I sat on one of the logs I had left in the clearing as the afternoon sun beat on Aloe, Ruby, Yang and myself. As one could expect, it was a day ending in "Y" which meant I spent my time training, at the moment I was no longer training my body, but my mind.
And I kinda needed it.
There was a breaking point for everything.
I knew that. It was also why despite wanting to go fight Grimm already I held off on it. At least I would until the start of the following weekend or in about 2 days since it was a Wednesday. I wanted to get some more practice and control out of what basically amounted to being Ki blasts, or I guess Aura blasts would be more accurate.
The 'umph' that I got might've looked visually impressive, if I had to guess I might be able to total a car with one attack.
A breeze whistled through the greenery and ruffled some of the papers that were set out on a table that Aloe had brought today.
Yang was a competent fighter, I would give her that, but the thing is, if you spent a month straight fighting the same person you were going to learn their tells. I already knew hers by now, while I wouldn't say it was completely accurate to say that I beat Yang one hundred percent of the time, at this point I would say that there was just no point in it for me.
Especially considering that she still couldn't hold her breath long enough to actually give me a decent spar beneath the water yet. Glancing over at the girl who looked like a half drowned animal after I had given her the same treatment she almost gave me not too long ago, I let out a sigh.
She looked kinda pathetic, shivering in the spare clothes that she had brought with her. Which were little more than an orange crop top that clearly did not agree with her budding chest and a pair of black shorts.
With the light breeze that took her it didn't surprise me that she was but chilly. And with her Aura being used to keep her from drowning. Yeah she definitely looked pitiful.
Though that also might have something to do with the impromptu underwater spar we had after I caught her with a point blank "Hadoken."
And call it cringe but I actually kinda liked screaming out the attack.
So did Ruby for that matter. Who even went as far to try to mimic the attack, to no avail.
The only other thing that had changed was that Ruby actively dragged Aloe to where I would spar with Yang so she could watch us fight. I guess it had to be one hell of a spectacle if Ruby cheered that hard.
Who was understandably concerned when she saw us sparring.
Spectators aside it was mostly the same thing throughout the majority of this week. Go to school, sit around and coast through classes that I hardly care about until we get to sparring. The key word in this sentence was mostly since we recently started weapon design.
And for the first time in this life I was kinda stumped.
I never really drank the kool-aid on the whole self expression thing that this world had going on but I did realize that mechashift weapons offered benefits that conventional weapons couldn't.
Conventional weapons were great, because most were comparatively easier to maintain, extremely robust and the amount of moving parts even in things like open bolt weapon systems weren't exposed directly to the environment meaning that there was less space for foreign objects to get clogged in them.
And it was a very reliable philosophy.
Hell, the United States used a century plus old machine gun design until the day I died because of how reliable and robust the damn thing was. John Moses Browning truly was the Honored One.
It couldn't be understated that I honestly thought Remnant's primary weakness was the over-specialization that most weapons had. After all, if only one person could pick up a weapon and use it because it was so specialized then it wasn't exactly the best weapon in my opinion.
However this was only in regards to conventional standing forces like an Army or Marine Corps. Huntsmen were something else entirely. They lacked the years of specialized tactical training that most Elite forces had from what I could remember from my faded memories but they made up for it by literal years of anime training.
So in the end it balances out.
Things like living off the land were taught for sure, from what I've seen so far, but I haven't seen the kind of hiking and packing training that I would expect for people that will probably be asked to live off the land for an extended amount of time once in their careers.
And by extended I meant at least 2 months.
But did that really matter when you were legitimately super human? When you could speed blitz most animals you could easily stay fed. What worry did you have for shelter when you could fell a tree with the same ease as a half hearted jab?
It seemed like the only considerations they really had was making sure they had properly rationed their ammo, and had a sleeping system.
Since Aura healed well enough, and disease didn't seem to be as big of a problem for Huntsmen. And it wasn't like night vision and infrared lights didn't seem to be a regularly used utility by Huntsmen, meaning they weren't lugging around sensitive optics besides the one that any person weapon might use.
