“Is it just me, or do these guys look kinda weak?” Shingi, one of the top students soon to debut in the AFC asked the question. While speaking, he was twirling thick strands of his black curly hair.
“I guess you could say that.” Another student chimed in. Stark had the appearance of the typical Altered celebrity, with his neat blonde hair and a perfect V shape body. “The last set batch already gave us quite a surprise, so it should be expected that nearly anyone after them would seem weak in comparison. Hey, Xin, you seem to know that green haired guy.
“Is there anything you can tell us about him? It would be great if we could finish things early.”
The reason he asked that question was because other than their name and rank there was no other information given to them. It was to keep things fair between the two teams. The only thing they could go off of was what they had seen earlier in the day.
Xin didn’t really know what to say. She had only fought against Gary once, and at the time he had proven to be someone hot headed who had charged forward recklessly. Nevertheless, the one thing she still remembered was his tenacity. Despite her attack, which had even received Jayden’s praise, he had stood up from it. And that was before he even became an Altered… at least she thought that was the case.
“My only advice would be to not go easy on him. I think he’ll be a tough opponent for any of us.” Xin replied eventually.
“Haha, really?” Ryan chuckled. “A tough opponent? The guy didn’t even make rank 1. Just look at the group of people he ended up passing with. You know the students get worse as the year goes on, since the top of the top have already left. Anyway, I’ll take your advice, and I won’t go easy on him.”
“Just don’t forget to do your due diligence.” Shingi reminded the overage teenage boy. “You know, if there is a conflict of interest and that crap. We should check out their backgrounds, and if it messes with any of ours, report it to Eddy, so we can change who we fight.”
The others agreed and would begin their research for the rest of the night, while Xin was left wondering what had happened to Gary after she had left.
——
The next day, Gary was down to 100 Energy. While the others were enjoying their breakfast, he had ordered a small meal once more, making his friends even more concerned for him. They could see the visible struggle on his face, not to mention the sounds of protest coming from his stomach.
“Hey, bro, I know you're meeting your girl and stuff tomorrow, but you don’t need to diet for her. You look fine.” Ian joked in an attempt to lighten the mood.
Alas, Gary didn’t say anything and instead left the room to go train. Usually he would have at least let out a courtesy laugh, but right now every little thing was annoying him. Just during breakfast, he had felt part of his teeth start to grow out, urging him to feed on something. The only thing keeping him sane was letting out stress by training.
During the last full moon the Pack had come together and following Kai’s suggestion they had performed a little experiment to discover the optimal way to deal with their common condition. After drawing sticks, Olivia got to power herself out completely and barely ate anything during the last 72 hours. Gary’s task was to continuously power himself out for that same duration, whereas Kai was to power himself out completely on the last day.
From what they had been able to tell, Olivia’s method had led to her being the most irritable of them all due to her prolonged hungry state. On the other hand, Kai had been the most aggressive one, since his body had the least amount of time to cope with his starved state. Gary’s path had been the middle ground between, yet it was hard for the other two to copy since the Alpha Werewolf was the only one who could actively check how much Energy he had left thanks to the system.
Unfortunately, this time, not only was he on his own, he also didn’t have the luxury to tie himself up to make doubly sure he couldn’t attack anyone. Tomorrow it would be a mental game, he would have to constrain in front of all those people, so he wanted to get used to the feeling of hunger and build up some resistance.
‘The hunger is one thing, but this stupid full moon is also making me feel like everything is pissing me off!’ Gary thought as he practically drained the entire water bottle in a few gulps. He was huffing and panting in the training facility.
Seeing how agitated Gary was, the others decided to stay out of his way, for lunch and dinner. In the end, they also had to worry about their own training for tomorrow’s match. Although they had been told that this match was mostly for show, none of them wanted to let themselves get beat up.
At around 11 PM all of them had gone to sleep. Only Gary remained in the training room, not feeling sleepy in the slightest.
‘My Energy is still high, and this damn pain is pissing me off!’ The Werewolf cursed silently as he punched the bag in front of him. He continued to hit it with all his power, again and again.
“ARGHHH! Just a little more!” Gary shouted and threw out an almighty punch.
——
Walking through the hallway, Shingi was planning to go for a late night training session himself. He was whistling through the hallways when he overheard the sound of someone hitting something.
‘No way, someone other than me is training this late? Man, what's up with these new guys? It seems like that Wu guy isn’t the only gym rat. Oh well, the more the merrier.’ Shingi thought amused.
Heading to the door, he decided to open it, and take a look at who exactly it was that was powering themselves out before their big match. To his surprise, as soon as the door opened, he could see the green haired teenager only a few feet away from him, covered in sweat huffing and painting.
Shingi wanted to say something to him, but his eyes seemed lost as Gary continued to walk, and just went past him and down the hallway.
‘So it was that Greeny that was the one training this late, huh? I mean, a light session is okay but going that hard, he’s not going to be able to fight tomorrow.’ Shingi thought, as he went forward and got ready to train himself.
However, he stopped in his tracks the moment he noticed the state of the training bags. At the very end, the black bag, the heaviest of them all, had several large holes through them. It looked like cannonballs had been shot through the things.
‘I… I’ve never seen anyone do something like this before. I need to warn Ryan before his fight tomorrow. If he doesn’t take it seriously tomorrow, he might end up with a hole in his body.’
*****
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