“To continue with our showdowns, let us watch a true one-on-one brawl of pure hand to hand skill!! First up, let me introduce… Tabby!!!”

On cue she flowed up and walked out into the arena, nerves and excitement in equal measure bobbing her step.

“And her challenger… ZIYOU!!!”

The audience absolutely erupted as yet another of the Elite stepped down from the stands onto the sand. Her popularity pretty easy to see, and hear. Seth flinched slightly at the sudden cacophony. But he accepted the energy, he'd never really gotten to see her fight in a serious fashion this close before. Tabby though seemed a little less than enthused. Hell, down right scared as Ziyou strided into place opposite her. She wasn’t a bad fighter, but putting her up against the martial arts master of the Elite was a little insane.

“As before, the rules are simple!!”

Para of course cared little for her hesitation.

“First to ring the other out wins!! Special consideration has been made though, Ziyou has stipulated that she will not use her powers in this fight!!”

‘Heh… If only that meant much of… wait…! What he fuuuck!?’

The audience grumbled along, she rarely ever used her powers to begin with and the prospect drove a lot of the excitement that was now left deflated.

“Fighters ready!!”

Tabby seemed to understand her almost complete ignoring and desperately tried to psyche herself up as she stanced at the edge of the circle.

“Set!!”

Ziyou squared up opposite, eyes belying none of her silent excitement to finally be in the action. She's always been known to be a bit of a-

“FIGHT!!!”

Immediately she charged, sand blasting back as a heavy punch tore toward Tabby’s face like it was shot out of a cannon. A desperate duck dodged the fist, but a quick guard only just stopped the other three. Ziyou beat against her toughened furry arms, three hits recoiling off balance. Then three more hit, and three more, like burst fire from a rifle. Each one adding to the angle her back was at. But a clawed paw dug hard into the sand and kept Tabby in the line. A pull back from Ziyou gave her the only chance she had, and she took it.

Claws retracted and she pulled under one final burst, twirling around her opponent and into the more spacious center. But just as she found her breathing space though, a wanton leg came screaming around after her. Ignoring her own balance, Ziyou slammed her shin into Tabby’s chest. The impact knocked out her breath, but not her fight. Claws folded tight up over the leg and grabbed hold, but even this was the expected move. Tabby was caught off guard again as that leg spun inside her grab, the other leg swung about into head. A combine kick. She was slammed to the ground as Ziyou spun off her momentum like a toppled top next to her.

Fluffy hands pressed against her regally bashed face, but quickly rounded about to pull her back up to face her opponent. A low hissing growl met Ziyou’s boastful smile. It was time for a real fight. But this time she was on the offensive. Scrambling forward, she swiped at her supporting arms, missing as Ziyou spun to get back upright. A swift kick off and a knee caught her mid spin, stopping only in a guarding arm. A wide swipe slammed down on the other half of that guard from the side. Both fighters now stuck propping each other up. Until Tabby dragged her knee down and the guard with it, and batted wide with the other hand, slamming Ziyou in the unguarded face. Both stumbled back up, the serious smile smacked onto Ziyou’s face said all that was needed.

Tabby reflexively guarded as she burst forward, another burst of rifle punches, but a set of hands quickly grabbed hold of and pulled her guard away. Ziyou pulled her leg up and over as she pulled Tabby down by the arms, kick aimed square at her head, but markedly slower than she could have struck. Slow enough for Tabby to pull her head to the side and dodge, and counterattack. A little too… intensively. Ziyou winced as her leg was suddenly chomped down on and pulled around. The pain wasn’t enough to elicit a response, but she wasn’t a fan of being rebuked. Tabby found her head twisted a little as Ziyou pulled herself up and lined another kick. With little choice but to take it, Tabby pulled hard upward on Ziyou’s leg, yanked her hands free, and… let go.

Ziyou’s kick slammed hard into Tabby’s chest, kicking her off as Tabby’s claws dug into the sand. She flew off as Tabby fell back hacking, but only saw too late that she’d overdone it. Twisting as much as she could, she couldn’t stop herself from falling feet first… out of the ring. Serious expression turned to disappointment pouting at technical loss. Tabby flopped back, smile across her face and hands shakily raised as the crowd understood what had happened.

“Ladies and Gentlemen!!”

And as Para made himself known again.

“I give you… KALEIDOCAT!!!”

The audience cheered, though was obviously not as the enthusiasts grumbled their frustrations. Seth wasn’t mad though, practically giggling to himself.

