"The first test is the first thing we learn once we arrive here," Mister Tenney said. "Hand-to-hand combat. The first one to pass out, loses. I do not want any of you killing the other, is that understood?"

The last question was one that the Professor and headmaster often asked. He'd stress frequently that he didn't want one of his students being killed out of carelessness. Firstly, there were too few of them. Secondly, it would taint the School's already not-quite-pristine reputation.

The thought had been drilled for so long in their heads that the weirdest thing had started to happen --- once in a while, they all would dream of one of the students dying. It didn't matter how it happened, or who it was. Everyone felt incredibly bad about it for days afterwards. Ken had cried, the first time it happened, and he wasn't particularly soft-hearted.

Jack briefly wondered if he would have liked to kill Heath, had the Professor not stressed these words. After all, Leo had suggested it before. But it didn't matter how much he hated the Laoch, which was an awful lot, he didn't think he could really bring himself to murder anyone. Well, at least, not on purpose.

Heath's hands flew to Jack's neck while he was still lost in thought. Jack freed himself from his grip by hitting him below the waist with his bended knee. The two had often been paired together in the previous lessons, given their similar body types, and their moves looked rehearsed like those of two dancers.

"For your information," Jack said, as Heath slammed him against the wall. "I might dress like a pimp, but at least I am dressed."

"Are you still referring to the shower incident?" Heath panted, as Jack was twisting his wrist backwards, trying to sprain it.

"I am," he said. "I did see something other than your hair, otherwise I wouldn't still be disgusted."

Disgusted wasn't the right word --- Jack was more haunted than anything else, uncapable of deleting the mental image from his brain. Given the quality of the content and the consent with it had been given, he wasn't even sure he wanted to. And he absolutely hated that.

"You?" Heath laughed, punching him in the stomach. "Disgusted by sex? I don't believe it for a second."

They were both too good at this. It might have taken hours for one of them to pass out. Jack wondered if the Professor would allow the match to go on for days --- he didn't think so.

"If it's you," Jack bit back. "I could be disgusted by anything."

Jack's feelings towards Heath weren't just born out of annoyance. They belonged to a dark, hidden, place in his soul. Somewhere where he'd stopped believing in magic and good, everything the Laoch was supposed to stand for, before this young man even showed up in his life. And when he did, it was suddenly so much worse. To put it simply, Jack didn't think Heath deserved the power he'd been given.

"If you used your magic, this could be over in seconds," Jack taunted him. It was yet another thing he couldn't understand about his opponent. Why didn't he cheat and hurt others to make his way in the world? Everybody did it. Jack could not believe anyone, not even the Laoch, could be different. If they thought they were, they were just being dishonest with themselves and anyone else.

But Jack wasn't fighting dirty either. The truth was, he'd given a few well-deserved punches, but, other than that, he wouldn't start fights out of the lessons. And, in his life, he'd taken a lot more hits than he had given.

It wasn't entirely out of kindness --- Jack sometimes felt so impossibly angry that he was afraid that, once he'd really started, he would be unable to stop.

The fight was already leaving Jack. He wasn't tired, but, if the other man wasn't taunting him, he found out that he cared little to hurt him --- even if it was at the Professor's request.

Heath seemed to feel the same, because they were both taking a small break.

"Come on," Jack tried to re-ignite the fire. "Ballerina boy."

It wasn't the best he could come up with, but he wanted a quick reaction. The Professor didn't take well to weakness. They would both be punished if they didn't start causing mild damage to each other soon.

"I can't come up with any name for you," Heath said, his lower lip starting to swell. "Not even your parents could."

In retrospect, Jack understood that jab hadn't been exactly cruel. Heath was taunting him with the truth. He had his father's name, and not his own --- hardly something he could be faulted on.

But Jack didn't think of it rightaway. His first reaction was to try and bite Heath's cheek.

Luckily, that showed his classmate that he meant business, so Heath started fighting back by punching him in the face before the Professor could call him out for the move --- definitely not something he'd teach them.

Jack was momentarily stunned by the force of the first blow, but, by the second, Heath had begun being more methodical than violent. 

