I Evolve 10,000 Times Faster

Morning light hitl the Capital streets in pale gold bars.

Team Soup walked out of the hotel front doors in a loose formation. Emric had his shield strapped to his back, Renna had her bow slung over one shoulder, and Lyra walked beside Holden with her spear resting against her shoulder like she was born holding it.

Renna was already talking.

"I’m just saying, if the hotel breakfast had eggs instead of that weird powdered nonsense, I would have eaten four plates. Maybe five. My stomach is a bottomless pit of destruction now that I’m Rank 2, I swear it expanded."

"It didn’t expand," Emric said. "Your metabolic rate increased due to the energy consumption of your Rank 2 core. You’re burning more calories at rest. The hunger is proportional."

"So my stomach DID expand."

"Metaphorically."

"Same thing."

"It is absolutely not the same thing."

Lyra glanced at Holden. "They’ve been doing this since they woke up."

"Some things never change."

He was in a good mood. Apex Vanguard status, restricted archives, S-Class cultivation chambers, and a team that was now entirely Rank 2. Maeve was upstairs building a tactical briefing on the Opium, and things were moving.

Then he saw them.

Two figures stood in the middle of the street, directly blocking the path to the main road. They were identical, with the same height, same build, same dark hair cut to the jaw, and the same black tactical armor with the silver academy insignia on the collar. Standing shoulder to shoulder with their arms crossed, they had their eyes locked on Team Soup.

Cora and Sera.

Vespera’s twin assassins.

Holden had seen them fight. They moved like one person split into two bodies, their synchronized short-sword style so tight that even Rank 3 fighters struggled to track both blades at once. They were fast, precise, and lethal.

And right now, they looked furious.

Team Soup stopped walking.

The twins didn’t move.

Holden tilted his head. "Morning, ladies."

Cora spoke first. "Holden Voss."

Sera spoke second. "Congratulations on your promotion."

They always alternated. It was unsettling the first time you heard it. By now, Holden just found it annoying.

"I heard the news," Cora said.

"Apex Vanguard," Sera said.

"For your entire team," Cora said.

"Including the deadweight," Sera said.

Emric’s jaw tightened while Renna’s hand went toward her bow.

Cora uncrossed her arms. "Hand over the badges."

"You do not deserve them," Sera said.

Cora’s eyes moved to Emric and Renna. "Rank 1 students wearing Apex Vanguard colors."

"An insult to the designation," Sera said.

"A stain on the academy," Cora said.

Renna’s eye twitched. "Okay, first of all, we’re not Rank 1 anymore. Second of all, who gave you the authority to demand anything? Third of all, I really don’t like your tone, and I’m trying very hard not to shoot something at you two right now."

Cora didn’t look at her. She kept her eyes on Holden.

"We answer directly to Instructor Vespera," Cora said.

"We are her personal blades," Sera said.

"If your team carries those badges," Cora said.

"It makes a mockery of our position," Sera said.

Emric adjusted his glasses. "The Apex Vanguard designation is granted by the commanding authority based on operational merit, not peer review. Your objection has no procedural validity."

Cora’s lip curled. "Procedural validity."

Sera’s eyes narrowed. "You hide behind words because you can’t hide behind strength."

The twins moved.

They stepped forward in perfect unison, each drawing a short sword from the sheath at her hip.

They moved at Emric and Renna.

shhhk.

Both blades cut through the air in a synchronized arc, one from the left and one from the right, aimed at Emric’s and Renna’s throats. They weren’t lethal strikes, but warning strikes designed to humiliate and make them flinch.

Emric didn’t flinch.

His heavy shield came off his back in a single motion, swinging forward to meet both blades simultaneously.

CLANG!

Both short swords hit the shield at the exact same point, and the impact should have driven Emric back. It should have buckled his knees or at least forced a stagger.

Emric didn’t move.

Not one inch.

His Rank 2 body, reinforced with metal-durability skin and powered by the 10x cognitive buff running in the background of his brain, had calculated both strike angles before the twins had finished their swing. He knew exactly where each blade would land, the precise degree of force behind each cut, and the exact distribution of weight on both of their leading feet.

He adjusted his shield by two inches.

Both blades hit the thickest part of the shield and stopped dead.

The twins’ eyes went wide.

Cora stumbled forward from the rebound while Sera stumbled backward, breaking their synchronized formation for the first time.

Emric looked at them over the top of his shield.

"Terrible form. You’re losing almost half your power to wrist drift."

Cora’s face twisted. "You"

She lunged again.

Sera recovered and lunged with her.

This time, they didn’t go for warning strikes. Both blades came in fast and low, aimed at Emric’s legs in a scissoring motion designed to cut his mobility.

