"Master!" Garron yelled, the tension in his limbs escaping as he let out a sigh of relief.
"And who might you be?" Malric asked, raising his head to look back up at Varek's height. He had to lift his chin to view him, the rigidity of Varek's face through both his scars and hairless scalp invoking a small sense of fear.
He would've been lying if he said that Varek wasn't imposing, but as the metallic scent drifting in the air wafted his nostrils--Revian's ragged breaths hitting his eardrums, he felt emboldened within his own strength.
"This kid's teacher, and from the look of things, you've made a great mess out of him." He said flatly, gripping the boy's shoulder with even greater strength. "Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're the one who's caused this, then I'm forced to consult the administration about this."
Malric's lips quivered, a small gasp of air escaping his lungs. His eyes narrowed, the light in his eyes dimming.
But it wasn't out of fear. No--it was out of a desire to unleash even more strength, to test the boundaries of his newfound power.
"Hahaha!" He laughed, smacking Varek's hand off his shoulder. "You're his teacher? As in, the teacher of Class F?"
One eye was bigger than the other on Varek's face, his confusion obvious.
"What of it?" He asked.
"Nothing--just that, in my book, if you teach garbage for a living, that makes you just as trash as them." He joked, shoving Varek back a couple feet. "And, I mean, come on, do you really think I'd just let you talk to admin about this? Truthfully, admin doesn't care about Class F weaklings, but if a professor is the one who talks to them, that might make things a little bad for me."
"I don't appreciate that tone." Varek said firmly, stepping forward once again without even a sliver of worry or hesitation tainting his posture or expression. "You should know your place. I am--"
WHHUUUUMMPPPPP!
Gravity slammed down on Varek, stopping his movements while the floor struggled to support the added weight, striating with innumerable cracks that stretched several feet past where he stood.
The space above Varek condensed at Malric's beckon, the air covered in shadowy tendrils that crashed into the floor below from their immense weight. It was almost as if he had produced small threads of blackened space--like small spaghettified black holes, although that description wasn't that far off.
"Ah, I know who you are. Varek, failed vanguard member, outcasted from the Ministry as a failure of a magical knight. You aren't even worth considering in the face of my strength." Malric laughed, raising his second hand forward to quadruple his gravity's hold. "Now, since you've made it clear that you'll oust me after this, what choice do I have besides killing you? Truthfully, I'd be doing society a service, something that the future prime vanguard such as I should grow accustomed to, yes?"
Malric was laughing, the dark purple glow from his magic illuminating the room.
"Master..." Garron said, his eyebrows slanted in disbelief, "why aren't you fighting back?"
Malric's mouth snapped shut, directing his attention back up at Varek.
Varek's limbs were unmoving, his face unbothered and without struggle. He hadn't even seemed like he was pushing back against the gravity, its weight like a feather resting atop his crown.
"What? How are you--no matter. Drayden, Elias!" Malric yelled, jumping back towards the door while keeping his arms locked on Varek's location.
The two were both looking on in fear, unwilling to move their limbs, but as Malric glared back at the two of them with his face flushed with red from his strain, they immediately straightened their faces, intent on heeding his command.
The first to step forward was Drayden, reaching both his hands out in conjunction with Malric to best improve his chances of success.
Suddenly, the room's purple was dispelled by a bright white, a large abundance of chains radiating with mana jutting from the floor.
They rushed for Varek's body, their ends swinging to slowly wrap around and hide his entire body.
With a loud clank, Drayden squeezed his hands, each individual chain clasping closer to the chain below to cause the body-shaped conglomerate to diminish in size, the links slithering across him like a pack of snakes.
For any normal person, they should've been crushed, but after a couple seconds of this, the chains could only halt in their movement, unable to tighten any further.
Drayden's face squelched into an expression of momentous exertion, his eyes almost popping out from their sockets from the sheer pressure.
"He's not... budging..." He squealed, his pupils beginning rolling back from the lack of oxygen reaching his brain.
Like a knife stabbing through butter, Varek's arm pierced through the pack of chains, the severed ones shifting into a bright glow and eventually exploding into individual motes of mana.
"Impressive," the voice said plainly, "for a student."
Without even so much as a tinge of struggle, Varek's arms sliced through the air, severing the chains and releasing him of its grip.
"To be able to produce such an amount is astounding. You must have a considerable amount of mana." Varek added, residual chains on his face brightening to disappear into the atmosphere as well. "To throw it all away and kill a student, though? That's condemnable to its very core. Were you my subordinate or peer, I would've dealt with you myself."
Malric was entirely throwing a fit, putting more mana into his magic than was smart. Despite this, Varek's temperament didn't change, not even in the slightest.
"E-Elias, come on! We can at least force him out of the room!" Malric begged, stepping back to stand side by side with Elias.
"Uh, y-yeah!" He responded, haphazardly raising his hands to invoke his own magic.
Crack!
"Come on, Elias! What are you doing?" Malric yelled, staring at Varek's still unmoving body.
There wasn't even any pull, Varek's hand stretching out in the direction of Elias.
The air between them thrummed, banging against itself to form violent striations that waved up and down but never in either of their directions.
"Wh-what... how are you doing that!" Elias asked, struggling to maintain his spell against Varek's own defense. "Wait... are you also of the spatium class? There's no way you could blocking my magic without it!"
Relaxing his arms to release his magic, Elias stepped back to regain his breath, unnerved by how strong Varek's grip was over his own magic. Along with this came the striations dissipating, the struggle over.
However, he made the mistake of thinking this meant his magic was gone.
With a violent choke, his muscles tensed fiercely, stealing him of breath. He fell to the floor, unable to maintain his balance.
"You should know how your own magic feels before using it on others." Varek said, a small smirk peeking through his mouth.
Malric looked up and down at the unfrozen Varek and his weakened subordinates, Drayden out of breath and Elias without it.
"Grrggghhhh, alright, we're out of here. But Revian, if you survive this, just know that this isn't over."
Squeezing Elias' tensed hand and tapping Drayden's shoulder, he prompted the door behind him open while dragging Elias along the floor.
"The reclass trials--if you ever have the gall to try to climb up the ranks, I'll destroy you there. Your undoing is far from over, float."
The door slammed shut, the gravity magic on Varek dispersing along with the chains holding down Garron.
"Brother!" Garron yelled, jumping across his hospital bed to rush to Revian's side, unconscious on the floor with entire pints of blood pooling around him.