Jack thought nonsensically that this would be a good opportunity to pass out. He just had to lay low and take punch after punch until he couldn't take anymore. As long as Heath didn't disrupt any vessel that caused bleeding on his face, and so he didn't risk choking on the blood, he could take it.

But then he remembered he couldn't. First of all, because that would have been pathetic. Secondly, because he had promised himself he would win.

He couldn't not win. People doubted his worth all the time, but he had never lost on purpose before, and he wasn't about to start now.

He tried to reach for Heath's fingers. He wanted to bend them, or snap them. The pain might have bought him extra minutes and, if he was lucky, it could have been enough to produce a fainting spell --- though, probably, not in someone as well-trained as Heath was.

But by then, Heath had been pinning him down, and Jack found out he didn't have the anger, or the energy, to do anything. Least of all, to get back up again. 

"Who knew this nutcase had it in him," he murmured to himself, and passed out.

"Look," Heath told Jack a few hours later. "I'm not sorry about anything I've ever said to you... to tell the truth, I could add more to the list. But I am sorry about this." 

As he said this, he gestured to Jack's face. The bruises were beginning to bloom, but it wasn't like Heath looked much better. And, faces aside, they were probably equally hurt in other places as well.

"I've had worse," Jack said, and meant it. "You've had worse than I have right now. Hell, even when Mister Tenney always picks you for demonstration in class, he beats to you to a freaking pulp. He claims you heal better than the others because of who you are, but I think it's bullshit."

"It was a fair fight," Heath just said. "You could have won."

It was true, and it was nice of Heath to acknowledge it. Jack couldn't pinpoint why, but he'd lost the will the continue after he'd taken the first punch. Heath had never punched him in the face before. Sure, they both learned it as a move, and they'd already done worse to each other --- Jack could still remember the time he had succeeded in throwing Heath's body over his own back and then slamming it on the pavement with a certain satisfaction, but...

"It felt real," Jack tried to sound less impressed than he was. "I know the Professor didn't want us to really hurt the other, but it felt like we had to, more so than before. He was watching closely. He was enjoying it."

"I don't know..." Heath seemed a little loss for words, as he blew a bubblegum very closely to Jack's face.

"You're eating candies?" Jack tore the stick of gum out of his mouth without even thinking. "I should have known... nothing is ever serious with you, anyway. You're just a child inside."

"That's not true, and that was my dinner," Heath managed to look quite bewildered. "So, thank you for ruining that."

Jack popped it into his mouth.

Heath made a clearly distressed sound.

"I'm going to bed soon anyway," Jack told him. "But, since you're the winner winner chicken dinner, I'll tell you something special. Tomorrow I'm wearing schoolboy shorts."

"Why would I want to know that?" Heath's face was quite displeased.

"So you can be shocked in advance, of course," Jack teased him dryly.

Jack kept his promise. His knees were often scraped, and in some point it had even scarred. He wouldn't tell people why, and he enjoyed immensely the idea that they could come up with their own sordid conclusions.

"Jack Edens," Mister Tenney called him out. "Please, do wear something appropriate. Even one of your usual clown suits would do, but these should have been mandatorily out of fashion once one hits puberty."

He might have been right. Jack didn't remember his father ever wearing them, or his stupid magazines ever telling him they were appropriate for any 'man' situation whatsoever.

"Then why do they come in my size?" He couldn't refrain from asking. He didn't want to bother the Professor too much, but he wanted to irk Heath some more. Heath's future reaction to them had been what had prompted him to buy them --- even once he'd realized he would be left with too little change to get the pair of trousers he'd really needed.

"Maybe they were meant for swimming," Heath couldn't help but point out.

"Swimming in organic cotton?" Jack raised one eyebrow. "Though there is that famous spot with my dad dressed in leather that claims that when you're swimming in money, you can swim in anything."

"Well, you're clearly not swimming in money," Heath pointed out, which stung in more ways than one.

"Your father dressed in leather?" Leo inquired. "I think I missed that one. I have to check it out. Maybe you could try leather sometimes, though."

"Yes, please," Heath commented sarcastically. "Preferably during the holidays."