Maybe I was overthinking this… Earth was Earth, a death world where the only actionable boon was human intelligence and the ability to communicate and act on that intelligence.
Whereas Remnant was Remnant, where they had all of the above with a more suggestible set of physics and the power of the soul more readily available and willing to answer directly.
After all, what does it matter that you don't know how to completely erase your presence as you sneak so far into enemy territory that you are 15 feet from the enemy. With Aura, you could probably get even closer if you traveled through the cover of darkness… assuming that you weren't going against any Faunus.
Maybe that wasn't the best analogy.
How about being riddled with bullet holes and fighting until the enemy is close enough to engage in hand to hand and friendly reinforcements arriving when you are on your deathbed and are able to hear your final testament?
…
It wasn't my story, but it was pretty close. Now that I think about it, that story is probably a little more common than I thought.
It was a lot more common than people thought for even shots to the head to fail to kill someone, but that was why there shooting drills like the "failure to stop"- two the chest, one to the head.
But yeah, if Aura could make people more durable, forget being stronger and faster for a moment, then Mecha shift offered an answer to a lot of issues that came along with being a warfighter.
If you needed more tools in your tool box than Mechashift weapons offered an avenue of approach that could change everything. It was honestly an infantryman's- no a warrior's wet dream.
I could go from having a main weapon system like a nice thirty round magazine weapon system to transition to something with a little more bang like a shotgun! Or I could go from a nice homely squad automatic weapon to something like a designated marksman weapon!
Select fire capable automatic weapons really were great…
Then there were things like turning a pistol into a little knife! Or Bowie Knife! Probably a Bowie since in order to clear the barrel and still be knife enough it would need a heavy amount of material.
Point was that in terms of conventional military uses with Aura and Mechashift warfare would have been completely different on Earth… though I guess anyone could have guessed that. But I guess that brought me to my next point, without Aura, Mechashift is useless.
Too many moving parts, with too much exposure to the outside.
With Aura filling the gaps in open design philosophy it completely mitigated the issue with Mechashift.
I'm sure that I was glossing over a fair amount, probably more to do with how individual Aura affects certain weapons but unless someone conducted an organized study that was probably something I really couldn't know.
But it did bring up some more… questionable things, like for example why no military has standardized Mechashift weapons for their standing army.
Vale didn't employ it with their Navy at least, and based on what few pictures and the implications I could see in the text books Atlas didn't either even with their questionable weapon designs.
And if Atlas didn't do it, no one has…
My eyebrow twitched.
Atlas really did earn the right to call themselves superior, but honestly I would hardly count it since they've hardly ever had to contend with real world powers.
If Atlas were a Nation on Earth they would've been easily beaten by any two bit nation with a halfway decent predatory recommendation algorithm. Call it fucked but that's 5th generational Warfare.
Now in a straight legged Warfare on the other hand once Huntsman get involved I would say we lost but other than that total Earth victory.
Penny is an interesting factor as an AI but half the reason we were in the damn war in the first place was because two AGI's could not share and there was practically a holy civil war happening. So Penny honestly might just get torn apart if push came to shove.
…
Wait, what was I going on about?
…
Right Mechashift.
"Oh the Trick Weapons section!" a voice called out to me. I mean it wasn't an unfamiliar one, it was just Ruby.
I had just finished another half hearted workout with her sister as normal and Ruby herself had been busy turning herself into the gear head I knew she would eventually become.
It was actually kinda funny to witness. We had multiple conversations by now about dust versus chemistry refinery, and honestly it was weird.
Like listening to Dutch but only speaking English. So close and familiar that your brain is constantly trying to rewind and comprehend what nonsense that you just heard.
Ruby would probably be a genius to completely refine the field if she dedicated herself to the field. And if I could, I would try to divert her focus.
But I figured it was a pointless endeavor.
