With Simon right in front of her, Felicia was indeed surprised, but her response arrived soon enough as her eyes glinted with a red glow. Immediately, Simon's foot slipped right before his fist could make contact with Felicia's abdomen, shifting its trajectory to the side as it brushed past her waist. That mere brush was enough to make her flinch as she retreated a few steps, feeling a bruise forming.
Before she could express her disbelief at the sheer power behind the man's punch, he was once again upon her as she called upon even more Chaos energy to empower her ability, this time making sure that his aim was off, allowing her to dodge to the side in time.
As the process repeated, Felicia was constantly on the back foot, unable to even consider countering as the man's speed almost surpassed her reaction time. If this were before, she wouldn't even know what happened before he sent her sprawling to the ground.
At the side, seated in the pulvinar, Alex had an amused smile on his face as he viewed the battle.
"Way to humble her the moment she arrives here after hyping her up to make her feel invincible," Wanda commented from the side. "Though his strength is quite impressive."
"Yeah," Alex nodded. "Not quite Cosmic, but certainly well into low-cosmic. He can level most buildings with ease."
"Shouldn't low-cosmic mean he can act on planets? Like destroy them with punches?" Wanda asked.
"Low-cosmic is much better explained as pre-cosmic, I guess," Alex said. "You can indeed punch through the crust of the Earth with that kind of strength, but that's all. You hit cosmic when your physical strength is enough to destroy a planet—even if that involves acting in a focused manner to destabilize the core."
"Do you think the Hulk could handle him?" Wanda asked.
"The one you're familiar with? Not a chance," Alex shook his head. "The one from your Earth is actually quite weak."
"Are you going to let him beat her up?"
"She'll be fine," he said. "In her panic, she's forgotten that she has more tricks up her sleeve. Though, I think she's getting used to his speed."
"That's saying something," Wanda said. "She should only be a little stronger than Steve."
"Yeah, the thing is that she's just as adaptable," Alex said. "She's getting used to his pace."
Felicia was indeed getting somewhat used to the sudden change. As Simon continued attacking her, her ability continued activating at a faster and faster speed. Each time he struck, the miss came a millisecond earlier, slowly accumulating to give Felicia the time to think of a counterattack.
Simon was noticing the increasing ease with which Felicia was handling his attacks, possessing a seemingly endless amount of Chaos energy to burn through. With each failure, his frustration grew, visible on his face. He took a decisive action before letting Felicia gain even more leeway to act.
A faint but unmistakable purple glow appeared on his skin, giving Felicia goosebumps, but before she could react, a painful shockwave directly struck her abdomen, sending her flying back as she flipped over and skidded multiple feet back despite digging her heels into the ground.
He put me up against this guy on purpose…
Felicia felt aggrieved, feeling the metallic taste on her tongue. She was sure that her organs had been messed up by that punch. Simon didn't pause for a single moment and zipped forward before Felicia even stopped skidding, intent on releasing another shockwave.
At the same time, the green glow that appeared in Felicia's eyes was much stronger as it spread to the rest of her body, dyeing her black bodysuit in a red glow.
Just before the shockwave erupted from Simon, the man's breath got caught in his throat, forcing him to start coughing. The attack immediately failed as he also tripped, forcing him to rebalance himself mid-cough.
Felicia was neither one to let go of such an opportunity, nor was she one to shy away from a fight. She leaped forward, claws appearing at the ends of her gloved hands as an almost feral expression appeared on her face.
The man raised his arm to block it, but the red glow around Felicia only intensified as his muscles involuntarily spasmed, making him miss his mark as her claw directly scratched his chest, leaving his shirt with four bloody gashes. Felicia followed up with a roundhouse kick that he barely blocked with his arm, taking a step to the side.
As the two continued fighting, Alex and Wanda's discussion continued.
"I'm thinking of setting up a commentator," Alex said. "This fight has gotten pretty interesting, but without someone to provide commentary, the audience doesn't seem to be enjoying it much."
"That's a nice idea. A nice commentary goes a long way in such events," Wanda nodded, looking curiously at Felicia. "Her talent is quite intriguing… Did you teach her to maintain that passive activation?"
"Naturally," Alex nodded. "Before coming here, she just used to think that she brought bad luck to people around her. The way she's actively using her talent, augmenting it with your reality manipulation spells, and her passive activation, I'm the one who taught her both those things."
"No wonder she's being inefficient about it," Wanda said.
"It's not like you would have taught her," Alex said, not bothered by Wanda's implication. After all, everything Chaos-related, including his magical talent, came from Wanda. The source was naturally far superior in this case.
"She is using multiple spells to augment her talent's effects," Wanda said. "That might seem like the right move considering the versatility of her talent, which allows her to dictate the outcome somewhat."
"But…"
"But, you should know that's not the way to utilize a person's innate talent. She should use her talent to augment the spells instead. I remember a complex spell that has an identical effect to her talent. She should use that spell and let her talent augment it. That would be a far more efficient use of her energy, not to mention increasing the possibilities that she can manipulate. Manipulating probability to make someone choke for a moment is probably her limit for now without outright wasting Chaos energy as I used to in the past. With that spell, she should even be able to make him fail to activate his powers completely."
"You're right," Alex nodded. "I did have plans on having her focus on that spell initially, but it's too complex and would have taken more than a year to let her master it. I had a lot more things to do with her than teaching."
"Yes, parading her around in a bitchsuit was probably very important," Wanda nodded.
"I was conditioning her physique with Bioenergy," Alex said.
"Whatever you say," Wanda shrugged. "Oh hey, it's over."
Alex hummed in agreement, smiling as he looked at Felicia standing while Simon was on the ground, unconscious after Felicia forced him into a coughing fit for the third time and hit his neck, immediately making him faint.
With no one to announce the victor and no referee to oversee the battle, the end was quite a bit lackluster as Felicia silently walked away, leaving Simon unconscious in his place.
"Since they're done, let's go back to sleep. I'm not in the mood to hear you manipulate that guy."
"Is that all you take me for?"
"Don't be like that," Wanda tugged at his sleeve, and the two of them disappeared from their spots, once appearing in the bed. At the same time, Alex controlled another body to appear in the room he designated as the Great Hall, which held a matching set of thrones for him and Wanda. To be specific, it was the same room that he'd given Felicia and Simon their respective rewards on the previous day.
Today, the two of them once again appeared in front of Alex, with Felicia momentarily surprised at the sudden shift of her position, while Simon remained unconscious. Her eyes fell upon Alex as she looked at him pitifully, trying to express just how aggrieved she was.
"You did this to me on purpose, didn't you, Master?" she asked. "I'm covered in bruises now…"
"That so? Once he leaves, you should take off that suit of yours and let me thoroughly examine your wounds then," Alex said as Felicia blushed, averting her eyes from him.
"All right," she mumbled, pouting.
Alex snapped his fingers, and Simon immediately gasped heavily, immediately shooting up as he started heaving.
"Easy there," Alex said. "It's all good, you lost the match."
"I…lost…" The realization dawned on him as he paused, not bothering to stand up or to look up at Alex. "I understand."
"But you did manage to pique my interest, Mr. Wonder Man," Alex said with a smile as the man froze. "Tell me, why try to set up your own guild when all you needed to do was ask me for permission to open up a theatre in Apex City?"
"You investigated me?" The man's head whipped to look up at Alex.
***
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