16 Showing Them Power

Seeing my excitement and feeling the power radiating off of me, Jennifer went a bit dazed before smiling herself. Green eyes brightening like stars in the night sky.

Both of us looked at the other, waiting for them to make a move. Getting restless, I pushed off with my empowered legs and charged at Jennifer.

I appeared in front of her and threw a punch at her. One she could barely bring up her arms to block. The resulting bang was like two pieces of metal hitting each other, the ringing thud echoing around the room.

Jennifer, surprisingly, wasn't pushed back by my punch. Instead, she smiled even wider before sweeping her leg toward the inside of my leading leg.

I quickly picked my leg up, letting the kick go harmlessly under my foot, before quickly sending back a kick of my own aimed right at Jennifer's stomach.

The kick was lightning fast and hit her stomach making her cough up all the air she had before she slid back a few meters leaving tracks of broken ground from where she'd tried to stop herself.

"Come on, Jennifer! Get stronger! My blood's barely pumping as it is!" despite my prideful words, a smile of pure excitement was on my face. Sure I'd fought a lot around Cap and Thor but with the former, it was all technical fighting where I couldn't let go and use my power, while the latter was just Thor beating me around, so I never really got a chance to really fight back.

But this! This was a person I felt like I could fight against. Strong enough that they could eventually push me but weak enough that I actually had a chance! It was perfect!

All I needed was for her to get angrier.

"Be careful what you ask for, Michael! And don't EVER call me weak!" an angry - or should I say angrier? - Jennifer looked up at me, veins bulging around her body.

Seems like I hit a nerve by implying she's weak right now~

My thinking was quickly brought to an end when Jennifer charged at me and sent a wide punch right to the side of my head. I dodged under it before sending two quick punches into her solar plexus.

She flinched a little but pushed through them before sending a kick aimed at my crouching figure. I pivoted to the side before using the momentum from the pivot to send a kick to Jennifer's side.

It connected sending her a few meters back again. But less than last time and that kick was much stronger than the last attack.

Good!

This time I took the incentive and charged at her. I sent a straight punch at her. It hurtled toward her face like a meteor coming from the Heavens.

But funnily enough, Jennifer caught it with her hand before sending a punch toward me. I caught her punch with my other hand and felt the force rattle my bones and cause my muscles to yell in pain.

Looking at each other, one of us excited and the other angry, locked in a stalemate.

"Great! This is just great, Jennifer! Keep getting stronger!" Seeing her anger had somehow empowered her to be around my level I pulled out a little trump card of mine.

Pulling more Holy Fire Energy from my cells, I willed it to increase in heat until even my incredibly heat resistant body began to burn. Then I willed the new fire to enter the tattoos.

When it entered them, a wave of heat blasted outward with me at the center. The tattoos still had their red color but they looked more like streams of moving magma than still tattoos now.

My power had a sharp increase and due to the heat, it continued to slowly go up and up. The heat could even be linked to my mood, so as long as I continued to get more and more excited, I'd get much stronger.

I found this out when Thor was showing me some ancient texts about Angels. Some of them could push their 'States', as they called them, even further by pushing more energy into their Tattoos.

A more water-related Angel would push Holy Water energy into their tattoos, while I, a Nephilim to do with Fire, push Holy Fire energy into my tattoos.

I looked at Jennifer, my eyes looking like they belonged on a crazed beast, I saw her uncomfortable expression. She wasn't damaged but it caused me to look at the others and they looked particularly uncomfortable as well.

Not wanting one of the teachers to step in and end my fight because of such a stupid reason, I controlled the Sage Force and drew in all the heat I was giving off and stored it in my body. I made a link to the heat I was producing and to my body, so it would continue to be stored there.

Anyway, back to the fight, Jennifer's veins were bulging just like her muscles and the two of us were pushing against each other like two stags in a dispute, horns locked and pushing with everything we had.

The ground had already started cracking from the earlier fights but now, it was fulling breaking apart. A crater had formed between me and Jennifer due to the force of our strength contest.

Feeling I was still stronger, I took a step forward pushing her back through the ground and closer to the edge.

She tried everything she could but with my Enhanced Burning State and the heat currently empowering me, she'd have to get much more angry to fight back right now. So she was slowly getting pushed back but still, that didn't mean it was easy on me.

On the contrary, she was still getting stronger and I had to stress every muscle in my body to push her back. It was fun.

This carried on until finally, I pushed her off the arena and we both collapsed on the ground. Luckily, we'd separated hands by this point and we'd avoided an awkward scenario.

She was on her back, rapidly breathing in and out in a haggard fashion. She slowly turned back into her smaller form, before she sat back up.

