Chapter 135: Throwing Hands

  “There’s still 10 minutes left!” Nikolas yelled as the Prime Avatar ran at them.

  “Yeah I noticed!” Teresa replied, doing the first thing that came to mind. She grabbed her boomerang from her , filled it with the air based elemental Mana from , and threw it at the Avatar. She didn’t expect it to do a whole lot, or anything at all for that matter, but the weapon was a lot lower level than Teresa and didn’t take a lot of Mana to power.

  The Prime Avatar paused and carefully avoided the projectile, seemingly not knowing what it was capable of and not wanting to take any risks. It served as a decent enough distraction for all of 5 seconds, before it whipped back around and Teresa remotely activated it.

  A weak gust sucked in the air around the boomerang, once again not doing anything but simply distracting the Prime Avatar for another couple seconds, giving Teresa the time to properly take cover while ruining the Prime Avatar’s momentum. The machine couldn’t exactly make facial expressions, but the look it gave Teresa did not look very amused by her antics.

  Gunfire rained down upon their position, but they were surrounded by destroyed Avatars that provided ample cover. Teresa fired a at max brightness straight up into the air, alerting the rest of the army where she was while consuming a tiny amount of Mana. She doubted she would be able to reposition again, especially with the Prime Avatar that was now cruising towards her.

  Mana bullets ricocheted off the Prime Avatar as Nikolas and one of his two remaining party members both fired at it. Liam had died, and another of them had been forced to stay on the other side of the oil fire due to their low Fortitude. Matteo the ranger and Nikolas the mage both had guns, while their tank Finn was standing ready to engage in melee combat with his shield and sword. Teresa herself had her sword ready, shoving her boomerang back into her as it already provided the small amount of utility it could.

  The first thing Cher did was activate a upon getting close, pushing back both Finn and Teresa’s weapons as it launched a lead hook with its left hand at Teresa.

  She wasn’t expecting the skill activation, but immediately prepared for an attack as soon as she felt her own blade getting pushed away. She slipped under the hook, which smashed into her sword above her as she tried to get away.

  The Prime Avatar wasn’t going to let her collect herself, and immediately tried to tackle Teresa with activated. Teresa responded by activating herself, launching herself sideways at max speed to avoid the robot while swinging her weapon.

  Cher slipped under her sword easily and charged after her again, only for Finn to grab its arm while activating and , the former of which improved his grip with both his hands and feet significantly. He had dropped his sword for the act, likely knowing that he wasn’t going to be able to injure it with his stats.

  This managed to halt the Prime Avatar for a moment as it tugged against Finn’s grip, dislocating his shoulder though he still held on without budging. Teresa took advantage of the moment, swinging down at Cher with her sword while activating

  .

  The Prime Avatar reacted in time, stepping back with its superior speed while still taking a deep slash across its chest. It didn’t panic, and instead punched Finn in the chin sending him tumbling, unlikely to get back up for the rest of the fight. If not for , Teresa was sure he would be dead from the one strike.

  Neither Nikolas’ or Matteo’s attacks were doing anything significant, and it seemed they didn’t have the resources left to really use their skills. They were already using the last of their Mana on creating bullets, soon they would be completely out.

  Teresa went on the offensive, pressing forward while keeping her sword pointed towards the Prime Avatar. She thrust it forward repeatedly, using the weapon as a deadly barrier between the two while it tried to find an opening. It was much faster than Teresa, but its movements made it clear where it was going to move next. If not for that, Teresa would have been dead by now.

  After nearly a minute of running around maintaining the status quo, the Prime Avatar launched a feint. It took the necessary motions towards Teresa’s right, then moved backwards towards her left as she was already adjusting her sword. Teresa fell for it completely, and the moment it made the move Teresa realized what happened, but she could not physically move fast enough to deal with the incoming attack.

  She activated just as Cher’s fist connected with her cheek, sending her tumbling to the ground just like what had happened to Finn. Her immediate concern was that she was going to be put out of the fight and killed. If Finn who specialized in defense was knocked out by this, then surely she would be too.

  Surprisingly, she was still conscious, though it hurt like hell. Her was likely a higher level than Finn’s, though there was no time to feel proud of that. She covered herself with her sword like it was a shield as Cher tried to kick her, slamming against the blade and sending Teresa sliding along the ground.

  She swung her sword in a wide arc as she got to her feet, not expecting it to hit the target but simply attacking to create distance and time. Several of the bones in Teresa’s face were broken, but her was using the last of its power to fix it. For good measure, Teresa activated , hoping it would get Finn back up and keep Teresa going at the same time once her healing buff ran out.

