Alex decided that he would take a wait and see approach. With awakening, it seemed that everyone got a decent increase in all physical attributes. Whether it be increased strength, faster reactions, better hearing, or just straight up got better looking. He didn’t know what to expect from the muscly man across from him. He could have just been really strong before the awakening, it didn’t necessarily mean that he was a physical fighter.
Alex had caught some glimpses of himself over the past couple weeks. He had to admit he looked good. And, he kept getting better with each level. He just assumed that effect would just continue to increase.
The girl from that group must be high leveled. She’s insanely hot. Even though she seems like kind of a pain, Alex thought shamelessly.
Alex had been pretty average looking before the awakening so he was happy for the increase. When he got back he just knew that he was going to have a lot of luck with the ladies.
Alex was deep in thought nodding his head at the prospect, fantasizing about running from hordes of extremely beautiful women when suddenly he was hit square in the face. The hit launched him back fifteen feet where he rolled to a stop.
Lila was in shock.
Surely he meant to tank that hit, to show how durable he was. There’s no way he got hit that hard for no reason. He didn’t even flinch or anything, she tried to reason with herself knowing that probably wasn’t the case.
Sophia laughed out loud and Ethan relaxed slightly. Certainly they had this in the bag.
Alex rubbed his jaw. That had been the hardest hit he had endured thus far.
I guess that removes any doubt. This dude has to be a Might.
Cameron took a couple steps forward.
“Are you ok? I got you pretty good. We can call it off if you want. I didn’t realize that it was going to be that easy to hit you. I think you may be a little outmatched,” he said to Alex. His face looked contorted with pain, no doubt because of the feeling of hitting someone who appeared totally defenseless.
In response Alex smirked, got up, and in a split second sent a charge of P.E. shot through his legs launching him toward his assailant. Cameron’s eyes shot wide in surprise. He barely had enough time to put his arms up to block the incoming strike. He slid back a few feet with a grunt of pain. The punch wasn’t as strong as Cameron’s had been, but it was strong nonetheless.
“I wasn’t ready man! That was a low blow. You seemed like a pretty standup guy, didn’t expect you to take a cheap shot,” Alex complained.
“I literally asked you if you were ready and you were nodding at me so I thought that was enough notice to start.”
Alex didn’t hear any of that obviously, as he was having important thoughts about stuff.
“Well I wasn’t ready. Unbelievable,” Alex rolled his eyes and readied himself again.
“Are you ready now?” Cameron asked with extreme patience.
“Yes I’m ready. Let’s do this.”
Without another word, Cameron ran forward. Alex expected another straight on attack but at the last moment Cameron slid, going for Alex’s legs. Alex pulled out one of his trusty pipes and embedded into the ground right in Cameron’s path. Cameron continued unfazed in his sliding tackle. His leg passed through the pipe effortlessly as he swept Alex’s legs. Alex hit the ground hard.
Well that was a dumb idea. He obviously is strong. I wasted some energy to put that in the ground and it just hurt me more. I’m just helping him. Come on think, Alex reprimanded himself.
Cameron followed up with a double fisted strike, raining death from above. Alex dodged left at the last second. Shards of the floor below flew into the side of Alex’s face and neck. He rolled and willed a little energy into the area with the shards and the shrapnel was launched outward towards Cameron. He turned away to avoid the onslaught. Only a few pieces embedding themselves in his skin.
Cameron charged forward yet again. It had been a while since Cameron had fought solo. He was a little rough around the edges. He had gotten so used to a group that he was a little too aggressive at times and others didn’t press his advantage as much as he should have.
Cameron loaded up an underhanded shot aimed at Alex’s midsection. Instead, his fist was caught in Alex’s hand. Cameron felt like he had punched a reinforced wall of steel. As soon as he made contact, his fist didn’t move so much as an inch more. All of his momentum seized by his opponent.
Alex held fast to Cameron’s fist and grabbed ahold of his forearm. Smiling, he swung his arms over his head and launched Cameron across the room. Cameron flew with the grace of a rat launched out of a slingshot. Until he smacked into the wall. A large dent formed in the wall panels, sparks of electricity exploding in a brilliant display of Alex’s might.