Emric dropped his shield to block the low strikes.

But the twins weren’t aiming for Emric anymore.

Sera pivoted mid-strike, redirecting her blade toward Renna.

Too slow.

Renna had already moved.

whoosh.

She wasn’t where Sera expected her to be. Rank 2 speed hit different. Renna blurred to the left, snapping around on her heel with a sudden sharpness that felt impossible for someone who ran her mouth as much as she did.

Her bow came up with two arrows nocked. She drew and released.

The arrows had blunt tips wrapped in crackling Storm energy.

THWACK. THWACK.

The first arrow hit Cora’s jacket collar and punched straight through the fabric, pinning it to the brick wall behind her. The second arrow caught Sera’s sleeve at the shoulder, nailing it to the same wall with a crack of electricity.

Both twins jerked to a stop, their clothes stapled to the wall.

Cora grabbed at her collar. The arrow was buried two inches into the wall. She pulled, but the fabric ripped without coming free. Her sword arm was still mobile, but her upper body was pinned.

Sera tried to twist free. Lightning crawled across the arrow shaft and into her sleeve, sending a sharp jolt through her arm.

bzzt.

Her sword hand cramped up, and the weapon slipped from her fingers, dropping onto the pavement.

Cora swung at Renna with her free hand. Renna leaned back casually, letting the blade pass an inch from her nose.

"Missed."

She nocked another arrow and pointed it at Cora’s remaining free hand.

"Try that again and the next one goes through your wrist."

Cora froze.

Sera was still twitching from the residual charge in her sleeve, glaring at Renna with pure hatred.

"You think this makes you strong?" Sera hissed.

"No. I think it makes me Rank 2. There’s a difference."

Emric lowered his shield and looked at the twins with the calm expression of someone reviewing a poorly done assignment.

"Your left foot telegraphs. Both of you. You shift weight about a third of a second before you swing. That’s an eternity at Rank 2 speed."

Cora’s jaw tightened. "Shut up."

"And splitting targets mid-engagement was a mistake. You broke your only advantage."

"I said shut up."

Emric adjusted his glasses. "If you’re going to ambush people in the street, at least be competent at it."

Renna grinned. "Burned by the math nerd."

Lyra had been standing behind them the entire time, watching.

"Are you finished?" she asked the twins.

Cora’s fists clenched. Sera’s teeth ground together.

Neither of them said anything.

Holden pushed off the wall.

He walked forward slowly, hands in his pockets, and stopped in front of the twins.

He looked at Cora, then at Sera, and finally at the two arrows pinning them to the wall.

He started clapping.

clap. clap. clap.

"Oh, beautiful. Truly. The coordination. The dramatic entrance. The synchronized dialogue." He tilted his head. "Shame about the execution, though."

Cora’s eyes burned. "Voss, you"

"Like Emric said, watch your left foot. But you’re also committing way too hard to your follow-through. You throw everything into the first swing and leave yourselves completely wide open. If I had been the one fighting instead of my team, you’d both be out cold right now."

Sera opened her mouth to argue, closed it, and then just stood there blinking.

"You let your students fight for you?" she managed.

"I let my team handle their own problems." He smiled, and it made Cora look like she wanted to bite through metal. "They stopped being Rank 1 a while ago. You just didn’t notice."

He turned to his team.

"Let’s go."

Emric fell into step beside him while Renna bounced after them, practically vibrating with energy.

"That was incredible. Did you see their faces when Emric blocked both swords? They looked like their entire world broke."

"Reality doesn’t break, it just recalculates," Emric said.

"It’s a figure of speech!"

"It’s a poor one."

Lyra fell into step beside Holden. She glanced back at the twins, still pinned to the wall, then looked at him.

"You enjoyed that."

"I really did."

"You could have stopped them before they drew their swords."

"I could have. But Emric and Renna needed that. They needed to know their new rank isn’t just a number on a screen. It’s real." He looked at Lyra. "Besides, the look on Cora’s face was worth the wait."

Lyra shook her head, but she was smiling.

Behind them, Cora finally ripped her collar free from the wall.

Sera yanked the arrow from her sleeve and dropped it on the ground. Her hand was still trembling from the residual charge.

They stood there, disheveled and humiliated, watching Team Soup walk away.

Renna turned around, walking backward, and waved.

"Bye! Better luck next time! Work on that foot thing!"

Emric didn’t look back. "Statistically, there won’t be a next time."

"There’s always a next time with angry people."

"That’s just a biased observation."

"Your face is a biased observation."

"That phrase doesn’t work that way."

"EXACTLY."

Holden walked ahead of them. Behind him, his team bickered like a family on vacation.

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