Chapter 113 Floyd Versus Anderson (1)
The four friends arrived in front of the podium and waited for professor McAllister to give his speech. As usual, he appeared annoyed and not so eager to talk in front of the students. Like most of the time, he kept his whole speech short, reminded the rules a bit, and then proceeded to say who the matches contestants were again.
After that, all the people moved to the back of the school where the ring had been placed. The first match was going to be Floyd Versus Anderson, so many people were hyped because of the latter.
Though, many knew about the beef running between Floyd and Anderson. The two were best friends in the past, but apparently, Anderson preferred Aaron's and Mikey's company.
The reason why all of that happened was not that clear. However, they were kids when this happened, so it was probably a stupid reason.
Despite all this, it was common knowledge at school that Floyd was still mad at Anderson, and many people expected a great match to occur today.
As the people surrounded the ring, Gwen, Floyd, Amber, and Erik slowly took their place close to it, while Anderson, Aaron, and Mikey did the same but from the other side.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," The referee said. "Today's first match will be fought against Floyd Valdez and Anderson Worthington. Please come up the ring!"
Erik looked at Floyd with a concerned look, "Are you sure you can do this?" he asked.
"Yes. I don't know if I will be able to win, but for sure, I will make Anderson suffer a bit," he said with a grin, to which Erik replied with one of his own.
"Less talk, more action," Gwen said. Floyd entered the ring while giving Gwen dirty looks, though, as he jumped onto the ring and found Anderson in front of him, his annoyance was suddenly redirected to him.
"Floyd!" Anderson said with a displeased look. "How are you?" he asked in a mocking tone.
"Anderson... I'm fine. Don't worry about me; you better start worrying about yourself!" Floyd blatantly declared, to which the crowd reacted with a loud cheer. Anderson gave out another laugh before answering.
"Yeah? We will see..." He turned around and heard the audience cheering even louder than earlier.
"The match is going to start in one minute," the referee said, and a staring contest started between Floyd and Anderson.
3...2...1.. It was then that the referee gave the signal to start, and the bell rang.
The two contestants ran toward each other with a look of pure focus. It was easy to understand for Anderson, but many started to wonder why Floyd had one too.
The young man wasn't really confident about winning since Anderson was stronger than him, and Anderson knew very well how his old friend's power worked. Despite this, fighting against Floyd wasn't going to be easy, even for the favorite contestant.
Anderson raised his arm and aimed at Floyd, trying to punch him in the face. However, Floyd moved his head to the side and avoided the attack easily, but he charged a fist of his own, aiming at Anderson's stomach.
Though the young man obviously understood Floyd's aim so, he grabbed his arm and tried to fly him to the ground. Anderson's move was, however, ineffective since Floyd activated his power, decreasing the momentum and the strength of his opponent's grip. This made Anderson unable to lift Floyd in the air.
That was Floyd's power. He could essentially stop any selected flow of Energy in his surroundings, and the more mana he used and the greater the radius was. However, high leveled attacks required more mana because their energy was higher than to stop the attack entirely, more mana was required.
The issue was that even though Floyd was practically unbeatable under the right circumstances, the young man could only target a single kind of energy at a time and could only have one target to whom he could block the flow of energy.
Clearly, if he chose the right one, he could kill a person by stopping his or her heartbeat. This would make a perfect power for assassination or defensive maneuvers, but nothing more. Besides, stopping a heart wasn't simple to do at all. Since he couldn't possibly stop Anderson's heart, Floyd's fighting style revolved around his martial arts.
Floyd could stop Anderson from throwing him to the ground by stopping the kinetic movement that his arms were gathering.
However, his opponent, fully knowing how his old friend's power worked, tried to kick him. Floyd raised his leg to protect himself. Still, he got hit with a lot of power by Anderson's mighty kicks.
Erik's friend freed himself from Anderson's grip, not without receiving a lot of kicks from his old friend and being in pain.
"Weren't you going to kick my ass?" Anderson scornfully said. To which his opponent could only reply, frowning.
"SHUT UP BITCH!" Floyd replied. He then entered a fighting position, bringing his fists up and his right leg slightly forward, and then started walking toward Anderson. The man, instead, waited for Floyd to come; he could see countless openings in his opponent's stance, so he wasn't worried.
Floyd then kicked Anderson, who simply parried his attack by raising a leg, and the two kept stalling for time.
Anderson couldn't blindly go in, as Floyd could simply stop the kinetic energy in one of his legs, making him fall to the ground, and then it would be hard to fight.
He could only wait for Floyd and counterattack at the right time so that his opponent didn't have enough time to react.
In the end, Floyd did precisely that; since Anderson wasn't going to attack him, he decided to make another attempt and went directly in front of him.
He was calm, his mind sharp like a razor, and his focus very high. He was trying to find an opening in Anderson's stance, but he couldn't see them.
It was perfect, to say the least, and that enraged Floyd. Not even two years before, the two were on the same level. How did Anderson manage to become so strong despite only two years passing?
Floyd spent countless hours training, years to make neural links and learn to control his power better; despite this, it looked like Anderson was not just one but several steps in front of him, which frustrated him a lot.
His anger grew when he saw his opponent's smug expression, and he began to throw punches at his opponent. Anderson avoided the first punch, parried the second, the third, and so on.
Floyd could do nothing to land a hit on his face, growing restless with each attack. Anderson knew every single way Floyd might try to get past his guard and didn't allow him to do so. It was almost like he could see into the damn future.
Suddenly, Anderson jumped back to avoid Floyd's attack, and while throwing himself back, he raised his leg up to Floyd's head height, kicking him with a quick and agile movement and leaving the spectators speechless. That was not something an average sixteen years old should be able to do.
Floyd was put off-balance by the attack, and he almost fell to the ground. His vision blackened for a second, and the pain in his temple spiked, but he quickly regained his composure.
He had no idea what had happened and how his opponent could attack him from that position; it was almost like Anderson bent his body unnaturally, and that just to hit him in the most unpredictable and lethal way.
Anderson, though, didn't stand still, waiting for Floyd to recover, but instead rushed at him as soon as he regained his balance from the move he had just made.