Chapter 21:

“Come on, is that the best you can do?”

Ben winced as he backed away from Resolve holding his stomach. She’d just punched him hard there for the second time in less than fifteen seconds. He was really starting to regret beating her in such a cheap way.

But it had been the easiest way to beat her and pass her test. And he was now a lot stronger than he was before, with a lot more options, so it wasn’t like his going would be all that problematic.

Though perhaps he wasn’t as strong as he thought considering how easily she was taking him apart.

Granted, hand-to-hand wasn’t Ben’s strong suit, as he mainly focused on axe fighting and monster killing. But that was one of the reasons he chose lightning. Aside from the possibility of it boosting his physical capabilities, it also made it a lot easier to disable people even out of arm's reach. Now if only he could concentrate long enough to try.

“I’m just getting st—” Ben tried to say, only for a darkness-clad Resolve to close the distance and punch at his face. He blocked with his right arm, only to get another punch to the stomach again, sending him to his knees.

“What was that,” Resolve said, leaning over him. “Can’t hear you over your gagging?”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Katie called from the side, though Ben could hear the laughter in her voice. The jerk. “Give him a second to recover. He already beat you so don’t be a sore loser. You’re a C-Rank. Besides, if you give him a second he might surprise you.”

Resolve scoffed. “Yeah, I’ve already been surprised enough for today. Why would I want to let him do that? It’s not like the Villains are going to let up once they start attacking?”

“Yeah, but I’m also not really planning on just charging at them face first,” Ben said, spitting up some bile while holding his stomach. He took a deep breath then lightning crackled around him. He focused on the idea of speed. The blitzing nearly unbeatable speed of lightning and applying it to himself.

Then he leaped away and just missed a kick to his head. Damn, she was being brutal. Hopefully, this would be their last spar in which she was this pissed at him.

Almost immediately she was on him again, but this time he could react faster. Not faster than her but fast enough. After all, the range of his Gems was about a foot now. All he needed to do was get either arm close enough to her and he could shock her.

“Gah, you little shit,” Resolve shouted before backing away out of range. The lightning that had been crackling around her disappeared and the darkness around her flared. Against a normal person, Ben would have already won. Probably against any E-Rank but an Enhancer too. But against Resolve, it seemed to mainly have pissed her off given the harsh glare on her face. “Fine. Let’s move on to more than just hand-to-hand.”

Darkness appeared in front of her before it shot towards Ben faster than he could react. Heat seared Ben's arm. He tried to dodge to the side but the dark beam of energy followed, so all he could do was grit his teeth and counterattack.

Taking out five synthetic heliodors and a quartz from his inventory without his hands, he levitated them for a second with Gem Control before shooting a heliodor at her feet with a burst of kinetic energy

Resolve saw it coming this time and dodged. The darkness coming from her body intensified and her speed increased even more, but Ben could still predict her at range and shot another into her path. That caused her to dodge again and again as he kept shooting. When he ran out of heliodors, he just pulled more out of his inventory to keep shooting. Each one missed and blasted a spherical area around them with a precisely pre-chosen amount of lightning. But while none of them got her because of her speed, it was enough to get her to stop her attack as she was forced to keep dodging.

Ben winced as the heat went away but he didn’t have time to inspect the wound on his arm. Instead, he kept launching heliodors, trying his best to keep her on the back foot. At the same time, he couldn’t help but wince as each one hit the ground. They weren’t particularly sturdy things, and slamming into the ground and speed caused them to crack and shatter. Thankfully, that didn’t stop them from unleashing their payloads when the timer set on them was done, but it did mean he couldn’t reuse them.

And while synthetic heliodors weren’t that expensive, they also weren’t nearly as cheap as quartz. He’d have to be careful with how many he used, or else he would run out from just a spar. Which would really suck cause he’d already spent all the money he made on his last two Incursions on them.

Resolve continued to dodge several more crystals before she started moving away and then toward Ben. He cursed internally at this and realized she’d figured out another weakness of his. The heliodors didn’t release their lightning on impact. They did it on a timer. A timer he had to set manually with his Skill. Something he was still working on and she noticed.

Each time she forced him to change the timer by moving further or closer away messed up his timing. And if he messed it up enough then she’d be able to—

Crap!

One crystal landed and Resolve took her chance. She spun to face him, and no lightning came as she sent a blast of darkness right over his shoulder.

Remembering her ability to teleport, Ben spun around, ready to see her behind him and readying a punch.

Instead, though, he saw no one and spun back around.

And again saw no one.

What the… If she wasn’t behind and not in front then… Oh shit!

Ben's realization came just in time to have him look up and get slammed into the ground by a dark figure. The wind was knocked out of him as her knees slammed into his stomach and for a moment he saw stars.

