I hate math class. Rude teacher, but the subjects are at least easy to solve. But here I am, Hills High School at 1:25 PM, last class of the day. I just had to wait five more minutes. How am I going to win this match? I thought. Maybe I could hit the weak spots? What about Joshua? his ability? I snapped out of my thinking. “There you are,” Mrs. Monica says. “What is the solution for x times y where x equals 1.3 and y equals 10?” “13!” I said, which was stupid but the only guess I had in mind. “Correct!” she exclaimed. I could hear her talking under her breath about how I was lucky, and I actually would have gotten the actual answer instead of a guess if I took a look at the board for once. But I didn’t care at all. This class was as dumb as the kids in classroom twenty-seven. Why that classroom? Because that is where the special needs kids go, and I almost ended up there because Mrs. Monica thought I was too needy and very special. She tried her best to convince the teacher, but my homeroom teacher fortunately didn't buy into it.

I ended up going back to my “deep” thinking at homeroom. My only ability is barrage. How could I beat him? Barrage sends 5 quick punches in exposed, weak areas. But my barrage wasn’t like that. Instead of 5 soft quick punches, mine sent 4 hard punches that took a little bit of extra time to deliver. In some situations it was indeed useful, but it was easy to counter. You could just throw up your hands and almost block all of them. I did manage to hit one barrage, however. It seemed to do good damage, but the referee decided it was an illegal hit, due to it being in an illegal area. It wasn't, though, as my punch was located near the chest by the lungs to try to wind him. They wouldn’t even let me hit someone after that for three months, which was dumb and unfair. Anyways, the guy’s name who I am going up against is Bruce William. He has a well-known ability that gets watched by scouts. He has an ability where he can block all hits, and transfer all the power to his counterpunch. It does a lot of damage, and most fighters can’t compete with stuff like that. Also, if you are born a rare-blood, or a type of blood that is extremely uncommon, you have a decent chance at getting a second ability. I wasn’t born one, however. My grandfather was one, though. He never got a second ability, but he was still good at fighting. My stats are pretty low, too, so I wouldn’t be a good fit for that.

Name: Joshua Hunter Strength: 15 (Low-Average) Durability: 13 (Medium [Average]) Speed: 5 (Low) Endurance: 135 (Low) Vitality: 140 MXP (Low) [3] Perception Stimuli Heightened (Activation needed) Ability: Barrage A barrage of punches that hit soft and weak areas to weaken the opponent

After homeroom had finally ended, I walked home. I passed by the big boxing arena, where all matches and tournaments were held. Bruce was already there, training and he gave a glance at me. It was like he didn’t care, though. After I got home, I tried making something that could replicate his hard blocks. The only way you could break the block, however, is to hit at a certain spot at a certain distance, with also a certain speed. If you perfect it, it becomes easy to break. The ability is uncommon, as in our suburban area we have mostly common abilities, and we’ve had only two rarebloods. My grandfather was the first. The other is a baby named Albert who was born of a noble family in the upper-town area. He was born a year ago and celebrated his birthday a couple days ago. Anyways, I attached a thin sheet of metal that is perfect to replicate his block. In order to dent it, you would have to replicate the exact conditions required to break Bruce’s block. Then I attached a box with some foam to a rope. If the metal wasn’t dented in enough time, the box would fall and hit me in any area near the face, as a regular punch would.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I set it up and got to training. Fail. Fail. Fail. I got close to denting it, but the box came down right as I was about to punch it. I fell down and almost smacked my head onto a stack of boxes. I decided it would be a better option to board up the area with padding like layers of foam and large pillows. I tried again. Fail. My match was in fifteen minutes. I walked down to my room in defeat.

Roughly ten minutes later I had finally made it. There was a good amount of people- around thirteen-which was a good amount for someone like me. When Bruce got into the large stone circle, the match started. Almost immediately Bruce rushed at me. I blocked his first hit, but he jabbed my rib. I jumped aside to try to strengthen my block. He did the same thing again. I covered my rib, but he hit the area that I had blocken earlier. So that’s his strategy. I thought. He tried to jab me again. This time, I went to the side. He missed, and I got a good hit on him. He backed up to recover the hit, and then kept on attacking. I used most of my attack speed to give me temporary defense and counter buff. It worked well. This kept going on. Then, he used his ability. I stood in shock when I realized this. I kept punching. It only seemed to hurt my hands. Then, he put his elbow up. I dodged, but then he hit me with a low-blow with his right hand. His dominant hand. I fell as blood from my nose and mouth flew like a waterfall. Everything went black. I tried to get back up. I told myself to keep fighting, as much as I possibly could. It didn’t work-none of it worked.