Cade stepped into the box. 

His eyes turned to his sleeve, casually rolling it up then fastened it at his elbow. When he finished, Cade reached for his back pant pocket. He checked for his senbon. They were still there, locked in a case. Each tip was laced with something dangerous, but Cade had little idea what it was. If Angel was scratched by them, it made treating him difficult until Samad revealed the poison. He questioned if the Iranian would do it immediately and this along made him hesitate ever bring them out

The medic was a healer at heart, not a murder. Yet he was walking into a warzone now without any chance of coming out unscratched at all. Angel was far more experienced in the art of warfare than himself. If the Lost Number wanted to kill him, it wouldn’t be hard. 

As Cade reached for his bo-staff, his ears caught Angel’s mockery toward his ability and power. The younger Asylum wouldn’t argue because it seemed everyone believed he was weaker. Even his own partner. The truth couldn’t be disproven, but eventually the roles reversed if the individual lived long enough. 

[color=7ccd7c][i] ‘What are you up to?’[/i][/color] Cade thought mentally, his eyes locked with the Lost Number. 

His hand reached for his bo-staff as Angel’s ‘encouragement’ tried to urge him on. Cade slightly sighed at the insult before he than considered how to begin. 

“Are you really communicating with me telepathically?” Angel replied through the telepathic channel, his disapproval rather apparent even through thought. “In battle you never open a channel with the enemy boy, do you know what I could do to you with such as easy access?” The Lost Number continued while shaking his head and then the channel was severed, an act of kindness. 

“You are not taking this seriously are you my young, naive, little friend?” Angel replied, this time speaking verbally while leaning against his coffin. “My task is to duel you, rather simple. There are no restrictions and that curtly translates to, you may die. As to why?” The Silver Reaper seemed to take a pause at that, his veiled gaze meeting the Chrono then back to the medic. “I am afraid that is the point and you must figure it out, do not disappoint me little medic.” As soon as the last words parted from his mouth Angel’s form dissipated like mist, appearing behind Cade with a palm on the Asylum’s head. 

“When given the luxury of the initial strike, never refuse it.” Angel drove this lesson with some practical demonstration, Cade’s mind experiencing a short burst of agonizing pain, short enough not cause any permanent traumatic harm. And that was the second act of kindness, And last. 

Cade’s eyes widened in shock. The sensation of someone’s palm against his skull then followed by the sensation of pain bolted into his mind. It felt like he had been hit by a sledgehammer on the brain. His teeth gritted tightly to prevent the loud scream from escaping his throat. Instinctively his right hand gripped his staff tighter, tilting it at where he suspected Angel’s gut was, then released it right into the Reaper. 

Before the staff could connect a foreign force seemed to hold it as if an invisible hand had kept the weapon at bay. A smile laced across Angel’s face, his shimmering spectacles meeting Cade’s eyes. “Evasion is advised,” with a heart beat of a warning his stretched palm struck for where the Medic’s heart would be. A killing blow to signify the Reaper had come to reap.

Immediately the medic’s body shifted to the left. Angel’s hand brushed by his ribs, nearly cracking them with the radiating power alone. It was enough to draw a visible flinch from Cade. His right leg continued to pull to the side and tried to put distance between the two. His figure slowly turned about to fact Angel with faint hopes it would improve his counter ability. 

“When faced with uneven odds, distance is usually your ally,” Angel lectured remaining stationary, his posture once more leaning against his coffin. This was after all a lesson for the students as well and from the Reaper’s demeanour he was quite comfortable with punishing the medic while teaching a class. “But even more so, you need wit and resolve. You must focus and discipline yourself else you be swept away by fear,” as if to stress his words the Lost Number activated his Alchemic Drive, the sheer pressure stifling the cube, not even the field could hold back the magnitude of it. “What will you do boy, you face a leviathan, what will you do?”  Angel wore a simple expression on his face, pure and utter malice, the bloodlust almost tangible. 

