The person ranked Number One was standing right next to Gary. His stature was huge, and although most would be intimidated by just his large size, Gary turned to look at the fight straight ahead after seeing who this person was.
“Are you looking for a fight? Because you can challenge me any time.” Gary said while staring at the arena.
Most of the attention in the room was on the ongoing fight. Hence, people watching were unaware of what was happening, apart from Ian and Izzy, who often stayed close to Gary. Besides them, Wu and Snow, who weren’t too far off either, listened to everything going on, although they weren’t too bothered.
‘As I expected, I knew this guy was curious about Gary for some reason, but why?’ Izzy thought. ‘We didn’t even have time to warn him or tell Gary about his background, but knowing Gary, he wouldn’t back down anyway.’
She was nervous, not because she thought Gary would lose the fight, but rather about how it would affect the latter’s life.
Hearing the response, Apollo chuckled.
“Haha, sorry, I think I misspoke. I have rules that I follow anyway. I agreed to no fighting for a week to move on from this place. There was no one interesting at the time. Anyway, I was talking about the teachers.
“They are overseeing this fight. It’s being displayed publicly to everyone. If you try to jump in there, the teachers will stop you, and if you end up hurting any student before they can catch you, there is a good chance you will be punished, maybe even kicked out of this place.
“And I don’t really want that to happen, which is why I decided to warn you.”
Gary’s clenched fists loosened up a bit after listening to these words. Feeling guilty, he thought he had to do something, but there were rules in this place. It wasn’t like the outside. Getting kicked out of the academy this soon wasn’t an option, he could only stand there and watch the one-sided fight.
Sty continued to attack while dashing away in the air, making every single one of Numba’s strikes fruitless. It wasn’t that Sty was too fast; instead, it was hard to predict the angles he would come at Numba and to make matters worse, the latter’s reaction time was too slow.
It was a terrible match-up to pit them against each other since Numba’s strength came from raw power and straight-headed charge. But, unfortunately, he was no match against Sty’s swiftness.
What the crowd did find interesting though, was the fact that Numba was still standing. His face was bloody and had already begun to swell. Even his ribs and arms were badly bruised up, and almost the whole arena was now covered in his blood.
Sty’s strikes weren’t weak by any means because of the momentum his attacks gained from his speed. It was just that Numba’s heart was strong.
“Are you just going to keep running from me?! Don’t you have any pride?!” Numba shouted in frustration with a swollen mouth. Even his teeth had turned red because of the blood.
“This is probably the best strategy,” Izzy commented. “Since Numba can’t catch him, he’s trying to anger Sty to make him act out, but I’m not sure it will work.”
Ignoring Numba’s words, Sty flew in again. Numba waited patiently, and instead of trying to catch Sty, he was no longer moving from the spot he was in, although it was unknown if this was a strategy or if his legs were on the verge of giving up. However, just as Sty was right before him, he threw a fist.
Sty easily dodged, moving his whole body out of the way and then zig-zagging below the former’s arm, he sent his own punch at Numba’s face. However, Sty didn’t stop there as he had finally planted his feet on the ground, readying himself to give a few more blows.
“Pride? Who cares about pride? What can pride do?” Sty asked as he punched Numba in the face once again. “Can pride help you win this fight? Can pride get you into the academy?”
Sty punched and punched again, and bearing the pain, Numba threw out another fist, but Sty caught it with his left hand.
“Remember, you brought this on yourself.” Sty pulled Numba’s arm, drew the latter’s face towards him and threw out a fist with his other hand hitting him straight in the face again.
Numba’s head jerked back, and his body reverted to human form. Then, after a moment of pause, Numba’s body fell back-first on the arena, and the match was over.
Sty raised his head and looked at the crowd from one side to the other as silence fell around the arena.
Then, as he lifted both his hands in victory, the crowd instantly erupted in resounding cheer.
“Boo, Boo, you damn bug eyes!” From one corner, Ian shouted, cupping his mouth.
Sty turned his head to where the sound was coming from, and when he saw Ian, the latter was whistling away, staring at the ceiling as if he had just found the most interesting thing in the world.
The fight was an expected result to everyone watching, there were no surprises, but Gary looked down at the arena speechlessly.
‘Sh*t, what did I do? I pushed Numba to do this. I should have just dealt with that damned bug myself. No…I didn’t because Numba said he could get into trouble, but all of this mess is just because I was trying to get friendly with Numba.’ Gary thought.
“You want to get revenge for your friend? But in this place, things aren’t so simple. You can’t just solve everything with your fists like you used to do,” Apollo said before walking away.
In the arena, before stepping out, Sty stood above Numba and slowly said to him.
“Tomorrow, you’re going to regret everything you did.”
After Sty walked away, the crowd of students started to disperse as well, and the teachers were moving in to give Numba some medical treatment.
Before they got to him though, they found there was already someone else in the centre of the room, kneeling beside Numba.
‘That student…he got there fast.’ One of the Teachers thought, seeing Gary seemingly come out of nowhere.
“Numba, I’m sorry, this is my fault…just tell me what to do. How can I fix this? Is there anything you want me to do?” Gary asked, not knowing whether to just beat Sty or challenge someone else for a higher position to fix this.
Opening his eyes and staring at him, Numba had few words for Gary.
“Just… stay away from me.”
****
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