Travis woke up with a splitting headache.he groaned, and looked around taking in his surroundings. He was in a hospital bed. Kiara, Taylor, and Justin were in the room, along with 2 guys and a girl he didn't recognize, all of them were talking to someonein hushed voices, but he couldn't see who it was.
On a bed to his right was the girl he had been fighting. He tried to move his arms,but found he was strapped to the bed. He looked back to the woman and saw she was similarly restrained.
"Hey, what's going on?" Travis asked, h8s voice raspy and hoarse. "Where am I?"
The group went silent, then split revealing a man who appeared to be about 45. He studied Travis, for a moment before speaking. "I'll explain everything. But you'll have to wait for her to wake up as well."
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They waited for about 10 minutes before she woke up, and went through a process similar to what Travis did when he woke up.
"Good, now that you both are awake we can talk. My name is Captain Edward Von Ekster, I am your company commander. I apologize for not introducing myself earlier, but I've been busy. You are currently in the infirmary here in the company. Now, let me start this off by asking what the last thing you remember is."
"I was choking her out, then there was a sharp pain in my shoulder, I dont remember anything after that though."
"It's pretty much the same for me, its like I was drugged."
"That's because you were drugged. What were you feeling during the second half of the fight?"
"I was upset because I could tell I was losing, even though I should've been able to win no problem." The woman said
"I was angry that she used her abilities after saying I was worthless without my own."
"I thought so. It would seem during the fight you lost control of yourselves due to pride and wrath respectively. It would appear that the so called 'divine shards' they put in all of us were more aptly named than I realized.
Even when the referee called for you to end the fight, neither of you did. It really seemed like you were going to kill each other. We had no choice but to sedate you and restrain you so you wouldn't cause problems when you woke up. Do you still feel like going on a rampage?"
"No." They both answered simultaneously.
"So what happened after that, and how long were we out?" Travis asked.
"We stopped all matches until we could figure out what the problem was. And it's a good thing we did, who knows how many more joes we would've had to knock out if we hadn't. Everyone else got the day off, your companions here have been with you since then. Its been about 5 hours since we knocked you out."
"What about the trial? How is that going to work?" She asked.
"We aren't going to do any more where you are fighting one another, in the trials or training, until we figure out how to deal with this. Your performances will be taken into account, but it wouldn't be fair to give it much weight since the max score is 200 now, and most people didn't even have enough matches to try and reach that.
I have a great deal of work to do, so I will leave you to talk amongst yourselves. Doc said you aren't to leave this room until tomorrow, he wants to keep an eye on you both." He turned to the group standing nearby. "You can undo their restraints, they seem to be in a stable state of mind. If this happens again let me know right away."
With that he walked out, leaving the 8 of them to talk amongst themselves.
"So where's Victor, Lance, and Rebecca?" Travis asked as they undid his restraints.
"After the fight, Victor went to the gym and has been there ever since. I think he was afraid of falling behind after seeing how strong the two of you are. Lance and Rebecca went to go spend time with their kids. With wverything thats happened lately they havent been able to as much as they want." Taylor told him
They undid the last strap holding him down, and tried to sit up, but the world turned yellow and started spinning, so he decided to just lay back down. Then he looked over at the woman.
"Hey, I'm sorry about all of that. I don't usually try to murder people. Whats your name?"
She was silent for a moment, rotating her wrists which were stiff and bruised from being held down so tightly. "I'm sorry too, I don't know what came over me. And its Vanessa Ashvale, you?"
"Travis Miller. And for what it's worth I think you're an incredible fighter. Even when we were both going all out you really gave me a run for my money."
"Well at the end there if they hadn't stopped us you definitely would have passed out before me."
"How do you figure that? I had as much of my weight pressing on your throat as I could manage."
She laughed as best she could with the injuries to her throat. "Lets just say I'm used to it."
"Forget I asked."
"Oh don't go getting all shy on me now. You started this, see it through to the end."
"Fine... why are you used to it."
"My dad used to choke me and my sister out whenever he got drunk, and he drank often."
"Oh my god! What the fuck!" Everyone said at once.
"Way to kill the mood sis." The woman Travis didn't recognize said. "You could've just said you're kinky or something but you just had to bring up the old bastard."
"You're her sister?" Travis asked, surprised because the woman was tall and lanky with red hair and pale skin, and Vanessa was her total opposite, short and curvy with jet black hair and tan skin.
"Yeah, I'm Victoria Ashvale. I take after our dad, my socially inept sister here takes after our mom."
"Well you're both gorgeous, even if you don't look alike." Kiara said, flashing a smile at the sisters.
"Kiara, stop hitting on everyone you meet!" Justin scolded her.
They all laughed, continuing to talk for a while afterwards.