"I heard that you and Yang were finally getting the chance to design your weapons soon! Did you want to get some inspiration?" Ruby continued, as she rapidly glanced between me and the section I was scanning over.
"...hmmm." I tapped a finger against the slightly weathered textbook.
It was kinda weird that mechashift weapons started with even more antiquated weapons rather than integrate the industrial boom that Remnant seemed to have at the time frame. There was the name, "Trick Weapon" it actually ate me that it seemed to be a familiar thing.
Especially with some of the design choices that I saw were preferred in Old Vale.
Though I suppose that I shouldn't be surprised that Trick Weapons were born in Sanus while advanced weaponry came out of Solitas. But something about both of their developments seemed off.
Was how they had radically different tech bases but seemed to fight one par with one another?
After all, more often than not when there is such a large divergence in a techbase it normally beats out the other. Mantle/Atlas had gone through an industrial revolution and seemed to be developing pure energy projectile guns at consistent if not rapid pace. While Vale only just had the beginnings of weapons that could transform.
I mean, at least on Earth there was no larger example than the change from crossbows and bolts, to the eventual complete takeover of gunpowder.
…
"Isn't it weird that Atlas and Vale went down such different routes of development? Even now I hesitate to say that they actually embraced eachother's philosophy despite the notion that Atlas is our Kingdom's best friend."
Tilting her head, dark hair partially obscured silver-eyes and the expression of concentration made my heart skip enough beats that I wondered if I would have to restart it. "Hm I guess you're right, looking back at it when Yang and I watched last year's Vytal Tournament a lot of Atlas's competitors preferred compact weapons with maybe one extra module."
Nodding along I look back at the page feeling the heat of the sun starting to pick up again as clouds shifted across the sky. "If you ask me it seems like the schools of thought didn't quite agree with each other and Aura is pretty much the only reason why anything works as intended."
"That's… you know I never really thought about it like that. I always considered that it had more to do with Aura being needed to protect the transformy bits and just avoiding Aura use through having less transformations." Ruby said as she leaned in to get a closer look at the dated textbook.
It wasn't the only thing out here, it looks like Ruby had been waiting for this conversation since all around us had been all sorts of weapon catalogs, some of them bearing swords, others about the cutting edge of Remnant. Some of them are about transformation modules and synergistic combos. Others are just straight up blueprints.
In the pile I saw something vaguely reminiscent. After some refinery I was sure it was going to be the design for Crescent Rose. I'd say I was surprised, but I'm not.
Some people just simply know what they want.
"That could be it too…" I finally saw bringing my gaze back to the textbook.
I guess at the end of the day it wasn't really possible for me to know what inspired these revolutionary changes since weapon history wasn't really a part of the curriculum and more of a side effect of looking at what was used.
I might… I might need to put… I might need to stop Ruby, through any means necessary. Some day but that didn't change that she was a good study partner for these kinds of things.
Scratching down some more notes, I sigh and close my notebook. The only reason why any of this was important was because I was expected to make a weapon soon.
And I didn't know what I wanted out of it.
I was familiar with the Armalite Rifle platform, Remnant was not. I was familiar with the Avtomat Kalashnikova platform, but Remnant was not. On my own being only a weapon user doing this would be impossible for me but at the end of the day with someone like Ruby in my ear reinventing the wheel wouldn't be hard.
Even if I wanted that, the question of how effective it would be was one that needed to be answered. Medium sized rifle dust cartridges existed, but they were built in a bygone age meant for soldiers, not huntsmen.
Although limited ammo capacity went a lot further than it did on Remnant with the nature of dust being what it was, by all means dust rounds did not have the max effective range or the area target range of their Earth counterparts due to the change in propulsion.
However even with all this… there was the one major point I needed to consider before committing to a gun.
Did I even need a gun?
"Hmmm."
"What is it, Ezekiel?"
"Do I need a gun, when I can be one?"
"I mean even if I could shoot Aura like that, I would want to be able to have a gun to rely on if push comes to shove."
"I get that, but doing something like that, costs me pretty much nothing."
