William swung his sword in a wide horizontal arc, prompting Conor to duck and slide beneath the blade. In a fluid motion, Conor used two tendrils to propel himself forward mid-slide, building enough momentum to catch William off guard and deliver a swift slash across his abdomen.
SHING!
The shadow blade practically sang as it carved its way through William's midsection.
Still, in a sight that caused Conor's eyes to turn into pinholes, he turned around to see William's body reconnecting through tendrils of blood, reconnecting his halves back together.
SWISH!
William swung his blade backward towards the back of Conor's head, and he only just barely managed to block with his blade before the impact arrived.
CTCCHHH!
Conor was continuously pushed backwards by William, and some cracks had begun to form in the surface of his shadow sword.
"Hmm... the soul bound to this sword lacks the strength to withstand the immense powers at work. I must address this issue without delay!"
A smile formed on Conor's face beneath the shroud of shadows he wore over his head, and he looked William in his blazing orange eyes.
"So, remind me, what's your superhero name again? Is it Bloody Mary, or was it... Bloody Tampon?"
Silence prevailed throughout the entire training room.
The observation room was silent as well, with everyone's eyes glued to the screens and a dumbfounded look on their faces without exception.
"Did he really just say that?" Everyone thought simultaneously as the air around William began to visibly ripple all of a sudden.
FWOOOSH!
William's body suddenly erupted in a brilliant red, and the translucent blade in William's hand began to heat up in tandem.
Conor was shocked when he saw that William's furiously burning flames were beginning to destroy his shadows.
However, before he could respond, the roiling flames began to seep into the cracks within the blade.
SHATTER!
An explosion of heat and force caused his sword to shatter completely, the shards turning back into shadows and the shimmer of soul energy as it faded into nothingness.
SHNK!
William plunged the Phantom Blade: Morgana into the ground before running his open hands down the length of the blade and opening up a deep gash in his palms.
Drip...
Drip...
The thick steaming blood poured out in droplets at first, but with a little bit of conscious control, William managed to force a rather large portion of his blood to flow out of the wound before it sealed shut.
William's eyes began to glow at a greater intensity, and as if moving at his command, the blood began to float upward in droplets, landing on his hands.
Everyone, including Conor and the people watching in the room above, was at the edges of their seats as they witnessed the blood coagulate and take the shape of a pair of caestus that exaggerated the depth of his knuckles to add to the damage they would deal.
BANG!
William punched his hand, and a wave of force erupted from the other side, causing a smile to form on his face as he looked back at Conor.
Conor felt a chilling sensation run down his spine as he caught sight of that unsettling smile. In response, he commanded his shadows to materialize into a pair of gauntlets, each appearing to have deep red eyes lurking just beneath their surface, constantly shifting their position across the gauntlets.
An aura of heat and an aura of shadow seemed to clash between the two as they stared into each other's eyes.
BOOOM!
Both William and Conor lunged towards each other, starting the new round by punching the other person in the face, but the difference was clear to all when William sent Conor flying backward, while William was only forced to a stop.
Conor shortly slid to a stop and gestured with his hands forward, causing minions to fly out of his shadow and rush towards William.
BANG!
POW!
CRACK!
William punched through the abdomen of one of the shadow minions, who all looked like a trio of Flaxan soldiers from the previous invasion.
He spun out of the way as another Flaxan shadow minion attempted to throw a chop at his neck and delivered a powerful haymaker to the back of its head, causing the shadow's head to explode into motes of shadow energy.
William was unable to completely move out of the way when he noticed the third shadow Flaxan minion attempting to attack his head from behind.
"If I cannot dodge it...!" He thought as he spun around and caught the approaching fist in his own.
"Then catch it!" Forcibly pulling the shadow Flaxan minion downward, he threw an uppercut with his off-hand.
PUCHI!
William's fist passed through the chest of the shadow Flaxan minion, causing the minion to writhe in pain before it lost all signs of life and burst into shadow energy.
However, before the shadow energy could completely dissipate, Conor emerged from it as if using it as a portal and delivered a solid punch to William's abdomen and knocking the wind out of him.
The crowd upstairs all suddenly erupted in a mixture of cheers and jeers.
As this was going on, a stone-skinned man was running through a series of alleyways to avoid any of the traffic cams, but unluckily for him, his former boss Machine Head had ways to view through private cameras as well and had managed to keep the man fleeing from him in sight despite his best efforts.
After going through hundreds of calculations, Machine Head had deduced that his former employee was heading to the GDA headquarters.
Machine Head turned to the right and saw Battle Beast fidgeting with his mace nonchalantly before an idea to swiftly solve this situation came to mind.
"I heard Omni-Man had left Earth, so the GDA and their subgroups should be weaker than ever!"
His robotic head sparked with excitement as he turned to Battle Beast, "Hey Battle Beast, buddy ol pal, want to have some fun?"
The White furred lion-like creature, apparently named Battle Beast, glared at Machine head in frustration, before he heard the last part and found himself mildly interested.
"GO ON!"
Battle Beast's voice, like sandpaper against Machine Head's robotic ears, rumbled through the room and caused several glass containers to begin shaking.
If Machine Head could sweat, he was doing it, but after a few seconds, he came to his senses and opened a holographic map showing Battle Beast the location his target appeared to be heading and after realizing he could fight the strongest heroes on Earth he did not even let Machine Head finish his words.