When his vision recovered and he could breathe again he saw a pair of emerald orb staring into his own intently. He also felt her heated breath on his face before she pulled back. Then all he felt was the cold steel of her blade against his neck and the weight of her body on top of his.

Ben’s feelings on this were a little mixed, to say the least.

“Wow,” Katie called out after a moment, breaking the silence of the room. “And here I thought you didn’t like Gem. And now here you are straddling him and staring into his eyes. Guess it was the opposite.”

Resolve's eyes widened at that and she leapt off of him. Though since her knees had been on his stomach right before, that meant she pushed off of him there to get off, making him gag then groan as his poor abused stomach was hurt again.

“Ugh, god K-Swarm,” Resolve said, annoyed as Ben heard her footsteps move away. He was still on the floor clutching his stomach. “Can you not make stupid jokes like that? It’s gross.”

Ben would have had a witty reply to her kinda calling him gross, but all he could do was groan and hold his stomach. He also tried to hold in his lunch, as barfing now would just make her point.

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“Consider it training,” Katie said, her voice getting louder as she got closer to Ben. “If the idea of boys and romance can get you so flustered, then you should learn to get used to it in case a Villain tries to use it against you. Now, how are you feeling Ben?”

Ben’s only reply was another groan.

“Ooof, she really kept going for the stomach, huh,” Katie said, kneeling to check on Ben. “She’s really quite brutal isn’t she?”

“Oh please,” Resolve said with a scoff. “If I was gonna really be brutal, I would have kept going for the kidneys instead. Or the balls. His hand-to-hand is kinda shit and he doesn’t guard there all that well.”

Ben, who’d been slowly getting better, winced at her words and crossed his legs while protecting his family jewels with his hands. Right… That was something you had to look out for. Not like Villains would be fighting fair. Thankfully Resolve didn’t go that far.

“I said brutal,” Katie said as she started to help Ben get up. “Not psychopathic. After all, this is just a spar. So, are you happy with Ben’s abilities? Or did you want to keep going?”

“Ugh, thanks,” Ben said once he was fully on his feet. He hid any reluctance he had about fighting Resolve again. While it was hardly fun, Ben wasn’t unused to some hardship to get better. And while she was getting used to him, he was getting used to her. He wouldn’t mind continuing to see how he compared to a peak C-Rank like her. She was probably still holding back a bit, but at least he wanted to see how far he could push her and how careful he had to be against C-Ranks. “I’m still up for it if you want to go again.”

Resolve crossed her arms as she looked at him. Then she scoffed and looked away. “Sure, I’m happy to keep beating you. And I guess you're good enough to not get in the way, so it will be good to see just what you can take. But are you a Unique or something, or did you guys lie about when you became a Super? Cause you seem too strong to be a new Super. E-Ranks grow fast but not that fast.”

“Something like that,” Ben said. Despite being Katie’s friend, Ben didn’t know Resolve too well so he decided not to go too much into the details. “I level a bit fast. But I also got Skills that let me hit above my weight class.”

Resolve turned back to look at Ben for a second before she shrugged. “Alright, fine. Now Swarm get your butt back over there. I’m not done beating Crystal Boy.”

Ben sighed at the name but didn’t press it. If he had Resolve’s personality right then complaining about it would just make her use that name even more. He did glare at Katie though when she laughed and walked off. The traitor.

Once Katie was off to the side Ben didn’t wait. The round wasn’t over yet as neither of them had done a major blow. Not that that really mattered now since this was less of a test and more of a spar now. But even so, he didn’t want to be caught off guard so he connected to the heliodor on the necklace under his suit and enhanced his speed again. Right afterward, he pulled out more crystals from his inventory. This time he used three heliodors and three quartz.

He levitated them in pairs of one heliodor and one quartz and had them orbit around him.

Ben was ready for Resolve to charge him as he set up, but instead, she just waited. Seeing that she wasn't coming to him and that she could dodge his crystals, he charged instead. He had an idea he wanted to try and it might be enough to surprise her.

Resolve raised her arms up in a fighting stance as he charged, but Ben didn’t plan on meeting her head-on. Instead, when she was within his 3-meter Gem Control range he sent all three pairs of crystals at her. The gems didn’t move as fast as he could with his maximum applied kinetic energy, but they moved fast enough to make her react.

With heliodors and quartz sent together, he had a lot of options to use against her. If she retreated then he could start shooting at her again and put her on the back foot. If she tried to rush past and rely on her toughness then she’d find it a lot harder to escape his pairs of crystals. And if she did what he was trying to bait her to do, and what she was most likely to do, then he might even be able to get off a win.

She ended up doing the latter.

