Harem Apocalypse: My Seed is the Cure?!

Chapter 369: Progress with Marlon

A couple of days had passed since what happened at the Atlantic Theatre. Incident didn’t even feel like the right word for it, not really. It sounded too small, too clean. What happened there had been a bit messier than that.

I’d gone there to help Theo and the others.

That part had been simple.

Everything after that had turned into the kind of mess that stuck to the inside of your head no matter how hard you tried to move on from it. We hadn’t gotten everything done. Hell, not even close. People died. The Nexon Battery escaped our hands. Romero and the others had been on our backs the whole time, close enough that one wrong turn, one bad delay, one wrong move could’ve gotten all of us killed.

So yeah, things hadn’t exactly gone well.

Still, we’d made it out alive, and with how bad that whole thing could’ve gotten, maybe that already counted as a win. A shitty one, sure, but a win all the same. I’d seen enough lately to know survival didn’t always come with anything cleaner than that.

Though if I was being honest, it had gone wrong too.

Just in a different way.

That thought was still in my head when a boot slammed straight into my abdomen.

The air left me at once.

I folded around it with a hard grunt and staggered back two steps before my legs gave out under me. My knees hit the ground rough enough to send a jolt through my body, and for a second all I could do was stay there, hunched over, one arm wrapping across my stomach like that could somehow hold the pain in place.

"Ughhnn..."

The sound dragged out of me ugly and short. My gut churned so hard it felt like I might puke right there on the training floor.

I forced my head up and glared at Marlon.

He stood a few feet away, solid as a wall, looking down at me like none of that had been particularly impressive.

"Daydreaming in the middle of training?" he said. "If this were military training, I’d have sent your ass out already."

I sucked in a breath that hurt more than it should have. "Th... thank God I’m not here to be military or anything," I muttered, still half-grunting through it.

Marlon didn’t go easy on me. He never did. But the worst part was, that kick shouldn’t have folded me like that.

Not normally.

Right now, though, I had that damn collar around my neck.

The thing was built to strip a Symbiote Host of his powers, and it did the job way too well. With it on, I didn’t just feel human. Honestly, I felt worse than human. Weaker. Off-balance in my own skin. The symbiote wasn’t some piece of gear I wore and took off when I felt like it. It was part of me, wired too deep to separate cleanly, so when the collar shut it down, it felt like somebody had cut power to half my body and expected the rest to keep working like normal.

My limbs felt heavier. My reflexes felt late. Even getting hit hurt differently.

Still, that was the point.

As much as I hated admitting it, training like this was the best way to get stronger without leaning on the symbiote every time things got bad. If I could still fight with the collar on, if I could still move, still think, still take a hit and keep going while half of what made me dangerous got stripped away, then maybe I wouldn’t end up helpless the next time somebody found a way to neutralize me.

That was what Marlon had offered me a week ago.

Since then, I’d been training with him.

Or maybe surviving him was the better way to put it.

Because Marlon didn’t teach the way normal people taught. He didn’t explain much. Didn’t stop to gently correct my stance or talk me through technique like some patient coach. He beat the marine martial arts into me the way a man hammered nails into wood, hard, direct, and with the assumption that pain made lessons stick better.

Annoying thing was, he was probably right.

You remembered a mistake real damn well when it came with bruised ribs.

"Thank God you aren’t, yeah," Marlon said, repeating my words back at me with that dry, unimpressed tone of his. He looked me over where I knelt, trying to get my breathing back under control. "You’d be terrible."

I shot him another glare.

That only made the corner of his mouth twitch.

"How about you show me more of that look in action?" he asked. "Or is staring all you do well?"

Then he crooked his fingers at me, telling me to come at him.

Damn it.

I pushed myself back to my feet, slower than I wanted. My abdomen still ached from the kick, and the collar felt extra tight all of a sudden, like it knew exactly when to remind me it was there. I rolled one shoulder, then the other, forcing my body to loosen up while I fixed my eyes on him.

I’d adapted to the thing. Sort of.

Not enough to like it. Not enough to stop feeling crippled every time I moved. But enough that I could function through it. Enough that I’d stopped panicking at the weakness and started working around it.

Clenching my fists, I settled into a guard and tried to ignore the dull throb in my gut.

Marlon watched me with the kind of patience that didn’t feel patient at all.

"Come on, brat," he said, a faint smile pulling at his mouth.

That did it.

