As the sun rose across the coliseum yet again, on the fifth day of Brawny Sparring 101, Mark took a spot on the field maybe 20 meters from the entrance. It was close to the ultimate loser’s side of the field. As the rest of everyone started filtering into the arena, or as they moved further in, Mark found himself the last person in the east, at the entrance.

The ultimate loser zone had moved, thanks to people leaving.

There was literally no one further down in the rankings than him, right now.

Mark felt a chill at that realization… and then he thought about how bad he had been getting beaten up after just 4 days of normal practice, and how most people didn’t have their own source of healing, and yeah, that made sense. Mark was the only crazy F rank Body to stay in the arena. Everyone else had left. Mark didn’t even see that blonde speedster guy from the first day; he had been here yesterday, but he was gone now. Cedric, the gunner with the C rank Body Talent was gone, too. He just couldn’t keep up because he had no capability without weapons.

Mark suspected that the instructors wouldn’t let him use guns on the arena floor, anyway.

Half of the entire club was gone. And not just the F’s, but a lot of the E’s and D’s, and even a few S’s… Actually a lot of S’s. Mark studied the other end of the field, near the instructor skybox, and noticed a few people simply missing. There had been a speedster with bright red hair; gone. She had been the fastest one there, Mark thought, though he never got a chance to actually talk to her or really even get near her. There had been a very dark black man who had also stood out to Mark; that guy was gone. Mark didn’t know that guy’s powers because he looked like a normal brawny, but it had been pretty much that guy and that redhead for top position on the field. They traded wins and losses back and forth most of the time—

Instructor Badger opened the club with the normal sort of gong noise, and then he said, “Welcome to day 5 of Brawny Sparring 101. Some of you might be wondering where everyone is, and the answer to that is that they’re gone! Moved on. All of the F ranks except for one, all the E ranks, and all the D ranks, have moved either out of the arena and into fighting class for remedial lessons, or they have chosen simply not to come back. The S and A rank side of the field has been moved off into higher danger clubs, or given a pass to forgo further training. Some of them have gone on to the special tutor program, or had other assignments crafted for their individual needs and Powers.

“Starting next week we’ll be moving on to individual instruction and using weapons. I or one of the other instructors will also clear you for grappling, if you want to grapple and if you are cleared for grappling.

“Many of you are going to fail miserably once we start using weapons, and that is fine. This is a learning club, where we learn by doing, and almost everyone that stays in this club to the end will learn how to extend their Body Powers onto their weapons, learning whatever their variation is of Tactile Telekinesis; to learn how to use their weapons as extensions of their Body instead of as the flimsy metal that they are. You’d also learn how to prevent your clothes from shredding due to errant blows, which I am sure many of you are learning to hate.”

Mark smiled at that comment. Some people chuckled.

Mark probably wouldn’t be able to fix that problem of his own because Healthy Body wasn’t much more than what it said on the tin, but maybe he could learn a minor version of Tactile Telekinesis. Maybe just ‘tactile telekinesis’, all lowercase-like. Just enough to keep his clothes intact.

But that was for later.

Today was a test of Union, of trying to put people onto the ground like he almost managed with Isoko. The platinum woman in question was right up ahead of Mark, in the middle of the arena, where last he left her. Maybe she’d advance forward, too, now that the top dogs were in another arena.

Badger continued, “Today is going to be just like yesterday, but next week is going to be a whole lot different. Everyone pair up!”

Mark eyed the people nearest to him, and they eyed him in turn, before two of those people rapidly decided they would rather fight each other instead of Mark. A third person simply turned around, looking embarrassed.

It took a minute, but Mark found a person.

She was a woman with Giant Strength, with big everything. She winced as she squared up against Mark, saying, “I guess it’s you and me, then.”

Mark smiled. “I’ll go easy on you.”

The woman’s attitude switched. She grinned. “Thank you kindly.”

Mark’s heart beat with darkness, black veins of ‘bad’ connecting to the ephemeral nature of the world itself, as all that was ‘good’ pulled inward.

The woman lost her grin as she focused. Her fists came up.

Mark’s fists came up in a mirror—

Distantly, Mark heard Badger give the signal to start.

The giant woman took one step forward, aiming to put Mark down before he had a chance to do anything about it. Mark connected to her, bringing her into his Union. All that was bad flowed into her, and Mark took all of her good.

The woman collapsed onto the ground with a great big thump.

Mark instantly adjusted the flow. Bad went into the world, out of both of them, and good flowed inward. A shadow left the woman’s body, evaporating into the air. She groaned on the ground, mumbling out curses of invisible trucks hitting way too hard. She sat up, and blinked. She rubbed the sand off of her face.

The woman breathed in easier and Mark helped her. She looked at him, asking, “So that’s what offensive Union can do, huh?”

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“Apparently… Er. Sorry. I didn’t think it would hit you that hard. You okay?”

The woman grinned. “You tell me, mister healer.”

Mark felt embarrassed. “I mean… Yeah. I’m pretty sure you’re doing great now.”

