The ghost system

21

There was a stretch of silence wherein Connor stared at Rhys, and Rhys defiantly stared right back.

"I'm surprised that you made it to the second round." Connor looked incredulously down at his scrawny roommate. The guy whom had to save from having a panic attack in the bathroom, did it make sense that someone like that could be enrolled in the military college, let alone win a match against someone else.

Rhys deadpanned at the comment and felt all his anxiety fly out the proverbial window, it was replaced by annoyance. This guy had straight up ignored him when they were in their room but now he suddenly felt like talking...?

Rhys scowled at Connor. "I'm surprised you haven't killed anyone yet."

"Just haven't had the chance."

Rhys had to stop himself from laughing at Connor's reply. For someone who barely spoke he was surprisingly witty. Rhys was in the middle of thinking up a good comeback when an arm slinked over Connor's shoulder.

"Who're you talking to?" It was the red head teleporter on Connor's team, a guy who seemed to be trying to make friends with Connor like so many of the others had.

"My roommate."

"Oh?" The teleporter regarded Rhys with an expression he was all too familiar with. The 'seriously-this-guy?' Look.

"Hey, Ezra." Connor shifted his gaze to the side to meet the teleporter's eyes.

"Yeah?"

"Don't. Touch. me."

Sampson's aura instantly doubled in size, it raged and crackled with a surging energy that was almost painful for Rhys to look at. Ezra immediately took his arm off of Connor's shoulder and jumped a few steps backwards.

Connor regarded him coldly, not in the way you would look at a friend, and walked away, leaving Ezra and Rhys to catch their breaths. You didn't need an aura detection ability to sense the danger that emanated from Connor. He was like a bomb that threatened to go off at anytime, at least Rhys now knew that touching him would be a potential trigger.

"Hey Rhys!" He snapped back to reality at the sound of Sampson's voice a distance away. Rhys jogged back to their match pit and was happy to find that both Sampson and Nim were fully healed. Nim's healing had taken a bit longer because of the tiny metal blades that had made it past her skin and needed fishing out, but she seemed completely fine now. Even the water manipulator from the other team had been treated for his burns and was heading over to the benches after staring daggers into the back of Sampson's head.

"There are only a handful of groups still fighting, so we should get ready for the next match. By the way what happened with that other group? Don't tell me their match is already over." Joel's eyes went wide at the thought.

"No it's not that. When the instructor told them they would be fighting against Connor's group, they decided to forfeit the match."

Nim's eyes drifted towards the floor as she gripped her wrist with her other hand. Although she was physically fine, mentally she didn't look all there.

"I usually wouldn't agree with just giving up, but in that case..." Joel's voice drifted to Connor's group standing a few feet away.

Sampson was silent and he looked like he was deep in thought.

"If we have to fight them in an upcoming round would you guys just give up?" Rhys wasn't asking the question to shame them, he genuinely wanted to know whether they were okay with fighting team 25.

"No way." Sampson was confident. "I'm not a coward and I'm not going to lose to that tattooed freak."

Rhys was also confident that he wanted to fight Connor. He knew if he did, he would definitely grow stronger, and that was something he desperately needed. However, if Joel and Nim refused to fight would they still be able to go into a match?