9 The Fabled Shonen Training Montage

I dodge to the left as my opponent strikes.

I retaliate with a slash to the right and leap into the air to try and get a clean hit, I miss, and my opponent manages to take my leg off.

"that's enough." Hornet says, after having grabbed my lopped off leg.

"I almost had you there for a bit." I say.

"no, you did not, I gave you that opening but you missed it and went for that overhead strike that allowed me to give that clean strike to the side." she says.

Hornet tosses me my leg and I re-attach it, I managed to learn this after some training in healing.

"I totally had you when I was going for that leg sweep." I said.

"no, that was me pitying you and allowed you to almost get me." she said with a smug air about her.

Sighing I went and sat down on the bench not too far away from where we were sparing.

"but, you did have some good attempts here and there, like that spin you did, if you didn't get dizzy right after it you could have gone for a heavy strike and this fight would have ended differently." she said

Hornet sat next to me and I laid on her lap(truly the greatest of pillows) and sighed.

After almost getting killed and that whole bit that happened two days ago I realized some hard truths, and asked Hornet to train me, after she woke up of course, need to have some manners.

And she took training me seriously, very seriously, like holy shit the amount of training I had gone through today was on par with someone like ymfa, and his challenges on YouTube(shout out to him, awesome vids) like Hornet had me dodge the globbies and to get to the end of the room(first tunnel btw) without killing them or getting hit they spawned a lot, by the time I got to the end of the room there was like a hundred of them, then Hornet said I had to kill them all and make my way back to the bench, all without getting hit.

Yeah, took a full day to do that, and afterwards she decided to do this, sparing against her, and that was worse.

"well, at least my nail skills are improving right?" I ask her.

"but not fast enough for your liking right?" she said.

*sigh* "yeah, I need to be better, I have to." I said.

Hornet chuckled a little and rubbed my head a bit, it felt good.

"you are ok enough to try taking on the second tunnel now." she said

"wait, really?" I ask

"yes, but only the left path, not the right or straight." she replied

"YES!" I exclaim leaping off the bench and making my way to the second tunnel.

*sigh* "always on the move." I could hear Hornet say at the edge of my hearing as I was entering the second tunnel.

This time I knew exactly where I was going, and moved at a fast pace, slaying globbies and doing so swiftly.

Coming to the three paths, I immediately head left intent on getting some revenge on that bane.

I came to the room in seconds, and saw it there, in the middle of the room glairing at me, I wasted no time and engaged in combat with it.

As I came closer the bane began to charge at me, I swiftly dodged to the right and making sure I did not step into a pool of acid.

The bane skidded to a halt a few feet after missing me, I took note of this.

I began to circle the room and the bane followed me, I kited it near a pool of acid, and then I put my plan into action, I taunted it and it charged, I dodged to the left this time and moved behind the bane.

The bane had no idea what was in store for it, it charged, and I leapt above it then struck with all my might forcing the bane to careen into the pool of acid, its screams of agony felt good(this better not awaken anything in me)

I was huffing and puffing but came out victorious.

and that's when two more banes came from the end of the room coming at the sound of one of their own calling them.

"SON OF A BITCH!" I shout to the high heavens.

I managed to dodge the initial charge, and backed off a bit, and used focus to fix up my stamina.(yes I can do that but its very inefficient like it takes four points of focus to fix up one stamina point in conversion)

The banes got unsynchronized and that gave me an amazing opportunity I stood still for a second and both banes charged with intent on making me a bug sandwich(ew no thanks) with me as the filling.

I leaped at the last second and both banes crashed into one another, I came down upon their heads, with a clean swipe of my nail, their heads came off.

Heaving and gasping for breath my vision slightly blurry, I screamed out "WHO ELSE WANTS SOME!" might not have been the best idea.

A loud screech came from the end of the room from where the two banes came from.

The screech came from the beast before me, it had a large spider face, instead of a spiders legs it had mantis claws for legs, and it had a body of a beetle.

"COME ON THEN!" I challenged the beast, naming it Gorge.

Gorge screeched and began charging towards me, I dodged and it went into a pool of acid.

...To be con- DAGA KOTOWARU!

"w-what?" momentarily stunned that it just charged right into that pool of acid, I almost did not dodge the swipe that came at me.

"A-acid Proof." I mutter

Gorge screeched again and began swiping towards me with its mantis claws, and I was deflecting them with my nail.

I began looking for a striking point, I found one in the joints of the claws.

I then started lopping off claws, Gorges screeches were starting to give me a headache.

After cutting all of Gorges limbs off it let out another screech and took flight.

"REALLY!?" I complained.

Gorge began shooting balls of acid at me, and I had to dodge them, it went for a little while before I managed to climb up a spot on the wall, and leaped to the back of Gorge.

Gorge did not like that I was on its back, I began hacking away at its wings, they were tough and Gorges aerial maneuvers did not help, almost fell of once or twice.

Finally I cut off its wings and it plummeted down to the ground.

Gorge let out one last screech as I drove my nail into one of its larger eyes from above.

Ok, ok no more tempting fate, I went to the place where the banes and Gorge came from.

What I saw shocked me greatly, a massive body strewn out It looked like Abathur from StarCraft two. (the size was comparable to a double decker bus)

Near the head I saw what looked like a badge, grabbing it the screen popped up and told me what I just got.

{Evolution Master, allows you to augment and change your DNA and get various bonuses from things you kill.}

"what, like the Blacklight virus from Prototype?" I asked in jest.

{Yes}

I could barley hold my enthusiasm and found a bench nearby, and warped back to the tunnels start.(I'm just going to call it hub from now on)

Arriving at hub I was practically zipping with how exited I was, I wanted to equip it right away but forgot the rules of the charms.

*BUZZ* a buzzer that sounded right out of a game show sounded when I tried to put on the charm.

{unable to equip, slots full}

{notches can be over loaded, if you have TGC and HKL and tried putting on EM it will still work, and be equipped, but every notch that is over the notch limit makes it so its harder to fight, like putting on weights, but you cannot overload the slots for the charms, it just won't work, you cant put on four charms if you only have three slots.}

Good to know, anyways I went and told Hornet the good news.

"YOU FOUGHT WHAT!?" she was not as exited as I was hoping.

"well, it was this huge beetle bodied spider faced mantis claw legged thing that I called Gorge." I said explaining it.

"THAT THING ALMOST KILLED ME WHEN WE CLASHED A COUPLE CENTERIES AGO AND YOU SAY YOU KILLED IT FIRST TRY!?" she shouted.

"yes, yes I did." I said

Hornet took a deep breath, sighed and sat down on the bench.

"you are getting stronger and stronger, I wonder if you truly could kill Radiance." she said

"I can, and I will, for you." I said

Hornet blushed and hid her face in her hands, I sat next to her.

"every step I take, every breath I breath, every swing of my nail, every wound I take, every bone I break, I do it all, for you." I could almost see the steam coming from her face after I said all that.

"Hornet, I love you." she nearly fainted from that.

"I-I l-love you too, Ember." she said back.

we just held one another on that bench, we did not need to kiss, and these masks would just get in the way.

...To be continued sometime in the future perhaps

(a/n Kept you waiting huh, yeah I was on a family trip for the weekend down to Saint George, it was hot, and I went swimming. Anyways, I wanted to do a chapter because I needed something to destress my mind, cause after coming home, I had to do two whole consecutive hours of exam, math and physics, my brain hurts after doing that, but I should be good until fall when I start back up again. So make sure to comment for ideas and to help me get my lazy butt to make more of this stuff.)