the hallway that you were pretty weak!” Nate yelled back.

  Biff roared and charged again. Nate didn’t want to underestimate his opponent, so he figured Biff picked up on his potential weakness. This time, when Biff was about to strike him, Nate warped behind him, and Biff punched the wall again. This time, though, Nate was in the air and empowered his leg with his shield and roundhouse kicked Biff in the head. Biff launched fifteen feet to the side and rolled along the floor.

  Biff groaned and stayed down on his hands and knees for a few seconds before slowly getting to his feet. Biff was getting ready to charge again before a Gorillan put himself in between the two of them.

  “That’s enough for today, gentlemen. Hit the showers.”

  Biff relaxed, dropped his fists, and walked off.

  “We aren’t done here, shit stain!” Biff yelled pointing at Nate.

  “Save it for the Arena!” the Gorillan yelled in reply.

  Lindy ran up to Nate and started applying her salve to where Biff landed his punch.

  “Are you okay? That punch looked like it hurt!” Lindy said worriedly.

  “Oh, it did, but I’m alright. Thanks, Lindy.”

  “That was pretty impressive, I have to say.” Dee said as she walked up to Nate.

  “Your rock ability was pretty cool too. We are lacking a ranged attack, so it looks like you might fit in after all.”

  “Thank you." Dee replied. “And thank you for stepping in like that. No one has ever really…” She stopped as Nate placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s what friends do.” Nate smiled.