Papercut

It was a flash, a bright light. A blanket of ice quickly propelled across the surface of the ground and a blur leaped over such a frosted surface. That blur was Olivia, she'd avoided the speed of my ice and somersaulted through the air to land on the ground before her feet had engulfed themselves in flames. With her feet set aflame she swiftly glided across the ice at almost unseeable speeds, she was moving in a zig-zag motion to try and throw me off whilst skating towards me. Before I realized it she was only a couple of centimeters in front of me and slugged me in the lower abdomen with her first that she'd smothered in orange flames. This all happened within a fraction of a second and I had been blown back a few meters, helplessly tumbling through the air before catching myself. I had put both of my feet down, still being pushed back by that force, I was scraping the ground and the friction began to make my feet feel hot before finally stopping.

"The hell?! Ugh!"

My stomach burned and I knew the cause behind it. Olivia has coated her fist in hellfire and I still felt the almost unbearable burning sensation. I felt as if my intestines were flown with magma but I knew better, it was the amount of force she had put into the attack. I tried to stand straight as I looked over in Olivia's general direction and she, mine. Her smile had disappeared and she gave off a more serious vibe than what I felt this morning, I thought she'd become a monster.

"Amelia? That attack just now, I've told you about it, haven't I? My orange flames, they burn at temperatures exceeding that of 300,000,000°C. I'm surprised you're standing, although this is a sparring match, so I had to hold back a little."

I was scared and couldn't believe that this was the same happy girl I saw a few seconds ago.

"Dammit Olivia, I thought this was a sparring match. Ugh! Bullshit, if your attack was that hot, this entire area would've been vaporized by the sheer heat."

"You're right, it would've if I released it from every cell in my body, but I focused all of the heat in my body into the edges of my fist."

I lifted up my shirt a bit to see how damaged my abdomen was and to my surprise, I didn't realize how lucky I had been. There was a massive hole in my stomach, my liver and intestines had been melted and the bottom of my rib cage was shattered. My body was healing itself on its own without my notice and before I knew it, my organs and bones were restored once more. The burning sensation had also left me and now I needed a plan.

" This is actually a good thing. The fact that I'm able to control my powers better increases my chances of winning, but there's something I want to try."

Olivia looked confused as it looked like I was talking to myself. I closed my eyes and divided my merged soul, this allowed me to tap directly into my hybrid powers by focusing solely on my other half.

"Hah!"

A quick burst. An aura of ice was spiraling around me, acting as a barrier of sheer pressured frost. I noticed that Olivia tried to attack once more with the same fiery punch, but this time she got a result she didn't expect. Olivia had once again skated towards me and impacted my frost barrier with her attack but her hand stopped, it was being coated with ice while melting that same ice off again. My barrier was too cold and her fist was too hot which resulted in a standstill, but to my advantage, she was actually stuck. It was almost like her fist had become jammed in the ice which gave me a free opportunity.

"Hyah!"

With my leg, I gave Olivia a swift roundhouse and a direct blow to the side of her ribs. I wasn't trying to kill her after all so upon impact I froze the outside of her body's right half, she buckled. I thought I had won so I attempted to claim victory.

"Olivia, I think this is it. I've won, it was a good match, but-"

Quickly, Olivia's body had violently burst into flames in an upward motion, pushing me back a little and freeing her from my barrier. These didn't seem like ordinary flames and weren't like her orange flames from earlier, in fact, they gave off a green hue. She began to scream and tighten her fist as her flames grew larger and hotter as I could feel the heat from where I stood. Olivia dashed toward me, except this time I could see her. She began throwing multiple punches towards my face which I succeeded in dodging, back to back.

"Damn, she's...so fast!"

I began to grow tired of this and swung a punch of my own, but she met me halfway and we clashed fists. Her's illuminated an emerald like glow and was smothered in flames, even though our fists were locked I felt something inside me be set ablaze, something I couldn't touch, something I couldn't see.

"Olivia, what are you, doing?"

"Your spirit"

"My what?"

"If you're really strong you'll stop my flame from reducing your spirit to ashes, the clock is ticking."

I didn't know what to do, my soul was on fire and our fists were locked with one another. It was at this point I began to think about this battle even more.

"So this is what her ace in the hole was. Agh! I need to put out this fire, but I can't touch it. My powers are still active so it must've been my original spirit and not my other half."