A punch hits my shoulder, and I'm left momentarily confused. Why didn't my Danger Sense go off? Looking for the source I look behind me to see a pair of legs wearing black shorts, before looking up to see Yang. Lilac eyes met mine as they scrunched up with something approaching hurt. But judging by the overall exaggeration the girl was probably playing.
"Hey, don't say it was pretty much nothing, you're gonna hurt a girl's feelings." Yang said, pouting.
"But it was, I could probably shoot those off all day, and so long as I don't get caught in the splash zone I'll be fine." At the word splash Yang's eyebrow twitches but she moves on and leans over my shoulder to get a better look at our work.
"Ya know, I have these kickass bracelets that I'm gonna turn into shotguns." The golden haired girl said as she reached into Ruby's pile and pulled out the design.
Spitting out some of the fluffy hair that had gotten into my mouth I duck further into the table to look at the design, meeting the eyes of Aloe as a weight settles onto my head.
Aloe seemed to be having the time of her life judging by her expression.
"Yang, why are you resting your head on Ezekiel's?" Ruby said as I looked through Yang's rapidly regrowing hair.
It was getting long.
I guess her rapid hair growth was just a part of her Aura puberty.
"It's in a good spot and it lets me show him Ember Cecilia while I steal his body heat. That water was cold, you know."
"If you are really that cold it shouldn't be that much of an issue to start a fire for you. We have enough tinder her-"
"No!" "N-no, that's fine." The sisters said in near unison, before Ruby yanked my shoulder forcing me to meet her gaze.
"You can't burn these books Ezekiel! It's a national treasure! A part of history! A part of Weapons! A part of our very right to self expression!"
Leaning back from Ruby's manic gaze I go to open my mouth- "I couldn't ask you to do that, I'm not that cold, but I-I here, let's just look at the designs."
Not saying anything more on the subject I let Yang begin to lecture me on the weapons that I was passingly familiar with in concept.
And in design the only thing that was different was a wider profile on the top. Which the girl only gave me a smug grin about.
I guess I wasn't getting any clues about it.
But whatever she had in mind I wasn't exactly eager to see it.
After splitting off from Ruby, Yang, and my friend Aloe, I found myself walking through the streets of Patch. Normally, I wouldn't do this - and by this, I mean go window shopping - but as the weeks went by, I noticed that my wallet was getting a lot fatter. Enough so that I had to carry it on me, or some other orphan might try to yoink a few cards of Lien when I wasn't paying attention.
I figured that I must be getting close to my goal. For buying a scroll, that is.
In the late afternoon as it was most teenagers had returned home from the tech district of Patch with a few of them still lagging about. Of course there were still adults walking about, but for the most part pedestrian traffic was slow around dinner time.
The bright, colorful storefronts beckoned to me, their displays showcasing the latest in technology and fashion. I wove my way through the crowded streets, my eyes scanning the signs until I found what I was looking for: an electronics store, its windows glittering with sleek, shiny devices.
This is a flicker of excitement stirring in my chest. Time to finally be able to get some proper unit measurements.
I pushed open the glass door, a chime announcing my entrance. The store was bustling with activity, customers milling about as they browsed the various displays. I made my way to the back, where the scrolls were laid out on sleek, black pedestals.
My eyes widened as I took in the sheer variety of options. There were basic models with simple interfaces, mid-range devices with decent specs, and high-end scrolls packed with features I'd never even heard of.
Focus. I shook my head to clear it. I just need something reliable, with good battery life and maybe a decent camera. Nothing too fancy.
I reached out, picking up one of the mid-range models and turning it over in my hands. It felt good, lightweight and smooth against my skin. I tapped the screen, watching as it flared to life with a soft chime.
Not bad, the selection here reminded me of the pre-War tech kiosks that had smartphones ranging from good to having the specs that the early AI phones had. Decent resolution, good specs, and the price is-
I froze, my eyes locking on the price tag attached to the pedestal. The number stared back at me, stark and unforgiving, and I felt my stomach sink.
