Atlas grinned to himself as he hung from the cliff face. This was possibly one of the most, no, it was the stupidest thing he had ever done. He was hanging from the side of the cliff by one hand, by his fingertips no less, and yet he had never felt so in control of his movements. He had wrapped his jacket around his waist, so it did not hinder his movements whilst he climbed, and so it didn’t rip any further. It was his only protection from the elements he had after all. Musing to himself that he would be more tempted to jump off cliffs for the power boost if it wasn’t so damn painful. He paused. That would also be corrected with time if his new power worked the way he believed it did. By all accounts, a fall from a mountain let alone a cliff might not even phase him if he lived long enough. The grin was back, and he resumed his climb back to his ‘campsite’ as he had loosely started to think of it. His sword and bag awaited. The last hundred meters passed by, and Atlas crested the lip of the ledge. He pulled himself up in an approximation of a muscle-up, something he would have struggled to do, if at all, was now almost laughably easy. His ego pushed him to complete the movement into a handstand right on the precipice before leaning forward and pushing off his hands to land in a crouched position facing the treeline before him.
“That was fucking sick!” he whispered. He slowly straightened up and looked forward, his mind already contemplating his next steps as his body moved in sync with such thoughts. It was the instinct to step forward when he thought of his campsite that saved him.
***
Xeraal’s sighted, one eye closed as he drew in a breath and held it for the barest of moments. He opened both eyes, one still sighted, the other for his peripherals. As he released his breath in a slow steady fashion, he tensed his trigger finger and shot the pink fleshy creature before him. His face was already stretching into an all too wide grin as his shot burned a hole through the right side of the creature’s chest.
He watched as it bonelessly flopped forward like a Zingraal out of water. Smirking Xeraal descended from his perch and made his way to the Candidate. Xeraal sighed contentedly. The sentient had clothes; he was still naked from when he was plucked from his rest pod. The materials would have to be fashioned to his specifications, but it saved him a lot of work, he was more than a little uncomfortable being nude and exposed to the elements. At least his genitals were safely tucked away inside his body. Unlike that grotesque beast he had killed the day before. he shivered at the thought of hanging loose and walking through the untamed jungle. He stood over it and used the butt of his rifle to flip it over to get a good look at it. He didn’t really register its features as it made its way over the cliffs edge as it was moving and flipping in odd ways, he just wanted to get off a clean shot.
He set his gun down, grinning, before he bent down to start devesting it of its belongings, it wouldn't need them anymore. As he crouched, he noticed that its eyes were widely focused on him as he moved. 'Oh Fraznaks, it's not dead!'.
Things went very south for Xeraal very fast.
***
Atlas was suddenly breathless, odd as it was the first time he'd felt as such since his recent transformation. And he smelled a really good steak. He was still thinking about where the steak had come from when he collapsed. Pain. Intense pain. Atlas was starting to hate the feeling. His forward momentum had offset the hole blown clean through his right pectoral muscle and out of his back. He lay crumpled on the ground, perilously close to the edge of oblivion once again. 'For Fucks Sake! Not again', sentiment he shared with his unseen watchers. His chest smouldered slightly, the cauterised hole through it was perfectly symmetrical and about the size of a fist. Atlas didn’t have the presence of mind to appreciate this observation, he was too busy mentally screaming at whomever had shot him to notice or care.
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You goddamn cocksucker, I’m going to rip your spleen out! I don’t even know what that is, but I’ll keep removing organs till it’s out!
You know, normal thoughts one would have when being shot through the chest by a laser weapon hither to unseen before by his species. Atlas lay there in pain, struggling to breath with his discount lungs (50% off) when he felt something prod and then roll him over. He snapped his eyes open. Confusion and recognition warring inside him.
He had been shot by a fucking green Martian. Atlas watched in shocked horror as what could only be described as the perfect image of an alien from the 60's walked towards him. It was a splitting image of the little green men from mars, green bulbous head and large black eyes, the whole ensemble. He watched paralysed from shock (and partial spinal nerve damage) as this creature approached and set down what looked like a silver rifle looking weapon of some kind before reaching for him with its shark like teeth on display.
Fuck you, Atlas eloquently thought, and he grabbed the Martians ankle and proceeded to roll over the cliff, drag the creature with him. Once again Atlas found himself falling.
I’m beginning to get sick of this…
The pair fell, one screaming, the other couldn’t. Atlas fell faster than the Martian on account of having a greater mass and less air resistance, a hole in the chest will do that for you. However, he did notice that before he lost contact with the alien they were falling towards a river, using his last moments of consciousness to push himself away from the alien. Lining himself up nicely with the centre of the river and the alien, well let’s just say he was visiting the local bank to cash out. Atlas didn’t feel the water when he hit it, he was already out.
***
Once again Earth watched as their selected candidate, their Champion almost die. The worldwide excitement was palpable when Atlas arose from what should have been his end like a revenant in what appeared to be better shape than what he had arrived in. As he ascended to cliffside, like Dante clawing his way out of hell towards purgatory, the internet was aflame with theories as to what power resided in Atlas that allowed him to cheat death. Healing was chief amongst those thrown about, but what sort of healing? He was in vastly better shape than before, his slightly to long and baggy jeans appeared to have been filled out, his size slightly bigger, taller. His body had shed all forms of fat revealing a physique as if it had been chiselled by Michelangelo himself. They watched as he effortlessly free climbed his way forward, pausing at one point to hang by one set of fingertips to take in the view around him, laughing softly with restrained glee. His antics of muscling up into a handstand before flipping over into a crouch was met with awe from professional gymnasts and climbers alike, whilst the average public found it to be a little arrogant.
Not even moments after he had crested the top of the cliff was Humanities hope once again almost snatched away. A red laser beam appeared out of nowhere and disintegrated a golf ball sized hole straight through the right side of their champions chest. Despair gripped the planet; hearts froze as the crystal-clear quality showed the macabre sight straight through the cauterised hole. As if a puppet cut from his strings he collapsed forward onto the floor. Again, moments passed where Humanity waited for extinction, only for it to stay its hand. Further, albeit muted, surprise fluctuated throughout the globe at what appeared to be a comic book Martian made its way through the underbrush with what appeared the be some sort of laser gun in hand. At this point many were so drained of emotion they simple watched the interplay between the two. The little green man inspecting his target and flipping him over, only to see boiling brown, verging on black, eyes fixate on it. In a heartbeat it was all over. Their idiot champion grabbed its foes three toed foot by its ankle and dragged it over the edge along with himself. What goes up, truly does go back down.