Chapter 5: The Fight I
Taking long strides, whistling a merry tune, Magnus hiked down from the mountain leading to his home. He had been through it so many times, he could even walk the couple kilometers blindfolded. He thought about the first time he had found this place, it had been many years since then.
He remembered he had been running away for hours from this group of useless hooligans, who, now that he thought about it, could easily be beaten up by the present him.
They had picked on him for weeks and extorted the little amount of money he had, which they spent on buying garbage and throwing it on him, and once he had no more, they played this sort of 'game' to see the first person who could find him and beat him on the point of death.
'Scum.'
At one point, he got tired of all the beatings and realized he didn't want to be stuck in a back-water place like that, getting beaten up like some stray dog. His eyes were filled with resolve as he ran forward and jumped to one of them and hit him square in the nose.
Without waiting for a reaction, the young him ran, for a long, long, time, while they pursued him. Although they were faster, he was able to slip through small gaps and holes, and barely evaded them each time. Eventually, he reached this hill in the middle of nowhere and ran all the way up, passing out from fatigue.
After waking up, he found that he had outrun them, and his back was leaning on something metal-like, which was different from the surroundings. A little searching let him find a key to that metal door, and that's where he spent his time since then.
Although the region he lived in was called a suburban one, the technology and development of the region could practically be called a village when compared to many other suburbs. Needless to say, there wasn't a branch of the Academy in his sector. He had to take the train to the nearest city. Although it was called a city, it was more of a metropolis. It was considered the unofficial capital of his country, Solaris.
It was the city of Zion.
Magnus had gone to Zion a couple of times, although most of those times were for completing official procedures. He was really eager to actually visit the city.
Magnus went to the ticket booth and bought a ticket with the already small amount of money he had. He had been saving up money for the past couple of years, doing odd jobs here and there, whenever he was free. The train system was the most used form of transport to travel in between sectors, thus, it wasn't very expensive. However, it still took up a significant portion of his minimal funds.
The ticket showed that there was still 20 minutes for his train to arrive.
The first thing he thought of was his hair, which was smoothened by the makeover, but still unkempt. So, he went to a nearby barber and got his hair, which was way too long, cut and then styled.
He then spent some more of his money buying new, proper, clothes at the cheapest store he could find. Even though the new outfit wasn't great, with his new looks and physique, dashing was the only way to describe him.
What Magnus didn't know was that if anyone who knew his parents were to see him, they wouldn't even take a second before realizing who his parents were.
After grabbing a quick snack and drink, he noticed that the train was due to arrive in a minute, so he rushed to the terminal, barely making it in time.
Magnus was in a good mood, this was the most money he had ever spent in his entire life. He never went shopping for anything, and mostly poked around trash-filled areas to find 'new' things.
Quietly humming a happy little tune to himself, he found an empty compartment after searching through the coaches for a bit. He hopped into the compartment and sat down in the window seat and enjoyed the scenery speeding by him, that he'd barely experienced before.
*Yawn*
***
30 Minutes later,
Magnus had fallen fast asleep, leaning his head on the window.
His compartment was still empty, but the train was relatively full, and there were lots of people on board.
The train abruptly stopped, there were a lot of men, like a small private army, standing in front of the train tracks, in the middle of nowhere, causing the train to come to an abrupt halt.
The men spared no time in entering every coach of the train in small groups of 7-12.
Magnus's coach was near the back, so it took some time for the 'men in black' to arrive and for the civilians to understand what was happening.
Somebody was about to check out the situation, when suddenly, the entrance door, was opened. Seven bulky men, dressed in full black attire with masks on their heads, entered the coach. They shouted in coarse, bellowing voices,
"EVERYBODY GET YOUR FUCKING ASSES UP, RIGHT NOW!."
Screams and shrieks were heard across the compartments. The train Magnus was on was a civilian one. Civilians could basically be called non-combatants. Although the coming of the towers made humanity's main goal to climb the towers and become stronger, not everyone was suited towards fighting.
Many people opted to study instead of fight and were classified as civilians. Civilians were also a core part of humanity, countless hours of research were conducted everyday experimenting with materials gained from the tower and the gates, and it wasn't very rare for new inventions and discoveries to be found daily.
