Banished(Under Rewrite)

Part 14 - You're a beast after all...

I was now at the sewer system.

I still had a hard time believing that I actually beat Abyss and that at his full form. My guess was that he fed on fear, so by conquering it, I managed to defeat him and win. 

This meant that now there was Venom, Shockwave, and Ripper: they would be much harder opponents to fight, especially Shockwave and Ripper. 

Not to mention, Abyss, despite being the weakest of the four, gave me a run for my money. 

If I hadn't had that conversation with Mark about accepting my failures, I would have lost then and there to begin with. 

Well, at least I knew how to stand a better chance against Nightshade now. She could definitely access the dimension that Abyss accessed, meaning that there could be something more behind it. 

The only problem with Nightshade would be outsmarting her in hand-to-hand combat. If I could beat her in that, then she would be able to use her powers to fight in that case. However, she definitely had far more experience than I did in that field, because I got absolutely wrecked by her the last time we fought. 

"Is Venom supposed to be lurking down here?" Mark inquired.

"That's the word," I replied, placing my trust in The Swordsman's intel. "I mean, The Swordsman has the best intel on The Vipers at the moment," 

"Seems logical," Mark agreed.

"And what about Abyss?" I asked, curiosity getting the best of me. 

"He's currently locked up in a cell where he can't unleash his powers," Mark informed me. "It's a relief, huh?"

"Definitely," I replied, relieved. "I'd hate to see him causing any more trouble,"

As I pondered the ranked 7th fighter's conspicuous absence from The Purge, I couldn't help but voice my concerns.

"Mark," I began, "what's the story with the ranked 7th fighter?"

"You mean the new one, right?" Marked asked, his tone indicating that he was interested in the topic.

"Yeah, him," I clarified.

"Well, ever since Deathstroke dealt with the former 7th fighter, this new one has remained under the radar. No one's spotted him in The Purge or elsewhere." Mark replied. "He's pretty much like not there,"

"What?!" I asked, shocked. "So he's going undercover or something?"

"It's a possibility," Mark admitted, "but considering he's ranked higher than Ripper, he should've been in The Purge by now."

If I recall correctly, Abyss was ranked 11th, Venom was ranked 10th, Shockwave was ranked 9th, and Ripper was ranked 8th. The ranked 5th fighter/advisor would be somewhere between that gap. 

I decided to fight the squad in descending rank order(greatest to least rank) so that I could go from weakest to strongest. Say I fought Shockwave first, it's entirely possible that Abyss and Venom could have come to help defeat an already struggling version of me.  

Not to mention, they actually had powers, unlike those ranked below them - that was such a surprise! 

I never expected Abyss to defeat The Swordsman so easily, even when there was just a one-rank difference but Abyss' powers must have made it so. That really just showed how strong the higher-ranked elite fighters were. 

I guess it was true - those ranked 11th - 8th showed the true strength of the elites.

Well, that's only because of their powers, right?