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Sharon rushed at Dante with her massive, muscular limbs closing the distance in ground-shaking strides. "Here comes Catseye!"
Dante found it hard to take Sharon seriously when she announced her attacks like that.
Her massive curved talons swiped at his chest in a wide arc. Dante sidestepped smoothly, grabbed her extended foreleg, and used her considerable momentum to redirect her past him in a classic judo throw. Her five hundred pound body flew through the air. She recovered mid air with a graceful barrel roll and planted her feet on the ground.
Right away, Dante came face-to-face with Jetstream, who had sneakily flown at him while Catseye's massive figure covered his vision.
They were coordinating attacks, taking him as a real threat, as they should.
Jetstream added thrust to his feet mid-flight and threw a devastating uppercut aimed at Dante's chin. The speed was incredible, but it failed to catch him by surprise.
He had only had to tilt his dodge. The quick uppercut passed within an inch of his jaw.
"Crap!" Jetstream's eyes widened in shock as he realized he had overcommitted. His trajectory carried him straight upward like a misfired rocket. He barely managed to halt himself a few centimeters from the ceiling.
"Roulette!" Manuel yelled, taking command from the sidelines since his emotion manipulation abilities were completely useless against Dante. "Bad luck to him right now! Good luck enhancement for everyone else!"
Roulette's eyes gleamed with competitive excitement. She hurled a black psionic disc at Dante like it was a frisbee. The disc disappeared before he could destroy it.
Roulette generated four red discs and sent them spiraling toward her teammates. Each one merged with its target in a flash of crimson light.
Dante was curious if this would be enough to make the impossible possible.
"Great. Tarot, your turn!" Manuel approached the quiet teenager still busy with her cards. "Do some magic."
Tarot's dark eyes began to glow with a radiance as she spread her arms. The entire tarot deck flew out of her hands and began rotating around her body in a perfect circle, each card glowing with golden energy.
Two cards suddenly flared brighter than the rest and shot forward.
"I summon Devil and Knight of Swords!"
Two giant creatures materialized from pure psionic energy—the first was a towering humanoid figure standing nearly twelve feet tall, with thick fur covering its muscular body, the horned head of a goat with burning yellow eyes, and enormous bat-like wings stretching from its back. The second was an imposing armored knight mounted on a massive black warhorse. It was holding a longsword high in one hand.
"Nice, they have the best combat capabilities." Empath looked satisfied with Tarot's powers. His earlier fear was being replaced by confidence as he coordinated his teammates. "Catseye and Jetstream, don't let him recover! Angelica, go charge up your big boom."
The knight's horse galloped and the Devil creature flew at him with its bat-like wings.
Sharon had already recovered from her throw and launched herself back at him.
"Catseye will beat up the warm human!"
"Try dodging this one, pal!" Jetstream dove from the ceiling like a human missile.
Dante was pinched from every direction, yet there wasn't a flicker of panic on his face.
He filled his legs with solar radiation and launched himself toward Jetstream. In a situation where most fighters would panic and make a defensive mistake, the young mutant clearly hadn't expected Dante to take the initiative and close distance with the aerial attacker.
Still, Jetstream wasn't a complete rookie. His combat instincts kicked in. He angled his body and fired thermochemical blasts from his feet. The explosive thrust rocketed him downward at Dante like a human missile. His fists led the charge, positioned to crash Dante. The sky belonged to him and him alone.
Dante had no intention of tanking that hit.
He swung his leg upward—a classic crescent kick without a single wasted motion. His boot made a perfect semicircle through the air before catching Jetstream right under his chin. Jetstream's body jolted backward and crashed to the mat. Eyes closed, lights out.
Dante hadn't put much strength in the kick. Jetstream's own momentum had done this much damage.
'First one down.'
Sharon charged past the spot where Dante had been a split-second earlier. Her claws gouged the mat, leaving long gashes. "Danteeee, Catseye will catch you!"
She sounded more thrilled than disappointed to have been duped, riding that surge of primal excitement a cat experiences when chasing their prey. Her wildly swinging tail was a telltale sign.
Dante bounced off after the kick, riding the momentum to land perfectly on the black horse's armored head, using it as a stepping stone. The warhorse reared back with a high-pitched neigh, trying to dislodge him. Dante's balance wasn't disrupted in the slightest.
"Tarot, attack!" Empath yelled, anxiety creeping back into his voice as their coordinated assault fell apart.
"Shut up," Tarot snapped at the so-called team leader. "I know what to do."
The Knight of Swords swung its massive greatsword in a horizontal slash aiming at Dante's legs, trying to cut him down while he was mid-landing. At the same time, the Devil construct dove from his right side, claws extended to impale him.
He gently tapped his foot against the horse's skull the same way one kicked the ground to gain momentum. The "gentle" tap released a quiet, explosive force. The horse exploded in a shower of golden particles. The Knight crashed to the ground.
Dante slipped past the Devil and landed on the ground. The Knight got to his feet with his sword and charged at Dante. The Devil maneuvered, joining its fellow card in the assault.
He brushed the Devil's claw with the back of his hand, redirecting the attack's entire momentum casually. The sharp claws passed millimeters from his face. At the same time, he slapped the longsword stabbing at his chest.
Clenching both fists, he punched both psionic constructs at the same time.
The Devil construct exploded in a burst of brilliant golden light, dissolving back into its original card form.
The Knight's armor only stopped his fist for a moment before he drove it right to the other side. It also returned to its card form.
The coordinated assault still wasn't over as a shadow appeared behind him.
He didn't need to turn around to identify Catseye pouncing at him. He could read the flow of battle with his eyes closed if necessary. Such was the battle sense born from combining Taskmaster's decades of experience with Shang-Chi's pure martial skills.
