Quinn was growing tired in the fight against Garret.
Garret was a level 4 strength user, and that granted the ability user some additional stamina. Meanwhile, Quinn had only recently become a level 3 earth user. In terms of pure brute strength, Quinn was outmatched. Still, that didn't mean that he didn't have his own tricks.
"Hey buttface! Try to actually hit me this time!" Quinn called out.
Garret growled before swinging his fists, to which Quinn had ducked under. Then, he shifted one of his gauntlets into an earth javelin like shape, and jabbed it right at his opponent's face.
Even though Garret had successfully moved his head out of the way, a thin line of red had formed on his cheek.
"Finally… you've made me bleed," Garret smiled, before winding up a devastating punch right into Quinn's shoulder.
The hit had caused the sand around them to blow away, forcing Quinn to stumble backwards as he grabbed where he was hit. The pain throbbed, and he felt something else sharp inside too, making him fear that he had a broken bone.
'Crap! Crap, crap, crap, crap—' Quinn frantically thought.
With his uninjured arm, Quinn tried to retaliate by throwing a hit, but Garret had simply blocked the attack by grabbing it.
"What?!" Quinn gasped.
"You said to hit you," Garret commented, smirking.
Then he slowly raised his other arm, as if taunting Quinn, before swinging it down.
It was about to land onto his injured shoulder again. However, that was when Quinn shifted his earth gauntlets to make crude armor where he was about to be hit.
The chop had broken the earth, and it hurt a little underneath, but overall, Quinn was fine.
'I didn't want to make armor just yet—' Quinn thought, 'it'll use up a lot of MC, but I might not have a choice.'
He kicked his foot on the ground, and shifted the sand under Garret to move him away. Quinn dug his hand into his mud pouch, creating mud gauntlets before shooting tri-spikes at Garret.
Garret smacked them away, then grabbed a few to throw back at Quinn. He had raised his arms to block, but a few of the tri-spikes had embedded into his skin throughout his body.
Taking a step back, Quinn saw Garret charging at him. He was prepared to use up the rest of his MC for one last final attack, when suddenly several strings had tied itself around Garret's arm.
Garret looked mildly surprised by them, but took a second to rip them off. Looking past him, Quinn could see a familiar face looking pretty happy with himself.
"Yo, whats taking you so long? Aren't you supposed to be two levels higher than me?" Fex teased, then vaguely gestured to Garret's appearance, "Dang, he's not even that much bigger than you, Quinn. In fact, he might be smaller! How is he beating you?"
While Fex was teasing his appearance, Garret jumped back seeing as he was now outnumbered.
"Two against one? This is hardly fair," he protested.
Even though Garret believed that Fex was genuinely a level 1 user, he knew better than to underestimate what having a second person in a fight can do.
"Hey, think of it like this," Fex smirked, "A level 3 plus a level 1 equals a level 4 to match your strength, correct?"
Garret squinted at Fex, "Hmm… I suppose the math does make sense, yes."
"See?" Fex said before swinging one of his strings at Garret's arm.
Fex tugged at it, hoping to get him off balanced when Garret charged at him with a fist. He threw several punches, but Fex moved his head side to side on them all. Unsheathing a dagger from his waist, Fex tied a string around it, then whipped it at Garret's chest.
Instead of embedding into him, Garret had grabbed it, and threw it back. Fex side stepped out of the way of the dagger, then widened his eyes as he saw an earthen figure charge into Garret.
The earthen figure had tackled him to the ground, and Garret threw a punch at the figure's head. A chunk of earth flung off, revealing Quinn's face underneath.
'This uses up a lot of MC to constantly shift the earth to move around in, but with Fex here, this fight should be over!'
Quinn tried to pin Garret down by the shoulders, but he had managed to lift Quinn and toss him off of to the side. Quinn rolled over, getting back on his feet.
Garret had only managed to get onto his knees when Fex wrapped a handful of string around his arm again. He grabbed the cluster of string and ripped it off.
"Why are you spamming the same attacks again?" Garret asked, a little confused, "Isn't that boring?"
"So you don't expect this," Fex smirked, then embedded a puppet string into Garret's forehead.
With a flick of a finger, Garret's upper body had slammed onto the sand. Then, using up the last of his MC, Quinn twisted his foot on the ground, causing sand to swirl around Garret, and embed him into the ground. For extra measure, Quinn shot out his earth armor around Garret, thereby trapping his opponent.
Garret's whole body was basically covered in earth, except for his head. Despite being defeated, he seemed pleasantly surprised.
"Woah, I did NOT expect that at all! You two fought well!" He said with a smile, "I'd love to fight against you guys again sometime!"
Quinn winced in pain before hobbling over to Fex, tightly holding his most injured arm. He was nearly covered in cuts and wounds.
"You think this was just a sparring match?" Quinn angrily muttered, "Your team was trying to rob ours!"
"Well yeah, but its not like we can gain any kind of gear some other way. Forget trying to rise up higher by being nice."
Quinn looked at him a little disgusted, "You'd even beat up someone weaker than you, and take what little they have?"
It was Garret's turn to get insulted, "Hey! We fought fair and square, and I'll be there for my friends because we've been through it thick and thin. I bet you've helped yours with something that was morally questionable."
Quinn opened his mouth, about to give Garret an earful, but before Quinn could respond, Fex got between the two of them.
"As much fun it is watching you argue with a head, we should probably think about getting those injuries healed."
Fex pointed at Quinn's multiple cuts, and shoulder, which made Quinn glared at Fex for a moment. That was when Quinn took in a deep pained breath, then walked over to where Erin was.