Cade’s arms leaned heavily on his staff now fully extended. His breathing was growing heavier with passing time and his limbs were weighed down, his eyes still looking at Angel. The look on the Lost Number was difficult to ignore. His lungs struggled to retain breath as he didn’t answer the stronger individual. There was nothing to argue. Their power differences were too drastically different. He was a gnat trying to annoy the bull. 

 “When you embrace the impossibility of a situation you create the inevitability of it, you create your failure,” Angel spoke once more, his candour replaced by an almost imperialistic tone. “Is the futility of it all so daunting? When faced with death you would gawk at your impending end? Is failure parallel to death? If death is so certain then why restrain yourself, what more do you have to lose. Show me the splendor befitting of an ant!” As Angel spoke, a smile seemed to creep upon his face, not one to taunt the medic or to demean him. The end was certain, but how it will end was not. “What will you do boy?” As Angel repeated his alchemic drive finally returned to normal, the pressure subsiding only to be followed by a barrage of telekinetic blows. 

Cade’s body felt a punch hit his side, then followed up at his knee back. Several more followed suit from different angles causing him to flinch away. The medic’s arms raised to protect his face and head while the assault continued. His mind was flickering through the possibilities surging through his thoughts, but each one seemed unlikely to work more than the last one. He barely realized he was curled into a ball upon the ground until Samad’s voice reached out to him.  

[b][color=DEBA5E] ‘What...doing? Are...hit you… us both killed?’[/color][/b]  

Cade couldn’t bring himself to answer. He closed his eyes, still feeling punches jerk across his surface, before jerking out his senbon. His eyes spotted where Angel was leaning on his coffin then took aim. Electrical energy began to build within the metal needle just when he shot at the Silver’s Reaper’s location. It flew with surprising accuracy at the image.     

Before the lightning charged needles left Cade’s hand a strange shimmer appeared around the Reaper, as if smooth transparent plastic had been laced around him, a telekinetic barrier hence allowing Angel to remain leaning comfortably, staring at the onslaught on Cade as well as the mosquito of an attack. It was at the first spark that Angel realized the purpose behind the weak attack and the Lost Number’s tinted glasses did little to protect his sight from the blinding flash. With that the barrage on Cade seized leaving Angel simply staring at the Asylum’s general direction. 

Cade wobbly rose to his feet. His expression twisted into something akin to a mix of pain and determination. Blood dripped from his fist, the palm bleeding now. In his other one was a bloodied senbon in his grip indicating he had carved out a symbol on the only canvas he had: his flesh. It appeared Cade had used a clean senbon to inscribe on his palm while Angel had been beating the living hell out of him. The red liquid dribbled down as it pooled into a small puddle at his feet. 

With the Lost Number temporary blinded, Cade increased his speed in the same fashion he had seen Samad do before. He had been watching his partner for some time as he adapted his alchemy to mimic it. Electricity surged through his system and poured into the blood collection in his hand. It settled there for additional use. Already Cade’s eyes shut in order to protect his eyes from the additional flashes he might have to create. His other hand reached for the laced senbon in his back pocket while his staff was appeared forgotten for the moment. 

When his last flash died, he let blood droplets scatter in his wake. They touched various surfaces they could easily attach there and waited. Their surface crackled in anticipation.     

Before the Lost Number knew it, Cade shifted his direction to Angel’s right then threw two senbon at Angel’s right side. Both were aiming at the largest center mass of the man’s body nearest the ribs. While Cade didn’t expect them to hit the target, it would force Angel to move and buy more time. His hand slammed down where he pressed the crude sigil into the floor before shooting around. It wouldn’t be as strong as if he had carved it by hand, but that alchemy would take too long. So he had to improvise.   

Any and all incoming attacks were swiftly negated by Angel’s telekinetic barrier, the Lost Number now no longer kneeling against the coffin. The first few seconds were perhaps the most bothersome but eventually darkness settled and the Reaper grew accustomed all additional flash bangs were a minor inconvenience. “Quite the underhanded maneuver,” the Lost Number complimented. His palm pressed out in front of him, maintaining the shield. Very few had this knowledge but Angel would often use his gaze to direct his alchemy, a subtle form of motem which prevented the Reaper from expending unwanted energy. This implication of having to do just that did not sit too well. 

