Chapter 9: Chapter 9: Fight Club (1)
After finishing our 6 months of gruelling training, I felt like we actually had to start getting stronger. Well, we were getting stronger until now, but that part was a bit more like a preparation, to get our bodies strong enough to endure what we will go through sooner or later.
Our fighting styles, though unique and strong, aren't much to show in the grand scheme of things. Even with our 1.5x stat gain multiplier, right now, we're still nothing compared to people like Hawkeye and Black Widow.
My goal is to get on the shield's radar by the invasion and to do that, we'll definitely need powers. I know Pete's fine because he's gonna get bit by the spider pretty soon, with or without the changes that I've made to his life. It's impossible not to happen! Pete getting bit by the spider is a cannon event in every universe, and even if he doesn't, he'll end up with spider powers anyway, being the spider totem and all. Fuck, madame web was so bad.
Anyways, it's bound to happen. Pete said something about his class going on a field trip to Stark Industries in a few days, and I'm 99% sure that's when it's bound to happen. I always wondered how MCU Peter got his powers, with, you know, no Oscorp. Maybe it was a spider that went through the bigass arc reactor in the main building? Ok, that's my headcanon now.
Back on point, the problem is me. I have no idea how I'm going to get superpowers. Up to this point, most of the quests that my system gave me didn't have really great rewards, but my current belief is that if I keep grinding quests, I'll somehow get something useful. I'm not even asking for much. Even just a regular skill would be so useful.
Right now, me and Pete were on our way to the park where we always ran in the mornings, to discuss our future plans with him. We all hated this place because it gave us PTSD, but it still naturally became our hangout spot.
From the distance, we could see a tall, fit, tan-skinned guy with a short wolf cut waving his hand at us. It was Ned. It was amazing to see how much he changed just by losing some weight! His glow-up was almost as good as mine when I moved into this world. Almost.
Anyway, we found our way to a picnic table to start planning.
"Alright, guys. Up to this point, we've trained our bodies so we can, at a bare minimum, survive."
Peter and Ned both burst into complaints, as they're pretty confident with how much they've improved till now.
"Ok. let me put this into perspective for you guys. What are you gonna do against somebody with a gun? What about against multiple people? What about people with superpowers? What are you going to do, if the monster from Harlem comes knocking at our door." I convey to them.
That shut them up real quick.
"First step, is Ned, I'm going to need you to hack into this organization called Shield. It's short for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistic Division. That's a secret government group, kind of like the SCP foundation in real life."
Both Peter and Ned looked amazed, equally at the actual topic and how I somehow got ahold of this information.
"Okay, fine. I found this out while looking on the dark web." I sigh. Of course, I've never been on the dark web before. I can't just tell them I knew from my past life. "Anyways, Ned, I need you to forge me and Peter's fake identities as freshly requited agents, and sign us up for special training, from either someone called Natasha Romanoff or Clint Barton."
They still looked a little sus, but went on with it.
"How long do you think it's gonna take you, Ned?" Peter questions.
"Probably around a week, they must be really secretive if even I've never heard of them before. I'm confident to be able to hack into their servers by the time of our Stark Industries field tri-" Ned tries to continue, but me and Peter cut him off.
"No. (x2)" I was surprised to see Peter also deny him, but I guess that just makes it easier.
"Ned, dude. You know I've been looking forward to this field trip all year. Let's start that serious shit after a break." Pete begs Ned.
"Fine, fine. I'll just have more time I guess." Ned easily folded.
I was halfway ready to pull some half-cooked excuse out of my ass talking about some "this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience!" or something to force Peter to go. But if that's the case, all of us will have a few days to slack off before Part 2 of hell training, Shield Edition.
Just then somebody comes running up to us. He looks a little familiar, I think his name was Joe or something. He's one of the people that we've sparred against a couple of times during our time training.
"Joe? What's up?" Me and Peter say in unison.
Joe, clearly out of breath from running to find us, handed Pete a flier. "Guys. Look. Something big is about to happen. My name John by the way."
We look at the flier that Joe, no. John handed us.
Well, the universe just doesn't want me to have a break, do they. I bet One Above All is chuckling at me from somewhere right now.
I hear some light chortling from the picnic table beside me and see a familiar old man giggling. I swear I've seen that face somewhere. Whatever. What's more important is the flier that Jeff (a/n it's Joe you fkin idiot) handed us. Me and Peter lock eyes.
"We gonna...?" Peter starts
"Yes." I quickly react.
On the flier, it reads "To all 16 fighters scouted by our amazing staff! We are hereby inviting you to our annual totally legal fight club! It will be a tournament bracket with 16 slots, where the winner gets the chance to face off with the consecutive winner of the last 4 tournaments, challenging the title of the strongest fighter of America!" In the background of the flier, I could see a very familiar figure, presumed to be the former winner, wearing a black mask, and a golden crown. My stomach does a flip. The face was covered, but the studs on his body were unmistakable.
At the bottom of the flier, in very small text, we could see the meeting location and date for the tournament. And even below that, with even smaller text, we could see it saying something about not taking responsibility for the deaths caused by the event or something like that. It can't be all that important though.
More importantly, we were scouted? I looked back up trying to locate Jack, but he just wasn't there. He must've run away while we were concentrating on the invitation. I didn't expect that guy to be a secret scouter of some underground fight club...
I've got a bad feeling about this..." Peter spoke out with dread in his voice.
"Well, it's too late. We were gonna do it anyway, but now we're forced to. I already got a quest."
[Quest Alert!: Punch First, Regret Later.]
[Due to your outstanding growth and unique fighting style, you and your party have been invited to an annual underground fighting tournament, to challenge the title of the strongest underground fighter. Attend the tournament.]
[Reward: Personalized weapon based on performance]
Gulp
(a/n sorry for the late-ish chapter, I was gonna upload earlier but I didn't have access to my laptop. also this chapter was kinda filler, but you gotta get ready for the tournament arc. its gonna be fire with a bunch of cameos)