I rushed him.

A week ago, that would’ve meant exactly what Marlon kept calling it, stupid forward momentum dressed up as confidence. I would’ve gone in too straight, too tense, shoulders high, chin exposed, fists tight for no reason, thinking speed alone could make up for bad form.

This time I didn’t.

I came in hard, but not blind. Left foot first. Guard up. Chin tucked. I stepped off his center instead of charging straight down it, just like he’d drilled into me every damn day since he put me on this floor.

Marlon’s eyes narrowed a fraction.

He still caught my first punch.

His palm slapped my wrist aside, and he threw a short right toward my jaw fast enough to blur. I saw the shoulder move first, remembered what he’d yelled at me three days ago, watch the chest, not the fists, and turned just enough for the strike to scrape my cheek instead of cracking my face open.

"Better," he said, like it physically pained him to admit it.

I answered with a front kick toward his midsection.

Not wild. Not a shove. A proper snap from the hip, knee rising first, heel driving forward. He dropped his elbow to shield and took most of it there, but I’d already set the next move in motion. My foot landed, I pivoted, and I drove a straight punch toward his ribs.

Marlon twisted. The shot landed, though not cleanly.

It still landed.

He glanced down at the contact, then back at me. "Weak," he said.

"Still hit you."

"Like a child throwing a brick at a truck."

Then he slammed a low kick into the outside of my thigh.

Pain shot up my leg so hard it almost folded me. I stumbled a half-step, and Marlon came right after it, because of course he did. He always pressed when he smelled a mistake. Right hand high, left feint low, shoulder turning for another body shot.

This time I read it.

I dropped my elbow to cover my ribs, took the impact on the forearm, and fired back with a vertical elbow the instant he closed the distance. It clipped him near the cheek. Not enough to do damage. Enough to stop his next line for a second.

That second mattered.

I shifted my weight, brought my knee up, and drove it toward his stomach.

Marlon turned his body and took it on the side instead of straight on. Even then, I felt the hit sink in. His expression didn’t change much, but he stepped back and reset.

"Who finally taught you to stop punching like you’re apologizing?" he asked.

"You did."

"Then I regret it."

He came at me this time.

That was the part that still sucked most. Learning the moves was one thing. Dealing with Marlon throwing them back at me at full strength while I had a collar around my neck was something else. He wasn’t weakened. He wasn’t slow. He wasn’t holding back enough to make me comfortable. Every strike from him had weight in it. Every step looked planted. His body never wasted motion.

He led with a jab that made me blink, followed by a cross that would’ve broken my nose if I hadn’t slipped outside it. I tried to answer with a hook to the body, but he jammed my shoulder before I could turn it properly.

"Too wide," he barked.

His palm cracked against the side of my head.

Not hard enough to drop me. Hard enough to remind me he could.

I backed off, circled, kept my guard up.

"Your problem," Marlon said, stalking after me, "is that you keep thinking force comes from your arms."

He tapped his own chest with two fingers. Then lower.

"It starts here. Ground. Hips. Core. The hand’s just where it ends."

He lunged the second he finished talking.

I barely got my forearms up in time. The hit rattled through both arms into my shoulders anyway. Before he could chain the next strike, I stepped in, not back, and drove a short straight into his sternum.

It was clean.

Weak, like he said, but clean enough that he grunted.

That tiny sound gave me more satisfaction than it should’ve.

So I kept going.

Jab to make him cover high. Cross to the body. Shift outside his lead foot. Hammerfist toward the side of the neck, pulled just enough because I knew he’d counter if I overcommitted. He blocked the hammerfist, but he had to block it, and that meant my line was right.

Marlon smirked.

"Fast learner," he said. "Still ugly, but less embarrassing."

He threw a straight punch toward my throat.

"Fuck off."

I slapped it off line with my rear hand and pivoted into him, using the angle he’d spent the whole week beating into me. Don’t meet force head-on if you can cut across it. Don’t chase the strike. Kill the line. I brought my forearm across his bicep to jam the arm, then fired a short punch into the opening under his ribs.

That one landed flush.

Marlon took a sharp breath in through his nose.

I didn’t stop. A week ago I would’ve admired the hit and gotten punched for my trouble. Now I knew better. I stepped through with my shoulder tight, kept my chin down, and sent another precise shot toward his jaw.

He leaned just enough that my knuckles grazed instead of cracked, but even that made his head turn a little.

