Beast Soul

"Are you going to stand there and watch or are you going to fight me?" Noah interrupted A.J.'s train of thought, which made him click his tongue and then glance at Noah with a frustrated expression.

"You're not planning on letting me go, are you?" A.J. asked as he raised both his arms and stretched his legs out, assuming a fighting stance. "Were you guys planning on letting me go when I rejected your invitation to join the secret society?" Noah answered his question with another question as he began to slowly walk forward, intimidating A.J.

"Yeah, I guess not!" A.J. shook his head. He had a disappointed expression on his face for a split second before it was replaced by a serious one as he rushed towards Noah.

"There you go! Now that's what I wanted!" Noah said with a smile on his face as he too rushed forward, appearing before A.J. in an instant. 

'Sh*t! Even though I had seen his speed before.. He's still way too fast!' A.J was still caught off guard by how quickly Noah decreased the distance between them, despite the fact that he had personally witnessed his movements and his speed while he was taking on Gabriel. 

His speed was simply inhuman! A.J. thought to himself as he swung his fist right at Noah's face, hoping that he'll find his target.

Of course, Noah was still concealing most of his special abilities. He was even holding back when it came to his speed as well. That's why, although Noah's speed might seem inhuman to a normal person, it's nothing too crazy like traveling at the speed of light either. He was just fast enough to blend the concepts of what is possible and what is not together, so that the audience aren't sure of what they see or what to believe.

Whoosh!

Noah tilted his head with ease as the punch that A.J. threw passed right by his ears. Noah might've dodged that easily, but the fact that his punch was so close to hitting his face made it seem like he only barely dodged it. To a normal person, his response, although extremely quick and difficult to pull off in reality, must've seemed like a hastily made movement, making them subconsciously think that the whole process was a lot more normal. 

"Is that all you've got?" Noah said in a nonchalant manner as he pulled his arm back and punched straight at A.J's abdomen without wasting a single second.

Before A.J. could do anything else, Noah's fist collided with his body, and all of a sudden, his eyesight began to weaken, and he could feel that he was losing his consciousness.

BAM!

The loud noise was followed by A.J's body flying backwards into the air as he let out a loud gasp, and fell down onto the floor with a thud. He too was unconscious. 

Adrian looked back and forth at the unconscious bodies of Gabriel and A.J. with shock and surprise in his eyes as he mumbled to himself, "Crazy… this is just crazy…"

"I told you, didn't I?" Noah's calm voice entered his ears, and Adrian turned around to find Noah looking at him with a smile on his face. "I got this." Noah said while he gave a thumbs up to Adrian, who couldn't even respond properly to his words in time.

'Well, color me impressed, I guess…' Adrian thought to himself as he stared at Noah. If this is how quickly the fights are going to end, then Noah really could take down the whole hierarchical society all by himself. 

"Are there any other members inside this building right now?" Noah asked as he looked around the gymnasium, but found no one. 

"I don't know.." Adrian shrugged his shoulders. He was with Noah the whole time, after all. "I told you, didn't I? They don't have a specific location to have meetings. So who you find in the building is based simply on your luck."

"Right, right…" Noah nodded his head as he kneeled down right next to the unconscious body of A.J. and began rummaging through his clothes, which made Adrian look at him with a puzzled expression. "What are you doing?"

Noah didn't answer immediately, and held up his index finger in the air, asking Adrian to be patient as he continued rummaging through his unconscious opponent's clothes. 

"Aha! Found it!" All of a sudden, Noah's eyes lit up like a lightbulb as he pulled his hand out from A.J's pocket and held it up in the air, revealing a smartphone. 

"Isn't that his phone?" Adrian asked as he began walking towards Noah, who nodded his head. "Since we don't have the whereabouts of the other members.." Noah grabbed A.J's finger and placed it on the phone screen, unlocking the device, and continued, "We'll just call them and tell them what just happened."

"That's your plan?" Adrain asked, looking shocked once again. "To call the other members?" 

"Yeah," Noah nodded his head as he pulled up A.J's whatsapp account. "Oh, would you look at that?" Noah turned the phone around and showed the screen to Adrian, who brought his eyes closer to it in order to read what was written on the phone screen. 

"It's.. information about you?" Adrian said as he squinted his eyes at the screen, and Noah nodded his head. On the phone was a message containing detailed information about Noah. 

Adrian continued reading further, and then shifted his gaze towards the sender of the message, and his eyes widened. "Dax?" He almost shouted out loud, and Noah looked at him with his eyebrows raised. "You know this person? Is he a big shot in the school?"

"Well, by bigshot, if you mean never lost a fight to anyone except the King, then yeah… I guess he is a big shot!" Adrian responded immediately and Noah scratched his chin as he stared at the phone screen in his hands. "Huh.. is that so?"

Beep!

Before Adrian could realize what his plan was, Noah had already clicked the call button on the screen and placed the phone close to his ear. 

"I assume you're calling to tell me that the order is completed?" A rusty voice entered Noah's ear. Noah couldn't see the person's face, but he could tell, just by listening to his voice, that he was confident. A bit too confident to Noah's liking.

"Where are you?" Noah decided to cut to the chase and flat out asked Dax's location. 

"Who is this?" Dax, who was expecting the voice of A.J. to respond to his words, was now confused as to who the person on the other side was. 

"Who else could it be? The person whose name was on the order that you sent." Noah answered bluntly, and Adrian could only let out a helpless sigh. 

"Noah Pemberton?" Dax sounded surprised. He surely wasn't expecting such a turn of events. 

"That's right. And you still didn't answer my question." Noah asked once again. "Where are you right now?"

"Did you beat the other two?" Dax's voice still had a surprised tone, but Noah couldn't care less about his questions. "Alright, since you don't plan on telling me your location, I'll tell you mine." Noah said as he crossed his arms. "I'm at the old abandoned school building. In the gymnasium. Bring your pals with you, and we can put an end to this once and for all."

"Listen, Noah, you don't know what you're saying.." Dax's voice turned serious as he realized what Noah was saying. "You'll regret this. I'm giving you another chance here."

"Goodbye," Dax expected Noah to continue with the conversation, but he didn't even bother with it. Noah hung up the phone, leaving a shocked Dax speechless on the other line. 

"You do understand what you've done, right?" Adrian said as he planted his hand on his face and shook his head. 

"I got this, remember?" Noah said with a chuckle, and Adrian let out another sigh. "I guess you do…"

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"Boss! Those b*tches are coming!" Ben said to Joey, who nodded his head and licked his lips with a smile on his face. "Perfect! Today's going to be a good day for training my punches!" He said as he cracked his knuckles. "I feel like my punches are getting sloppy these days.."

'That's because you've put on some weight!' Ben thought to himself, but didn't dare say those words out loud.

"What took you b*tches so long?" Joey said with a crooked grin as he stretched out both his arms, waiting for the group. 

However, as the group got closer and closer, Joey felt that the atmosphere was a bit different than usual. He couldn't pinpoint exactly what the difference was, but he could feel it.

His gaze then went straight to Max, who was the first one to arrive in front of him and said, "Since you took so long to get here, I hope you're ready to receive some punish-"

BAM!

But before he could finish his words, Max punched him right on his nose, which pushed him backwards as he screamed with pain, "AHHH!"