Tsugi No Level

Chapter 21: Bad Math

The stone clone slowly walks towards Demo with his sword at the ready.

"With come or death."

Demo knows that this clone isn't as strong as the real one. But for some reason, he can't seem to find an opening to attack it. Its intelligence is nowhere near the original but its battle sense seems to be similar. He is getting a similar vibe to the Palindra soldier he fought. But there is no other option so doubt is an unnecessary line of thinking. Demo takes a deep breath and smiles as he is about to dive into the madness.

"Let's go."

Demo rushes in with a punch but the clone is able to read the line of attack and uses minimal movements to dodge the punch and applies for to the top of Demos fist to throw him off balance and fall. As Demo rolls on the ground he thinks to himself how this can happen again. His punch was diverted with just a simple tap. So instead of big punches he decides to keep it concise and quick.

He quickly gets back up and implements his plan of short and fast attacks. But the clone dodges each one and counters each one with a strike of his own. Each punch hurts Demo more and more as if the clone is striking vital points.

Ten is watching from the sidelines. He can tell that the clone is dominating the fight. That makes total sense because it's a clone of KetsuEki THE Prime Perfect. But Li-On the hero of this planet wanted Demo to get away. Meaning that if KetsuEki wins Demo will be taken to a bad place. There have always been rumors and conspiracy theories that the Universal Defense Army has done some very bad things in the name of protecting people. Human experiments and exploitation were the least of those. So it's very likely that Li-On wanted to save Demo from that fate.

But to help Demo Ten would need to go against the Prime Perfect, which he can't do because he is his hero. Ten activates Mai.

"Mai, what are Demos chances of winning?"

"It seems this clone was made with inferior material so the transfer of power was kept to a minimum. But even so, it's strong enough to beat Demo. So his chances of winning are about 0%."

"I'm not saying I will, but if I were to help Demo what would his chances be?"

"Instead of what his chances might be, let me tell you what your chances are. If you look at the clone the wrong way there's a 50% chance of death. If you take an aggressive step towards it 100%. If you decide to arm yourself and charge it, there is a 250% chance of death with a small possibility of being crippled for life."

Tens uncle walks up to him and stands next to Ten.

"Don't even think about helping him."

"But Li-On sent him here to escape and Demo isn't a bad guy."

"It doesn't matter if he is bad or not, it's none of our business. So stay out of it."

"What does it even matter to you? You were never there."

His uncle lower his head a little as the feeling of guilt rushes over him.

"I owe it to your mother, I can't allow her to feel any more than she already has."

Ten looks at his uncle confused and with a hint of anger as he asks the next question.

"What does that mean?"

His uncle looks back at Tens mother with a sad look.

"This isn't the time or the place for this conversation."

Ten is unable to control his anger as he blurts out his response.

"It is. What do you mean?"

His uncle can see that the fight with Demo and the clone has been superseded by the anger Ten feels. And that Ten wants an answer now, this has been eating at the uncle for a very long time now. And he has been wanting to unburden himself and ask for forgiveness for a while now.

"Ten ... listen to me, now is not the ..."

Before he can finish his sentence Ten asks again.

"What do you mean?"

His uncle can tell that Ten has been dealing with his own demons for a while now and that the lies and deceit have taken a toll on him. And now that the truth is in front of him, nothing will stop him from hearing it. So with a broken voice and a slightly quivering lip, the uncle starts explaining.

"I'm really sorry, I didn't know things would go the way they did."

"What things?"

His uncle lower his head and closes his eyes as he doesn't want to see the judgment he will receive.

"I was the one who told your mother to try Glia and have your father try it as well."

Ten freezes as his uncle tries to explain his reasoning.

"I was just trying to help. Your mother was stressed out because your dad was crashing out, and you were caught in the middle. And I thought that if your dad did better at his job he would bring less of that stress back home and everyone would be happier."

Ten doesn't know what to say. He can only mutter broken words.

"You ... you .... It was you ..."

Just as Ten is about to completely freak out, Demo is thrown between the two as if he was just hit by a truck. The clone looks at Demo with soulless eyes as it repeats itself one more time.

"Come or death."

Demo stands up slowly as if he was hurt. He looks at Ten and his uncle.

"You two might want to step back. This guy doesn't seem like he can see the difference between friend or enemy."

Demo now fully realizes that his punches and kicks aren't working. So he will try to see if his Higher Reasoning transformation abilities can help him. He grabs a rock and closes his eyes to transform it into a blade he might be able to use. But the moment his eyes are closed he feels a punch to the face. The clone didn't wait for Demo to finish and instead just punched him when the opportunity presented itself.

Demo flies even further back. The corners of his eyes are turning black. His anger at his inability to fight the clone is frustrating him to no end. He releases a scream of anger as he is about to be swallowed by his own rage.

But right as his eyes are about to go completely black he gets thrown two fighting gauntlet gloves that he has to catch and refocuses his mind. He looks at the gloves and then looks at Ten who has gone into A.I. emergency mode and is now capable of doing high level Higher Reasoning.

"Ten?"

Ten responds but it's in the voice of Mai.

"Ten was about to mentally collapse so I stepped in to save him. And he had pretty much made up his mind to help you, so I'm just following through."

"I don't understand, but thank you."

Demo puts on the fighting gauntlet gloves and takes a fighting stance.

"Lets try again."

Chapter 21 Fin