‘Heh heh… Can’t fault a technicality.’

Graduation continued on afterward, just with less heavy hitters smacking around their trainees. David finally earned his title of Aquanaught after fighting not just his two trainers, but his mother as well. Seth’s ears were still ringing from the egregious sonic attacks she used. Or… was that just her normal voice? David’s control was sufficient to keep Aquafirma at bay and his armor worked great against Depthcharge’s melee heavy repertoire. But both were in turn detrimental against his mother’s attacks, sound waves carrying through the water with increased intensity. He only ended up winning by taking control away from Aquafirma, using his body to create a massive surge of water that knocked all three challengers out of the ring. Thankfully he reformed, otherwise this would have been a real issue.

Zeleny and Jacob were forced to tag team fight their trainers, Phazer Shock and Glacial Glaz. The resulting laser show narrowly burned several holes in the arena wall. Thankfully Aegis put up more shields. Zeleny’s rainbow beam was an equal match for Phazer’s photon cannon apparently, and Glaz’s more refined ice constructs slowed Jacob down before he could close the distance. The fight though took a series of turns when Phazer and Glaz started using their combo attack, an ice lens that Phazer shot through to amplify her beams. Zeleny had to hit her absolute again just to keep the intensified beam from blasting her out.

‘I didn’t even think lasers could impact like that.’

Jacob came in clutch though, throwing his axe at the lens and tilted it down before the strain became too much. Zeleny’s barely countering beam found its leverage over Phazer’s enhanced one and hit the lens in reverse. She quickly toned down the intensity, but not before the beam rainbow blasted both challengers back and out of the ring. Zeleny received the name Rainbow Storm, while Jacob took up the mantle of Frost Fighter.

Razor faced the music and found himself fighting both Blade Tone and Needle, the retention of the former being finally made clear. The fight was scary to say the least of it. Where Kaze’s… ‘Ehem, Shimakaze’s’ fight was a battle of skilled swordsmen, this was one skilled sword fighter and a living pincushion vs an amateur. Razor took some close hits, only avoiding getting cut and stabbed by liberal use of his armor abilities. He finally found his footing though by keeping Needle between him and Blade Tone, whose sweeping attacks were a hard sell in close proximity to her sharp exterior. In the end Razor found his bravery and gave up fighting conventionally. He threw down his blades, armored up, and charged into Needle as Tone fought for spacing. Both couldn't react in time before the former was threatening to skewer the latter, Tone fleeing without thinking of the consequences. Namely ringing himself out. Razor just had to push Needle the rest of the way and he'd won his challenge. He finally earned the right to be called Razor, though Seth suspected he was just as unprepared as he was when it came to hero names.

Maya was pitted against her trainer Strata, somewhat of a theme developing already here, but instead of a direct fight each were pitted against each other in a building duel. Maya wasn’t as mad as expected, but this was yet again an attack on her preferences. Each would build defenses that the other would assault with increasingly heavy stones. Strata built a castle of sandstone, emptying much of the arena floor. Maya wasn’t left with much, but realized the challenge didn’t specify material constraints. She dug deep and the metal flooring below the arena screeched up from under the remaining sand, surprising quite a few people, Strata included. She formed… punched walls into shape from it and used the last of the arena’s sand to build her small fortress behind it. She won handily as all Strata’s attacks bounced off and hers were able to weather his defenses. Maya looked up at her family as her new hero name was called out, City Shaper. An apparent homage to the name her brother had wanted. Everyone seemed to feel the significance and the applause increased, but Seth wasn’t sure he could handle any more happy moments.

Marco ended up facing off with Master Da Feng, though the fight was a very different kind of affair. The battle was with shifted rules, no ring constraints but no touching the ground. A mid air duel between air controllers. Marco ended up pulling out several moves Seth hadn’t caught in his observations. Vacuum punches, temporary air constructs, he even made a simplified scramjet to boost himself past Master Da Feng’s defenses and slam into him. It seemed like he’d finally come into his own, finally learned his own moves and not just someone else’s. Master Da Feng bowed out after his defenses proved inadequate leaving Marco to have the win. He'd earned his hero name, Air Break, all on his own.

