Ambush

Luciano raced past Alonso and leapt at the minotaur, but it managed to grab him before he could throw an attack of his own. It had superior range to him so he could receive attacks before he could throw some of his own.

Using his momentum against him, it lifted him overhead then slammed him into the ground, making him cough blood.

Michael flinched upon seeing that slam as he knew that he was next, his mech was revving up and his next attack still was not completely ready.

'Just hold on guys! A little bit more!' He urged internally, gritting his teeth.

The minotaur grunted, blowing more steam out its nose, then dashed forward with immense pace. Its strides were long and fast but as it was charging forward, Alonso began to chase after it.

He was significantly faster than the beast and closed it down in just over a second.

Before it could get further ahead, Alonso used all of his gained momentum to kick it in its left ankle as hard as he could.

He slid to the floor but so did the minotaur, and Michael was given the extra seconds that he needed, but his attack had still not charged up.

The minotaur looked enraged by Alonso's heroism and lifted him into the air by grabbing onto his neck and leg.

It did so like he was a tenth of his actual weight.

Slam!

"Mech Damage: Moderate."

The blunt trauma from the bull meant that he was taking more damage than his mech was. Despite that, his mech had still sustained moderate damage.

The minotaur took a step over him and stormed toward Michael in an intimidating manner.

Steps away from Michael, he placed his left hand onto his right and parts of his mech transferred over. It formed a large gauntlet, where his hand was almost as large as his head.

BOOM!

A large white blast was released that even launched Michael off his own feet.

Kaboom!

Landing on the minotaur, it detonated and forced it back several metres. Alonso and Luciano watched this attack in surprise, as it has clearly damaged their adversary.

The minotaur held its bleeding torso with weakness, looking at the blood across its hands.

"GRRAAAAHH!!"

It roared into the sky and looked at the three students with bloodshot eyes of fury. Its agony had fuelled its anger even more.

Michael was less than 5 metres from this beast, and it grabbed him in a split-second.

He had a decently strong mech for someone of his social class, but he was simply too short and scrawny to pack a real punch. Throwing two punches onto the minotaur's body, he quickly saw that they were to no avail.

BAM!

The minotaur then punched him in the stomach and hurled him into the floor with all of its weight to add to the blow.

With the student on the ground, it took this chance to throw swift, devastating punches onto his body.

Krak!

The final punch cracked two of his ribs, and he was left with numerous bruises and bleeding wounds.

The minotaur lifted its burly arms to try and slam him further into the floor, but Alonso used his energy shield to knock it right off course.

'Come on then! Catch the bait you stupid beast!' Alonso internally stated, with his dagger behind his back.

"GRRAARRGH!!" The bull screamed, practically jumping at Alonso but while it was mid-air, Alonso stabbed it in the neck with his heat slash.

The beast was weakened and visibly slower than before, which actually made this ploy effective. Blood spurted out from the wound profusely. It also smoked and bubbled upon dripping over the glowing dagger.

The minotaur's clenched fists loosened and its arms fell to its sides.

"DIE!!" Luciano roared from beside the beast, knocking it out with a single punch.

After this happened, Alonso just took the chance to fall down and take a breath of relief, only to rush back up once he saw Michael in his peripheral vision.

"Oh god, what do we do here?!" Alonso asked, upon seeing Michael in and out of consciousness.

His mech had been damaged quite significantly, but it had managed to perform quite a lot of self-repair.

They could hear the signature hum of repair systems and it was particularly loud with Michael's.

They remained observant of their surroundings in case another beast was to attack them. They could handle the likes of the dune weresharks and scoundrel djinn but if another Minotaur attacked them, they'd be toast.

The beast's official name was the Golden Desert Minotaur.

It also fell into the ranges of Tier 5 and 4, and they had managed to face one of the weaker beasts.

The danger soon set in for Alonso, since a tier 4 beast would've just killed them right there and then. The journey to becoming a mech combatant was not only strenuous but deadly.

"Are you okay?" Alonso asked, upon seeing Michael lift his upper body.

"I think so. I hope so." He stated, shaking his head before standing.

His mech repair system was clearly of a higher grade than Alonso's since he would've likely had to use some external healing system to fully repair himself if he had sustained the same injuries as Michael.

Upon standing, however, they then noticed three mech users in the distance. They couldn't tell who they were immediately, but they then started to speed toward them with alarming speed.

In seconds, they could see Bernando at the forefront of the trio, with Lennox following close by. The three warriors charging toward them were all bruiser types, and the third person charging at them was another student called Brian. His full name was Brian Jurado, who had the nickname Buster.

He was 5'9 but weighed 105 kilograms. He had a muscular physique that was shrouded by his layers and layers of fat. His belly was the most striking part of his physique and it looked like he was a lifetime veteran alcoholic. He had bright red hair with sky blue eyes.

Buster was at the back of this group, but was still running faster than even Alonso could move himself from having a much, much stronger mech.

"Hello there, guys!" Bernando said, arriving just ahead of them.

"What do you want?" Alonso asked, with hostility.

These people were not friends or comrades. The only people they respected were those at their level or above their level in the social ladder. They were far below them in those terms, so they were coming for something.

"Why do you greet us in such an aggressive way? We're fellow students, right?" Lennox asked.

"We're students but we're not friends. What do you want?" Luciano asked.

Bernando looked to Luciano and his face became totally and frighteningly neutral. He then dashed forward and landed a simple punch that he clearly had put little effort into. However, this attack dropped him to his knees, and he clutched onto his abdomen, gasping for air.

Alonso made his fighting stance, which made Bernando chuckle as he walked forward.

"I've beaten you to a pulp once before, don't think that I'm afraid to do the same again you weakling!" Bernando declared, walking forwards.

"Anyways, that's not the reason for why I'm here. I'm here because I need all of your crystals. You have spent a lot of time gathering crystals, I believe, and I require every single one of them now."

The workers counting the crystals didn't need to verify whether the crystals they had gathered were truly gathered by them. This seemed intentional -to add an extra feature to the test- to give those weaker students an even harder time.

"Give them to me NOW!" Bernando roared, before activating his helmet.

Alonso was taken aback by his anger, that seemed even more unstable and chaotic than usual.

With his slots fully filled, they contained 4 poison wolves, 4 scoundrel djinn and the dune wereshark that filled up the remaining 2 slots. Those were the crystals that they could keep, but the most valuable crystal for them was going to be the minotaur crystal, that was in Michael's pouch.

"Is that pouch where you have your crystals? Oh yeah, I can see the crystals in there, hand them over!" Brian said to Michael.

"N-No! We got these crystals ourselves, they're ours!" Michael barked back.

The bruiser trio looked at one another before bursting into laughter. The first to break their laughter was Bernando, who now had a vein across his forehead from his rage.

BAM!

With a punch to the chest in a forward step, Michael was launched off his feet and forced back numerous metres.

Bernando then walked over to rip the pouch that was tied to his waist before stomping his head into the ground.

Krak!

Cracks scurried through the sandstone ground, and the other two teammates of Michael stood there, frozen.

'Damn it, why do these people constantly have to torment us, why?!' Alonso thought, clenching his fist.

He could feel warmth within his head and body, being infuriated. It was rash to act now, since they could do nothing to stop them. They all had mechs far above their level and had genetic talent classes above theirs.

It was set in stone.

They would have to submit to these people. To let them tread on their toes.

Bam! Bam!

Bernando roared and rained down punches onto Michael's body until he was unresponsive. He shouted into his face, letting out his pent up anger, then stormed back to his crew.

"If you ever show resistance like this again, I will do much worse!" Bernando declared, walking off.