Enchark: Training taken too far

"HUH?!"

Karlyle was shocked by what Mimi just suggested. It has only been a day since she used the facade of training to physically torment him, although he did tell her to continue till knock out and before that he told her to go all out.

"I'm just saying it would definitely be more helpful."

Mimi shrugged, she thought her suggestion was quite smart.

"You want me, the weak one in the group, to fight both you AND Foster at the SAME time?"

"Yes."

"Do you have like a deal with my parents to take my life?"

"No but now I wish I did, sounds fun."

Karlyle couldn't tell if Mimi actually became psychotic at some point in time this week or if during training some sort of killer gene finished activating. What he did know is that the Mimi he knew became an insane trainer.

"You're a sadist."

"Thank you! So is that a yes?"

"NO!"

Mimi took that as a yes and immediately told Foster the great news.

'She wants me dead,' Karlyle thought. Let someone protect his thoughts from Mimi before she does in fact get the idea to kill him.

An hour later the whole party of three was gathered in the training room which miraculously expanded so the arena could accommodate them all. Karlyle was visibly the most worried about how this will go while the other two were excited to battle. He hoped that they'd focus on each other instead of going for the easy target.

However, opposite to what he hoped would happen, both of their eyes were locked onto him. Why take out the weak link? They should be attacking the actual competition, right...?

Wrong!

They were both going for Karlyle to push his limits but they weren't planning on doing too much damage to him. If he wasn't overwhelmed, he wouldn't rise up to the occasion.

"Arkana, count."

[3]

[2]

[1]

[Go!]

Mimi teleported in front of Karlyle the moment Arakana said 'go.' Her speed was visibly slower than usual but Karlyle didn't notice as he was occupied with worrying about Foster. He managed to parry her attacks. When she kicked, he blocked with his leg, when she punched, he pushed her arm to the side with his arm. During all the countering, Karlyle was somehow able to land a hit and pushed Mimi back to the opposite of the arena.

She teleported back quickly and continued to throw different types of attacks towards him. Karlyle caught onto an obvious pattern in Mimi's attacks; but when she noticed he did, she switched it up. Barely reacting in time, Karlyle protected himself from being punched in the stomach out of nowhere. Mimi was surely going for the tough spots. Karlyle grabbed her wrist and launched her away before she could teleport out of his grasp.

A sensation of screeching pain began to burrow in Karlyle's mind, increasing in potency which each passing second. Without hesitation, he shot out a flaming bullet from his hand that soared through the air towards Foster, who made it out alive by evading it but this caused his concentration to break and the pain to withdraw.

Coming back for more, Mimi teleported behind Karlyle. She, however, didn't expect him to spin around and attempt a butchered version of a roundhouse kick into the right side of her torso. She was able to prevent it by grabbing Karlyle's leg with her hands and pushing him backwards.

Karlyle stumbled, almost falling down but he pushed himself back upright with a few flames that came out of his back. Mimi properly roundhouse kicked Karlyle, aiming for his face. He succeeded in dodging it by jumping backwards.

The familiar, yet still unusual, feeling of Foster's mental pain infliction grip made its way back into Karlyle's head. By instinct, Karlyle immediately let out a 180° wave of fire as a response by horizontally swinging his arm from the right to the left, it moved towards Foster in a fast and jittery manner. Mimi helped Foster dodge the attack as he didn't have a way to do it without leaving the arena and then she quickly teleported back to her previous position.

At this point, Karlyle was acting like an owl looking out for prey. He was forced to continuously turn around back and forth, fighting Mimi then Foster then Mimi then Foster and so on. His spine would give out soon, guaranteed. Parrying Mimi's barrage and knocking Foster out of concentration all at once was a tough act to carry out.

Mimi nodded at Foster and he nodded back. Karlyle noticed the exchange and knew something was up. Now it wasn't one after another anymore, it was both of them coming for him at once. While protecting himself from Mimi's hits, he felt Foster sneak into his mind so he quickly pushed Mimi away, turned around, shot at Foster, and turned back around in time to continue parrying. Sure, at first this wasn't too hard to do but Karlyle's opponents made it progressively harder.

When Foster distracted Karlyle again, Mimi managed to restrict his hands before he could turn around. She forced him to kneel on the ground at which point Foster broke into his brain. The pain rose quickly this time and Karlyle struggled in Mimi's grip before finally releasing a giant burst of fire from his torso. Mimi quickly teleported to Foster before dispersing them both into dust and recollecting after the fire passed. She walked up to Karlyle and his heartbeat was loud enough for her to hear it, he was terrified.

Some may question their method of training him, but Mimi saw what his possible opponents were capable of and it wasn't any kinder than what they were doing. Karlyle knew their intentions were good but to them it appeared like he despised them. They even felt angry with themselves because of what they did to him.

"Karlyle wai-" Mimi spoke, reaching her hand out to Karlyle.

"Menu open, tourney housing, enter," Karlyle cut her off and disappeared.

"Arkana open the trainer module."

[Welcome, trainer Rivera]

[Trainee: Karlyle Montgomery]

[Trainee Rankings: A, B, B, A+, B+, A-, SSS+]

"Enter trainee housing."

[Trainer entrance unavailable: training completed]

"Damn it."

"I think we went too far Mimi," Foster sighed.

"You think?"

Appearing in the safety of his new, but temporary, home, Karlyle immediately dropped into the bed. He didn't bother with getting changed or washing the sweat off his body. He'd just have to re-enter the room and the bed would be clean.

When Mimi held him down and Foster used his odynokinesis, he imagined his kinetic being taken away and at that moment he felt petrified, helpless, and, most importantly, powerless. He knew that his friends had good intentions and they were just trying to prepare him. It was the same as his training fight with Emilia prior to his departure. She just wanted him to be aware that tourney participants won't hold back.

Technically speaking, Karlyle didn't hold back either. He burnt Dakhyo alive, even if he withdrew the flame he still did it. The urge to keep your kinetic was practically engraved into every single tourney participant and they were all going to do anything in their power to satisfy it.

"Invite."

Karlyle mumbled into his pillow, thinking of the two people he left behind. They showed up in the room not even a second after he invited them. Both of them were apologising profusely for what they did.

"Calm down," he instructed.

Karlyle sat up on the bed, exhausted. He opened his hands for a hug and the two worried people in front of him accepted it and embraced him tightly.

"I'm not mad at either of you, just when you did that it felt like my kinetic was being taken away."

They let go of the hug.

"Oh my god I'm so sorry Karlyle," Foster exclaimed.

He was obviously the most worried as he was the one hurting Karlyle while Mimi only restrained him.

"I already said to calm down, nothing to apologise for," Karlyle paused, "at least you apologised. The people in the tourney will probably do much worse and not even consider saying sorry."

"But then why would you run away like that?"

"Not sure, my body just went autopilot."

In fact, the whole world went dark and blurry for Karlyle. The only things he could hear were his voice, short breaths, and uncontrollable heartbeats. When Mimi called out to him, her voice was muffled and drowned out so he didn't understand what she was saying. Then when he gave the housing entry command, it didn't even feel like he was the one talking. It was as if someone else spoke for him.

Those feelings were strange and Karlyle sure hated them. He hugged his two friends again and hoped those worries wouldn't find themselves back in his mind.

"Don't worry Lyle, we will make sure you win," Mimi reassured him.

"Yeah, Mimi and I will do everything we can to help you keep your kinetic."

"I doubt we will be necessary though, he did get an SSS+ by himself after all," she lightly punched his shoulder.