"Did you hear? Vanessa's Ragamunchkin evolved into a Ragant."
One day at the beginning of school, Sean dropped this bomb onto Kanan.
Through the daily mock battles the top four of the class had been relatively set in stone. Kanan, Sean, Vanessa, and Ivan stood at a level above the rest of the students, each being 2nd Circle tamers with spirit beasts that were powerful among their low-tier peers. Most of their matches were now against each other, while the rest of the class was left behind to an extent.
However, nobody among them stood out above the other three, until now. With Vanessa's Ragamunchkin evolving into a mid-tier beast, it seemed like the balance would be upset. Poppy, who had boasted a positive winrate against the Ragamunchkin until now, would likely no longer be its match.
Poppy was also no closer to evolving than it had been previously. Thanks to his earlier experiments, Kanan was positive that an evolution was possible, and confident that it would involve Dark and Light type energy in some capacity. However, he was unsure what the exact conditions were, let alone how to replicate them.
That day, Rachel called out to the four high-achievers, pulling them aside for a private discussion.
"As you may have heard, Vanessa's spirit beast has recently advanced. Up until this point, I have been pitting the four of you against each other in singles battles. However, this is evidently no longer appropriate."
"I won't say that the miracle of jumping tiers is completely out of the question," she said, her eyes briefly pausing on Kanan, "but that's something that requires desperate moves made in emergency situations. Not something we are going to attempt during practice."
"Therefore," she continued, "we will be adjusting the format of our battles henceforth. The four of you will begin to practice doubles battles, where two beasts are fielded at the same time. This should mitigate some of the advantages of a tier difference."
"It's also worth noting that doubles is one of the official formats of the League, and will be present as one of the options for the school tournament. Starting with the 1st-year tournament during the midterms, you will be allowed to choose to partake in doubles battles. The other player will of course get to choose the stage type for the sake of fairness."
This was information that Kanan and the others already knew, but it was important enough that Rachel reiterated it just in case. All of them had been studying, watching previous school tournament matches that were recorded, and were very familiar with the rules and tournament format.
After confirming that they understood, Rachel went on.
Your pairings today will be Kanan vs Sean and Vanessa vs Ivan. You may begin at your leisure."
Over the next few days each of them had a chance to battle Vanessa and her newly evolved beast, and each of them were handily defeated. Kanan managed to put up a good fight, taking down her other beast, a Jack-O, but was unable to land a solid enough hit on her Ragant to take it down.
Once Twilight mastered Shadow Sphere and gave Kanan another ranged attack in his arsenal the gap would narrow a little, he thought, but in the meantime the beasts' power levels just weren't there yet.
After class, the four of them sat around a cafeteria table, discussing the results of their most recent battles.
"Oh, man!" Groaned Sean. "I lost again! A mid-tier beast just isn't fair, so I understand losing to Vanessa, but why am I losing to Kanan and Ivan too?!"
Ivan looked coldly at the slumped-over Sean. "Maybe you could keep up if you stopped skipping class so often. How many times have we been left a person short because you failed to show up?"
"Nyehehe. Getting your just desserts." Vanessa laughed on the side, idly spinning around in her chair.
The four of them grouped together had become a familiar sight within the Academy. They were always stuck together in class, so getting to know one another was only natural. They had formed their own little microcosm within the practical beast taming class.
Even Ivan, despite his feelings of rivalry towards Kanan, often participated in their discussions. The fact that Aurelia often joined in may have contributed on that front, though.
"Gaaah! Trust me, I hear that enough from my devilish sister. I don't need to hear it from all of you too!" Sean cried out. "That's it, no more slacking from today. I'll show you all just who you're messing with!"
His words came out jokingly, but Kanan could sense a hint of faint resolve within them.
Just then, a voice came from behind Sean, and the other three students shrunk back, pretending to be uninvolved with him.
"Oh? I appreciate your newfound enthusiasm, but who exactly is a devil?"
Rachel stood above Sean, a twitching smile on her face. She placed her hands on his shoulders and squeezed them, her knuckles whitening.
"Owowowow! This is what I mean, crazy sis!" Sean yelled.
"It seems we need to have a talk, yeah? You're so eager to train, so why don't you have your lovely and benevolent sister help you with that?"
Saying so, Rachel began to drag Sean to the training grounds.
"This is kidnapping! Don't just stand there guys, help me! She's crazy! Ow ow ow." He pleaded for help, but his cries fell on deaf ears.
Vanessa put her hands together, as if in prayer. "Rest in peace, Sean. Maybe I'll contract you if you become a ghost-type spirit beast."
"Hmph. Idiot!" said Ivan.
With Sean gone, the gathering became much quieter. Truthfully speaking, the three of them weren't entirely compatible. Outside of his relationship with his spirit beasts Kanan considered himself somewhat individualistic but he had nothing on the other two. Vanessa was always in her own world, completely carefree, while Ivan was closed off like a steel fortress. It was hard to tell what he was actually thinking.
Still, he tried his best to steer the conversation.
"I can kind of understand where he's coming from, you know? We're all working this hard, even Sean, so falling behind like this is pretty disheartening. The chasm between low-tier and mid-tier might not be completely unscalable, but it's definitely there."
Ivan just looked down at the table. Kanan could tell that the same worries had been eating away at him. In some ways, Ivan might be the hardest on himself out of all of them. He was competitive to the bone.
Vanessa, on the other hand, looked deep in thought, considering what Kanan had said.
"Nyeh… it's not like you've fallen behind, you know?" She said after careful consideration.
Her words surprised Kanan. "Huh? What do you mean?"
"The problem is that you're thinking of it like a competition in the first place. But that's not right. Why are you comparing yourself to me? Just because we're both students? But we didn't start at the same time, we didn't have the same experiences, and just because my beast hit mid-tier first doesn't mean I'll hit 3rd Circle first, or get a high-tier beast first for that matter."
It was the most Kanan had ever heard Vanessa speak at once. It was clear that she put a lot of thought into it.
"You wouldn't compare yourself to an experienced tamer, like Professor Rachel, right? And you wouldn't compare yourself to a new tamer who just started their journey, either. It should be the same for me. Your real enemy," she said, pointing at Kanan, "is yourself."
Her words struck deep. It was something Kanan had forgotten, to be honest. Before, when he contracted Poppy and trained together over the last 5 years, there was no one to compare himself to. His goal had always just been to improve himself, and he had done so. Recently, coming to school and meeting new people and being compared side-by-side, he had lost that essence.
Ivan, on the other hand, looked unconvinced.
"Tch! Sophistry!" He spat out. "I'm going back to train."
He stormed off, clearly with his sights still set on defeating the others.
Vanessa watched him go. "Nyehehe, it seems he didn't agree," she said, slightly sadly. "Where I came from before… I never had people to talk to like this, you know? It's a lot more fun this way. I hope it doesn't change."
Kanan didn't press her about her words, just nodding silently. The two sat together for a while longer, eating and talking until they eventually went their separate ways.
That night though, as Kanan laid in bed, Vanessa's words kept ringing inside of his head.
"My real enemy is myself, huh."