Abel and Attica are mentally preparing for battle while Pete lures over a single ant a little bit bigger than a shoe.
The ant is about mid calf high on Abel and about 2 foot long. It's just your average worker ant, so there isn't anything in particular to fear, except for their little pincers on their faces. That and their exoskeleton is extremely hard, but if you know where to hit them they can be killed pretty easily.
Attica then began to explain to how to take advantage of the ants weaknesses.
"The ants are a pretty weak species. Especially just the worker ants which we are facing. There shouldn't be too many since it seems they are either scouting or foraging quite far from their colony." Attica exquisitely points out.
"She must be the scholar type of person. I wonder how she will fare in an actual battle." Abel muses to himself at the coming battle and on how he will perform himself.
"Ahem, anyway..." Attica continues, slightly annoyed that she lost Abels attention. "In order to do damage to a carapace of that thickness you need to hit the joints in it. Hit it hard enough the first try you might actually make a solid cut."
Abel pulled out his new birthday sword preparing for battle.
"Here it comes!" Peter yells as he's running away bringing the ant along behind him.
Abel readies his stance, sword propped up horizontal to his body pointed towards the ant. Feet shoulder width apart.
He learned this basic stance from Roger when going over battle trainings. Remembering being yelled at day on end to perfect his basic stance really drills into you after a couple days.
As the ant got closer both he and Attica starting to see the difference between a mutated ant and a regular ant. Between the size difference, it seems to be slightly faster and of course stronger. Even the carapace seems to be darker and harder than usual.
The ant was about 10 yards away now and Abel and Attica started to flank it on both sides holding to pincer it. Sensing the incoming danger, the ant decided to run directly at Abel.
Seeing this Attica sprints at full speed towards the ant and as soon as she is close enough she swings the small one handed spear at the ant.
Surprised at the weapon that he failed to notice before, Abel rolls away from the ant trying to barrel into him at full speed. Once he gets up and stabilized himself, he looks at the mark that Attica put inside one of the ants joints.
He was surprised to see the accuracy and damage she inflicted on the ants leg. She had almost cut all the way through causing the ant to stumble around a little before getting used to dragging his injured leg.
Abel wanted to try his swords sharpness next so he ran straight towards the ant.
Sarah, in charge of making sure nobody gets seriously hurt was surprised by Abels decision. Getting ready to rescue Abel just in case whatever he was doing didn't work, she pulled out her giant two handed sword.
Abel, not noticing the reaction of Sarah, is now only a yard away from the ant. As soon as the ant goes in for the lunge pincers first, he explodes off of his back foot to move sideways to his left. He then plants his left foot and pivots to his right as his sword follows in a trajectory down towards the ants front right leg.
The sword hits and shreds the legs joint completely in half.
The ant stumbles due to his missing leg and Attica takes advantage of its situation and runs up behind it's neck and jabs her spear right into the joint.
The spear penetrates, but only a few inches. It left a decent size gash as she pulls her spear out.
Enraged, the ant gets back up faster than Attica had expected and snaps at her leg. Realizing she won't be able to move in time and retaliate she chooses just to avoid the strike by rolling to her side and hoping Abel will cover her.
He does just that, seeing Attica in her predicament, he speeds over to cover her by blocking the ant and pushing it away.
While Abel is stuck in a stand off with the ant, Attica gets back up and sneaks over to it's side again only this time her spear goes all the way through. The ant dies instantly, but not wanting to take any chances Abel directly cuts it's head off.
Waiting a few seconds with no light coming out of the ant, Peter walks up clapping them both on the shoulders.
"Good job guys, pretty swift, but definitely not a clean kill. Still, pretty good for beginners!"
He and Sarah begin to explain how their teamwork could have been better and how sloppy their moves were in order to help them grow better as not only teammates but also individually.
"Ok let's do it again and see how you guys improve! This is exciting, I hope there are plenty of ants! I want to see you guys grow so we can make a permanent party!" Peter excitedly yells and starts to Sprint towards the ants.
Normally Sarah would be sighing from his enthusiasm and reckless nature, but she had to admit that she was excited as well to make a permanent party with people she could trust and rely on.
Killing the ants lasted another hour before a stroke of luck hit. After Abel beheaded another ant, a white light started to shine on top of the ant.
Speechless, Peter runs up enthusiastically punching the air in triumph yelling, "YOU GUYS ARE SO DAMN LUCKY!"
Sarah, while also cursing their luck, was happy for them. She hurriedly push that thought aside while exclaiming, "Hurry! Abel since you killed it you get the spoils of war! Don't let it fade away!"
Seeing how Attica was smiling at him and not bother by him taking the module, he grabs it in his hand. The light then directs itself towards his head before eventually fading from sight into his sea of consciousness.
Peter walks over and tells Abel, "Ok, since this is your first module I'll tell you how to examine it."
"Close your eyes and focus inside of your head. It's okay if you don't sense it at first, but it'll get easier the more you do it. Focus as hard as you can and you'll feel a tug at the back of your head. Don't fight it. You'll be sent into your sea of consciousness where you'll see your skills."
Doing what Peter says, Abel directs his attention through his shut eyes into his consciousness.
Feeling a pull in the back of his head, he let's all of his thoughts go. He suddenly has the feeling of being sucked into a deep dark hole. When the feeling passes he realizes that in the middle of all of the black, blank, space; there is a white orb just floating.
Putting his hand on the orb, it lights up slightly. In Abels head, he is furiously sorting through the information that he has just recieved. Astounded at what happened, he exits his sea of consciousness.
Peter seeing Abel start to shake his head like he's just came out of a confused state, excitedly says, "So? What ability did you get? No, wait don't tell me! it's a weapon? No, wait, an armor?"
Sarah, upon seeing her brother being an annoying idiot again, grabs him and puts a hand over his mouth. Then she looks at Abel and says, "Whenever your ready, you can tell us. Don't let this idiot muddle your mind more than it already is. Going in and out of your sea of consciousness takes time to get used to."