"BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!"
Marie was in the air above an empty grassy field, sparring with her father to improve her fighting skills.
After a few blocks and casual deflects, Nolan began to get serious and threw attacks of his own in the mix.
"CRACK!"
A fist smacked hard into Marie's stomach, and a visible wave of force erupted from her back.
The force of the blow launched her backward, but she was unable to stop her momentum, so instead of trying to stop, she flew forward, using the force of the blow to help slingshot her across the planet. Within a few seconds of max-speed flight, she arrived on the other side of the open field with her feet pointed towards Nolan, who was unaware of her plan.
"BOOOM!"
Nolan was only able to defend at the last second when he heard the sound of her travel and put his arms up just in time to block the powerful kick.
However—
"BOOM!"
The blow seemed to shatter his defenses, which brought both surprise to his eyes and a proud smile to his face as he was blasted in the opposite direction like a missile being launched until he forcibly landed on his feet, carving a deep trench in the once pristine grassland.
"Not bad!"
Nolan moved his arm as if he was recovering from damage in an exaggerated way, angering Marie to the point her face had turned red, and she once again lunged at her father, however, unlike the previous spars, he swiftly dodged her strike with minimal effort, using nothing but his ability to fly as he weaved elegantly from side to side
"STOP..."
POW
"FUCKING..."
POW
"MOVING!!"
POW
Each missed strike still caused the air to explode beyond her fist before it shot into the distance, creating small fist shaped craters in the ground throughout the field.
Nolan couldn't help but chuckle as he grabbed the incoming fist with his hand and stopped it in its tracks right in front of his face as the wave of force swept past his head like a spring breeze.
"That is enough for today, Marie, go get some rest!"
Nolan said as the still heavily breathing Marie did her best to settle down.
After a few seconds of heavy breathing, she managed to control herself, although she still had a noticeable pout on her face as she looked up at Nolan.
Before the pouting can continue, Nolan puts his hands up and says, "Don't worry, we will do this again!"
After saying this, Nolan flew off to another part of the world, and as he disappeared over the horizon, he pondered over continuing his mission, but after thinking about Marie's awkward combat skills, he came to a conclusion
"I'll give it another week, then it's time!"
Back at the Teen Team HQ, William was once again in the gym, however, eventually his thoughts fell onto how borderline useless he was during the fight against the Mauler Twins and was really only useful as a human shield, only becoming more useful when his bones were exposed and sharpened in their broken states.
"I need to learn how to fight, this brawler shit just won't cut it and I'd prefer to avoid pain if I can help it!"
Eventually, he decided to ask Cecil.
"Yeah, kid, I will see who is available, but no promises, these people have their own lives after all!" Cecil said before hanging up the call and leaving William to once again continue working out.
But before he did so, he kindly asked Robot if he would leave one of his bodies here as a spotter, and within minutes, Robot arrived in a body clearly designed for heavy lifting.
"Boom, Boom, Boom!"
The sounds of the weights being dropped echoed through the room and eventually stopped entirely as his increasing strength allowed him to quiet the weights with a small amount of extra effort.
Robot was taking scans of Williams' body as the workouts continued, and his real body's eyes shimmered when he thought of an idea.
He immediately opened a notepad app on his personal Robot unit and wrote down an amendment for his previous plan.
Eventually, Cecil called back and informed William that War Woman is currently available as she had just completed a deal merging her company with another and no longer had any work until the next crisis.
"When you meet her, keep your eyes where they should be, she is a well-known man-hater after all!"
After telling William this tidbit, Cecil hung up the call, and William worked out for another few hours when he felt the energy in his body reaching the point where he would pass out again and stopped.
He thanked Robot for his assistance and began moving towards the shower, where he cleansed himself of the sweat and filth.
When he came out, the whole team within the base was standing around someone who had arrived, and when William finally managed to take a peek, he saw a woman with a fierce green glare and a large mace made of some kind of golden metal on her shoulder being showered with praises from the team before her piercing glare fell onto William and she stepped forward ignoring the rest of the group.
She walked up to William and, without saying a word, grabbed him by the scruff of his collar and began dragging him to the training room, and despite his incessant struggle he was unable to stop himself from being thrown into the room with great force and began rolling before he slammed into the back wall.
"HYAK!" William spat out a mouthful of blood, the collision with the back wall had nearly severed his spine, and only after a few seconds did he start moving again.
He got up from his sprawled position and looked at the woman standing in front of him in the center of the room with a cold glare.
"Something you want to say, boy?"
William was about to open his mouth for a retort when suddenly—
"Crack!"
A golden mace slammed into William's ribs and knocked the wind out of his lungs, as well as rupturing his spleen.
However, in a move that surprised War Woman and caused her eyes to glint in something other than hatred, William grasped the handle of the mace and, despite the immense pain, began to struggle against her power.
"This boy isn't bad!"
She thought as she released the pressure on the mace and allowed William to get to his feet and watched as the red mark where his flesh had been struck quite quickly began to return to normal.
"Amazing!"
She had seen impressive healing factors before, she works closely alongside Immortal after all, but this...
This was something else entirely, it was as if his very cells and atoms were adapting to the damage they received on the fly.
