Visiting Vincent

Arlo Cromwell walked out of the fighting area. Eric kept his eyes on him the whole time. Eric couldn't figure out his ability. He was too fast to have super strength, he was really fast, but too slow to have super speed.

As he stepped from the pillars, he noticed that he didn't have a mark on him. Not a busted lip or even a swollen lip. The only way you could have been able to tell that he was in a fight at all was that some of the dust from the rocks being destroyed was on his uniform.

'How is this possible? Hurst got several good hits in.'

Two more names were called, and they entered the fighting area and began their battle. Eric was not interested in the other fights. Smith hasn't been called out to fight yet, but he already knew what the outcome would be. He decided to go to the medical ward and check out his friends. While he was on his would check his notifications.

Thats when he noticed it. He had two notifications.

'That's odd; I should only have one,' Eric thought.

He opened the first one up.

< Defeated Justin Acer: 100 EXP gained.>

< 200/640 EXP>

'I guess I was so hung up on my quest reward from last time that I missed this. I need to get better at using this system.'

He checked the other notification.

<Defeated 80 Elizabeth Wixx: EXP Gained.>

< 280/640 EXP>

Except being frustrated with himself for missing the notification from last time, he was pleased to see that he was almost half way to leveling up.

He arrived at the medical ward and opened the door. He noticed that Elizabeth was walking out. Her leg was completely healed. You could see the hole in her pants where the shadow spike went through. Around the hole, it was a dark red from where it was bleeding. But she is fine now.

He jumped back to keep the door open so she could walk through. When she got to the door, Eric spoke up, "O hey, you look like you're fully healed."

She stopped right outside of the doorway, but this still required Eric to hold the door open. She looked straight into Eric's eyes and with the sweetest smile he had ever seen, and then she said, "Yeah, they took good care of me." Touching her leg, she continued, "There's not even a scar. That's nice."

"I'm really sorry. I didn't want to hurt you, but I didn't have any choice if I was to win."

"I know, you wouldn't have beaten me if you hadn't."

Elizabeth lifted up her hand and grabbed his and gave it a light squeeze. "I'm not interested in a guy that I can beat. The one would have to prove himself."

With that, she let go and started to walk away. Before she did, she noticed Eric's face was becoming red all the way to his ears. That brought great delight to her.

This was a new feeling that he never felt before. He had always been a chubby guy, and girls were not really interested in him.

'Did she just flirt with me? No way. What do I do now? I can't let her get away.'

She stopped just a few feet away and said, "Maybe we can meet up and give each other some pointers from our fight."

"Uh… yeah, that sounds great."

"Ok, you pick the time and place. Come find me when you have it planned," and with that she ran off.

'Did I just get a date? No, we are discussing fighting techniques. I might need to get some advice. I'm so confused right now.'

He just stood there awkwardly for a few moments. He had no idea what just happened. In his wildest dreams, he never expected this to happen.

After thinking it through, he decided to deal with this conundrum later. He wanted to check in on his friends. He walked up to the front desk and asked the tall blonde hair lady in scrubs, "I'm here to see Hurst and Conner. What room are they in?"

"Give me just a minute." The lady said.

She finished writing a few things down. After she was done, she moved it to the side and picked up a clipboard. She flipped up a few pages and said, "Conner is in room two, and Hurst is in room seven. Go straight down this hall," pointing to the hallway behind her.

"Room two is on the right, and room seven will be on the left."

"Thank you for your help."

She didn't respond. She shuffled around a few papers and got back to work, writing things down.

'Well, Vincent's room is the first one, so I'll see how he is doing first.'

He went down the hall and turned into Vincent's room. The door was open. When he walked into the room and saw a blonde woman in scrubs taking Vincent's blood pressure.

'Hmm. Are all the nurses blonde? Well, that's strange. Must be part of the hiring criteria.' He smiled a little because he was laughing on the inside.

"I just finished taking his vitals. He is doing fine. He will probably be let go in a few hours," the nurse said and walked past him.

"Dude, that fight was great. I like how you attacked out of the cloud of smoke and avoided attacks by going back into it," Eric said with excitement.

"Thanks. Corporal Jones has taken me on as her protege. We have been working on my swordsmanship and experimenting on what would be the best way to use my smoke power and the sword. So far, what you saw is what we came up with. It does have its weaknesses, though. But we are planning to do some more experiments to improve it."

"That's awesome! I don't know how you managed to get someone to take you under your wing, but that's amazing. Such a great opportunity."

'Hmm. I guess that he has been training, not chasing after girls after all,' Eric thought.