Claimed by Alpha and Omega: Trash Luna

5: The Weakest Ability

MIA POV

The golden glow disappeared from my hands the moment I blinked.

I stared at my palms. Nothing. Just ordinary skin, same as always. For several seconds, I waited for the glow to come back, half-convinced I'd imagined it in the first place.

It didn't return.

Of course, it didn't. Apparently even my own ability enjoyed embarrassing me in front of an audience.

"Move."

I looked up. The instructor stood in front of me, arms folded, already bored with whatever I'd just failed to do. "Your demonstration is over."

I lowered my hands and slipped back to my seat before he could say anything else. The whispers started before I'd even sat down.

"Did you see that?"

"She couldn't even control it."

"It's healing. What did you expect?"

"Trash Luna."

That last one followed me all the way to my chair and settled somewhere in my chest like it planned to stay a while. I lowered my head.

Lila leaned closer, close enough that only I could hear her. "Don't listen to them."

I glanced at her. She smiled. "Actually, you can listen to me instead. I'm much more interesting."

I raised an eyebrow. She placed a hand over her chest, dramatic as ever. "Thank you. I knew you'd agree."

I almost smiled. Almost.

Then the instructor clapped his hands, and the classroom fell silent on command, the way it always did, everyone here had been trained since birth to snap to attention for authority, everyone except maybe Lila, who mostly just chose to comply because it was easier than arguing.

"Enough talking. Your first practical lesson begins today. You will learn how to control your abilities."

My stomach tightened. Control. That word sounded like a problem I already knew I didn't have a solution for.

The instructor pointed toward the training field outside. "Everyone will practice individually. You will demonstrate basic control, range, and endurance."

Excitement rippled through the room instantly. Students started whispering to each other about what they planned to show off, comparing notes like this was some kind of party trick competition instead of an academic exercise.

I wasn't excited. I was terrified. Because I already knew exactly what mine could do. Barely anything.

The training field was enormous, targets scattered across the grass, wooden dummies standing in rows, some wrapped in protective barriers for the ones who couldn't control their range yet. One by one, students stepped up to demonstrate.

A boy raised his hand and a flame exploded from his palm, drawing cheers. A girl spun and a gust of wind blasted several targets clean off their stands. Someone froze an entire section of ground solid. Vines. Water. Lightning. Stone. Even a girl who conjured nothing but glowing shields got applause for the effort.

Every single ability looked powerful. Useful. “Amazing.”

Then the instructor checked his list.

"Mira Vale."

My heart dropped straight through the grass. I walked forward, and the whispers started before I'd even reached the center of the field.

"Here comes the healer."

"Maybe she'll heal the dummy to death."

Someone laughed at that, and my cheeks burned, and I tried… I really tried… to ignore it, the way I tried every single time, with roughly the same success rate.

The instructor pointed at a training dummy with a fresh cut carved across its wooden arm. "Your task is simple. Restore the damaged section."

I placed my hand over the cut. Closed my eyes. Focused as hard as I possibly could.

Nothing happened.

I opened one eye, hoping I'd somehow missed it. Still nothing. The class started laughing, low and mean, the kind of laughter that doesn't need to be loud to land.

I clenched my teeth. “Come on.”

I tried again, remembering the faint golden light from earlier, the flicker I'd seen right before the instructor called my demonstration over. I concentrated harder, chasing that same warmth, and this time a tiny heat spread out from my palm.

Then, a soft golden glow appeared. The damaged wood slowly began knitting itself back together. Not quickly. Not completely. But it worked.

The instructor nodded. "Functional."

That was it. Functional. Not impressive. Not exceptional. Just functional, like I was a tool that occasionally did its one job on the second try.

A boy behind me snorted. "That's the best she can do?"

Another voice, laughing: "Even a basic healing potion works faster than that."

My fingers curled at my sides. I wanted to turn around. I wanted to tell them exactly what I thought of them, wanted to scream it loud enough to shake the whole field, but my throat stayed silent, the way it always did, the way it had for years now. Some things about me never changed, no matter how badly I wished they would.

The instructor kept talking, oblivious or indifferent to any of it. "Healing abilities are primarily support abilities. They are not designed for direct combat."

