“Welcome back eeeeeveryone!!!”

“WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

“Are you ready for the match of the century?!”

“WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

The public was, once again, wild. It was the 3rd round for the Nuts Smasheress, and her opponent was another underdog.

Although most were tall and muscular fighters, this one was a small magician, with a green robe and a wood staff.

“To my right! A mysterious mage from the north, that had managed to beat every single of his opponent untouched! And to my left…!”

“WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

"Haha, who am I kidding, everyone knows who she is! The Nuts…"

Without a warning, the mage pointed the edge of his staff toward Alice, and summoned a tremendous burst of wind.

With a relative lack of surprise, Alice was pushed back… by about 10 centimetres, while her long white hair wobbled with the pressure, leaving the mage speechless.

“Earth Magic really is useful, but I guess I could also try Wind…”

Disregarding her comment, the small man used his staff once again, and another burst was created, even stronger than the one before, however…

Alice had already lifted her left hand, using her palm as a shield, splitting the attack int two. But her opponent wasn’t done, after spinning his weapon above his head, he violently planted it in front of him, invoking an extreme pressure on Alice.

This time, it worked, as she had to put one knee to the ground.

Her hair fell straight down to the ground, as well as her left arm.

She had underestimated him, but in the end, it didn’t really matter.

Gathering a bit of her strength, she raised her head, and pointed her palm toward her opponent.

Using his first attack, she propelled him.

And just like that, the fight was over.

He crashed into the arena borders, and lost consciousness.

The crowd continued to cheer, apparently not surprised by the turn of event.

Coming back from the entrance of the ring where he was hiding, the referee took her hand and raised it in the air.

“We have a winner!”

‘Sigh… this is such a waste of time…’

Even though her fight didn't last more than a few seconds, the waiting period between each of them was too much for her. She was here for almost a week already, and she was clearly getting tired of it. Fortunately, the number of contestants had already drastically decreased, and there were only three fights left.

The next fight was two days later, and apparently, it’s likely she’ll fight a regular gladiator that had crushed the skull of his first opponents with his bare hands.

Not that she cared much…

P: I miss pou alreadp!

M: Come on, Prom. You 1eft a minute ag0.

M: And every0ne can see the chat!

P: But… what am I supposed to do if you're not here to lauph at mp pokes?

M: I never 1augh at y0ur j0kes.

P: Not on the outside.

M: Neither 0n the inside.

P: Nah, pou’re pust too shp to admit it.

P: Hear this one!

P: How do pou make Holp water?

M: …

M: S0…?

P: You boil the Hell out of it! : D

P: : D

P: Mar?

P: You there?

"Meh, she'll be back. She's probably busy laughing her ass off."

Seeing that she wasn’t responding, Prometheus stood up from his chair to stretch up a bit. He then opened the Book.

Struggle#15

Objective: Escape

Sub-Objective: Bring the other inmates with you

He was in jail.

Not the dirty-humid-filled-with-rats kind of jail, but more like there-is-a-million-of-detectors-of-camera-behind-your-pillow kind. The bars were replaced by a greenish holographic screen with a weird logo on it, featuring a pair of big eyes and the phrase ‘FOREVER’.

Prom was alone in his cell, but beyond the screen he could see many more, even though it didn't seem like there was a single guard in sight. Inside, there was only one bed, one toilet and a small table.

“Che, f’course. Put the black in prison! It’s where he belongs, right?”

Back on Earth, Prom had never been discriminated based on the color of his skin, because since the start of the 21st century, the several times humanity came close to extinction flushed away most nations and ethnic heritage, mixing all kind of people from all kind of place. Thus, leaving little place for discrimination.

However, Naomi managed to found an old book relating the struggle of his ancestor before all the wars started, and he always wanted to say something like that.

For some reason he found the context funny.

What a shame nobody was there to hear him.

“Shut up, rookie, I’m tryin’ to sleep!”

“Oh, sorry there… hey! Where are we?”

“I said I want to sleep!”

“C’mon…! I’m trying to escape, and…”

“Escape?! Hahahaha! Guys! The rookie says he’ll escape!”

His neighbour bursted in laughter, followed by many other voices from further away.

“What the…”

“Listen, kid, nobody had ever managed to get out of this place, and believe me, many tried. So shut it down and let me sleep!”

“Fine, I’ll do it by myself, we’ll see who will get the last laugh.”

“I say shut up!”

BAM!

A blunt noise shook the room.

It was coming from Prom, as he just tried to punch the screen.

As expected, it was hard, and his clench fist was broken.

"Gosh, every. Single. Fucking time! You'll only hurt yourself kiddo, just…"

BAM!

Extreme Regeneration

A skill he learned on his 6th struggle, while fighting against Kunan, the Necromancer - who is not Master Kunan, even though he was Prometheus' master. Not only was Prom proficient in the art of healing others, he was also able to recover from any physical damage in seconds. There were a few limitations, but not much.

Using this skill, he pushed his body to the limit, and developed his muscle, using the destruction and reconstruction process as many times as possible. So much so that he managed to catch up to Xavier in term of pure strength.

And that's why, a crack was formed on the wall.

After three strikes, results started to shown.

“Hehe, that wasn’t that hard after all.”

However, his smile rapidly faded away, at the same time the cracks did.

“What?!”

"Che, it's always, the god, damn, same, thing! You must be a Wrecker, right?! Not only those walls are tougher than diamonds, they regenerate themselves in seconds. It's a lost cause."

“No… there must be a w… wait, did you say Wrecker? I’m… what is that?”

“I’m talking about your class! Dumbass! Don’t tell me you’re stupid enough to forget that?”

“You… know about class?”

"Of course! Bard of Diligence! At your fucking service!"

With a sudden realization, Prom rushed to the screen, and tried to see the full extent of the room outside his cell. It was huge, the opposite ones were a few meters away, and all the cells were sorted, in lines and columns. Right and left, up and down. There was at least hundreds of them.

"Sigh... in case you haven't figured out yet, this is a prison for Questers, there are already tens of us here, and I never heard of someone escaping. So, please, shut the fuck up and let me fucking sleep!"

“And another victory for the Smasheress!!!!!”

“WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

“This is unheard of! Once again, in a single kick, she terminated the lineage of one of the strongest contestant!!!”

As the crowd was shouting her name, Alice quietly rejoined her cell.

With a heavy sigh, she felt a strange sense of emptiness. Like something was missing. She didn't feel the need to kill any of the guys she went against for the past days, but the lack of resistance was… boring her.

After each fight, she couldn’t help but remember her confrontation with the Guardian, and how thrilling it was. She was craving for a real fight.

But there's no way this tournament would give her that.

Probably.