At least a quarter of my soul was gone and the flame continued to blaze. It wasn't too long before my other half coated the burning spirit in a thick layer of verglas, successfully snuffing out the flames. I felt afterward, the piece of my soul that was reduced to ash be rejuvenated and I quickly unlocked fists with Olivia.

"I'm okay...I'm okay!"

I was a little happy knowing I wasn't going to die, at least not today and Olivia's voice had cut me off.

" I think that's enough for now."

The fiery green cloak of flames that her body was immersed in quickly dispersed and she looked normal again, with the exception of a few scratches and cuts. My barrier also went away as my body went back to the way it was prior to the battle. I was a bit upset with Olivia a bit though, it felt as much if she'd tried to destroy me.

"What the hell?! Olivia, were you trying to incinerate me?!"

She let out a long sigh before rolling her eyes nonchalantly.

"When we spar I can't hold back because you're my friend, even if I wanted to. My flames adapt to the situation at hand, changing its chemical composure to fit my needs. It's like when Aaron tries to dowse my flames, I unconsciously changed the properties of my fire to become inextinguishable."

It sounded like a bunch of nerd talk, but I was too nice of a friend to tell her that.

"I think I get it."

At that moment I had just begun to think about Noah and Aaron. Did they caught in my ice blast from earlier, have they been hit this whole time. I was so occupied in the battle that lost all regard to the two friends that spectated me. I turned around and those two, floating above us at about five feet. Noah called down.

"Are you guys finished yet!?"

After that, the two of them slowly began to hover closer to the ground before touching it once more. This was a surprise since I didn't believe people could actually fly, I thought it was impossible scientifically.

"How...How are you guys doing that?"

Noah gave me a brief explanation of what was going on.

"You mean the Suspension Ritual? It's an 'E' rank ritual, so it's not too difficult to learn. Firstly though, I think I should tell you about ritual ranks, which there are 6. Those ranks would be S rank, A rank, B rank, C rank, D rank, and E rank. The closer a ritual's rank is to S, the more difficult it is to perform and the more stamina it takes to perform the said ritual. The Suspension ritual is E rank, meaning it's super easy to perform and doesn't take as much stamina to use if any at all, you could use it simultaneously with another ritual if you wanted."

I looked with a confused look on my face because I understood what he said, but I wasn't processing it. He even started to explain some more things about ritual ranks.

"All living things have a stamina variable of 100 and whenever you use a ritual or use your abilities they use some of your stamina. You could think of it as an energy meter from a video game. All hybrid's power and stamina variables come directly from their soul and each soul holds a variable of 100, but in your case, that amount would be doubled since you have two souls."

I was shocked. How he knew that I had two souls, I didn't know, but it was more than weird.

"How would you know if I had two souls?"

" Oh, that's right. I forgot to tell you when you've encountered enough hybrids, you'll obtain the ability to sense stamina variables. I saw you had double that of a normal hybrid which either meant two things: You were in possession of two souls or you were some kind of lab experiment. It's simple really.'

Noah didn't look like it, but for a minute I thought the guy was a genius in the making. At the end of his explanation, he told me a little bit extra.

"The Suspension ritual has a stamina variable of -1, meaning it adds it variable with yours in order to take away some stamina. Some rituals have positive variables but it's rare unless its a healing ritual of course. Be careful though, never let your stamina variable go below zero if it did you'd instantaneously die due to an unknown cause, it would be as if death himself injected death onto you. It's okay though because at least now you know it and I can mentor you about the subject, all of us can."

I nodded in agreement and it honestly made sense. That's the reason I've been able to release all of my powers on a grand scale, it's because of my Stamina variable. I had one last question for Noah that I needed to be answered.

"Noah, if your stamina reaches zero, how do you get it back?"

He had given me a smile and happily replied.

"That's the most simple part about it. Stamina variables can be restored with healing rituals or if any aren't available, normal things like food, sleep, and affection. Still, heed the fact that once you stamina variable does reach zero, you'll be as useful as a normal human. None of your powers would work, not even simple ones like your healing ones or rituals, it's like a metaphysical block on all of your abilities."

"Thanks, Noah, I think I get it now-."

As I finished my sentence a spine-shivering voice cut through the air from behind us, it was deep and sinister.

"Yes, that would be a shame wouldn't it, Miss Amelia...?"