The words sank deeper than they should have. “Support. Not combat. Weak.” That's what everyone had been telling me since the day I arrived here, in one form or another, and standing on this field with a barely-healed scratch on a wooden dummy, it was getting harder to argue they were wrong.

Endurance training was worse.

The task was simple enough on paper: use our abilities repeatedly until our energy ran out. Fire students conjured flame after flame. Wind users summoned gust after gust. Water users called up wave after wave, showing off with every repetition like it cost them nothing.

I was given five injured training dummies.

"Keep healing them," the instructor said, already moving on to check someone else's progress.

I stared at the dummies. Then at his retreating back. *That's it?* Apparently healing was so boring that even our practical lessons had turned into an unpaid medical shift.

I touched the first dummy. Golden light. The wound closed. Second dummy. Golden light again, a little dimmer this time. Third, my hand started trembling. Fourth, my breathing turned heavy, ragged at the edges. Fifth, the glow sputtered and died before the wound had even fully closed.

I stumbled backward. Lila caught my arm before I could hit the ground.

"Mia!" She looked me over, sharp and worried. "You okay?"

I nodded.

She frowned immediately. "You're lying."

I blinked at her, offended.

"You have a very obvious lying face," she said.

I gave her the most wounded look I could manage.

"See? *That* face." She smiled despite herself, and I almost laughed, the exhaustion in my legs momentarily forgotten.

Then a voice cut in from behind us. "Careful, Lila. If you keep defending Trash Luna, people might start thinking you're one too."

Lila's smile vanished like it had never existed. She turned around slowly. "Say that again."

The girl folded her arms, unbothered. "I said—"

"I heard you." Lila took a step closer, voice gone cold and even. "What I want to know is why you're so obsessed with someone you claim is worthless. Seems like a lot of energy to spend on someone you think doesn't matter."

The girl scoffed. "Because she doesn't belong here."

"Neither does your attitude," Lila shot back without missing a beat, "but unfortunately nobody's figured out how to heal *that* yet."

A few students laughed, actually laughed, at the other girl this time, and her face went red with fury. I grabbed Lila's sleeve. “Stop.”

She glanced down at me. I shook my head, pleading with my eyes instead of my voice, the only language I had that worked reliably.

She sighed, some of the fire draining out of her posture. "Fine." Then she leaned toward me, quieter. "But only because you're asking. If it were up to me, I'd let this go a few more rounds."

I gave her a faint, grateful smile. That was Lila, she could turn almost anything into a fight, and somehow it always started because of me.

By lunch, my whole body felt hollowed out. My hands were sore down to the bone. My legs shook every time I shifted my weight. I barely had the strength left to carry my tray to our usual table at the edge of the cafeteria.

Lila pushed a piece of bread toward me. "Eat."

I stared at it, then at her.

She pushed it closer, insistent. "Don't give me that look. You're eating, Mia, I'm not negotiating this."

I pointed at my own tray, then at hers, still untouched.

She frowned. "Are you asking if I'm going to eat?"

I nodded.

"I'm not hungry."

I narrowed my eyes at her, unconvinced.

She sighed, caught. "Fine. I'm hungry. But I'm more worried about you than my own stomach right now, so sue me." She picked up her fork, gesturing at my hands with it. "You've been training all morning. Your hands are still trembling. That's not nothing."

I looked down. She was right, my fingers hadn't fully stopped shaking since the fifth dummy. I slid them under the table, out of sight, because I didn't want anyone else noticing. Especially not them.

Across the cafeteria, students laughed and traded stories, showing off flickers of flame and frost between bites of food like it was nothing, like power was just something you carried around in your pocket. They looked like they belonged here, effortlessly, completely.

I felt like an intruder. A poor, mute girl with a useless ability who had somehow wandered into a school built for extraordinary wolves and never quite found the door back out.

I lowered my head. Maybe they were right. Maybe I really was—

A tray slammed onto the table hard enough to make my whole body jump.

A girl stood over me, arms crossed, chin tilted up like she owned the room.

"You."

I looked up at her.

She pointed straight at my hands. "Show me your healing."

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.