The woman laughed. “Holy shit that was an experience. Okay. You won. I want to try again.”

“Absolutely, sure.”

The woman got up, they squared up, and Mark sent her down to a knee before he backed off and healed her to full, dispersing the shadow that had accumulated on her… well, everything. She blinked out with clear eyes, and then she sat back down.

“Well okay!” said the woman, “Looks like all those warnings my dad gave me about Naturals were right. Shiiiiet. Here I was thinking I was hot stuff.”

“If it makes you feel better, I could try to punch you.”

The woman laughed. She stuck out her face. “Give it your best shot.”

Mark didn’t break his hand, but it was a near thing. There was a definite crack.

The woman smiled. “Usually bones just break! So you fared better than most.”

Mark shook out his hand, the pain already fading as he healed the damage. “I need to work on my protection magics, for sure.”

“I’m Helga. Nice to meet you, Mark.”

“Nice to meet you, Helga.”

Mark put down person after person, each giant falling, each speedster faltering. One speedster ran at Mark to punch him, but he ended up fainting and slapping into Mark instead. Mark healed him back to full afterward, just like all the rest, and he rapidly opened his eyes all the way, panicking as he stumbled away. The guy controlled his panic, though, and then stood tall.

“That’s your win,” the speedster said, “Though it honestly doesn’t seem fair.”

“Er… It hasn’t been fair. No. Sorry.”

Mark advanced across the field, one knock out after another. He almost met Isoko on the way toward the S rank area, but she smirked at him, and chose someone else to fight when that opportunity arose, mouthing, ‘Talk later~ Enjoy the rise to the top~’

Soon enough Mark was standing in the S rank area, right underneath the instructors, and facing off against a woman with hair made of feathers and eyes like sapphires. She frowned at him and squared up, saying, “I will not go down as easily as the others.”

She went down as easily as the others.

Mark held a hand down, saying, “I’m Mark. Nice to meet you.”

The woman sighed, and then took Mark’s hand, saying, “Leona.”

Mark met a few more S ranks after Leona, and then he met his first morpher of the day.

The guy was a person of solid stone, shaped like a human. He had no heart and no breath, and Mark wasn’t even sure he had normal eyes, but he saw just fine. Or at least it seemed like he did.

Mark said, “Uh. I’m probably gonna just take the loss if my tricks don’t work.”

The man nodded, saying, “You can have the first punch.”

At match start, Mark tried to connect to the man in any way he could… But the man just stood there, like a statue, one hand over the other over his stomach, arms loose. Legs apart. Mark’s astral heart beat with darkness in time to his real heart, his breath billowed the same sort of shadows, and he felt no connection to the man at all…

And then Mark expanded his scope. He looked for an opening...

Hmm.

Maybe…?

Mark adopted the same stance as the man; hand over the other on the stomach, legs apart, level gaze—

Mark felt the groove connect, the world turning into a channel between him and the guy made of stone. The guy looked uncomfortable, but he didn’t notice that he had started breathing, and then he faltered straight to the gro—

He jerked fully awake, dispersing the shadows around him, breaking the groove that Mark had pulled both of them into. The man smirked.

Mark smirked in turn, reconnecting his Union—

The man blinked and banished his smirk, breaking the nascent Union, now that he recognized it, and then he walked toward Mark—

Mark walked toward the guy and Union—

The guy jerked away, saying, “Nope!” He varied his steps and Mark lost track of him again, the Union falling apart. “You’re mirroring me! That’s how you’re doing it, isn’t it.”

Mark paused. “I mean… That’s like... the start. Yes.”

The man studied Mark, and then he advanced—

The stone man leapt forward.

Mark dodged out of the way to sit on his ass as all the sand in the nearest 4 meters swept out from under his feet and the stone man punched where Mark had been standing. Maybe Mark had meant to sit on his ass? Mark decided to just go with it, saying, “Looks like your win!”

The guy nodded. “Tough lessons all around.”

That was the end of Class, thankfully, or else Mark would have ended up with more tough lessons.

Badger called out to everyone, “Congrats on making it through the first week! These people need to stay for discussion.” He clicked a button and lights appeared on people across the arena. Mark got a silver light with a 1 on it. “Everyone else dismissed!”

Mark bowed to the instructors and then walked over to the side, up the stairs, to the healer area.

Grand Healer Badaira stood there to the side, dismissing her own club of healers, and then she turned toward Mark. With a gentle smile, she asked, “Ready to join Healing Club on Monday?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Very good then. I’ll send you an information packet on the club, and you can put together what the club entails online. Most of us are out here at the normal time as Brawny Sparring. Some of us might go to the special sparring classes, the 102’s and above, but most of us are here. Show up 10 minutes before Brawny Sparring for a quick lesson, and then we’ll get right into it. When you’re able to hold your own with healing and protecting, then you can choose to go to the specialty classes, if you desire. And that’s basically it. Glad to have you, Mark. See you Monday.”

Mark bowed then he rose. “On Monday.”