The Break period fell in between the two Teamwork classes, so Lílitha had some time to kill. She usually spent her time in the Studitorium or in her room; she had been granted the privilege of her own room after incidents with her roommates during her first years.

  Lílitha heard Calista scrambling behind her as the crowd left the gym. “Lílitha! Wait!” Sighing, she turned, raising a brow inquisitively.

  “Um… I wanted to ask, is there any, like… foods and stuff you think I can eat that’ll help me… get heavier and stronger?” the human girl asked.

  “They can prescribe you a diet at the Infirmary.” Lílitha turned to leave.

  Calista held her hand out hastily, stopping her. “They did. But what I mean is something… fast.”

  “A cheat code meal?”

  “Uh… not exactly a cheat code, but…” At Lílitha’s sardonic look, Calista sighed. “Yeah. Kind of.”

  “There are some, but they’re not healthy. Instead of being marked ‘Underweight’, you could end up with something worse. They might cut you slack if you’re only a couple pounds under. Just do the work for it, like everyone else.”

  “I believe she’s incapable of that.” Hillary’s mustard-colored arm slung around Calista’s shoulders, startling the human. “Congratulations, Piranha. I was wondering when you’d finally cave in to Cheater’s beggin’.” She reached over and flicked her finger against the Favorite badge.

  Rosalina always brought rage to Lílitha’s day; this woman only brought irritation. Hillary ‘Gravity’ Kaye was nothing more than a pathetic, mediocre fighter who was lucky enough to advance further than Lílitha in the opening Chaos Rounds. She only had the Rep Level she had because she was wily enough to attract someone like Bark ‘Savage’ Davies. If not for him, she’d be nobody.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong… but this means you’re both Favorites, right?” Hillary pretended to give Calista a friendly side-hug. “Where’s your badge, humie? Too ashamed?” She chuckled, picking at her nails. “I suppose I would be, too, if I were a default.” The human girl seemed petrified, the color drained from her face. If she wanted them to quit bugging her, she had to stop showing her fear so openly.

  -5 Rel-P (Hillary)

  “Favorites by default. What an honor.” Rosalina entered the conversation. Now Lílitha was internally boiling, her ears shuddering.

  Weakness Risk: Anger

  *Avoid Rosalina Wiasod*

  “Could you not do this?” Lílitha’s Versus Pet, Merthos, warned her.

  She ignored him. “Yes, as honorable as you two, I suppose,” Lílitha retorted. “You riding the coattails of your boyfriend—” she nodded at Rosalina— “and you… not even getting any advantage with yours.” She smiled at Hillary. “I see you’re still badge-less.”

  -5 Rel-P (Hillary)

  -7 Rel-P (Rosalina)

  “I prefer to earn my way up, unlike you,” Hillary said. “Honor of a Kappa, huh? Cheating their way through.” She patted Calista’s cheek. The human finally reacted, grabbing Hillary’s wrist and shoving her away.

  “Ooh, you made her angry,” Rosalina scoffed. “She might dance around you. That was a fancy maneuver you chose last week, wasn’t it, Medley?”

  “It drew blood,” Calista responded with a darkness to her voice that Lílitha didn’t expect. When provoked, the girl could show some ferocity, but her low Self-Control had her bouncing from one extreme to the other. She was either very docile or very aggressive, and neither extreme was good.

  Not that Lílitha was doing any better at the moment…

  “Hill. You took long.” Bark ‘Savage’ Davies approached the cluster, placing his hand on his girlfriend’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  “Just a minute.” Hillary held up her pointy fingernail. “I think there’s enough of a lesson to be learned here, no?”

  Bark rolled his eyes. “We don’t have time for this. Let’s go.”

  “I’ve got better things to do.” Calista turned to leave, but suddenly stopped. Looking around, Lílitha realized that other students were surrounding them. She blinked hard, activating her alternative vision, and counted the amount of people nearby— their group was going up to ten people, more being attracted out of curiosity.

  -2 EP

  “The glitch was that?” Blinking back into reality, Lílitha saw Calista staring at her with bewilderment.

  “My alternative vision,” Lílitha answered obviously. “Well, you humans call it X-Ray vision. It’s a lot more sophisticated than that, but if it helps you understand…” She could see people’s skeletons and insides, but she could also see their body heat, what mood they were in, and if they were hurt or sick. She could only use it for ten seconds a day at most, though.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  In the few seconds she used it, she saw a lot the people surrounding them were angry. Harrison had already left the gym, so they were on their own.

  “She doesn’t even know enough about other species,” a Martian girl from Delta, Hillary’s Guild, said. “How did she even pass the tests?”

  “Easy; Benson Kalley pulled some strings,” an Eta member with green patches commented.

  “Or maybe Cheater did. That’s his specialty.”

  “Don’t you guys have stuff to do before Break’s over?” Calista said, flustered. Lílitha scanned her again, seeing her heart racing and her adrenaline pumping. She had to hope she’d go into ‘fight’ mode and not any other of the survival modes that would prove humiliating.

  -2 EP

  The human flinched. “Stop… doing that!”

  -1 Rel-P (Calista)

  Approaching Irritator Status

  Lílitha sighed. This girl was hopeless.