That can't be right. There's no way a scroll costs that much.
But as I looked around, taking in the prices displayed on the other devices, I realized with a sinking feeling that it wasn't a mistake. Scrolls, even the most basic models, were expensive. Far more expensive than I'd anticipated.
With a growing sense of dread, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet. I counted the Lien cards inside, my heart sinking with each one. It wasn't enough. Not even close.
I can't afford this. Involuntarily a hot flush of shame creeping up the back of my neck. I feel like a person who thought they had picked out a clean set of clothes and wet out to a fancy event only to realize I had sauce stains on me. The flush crawled up to the top of my head and my scalp itches.
I don't have nearly enough saved up.
I set the scroll back down on its pedestal, my hands shaking slightly. I'd been so sure that I had enough, that all those weeks of saving and scrimping had finally paid off. But I'd underestimated just how much a new scroll would cost.
What do I do now?
I considered my options.
It was either go ask Cynthia for money… Or… Or… Hm…I'm already selling deer meat and pelts on the side… Why the hell does a scroll cost 100,000 Lien?
Shoving my hands into my pockets as I make my way out of the store supremely disturbed.
Wait a fucking second… don't tell me that Lien has a Japanese currency system…
I wasn't particularly stretched thin but the thing was between resetting my trap which was already a hassle to work with since I had to be on the ball to deal with Coyote-Servals trying to get a free meal. I had been leaking what I thought was a good profit.
But in hindsight, it was no wonder why adults always looked at me funny when I asked for a price. I was practically handing over my hard work for a steal.
How did I fucking miss this?
I'm doing taxes for other kids already!
I walk to a wall and rear back my head, before slamming-
Even the disorientation I felt right now wasn't enough to deal with my fru-
Two hits in and I'm still pis-
I stop. Panting and staring at the wall I see blood on the wall. Sighing I look up to the blue sky as clouds conveniently block out the sun.
Something breaks within me and in this moment I feel like I am in the calm of a storm.
"I deserve that, I suppose."
The clouds wouldn't take long to get out of the way of the sun.
I sigh again before looking out to the street which was pretty much empty now save for some beggar who was off in his own world.
"Hmm. yeAH, I deFINITELY DESERVED THAT!"
I turned on a dime and with everything I had I slammed my fist into a dumpster that was also at the end of the alley.
"BITCH!" A resounding gong echoed into the alley and back at me. The noise only made me feel more indignant.
Pain flared in my hand but I crushed it beneath my heel with practiced ease. For daring to make me feel like I was hurt I slammed my other hand into the dumpster, exhaling as I hooked the gunmetal gray dumpster.
I step back, literally, from the dumpster, metaphorically from my wrath.
I was never rich, and I would never say that I was middle class in my last life, but damn it I was used to being able to execute short and middle distance plans for long term gain.
Sometimes I needed help, but I made sure that I repaid off debts incurred to close friends.
But this… Here and now though, the only one I would call a friend in this life was Aloe, and she wasn't the type of friend that I would rely on for finances.
But I didn't want that!
Before everything was a time equation too. Put in the time, learn more, figure out where the breakdown was, fix the problem. Here the problem was still the same but…
But..!
Between school, training and doing chores was beginning to stretch me into too many directions with too little pay off and I was beginning to see that I was going to need to do something drastic if I wanted to avoid the pitfalls that I was initially trying to avoid.
Forget my issue will Ruby as a person and the moral considerations of killing her now before she could kill the Kingdom of Mantle and indirectly Vale. The fact was right now for all the training I did I was still not reaching my goals fast enough.
After all, what was the strength of blowing up a car to leveling a castle?
I scratched my head. Then scratched harder, before ripping my hands away from my head and squeezing my fists.
I clenched them as hard as I could and even then squeezed harder.
I could feel the urge to roar in frustration begin to settle in my chest. I stood with my shoulders hunched, teeth grit.