"I'd like to congratulate Heathcliff on his fighting skills yesterday," the Professor changed topics. "Though, to be honest, I expected more from both of you. It seemed like you were holding back, which is something no leader should do in a real-life situation."

"But it wasn't a real-life situation..." Heath commented.

"Then let's get done with the simulations at once!" The Professor looked particularly angry. "You fought like two children on the playground, fighting over a favorite toy."

"It wasn't that bad," Ken pointed out. "Jack tried to bite Heath."

"Exactly," the Professor lit up. "He tried. I could only hope he didn't go through with it because it wasn't on the manual. But still, it was inspired... I was disappointed when he didn't."

"Please," Jack winced, still hurting from the day before. Whatever the Professor said, Heath and he hadn't gone so lightly on each other. "I simply decided I didn't want my mouth to touch any part of his body."

As Norma let out a scandalized gasp, that Jack knew her well enough to know it meant something along the lines of, you wish!, Heath got angry again.

"You should have said so last night when you literally ate my saliva."

When he noticed all the horrified looks in the room, and he realized either Leo or the Professor weren't going to let this slide, Jack felt the need to clarify.

"He means I stole his candy."

Now, it was Heath the one who was receiving dirty looks from the Professor. Jack almost felt guilty. He'd meant what he'd said the previous night --- whether it was because he was the Laoch, or for some other reason, Mister Tenney, while being hard on everyone, could be especially brutal on Heath.

"I really hoped this competition would smooth things out between the two of you, but it seems it is doing the opposite," the Professor lied. Jack knew he was lying because anyone with an understanding of basic human psychology could understand that being put against the other with pressure on the outside was the last thing Heath and Jack needed. 

If anything, it would have been more appropriate if the Professor had intended for their fights to get worse, to the point he would have to make them stop by eliminating one of them. Hopefully not from the world, but at least from the classroom.

"For now, anyway, Heath has won yesterday's test, which means he is off to a good start. The Purpose might prevail over the Rogues."

The Professor sighed, as if just remembering how badly the student body had acted in front of the foreign Prince, and how disappointed he'd been at hearing about their groups.

"Of course, everything has to proceed normally," the Professor went on. "So the classes will remain as previously scheduled, and the other two tests will be announced very soon. But, in the meantime, I suggest you to start thinking about the Sheevra Stone. Prince Philippos wasn't wrongin thinking you might be the best group of people to know how to get it. The Laoch is not between us for nothing, and it would do well for the school reputation if we were to help out in a substantial matter."

"We could ask the Elvors," Leo suggested. "Better yet, make a Deal with them."

Jack's mouth felt dry. There were a lot of things he didn't like about Leo, and his obsession with making Deals with the Elvors was one of them. And not only because one of them had resulted in them being a couple, though Jack, most of the time, tried not to think about how that worked.

"The Deals are dangerous," the Professor said, to Jack's immense relief. "You often get less than you bargained for."

He shot a look at Jack. No doubt he was wondering what Leo had had to give up to be his boyfriend. 

"There could be a science to them," Heath commented. "Not everyone has struck a bad Deal."

Jack didn't know about that. He knew every Deal came with a price, and the Elvors weren't kind to people who owed things to them. Even in the cases when people already knew what they were going to give them --- it was an accepted method to think about it beforehand --- there was no way to know whether they'd find a way to twist your words or not.

"Still, the price for such an information must be way too high," Ken thought aloud. "Those kind of things aren't easily given. Not that anything in a Deal is."

Jack hadn't thought about the Sheevra Stone yet. He'd thought the Prince was a romantic fool who wanted to send them on a suicidal quest to prove his ideals --- he didn't know about Princes, but, in some stories, the previous Laochs were a bit like that.

However, Jack was good at thinking outside of the bigger picture. He'd gotten through public school solely because a teacher had believed his imagination could show promise. And he was extremely good at stealing things. Otherwise, he wouldn't own half the stuff he did, and he wouldn't be so good at getting food and places to sleep --- two things he no longer needed ever since he'd been attending the School, but that might have been a problem in the past.

Jack felt good all of a sudden. This was going to work, he realized. He would find the Stone, and he would have the one thing nobody else, not even his father, ever had.