“I was intending to avoid this, but this is getting tiresome,” with a weary resignation the Lost Number massaged his temples and then he stood still. His veiled gaze staring ahead, at something and nothing.  

[b]”Like Vermin you slither in darkness, I need to sight to listen to the cries of a lonely mind,” when Angel finished his gaze was now directly staring at Cade. 

[i]”Learn to silence your mind boy,[/i] the Lost Number sneered, his words echoing within Cade’s head something akin to telepathy but different, more coercive. [i]Now what say I shatter your very being?[/i]

[color=7ccd7c][i] ‘Stay out of my head…’[/color][/i] Cade answered before his hand raised at Angel. 

He had managed to place four ‘stamps’ as he stood upright,  his fingers moved and generated alchemy through his palm. Electricity crackled at the scars then it shot out in a single, focused bolt of lighting right at Angel. 

Before Angel could begin to warp Cade’s mind to his liking, to mould the medic anew, something instantly yanked him away. His mind regaining cognition a second too late, realizing the shield had shattered under a sudden focused alchemic bolt. Normally the Reaper would have been fast enough to stabilize his shield once more, but the lack of sight coupled with the sudden ejection from another’s mind along with the realization the medic had surpassed expectations, all of it had helped in catching the Lost Number off guard. The initial lightning bolt connecting with Angel’s outstretched palm followed by an explosion of electricity in proximity to him. 

Cade watched the ‘fireworks’ begin. Several scattered droplets and the sigils placed down glowed then exploded creating smaller damage when the shield went down. He didn’t expect the effects to last long. Cade began to heal his palm,  the sigil expended, creating a new cavanas. His hand reached for the senbon to carve a new sigil. 

 Once the dust cleared Angel’s silhouette slowly took shape, the Lost Number was nowhere close to his coffin, skid marks revealing that the lightning bolt and the accompanying explosion had forced him a considerable distance. Minute scratches and tears laced the Reaper’s once pristine clothing. The air around him was shimmering once more revealing he had activated his shield to avoid the brunt of the damage, though Angel’s still outstretched palm had been scorched black. An orb of electric energy danced within his seared palm, with evasion impossible the Reaper had resorted to taming the energy directed at him, it was not as simple as expected. A rather open frown took shape on Angel’s face, clearly finding the pain bothersome. 

“You underestimate yourself medic, you hide your potential behind excuses and self loathing. Enough of this farce,” if the Lost Number appeared intimidating before simply leaning against his coffin then the fact he decided to finally walk towards his target should have been terrifying. 

The sigil was only a third of the way done when Angel began to walk. Cade frowned a bit at Angel’s words before reaching for another set of senbon, placing the non contaminated one into the nook of his thumb. He was down to six now since the last two failed to hit the target. 

Feeling like Angel being in close combat was a bad idea, Cade began to focus on keeping distance. In his haste he appeared to have dropped one of the senbon as he rushed to the right. 

The Lost Number continued to walk patiently towards the medic, each step relaxed almost casual and with the next step the appearance of Angel dissolved. Capitalizing on the illusion Angel had already situated himself in Cade’s path and greeted the Asylum’s ribs with an alchemically powered knee. 

The sound erupted in Cade’s skull when the bones gave away to the impact. It was enough to push out the breath from his lungs causing him to to crumble onto all fours. 

The next bone to crack was Cade’s leg as Angel twisted it at an obscene angle via telekinesis, the Reaper’s fingers dancing and Cade’s limbs reacting. “Why do you consider yourself so worthless boy?”

As Cade’s screams prevented him from answering, Samad had stepped into the box. His steps were crisp and cutting the distance fairly quickly, discomfort riddled his movements. It was obvious he could feel everything his partner could, but it barely seemed to register in his behavior. Or maybe… he didn’t feel it as well as he should’ve.  