I could feel the vile sensation of a familiar murderous wrath begin to bubble up. I wanted nothing more than to kill something, to see life reduced to nothing more than gore.
But I had done it before, followed that trail to a not so bloody conclusion in my last life and -imagine Ruby's face. She wasn't particularly emotive but just the idea of her and my wrath at the same time made me sick. It was like being in a new car that had been sunbaking, cloistering, nausea inducing.
I let it go and stumbled away from the dumpster as practically tasting bile and feeling light headed as I tried to figure out what I was doing.
What was I doing? Yes, if someone were capable of reading my mind it would read as redundant, but I was starting to think maybe… I was redundant.
"What- Do I even need to be here?"
It wasn't like I had created some great thing. It wasn't that I even was the reincarnation of some hero either. I was just a rabid dog with some level of cunning. I couldn't remember my name from my past life, but I could give the average Remnantian details about people, places and things that they could never even imagine exist.
I could…
I was spiraling.
I was completely unfocused.
I find myself surrounded by woodland. It wasn't too far from my sparring area, so I'm not surprised when I find myself standing at the river which acted as a dividing point for Patch.
Past here there would be Grimm, and this was a low point of the water, shallow enough that I would be able to cross it if I had my last life's height.
I swam across with hesitation.
Were things not working out because I was too cautious?
Was I hesitating?
Was I scared?
There were times towards the end where I had been told that I always looked scared. I didn't feel it.
Did I look like that right now?
I could imagine that I did.
A small prepubescent kid walking into a known Danger Area. Sure outlined by his soaked clothes and painting a silhouette onto the forest ahead.
I would want to stop a kid from doing this.
They didn't know the risks.
I did though.
Life and Death.
I wanted to be patient, but I think that if I didn't come here, I was going to do something I'm not sure I would want to live with.
I walked…
And walked…
And I felt giddy.
Joyful even.
And I could feel it begin to bubble back up, my anger. It wasn't as file as it was earlier, it was lessened in that way. But it picked up my heart rate.
And like a song only I could hear, I began to bounce on my feet. And on cue red eyes dotted the wood line.
These buggers really were endless, weren't they?
..!
…!
…!
I sat frozen for a moment. My heart was still drumming away in my chest but the sweat that I hadn't noticed became cold and somehow it felt like I was in a nightmare.
"Hah, Scary…" my voice even came out with the same muted quietness.
Tears pricked at my eyes. A sob did not follow. I was feeling things I did not know how to process.
I didn't.
I pushed off my shaking, backing away from a black furred red clawed demon.
Joy bubbled up in my chest, I swung my fist.
"YES!"
It landed and the Grimms head became mash beneath my fist. Catharsis.
It was better than when I had finally shot a gun again after thinking that I was ready to put it behind me.
I wasn't.
I truly was a monster.
My vision became red as I imagined the wrath I could bring about. It stayed Red and as my limbs became a reacting machine I realized two things, I could hear laughter and that this happened before.
None of that was important. I slipped, ducked, dove and weaved between the red fang and clawed beowulves. They didn't have any bone plants for some reason.
I threw a punch, and I was satisfied.
I threw a kick and I felt elation.
I shot out a Hadoken, it was definitely better than sex. Hell it was even better than going cyclic on an unmounted M240B.
Batting aside a flurry of claws and throwing another body over my shoulder and, bending another beowulf in half with a kick, I threw myself into a backflip and blindly shot another hadoken into the ground.
With so many enemies, it would hurt something if not kill.
The flood of black was just too thick otherwise.
Spinning around another beowulf and grabbing it by the claw I began spinning around with it.
Faster and faster we went.
We stopped, it was just me, and I let my aura flow away from me. In an uncontrolled explosion, it sent me careening into the air, my clothes were surely ruined.
Oh well, as I peaked above the tree line I turned back down toward the veritable hoard, and some grimm were quick on the approach, bouncing between the trees.
As I came down I met the first one with a knee,"Yes!" flipping through the movement, kicking another downward as I finished the flip.
