Strong

Bradley got back up and looked at his brother with a doubtful look. "Are you really holding back?" he asked.

"Of course," Stanley said. "Why are you doubting me?"

"Because you're hitting so hard," Bradley said. "Can you hit me again? While holding back?"

"Sure," Stanley said and swung his sword again. The force he put in was about 60% of what he could truly exert in a normal scenario.

Bradley blocked the attack with his own sword and nearly cut himself with his own sword which fortunately didn't fully leave his grip.

"Damn, is something wrong with me today?" Bradley thought for a bit. "No, it had to be you. You're hitting too hard."

"Am I?" Stanley paused. "That's weird."

"Here, you block now," Bradley said and got ready to swing.

Stanley waited for the sword to swing and blocked it when it did. He easily blocked his brother's sword which his brother had swung while obviously holding back.

"Again!" Bradley said and swung once more. When Stanley blocked this one too, he swung once again.

Over and over, he swung multiple times. Each time he was blocked, he increased the force behind his attack little by little until he was swinging his sword at his brother harder than he had ever swung at a person before.

He hadn't even swung at a Crawler this hard before.

However, Stanley didn't seem phased at all. He stood there, blocking every single hit that came for him.

"How are you doing this?" Bradley asked.

Stanley was surprised at himself too. "I'm… strong?" he couldn't help but ask. Did it happen overnight by any chance? Or had he been this strong for a while and not realized it?

"You've been physically better than almost all of your classmates before, but this is different," Bradley said. He looked around and found a fist sized stone.

He took the rock and threw it into the air as hard as he could. He watched the small stone flying high into the sky before falling a few distance away from them.

Bradley picked the stone back up and threw it at his brother. "Throw it up as hard as you can. Let's see exactly how much stronger you are than me," he said.

Stanley nodded and immediately tossed the stone into the sky. It flew high, much higher than Bradley's. It took a few more seconds to fall than it did for Bradley.

"Wow!" Bradley couldn't help but say. "You should be somewhere between one-and-a-half to two times as strong as me right now. How is that possible?"

Stanley felt gleeful when he heard that he was much stronger now than he was before. Did that mean that his powers had activated?

"Since when were you this strong?" Bradley asked.

Stanley had no idea. He shrugged his shoulders. "I only just found out today," he said.

"Have you not noticed it before? That you had grown stronger? What about when you fought during training? Did no one mentioned that you were hitting hard?" Bradley asked.

"I… I never hit anyone," Stanley said with saddened face. "I was tormented by the memories before I could even try to hit anyone."

Bradley scratched his head as it all got even more confusing for him. How could his brother's body have suddenly gotten stronger?

"Do you have to do something to get this strong?" Bradley asked. "Any sort of activation ritual?"

Stanley gave it some thought, but he couldn't think of any. "No, it just is," he said. "Ooh, brother. Do you think my healing powers are related to this? Maybe I can heal faster because I have a strong body."

"Maybe?" Bradley said. "But the main problem is the fact that your body is strong. Why did it suddenly become strong?"

"It isn't like Illan's, right?" Stanley asked.

"Illan was born with a strong body. Your body grew strong sometime in between the last 3 months, it's quite different," Bradley said. "Maybe it's related to those feelings you get?"

"Could it be?" Stanley asked.

"Did you get any sort of those feelings today?" Bradley asked.

"No, it's all just been normal for me," Stanley said. "You would know if I had those instinctive feelings."

"Right," Bradley said. "Well, I can't tell what is happening then."

His brother's body healed from a burn overnight and was nearly twice as strong as his own, and then there were those feelings he randomly got. Bradley couldn't connect the dots between any of the three or even see how they could be his brother's powers.

After all, there was no activation ritual that Stanley had to do.

"Hmm, we should ask the Mayor," Bradley said

"The mayor?" Stanley was surprised. "How will you ask the mayor? You can't even meet him."

"He will be giving some announcements today during assembly. We can ask him afterward," Bradley said.

"I mean, but he's still the mayor. How will we approach him? Will he even stop for us when he has so much work to do?" Stanley asked.

"He will, don't worry," Bradley said.

"Alright," Stanley thought. He didn't have any other choices anyway.

"By the way, we came here to deal with those random instincts of yours. Have they really not come yet?" Bradley asked.

"No," Stanley shook his head.

"How do they usually come?" Bradley asked. "Is there no specific trigger?"

"Trigger… well, no. Maybe fighting? It always comes around when I'm about to train with someone else. There have been some other random times too, but fighting is one that guarantees that it happens," Stanley said.

"But you didn't get anything when we fought?" Bradley asked.

"No," Stanley said.

"Hmm, let's continue and see what happens."

The two brothers trained against each other for quite a while, but Stanley never got those feelings a single time during their training.

Disappointed, the two of them had to return back to Defenders Quarters to have breakfast and get ready for the day.

The assembly was going to start in less than an hour.