Chapter 58：A friend amongst strangers

A few minutes had past since James' match with Colverk. The strange force had dropped him off inside a room that was quite similar to a four star hotel room. There was a fridge, table and chairs, a bed, a bathroom, and a screen embedded in the wall which James guessed to be some kind of television.

As James sat at the table in grey pyjama bottoms and a bathrobe with a glass water in his hand, he reviewed his fight. Colverk was quite a challenge. His raw speed allowed him to put a lot of power behind his attacks and even when the whole arena had been shattered the accuracy he had to propel off those fragments was amazing. Thinking about accuracy, James thought putting a little work into improving 'kinetic rebound' would be quite useful. Currently, it releases all of the stored energy at once in quite a large area but focusing small amounts of the stored energy would be devastating. And a more ranged based attack would...

THUD!

"AH! MA FOOT!" His train of though was abruptly interrupted but a shout from outside the room's door. He got up and swung open the door. Outside was woman. She was about five foot, green eyes, and wore tight, black, fingerless gloves, blue knee length shorts with a white line down the side, no shoes, and a boxing branded cap that concealed her hair. She was standing on her left leg clutching her right foot.

"Are you alright?" asked James; More annoyed than concerned. The woman looked up - only just noticing James had opened the door - and completely forgot about her foot. Her eyes sparkled and her mouth stood slightly open as she scanned James up and down in awe.

"It's you! You're James! The one who took down Colverk!" she spoke quickly and grabbed James' hand in a desperate attempt of a handshake. "I thought you were amazing! He was going so fast but you took every hit! And when the arena was shattered into pieces and you burst into flames! That heat was so intense! What do you-" James wrapped his free hand around her mouth to silence her.

"If you are done, please move on." he said trying not to show how annoyed he really was. He released her face, stepped backwards in the room, and closed the door.

"I just won my first match!" said the woman now sitting at the table opposite to where James had been sitting. James gave up and sat back down at the table. The sooner this conversation was over, the sooner he could get back to planning.

"Look, who are you and what do you want?" asked James downing the last of his water. The woman got a little more giddy.

"My name is Samantha, but people call me Sam for short. I just wanted to talk to you. You were so cool! Macull even had to remake the arena out of a stronger material because you broke it so easily! And you should've seen the look on other people's faces! They were making jokes about you as Colverk repeatably hit you but by the end they were in complete shock. One guy - I didn't really see the rest of his face behind his hood - he was smiling and saying something like 'I expected nothing less'. Do you know him?" asked Sam. James finished soaking in everything that had been said.

"Well not ALL your friends. I can be friend! If that's alright with you?"

"Heh, why not."

"Great! The tournament continues tomorrow so I'm going to get some rest. Bye!" James was suddenly greeted with a flash and some smoke. He looked up and Sam was gone. Well, he looked out the now open window beside the table and saw her slowly edging herself down a tree. The sun behind her.

James looked out the window for a bit longer. He still couldn't believe what he saw when he first looked out the window. The whole place was resting on the back of a island that was floating in space with a single sun and a moon. He still had a lot of day light left from what it seemed to training would definitely be a good start. If Colverk was anything like the other contestants then any training was usefully training.