"Okay," he said, and now he sounded less amused. "That one didn’t suck."

Then he swept my lead leg.

I hit the ground hard on one hip and swore.

Marlon stood over me looking calm. "You get two good hits and forget I can use my legs too?"

I dragged in air through clenched teeth, then let it out in a rough groan. My side hurt, my leg hurt, my stomach still hadn’t forgiven him for that earlier kick, and the collar around my neck made all of it feel heavier than it should have. I planted one hand on the ground and tried to push myself up.

My arm gave out halfway.

My palm slipped against the dirt, and I dropped back down hard with a grunt, catching myself badly enough that pain shot through my shoulder too.

Marlon looked down at me like I’d personally offended him by failing to get up with more dignity.

"Let’s end it there for today," he said. He lifted his eyes toward the horizon where the sun had started sinking low, throwing the yard into that orange-gold light that made everything look calmer than it actually was. "You’ve been going at this for hours."

Yeah.

Hours.

More than I’d meant to.

Usually I would’ve burned out much earlier, especially with the collar on, especially with Marlon treating every training session like a personal grudge. The fact I was still moving, still taking hits, still getting back up after this long probably counted as progress, even if my whole body currently felt like it had been put through machinery.

I sat there for another second, catching my breath, sweat dripping off my jaw and down my neck.

Then Summer’s voice cut through the space behind us.

"Finally finished beating up someone young enough to be your grandson, dad?"

Marlon turned his head with immediate offense. "Grandson? How old do you think I am?"

Summer rolled her eyes like she’d heard enough from him for one lifetime already and walked straight past his irritation without even slowing down. She had a towel draped over one arm and a bottle of water in her hand, and she came right toward me like this had already become part of the routine.

Honestly, it kind of had.

Ever since the first time she’d seen Marlon hit me hard enough to nearly put me flat on my back and then chewed him out for it, she’d made a habit of showing up afterward. Sometimes with water. Sometimes with bandages. Sometimes just with that look on her face that said she was one bad comment away from starting an argument with her own father. She watched our training whenever she wasn’t busy with something else, and no matter how much she acted amused by it, I knew she paid close attention.

"Thanks," I said, taking both the towel and the bottle.

The plastic was cool against my hand. I unscrewed the cap and drank fast, three big gulps in a row, water spilling cold down my throat and hitting my empty stomach hard enough to sting. I didn’t care. By the time I lowered the bottle, I felt almost human again.

Almost.

Using the towel to wipe my face, I got one foot under me and pushed myself up. Every muscle in my body protested. My back tightened, my thigh throbbed from the low kick, and when I straightened fully a groan slipped out before I could stop it.

Marlon gave me a flat look.

"How old are you, groaning like an old man?"

Summer shook her head before I could answer. "Dad, thank God you never had a son."

Marlon scoffed. "He would’ve turned out much better than that miserable boy, for sure."

I snorted at that.

He started walking off without another word, hands behind his back, posture still annoyingly solid after spending hours using me as a demonstration dummy. I watched him go, then glanced at Summer.

"Thank God, yeah," I said. "Poor guy wouldn’t have lasted long."

That made her laugh under her breath.

Then she looked me over again, more carefully this time, eyes moving across the sweat, the bruises, the way I still stood with a little too much stiffness in my ribs.

"I can tell you’re getting really good," she said with a smile.

I stared at her. "You must be blind."

"No, I’m serious." She folded her arms loosely and leaned one shoulder back. "It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my father this invested in anything. He really likes you."

That hit me in a way one of Marlon’s punches somehow hadn’t.

I looked away first.

"W-well..." I rubbed the towel over the back of my neck and shrugged, suddenly way more awkward than I had any reason to be. "He isn’t that bad."

Summer giggled, which did nothing for my dignity.

Then she turned and started walking a few steps ahead before glancing back at me over her shoulder. "Come on. We’re heading to the beach like always, right?"

I followed a little slower, still wiping sweat from my face. "You know you don’t have to come with me every time."

"I know." She gave me a small smile. "I just like the beach when the sun’s setting."

That, at least, I understood.

"Yeah," I said, and this time I smiled back.

The worst of the heat had started to fade from the air, leaving behind that cooler evening breeze that always rolled in stronger near the water. I slung the towel over my shoulder, tightened my grip on the bottle, and went with Summer toward the beach while the last light bled low across the sky.