Sloth

Atlas pushed his way through his classmates to the head of the group where his teacher stood.

"For the last day of class, we're going to have a little sparing. Seems as though Atlas has come just in time to be the first person up." She said with a small smirk. His classmates laughed and patted him on the back as he approached her.

"Good luck bro."

"I'll take it easy on you Atlas." Their small comments annoyed Atlas. Mostly because he knew they would stand no chance against him in any sparing scenario. But he was friends with pretty much every student on campus and there was no bad blood between any of them.

"Are we doing practice weapons today or just hands." Atlas asked as he rolled his shoulders. He stretched a little in front of the teacher as she considered it.

"Lets just do fist combat. It's the last day after all. And after, you can screw around like you always do. Though you may be a few bruises heavier." She clapped his shoulder and pushed him toward the clearing the class surrounded. Atlas stumbled forward slightly and sighed. Him and her had annoyed eachother for years and it was finally time for her revenge. A final show.

"Whoever wants to go first can go. Atlas will fight against every single one of you. Once we get through all of you, the day will be yours to join the other classes in last day festivities. If you lose to Atlas there will be a 30 minute timer until you are released after the sparring."

She explained the rules to her little game and watched the 30 or so students in her class try and decide who was going to go first. Atlas track record was exactly 50 percent. It didn't matter who he was sparring wether it be the weakest or the strongest the fights were always drawn out and Atlas lost 50 percent of the time.

No one knew why all his fights ended like that but there was a general consensus that the first person to go would probably lose and be forced to wait behind their friends.

"I'll go first." A boy stepped forward and squared up against Atlas. His name was Luke, and he was one of Atlas' best friends. Atlas laughed and shook his head. He had always found the academy to be exceptionally boring and tedious.

In his first year he had destroyed all competition and made all the students in his year loyal people, who he taught and helped become stronger. But eventually his Grandfather had taken him to the side and told him to become average. See, Atlas' grandfather was an extremely powerful general in the military who had a lot of enemies that would do anything to ensure the strength in his family ended at Ace.

So when Atlas' father turned out to be an average person at best, his grandfather was happy. But Atlas was a generational talent, who was confined to play in the kiddie pool, and even then was told to be a small fish in a small pond. This was where his laziness came to be.

Over the years he became more and more detached from his training and future. He quit his extracurriculars because of how bored he was. Attending a sports class just to be forced to be average was so incredibly painful that Atlas began losing himself.

So he made a game at performing exactly average. But this was his last day of school and he was tired of pretending to be so average. "You may start whenever." The teacher stood to the side with crossed arms and a small smile.

"I'll put our record 54-53 today Atlas!" Luke said as he lowered himself.

"Unfortunately I have other plans." Atlas laughed and watched calmly as Luke rushed towards him. Luke threw a punch that was aptly caught. Atlas tightened his grip on his friends fist and planted a knee into the boys stomach.

Luke grunted and fell to the ground clutching his stomach. "Oooh so close." Atlas clapped his friends shoulder and backed up. "Who's next?"

Atlas clapped his hands and laughed at his friends who groaned on the ground around him. He had spent the last half an hour beating his friends up in front of his horrified teacher.

Exhaustion hadn't even kicked in because each 'fight' lasted less than 30 seconds. The majority of the time was his classmates deciding who would go next. They were hopeful that it was just luck in the beginning but after the 15th fast loss they began to give up.

There was a lot of complaining and confusion before they remembered three years ago when a similar thing happened to them. It was hard to believe that Atlas was just screwing around the past three years but maybe he really was. He bowed deeply to his teacher and thanked her for all the lessons she taught him.

Which was nearly nothing, but still she took the time to try and teach him things he already knew. He bid a temporary farewell to his groaning classmates, and walked to the main area of campus where other students were getting let out of class.

He saw food and drinks set out for the students in a end of year feast. Atlas greeted everyone who said hi to him and grabbed a few plates of food. Pretty much everyone knew Atlas but he wasn't particularly friendly when he was in a such a large setting.

And all the other students saw him and mostly left him to himself. His father was a constant reminder of what he could be doing with his time. So Atlas decided to use a little time to destress. He took his plates of treats and food and found himself in the empty training room he always went to.

A few rubber and armored dummies were scattered around the room as well as a rack of weapons. He put a piece of food in his mouth and left his plates to the side. Today he felt like practicing his techniques he learned at the academy.

In the human federation after people entered the Ultraverse, medieval weapons and martial arts usage rose drastically as a result of the Ultraverse use of these things. People created martial arts and stored the knowledge in well protected data cubes that could give knowledge to people.

This academy offered basic well known and owned arts. Atlas had learned the best of them and left the rest behind not seeing the value in them. Most people would stick to learning one or maybe two throughout their whole life, but Atlas had learned three.

To truly master a technique it would take many years. Atlas hadn't truly mastered them yet, but he was getting pretty damn close with minimal effort. He learned the Raven, Bull, and Tiger techniques.

They were some of the most common techniques among the average population and was well known for being easy to practice but somewhat difficult to master. He snagged a simple short sword off of the weapon rack and swung it experimentally.

"Training room lock. Refuse viewers. Highest level pre evolution sparing bot please." Atlas said simply. The room made a beeping sound and the door closed and the walls turned a matte gray. The weapon rack retracted into the wall as well as most of the dummies.

One faceless dummy the size of a human took a step forward. It was covered in simple steel armor and held a similar short sword. 'Sparring commencing in 5,4,3,2,1.' A voice said as the dummy shot forward raising its sword to stab at Atlas neck.

Fortunately the blades were all rubber tipped and could at worse break bones. Atlas raised his blade deflecting the attack. He counterattacked with a simple upward slash at the dummy's armpit. The dummy who was made to simulate an opponent that could rival the strength of a very strong unevolved person as well as the skill of one slammed its arm to its body, taking some damage but also preventing Atlas from severing its arm.

Being stuck in its armpit Atlas ducked a slash letting go of his sword temporarily. He smashed his foot into its chest throwing it backward and causing it to release his sword that he barely grabbed back onto. Atlas brought his sword in front of him into the standard Tiger stance.

This short sword only required him to use one hand but would normally be wielded with a shield of some sort. Atlas knew had to wield a shield, in fact he could wield nearly every weapon the school offered with great proficiency. He just didn't feel like fighting with a shield.

It made the sparring too easy. During his years of average performance he set to practice with every weapon and become proficient in them. It helped his stress and if he used one weapon too much he showed too much skill.

The dummy and Atlas exchanged a few blows that were blocked by both before separating once more. Atlas was set on only using the Tiger technique for this sparring session. Techniques have a general style of combat but they also have things called k-moves.

Which were essentially movements that the technique specialized in. Tiger had 8 k-moves. 7 were accessible by the majority of users while 1 could only be accomplished by a veteran of the technique.

Atlas brought the sword to his side and whispered, "Final Claw." His blade flashed as he appeared on the other side of the dummy. A thin line opened on the dummies neck as it registered its loss.

'Subject has won the sparring exercise.'

Atlas rolled his shoulder and groaned. "Ughhh I think I pulled my shoulder. It's best to actually follow the steps next time." He said to himself. Normally a person would have to use the 7 k-moves in order before being able to use the final k-move. That was meant to build up the force and momentum to be able to execute the final move.

But Atlas ignored the most important step and pulled a muscle in his shoulder. Most people would've failed the move or torn their shoulder apart using the move. Atlas put the sword back onto the rack that emerged from the wall and grabbed his plates.

"Time to rejoin the party."