Rhian kept watching her.
He hadn’t said a word, but in his mind, what he was seeing didn’t make any sense. None of it did.
Not when it ca to Nia.
Yes, she looked stronger, faster, sharper. Her movents were precise, with a different kind of weight to them. But that wasn’t the part that disturbed him.
She was extracting lightning from her body.
That was impossible.
Nia wasn’t a Mystical. She was a Physical-type carrier. She couldn’t manipulate energy outside of her body her whole combat style was about internal circulation, pushing her muscles, reflexes, and durability past normal limits. That was her domain.
But now? She wasn’t just radiating golden sparks. She was using them. Her feet cracked the ground when she launched forward.
Her hands left arcs of light in the air. Her body moved like a live wire, like the lightning was a part of her.
And yet, she wasn’t showing signs of activating her ability. Normally, when she used Static Armor, it drained her fast.
Her body would get sluggish, her breathing sharp. She always paid a price.
But now?
She looked energized. Balanced. Dangerous.
Rhian squinted. Sothing was off. Very off.
This wasn’t so breakthrough in control or efficiency. This was sothing else. Sothing he couldn’t understand.
And that alone made his stomach twist.
He watched her send another burst of lightning into a training dummy. It exploded at the chest and fell back, smoke rising. Nia didn’t even flinch. Her eyes were cold. Focused. Not like her.
Not at all.
It didn’t take long for Nia to notice her audience.
She stopped mid-step and turned her head, locking eyes with Rhian.
He held her gaze. She looked the sa, sa face, sa presence, but there was sothing different too.
Not just the lightning. Her posture. Her eyes. Even the way her hair caught the light made her seem sharper, more defined. More attractive.
She walked toward him with a smile. It wasn’t forced. It looked genuine.
"Hey, Rhian. Didn’t see you there."
"Yeah," he said. "I figured."
He kept looking her up and down. Not in a rude way, but trying to make sense of what he’d just seen.
She stopped a few steps in front of him, hands on her hips.
"So," she said, tilting her head. "You up for a little spar? That dummy doesn’t fight back, which gets boring fast."
Rhian hesitated. She hadn’t ntioned ignoring his ssages. No explanation. No apology. But he let it go for now. He took a breath and pushed the thought aside.
There was sothing more pressing to deal with.
"How did you do that?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Do what?"
"You know what I an. What you just did."
She grinned. "Oh. That. I ranked up. I’m D-Rank now. Funny thing is, I feel like I can hit C-Rank in no ti."
"I noticed the power," Rhian said. "I ant the lightning. You were extracting it from your body. That’s not standard for Physicals."
Nia shrugged, still smiling. "Yeah, I know. Weird, right?"
She didn’t offer anything more.
Rhian was about to press her harder. The words were already forming in his throat, but he stopped himself.
It wasn’t fair.
He had his secrets. She probably had hers too.
He looked away for a mont, collecting his thoughts. What bothered him wasn’t just the power, it was the shift in type. Physicals couldn’t extract energy like that. Not naturally. So how was she doing it?
He crossed his arms, thinking.
Maybe she hadn’t switched to Mystical. Her physical strength was still there, he could see it in her stance, in how she moved.
Her form hadn’t lost that grounded precision Physicals trained for. The speed, the power, the clean movent, it was all still there.
Then a thought ca to him.
Maybe she was a hybrid. Like Justin.
He didn’t know how common it was, but it made more sense than anything else. So hybrids developed partial external control while keeping their core enhancents. If that was the case, it would explain everything.
He looked at her again.
She was watching him with the sa easy smile, but her eyes were steady, waiting to see what he’d say next.
But that still didn’t answer the real question.
Sure, maybe she was a hybrid now. Maybe her classification had shifted. But how did she get there? Hybrids didn’t just happen. It wasn’t normal. You didn’t wake up one day and start pulling lightning out of your body.
Sothing had changed her.
Sothing big.
"Nia—"
She waved her hand in front of his face. "Hey."
He blinked, still stuck in thought.
Then she poked his shoulder with her finger.
A sharp jolt ran through him. Not painful, but strong enough to snap his attention back.
"Ouch," he muttered, rubbing the spot.
She laughed under her breath. "Good. You were zoning out so hard, I thought you were about to fall over."
Rhian narrowed his eyes slightly, still rubbing his shoulder. "That was uncalled for."
"You’re welco."
Rhian looked at her and shook his head. Well... she was still the sa, at least in so ways.
Nia nudged his arm. "So, that sparring match... are you okay with it?"
Rhian gave a short laugh. "Yeah. I’m the weird one, rember?"
"Good. You know that." She grinned, a small spark flicking across her fingers as she said it.
Rhian looked at her again. For all the changes, her attitude hadn’t shifted much. Confident. Playful. Just enough sarcasm to keep things light.
Then it happened.
Nia’s smile dropped as sothing yanked at her leg.
Her body reacted instantly. Rhian didn’t even process the full movent, he just saw lightning surge from her hand in a clean, sharp bolt. It struck the ground at an angle, right behind her.
He stepped back, eyes wide.
There was a blur on the ground, like a ripple through her shadow, and then it was gone. The connection he used to grab her disappeared the second the lightning hit.
Rhian felt it too. The sudden shift in the air, like sothing invisible had been cut off. He glanced down and noticed her shadow, normal again.
Nia looked at the floor briefly, then back at Rhian.
Her calm expression returned, but the spark was gone.
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