John wouldn’t arrive until later in the afternoon, leaving them all with a few hours to kill. But, first, by Carmen’s request, they strolled over to the Fighter Park across the street for a training round to practice the bursts. Daniel scoured each towering tree, spindly branch, and every stray long to see if he could find anything familiar from his first chaotic night here, but failed every time.

Once they reached a small, quiet clearing, Mr. Stone cleared his throat. “Chase, Electrica, and Rex, join me in a training round.”

Menus appeared in front of all three of them to each accept the invitation. Daniel was the last to hit accept. As blue light traced the boundaries of the clearing, the referee rose from the ground between them.

“Private training round!” the referee announced. “Begin!”

“So, if I remember correctly, we just have to say Burst to trigger them, right?” Carmen asked, summoning Chip in his muscular form beside her, flexing his bulging biceps.

“Depending on if you say it as you attack or if you block, hopefully.” Mr. Stone sat down on a nearby bench. “Find out!”

Daniel popped his knuckles. “Alright. Raph, put up your guard.”

“Wait, wait, huh? No! Why do I gotta be the test subject?”

“Someone has to be! And I called dibs first, so—”

A grin spread across Raph’s face as he lunged forward. “But I’m attacking first! Burst!”

Raph twisted around for a spinning hook kick. Crimson light enveloped his leg, tracing his foot as it flew towards Daniel’s face. But, Daniel drew in a sharp breath and reflexively dropped. Wind roared over his head as he ducked underneath the kick, and the red energy faded harmlessly.

And Daniel returned his smirk. Stuck in recovery, Raph could only watch as Daniel punished with a punch to the back, causing him to stumble away.

“Ow, shoot! That ain’t fair, man. I thought we were testing out the Burst.”

“You’re also experimenting to learn how you can counter it,” Mr. Stone said. “Clearly, Daniel beat you to the punch on that.”

Raph nodded. “Fine, that’s true. I should’ve seen it coming.”

Lighting cracked behind Daniel, sending his nerves into overdrive. Carmen rushed at him from behind, flying through the air, arm drawn back for a punch. But, he knew her — he knew she wouldn’t be so obvious, especially not for a Burst-enhanced attack. He planted his feet and flinched into a guard. Carmen landed in front of him and took the bait against her bait, backpedaling.

She must’ve planned for him to waste his Burst blocking her feinted Aggroburst.

But, instead, he pushed the offensive, drawing back for a punch. As Chip blocked in front of her, Carmen hardened her expression, realizing her plan failed. Instead, they both shouted at the same time—

“Burst!”

Red energy traced Daniel’s fist. Blue coursed throughout Chip’s shimmering guard. A shockwave of blinding violet flashed outwards as his Aggroburst clashed against her Guardburst with a high-pitched ring. They both recovered at the same time and backed away a step, panting.

“Awesome, right?” Daniel smiled, nodding, panting.

Carmen returned his nod and raised a thumb, catching her breath. “It must draw on our stamina, too. I’m pooped!”

“I guess y’all are done now?” Raph asked.

“Counter Aggrobursts by dodging and counter Guardbursts by baiting them out Sounds simple enough to me!” Daniel shrugged.

“And it looks like they both cancel each other out,” Carmen continued. “We were both at equal frame advantage. The only downside is the fact that we were so close.”

“And as always, the greatest lessons on how to use Burst will come from the battlefield itself.” Mr. Stone clapped. “I believe we can call this training session a success.”

Daniel dropped his fighting stance, relaxing. But, Raph’s fist filled his vision a breath later. His back met the grass, and he glared upwards in surprise.

“My bad, dawg! Had to get even.” Raph smiled. “Now it’s a success.”

----------------------------------------

Once they returned to the Garcia’s bar, Raph got picked up by his parents to head home, and Mr. Stone left to tend to a few errands. As Carmen retreated to her room for a few games, Daniel disappeared into his room for his pride and joy: his brand new laptop and speakers.

Ever since winning the South City Beginner’s Tournament, he saved money from betting on himself in Fights for weeks to save up for a refurbished laptop and a set of speakers, and it was a dream. The music production software gave him all the room he needed to stretch his music making muscles, free from the constraints of a tiny phone screen or terrible apps meant to emulate the real thing.

The beat he originally made to remember his ultimate sounded primitive in comparison to the new one, buffed with extra samples and loops. With that done, he moved to creating some ambience for the Garcias’s bar, to pay them back a little bit for taking him in.