BOOM!
Battle Beast ran headfirst into the enhanced bulletproof glass, causing it to erupt into shards as he flew into the distance with nothing more than the momentum behind his movement pushing him forward.
"RAAAAAAAHHH!"
Battle Beast's roar echoed through the city like a siren, leaving no one unaware of his presence.
Some lucky individuals even managed to capture blurry images of his passage over the cityscape, and these images were immediately captured by local and national media outlets.
The blurred streak of Battle Beast had barely faded from the skyline before sirens erupted across multiple city blocks. Civilian evacuation drones were activated in the upper districts while a surge of automated traffic guidance systems rerouted cars away from the suspected impact zones.
In the shadows of a crumbling parking structure, the stone-skinned man ducked under a rusted support beam and tried to control his breathing. Each inhale came ragged; each exhale filled with desperation.
He'd heard the roar.
He knew what it meant.
Battle Beast had been released.
"No… not him. Not for me," The stone-skinned man muttered, pressing his palm against his stone chest, which still held a long fracture from a battle months ago.
He looked up at the black tower not far away, the one where the GDA's regional hub loomed. It looked so close, but with Battle Beast flying in his direction and Machine Head surely watching from somewhere... it may as well have been on the moon.
"I have to make it, for my little girl, for my family!" He squeezed his hands so hard the stone skin began to crack before once again running towards the tall government building that was slowly beginning to loom over him.
BOOM!
A white furred silhouette smashed into a water tower, sending a spray of water in all directions and forming a rainbow in his wake as he continued to claw his way across Chicago, he continuously gained on the stone-skinned man.
Feeling the predator's gaze on him from a distance, the Stone Skin man's body hair stood up on end, and a cold sweat began to pour from his forehead.
"Almost there... I'm almost there, just a little more!" His thoughts were blurring as he struggled to catch his breath, but his expression beneath the stone surface lit up when he saw the armed guards at the gate.
The guards noticed his approach and pointed their weapons at the figure running towards them but the sight of a familiar, white-furred lion that the GDA listed on the DO NOT FUCK WITH list and they seemed to imaging being disemboweled by the lion alien causing them to be unable to react to what happened next.
CRACK!
Battle Beast swung his mace into the stone-skinned man's back, causing his hands to touch the soles of his feet as he shot forward and into the GDA building with an impact that resounded through the many halls and rooms.
WOOO... WOOO... WOOO...
Alarms began to ring out, and the lights in the building all turned red before metal shutters and laser grids formed over the exits to block any potential escapes.
Battle Beast stood in the main lobby while looming menacingly over the stone-skinned man's body as he struggled to rise to his feet.
BOOOM!
Battle Beast stomped onto the stone-skinned man's back, causing the stone shell to begin to crack around the foot before chipping away, revealing a dark-skinned bald man lying on the ground with a look of pure pain on his face.
With his massive and clawed hands, Battle Beast grabbed the dark-skinned man by his bald head and began to drag him slowly behind him as he walked further into the facility.
A wicked smile formed on Battle Beast's animalistic face.
"GDA... Come out to playayyy!" Battle Beast licked his lips as he said this.
While this was going on, the spar between William and Conor had exploded into the final phase with both fighters being drenched in copious amounts of blood and sweat.
POW!
Conor struck William in his face, causing blood and sweat to form a thin mist around his head, but as tough as William was, this was nothing, and he delivered a powerful counter to Conor's stomach, and the back of Conor's shadowy cloak exploded from the force, exposing his reddened back.
The shadows reformed almost immediately afterward before Conor delivered a swift knee to William's chin.
CRACK!
The bones in William's face cracked slightly before healing back to normal, but William was still seeing stars when his head snapped back, and taking advantage of this, Conor began to throw a series of punches towards William's head.
BAM!
BANG!
POW!
CRACK!
BANG!
Conor managed to land four clean hits before William came to his senses and caught the final blow in his own hand.
A deep sense of dread began to fill Conor as he felt he knew what was coming and knew that he could not escape the inevitable.
Gripping the hand with great strength, which caused the bones in Conor's hand to begin cracking, William forcibly yanked downward while sending a knee upward.
CRACK!
William's knee collided with Conor's chin, and suddenly the young hero found himself in the air while seeing stars.
His body was no longer listening to his commands, and it was all he could do to let out a light chuckle as he acknowledged that the spar had been won by William.
THUD!
Conor landed roughly and caused a deep trench to form under his body in a now-smoking crater where his slide ended.
The shadows around Conor seemed to disappear as he lost consciousness.
William reached out with his hand and caused the Phantom Blade: Morrigan that was buried in the ground nearby to react before flying towards his open hand before vanishing into a pool of blood that was reabsorbed by his body through his pores.
Letting out a long-winded sigh, William began walking towards Conor just as the young man was coming back to consciousness and offered him his hand.
"Good fight, let's do it again sometime!" William smiled energetically as his body suddenly returned to normal from its previously flaming appearance.
"Definitely, but next time I will win, without a doubt!" Conor said with a smile just as big, and the two stood there having a bro moment before the practically destroyed environment began to shift and disappear, returning to the way it looked when the room was deactivated.
TSKK!
The door opened and Donald rushed in, followed by Atom Eve and Robot, who had been previously locked in his lab doing his experiment to create a new body.
"Well, something has clearly happened!" William thought as both parties approached one another.