  “And she gets to be an ASC?! That means any of us should be one!” the Martian Delta girl said.

  “I’m not an ASC! I didn’t take the Favorite badge, okay?!” Calista said frustratedly.

  “I’ve been in Delta since my first year,” said Hillary. “And yet, the Favorite badge eludes me.”

  “Knifehand can see you’re insufferable and mediocre,” Lílitha retorted, referring to Hillary’s SC, Li Mei Hoss, by her call sign. “It’s only a shame that Clocker doesn’t have similar standards.” She drifted her eyes lazily to Rosalina.

  -5 Rel-P (Hillary)

  Approaching Worst Enemy Status

  -10 Rel-P (Rosalina)

  Approaching Archenemy Status

  Weakness Risk: Confrontational Tendency

  Multiple Higher-Level opponents

  Fistborn Academy Code of Conduct Risk

  *Confrontation not advised*

  The Hajjian woman’s smile faded. She stepped closer, towering over the little woman. Lílitha kept her eyes level, even smirking a bit. Even without her alternative vision, she could see right through this glitch.

  “If I were you, I’d choose my words carefully,” the Hajjian woman said.

  Merthos was blinking warnings in Lílitha’s UI. He was probably upset that she was breaking her long streak of not confronting Hothead.

  *AVOID CONFRONTATION*

  “Lílitha, please, don’t do this!” he begged her.

  “Why should I? You can’t hit me.” Lílitha widened her eyes so the light could reflect off her black marbles and slightly pointed her ears to the sides. She twiddled her thumbs and shifted on her feet. “You wouldn’t hurt a helpless little creature like me, would you? Your parole overseers wouldn’t be very happy, would they?”

  “Try me.” Rosalina cracked her knuckles.

  Someone pushed through the crowd, bearing the green Eta patches. Lílitha barely saw them through the corner of her eye. “Alright, you two, break it up,” a British woman’s voice said. Glancing at her briefly, she saw Camelithia ‘Dropkick’ Courier.

  “You’ll be stuck here forever, you know,” she warned Rosalina, ignoring Dropkick. “Parole students are supposed to be good little boys and girls, right? Lest you want to be locked up in a space station for the rest of your poor, little lives.” She glanced at Bark Davies. At first, he was annoyed, waiting for his girlfriend to follow him to class, but Lílitha’s comment caught his attention, and anger glowed in his burnt orange eyes.

  “Uh… Lílitha, I don’t think it’s a good idea to-” Calista glanced fearfully at the Hajjian woman.

  “Oh, she’s just upset because I can always choose to go home and see my family, but she can’t.” Lílitha grinned. If Rosalina attacked her, it would be another step towards losing her parole, as she deserved.

  “Watch it, Houdge.” Rosalina twitched, held back by a couple of other Alpha members.

  “Come on, girls.” Camelithia got in between them, her hair a pale shade of pink. “This isn’t worth it.”

  “Isn’t it true? You really thought assaulting someone on another planet would be a harmless crime?” Lílitha pressed, reveling in the wide eyes and red-eyed Versus Pets hovering around. “And for what, a couple thousand digits? You’re so pathetic, crying to your family about how much you miss them. You should’ve thought of that before coming here to glitch people up.”

  -20 Rel-P

  Merthos stopped warning her. He’d given up. He knew Lílitha wouldn’t listen to him at all. “Don’t complain to me when you’re at 50 HP,” he said grumpily.

  “I said, watch it.” Rosalina looked beyond enraged, smoke sizzling from her shoulders. Her friends jerked their hands away from the heat. It was amazing how the woman had controlled herself until now.

  “They can’t speak, Hothead,” Hillary said, grinning at Calista. “Miss Kappa Favorite over here has a felon for a sister, remember?”

  To Lílitha’s surprise, Calista’s green eyes darkened. “Stop talking about her.”

  “She doesn’t even speak to you anymore, does she? She’s ashamed, I bet. Not only is she a criminal, but she has a body-modding narcissist to look up to. No wonder she turned to crime.”

  “Calista-” Camelithia began, her hair now white as she watched Calista’s expression shift.

  “And your mother… your twin!” Hillary laughed. “She wanted an exact copy of herself, and she still got the defective wannabe. I almost feel sorry for her; she has such a poor legacy. The failed Socializer beauty queen, the lowlife hacker from Genesis X, and the little nobody that is your brother— he’ll probably end up in the same cache.” Hillary grabbed Calista’s jaw, forcing her to look at her, and patted her cheek. “What a wonderful humie fam-” Hillary was interrupted by a violent punch from Calista, stumbling back a few paces. Bark reacted, grabbing Calista’s outstretched wrists and slamming her against the wall.

  “Hey, back off!” Camelithia shoved Bark away, getting in front of Calista. Her hair instantly turned red. She turned to the human, hissing, “Don’t be the one to start, especially with them!”

  “At least Calista didn’t get herself kicked out of her own planet,” Lílitha retorted.

  -30 Rel-P

  Achieved: Archenemy Status

  +Rumors VI (MAX)

  +Insults VI (MAX)

  +Exclusion VI (MAX)