Institutes like the Academy weren't only for warriors. There is a multitude of paths one could take in their education, even though fighters were the most popular. The flexibility of their education was why Institutes like the Academy were the go-to.
"HANDS UP. I WANNA SEE EVERYONE'S FUCKING HANDS UP."
Even more squeals and cries were heard as one of the men in black, drew out a heavy revolver-like weapon. As one got stronger and climbed the towers, mechanical and technological weapons like firearms stopped being effective. However, amongst civilians and the weak, firearms were more than enough to be fatal.
The man with the revolver took a random woman close to him, and held his pistol right next to her, pointing at her neck.
"LISTEN UP, IF ANY OF YOU DO ANYTHING AT ALL THAT ANNOYS US, YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE, JUST LIKE THIS BITCH HERE. HAHAH-"
Before the man was even able to finish his threat, what appeared to be a streak of gold buzzed through the relatively large coach. It dashed into the man's torso who gasped after the sudden impact onto his stomach and dropped the gun in his hands. The person immediately kicked his pistol across the ground, which slid off through the floor. He then went over to it and stepped on it and broke it.
And just like that, the only firearm with those 7 had been broken. This was a different time after all, and powerful firearms that potentially could even harm strong individuals were hard to acquire, and even semi-powerful technological weapons that would be able to easily finish off regular humans were really hard and expensive to acquire. Even among every one of those men in the train, there were only 4 firearms, all of which were the same type of revolver, which signified that these people had some backing.
The figure with golden hair stood still, and everyone could now see what he looked like. It was a young man, who appeared to be around Magnus' age, had appeared. He had shining blonde hair, with blue eyes.
He dashed towards the man who had the gun and leaped facing him. The boy bent his elbow in the air and slammed it hard into the burly man's jaw. He then used his knee and hurled it into the man's jaw to break it even further.
*CRACK*
There was a loud cracking noise as the man's face bent in an angle it shouldn't have. Saliva flew out from his mouth as he fell onto the ground and he breathed his last.
Bewilderment was apparent on his face, he barely even had time to react to the boy appearing before the boy jumped 4 meters towards him and slammed into his neck.
The rest of the hooligans hadn't still had enough time to react properly, and he slowly began to fall down. The man had died. Gasps could be heard, this boy obviously wasn't just a civilian, he was really good at fighting. Judging by his fancy attire, and good looks, he was probably related to a 'Ranker'.
Rankers was the term given to those who had reached a high floor in the Tower. They were regarded as the apex of humanity, and each one was an international celebrity. The fact that someone related to something like that had appeared was a relief since he seemed to be powerful.
The civilians gasped, while the men in black started to get cautious, balling their fists, and getting ready to fight. The boy squinted his eyes and breathed out while jumping forward to fight them, without saying a word.
Meanwhile, Magnus was still asleep through all of this ruckus.
*Step*
*Step*
A girl with blonde hair that was even shinier than the one on the boy's head was crossing through the compartments, to get to the fight scene. She, just like the boy, looked the same age as Magnus and wore an elegant dress-like outfit.
She suddenly turned her face and stared at Magnus's oddly adorable sleeping face. She was crossing the compartments to go and help her brother out before she saw something out of the corner of her eyes that caught her attention.
It was Magnus, his pearly white skin, contrasting with his midnight-black hair, stood out to her, and so she looked at him a bit. However, after looking at him for a second, she found herself unable to look away.
She came to take a closer look at him. His smooth, silky hair that flowed down from his head seemed unreal. The way he leaned his face across let her take a look at his developed, but not bulky, neck and head muscles. She felt her heart skip a beat, and started to blush.
Even though Estelle was of the age to have developed an interest in boys and start having crushes, she had never felt anything of the sort and was more interested in climbing the tower.
However, right now, her face was currently as red as a beetroot as Magnus's head had fallen down which allowed her to catch a glimpse at the inside of his shirt. She didn't even mean to look, but the second she did, she felt her heart start to beat much faster and her blood started to rush.
