"Let me see how will you hide now."
Although he said that, Sean didn't give time to breathe to the Abomination. He had more Abominations to defeat, so he couldn't wait for them to attack him first if he wanted to be fast. Sean threw a punch at the Abomination's head, wanting to stun it for a moment so he could pummel it more. The Chameleon saw the punch coming, so it opened its mouth wide. A long and slimy tongue shot out from the mouth and caught Sean from the chest. Sean felt the pull and instead of resisting it, he let it pull him.
Before the pull however, he positioned himself slightly before the tongue retracted. Using the momentum of the tongue, Sean dropped his most powerful dropkick ever to the Abomination's neck. Due to kick, the Abomination let go of Sean and retracted its tongue fully. Its neck was slightly cracked.
It didn't matter to Sean how he got the Abomination stunned, so he delivered an uppercut to its jaw before it could recover. Now it was time to do what he liked most to do, punching exercise. He hit every corner of the creature's head; its eyes, nose, jaw again, and a straight punch to its neck.
Before he could turn it to his personal punching bag however, his feet were swept off the ground by the Abomination's tail. Although it was a brief moment, the Chameleon breathed a moment of relief, and pulled itself together. Sean too got back on his feet quickly. They sized each other for a moment, and as if in agreement, they moved at the same time.
Sean dashed towards the Abomination meanwhile the Chameleon opened its mouth again, sending out the familiar tongue. Sean dodged it by leaning to the side, and caught the tongue with his left hand while it was retracting. He followed along the tongue and climbed on top the Chameleon. He had not let the tongue go while doing this so he had to endure the pull while doing so.
Still he didn't let go and continued to stick to its back, until the tail came to sweep him. Seeing the tail, Sean pulled the tongue with all of his strength and made it so that the tongue wrapped around the tail when it was trying to push him off. Just wrapping it wasn't enough as he then slapped the tip of the tongue to the root of the tail, locking the two together.
Now the Abomination couldn't use neither its camouflage, tongue or tail. It simply became a sitting duck for Sean to practice on.
Knocking out a human was simple. People had certain pressure points or weak spots that would render them useless when hit hard enough. Knocking out an Abomination on the other hand, was not so easy. They had harder skin, tougher muscles and more durable bones. Although they bore great resemblance to wild animals at the first ranks, their anatomies were completely different. So it was always a chore to incapacitate them. Not much situations required it anyways, so it wasn't something people thought on much nowadays.
But it was different before humans had no Clear understanding of the Ether and Evolution, so they had to experiment on Abominations that they would catch. As time went on, humans got stronger and developed tools to catch them, so this skill was not required anymore.
Sean found himself excited at the thought of how he was similar to humans in those times. Yes, he had training on Abominations and it was backed with hundreds of years of research, but it still felt like he was discovering something on his own. It was exhilarating to think that this were what they were doing back then, and he felt proud he could reenact their ways. Many people had died for them to be this knowledgeable about the Abominations, they were heroes in everyones' hearts.
Sean beat the Silent Chameleon black and blue, and was surprised to realise that its eyes were the place where that caused the Abomination to go limp.
"Alright girls, time's up!" Captain Henry's voice echoed in their heads, and lids of the capsules opened. "Nice work. There are also those who have already beat a third of the Abominations already. Pick up the pace if you want to get into the first 100."
Sean couldn't believe his ears, some people had already fought and won against thirteen Abominations? And they would surely have survived against a few too. Although he was also beating the Abominations, he would be barely cutting it if he kept on the same pace. If he took eight to twelve minutes to beat every Abomination, he wouldn't have the time to do many reruns later. He had to change how he fought. He had to become more aggressive. But it was tomorrow's problem, not today's. He still had physical combat drill and theoretical lessons before he could have free time.
From the control room, Captain Henry could be seen sneering.
'Too naive... Still can't believe this works every single time. We tell'em to either survive for thirty minutes, or beat the Abominations as if they are separate things. Then you tell'em that some of their peers are so ahead of them, they get so riled up. Even those who have 'completed' a third is worrying if they are cutting it close or not. They still have a long way to go.'
Captain Henry then left the control room to go back to his office. His duty for the day was over.
---
"Hey, dipshit! Get up, we have orders."
"Mhmm, an order? I want a double pepperoni big size pizza. No pineapples. Snooore."
"Ugh, this guy..."
A woman with short navy hair was trying to wake up the man sleeping on the couch. He had long red hair that went to his shoulders, but now it was covering his face in the position he slept. The woman couldn't wait any longer and poured water on the guy to wake him up. The strange thing is, there were no water bottles around to pour from.
"Gah! So salty!" The guy woke up after being splashed with Water. "Why would you do that! Couldn't you wake me up normally instead of drenching me in sweat?"
"I tried many times, you didn't wake up. Wash yourself and suit up, we have orders."
"Oh? Where are we going this time?"
"Southern Evolutionary Camp. We are to support them in case of a Gate Reformation. We will meet the rest there."
The rest she was talking about was the remaining members of the team, they were currently away because they were in a tournament. The order came right before they were doing the semi-finals, so they would arrive slightly later after leaving the tournament.
"Interesting... It's been a while since we raided a Reformed Gate."
The man sat straight and cast himself ablaze.
"I said wash up, not burn up."
"This is faster."
He dusted up his clothes and put them on. Seeing this, no one would have thought they were two members of a special team that was solely made up of Savants. Under direct orders of Major General Thea Mullins, all of them were 4th Rank Evolutionaries.
"I call dibs on the first Abomination."
---
AT THE CAFETERIA
"And then BOOM HEADSHOT! The Abomination fell with a deafening sound and didn't move afterwards. "
"Jayden, it's good you share your experience but could you, please, make it comprehensible. I don't follow social media trends." Tyson said.
"Come on man, its not even that new. Ahem, anyway. I mostly shoot their eyes and inside their mouth now. No matter how tough their exterior is, inside, it's just flesh."
"So how many did you manage to kill?" Samantha asked.
"Five for today. They take so long to weaken from bloodloss from those wounds. Ugh, I'm feeling sore just thinking about I will have to do this four more days."
"No can do, we knew it wouldn't be easy to stand out here." Latoya said.
"I think we stand out like a sore thumb though... Everyone is so conscious of us after the mission. " Sean said. " It would get even worse if they knew you formed a string already."
"Why does it matter you stand out here though?" Tyson was confused. " I would recruit you to my cohort anyway."
"Oh, would we be the primary cohort?" Jayden asked.
"Only tertiary, we would have to work our way up."
"And here I thought I could strike it rich, tch "
After eating their dinner, everyone went to do their practices. Sean was back at the barracks, on his bed. He was in a lotus position, meditating. He was determined to form his first string tonight, no matter what.
'Take deep breaths, and gently stretch the Ether. Gently. Gent-'
{SNAP}
'Damn it. Let's start again. Take deep breaths, and gently stretch the Ether. Gently.'