  Weak Restoration Mana flowed into everyone nearby, excluding the Avatar of course. Teresa was already burning through a good chunk of her resources, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of Cher to see the exact numbers even with her high speed thoughts.

  It slapped its palm down on the flat of Teresa’s blade, smacking the end of it down to the ground and running up the side of her sword. The weight of both the sword and Cher’s body made the weapon far too heavy for her to hold, making her drop the handle to the ground.

  Shit.

  She didn’t want to, but it beat getting her head crushed like a soda can. Teresa used to avoid a strike from Cher, then used the same skill to get close again and punch the Avatar in the chin with active. If Cher was going to disarm her, then she’d make sure Cher wouldn’t get the chance to pick the sword back up either.

  Teresa was going to box a robot.

  The Prime Avatar had taken a good deal of damage by this point. Its right hand was crippled, there was a gash across its chest, it was having difficulties turning its neck to the left, its left shoulder had several dents and cuts in it, and there were signs of damage to both of its knees.

  She didn’t need to kill the Avatar with her bare fists, it was unlikely she could accomplish that. However, Teresa had some actual training in unarmed combat, albeit it was only from a couple months of kickboxing. It wasn’t nearly enough to make her a good kickboxer, but it was something she was more comfortable with than swordfighting. Teresa just needed to stall another 7 or 8 minutes, not that she could check right now.

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  That was more than twice as long as a normal round was supposed to be in kickboxing, but Teresa had superpowers, so surely it would be fine.

  The Prime Avatar wasn’t taking a proper stance, standing square with Teresa who took an orthodox stance. Nikolas and Matteo seemed to be focused on keeping Avatars from interrupting, fighting the battles they were capable of instead of getting in Teresa’s way. Additionally, Finn seemed to be moving again, but his HP was likely extremely low.

  Cher swung a haymaker at Teresa, which she easily dodged and retaliated with an oblique kick with poor form. She smashed her toes into the Avatar’s knee, though her steel boots with a comfort enchantment that she got from the Tutorial helped a lot. It didn’t do a lot of damage to the Avatar, but Cher likely wouldn’t be able to take a lot of those hits to the knees while Teresa’s foot was back in good condition by the time it hit the ground.

  The Avatar regarded her warily, sensing that Teresa suddenly felt a lot more comfortable. She stood on top of the sword on the ground, neither her nor Cher able to take the time to pick up the weapon without facing repercussions.

  Cher attacked again, attacking with a straight punch from the left hand. If it had been standing orthodox, it would have been a jab, but since Cher had no idea how to properly fight a human while in humanoid form it stood completely square to Teresa. Neither left nor right arm were necessarily closer, leaving Cher completely open while doing pretty much anything.

  Teresa slipped the punch again, choosing not to counter yet. Cher launched a few more punches, telegraphing each punch while attacking with incredibly poor form. Cher was not Mike Tyson, it was not doing a successful peekaboo stance and did not have the footwork for it.

  Teresa kept dodging and slipping punches, noticing that Cher was hesitant to launch a kick. That was a good move, since Teresa would probably sweep Cher off its feet if it tried. She was also hoping Cher wouldn’t notice Teresa was just repeating the same basic maneuvers, reenacting extremely basic footwork drills.

  She backstepped and moved her right foot to her open side, pivoting to change angles as Cher tried to punch her. It opened Cher up to another kick to the knee, this time Teresa hit it with the bottom of her foot rather than the end of her toes.

  Cher was getting frustrated, and tried to tackle Teresa. It charged forward ready for a takedown with active, only for Teresa to activate as well and step away. She tried to trip Cher in the process, but was unsuccessful in landing it, missing the sweep.

  Teresa was deeply regretting not taking more kickboxing classes after dropping out of college, but they were just so damn expensive. MMA would have been really nice too, she certainly wouldn’t mind some grappling experience. If Cher landed a takedown, Teresa was fucked, end of story. If Cher so much as got a solid grip on her at all, Teresa would be in a really bad predicament.

  The damage to Cher’s body was extremely useful to Teresa, especially the damage to its neck. Cher’s injured wrist certainly made it harder for the Prime Avatar to grab anything, but it had two hands and it didn’t need to make a proper fist for a punch to be deadly.