He turned to Lila and smiled while giving her two thumbs up. Instead of smiling back she pointed behind him with eyes wide in alarm. Alex looked behind him too slowly as the mass of muscles that was Cameron powered straight into his back, knocking the wind out of him.
Disoriented, Alex tried to twist in the titanic grip to no avail. Cameron began punching Alex in the back alternating with full powered shots. Alex didn’t know what to do. On the one hand, his health was dropping too fast. On the other, his P.E. was nearly all the way full. He hadn’t ever maxed it out and he wanted to see what would happen if he charged up a power shot using his entire pool of energy. Cameron never relented. Powerful shots came in from above. Attacks like this would cripple a normal person. Heck! Attacks like this could down a rhino.
He continued to take hits, biding his time for his moment to strike. His health was dangerously low when he decided to make his move. He expended a little bit of energy to get free of Cameron and immediately pushed all of his energy into his right arm. Since he had a surplus of energy he opted for a strategy he hadn’t used before. He opted for an uppercut. Alex pushed energy out the back of his elbow, propelling his arm forward at speeds not likely achieved by anybody on Earth ever before. In an instant, Alex’s fist connected with Cameron’s face. Alex immediately forced out nearly all of the rest of his energy to make his impact with Cameron, well, more impactful.
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Cameron was launched off his feet, soaring backward through the air. He flipped head over heels multiple times per second heading straight for the ceiling. When he collided with the ceiling, he stuck for a second before he fell the ground limp. Alex’s arm fell limply to his side. He winced when he tried to lift it. He began to feel woozy as the damage he took earlier began to catch up to him.
A second later, Cameron crashed into the ground creating a crater at the point of impact.
How heavy is this guy? Alex wondered.
There were a few seconds of silence. Each remaining person in the room looked at each other in absolute horror. One thought passed through everyone’s mind. Did Alex just kill him? The fight wasn’t one to the death. They knew that one or both of them would likely get hurt but this didn’t ever seem like a possibility. Both sides started to regret their decision when a hand rose out of the crater. Cameron crawled out of it with blood dripping down his face. He had a large gash across his chest. Beneath his torn shirt, they could see bone.
Cameron faltered as he started to get up, falling onto his face.
Everyone looked back at Alex in shock only to see he too was face first in the dirt.
The remaining people in the room looked at each other in confusion.
“So who won?” Sophia asked with annoyance in her voice.
Both Lila and Ethan shrugged.
“Who fell first? I was too distracted looking at Cameron get obliterated to see when Alex fell down,” she continued when neither Lila nor Ethan offered anything in response.
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After the first hit, Ethan felt confident that their team would be the ones that were victorious. He hasn’t even blocked it. When he got up however, Ethan realized there was more to Alex than he thought.
As the battle continued he noticed something. Alex really only hit hard after he got hit hard. The onslaught Cameron provided seemed to be the fuel of his own demise. He could tell that Alex was strong in his own right, but his power grew exponentially when he got hit by the much stronger Cameron. Was he just angry or was it something else?
Cameron told Ethan of his background. He hadn’t received extensive formal training in fighting but he had been training in another way. He was constantly honing his technique in the wild so to say. This was evident. There were attacks that should’ve been blocked and openings that should’ve been taken. Overall though, he was much better off than Alex was.
Alex could take a hit, that much was obvious but he didn’t really know how to fight. Sure he got some hits in but it was as much due to luck as it was him seeing an opening that Cameron left.
The fight continued, neither side pulling ahead too much until Alex got pinned under Cameron. Cameron fired off haymaker after haymaker putting everything he had into it. Alex was taking damage and the fight looked like it was over when he slid out from under Cameron.
The next thing happened so fast, Ethan could hardly comprehend it. Alex’s arm soared forward, the air behind it seemingly burning away. It collided into Cameron and an audible, sickening crunch could be heard. The subsequent crash into the ceiling and fall. Didn’t seem real.
Ethan was speechless. Well, Ethan was always speechless but this just left a pit in his stomach. Ethan hadn’t said much to Cameron but he had been a good friend to Ethan regardless. He was good and Ethan appreciated that. He hadn’t relied on anybody but himself for a while but he had chosen to let Cameron in, at least a little.
