"As much as this will be a test for you, this'll be a test for him," Anata's voice echoes through the room.
Toi nudges Sai. "Sai, you're the only one who hasn't fought yet. I heard you trained with Vant for quite a while to enhance your physical prowess!"
"M-Me? Really?" Sai stammers.
"When I first saw you, you had no muscles whatsoever, and still, by the look of your arms... They got a little more... bigger?" Seabi comments, raising an eyebrow.
Heunae places his hand on Sai's shoulder. "You're useful, right?"
Sai starts to sweat. "I-I-I..."
"Why are you even here?" Heunae presses, his voice demanding.
Sai freezes up.
"You're pressuring him a little too much-" Seabi begins.
"Instead of playing childish games, maybe we should all fight this guy at once," Corse interrupts, his tone serious.
"Honestly, I was thinking the same-" Seabi starts to agree.
"All of us have fought so far, so we're pumped for whatever comes next. Sai hasn't. We need Sai pumped because I have a feeling that this guy right here isn't the only person here that might be a problem," Toi insists.
"We can get him pumped when we all fight together-" Seabi argues.
"We need to separate the strong from the weak. Sai might rely on us a bit too much if we all fight together. If we don't know his full potential, we may be in trouble if we encounter someone stronger," Heunae counters.
Sai is still frozen, fear gripping him.
"Sai, you alright?" Corse asks, concern in his voice.
A cold sweat trickles down Sai's cheek before he nervously smiles and steps forward. "Y-Yeah, I'm fine. I'll take this guy alone. He doesn't look too strong."
Sai walks towards Cabra.
"Good, good, you all got whatever that was over with," Anata's voice crackles over the speaker.
Sai stands directly in front of Cabra.
"Cabra, eliminate," Anata commands with a click, turning off the speaker.
Sai and Cabra stand in silence, staring each other in the eyes, the tension palpable.
Cabra grins before throwing a punch at Sai. Sai barely manages to back away in time. The punch hits the ground, causing it to shake as if an earthquake were happening. Sai almost loses his balance but quickly reaches for his hair, pulling out a tag. Sai's tags are familiar: "Burn" and "Shock," with a new one labeled "Hurt." He rips the "Burn" tag off, entering his fiery aura state. A faint memory of a conversation with Vant flashes through his mind.
Flashback (4 months ago)
Vant and Sai are outside. Vant shows Sai an empty notepad.
"Sai, I'll be writing down the basic info, strengths, and weaknesses of your tag abilities. A big part of your training from now on will be you finding ways around these things," Vant explains.
He turns the notepad to himself and takes out a pencil. "First, we have 'Burn.' It gives you infinite energy, removes all fear and mental restraints, and removes all of your bodily limitations for a limited time while also giving you temporary access to having complete control over your raw mana. You also gain a twenty-five times power multiplier from it. After the time limit is up, you will revert to your base state and have to wait double the time limit to activate it again. Right now, you can fight for a maximum of 20 minutes before having to wait 40 minutes for your burn tag to come back. If you're hit hard enough to nearly knock you unconscious, the form also deactivates, but you can use it again after 20 minutes instead of 40 minutes. You can manually turn it off by shouting 'burn-out,' which takes you out of the form but makes you have to wait double the time you had it on for," Vant explains as he writes.
Flashback ends
Sai punches Cabra in the stomach, sending him flying across the room and crashing into a wall. Heunae sits on the ground.
"Okay, he's strong," Heunae acknowledges.
Seabi leans against a wall, while Corse watches the action with his arms crossed.
"That was just one punch," Seabi observes.
"That's my boy!" Toi cheers.
Cabra recovers and roars at Sai. Sai stands there, completely unfazed. Cabra quickly stomps towards Sai, each footstep shaking the room. Sai releases a barrage of small red balls of magic from his hand, aimed at Cabra. They all hit Cabra, exploding on impact. After the smoke clears, Cabra drops to one knee but quickly gets back up and charges at Sai, throwing a flurry of punches. Sai dodges them effortlessly, counterattacking relentlessly. He kicks Cabra in the face, knocking him back. Sai jumps into the air and charges a body-sized ball of red magic above his head before throwing it down at Cabra. The explosion creates a somewhat large pillar of magic. Cabra still stands, but lets out a pained groan.
Cabra rushes towards Sai and throws another punch, which Sai dodges. Sai counters with an elbow to the neck, then follows up with a barrage of punches, ending with a powerful kick to the chest. Cabra barely manages to stand his ground and throws another punch at Sai. Sai dodges it effortlessly. The punch hits the ground, smashing the tile.
Heunae watched the battle with focused intensity. "Hatchet boy, what exactly is Cabra's ability?"
Corse, standing nearby with his arms crossed, explained, "Well, chain man, as Dr. Jibun stated, his ability is boss battle. Depending on the number of people that T-001 considers an enemy within a 200k mile radius, he will multiply his power by that amount."
Sai continued to dodge Cabra's attacks, countering with precise punches and kicks.
Heunae nodded, understanding dawning on his face. "So he's the Army Ender because of how strong he can get depending on the size of the army..."
"Exactly," Corse confirmed. "At the base level, T-001 without any of his boost is capable of taking out a small village. Admittedly so... T-001 can't exactly... use magic."
