As soon as he got the chance, he launched his counterattack. The astronaut-like helmet on his head glowed with different lights and the pixels that represented his eyes abruptly turned red from blue.
"Intense Optical Module!"
Not only the pixels on the helmet, but his real eyes had also turned red. The change seemingly represents an increase in the level of optical abilities.
"Mechanical Arm Construction!"
It was a plain name, but what was to come next wasn't. Two pairs of mechanical arms appeared from his back on both sides and in the blink of an eye, he became a six-armed Asura.
The whites of his opponent's eyes became white, and it seemed there was no single shred of sanity left in his being.
Unfortunate as it was, that didn't stop his ability to attack. This common function became more prominent with the gradual loss of senses.
"Sadly, you chose to be more arrogant than you already are. Like they say; 'The over-confident chick gets eaten by the hidden snake.'"
It was not a well-known saying, but it was still a saying nevertheless.
"What do you say? Let's dance shall we!"
It was odd; he looked so calm on the outside, yet on the inside, he was somehow frightened beyond compare.
'I didn't know the taunts would have such a large effect on his psyche!'
But that didn't stop his unending drive of willpower.
"Plasma Cannons- Model: Asura!"
The plain and inconspicuous mechanical arms sprouting out from behind his back shone with blinding blue-white lights. They looked extremely hot and probably felt so too. But all that didn't matter to someone who was on the brink of insanity.
*WHOOOOSH!*
The white-hot beams shot forward and finally congregated into one large beam as they found their way towards Hugo's body.
'Huh?!'
And for a brief second back there, he regained his senses.
. . .
Now outside the park, Raoul stared at his peers' battle with eyes of wonder and admiration.
"Even I didn't think IA V-1 was that strong! Standing toe-to-toe with Hugo who's pretty much the cream of the crop of our generation and even the ones that came before us."
Not only was it surprising, but it was also extremely astounding. But their overwhelming strength was not enough to discourage the cocky bastard.
'My Skydancer title is Shining Star! How can I let these posers take my glory away?'
It was just the frustration speaking, but that didn't matter, he'd already made a decision.
"When these dumbasses are done fighting, I'm going to challenge Hugo to a battle next week. Wouldn't want people to think that I took advantage of his weakness from this fight."
. . .
While Raoul was fantasizing about beating Hugo, something was happening in the latter's mind.
'Where am I?'
Hugo thought to himself, finding that he actually wasn't able to talk using his mouth.
'Looking' around him, he found that he was floating in a dark space. This space was overly familiar, after all, it was one thing that changed his life.
'The umbrella again!'
Staring at that ancient-looking black umbrella, Hugo felt an unbelievable power radiating from its frame. Compared to when he was a child, he felt even more inferior before this dark umbrella.
Remembering what happened the last time he touched the umbrella, Hugo reached for the umbrella with high hopes.
'What!'
The feeling of cold water splashing... was absent!
'What happened? How come I'm not back in the real world?!' Hugo's mind instantly came up with hundreds of solutions to this anomaly.
But he eventually calmed down.
'I need to think things through, after all, I've only been here twice. It's still too early to determine rules on how this space works.'
It was true, so all Hugo could let himself do was come up with strategies against IA V-1 in the meantime.
'He tricked me the first time, no way in hell I'm falling for it again. But those cannons though... What kind of scientist is mad enough to fit those weapons of mass destruction into the body of a guy with thousands of ways to use them!'
'I wonder how much time has passed, I'm incredibly bored.'
Looking around the space once again, he directed his drifting attention towards the powerful umbrella.
'What kind of secrets do you hold inside you, anyway?' As if a trigger word for something, the umbrella shone with a bright light and the space became white as a response, making Hugo's soul and the umbrella the only odd things there.
'Why did the colour of the space change?'
Another answer presented itself to him before his eyes. A pure white, crystalline bow and a quiver of carefully crafted arrows.
'Enlightenment and Zen.' two names appeared in his mind and Hugo instantly knew what they meant.
Those were the name of the weapons, and that was the last time he would see them in a long while.
'Could it be that magical forces drive this space?'
This question wasn't weird at all. Magic was nothing new to the people of Earth, it was found that mages existed long before the asteroid hit Earth, in fact, people in positions of power all used magic to protect themselves.
And that also gave rise to the Magical abilities of the current age.
Whatever that was inside the asteroid merged with magical powers and gave their users permanent magical abilities, not just the ones you'd have after chanting a bunch of backwards words.
*SUCKKKKK!*
A vacuum opened up in the white space and sucked all the bits of white away, leaving him with the black space once again. But the black space similarly didn't last too long either; another vacuum opened up and took all the darkness away.
Gradually, the normal world came to him in pieces before finally coming together to form a complete image.
As he found the strength in his body to stand up, he discovered he could move his body once again.
"All right, where were we?"
Wiping away the small trail of blood next to his lips and smacking dirt off his coat, Hugo stood up and pointed at the soon-to-celebrate IA V-1.
"Come at me!"
A/N: There was an issue with the spacing in the last chapter I've fixed it.