..!
Tilting around I counter a slash that came from behind me with an uppercut, I went through with another backflip.
My heart felt full.
The beowulf went sky high as I landed in a handstand and did headspin into kick up and had my arms crossed over my chest, my arms glowing with the ethereal energy. "Hmm, Goku Time!" I shove my hands out to the side of another uncontrolled burst of Aura. The blast had shot through Grimm and Trees alike.
I was surely burning through so much power that I was going to be in danger soon.
..!
I slide to the side letting another beowulf fly over my shoulder.
Happy.
I ran after it, and threw a super man punch, obliterating its skull.
…!
I pivot again only to see a pair of arms coming down to smash me in a double fisted attack. I throw my arms up and catch them, an easy gray glow wafting off of me. I don't think I could grin any wider than I am. The ground beneath me cratered slightly around my feet bearing the weight of the Grimm and force of the attack.
I pry our arms wide open and spear my legs against the Grimms body, in an instant their arms are separated as the beowulf's body is sent into the forest.
…!
I duck, and sweep kick and hit nothing but air, but with the sound of shuffling grass I'm told that something was there, and I smack my outstretched limb into the ground as it turns me around, launching into it.
I lead with my elbow letting it send my opponent back.
I crack my neck and start to bob my head to music again. The crowd was starting to thin out. What I thought was a crowd large enough to rip me apart was now beginning to thin out.
Was this feeling of sheer happiness something that other Huntsmen felt? Or was it just me? I didn't know and I didn't care to guess. Here and now the only thing I wanted was for this feeling to last forever and yet I knew it wouldn't.
…!
I turn around to see two Beowulves walk out of the woods, their eyes glowing orange within the red.
"Do you two feel this too?" This feeling in my heart?
Of course they didn't.
I knew that.
I sigh, well if it was going to end like this. I really wanted to do this right.
I took two deep breaths and my Aura glowed in time with it.
I could see it now, my fist breaking through them, them falling, me surviving.
They didn't wait, charging at me the two demons were on me like white on rice. Their intent to kill me was greater than anything I had ever felt, but it was because of that factor, that I was able to stay ahead.
I ducked, and dived, and remade my stance, before I had to step back with the moment of a bash that sent me through a tree, I rolled into a back handspring and was met with an asynchronized pincer attack.
I shoulder throw the first Alpha Beowulf but my set up to get both pinned fails and slash cuts my guts and I look to see it bleeding.
I laugh and duck beneath another slash, and launch into an uppercut that I make explode as it crashes into the Beowulf's jaw, the angle was awkward and made my arm fly back from self induced recoil, but seeing the explosion make my opponent do a backflip as the entire front of its face was removed made laugh again.
I really couldn't help it.
It made everything better.
..!
I am yoked up by hand around my shoulders and neck and I'm briefly reminded of my dad from the pressure, and I'm-
..!
My head shoved into a tree, and …!
It happens ag-
…!
Then agai-
I'm shoved into the ground, and I'm being choked, I'm definitely on my back. I can see malice, practically glowing out of orange orbs surrounded by red. Drool falls onto my face as canine jaws open and hiss at me.
I grin as my body starts to go numb, as my eyes begin to twitch I see that my left arm is free. I raise it up to the sky.
Or rather at my enemy.
You know, I had super powers now. I practically had ki now. If I was going to die from my wounds I at least wanted to do this once.
"Gkaegh" I met orange eyes unerringly and with the oxygen deprivation and all the endorphins I almost thought I was being given bedroom eyes.
"Meaghk" Orange orbs flicked to my raised hand before slightly tightening its grip.
"Ha-"
I had lost the rest of the air in my lungs.
A gray orb formed in my hand.
My lips formed unspoken syllables as my lungs tried and failed to contract. I was used to the panic, it was what I trained for, which is why I was definitely satisfied to see the giant gray pillar of energy shoot through it and the woods above it.
And as the light finished going into the air I realized that I was staring into-