Alex was next, though her ‘fight’ was another oddity of a challenge. Her task was to hide among a group of heroes and both remain undetected by them, as a copy of a different hero, and find the other false hero in the group and defeat them. She wouldn’t fail if she was discovered, but she would have to face the whole group alone and win through her own abilities. Rather apt for a stealth super like her, but hard to pull off. Seth noticed quickly that the heroes were hardlight copies, but their programming was something else entirely. He couldn’t find their source in the Hill’s systems, but they were near exact copies of the real heroes. Almost right down to their personalities. Alex narrowly avoided being caught on a few occasions, though only Seth and maybe Ohm knew her real identity, everyone else was left to wonder and piece together for themselves. She finally won when the fake tried to accuse one of the copies of being the imposter, but ended up using evidence that they couldn’t have known about given the circumstances. Alex swooped in behind them and tagged them as the fake, unmasking them and winning her challenge. She took Scarlet Mimic as her hero name and proved her prowess... though Seth still couldn't shake the cold feeling he got from her.

Next was Cleo, thankfully presented with a mostly normal fight. She faced off with her trainer, Pharaoh Shephten, in a no contact bout to see who could outlast the other using nothing but their powers. It progressed as could be expected. Shephten using the abundant sand on the arena floor to keep Cleo off balance and prevent her from focusing. And Cleo retaliating by not letting Shephten stay material for too long, constantly whipping the sand he was made off apart. The fight took a ridiculous turn though when Cleo had finally had enough of fighting the terrain and decided to make her own. She forced her arms out, those titanic straps materializing close to her, but not striking out. Suddenly they retracted, folded over themselves, wrapped around… the space around them. And wrenched a portal into their realm open at her feet. Straps lifted up and held her up as the menagerie and maleficent expanse of her pocket dimension whipped across the ring. Leather bindings of every size snaking sweeping clear the sand. With her opponent left with nothing to hide in, she closed her portal up and stepped out onto the metal floor, left with nothing but a pile of grinning gold dusted sand opposite her. She won handily as she swept the Pharaoh away out of the ring. In another twist, she decided to retain her nickname. Thus she became the Punk Princess in title and…

‘Hell, it actually fits given her ridiculous number of talents.’

Ohm was the last up with a fight against all three of his trainers, even though he was only trained by his dad. Terawatt and Breaker Box looked like they had been dragged into this fight by Zeus’s Strike, the clear look of emotional smothering and fearful coercion across their faces. The fight itself was flashy, but devolved into a sequential brawl like Kabar’s, with Zeus pushing the other two to put up more of a challenge against his son. For his part though, Ohm was a menace. He started off as expected, rushing in with reckless abandon, but quickly his attacks seemed more thought out. The two trainers had come in powered up and ready, but Ohm was emptied out from his display. He’d done that deliberately apparently as his attacks quickly siphoned off their electricity and kept the fight a mostly physical brawl. They were defeated in nearly a minute, beaten out of the ring by ramping up combos.

Finally one on one, Ohm fought his dad using all the power he had taken. Electricity arced across the arena with every hit, blows matched at incredible speeds, Zeus even called down a lightning strike… ‘A fucking Indoor Lightning Strike!!!’ The fight lasted for almost ten minutes, both fighters running each other out of power and stamina. Ohm only won because his dad finally called it and gave up, between haggard breaths and futile attempts at outward enthusiasm. He did at least prove himself his dad’s equal, which was definitely enough to graduate. He officially took his full name, Ohmega, as his hero name, though Seth was sure it wasn’t his real name in the end.

‘Though I definitely don’t see him taking his father’s mantle any time soon.’

The last of the trainees challenged, Para retook the spotlight as the audience softly wondered what was next.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please calm your speculations! The judges have come to a final decision on our remaining recruit!”

Para motioned for Seth to retake the center of the arena. His resolve mostly restored and the demands of his mission finally needing him up, he walked out into the battered and reorganized sands of the arena. He could feel the eyes of the audience on him, felt their judgement… and their ridicule. The worst of the offenders at least seemed placated... or absent. Turning about in the center of the ring Seth realized why things felt less tense than before. The Elite were gone from their front row seats, even Aegis was gone. Only Mediknight was left, standing in their place next to Para. His expressionless helmet giving off an air of regret that Seth couldn’t ignore. He looked around the stands, but no one seemed to notice what was happening until Para continued.

“The judges have decided to give you another chance! A last attempt to prove your worth! And what better a challenge for one such as you than this!!”

Para ceremoniously extended his hand toward the closed shutter door behind Seth as it slowly began opening. A bright light drenching the space and pouring out into the arena. Seven figures silhouetted against the illuminated space.

“I present to you, your challengers!! THE ELITE!!!”