X01: MY PERFECTLY ABNORMAL LIFE

UPPER CLASS CHAOS

X01: My Perfectly Abnormal Life

10:18 PM. Upper Year Training Grounds. Dusk.

The air was different up here — heavier, charged. The suppression runes were weaker to let the elites actually breathe.

Two groups faced each other across the cracked obsidian field.

Left: The Elixirs. Third-years. Alchemy and body-modification royalty. Leader: Sef Elixir, tall, gold-toothed, veins glowing faint green from self-injected boosters. His younger sister Mira Elixir twirled a vial-staff, already giggling.

Right: The Amirahs. Second-years but terrifying. Old desert magic bloodline. Leader: Zane Amirah, quiet, barefoot, sand circling his ankles even indoors. His cousin Lena Amirah had her hijab pinned with a sun-shaped artifact that hummed.

This wasn't a spar. This was a debt fight.

"You poisoned our well-spring in the east dorms," Zane said calmly.

Sef grinned. "You proved nothing. But I'll enjoy melting that calm off your face."

Professors watched from the high box but didn't intervene. Upper-year politics — let them bleed a little.

Go.

Mira moved first — smashed three vials at her feet. BOOM. Green mist exploded, then solidified into acid hounds, snarling, jaws dripping.

Lena didn't flinch. She slammed her palm down. "Ramal: Wall of Dune!"

Sand erupted from the obsidian, swallowing two hounds whole, grinding them to glass.

Sef laughed and injected his neck. His muscles bulged, skin turning to living amber. He charged straight through the sandstorm, fists leaving afterimages.

Zane's eyes glowed. He whispered, and the sand obeyed — forming giant hands that caught Sef mid-charge and slammed him into the ground. Crack. The field split.

"Nice trick," Sef coughed, blood green-gold. He ripped a booster from his belt and ate the glass. His Flex spiked — 41%... 44%... unstable.

He roared, amber skin cracking with light, and punched the sand-hand. It shattered into a thousand burning grains.

Mira was dancing now, throwing vials like fireworks — freeze, burn, null. Lena countered with sun-magic, her artifact flashing, turning potions to harmless steam mid-air.

It was beautiful and insane — alchemy vs ancient invocation.

Zane floated an inch off the ground, sand forming a swirling crown. "You rely on bottles Elixir."

Sef, half-monster now, grinned with cracked teeth. "And you rely on dust, Amirah."

They collided in the center — amber fist vs sand spear — and the shockwave blew out the training lights.

When the dust cleared, both were on one knee, bleeding, laughing.

"Draw?" Mira offered, handing Lena a healing vial.

Lena took it, suspicious, then drank. "...Draw."

Upper years. Crazy, arrogant, brilliant.

And somewhere below, Xyan was mopping floors, completely unaware that this was the world he was hiding from.

---

X01: My Perfectly Abnormal Life.

The "draw" lasted exactly eight seconds.

Mira Elixir's healing vial? It wasn't healing. It was a delayed Mimic Tonic — and Lena Amirah's throat suddenly glowed green.

"You b***h!" Lena choked, dropping to one knee as vines of light crawled up her neck.

Mira's giggle turned sharp. "You Amirahs always drink first, think later. Lesson one."

Zane's calm snapped. The sand around him went black.

"Enough games."

He slammed both hands into the obsidian. The entire field rippled— not sand anymore, but glass shards singing up from the cracks, a storm of mirrors.

Sef Elixir, still half-amber monster, laughed even as shards cut his shoulders. "THERE he is! Show me the Dark Shadow!"

He ripped two boosters now, jammed them into his thighs. Veins lit up like lava. 47%... 49%... his heart hammering loud enough to hear.

He didn't punch Zane. He punched the ground — and the alchemical shockwave turned the black sand to molten slag under Zane's bare feet.

Zane screamed — first sound he'd made — and rose . Not floated. Rose, on a pillar of superheated glass, his sun-brown skin blistering, eyes pure white.

