Lightning VS Lightning

The dark gray, skin-tight suit I wore, the Grunt Battle Suit, had its surface "material" shifting wildly. This "material" was none other than a swarm of nanobots, smart and tiny machines that enveloped my whole body, acting as my protective suit against the many dangers and challenges in this comic book superhero world that I had reincarnated into.

However, now they shifted across the surfaces of my entire body below my head, rubbing me in a fast but systematic back-and-forth wave motion. They started slow, but their movement became faster with each passing second. I gritted my teeth, enduring the pain from the intense rubbing of the nanobots on my skin. Initially gentle, their rubbing felt like being rubbed with a bath towel, but... they gradually became more abrasive, akin to sandpapers scraping across my body.

You might be wondering: why did the nanobots begin to hurt me? Weren't they supposed to protect me, as I had just said? The answer was: I "asked" them to help me. They weren't rebelling against me and/or hurting me with harmful intention, no. In reality, I was the one who had "asked" them to do this intense rubbing on my body.

'Why?' you might ask next. The answer was quite simple, honestly, but the explanation behind this simple answer was rather long, unfortunately. It was related to a childhood memory of mine, involving a pair of socks and a carpet rug. A simple memory of experimenting with physics and electricity that I learned from my 6th-grade science teacher, who said to us snot-nose kids:

'When you rub your feet on a carpet, it creates a tiny bit of electricity that makes your body able to give a small shock.'

I remembered that little lesson my teacher had taught me, recalling the small me trying that experiment with socks and a carpet in my childhood home's living room... only to receive my first ever electric shock of pain. What delightful nostalgia, wasn't it?

So... to answer the previous question: it was to generate electricity with my body and my suit's nanobots.

I already forgot the scientific term for what I was doing right now, but that feeling of shock was something I vividly remember. Thus, I wanted to replicate that experiment with my own body and the GBS suit's nanobots, to create an even bigger electricity... Electricity that could create my own EMFs field around my body!

Small arcs of electricity began to appear on my body. But as the nanobots' rubbing became faster and faster with each passing second, more and more of these electricity arcs appeared. Not only did I feel the intense pain of sandpaper rubbing on my skin, but I also felt a familiar tingling... a tingling of electricity and the so-called EMFs running through my whole body. Of course, they did not just give me a simple tingling, but they also gave me the same sluggish-and-stiff feeling as well.

Honest to all the gods and goddesses in this comic book superhero world... the feeling I was experiencing right now was like my own personal brand of hell. I had said before that I was becoming insane, but this time, I truly felt like I was undoubtedly insane for purposely subjecting myself to torture for a theory that may or may not work.

But... the only thing that mattered to me right now was just one thing... to clear this obstacle course in front of me!

"It's all or nothing...!" I exclaimed loudly. I forced my stiff muscles to move once again, "pouring" more of my willpower. Not just into muscle mass, but even into my nanobots as encouragement for them to keep up their good work.

Slowly... I began to lift my right leg forward. Then... my left leg's turn, lifting it up forward.

Right leg, left leg, right leg, left leg...

Step by step. My movement was lanky, as if a puppet on a string. But... each step became faster and more refined. What initially was a poor and awkward movement... now became a steady walk, as I approached the Lightning Grid obstacle once more, ready to test my wild theory. My whole body was covered in many arcs of electricity, and I could faintly feel the EMFs radiation surrounding my body amidst the intense sandpaper hell and the stiffness of my body. A normal person would have already broken down and died on the spot, but...

I was not a normal person anymore, nor was I a sane person.

"I... Am... Grunt No. 703...!" I declared my new identity in this new world, "and I will pass this damn obstacle course!" I shouted with determination toward the menacing Lightning Grid, pouring more and more willpower into every step that I took.

I finally stepped inside the hexagon tiles of the Lightning Grid. It was slow walking as I soon approached the lightning barrier created by the steel rods of said Lightning Grid. I had never thought about it before, but the light produced by the lightning barrier was quite intense by itself. Nevertheless...

This... was the moment of truth. I would either pass through this lightning barrier, or I would die getting electrocuted to death...! I gritted my teeth hard and then... I shouted with all of the air in my lungs!

"OHHHHHHHH!!!" With a loud battle cry, I came closer and closer to the lightning barrier, and at last... I was inside it.

I stopped in my tracks, standing there dumbfounded. I could still feel the intense pain of the nanobots sandpapering me. Though to be honest, that pain was starting to get numb anyway. What I was looking for instead... was the pain of electrocution that I had anticipated when I entered the lightning barrier, and... there was none of that. I looked around me and found that I was indeed inside the lightning barrier... exactly in the middle of it in fact.

I could see the bright electric current of the lightning barrier around me, but... it seemed as if the lightning barrier was avoiding me, detouring around me. As if... I was a large stone in the middle of a river... a river of electric current that would have killed me instantly.

No... rather than a large stone, it felt like I was inside a small dome, created by the EMFs field that was radiating through the rubbing of my nanobots against my own body.

I still stood there dumbfounded... but, "Hehe... hehe... hahaha... hahahaha!" I let out a loud laughter inside the lightning barrier. I couldn't help it. I was pretty damn ecstatic, knowing that my wild theory was actually proven right.

I had fought fire with fire... or in this case, I had fought Lightning with Lightning... my own Lightning!

I laughed for quite a while before eventually stopping. But even though I stopped my laughter, if you could see my face (and not covered with this GBS mask of mine), you might even see that I was grinning like a madman who had just won the lottery. The lightning barrier kept activating and deactivating, but it didn't really matter anymore. I was protected from it by my own lightning barrier.

Now then... it was time to finish this obstacle! I looked forward, toward the other side of the Lightning Grid obstacle. Because I had stopped for a moment, my leg muscles were already back to the sluggish-and-stiff state yet again, but... this time though, with the help of not just my own willpower, but also the adrenaline and dopamine, I managed to force my legs to walk again, and it was easier than ever.

I walked out from the first lightning barrier without much of a hassle, stepping on another one of the hexagon tiles. I continued casually walking on said tile and even approached another one of the lightning barriers without any hesitation whatsoever. Soon, I entered the second lightning barrier... and I did not get electrocuted, just like the first one, and then casually stepped out of this lightning barrier.

The way I saw it, it felt like the lightning barriers themselves didn't exist. The only obstacles in front of me were just the steel rods, and they themselves were just simple pillars that I could just easily go around without much thought.

My simple walk became faster and faster with each step... and then I began to step up my pace and started running! I ran into another one of the lightning barriers and just passed through it, again, as if it was nothing. I ran even faster with each successful pass of the lightning barriers! The other side of the Lightning Grid obstacle was getting closer and closer...

And eventually... I passed the last lightning barrier... the last hexagon tile. Finally, I stepped on the other side of the obstacle.

I stopped running and stood dumbfounded at the spot. The shifting on my GBS suit stopped, and the arcs of electricity surrounding my body slowly went away. It felt like the nanobots in my GBS suit had sensed that my request to them had finished. Now, they instead began to work on mending the damage done to my body because of my reckless wild idea.

I turned my head to glance back at the Lightning Grid obstacle I had just passed through with ease before returning my focus ahead. I hung my head low and clenched both of my fists. Then... I lifted my head and looked at the clear blue sky with excitement.

"HELL YEAHHHH!!!" I shouted to the sky in celebration.

I had finally conquered the Lightning Grid.