"Attack me with everything you have!"
She commands before setting down her mace.
"BOOM!"
A muffled boom echoed through the room, and a divot formed as if the weight of the mace was pressing into the floor.
William launched himself at the woman and threw his fist as hard towards her chest, which she guarded with both arms.
"BANG!"
The sound of his fist colliding with her bracers, which diffuses most of the force of the blow however, he follows up with a knee, which he aimed just under her guard, but before the attack could land, she reached up with her hands, grabbed William's head and smashed it against his own knee.
"CRACK!"
William's nose broke in an extremely loud way which caused the team watching from the door to cringe when they heard it.
"HAHAHAHAHA, what a dumbass, thinking he could handle War Woman!" Rex chided William even as he laughed uproariously, earning him an elbow from both Eve and Kate.
"Ouch, hey, what the hell?"
They were about to continue their nonsense when they heard a series of powerful blows landing and felt a shiver running down their spines collectively.
Even Robot was cringing inside his main body when he saw the fist of War Woman nearly appear visibly from the other side of William's body, causing him to spit out a monstrous amount of blood and what appeared to be shredded organs.
War Woman had a sudden look of concern on her face as she only just now realized she had gone too far. She approached to check if William was okay when his head lifted and his eyes still filled with resilience and spirit.
This caused her to smile, despite his nature as a man, she quite appreciated a warrior's spirit.
The two continued to spar relentlessly for many days until, around the fifth day, she received a sudden call from a special cell phone.
"I have been called to the Guardians HQ, do you want to come with me and see the big leagues?"
She said as she held her hand out to stop William in his tracks to prevent him from continuing the spar.
Despite his impressive growth, she still greatly outclassed William in terms of strength and durability, which is shown in the ease with which she stopped his charge.
When William calmed down, he nodded fervently to his teacher, whom he had come to respect out of a mixture of fear and respect.
Seeing his nod of approval, War Woman grabbed William by his wrist and began floating, which initially caught him off guard, but he felt strangely comfortable as he was being carried through the opening in the top of the base.
As the two flew through the air, the rest of the team down below had confused looks on their faces as they heard William's yell of joy steadily fading into the distance.
It wasn't long before the two arrived at another base with a more serious look on the inside that made it look less like a frat common room and more like a communications and planning hub.
In the room stood a strange green alien with a strangely shaped body and head, a woman in a green full-body suit, a strange fish man, a man in a red suit, and another man who looked like a buff version of Abe Lincoln with slightly different facial hair and a super suit.
A man in a black suit with a billowing cape asked after descending to the ground from somewhere above before approaching the others.
"Darkwing, why did you call us here?"
The bearded man in the super suit asked as confused as everyone else.
"Me?"
Darkwing says with his lack of understanding on full display.
War Woman pushed William directly behind her in order to protect him from any surprises.
"So, none of us signaled the alert!"
War Woman scanned her surroundings to look for a potential threat, but couldn't see anyone.
"Oh God, what's going on, is it bad?"
As the woman in green said this the man in red had a serious look on his face as he scanned the surroundings and suddenly his eyes went wide, and he activated his powers.
"WHOOSH!"
The man in red suddenly began to move towards the bearded man. From the other side of the bearded man, he could see a still-moving silhouette of someone attacking his comrade
The red man rushed to the bearded man's side and pushed hard before moving his head backward to avoid the fist.
A white and red silhouette flashed past the bearded man and slid into the center of the room with everyone looking at him in shock.
"HUH?"
War Woman let out in shock, along with several other members of the Guardians.
"Omni-man?"
The bearded man asked in shock and betrayal.
"HAAAAA!"
War Woman pushed William with her full might, knowing full well that she could trust him to survive the blow and sent him flying to the opposite side of the room and away from the crux of the fight before lunging towards Nolan with her mace in hand.
"WENG!"
The mace passed by Nolan, who dodged and was about to throw another punch, which was intercepted by a red blur, forcing Nolan to turn around searching for the nuisance when a grouping of exploding boomerangs collides with him forcing him to block but still knocking him back surprisingly.
As he was still recovering, the fish man let out a growl before launching an intense blast of water towards Nolan, who blocked the beam of water before leaping over it and charging up a powerful downward punch towards the fish man's head.
The red blur once again showed up and moved the fish man out of the way just before the fist landed, causing Nolan's fist to create spiderweb cracks in the ground beneath him.
When Nolan looked up, he was suddenly attacked by the red blur repeatedly, not doing much damage but still annoying him greatly.
The red blur came back around for another attack run when his arm was caught by Nolan, who was much quicker than he expected.
Nolan, with an expressionless look on his face, pulled the man in red close and grabbed both sides of the man's head before he began applying pressure.
The man in red began desperately punching Nolan in his chest with such speed that his arms were a blur, however, the pressure continued to increase, and the glasses over the red man's face broke in response as blood began to pool in his mouth.
Suddenly, the red man's eye popped out, and the pressure within his skull reached a critical point.
"SPLAT!"
The red man's head burst like a watermelon, spraying Nolan and the Guardians, who were on their way to help but were too slow to do anything.
The first of the Guardians had fallen this day.