It had only been a bit over two weeks since they had left Emerald City to take the recruitment test, but so much had happened in these last few days that it felt like it had been an eternity.
They had grown so much and progressed much farther than they had ever imagined.
"You know what I wanna do right now, just fall into my bed and sleep the whole night away," Mako said in the most cheerful and happy he had ever been in a long long time.
However, when he turned around towards Bill, he saw that he still hadn't taken a single step inside the house yet and was just standing there, afraid of something.
Mako walked back to Bill with a concerned look as he wanted to know why Bill was in such a mood after completing the recruitment test and getting the best result possible.
"Mako... I have to do it now, don't I?" Bill said with his anxiety levels rising.
Mako quickly realized what Bill was referring to as he remembered back to the conversation they had the night before they went to school to then be transported to take the recruitment test.
Bill had said that he would finally face his father once he had passed the test and would redeem himself in his eyes after being looked at as a failure for so long.
This was Bill's goal, his passion, his everything.
He wanted to earn his father's appreciation back and show him that he was worthy of being his son.
However, now that he had finally reached that point where it was time for him to finally meet his father and talk to him, face to face, doubt started to seep into his mind.
'Have I really done enough?'
'Am I strong enough?'
'Will he ever accept me?'
'Will he ever forgive me for the things I have done?'
These were the thoughts running through Bill's head as he stood right outside Mako's house, uncertain of what to do next.
"I just don't think I am worthy enough for him to call me his son. My sisters and my brother had achieved far more things than I ever have. How am I supposed to compete with that?" Bill said while clenching his fist, angry at his own weakness and past decisions.
However, this time Mako didn't reply at all or even console Bill in any way which was kind of odd given Mako's sympathetic nature.
Instead of some words of encouragement or a motivating pep talk, Bill suddenly received a sharp shooting pain in his chest that was followed by him being launched tens of feet back into the forest.
Bill collided with a giant tree that left a small imprint on his body onto the bark of the tree.
Bill's head was spinning as he was utterly confused as to what had just happened. Mako had just punched him right in the chest with all of his strength. It was only thanks to Bill still wearing his medium-tier chest armor that his ribs hadn't cracked from that force.
Bill's vision slowly stopped moving around and stabilized, only to see Mako running at him at full speed with his hands erupting in red flames.
Bill quickly took control of his shaken body and used his Wind ability to launch him into the air, dodging Mako's assault.
He landed a few feet away from Mako and shouted at him in anger, "What the hell do you think you are doing!?"
Mako only smirks with a mischievous smile as he continues his assault by running straight at Bill with his fire fist ready to pulverize him.
Bill couldn't understand why Mako was acting this way. Was it hypnosis? Was he under the influence of an emotional ability again? What was going on?
He didn't want to hurt his best friend and only deflected his attacks away using small pockets of sand that cushioned Mako's punch as he punched Bill's hand.
"Mako... What... is... going... on...!" Bill shouted with genuine concern as he kept blocking every single punch that Mako threw at him, the heat not really bothering him as sand was a great insulator, protecting his hand from the hot flames.
After having enough of Mako's assaults, Bill created a huge vortex of wind right in the middle of their feet, blasting them apart in opposite directions, giving him some breathing room.
Bill looked at his friend in shock and horror as he couldn't believe that in such a crucial time like this, his one and only best friend was also turning on him when he was already so emotionally weak.
"Awww... what's wrong? I thought you called yourself not worthy, then why are you still standing!? You should be beaten down to the ground because that is where people like you belong! Worthless people deserve nothing in this world!" Mako said as he taunted Bill.
A sudden rush of rage and anger filled Bill's heart as the last person he ever expected those words to come out of was Mako.
His eyes widened with anger and rage and adrenaline started pumping through his veins as he wasn't going to let anyone talk to him like that ever again, and he was ready to fight Mako seriously if he had actually decided to turn his back on him now because he wasn't going to be treated like that ever again.
"You bastard!" Bill shouted as he used his wind ability to launch himself at Mako at high speeds while swinging a club that he simultaneously formed using his earth ability while charging up his wind to launch him forward.
A huge smile appeared on Mako's face as he was ready to go all out in this fight as well, because even though he had grown a lot, Bill was still a tough opponent to go against who genuine combat training unlike him who still fought mediocrely.
[Motion Sense has been activated]
[High Jump has been activated]
Mako jumped several feet into the air to dodge Bill's club strike and countered it by switching over to his lightning ability and started shooting lightning bolts at him.
Since he was firing them rapidly, they had little power and only did a little bit of damage, but the shock itself prevented Bill from doing anything as it stopped his movements for a split second after every successful hit.
Bill raised an earth wall to defend himself against the lightning bolts which got absorbed into the earth and neutralized.
Mako landed back on the ground and switched back to his red fire and started shooting fireballs at the earth wall which didn't get absorbed into the wall and were breaking it down with each hit.
After a few hits, the earth wall looked like it was about to crumble and fall off, but before it could fall, Bill blasted it apart himself, shooting many small chunks of earth at Mako at high speeds.
Mako's perception allowed him to dodge some of the incoming projectiles, but there were just so many of them and so fast that he couldn't dodge all of them, resulting in him getting hit pretty badly by several earth chunks.
However, before Mako could even recover from that, Bill had already prepared his next move as behind him were dozens of miniature sand spikes that were locked and loaded and aimed right at Mako.
Without giving him a second to recover, Bill launched all the sand spikes toward Mako.
Mako's perception picked up the danger and this time instead of dodging, Mako activated Dash and ran from the area that all the sand spikes were aiming at, missing him completely.
After the dust had settled down, Mako and Bill looked at each other from far with Mako taking the aggression this time as he rushed back toward him with his fist blazing twice as bright but he made the wrong decision to run through the area where the spikes had just landed and had become small mounds of regular sand.
Mako stepped onto one of these mounds thinking that it was just regular sand, only for it to explode right at his face rendering him blind and confused.
It took him a couple of seconds to get the sand away from his eyes so he could see again, but by that time it was too late because as soon as he opened his eyes, he was met with an earth club moving straight for his face.
*BONK!*
The club landed a clean hit sending Mako flying back with blood leaking from his lip and nose. Mako landed on the ground with a heavy thud as Bill breathed heavily trying to catch his breath after getting shocked so many times.
He thought the fight was over and he began to walk toward Mako to see if he was okay and to figure out why he suddenly attacked him, but as he reached him and leaned down to touch him, his hands went right through his body as a second later his entire body disappeared.
[Phantom Shift has been activated]
It took a moment for Bill to realize what had just happened as Mako had gotten him with the same exact trick so many times, and he had just fallen for it again.
He instantly began to hear the sound of electricity crackling to his right and as he turned he saw Mako with his bloodied face, covered in yellow electricity.
"I had been meaning to use this for a long time!" Mako shouted as he finally unleashed the long-awaited skill.
[Lightning Claw has been activated]
All the electricity concentrated in Mako's hand as he swiped it vertically from up to down, creating a set of four claws made purely out of electricity aimed straight at Bill who was in point-blank range of this terrifying skill that could completely fry him to the bone.
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