After a few hours of work, he finally had something down — a chill instrumental mixing inspiration from lofi and jazz with a rock undertone. But, the moment he reached a good breakpoint, his taste buds craved the tantalizing saltiness of a bag of chips from the store down the corner. As far as he’d known, Carmen hadn’t gotten anything to drink since their meeting with John, earlier. Sure, she could always grab some soda from their drink machine, but the bar’s soda machine was boring in comparison to down the street.

And then, a lightbulb went off in his brain.

It veered his thoughts away from music, no matter how hard he tried putting a lampshade over it. Daniel laughed to himself. Asking Carmen out to walk down to the corner store? He could barely get the words out to ask her about Fighting together without leading to her ridicule. What jokes would she make if he messed up that badly again?

“Why would I grab a drink from Seven Twelve? They don’t have anything good,” she could say.

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“This late? Come on, Daniel. I’m too far into this boss fight. I’m alright,” she could retort.

“Uh…no. Anyway…” The chances she’d ignore his question and change the subject were low, but still possible — he’d seen it happen to other guys at school before.

As the worries began piling up in his brain, Daniel took a deep breath and played the jazz sample he’d borrowed for the Garcia’s ambience. The trumpets sang. His speakers filled his room with their smooth notes, ushering his worries into nice velvet chairs to watch him do the complete opposite of what they urged him not to do.

It was only the convenience store. It’s not that serious.

Daniel grabbed a yellow hoodie from his closet before leaving the room. Just as he expected, Carmen was lounging on her bed in pajamas, mashing away at a game.

“Hey, you busy?”

“Just stuck on a boss fight. Why?”

Daniel’s heart skipped a beat. He cleared his throat, focusing on the distant soothing trumpets. “Wanna come to Seven Twelve with me? I’m getting some chips.”

Carmen shrugged. “Sure.”

As she paused the game and started getting ready, Daniel had to hide the celebration going on in his heart. “Alright, I’ll meet you downstairs!” he said, rushing to close her door behind himself. He sprinted back into his own room and pumped his fists in excitement.

It wasn’t a no!

The worries from earlier suddenly seemed stupid, but they returned quickly in a whole new form. It wasn’t an excited yes — it was a shrug, a sure, a “I don’t have anything better to do”. Wasn’t that a bad sign? Was he looking too much into it?

Daniel shook his head and grabbed his wallet.

Just focus on the positive; it wasn’t a no.

----------------------------------------

Once Daniel’s instrumental finished playing, Carmen took his headphones off. The silver lining of the ear cups glimmered as they passed underneath a streetlight over the sidewalk. “It sounds nice, but…it feels like it’s missing a real punch, you know?”

“Wait, huh? What do you mean? Did you miss the beat drop?”

“There was a beat drop?” Carmen gasped. “Oh, that part! That was it?” she chuckled.

“Well I wasn’t gonna blow out your eardrums. It’s supposed to be an easy listening song.”

“I heard what you were trying to do, but…” Carmen shrugged. “To put it bluntly, it sounds more like I’m listening to a band who found a few notes that go together when they first learned their instruments, and then played it over and over for about three minutes.”

Daniel’s jaw fell.

“And then they discovered some other notes, and played that for a bit at a different tempo, but then it went back to the same old same old. There isn’t much movement in the main tune. You’re going for easy listening, but it feels more like easy sleeping.”

Daniel busted out laughing.

“What? Was that mean?”

“No, no, not at all! I just…” Daniel sighed. “When I was waiting for you to get ready, I showed it to Mr. Garcia, and he said he liked it, but I knew something was off.” He smiled at her. “You just put it into words perfectly. Thank you.”

“Oh, come on. All I did was listen to the song.” Her words and her tone tried to make it seem like she didn’t care, but Carmen averted her eyes, hiding a smile.

“All you did was tell me exactly how to fix what was bugging me! I've already got the new fix down,” Daniel said. “Even more drums.”

The convenience store was a small, well-lit building, yet oddly empty for eight o-clock at night. Inside, the cashier read a book, perched on a stool behind the counter. A man stood by the open drink fridge, standing there slack-jawed.

They split into two different directions. Daniel went for the chips aisle and easily found a large-sized bag of the exact flavor he was looking for, while Carmen ended up right next to the man in front of the fridge with all the drinks. He circled around to meet her on the other side of the store.