Estelle was already enchanted by Magnus's looks. Now that his head fell down, she could get a proper look at him, and she was bewitched by what she saw. However, her trance didn't last long as Magnus suddenly woke up due to his head suddenly falling down.
"Huh? Who are you?" The first thing Magnus saw after waking up from his short nap was an attractive girl, around his age, staring at him from not even 10 centimeters away.
"What? O-O-OH. Nothing, I'm no one, no one." Estelle almost screamed out. Correcting her posture, but still blushing, she said, "Ahem, I don't think it's a good idea to be asleep when something this dangerous is happening. You could've gotten really hurt. This time, I woke you up, but next time try and stay awake."
"What? What's dangerous?" said Magnus, somehow not noticing the intense blush on her face.
"Oh come on, try and figure that one out yourself, it's not that hard," said Estelle, finally having calmed herself down.
*CRASH*
Just then, a loud crashing sound reverberated throughout the entire coach.
Magnus looked forward to the place the loud noise came from. He saw 7 brawny men, fully covered in black, including their faces, lying down, either dead or severely injured and unconscious on the floor. Then he saw the door to the next coach of the train busted open with a man, even huger than the other ones, holding a light-skinned, blonde-haired boy on the neck into the air with a firm grip, choking him.
The boy was flailing around trying to get the man's hand off of his neck, but failed to do so. He tried to scream, but it ended up sounding more like a croak. He gasped and said, "Estelle... please hel-". Before he could even finish his plea for help, the man put more strength into his grip.
"REMUUUUS!"
The girl right beside Magnus screamed. She immediately dashed to the men in all black, Magnus, who had a basic understanding of the situation by now, followed after her. After looking at the reactions of the civilians cowering in fear, he was pretty sure he knew what was happening by now.
'These men in black were probably causing some trouble, hijacking the train or robbing it or something. The boy who was getting choked probably tried to stop them, based on the 7 bodies on the ground, but finally got defeated by the person who seemed to be their leader. The girl beside him was probably the boy's companion or family.
The girl was probably on her way to help her buddy before noticing that Magnus was asleep, and came over to wake him up. His heart seized up when he realized that this predicament was most likely his fault.
Even though Magnus somewhat misunderstood the last part, he was right about how this situation was due to him.
The girl had reached the area of the fight and screamed to try and get the ring leader's attention so that he didn't harm Remus anymore.
"HEY, you BASTARD! Over here, leave him alone and fight me instead," the girl beside Magnus who
he believed the blonde boy called, 'Estelle', shouted out to the ring leader of the people in black.
"Oh? And who are you? Boys, rough that bitch up too. We'll make an example out of these rich brats. We can probably sell them back to their rich-ass families for quite a sum."
Following his orders, around 10 men from behind him came in front and began to rush towards Magnus and Estelle.
"Siiiigh."
Even though Magnus wasn't one to interfere with other people's business, these hooligans had decided to hijack the train, which didn't exactly make him comfortable. Besides, it was his fault the boy Estelle called 'Remus' was in this condition, as she probably would've been able to support him if not for her coming to wake him up.
However, before Magnus could tell the girl, Estelle, to leave this to him, she noticed he was following him and said, "Hey, this is gonna get dangerous, okay? Stay back, you might get hurt." before immediately rushing to fight with those thugs.
Magnus was now stuck in an awkward position, 'She must have not realized I'd come to help her," and he wasn't sure of what to do now.
'But since she had that much confidence, she must be strong enough to take them on without my help, right?'
But, as if denying him the right to stay a bystander, the system gave him a message.
[Quest Generated]
Quest Contents:
Estelle is fighting hard to save all the people on the train and to free Remus from the thugs who are hurting him. Help Estelle defeat the thugs on the train and their Ring-Leader.
Quest Failure Condition:
Host's death; Choosing not to help; Remus dies; Estelle dies; Innocent civilians die; Losing to the thugs.
Quest Rewards:
System's [Combat Function] is Unlocked.
'Welp, nevermind, guess I have to help her anyway.'
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Arm7
Arm7 :)
Every single power stone and addition to the library is really appreciated, I take a lot of time writing and editing this.
<3
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