The only thing Ethan could think in that moment is that he needed Cameron to be ok. He was the only person he considered his friend. He had been alone for so long, not letting anybody in. He couldn’t lose the first person he started to trust.
The seconds that followed felt like eternities to Ethan. Whole universes began and ended and then suddenly time snapped back into place as a hand shot up.
He was ok.
Cameron lifted himself up and tried to stand but immediately collapsed.
Ok maybe he wasn’t ok, but he would be.
Ethan felt a wave of weakness as he stumbled forward a little, and he knew. He had just saved Cameron’s life. He wasn’t sure how exactly, but he could feel that Cameron had been inches from death. Despite that, he had been able to circumvent that. Cameron would live.
He looked over at Alex, who had also collapsed, with equal parts horror and amazement. All Ethan could think about was how strong that man is.
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“I feel like we definitely won,” Lila said.
“Yeah? Wouldn’t that be convenient for you guys! Alex was getting his butt handed to him. He barely did anything to Cameron the entire time. He just kept getting hit,” Sophia countered.
“I feel like that’s irrelevant. Sure he took a lot of hits but did you see that last hit? I feel like that hit alone did way more damage than all of Cameron’s attacks before combined.”
None of them were too worried about their injured companions as they could visibly see them healing. Sure, they would likely be out of commission for a while, but they would be ok.
The two women continued arguing for a few more minutes before Ethan spoke up.
“It’s a tie. It’s the only fair outcome for what just happened.”
Both of them stopped arguing immediately and just looked at him. Those two sentences were more words than Sophia heard from him in the entire time they were together. Her mouth started moving, but no sound came out.
“I feel like that’s fair. We can just split it since neither of us knows who actually fell first.”
“Fine,” Sophia responded. Obviously annoyed at the whole prospect.
They began searching the room after finally coming to the conclusion that they would share in the rewards.
A few hours later both Alex and Cameron were awake. Neither of them remembering what had happened toward the end of their battle. Cameron had more pieces missing from his recollection than Alex did, only solidifying Ethan’s theory that Cameron had taken significantly more damage than everyone else knew.
They spent the next few days waiting as Alex and Cameron fully recuperated. The two groups had decided that they would join up for the remainder of the tutorial as they could clear up hazards and search through labs quicker together.
Alex inspected his quest screen to track his progress.
Advanced Morathian weapon blueprints recovered- 4/5
Advanced Morathian armor blueprints recovered- 3/5
Advanced Morathian weapons recovered- 2/3
Advanced Morathian armor recovered- 3/3
Rewards determined based on performance at end of tutorial. Tutorial ends in- 22 days 19 hours 47 minutes 52 seconds.
He had gained four items in total from this one room, which only proved how much better this room had been than the others.
They still had nearly three full weeks to finish their quest and nearly all of them were finished already. Likely they had only one more lab to go before they would complete it.
They had opted to take extra time to recuperate so that they could move at their full strength. They didn’t know what else was waiting for them outside and didn’t want to worry about any crippled team members if they could help it.
That didn’t mean they were taking a break either. The remaining three group members sparred against each other while waiting for their teammates to gain their strength back.
They wanted to get the best rewards possible so once they were outside, they were going to make a beeline for any lab entrances to hopefully close out this quest with plenty of time to spare.
Alex and Cameron didn’t have any animosity towards each other though each of them had a certain amount of trepidation. They both had realized that things had gotten a little out of hand and that they may have pushed things a little too far. Neither of them had wanted to kill the other but they didn’t want to lose either. None of them had much practice with their powers and the only practice they had, was against things that were trying to kill them.
Both Alex and Cameron had come close to death and they both decided that they needed better control of both themselves in the heat of the moment and their powers. If they didn’t, things could get ugly fast. The last thing they needed was to lose control in a crowd of people. Everyone in the room had been resilient and were able to get away from danger as it came but that wouldn’t always be the case. All of them were going to be sent back to Earth. All of them would be responsible for the lives of normal, everyday citizens. They couldn’t afford to lose control like that. They wouldn’t.