Carmen gasped. “They have this?!” She reached into the fridge, pulling out a red and orange can of soda. “Orange and cherry-flavored Cola? Oh, I haven’t had this in so long! Do you remember anything like this back home, Daniel?”

“Nah, not where I’m from. But I did really like this one cherry vanilla flavor I had once at a gas station.”

“Like this? Excuse me, sir.”

The man stepped back a slow step as Carmen reached into the drink fridge. Now that Daniel got a good look at him, he was a barely-walking sack of skin and bones, donning a jersey that was definitely a size too large, atop baggy jeans.

Daniel warily kept his eyes on the man as Carmen reached down and grabbed a can of cherry vanilla flavored coke. He gasped. “No way! Yeah, I’m grabbing this. Real lifesaver, Carmen.”

The man jolted. “Hi,” he said. “Sorry. What…what were your names?”

Carmen stood up slowly, staring at the man with a raised eyebrow as he cocked his head a bit.

“Daniel. Carmen. Daniel…Daniel Chase. Carmen Garcia.”

Daniel’s heart dropped.

“Just the two I’m looking for.”

The air around the man’s clenched fist hardened into a gauntlet of glass shards as it shot straight towards Carmen’s skull. Daniel’s body reacted faster than he could think — he jumped into Carmen’s place, thrusting his counterpose. The man’s glass gauntlet struck his chest as he surged with power. Time drew to a crawl. Carmen fell to the ground in slow-mo, but Daniel planted a fist into the man’s chest with all his might.

The man stumbled backwards, pulling a small shelf down with him. Plastic bottles of soda came crashing to the ground, with some bursting and spilling all over the floor. Daniel backed away and put himself between the man and Carmen. But, on the ground, Carmen had reflexively summoned Chip in his muscular form. His beak twisted in a furious grimace.

One quick movement — the man flung a bottle, but Chip let out a vicious caw before punching it out of the air.

He staggered to his feet, his maniacal grin spreading across his face as he flicked wisps of blonde hair out of his eyes. “She said you’d be just two kids…” he cackled. “An easy paycheck for an easy job!”

The thug lunged forward, but Daniel rushed in to meet his advance. He drew back for a swing. Daniel tensed up. He tried his counterpose, but the thug ran right past him.

“I ain’t dumb enough for that to work twice! She told me who to kill first!”

Chip easily grabbed his glass gauntlet, blocking his right hook, but a burst of newfound strength pushed Carmen all the way against the counter. She grit her teeth as Chip struggled to hold the man’s fist despite his thin stature.

“Hey! What the hell?!” The cashier reached below the counter, drawing a sawed off shotgun. “This ain’t no fight — you beating on kids, bro? Don’t come into my store with all that—”

The thug pointed a finger gun at the cashier. At the tip of his gauntlet-encased finger, the air hardened into a bullet of glass and shot across the room. As the cashier’s body dropped, the shotgun went off with an ear-shattering boom. The thug jumped in surprise from the loud sound.

Carmen shouted, shoving him backwards. Daniel picked up the slack and rushed in with a punch of his own, but the man raised his gauntlet to block, and reached past it to grab Daniel’s wrist.

“Fuck it — I guess you’re first, boy!”

He yanked Daniel closer, raising the gauntlet over his head. Daniel couldn’t breathe. Terror recoiled through Carmen’s face. Her electroshock wouldn’t be fast enough; he couldn’t counter, either, without pulling his arm back to strike his pose.

A second gunshot cracked through the man’s shoulder, painting the drink fridge wall with red. The man cried out in pain and released Daniel’s arm. At the door, a brown-skinned woman in a gray suit and tie paced into the convenience store, leveling a pistol in front of her dark sunglasses.

Another gunshot. Another bullet ripped through the man’s leg — the next went for his chest, and the next, his head. As he fell into the drink fridge, the glass door shattered with a sudden smash, then a cascade of glass splinters.

And deafening silence filled the room.

In one swift movement, the woman tucked the pistol into her suit jacket and pulled her sunglasses away. “Are you two okay? He didn’t hit you, did he?”

Carmen’s mouth sat ajar as she stared at the lifeless, bloodied body amidst the glass splinters. Daniel wet his lips, taking a breath in an attempt to calm his pounding heart. “Who…who are you?” he asked.

“Agent Maya Wolfe. It’s good we finally met Chase, Electrica. I need to speak with Jonathan Stone about Apex.”