Possibly thinking his inexperience left him wide open, she sent a beam of darkness to Ben’s side again. Faster than he could blink she was there and lashing out with a fist. Having expected it, Ben spun and caught her fist with his hand and then grabbed onto her. To prevent her from using her greater strength to escape, he used the quartz on his bracer to accelerate her towards him and also started to shock her with lightning.

“Gah, you fuck,” Resolve shouted as she wasn’t able to back away as she was being accelerated towards him at double his maximum and he was latched onto her arm. But even as the lightning shocked her, and he kept one arm restrained, she used her other to pummel him as he desperately tried to block with his other arm.

He was just able to double the lightning shocking her when she had enough and the darkness flared around her. Then after blocking a punch to his stomach, she grabbed his arm, and suddenly the world spun. It was only once his back slammed into the ground did he realized she’d flipped him over herself, and then her stomp to his stomach broke that line of thought and his control on his gems.

“Ugh, why again,” Ben groaned as he clutched his stomach after she pulled back her foot. He rolled over onto his side and went into the fetal position as pain radiated from his stomach.

“You need to guard it better,” Resolve said with a scoff. Then after a couple of moments of Ben groaning and clutching his stomach, she sighed and something dropped in front of Ben. “Ugh, just take that if you're gonna be whining so much. I don’t wanna hear it just cause your weak little E-Rank body can’t take a beating.”

Ben opened his eyes to see what she’d given him and saw a white metal cylinder with a green cross on it. A healing injector. For a moment, he considered if he really needed the thing. Then a spike of pain came from his stomach, as well as the burn on his arm, and decided why not. It wasn’t like they really had side effects for minor wounds like these and if he didn’t he’d probably be feeling this spar for at least a couple of days.

“Ugh, thanks,” Ben mumbled, taking the tube before rolling onto his back. Then making sure he had the right side, he pulled down the part of his Supersuit around his neck and injected it into the bare skin there.

Resolve scoffed and crossed her arms. “Whatever. You shocked me a bunch but you don’t see me whining.”

Ben was still a bit too tired to respond, but he couldn’t help but think about that. He’d shocked her pretty good, and while he hadn’t gotten a chance to double up on the amount of lightning applied, it really should have been enough to do something more given how long he managed to shock her.

Did Resolve invest in a lot of Vitality? Unlikely as she seemed like a dodge-based fighter. So then perhaps she had some kind of passive or active healing? That could explain how she was able to fight through her body locking up and throw him over her shoulder.

She really was still head and shoulders above him in skills. Despite it feeling like he almost got her a few times, he definitely couldn’t beat her in a fair fight. Then again, maybe he couldn’t beat her in an unfair fight either. After all, there were some moves he’d seen her do two weeks ago that she hadn’t done in their spar. The main one being blinding him with darkness. He could have tried to use the sixth sense his gem Skills gave him along with some orbiting gems to work against it, but considering the skill gap between them it was unlikely to have worked.

Ben lay there on the ground for a long moment as he continued to think it over, slowly feeling better as the effects of the healing injector became apparent. The injector didn’t actually work that fast, but the pain-killing aspect did and made it a lot more bearable. Enough so that after another minute of lying down he finally moved to stand. “Welp, in a fair fight you kinda still whooped me but I think I did alright. Enough to be helpful when coming along, right?”

Resolve rolled her eyes and turned away. “Whatever. I already said you aren’t dead weight. And now that we're done, let’s go already. We can at least track them down today. Maybe if we’re lucky, Blitz will be alone or with fewer Villains around.”

“Well actually,” Katie called out. “There’s one more thing we need to do today.”

All of a sudden Katie’s ten Bugbot Carriers all opened up and a swarm of her Attack Bugbots came out. At the same time, Katie clicked a button on the podium and a countdown hologram appeared between her and Resolve and Ben.

“Before, you both kinda underestimated me,” Katie said, as her swarm of Bugbots formed up in the air behind her. Then they started to group up and their shield started to meld around them, combining together. “And to work effectively as a team, you guys really should know just what I’m capable of too.”

The swarm continued to move around and their much larger group shields started to form shapes. After another moment, there were six massive hands made of forcefields behind Katie. “So why don’t the three of us have one more spar? You two against me. Just so you know where we all stand.”

Ben gulped at the sight of the massive looming forcefield hands. Each one was more than large enough to engulf a whole person and he doubted they were slow considering they were projected from her Bugbots.

“Um… this is cause we didn’t ask for your help earlier, isn’t it,” Ben said, looking at Katie nervously.

The big grin he got in return did not make him feel any better. “Yep! Nailed it in one. Now come on, and let me show you what I can do.”

Ben glanced at Resolve and she glanced at him in return. For the first time since the two of them met they were on the same page. This was not going to be fun.