"Shams: Judgment!"

Lena, still choking on vines, ripped the sun-artifact from her hijab and threw it to him. Zane caught it, crushed it — and the sky above the indoor grounds tore open with false sunlight.

A beam. Pure, concentrated desert noon.

It hit Sef dead-on.

Sef's amber skin bubbled. He howled, but instead of falling, he absorbed it — his Elixir core overloading, turning sunlight into chemical fuel. His body swelled, cracks pouring light.

"Thanks for the charge, pretty boy!"

He moved faster than eyes could track — appeared behind Zane and grabbed his throat.

Mira, meanwhile, wasn't idle. She'd flanked Lena, vial-staff to her neck. "Yield? Or do I make those vines bloom?"

Lena, green veins pulsing, smiled bloody teeth. She whispered one word in old Amirah tongue — and the vines reversed, shooting back up the staff into Mira's hands, wrapping her.

"My magic," Lena rasped. "My rules."

Both pairs were locked — Sef choking Zane mid-air, Lena choking Mira with her own vines. The professors in the high box finally stood.

Then —

A new voice from the entrance, lazy and amused:

"Damn. Upper years still fighting like first-years with bigger toys?"

Everyone froze.

Heads immediately bowed and parted.

Lady Veyra stood in the doorway, silver hair glowing in the false sunlight, glass eyes reflecting the whole mess.

"Detention. All four. Now."

Sef dropped Zane instantly. The sunlight winked out. The molten ground cooled.

Spicy over. Just like that.

Mira muttered, "Worth it."

Lena, still coughing green, muttered back, "...yeah. Worth it."

---

MEANWHILE

They didn't give him a choice.

Gaiz pressed Xyan's bad shoulder down until his knees hit the wet concrete behind the sheds. The other three formed a wall, phones already out.

"Please," Xyan whispered, blind without his glasses, voice shaking. "Please don't—"

"Shut up, 2%." Theo lifted his foot. The loafer was muddy, scuffed. He tapped it against Xyan's chin. "You want your glasses back? Earn them. Bend down. Gaiz's shoe. Lick it clean."

Xyan froze.

"NOW."

One of them shoved the back of his head down. Xyan's lips brushed leather and dirt. He gagged. They laughed — loud, sharp.

"Closer! Like you mean it!"

"Zoom in, zoom in! Don't get Gaiz's face, just the loser!"

The phone light was blinding even through his blurry vision. He could hear the recording beep.

He did it. Twice. The taste of mud and shame filled his mouth.

They threw his taped glasses at his chest after. "Thanks for the content, disgrace."

Xyan grabbed them with shaking hands and ran.

His glasses were blurry. Just like his emotions.

He ran past the conditioning field. Past the dorms. Past everyone staring at their slates, then up at him, whispering.

"Yeah, that's him."

"That's the loafer guy."

"Ew."

" That's the douchebag of the Echelons" one pointed.

By lunch, it had hell views. The video — cropped tight, Gaiz's face out of frame to protect him from haters — just Xyan on his knees. The comments were worse than the video.

Xyan didn't stop. He ran straight through the main gate, past the guards who were too busy laughing at their own slates to notice.

The moment his feet hit the forest path, the tear he'd been holding since the sheds finally broke. Left eye first. Hot.

Have you ever felt that way like whatever effort you put into something, no matter how hard you try doesn't work out. Like when everyone is moving one step forward you're moving two steps back and probably stuck. The sacrifice, the pain, the obstacles you overcame all amounts to nothing?

He kept running, branches whipping his face.

"Why am I so useless?" he choked out, shoving his hair back with both hands, glasses crooked. "Why am I so disappointed in myself? I'm so f***ing useless!"

He screamed it to the trees. No Flex. No power. No Dain. No one.

Just Xyan Cross, 2%, on his knees again — this time in the dirt, alone, his dark brown hair falling backwards ,sobbing into his hands while his necklace burned cold against his packed chest.