In the following days, Teen Team had received a new set of recruits, and William had volunteered to be the one they would go up against to test themselves.
But before they could get started, Rex let out an obnoxious laugh and looked toward his right, "HAHAHAHAHA Aww, look at her, she is adorable! But isn't there an age requirement for this ride? Am I wrong? Seems weird, right?"
He was referring to what seemed to be a young girl standing to his right, who turned to him with a glint in her eye that betrayed her anger, "I don't know, you're here isn't there a dick size requirement?"
Rex turns in shock, "I'm sorry?"
"For what your tiny dick? I mean the way you strut around here; you have to be compensating for something!" As she finished the sentence, her eyes trailed downward for a moment, and as if to prove his point, Rex took offense.
He approached the girl while grabbing a sliver of explosive material and igniting it, causing his hand and the explosive to glow in a chaotic and energetic way before approaching the girl.
"Somebody ought to teach you a mother fucking what the fuck is tha—"
Before he can finish the sentence, the girl's arm transforms into a mass of green muscle and punches him in his side.
BANG
The wall leading to the training room explodes as Rex is smashed through from the other side before careening to the ground.
BOOM
The girl landed in front of him in a sort of feral superhero pose, "I guess you missed my tryout!" before her body started to transform in a shimmering blue mist, and suddenly, she turned into a massive green hulking monstrosity that towers over Rex like an adult over a toddler.
"Still think I'm adorable?" Monster Girl said before delivering a swift hook to the side of Rex's skull and sending him flying once again, and slamming him into a wall.
Rex lands before falling on his knees, suddenly he spat out a mouthful of blood as well as a few of his teeth into his open hand, "You little bitch!" He fills the teeth in his hand with explosive energy and throws them at the charging Monster Girl
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
Monster Girl looks down at her muscular chest and smirks, "Aww, is that all?" Before continuing her charge towards Rex.
Rex grabbed a large portion of his explosives and held it like a baton before he threw them at Monster Girl.
BOOM
This did more than tickle her, and a snarl appeared on her face as she swung her fists down like mighty hammers onto Rex's shoulders.
William stared at them from above while standing between Robot and Eve, "Is this okay?"
Eve shrugged, "He asked for it!"
POW
POW
POW
POW
POW
Monster Girl was on top of Rex, pinning him down while repeatedly punching him in the face with her free hand, but before the sixth blow could land, a hand grabbed Monster Girl's fist and stopped its downward momentum just short of Rex's face.
She looks up and sees William holding her massive fist with his tiny, by comparison, hand, "That's enough!"
Putting greater force into her hand, she throws William toward the distant wall and moves to strike Rex again but before William slammed into the wall he spun in the air and kicked off the wall causing spiderweb cracks to appear on its surface as he launched himself towards Monster Girl at twice the speed, and before Monster Girl could react William had slammed into her with his fist and sends her flying, knocking her out of her monster form as she lands.
Up above, looking through the hole in the glass and wall, the rest of the recruits are watching with bated breath, and one of them said, "He just punched that little girl!"
Before that line of thought could continue, though, the little girl in question stood back up and walked over to William, "Sorry about that, I hear the word little and girl together and I just go RAWR!"
She offered her hand to Rex in an attempt to ease the tension, but he waved it away, "No, No, it's good, we are good, you punch hard!" as he said this he stood to his feet and followed Monster Girl out of the training room while William stood in the center with his arms crossed.
"Who's next?"
Suddenly, a mountain of muscles with blonde hair leaped down to the training room and landed a short distance away from William with a smirk on his face, and cracked his knuckles.
"You know, I don't like it when men hit women, much less little girls!" He spoke with confidence as he walked forward and placed his massive hand on William's shoulder.
He applied pressure in an attempt to press William down, but all that he accomplished was to cause the cement under his feet to crack, surprising the massive mountain of a man.
"Is this all you have?" William smirks as he says this in an attempt to infuriate the blonde mountain of a man, and it worked as the man's face turned red and his muscles squirmed with veins.
He is about to put his all into pushing William to the ground.
CRACK
The ground splintered and cracked further, but soon William reached up and pressed a single finger against the massive wrist of the Hunk and pressed upward.
Shock was evident on the Hunk's face as his arm was being forcibly pushed upward by a single finger, "IS THIS GUY REAL?" He thought before opening his mouth.
"HAAAAAAA!"
The Hunk roared out in fury and swung his free hand toward William, who now had a smirk on his face.
BANG
A sound of a powerful collision rang out and the new people up above cringed thinking about the condition William would be in but suddenly a look of pure shock as when they look back down, they don't see a defeated young man, no, what they see is that young man pressing the flat of his hand against the shaking fist.
POW... BANG
Suddenly, Williams' knee shoots up and slams into the Hunk's chest and sends the massive man flying to the other side of the room with a footprint on his chest, and he only stopped flying backward when he smashed into the wall with his head slumped downward.
The newbies up above all had their mouths hanging as they stood there utterly baffled at what they had just seen.
"What the hell did we just witness? That has to be against the laws of physics, right?" A giant green golem-looking creature said.
Before an answer could be given, however, the Hunk rose back to his feet and charged at William while roaring out in fury.
"HAAAAAAHHHH!"
He threw a massive fist towards William, using the entirety of his strength, and William, in acknowledgment of his will to fight, decided to humor him and put up a guard.
BANG... CTCHHHHHHH
The Hunk, using pure fighting knowledge, managed to focus the power of his blow onto a fine point by extending the middle finger mid-punch, and when it struck William, he was forced to slide backward as the ground began to slide out from under him.