Everyone in the line was looking at us with raised eyebrows and widened eyes. They hadn't seen that much brute strength ever and it was honestly demoralizing.

Imagine having superpowers like Scott; You could shoot concussive blasts out of your eyes. You'd think you're pretty cool but then you see two people literally cracking apart the floor with a simple pushing match and the pressure created from it.

You probably wouldn't feel too great about your 'laser' beams anymore. The same went for a few others in the line as well.

I, on the other hand, was kneeling while closing my eyes. I retracted my tattoos and imbued the heat in my body into each of my cells, giving them a small boost in power. My heart was banging off the inside of my chest and my breathing was rapid, like a wolf mid-hunt. But ever so slowly, I calm down and opened my eyes again.

I stood up and held out a hand for Jennifer, "It was a good fight. I can't say I used any martial arts, but in terms of brute strength, you pushed me far enough to make the fight exciting. We should train more together!" I had a friendly smile on my face, which she obviously wasn't expecting to see.

But after staring at me for a while, her beautiful face turned into a happy one and she gratefully accepted my extended hand, "Mhm! We should!" she nodded her head before releasing my hand and walking back over to the line.

I followed shortly after and walked back over to the three I called friends.

Currently, they were looking at me as if I was some kind of behemoth in human form. Miles was the first to break the silence.

"Dude, you're mega strong! I could feel those punches from here and you even managed the damage the ground with a pushing match, I could barely cause a crack with a punch!" he seemed to be in his overly-excited state like usual which made me let out a relieved sigh for some reason.

Gwen shook her head at Miles before smiling and looking at me, "Yeah, I gotta agree with Miles, you really are strong. You should give us some tips on how to get stronger!" Miles instantly started nodding her head in agreement to what she said, so I could only reluctantly agree.

Anna stayed quiet but she just looked at me with a small smile. When the other two went quiet, she came over to me, "Thanks for accepting Jennifer's apology, Michael, she really needed it," her voice was quiet but filled with thankfulness.

I shrugged my shoulders, not really thinking it was that big of a deal.

Before Anna could go on further, our attention was brought to the four teachers currently standing on the stage in front of us.

The Thing took a step forward first, "Okay, we've seen enough to know what to do with ya," he held up a big notepad before continuing, "On here, shows who you're gonna be learning under. The 12 of you will be split into 4 groups of 3 and each of the groups will be under one of us," he pointed toward himself and then the other three behind him.

Ben brought the list closer to his face before reading out who's under who, "Under my tutelage will be Jennifer Walters, Luke Cage, and Michael Fortis. You guys seem to be the hard hitters of the group, so I'll train you to be better at that," my pleasant surprise was massive and I had a happy smile on my face.

Meeting Ben Grimm, having a fun fight, and then being told Ben Grimm was gonna teach me, all in one day! What a wonderful day this is~

Ben then passed the list to Logan who was next to him and he spoke out who'd be under him. Then Cap did the same before finally, Johnny read out who was under him.

The teams were as such:

Cap's Team: Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, and Anna Marie.

Logan's Team: Laura Kinney, Nadia Pym, and Silver Sablinova.

Johnny's Team: Scott Summers, Bobby Drake, and Jean Grey.

Each team focused on a different thing. The Thing's team would focus on intense physical conditioning.

Logan and Cap's teams would focus on combat training and using your powers in your fights in better and more efficient ways.

While Johnny's team was all about learning how to use your power in more 'cool' ways as he put it. Probably translated to using your powers to do more damage or have more destructive output. But he also mentioned learning how to control your powers better as well.

With all this said and done, we were each given a piece of paper which said where we had to be and what day and time we had to be there.

I had to travel to the Baxter Building this Saturday to meet Ben and have him test our strengths. It didn't seem too bad, I could even possibly meet Reed Richards while I was there and sell him a few ideas I've come up with.

With that bit sorted, all of us went back to the elevator and went back up to the gym. We all went to get changed back into our clothes before meeting up again.

I swapped numbers with Miles, Gwen, and Anna, before giving my number to both Luke and Jennifer seeing as we were on the same team.

Haah~ School life seems pretty hectic, huh?

{A/N - In before everyone starts asking about the fight between Michael and Jennifer and how he didn't decimate her, I'll tell you something; Michael held back to prolong the fight and let Jennifer catch up to his strength level so he could fully enjoy it. And like he said, he didn't use any of his martial arts training against her, because if he did, she'd have gotten her ass handed to her.

Anyway, small time-skip next chapter. About 3 weeks to be exact because we're moving onto some stuff~}