[b][color=DEBA5E] “I think you’ve made your point and won the spar. Is this really needed?”[/color][/b] Samad asked. 

“No...I am afraid I have not made my point. Neither of you understand. What use are those eyes if you willfully stay blind?” Angel’s tone took on a more repulsed tone when addressing the Iranian as if he were the primary issue here.

 “Well at least the first lesson has succeeded. As Asylums you are never alone, to be an Asylums means to move together, disregard that and you disregard what you are.” The Lost Number couldn’t hide the venom from his tone, as if silently blaming Samad for taking this long to intervene. 

[b]”The lesson has just begun.”[/b]

Samad’s eyes narrowed as he felt the venom roll off Angel. He didn’t engage in the argument for Angel to mind his own business. Samad didn’t tell the Lost Number how to grieve or treat his own partner, hating he was saddled with Cade.  

Angel didn’t wait for Samad to respond almost instinctively knowing what the fool would think. “Ah you foolish child, so stagnant in your self pity. How often must you have contemplated why did you survive, why couldn’t it have been your original partner. Such useless thoughts. Your partner died because she sacrificed herself for you and you return her selfless gift by becoming a retch, a weak….sad little man too afraid to open your broken heart.” The Lost Number couldn’t help but laugh. 

Samad’s hand tightened into a fist. Knuckles whitened as he glared at Angel, every word right as it was spewed back at him. He inhaled a moment then exhaled. Letting the building fury retract for now. 

Cade was already trying to fight through the pain. Hand shifted through numerous signs, sloppy and quick, to heal the bone. Every fragment collected then shifted painfully back into place. His breath was labored from where the ribs had collapsed into his lung, tearing it in silence. 

[color=7ccd7c] “Wasn’t your… fuck… sparring match against me... Reaper. Why… provoke Samad?”[/color] Cade asked through wheezing breaths. 

“Be silent, you who cannot even understand something as simple as that!” It was clear that by now the Reaper had gone from mildly irked to quite annoyed by the antic of the Experimental Team and he demonstrated his displeasure by hurling Cade away with a telekinetic push. 

“I do not provoke, I say things as they are. You are the embodiment of failure Iranian,” Angel spoke once more, his gaze falling upon the Momentum Alchemist.

[center]“You who failed your partner!”

“You who failed yourself!”

“You who cursed another to a life of pain!”

“You who can’t face his ghosts and so haunts the living!”

“You who condemns the selfless to death!” [/center]

Each accusation hammered in the mind of Samad, accompanied by a migraine the likes of which the Iranian will never experience again. 

Samad’s muscles stiffened. His head felt like it was splitting open from the center as his hand touched his temple, his teeth gritted to keep from screaming out. A small trickle of blood rushed down his upper lip. It took everything that he had to remain upright as he continued to hold eye contact with the Silver Reaper. Then the words came. Each one nailed itself into the pain, lessening it slightly until it was gone. 

[color=DEBA5E][b] “It was my fault she died. I will never deny that. I should’ve not let her do it,”[/b][/color] Samad stated through his teeth, trying to ignore the flare of pain it brought up. He blamed himself every day for it.  

“Of course you can’t deny it, you live it. Over and over, refusing to forge ahead. You stooper with the weight of nonsense. It is all irrelevant, she is dead, she is dust. Yet you mock her memory with your weakness, how she would weep knowing she sacrificed herself for someone so unworthy. Your audacity knows no end, does it Iranian? You mock the death of she who saved you and you mock the efforts of he who keeps you alive. And yet you do not lower your gaze.” Angel couldn’t help but chuckle again, the irony of it all simply astounding, the laughter swiftly followed by a heavy impact a kin to a bus slamming into a bystander, in this case the bystander was Samad.

Samad’s body was thrown across the box, skidding across the floor. Bones made an audible crack as the force hit him dead on. The Iranian barely had any warning in order to defend him when the attack came. Blood leaked from his ears and nose, staining his face while he tried to get back up. His broken arm cradled against his waist while he calculated the damage. The stun from the impact slowing his recovery.   

