What's next?

With Colt's help, we managed to accumulate six tags. and that includes both ours and his tag. We silently looked for a camera, not wanting to draw attention that can possibly jeopardize our currently great situation. It took us a while but we finally found a camera that was very well hidden in between two walls. James took out the tags from his pockets and waved it around to the camera.

"Here you go, you monsters. Do we qualify now? Can we move on to the next test?" Theo barked at the camera.

For a few minutes, we got no response, making Theo even more furious than he was before. Jessie decided to take one for the team and tried to calm him down before he does anything stupid again, and somehow it works.

"Is he always hot-headed?" Colt whispered, not wanting Theo to know that we were talking about him.

"Not really, he's a little bit stable before we were here. Maybe it's the stress." I commented.

"You know he's gonna be a problem right?" Colt said. I looked at him and gave him a confused look. He doesn't sound like he was joking, nor looking for conversation.

"What are you implying?" I asked.

"I'm trying to say that he's trouble, and what do we do to problems like him? We get rid of him before it's too late." He grinned dark, something about this man feels somewhat dangerous, like a bad omen is surrounding him but it's faint and hidden. I ignored him, thinking that I may have misunderstood him, and decided to check up on James and Octavia who were busying chatting.

"Oh, Zion. What's up?" James greeted.

"Just wanted to say hi. Also, I'm just bored so I'm snooping around stuff. What are you guys talking about?" I replied.

"Oh, it's nothing. Just some random things and random subjects." Octavia said. She ripped out a metal scrap out of the metal walls and played with it due to boredom.

"Shoot me a question. I need a distraction or I'm gonna blow up out of boredom." I pouted and calmly sat on the ground.

"Well, let's start with this topic. Do you know what your ability truly is?" James questioned. I was taken aback by this topic since I really do not know what my ability is. I know I have one but it seems like it's random. One time I used it, the monsters froze and I thought I can control time but when that kid attacked us, I can somehow the walls were distorted and it turns into a massive giant gargoyle.

"To be honest I do not know nor understand my ability. I haven't quite mastered it yet since I learned that I have it earlier." I confessed.

"Maybe you just need time and practice to master it. It took me seven months to lift a single wire up in the air." Octavia reassured.

"Yeah, it took a year to not suddenly catch things up in fire whenever I touch things. Don't overwork yourself about that Zion, it's just gonna stress you and it hurts me to see you like that." James commented. I immediately blushed at his response. I don't know why but I get shy whenever he says things like that, or maybe I'm just not used to it, he was one of my bullies before.

"Excuse me, what is this? What am I looking at?" Octavia chirped. I immediately snapped and went back to reality.

"W-What is it?" I stuttered.

"I sense something between you two. Something intimate." She said, squinting her eyes and waving her finger side by side, pointing to the both of us.

"What are you talking ab-" But before I could finish my sentence, a loud gush of wind caught our attention. I looked at the sky and saw it turning black. It's happening again, they are about to announce something.

"What's happening?!" Colt shouted visibly shocked by the changing of the sky. I was surprised by this question, if he's here all the time, why is he surprised to see this thing happening?

"Oh, this is just their way to let us know that they have an announcement to make. Over the top but kinda cool way if you ask me." Octavia explained. And in an instant, Colt calmed down and collected himself.

"To the remaining Hellvanians, I congratulate you. You have proven yourself and to us that you are stronger and more skilled than the others. Out of 19 only 12 of you come out on top and accumulated five to six tags. We recognize that all of you did not try to shed blood but rather chose to incapacitate your fellow Hellvanians. We highly discourage this and would recommend that you should do whatever it takes to kill." The Principal explained. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing, this isn't our principal, I won't accept the idea that he's this psychotic.

"Anyways, let's move on to the next phase of our test." He said unenthusiastically. He collected himself and began to explain the next part of the test.

"Do you notice that every time he does this he tends to get weirder?" Octavia announced. I looked at her and was happy that I wasn't the only one to notice his strange behavior.

"Finally somebody notices!" I exclaimed.

"It's not just him but everything about this test seems off to me like it was forced and rushed somehow," I explained. Octavia nodded in response.

"Can we focus right now?" Jessie snapped at us, we guiltily looked up at the dark sky faced the projector where the Principal's face was located and silently listened to him talking.

"The next phase of the Hellvanian Elite Exams is what we call "The Battle of the Few", this phase tests your strength, wits, and most importantly, your will to survive." The Principal explained.

"This test is basically a fighting competition. Take note that you can only contend as yourself and forming or having a team is highly unacceptable and discouraged by me, the principal, and the school admins. The rules are simple, everything is acceptable, you just have to fight to the death, win no matter what because your lives are at stake here. If both contenders do not want to kill the other, then we will be the ones to kill for you. If both parties come out as a tie then we will choose who dies base on their performance and strategy done." He continued. We all looked at each other, and I dread the idea of fighting one of them. These people are my family, excluding Colt because I'm still not sure about him.

"This is to test which among you Hellvanians are worthy and which among are the weakest. In war, the strongest lives and conquers lands while the weakest are just pawns and a deadweight among the strongest. Do whatever it takes to come out alive. May destiny and luck be with you all." The Principal finished before vanishing away.

"This is unbelievable, they can't force us to kill each other!" Theo fumed.

"Well, they just did! And we don't have any choice but to follow them if we want to survive." Jessie snapped.

"Are you serious Jess? This is inhumane!" Octavia shouted.

"I'm sorry but do you want to live? If you still think that they're good guys and bad guys in this cruel world then you're just as dumb as those who perished today. " Colt suddenly said. Theo quickly defended Octavia.

"And who do you think you are lover boy? News flash you're new to this group, and if you don't want me to cut you up right now, I recommend you to shut that mouth of yours." He declared. Unfortunately for Theo, Jessie comes in and defends Colt.

"Back off Theo, he's just telling us the truth and if you even think about hurting him, I will not hesitate to kill you." She warned. Theo backed away slowly, visibly hurt that Jess chose Colt over him.

"Guys look." James pointed at a direction and thankfully spoke and stopped the three of them from fighting. I looked in the direction James was pointing and was surprised to see the school building.

"Where are the walls of the maze?" Octavia pointed out. I looked around and saw the huge metallic walls were suddenly gone! Without noise or movement, without us even noticing it.

"Welcome to the second part of the test Hellvanians." And with that, we were one step away from completing this horrible and inhumane Hellvanian Elite Exams.