As Milo stood up on the other side of the thorny vines he felt a slight breeze on his legs.  He reached back to try to assess the damage the thorns had done to his pants.  He could feel the pain of where the thorns had penetrated his flesh, though the bleeding had already stopped and the wounds would probably be closed before the end of the test, but the damage to his pants was much more severe: long gashes in the fabric even as far as his upper thighs.  Milo blushed as he realized the holes in his trousers would expose his underpants to anyone who saw him from behind, and he was very grateful that he was currently alone.

Unfortunately, Milo's solitude was short-lived and he came into a semicircular depression in a room that looked remarkably like the one he had started in.  He was once more grateful that he was alone in this depression and its depth made it difficult for anyone looking at him from behind to see what he wore under his torn pants.  Then Kano announced the final phase of this testing: he would have to fight one of his fellow students.  Milo frowned a bit at the idea.  He was normally a peaceful type, but he did understand Kano's reasoning for having them fight since they did face a lot of discrimination out in the world, and that discrimination had been known to turn violent at times, so knowing how to fight was an important skill to have.  Still, couldn't they have used test dummies or something a little less physical?  It was too late for that, though, as the wall splitting the chamber in half was lowered to reveal Milo's opponent.

Milo's opponent was a slender, angry-looking girl with a vein throbbing at her temple.  It didn't take a genius to realize that this girl wanted to kill him, and suddenly Milo wasn't so reluctant to engage in a physical fight against a live opponent.  The girl exhaled a cold mist that enveloped her in a frozen ball.  When it shattered she was wearing armor made of ice and carrying two long axes, also made of ice and she demanded Milo bow before her.  So she was going to be one of those types: arrogant, overconfident, and putting down her opponent probably to make herself feel better, though Milo was a bit confused about her choice of insults.  He could get midget since he was short, but pizza-faced?  Okay, so he had a rather noticeable zit to the left of his nose just under his eye, and another one just above his upper lip, but that was really the worst of it; his face had remained remarkably acne-free--the problem areas for him were his chest and back, especially around the shoulders, but that wasn't important right now.  He was also confused about the wannabe elf part.  Was it the long hair?  The fair skin and high cheekbones?  It couldn't be the pointed ears since they were covered by his hair.

He shook his head a bit to dislodge these idle thoughts as the arrogant girl spoke again, this time openly threatening to murder him as she approached with her axes.  He glared at her and casually launched a fireball at her right side, striking the halberd and causing the frozen construct to melt.  He then danced around to the left and took up a defensive stance five feet from her and waited for her next move.  He didn't want to tip his hand that he was an Aetherial just yet, and he didn't want to stay on the defensive the entire time, but he needed a strategy, and that would take time.

[@Spriggs27]