William looked down at the floor as he carved trenches along its surface and smiled before jokingly saying, "The training room broke before my guard did!"
CRACK
Stomping his foot into the training room floor, his backward momentum immediately stopped, and he shot forward towards a surprised Hunk.
William raised his fist as the Hunk swung downward in an attempt to use his reach advantage to the maximum.
CRUNCH
The bones in the Hunks' hand make an audible crunching noise, and his arm is forcibly blasted backward before William gets close with quick steps and presses the flat of his hand against the Hunks' chest.
BANG
The Hunk, despite his great size and strength, found himself pressed into the ground and unable to resist the force pressing against him.
After a moment of stubborn resistance, a look of calm returned to his face and the Hunk sighed, "I give in hehehe, you are friggen strong man!"
William helped him to his feet and clapped him on his broad shoulder with a friendly smile on his face as he helped him to the exit before returning to the center of the room.
More and more recruits went down to test themselves against William, and some even surprisingly were of some effect, with one young woman with a blonde updo blasting him into the walls with constant beams of light that by the time she had stopped had reddened his skin as if he was lightly burned but the second time he firmly planted his feet into the ground and resisted with nothing but an extended hand as he approached the young woman and lightly grabbed her outstretched hand with his fingers.
"Gotcha!"
A smile appeared on William's face that shone like the sun due to the constant stream of light, mildly stunning the young heroin before she dropped her arms in defeat, a red flush appearing on her face as William escorted her out of the room while wearing a gentle smile.
After her, however, a strange purple man with a tuning fork floated down from the hole in the wall rather than jump or walk down the stairs.
William squinted, seeing this strange figure. "He looks like a human-shaped puppet!" Thinking this, he nodded at the figure and took a fighting stance before initiating the spar.
Arcs of electricity dance along the tuning fork, and the purple man slams it into the ground.
Suddenly, William feels like the gravity around him has increased somewhat, and he immediately begins dashing towards the purple man, the effort required to move as fast as he was causing his muscles to tear and reform, further increasing his strength slightly along with his resistance against the increased gravity.
THUD
THUD
The strange purple man slammed his tuning fork into the ground and caused the gravity around William to nearly triple just before he reached the purple man's immediate vicinity.
William grits his teeth as his muscles scream in protest, but he eventually reaches the strange man's tuning fork and pulls it free of the man's grasp, causing the gravity around him to return to normal.
A smile was on William's face as he handed back the tuning fork to the strange purple man, "You would be quite useful as long as you avoid direct combat!"
The strange man smiled and bowed in acknowledgement of the praise before rising. "My name is Downforce, my superhero name anyway hehehe!"
He raised his hand for a shake, and William reciprocated. "Call me Everlast, nice to have you!"
A few more people were willing to take on William, but none of the others were able to impress him to a great degree. "Most of these people are just costumed regulars!" He thought as he looked at the large, barbarian looking woman who kept staring at him like a piece of meat across from her.
She licked her lips and ran her hands through her green hair and was about to lunge towards William when an alert sounded off, forcing her to stop in place in curiosity.
William, holding the waist of the barbarian green-haired muscle woman, slowly flew up towards the gaping hole where the rest of the team was standing and set down the blushing barbarian.
The main members of the team approach a nearby console with a flashing notification and open it to an image of Cecil.
"We've got something incoming, fast, and from outside the solar system. No idea if it's a threat yet, but we're not taking chances. I need one of you, preferably someone who can fly, to intercept and get eyes on it. Now."
His image disappeared, and William and Eve stared at each other for a second before she sighed and waved her hand.
"You go; I will stay here and handle the rest of the recruits!"
William smiled before dashing into the halls and heading towards the barracks to equip his suit. At some point, Arthur had sent him a suit that was built to withstand the extremes of space, and when he opened his locker, he was far from unimpressed.
His new suit was fantastic, the black reinforced spandex and kevlar fit him like a second skin, it was built not only to protect him from the extremes of space but is also extremely comfortable to wear.
Green and red lines similar to circuitry were traced along his arms, down his chest, and connected to the dense armored plates on his chest and abdomen, seemingly magnetically locking them in place.
His helmet, while not completely covering his face, had an optional visor that came equipped with a heads-up display that connected to his entire suit when the connections in the helmet met the connections on the armor.
CLICK
The helmet connected with an audible click, and the entire suit temporarily lit up as if to show that it was activated.
On the heads-up display, a message appeared in the corner of the visor flashing a few times, and the moment he looked towards it with the intention to investigate it, words appeared.
"Welcome Everlast! This is the suit's integrated AI dubbed Aura, which you can disable at your earliest convenience if you so choose. I welcome the chance to serve!" After this, a message appeared.
[Allow AI to remain active, Yes or No]
William clicked yes, and from his side of the translucent screen, a small glowing orb appeared before it warbled. "Hello, Master!" The voice rang out from his helmet into his ears, and William realized the small orb in his heads-up display was the physical manifestation of the AI itself.
"This should be interesting!" He thought before opening his mouth. "Aura, can you continuously optimize the suit if my parameters change?"
The glowing orb seemed to smirk, and the suit lit up as he could feel it adjust to his every inch.
"Sure can master!"
William smiled and began floating, although he was not used to the feeling of flying yet, after waking up from the previous coma he had been in, he was able to do so nearly instinctively.
Slowly rising to the opening in the roof, he leaves the headquarters behind and heads towards the upper atmosphere, and as he does so, his helmet, seemingly sensing the decrease in oxygen, closes the helmet and seals the suit.
WHOOSH
William increased the speed of his flight and headed towards the moon!