  Cher launched another telegraphed attack that Teresa easily dodged, only for another activation of to catch her off guard. Damn it! Teresa was so focused on kickboxing that the skill totally slipped her mind, but thankfully she was able to just activate to create some distance again.

  Teresa laughed, a grin on her face. Despite the stakes, the war in the background, the fact her friends and allies were desperately fighting through a wave of Avatars and gunfire to try and help her, she was having fun. It had been a long time since she got the chance to actually fight something like this, using trained movements rather than hastily improvised attacks.

  Cher kept punching and swinging at Teresa, physically superior in every way but technique. Teresa began throwing in feints of her own, getting back into the rhythm of things. She’d step forward only to immediately backpedal as Cher tried to grab her, failing to do so resulting in Teresa buying more and more time.

  Using feints against an untrained opponent was tricky. They were great against someone who actually knew how to fight, but against someone with no real experience they might not react at all to it. This wasn’t out of seeing through the feint, but rather a result of them simply being too inexperienced to even register it.

  That was one of the issues Teresa spotted in the Prime Avatar, all of the Avatars for that matter. No matter how much stronger or faster they were, they were still slow. Not in regards to their movement speed, but to their reaction times. Again and again, she was taking advantage of Cher, and the whole time she had a smile on her face.

  Cher got an opportunity to reach down for the sword on the ground, but Teresa immediately punished it for that. Teresa used to sprint forward and land an elbow strike on the back of its head while using

  and . She had been curious earlier about what counted as a weapon, and now felt as good a time to test that as anything. The skill description itself didn’t necessarily say a weapon was required, just that both body and weapon would be enhanced while doing a downward strike.

  Either way, Teresa’s elbow was the weapon. Were elbows to the back of the head allowed in kickboxing? Absolutely not, but Teresa didn’t see a ref anywhere. Her

  and enhanced elbow knocked the Avatar to the ground, snapping several things within the Avatar’s neck.

  That’s for Jim you fuckin asshole.

  Teresa was almost out of resources now, she had been using them pretty liberally during the fight. She was surprised her elbow had done as much damage as it had, and truthfully her arm hurt pretty bad after doing that. Then again, she had used multiple skills simultaneously, and it was a pretty clean hit.

  Cher lifted a hand at her and began spamming , sending several projectiles at Teresa. This was bad news, Teresa wasn’t in a great position to dodge them, getting hit by the first one that caught her off guard. It didn’t do a lot of damage, the Prime Avatar’s must have been pretty low level, but she certainly couldn’t tank that endlessly.

  Teresa ran to the side, and was surprised to see the Avatar was struggling to keep up. Its damaged knee was catching up to it, and the Avatar’s neck was refusing to twist properly. Teresa wasn’t in great condition herself, but the tables had turned drastically.

  Now, the Prime Avatar was the one in danger. Teresa launched a front kick from its blind spot, landing the strike on the Avatar’s head. It was already on one knee, and that sealed the deal. The robot fell onto its side, spasming as it tried to get back to its feet.

  Teresa calmly picked up her sword once again, giggling like a maniac as a metric shitload of adrenaline coursed through her body.

  “Thank you.” Teresa said, earnestly as she approached the Prime Avatar. She was aware she was losing her marbles a bit, maybe just a teensy bit manic, but she felt fantastic. “That was so much fun.”

  Time remaining: 2 minutes, 15 seconds.

  There was still some time left on the clock before her resources would be refilled, but she didn’t need it.

  Teresa swung her sword down at the Prime Avatar, cutting through a portion of its body. The sword got lodged inside of its torso, not slicing through with a single cut. She lifted and hacked again, this time cutting the Prime Avatar in half as she laughed.

  You Have Slain {Prime Avatar Of Cher (E) [Attuned: Radiation] (lv 106)}

  Level Up!

  “What the hell Teresa?” She heard, and she looked up to see reinforcements had arrived a little too late. Lilith, Axton, and all of Teresa’s party had made it, including her father, just in time to see her laughing as she finished off the Prime Avatar. Her dad had a look on his face that might have been concern. Pft, she could worry about that later. She was so focused, she wasn’t even sure who had spoken in the first place.

  “Are you okay?” Randall asked, his eyes wide as he cautiously approached his daughter.

  “I’m doing great.” Teresa answered honestly, not seeing why he seemed so disturbed. She took a deep breath and lifted her sword, ready to keep fighting. “We’re not done yet, we still got to kill off the last of them.”

  Another surge in stats coursed through Teresa as she went off on cleanup duty.