Chapter 14

The next day started with Tom texting his favorite alien girl.

"Heeeeeeeey Alexis! How are things going?"

The message took a few minutes to get answered, making the catboy a little bit nervous.

"Tom! Hi, I am doing fine! I just got a pair of arms so I can text without a problem."

"Neat, do you want to hang out? I would love to know you better."

"That would be nice. Do you want to grab something to eat?"

"Sorry, but you will have to wait for the third date to get a bite of me."

It took a whole minute to get an answer.

"Thanks, you too."

Alexis' message clearly didn't make a lot of sense; the girl did not really know how to answer that. The little worm was just rolling over herself on the other side, clearly not used to men flirting with her.

"So, want to grab coffee tomorrow?"

"It would be lovely, yes."

Tom smiled and nodded. Finally, he was getting back in the game.

The rest of the morning was spent watching what Celene had managed to film. It was fundamental to know if he needed to change his equipment for the second round. After analyzing the footage, the catboy had a plan; however, a new package had arrived that he needed to try.

A boxing bag he had ordered.

Tom placed it in the living room and only dressed in a pair of extremely short hotpants stolen from Celene, he began to practice on it.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Celene asked while Tom was just beating the crap out of the sack filled with sand with his hands wrapped in bandages.

She loved the eye candy of seeing him moving, putting those sleek and firm muscles to work, but the noise was getting annoying.

"Practicing boxing," the catboy mumbled, trying to remember how to do a jab. With his new speed, his arms were even faster than when he was at peak physique. Even his small jumps were almost hypnotic, with both his agility and extra celerity working together to put Tom at just a level that could easily compete with a mundane heavyweight champion.

"Why? Don't you have claws?" Celene pointed at the glaring mistakes that Tom was making.

The catboy nodded; aside from foreplay, he didn't like his claws. He preferred a knife to cut stuff, and even his combat style was not that focused on grappling. It was a fight between him and the system; that was why he wanted to know if he could steer his evolution toward what he wanted. 

"Yep, but . . . I just like boxing; it kept me sane and safe while I was a hobo," Tom said and struck the sack once again. 

"Where did you learn it?" The girl saw that the man had a lot of secrets that he refused to share with her.

"My dad was a boxer," he muttered and quickly focused on his training, refusing to answer any question. That was a topic that he didn't want to share, especially with her. 

After a few hours of training. It was time for the catboy to get working again on his weapons.

A new shotgun was a must, as well as more ammo; however, he decided to change the type for this night fight.

First, he wanted hollow bullets for his pistol and a bigger magazine. For a second, Tom even puzzled over the idea to change the caliber to 22 to hold even more bullets in his pistol, but the lack of punch could be problematic. The extended magazine, even if it was a little more clunky to move around, would have to be enough, giving him 15 rounds to play around with.

Then came something spicier since he didn't load his shotgun with normal steel balls. He chose flechette shells this time. Instead of spheres, the plastic tubes were filled with miniature arrow-like projectiles. Basically, what Tom did was exchange the stopping power for penetration of soft tissue. If his experience in the army had told him anything, this kind of ammunition could easily shoot through a person, and kill the target behind.

"Should I make explosives . . ." Tom muttered while cleaning the black grease out of his hands with a rag that used to be white. 

The catboy shook his head. He needed to become more durable to use that kind of tool without risk.

"Hey, are you heading up already? Why did you make a flamethrower or something like that?" Celene asked while the catboy was already fully geared up and walking out of the apartment. From what they had seen, the girl expected a more extreme countermeasure.

Tom shook his head. "Because fire is really dangerous? The whole place could end up burning, and most importantly, not all the monsters have a sense of pain, so it is not that useful unless you know what you are doing," he answered with what little knowledge about the topic he had. Actually, all his training was about how to avoid this kind of situation and just wait for a super to come and clean the mess.

"Well, don't get killed," Celene answered, and Tom blew a kiss to her while the sun was setting down on the horizon.

Meanwhile, in the middle of a road that leads outside the city, a woman riding a motorcycle was talking to another one on her phone while weaving her bike between cars. She was fast, so fast that it looked like a black blur that moved, not respecting a single traffic law and even breaking physics laws by how that vehicle could do extremely sharp turns.

"Excuse me, boss, but is this not a joke? He didn't do that, right?" The biker asked, her tone deep but feminine.

There was a pause on the other side of the phone. "I am not joking this time. I want you to bring that catboy to me, alive," Valkyrie ordered, not showing any other emotion except sheer and calculated malice.