He turned just enough to see her mid-pounce. The excitement in her eyes was unparalleled as though she was already imagining Dante pinned under her giant body.
His body reacted right away. Hips coiled tight and weight shifted to his front leg, then his rear leg shot straight back at Sharon's open maw. There was no wind-up or dramatic movement.
A dull, meaty CRACK echoed through the training room as his leg connected with Sharon's face. Her massive body ragdolled through the air before crashing down nearly ten meters away, sliding another few centimeters from residual momentum.
By the time his foot returned to the floor, he had already pivoted to face her landing spot. He could've easily destroyed her jaw if he added more solar radiation. Of course, he had held back significantly on the adorable cat who had been sharing breakfast with him like an hour ago. Death wouldn't be happy with the death of her favorite cat either.
He wasn't a monster.
Sharon groaned and pushed herself upright, shaking her enormous head. Instead of charging recklessly again, she began circling sideways, amber eyes locked on him. She was learning in real time, waiting for an opening like a true predator would.
"Take more luck, Sharon!" Roulette hurled another red disc, which merged with Sharon's large body. "I don't know if it stacks though, but take as much as you want!"
"Good luck is good. Dante will be defeated," Sharon growled. "Hellions will win."
"Stop fooling yourself, Sharon." Dante shook his head. "Are you banking on Angelica's big boom?"
"Big boooooom! Yes!"
Both of them glanced at Angelica, immediately giving away their strategy of buying time for Angelica.
Angelica Jones was standing quiet, her eyes closed in deep concentration. The microwaves under her control had reached such intensity that they created a visible red aura around her entire body. The temperature around had spiked to the point everyone else had retreated.
She slowly rose into the air. When she opened her eyes and met Dante's gaze, she gave him an apologetic smile, as if she felt guilty of attacking him.
"Miss Emma said you'll survive anything," she said softly, yet it reached everyone in the silent training room. "It's still going to hurt like hell. I'm sorry."
She pointed both hands in his direction, took a deep breath, and mentally pushed the accumulated microwaves.
An intense wave of superheated microwaves wrapped around Dante.
He burst into flames.
The heat was extraordinary; it could've easily turned a human ash in seconds. His clothes burned right away.
This was Emma's revenge for making her stand guard.
She hadn't just ordered everyone to engage in a team fight against Dante—she had specifically instructed Angelica to use her most devastating attack. Everyone was allowed to go all out.
But Emma didn't know about the Helio Reactor burning deep in his chest.
It sucked in the microwave radiation. As unique as Angelica's power to manipulate and generate microwaves was, these microwaves were fundamentally still a component of solar radiation, and his cells breathed that.
The flames slowly faded away, revealing his form to the Hellions waiting in anticipation and… fear.
Empath was grinning to see his charred black clothes, but that joy turned into disappointment when he noticed the unmarked skin under. Roulette and Tarot showed the same reaction.
The burnt clothes suddenly glowed with soft silver light and returned to pristine condition. It was Death, quietly using her reality-warping power from the shadows to make his life just a tiny bit easier.
He brushed a speck of ash from his shoulder. "Any other surprises?"
"That was my strongest attack…" Angelica said as she descended slowly back to the floor. Despite the disappointing results, there was a refreshing smile on her face. "I'm glad nobody got seriously hurt."
Tarot collected her cards and glared at Roulette. "I told you about the 'Inevitable Collapse' when I got Tower in my reading. Nobody listened to me!"
"Probability manipulation can't fix impossible odds." Roulette chuckled, raising both hands in dramatic surrender. She lightly kicked Empath's butt. "Manny, make the call."
Empath stood frozen in complete shock, staring at Dante like he had just witnessed something that fundamentally broke his understanding. Finally, he seemed to snap out of it. His shoulders sagged in total defeat.
"It's our loss."
Sharon immediately shrank back to her housecat size. She darted across the training room and leaped onto Dante's shoulder, immediately rubbing her face against his cheek and purring loudly.
"So warm."
Dante reached up and stroked the soft spot under her chin, earning an even louder rumble of satisfaction. "You gave a good fight, Sharon. That last pounce almost got me."
He would've struggled to win yesterday without Venom or Biokinesis augmentation. The coordination the Hellions displayed was rough, but still quite effective. It wouldn't have been a clean victory.
Today, though, he was unstoppable.
Psylocke walked to the center of the arena. She stopped about ten feet away and met his gaze with those intense violet eyes.
He didn't need any experience to understand her current thoughts: "Finally, a worthy opponent."
Before he headed to Psylocke, he took out his phone and took a selfie with Sharon being affectionate with him.
He was going to send it to Felicia alone but decided to create a group with both Silvija and Felicia. He chose an appropriate name for it.
Family with a heart emoji.
He sent the selfie and pocketed his phone. Both of them were probably sleeping after staying up late yesterday.
"Sharon." He gently lifted the cat from his shoulder and set her down on the floor. "I have another match now. You should watch from a safe distance."
"Ah, a match with Psylocke?" Sharon's ears perked up, her tail swishing behind her excitedly. "Catseye will watch with Angel!"
She bounded toward Angelica and leaped onto the redhead's head in one graceful jump, settling there like a hat.
Angelica smiled and reached up to steady her. "Sharon, you naughty little kitten."
"Keep Catseye warm."
Angelica laughed. "Your greed sickens me!"
"Catseye is greedy because it's cold. Catseye not sick."
Dante was glad these two weren't affected by the defeat.
Roulette and Tarot, who had both been heading toward the exit, stopped mid-step and turned around. After a brief glance at each other, they silently moved to the sidelines to watch.
Manuel, who was about to drag the still-groggy Jetstream, propped him up against the wall before joining his teammates. Nobody wanted to miss this.
***
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