Heunae looked puzzled. "Pardon?"
"He's completely brute strength, which kind of made him drop in the tiers of strength among M.A.G.I.C," Corse elaborated. "As Dr. Jibun found more children capable of using magic, T-001 never understood the concept of magic enough to use it before he became mentally a guard dog."
Heunae shook his head. "How... unfortunate."
Sai dodged another punch from Cabra, landing a solid hit to his face and knocking him onto his back. Cabra quickly stood up and charged at Sai again.
Seabi, leaning against the wall, chimed in, "Yeah, that guy used to be a lab assistant, found by the doc after he beat a village with just his bare hands."
Heunae's eyes widened. "Wait, so he's only at five times his power?"
Corse nodded. "Yes!"
Toi, ever curious, asked, "Did his balls come at the cost of his power?"
Corse sighed, exasperated. "What is your weird infatuation with this guy's balls?"
Sai managed to kick Cabra in the face, knocking him away. He then jumped back and attacked Cabra with a barrage of red magic balls. Cabra barely kept his footing and charged towards Sai again. Sai dodged a punch and countered with a kick to Cabra's chest.
"Cabra would be a lot stronger than your average fighter," Corse observed, "but Sai has an edge over him."
"It's a five times power boost versus a twenty-five times power boost," Heunae noted. "Sai is effortlessly toying with this guy, which means Sai in base form is no slouch. If he was as strong as your average Joe, that multiplier would mean nothing."
Toi grinned. "Told ya, Sai is a useful fighter!"
Sai's fiery aura disappeared. His face paled slightly.
"Oh no—" Sai muttered.
Seabi's eyes widened. "It's been 20 minutes?!"
Heunae nodded, his expression serious. "Time sure does fly by in a fight."
Sai managed to barely dodge two swift chops from Cabra before backing away.
Toi called out, concern in his voice, "Will you be okay, Sai?"
Sai nodded, trying to stay composed. "Y-Yeah—"
He tore off his "Shock" tag, and an electric charge surged through him, enveloping him in an electrical aura.
Flashback
Vant explained, "Next, we have 'Shock.' It imbues you with electricity and allows you to produce one thunder attack. Right now, it has a cool-down of 5 seconds. You can give the electricity to your use commands, which transforms the electricity into different forms of attacks. We learned that you can split the power of 'Shock' into percentages to give it multiple uses that sum up to 100%."
Flashback ends
Sai shouted, "Double Strike!!!"
His electrical power erupted from his hands, striking Cabra with a torrent of electricity. Cabra was engulfed in a pillar of electric energy, screaming in pain.
Toi gave a thumbs-up. "O.K."
The pillar of electricity grew larger before exploding. Seabi and Corse shielded their eyes from the brightness of the blast. When the light faded, Cabra lay on his stomach, sizzling and unconscious.
"Fantastic," Heunae remarked.
Seabi added, "Double tap him, make sure he doesn't get up."
Sai shook his head. "I don't kill..."
Seabi sighed. "Well, you should. All of these guys are crooks! Even I've done some bad things in my past..."
Corse nodded in agreement. "Yes, and a lot of these guys deserve the death penalty."
As Cabra's body began to shrink back to its normal size, Toi said, "If you want to double tap him so badly, do it yourself."
Seabi shrugged. "I would... It's just that I don't feel safe around that body..."
Heunae took charge. "Fine then, don't touch the body. If he gets back up by the time we're done destroying this place, we'll put him back down."
Heunae walked up to the giant door and punched it with force, breaking it down. The group found themselves at a fork in the road with three stairways, each marked with different signs. The first stairway led downward, marked "Weapon Testing Field." The second stairway went upward, labeled "Weapon Storage." The final stairway also descended, with a sign reading "Mobling Chamber." Toi flinched slightly at the sight of the "Mobling Chamber" sign, clenching his fist and darkening his demeanor.
Heunae spoke decisively. "We should split up."
Sai looked concerned. "Split up? You can't be serious..."
Heunae explained, "We can cover more ground, and it'll get this over with the quickest—"
Toi interrupted, "I'll go down to the Mobling Chamber."
Sai blinked in surprise. "R-Really?"
Seabi raised an eyebrow. "Why all so serious now, Toi?"
Corse nudged Seabi, whispering, "You don't know?" He directed Seabi's gaze to the word "Mobling."
Seabi's eyes widened in understanding. "Oh—" he whispered back.
Clearing his throat, Seabi said, "Well, me and Corse will go to the Weapon Testing Field, since weapons are still stored there to be tested."
Sai hesitated before saying, "I guess I'll go with Toi—"
Toi cut him off. "No. I'll go alone for this."
Sai frowned. "Why?"
Heunae placed a hand on Sai's shoulder. "Just let him do his own thing..."
Sai sighed, "Ok..."
Heunae then declared, "I'll be going to the Weapon Storage. I'd also like to go alone."
Corse chimed in, "That means you'll be tagging along with us, Sai!"
Seabi shot him a stern look. "Quiet down."
Corse shrugged. "After that fight, why would I quiet down?"
Seabi shook his head. "I— Let's go!"
Seabi grabbed Corse's arm and hurried down the stairs.
"Wait up!" Sai called, following after them. Toi descended his own set of stairs quietly, while Heunae smiled to himself and headed up the stairs.