 Meanwhile, Cade was trying to mend his own wounds quickly. Especially when Angel’s toss was nothing but rough. He could feel another rib fracture then break when he hit the wall, drawing a cry forward. It was clear Samad was going to get killed unless Cade did something. Fear, anger and worry poured into the young medic. It drove him to push upward onto his newly fixed leg.

[color=7ccd7c] “I won’t stand by while you kill him,”[/color] Cade growled, his emotions rising higher. Already his body surged with electrical energy under the surface.      

“THEN KNEEL!” Angel’s composed expression vanished as he screamed while flaring his Alchemic Drive, the Lost Number shattering Cade’s knee caps with a snap of his fingers. His open palm stretch ahead as if holding an apple, then his spare hand clenching into a fist and hammered down on his open palm, a hammer meeting the anvil. Mimicking the action a painful force struck the Iranian and the Medic, snapping more bones. 

“WHAT IS THE LESSON!” 

Samad and Cade screamed. Every bone felt like it would snap under the weight as it became painful to breath. 

“WHAT IS THE LESSON!” Angel repeated, his words followed by yet another smash.

Cade’s broken hands twitched then pressed into the floor. Quickly electrical currents began to charge the air around the fallen Asylums, energy flowing chaotically and rapidly through the molecules. Drowning the section of box with a heightened tension. The blood that spilled out of Samad, his lips quietly mouthing the words, began to move. Red lines hasted across the floor with a purpose. They crossed into each other creating an intertwined design surrounding the broken bodies. Then the blood mingled with the air. Like a chemical reaction, the energy sparked into a surge of lightning when it neared Cade. A blue-white energy appeared as it began to take shape, empowered by the pair’s drives. 

Suddenly a twelve-foot asiatic lion was staring down at Angel’s figure. It made a crackling snarl. As it took a step, it crumbled apart into a rain of lightning down into the ground. Bolts flew with sharp determination. The streaks bounced off the floor and any wall it made contact with, frying any living flesh on contact. Wherever Angel looked, he found lightning leaping at him. There was no obvious tactic but pure, unbridled chaos to hit everything within the box. 

With each bounce, they diminished in size. In a short time it was over. Black spots littered everywhere showing there was little chance of escaping the small storm created in its wake.  

[i]Finally,[[/i] Angel thought as he felt the Experimental Team begin to synchronize their alchemic drive. He felt a ripple in the air, static around him, his hair stiffening along with a twitch of a smile. It was always a treat to observe what form the OverDrive would manifest itself as, especially since it represented the bond between the alchemists, a reflection to their souls. The Reaper wasn’t disappointed as he watched a massive lion appear before him, the conjured beast primarily composed of electricity but just as he was beginning to brace for the upcoming attack, everything changed.

“Wha-” Angel didn’t receive the luxury of voicing his confusion, instead the Lion exploded a storm of lightning and death raining down faster than possible, the entire process a haphazard collision between momentum and lightning. The first bolt struck Angel dead in the chest, punishment for his indulgence, the alchemist felt the skin blister as his vest and shirt turned to ash and then another followed, then another. There was no mercy, no respite, just bombardment. 

“AEGIS,” the Lost Number found himself yelling while becoming a blur of  movement, his form rapidly teleporting, avoiding the oncoming barrage. The scene could only be described as a flash of speed within a vortex of lightning, each bolt striking where Angel would be and each time the Asylum teleporting and reappearing, the process repeating at such stunning speed that it appeared as if Angel and the lightning that followed him were in multiple places at once. 

Then the Lost Number found himself staggering, his lips parting for a gasp from the exhaustion. It was no surprise that this was not how Angel prefered to do his battles, he despised strenuous activities. The next bolt, realizing he won’t be able to evade, the Reaper deflected with his arm and as such burning it down to the flesh. In the distance a compartment slid open from his coffin and a liquid metal like substance dripped out, shooting out towards Angel, as if pulled by a magnet. 


“This will kill you fools!” Angel yelled his concern, knowing what the two Asylums were doing was not an Overdrive. An Overdrive was a balance, it synchronize two Alchemic Drives and as such amplified the resulting alchemy. What Cade and Samad were doing was pure chaos, each was forcing his Alchemic Drive into the other and as such coercing the power to increase beyond the safe limits. This was a Death Drive and while it offered a tremendous power burst, the payment was a heavy backlash that would eventually kill the alchemists. In short the alchemy would be unstoppable and would only stop until one of the alchemists would die. 

Angel grimly observed the lightning storm growing in strength, realizing that the alchemic energy was being condensed in a final strike and then it happened. A gargantuan bolt of lightning colliding into him, the sheer force forcing Angel to collide with the protection barrier, breaking it and the world went white from the flash. 

Once vision returned to normal almost every student and observer’s sight seemed to track where the Lost Number had fallen, a mixture of expression on their faces. The first from the thought that the infamous Angel maybe dead and then the second awe coming from watching a tall figure slowly approaching the ‘Box’. A silhouette draped in a large GunMetal overcoat, the fabric rippling and moving as if alive, as if a liquid flame enveloped him with a single point charred black, the Reaper’s chest, the nanomaterial slowly repairing the damage. 

The slow walk slowly turned into a brisk one and then the Silver Reaper was a blaze of speed, his infamous coat expanding and fluttering like a demonic cloak. Before anyone registered it, the man was standing in front of the Medic and the Iranian, that is where Crow smiled as he gazed upon the broken heap of bones and flesh. 

“Death follows me, yet it is denied for I shun it. I ask this, one final time.” Crow spoke, his voice no longer the imperial superiority that it was but pure menace. A single tear of blood dripping down the Lost Number’s scarred eye. 

“What is the lesson?” As he spoke, the fabric of his coat rippled once more, two thin blade like constructs forming from the Lost Numbers back. Like massive spider legs, the spiked appendage narrowed down on the Medic and Iranian, resting at their chest. 

Between the two asylums, it was obvious who took the blunt destruction of the Death Drive. Cade felt concern at the numbness etched across his figure. The lightning had cooked his insides causing organ failure and complete shutting down. His hearing had diminished greatly in one ear causing him to barely hear Angel’s question, but it didn’t matter. He knew it by heart now. 

Jagged black lines raced along his flesh on various locations. Hot enough it burned the clothing, revealing peel back flesh, muscle and singed bone underneath. A smell of overcooked meat soiled the air with its foul stench causing Cade’s stomach to churn, threatening to toss out whatever liquid filled it. He had reached the point that the nerves no longer registered the pain. 

A flaking, half bald head weakly tilted toward the Lost Number’s direction. Samad, he could faintly sense, was out cold. Unable to reply and leaving it all to Cade to either end their misery slow or quickly. 

[color=7ccd7c] “Teamwork...”[/color] the medic wheezed, faintly through his parched lips. 

As Cade spoke Angel’s face remained blank, his gaze drilling into the Medic as the spider-like appendage remained positioned at their hearts and just for a brief second it appeared as if the answer didn’t satisfy the Reaper but a single word from the Chrono appeared to snap Angel from his state. 

“Close enough,” the Chrono replied apathetically, her tone simply stating a fact though she didn’t seem to deter the Lost Number from carrying out the execution. 

“Close enough,” Angel finally mimed his partner, nodding and heaving a weary sigh. It took the Reaper a second or so to realize that he was actually wearing Aegis and then the Lost Number began laughing. “Seems like I lost,” he finally accepted with a shrug. “Another lesson that my devious partner seemed to want to teach you, kids, never underestimate your opponent and overestimate yourself.” With those final words. the Lost Number telekinetically lifted the injured duo and walked away to the infirmary, a golden glow shrouding the two activating healing alchemy in order to stabilize the two.  

“Suppose there is hope for those two after all.”