"Ohoh. I see," the bald leader said as he adjusted his black tank top.
Seeing that Zhao Li An was not going to back down, the bald man thought that it would be amusing to teach this squirt a lesson.
"Alright, little squirt. If you insist." He put his hands behind him and leisurely walked in the middle of the arena.
"How about this. I won't use my ability against you. You can use yours, whatever ability you have," he arrogantly announced.
Zhao Li An stood in front of the bald leader and said, "I don't have an ability."
Everyone was stunned all of a sudden. Was he joking? It must be a joke. If what he was saying was the truth, then why would he fight someone with an actual ability? Also, why would he be part of the Supernatural Investigation Department if he did not have an ability?
There were a lot of questions in everyone's mind as they chattered amongst themselves.
"Wouldn't he just lose to that captain gorilla, King Han, then?" One of the bystanders said to a friend next to him.
"I feel bad for him," his friend shook his head.
"Even if Captain King Kong of the Special Ops is not going to use his ability, he's still quite strong. I don't think that young cop would be able to do anything. He should've just let it go and ate his pride. Now, he's going to be humiliated.'"
Everyone felt the same way. Despite having a poor opinion on the Special Ops captain and his unit, they knew how powerful he was. Although they admire the kid for trying to defend his friends, he was an idiot. An adorable idiot for some.
Back in the arena, King Han scoffed. "You're quite bold then, little squirt. Even without an ability, you're still willing to fight me."
In a boxing stance, the bald leader confidently said, "I'll make this quick for ya."
Zhao Li An did not reply as he slightly raised his arms in an attacking position.
Everyone became quiet.
When the duel started, King Han was the first to attack. He moved forward and did a forward punch directed to his opponent's face. To his sudden surprise, his opponent seemed to have vanished in front of him. He then noticed that Zhao Li An was behind him. Before he could turn around, the sound of a loud slap was heard in the entire training room.
Bam!
King Han was slapped heavily on the head. Within seconds, that spot on his bald head would have a red mark with an outline of his opponent's hand.
The audience became speechless as their jaws dropped. They did not expect it. Soon, when they regained their senses, some of them started snickering. The gorilla captain was slapped on the head by the young cop!
Touching the back of his shiny bald head, King Han became infuriated. How dare he humiliate him!
King Han's subordinates could not let their captain be a laughing stock of the police department. They encouraged him. "Captain! Go get him!"
King Han turned around and barraged Zhao Li An with powerful punches. With every punch that King Han would do, Zhao Li An would be able to evade them. He would again swiftly go behind King Han and slapped the same spot on his head.
Bam!
"He did it again! That young cop is really something. So fast and flexible! Ahh, what's his name again?" One of the audience said with admiration in her eyes. She was wearing huge glasses, but they looked quite unfashionable on her. With her bangs and curly medium length hair, she looked like your typical nerd.
"I think his name is Zhao Li An," her friend answered.
"Zhao Li An...," the female nerd whispered.
Meanwhile, Zhao Li An's friends were examining the duel.
"He's in advantage," Jun Wei said with his hand on his chin as he suppressed his laugh.
"Right. King Han's size is quite big. With his built, his strength relies more on powerful attacks rather than speed. Unfortunately, that's his weakness. He's too slow and inflexible. Zhao Li An is the perfect example of someone who could exploit his limitations," Huang Yi Qi replied.
"I never knew that Zhao Li An could fight that well," A Zhi added.
"That's true. I never saw him fight anyone before. He stays in his cubicle most of the time," Jun Wei agreed.
"Shao Fei could've helped him train. They're usually together," Huang Yi Qi said.
The three agreed on that thought. That was the most probable explanation that they could have at the moment.
In the arena, King Han was already breathing heavily. Despite the multiple punches that he had released, none of them hit his opponent. As for Zhao Li An, there was some sweat forming on his forehead. Other than that, he was fine.
Of course, for someone at the top of H city's police department's hierarchy, losing was not an option. So, realizing that he was at a disadvantage, King Han had no choice but to cheat in secret. He was going to use his ability: Metal Body. With his ability, he could turn
his body into strong metal. If he could not hit the little squirt, then he would let him(Zhao Li An) hit him(King Han)!
King Han took a deep breath and stopped moving. Zhao Li An noticed the sudden changes with King Han and became suspicious. Still, he decided to take the offensive with caution. When he was about to hit King Han's bald head once again as he moved behind him, Zhao Li An noticed the sudden change of color on King Han's head. It turned dark-silver.
Momentarily, Zhao Li An became distracted. King Han was using his ability against him now. With those moments of distraction, King Han took it as an opportunity to counterattack. Using his right hand, he secretly used his Metal Body ability and formed a tiny sheet of metal at the back of that hand to strengthen its impact. He swung it towards Zhao Li An in an attempt to slap his face. He wanted to avenge himself for being humiliated in front of his colleagues.
With the amount of force and the hard material applied to the hand, it could almost break a bone. When he was about to get hit, Zhao Li An was able to bend over backward and avoid the entire force of the attack. Unfortunately, part of his right mouth got hit. It was not too serious. It was only a small cut.
Before Zhao Li An could relax, King Han followed another attack. This time with his foot. Because he was flexible, Zhao Li An rolled backward to evade the attack.
At the position where Zhao Li An left, a footmark on the floor was created.
Everyone gasped. At this point, they all knew that King Han was using his ability against Zhao Li An when he specifically said that he was not going to use it.
Whispers amongst the audience started growing louder as their dissatisfaction with King Han became more prominent.
"He's dissatisfied that he can't beat him, so he started cheating?" One of the bystanders said in irritation. He was one of the teams that were beaten earlier by King Han's unit. He wanted to vent his anger.
"Yeah! Why are you using your ability to a non-ability user! You have no shame!"
"Cheater!"
Gradually, everyone joined in criticizing King Han. For King Han's comrades, they could not say anything in return. They clearly saw that their leader used his ability. They remained silent.
Not knowing what to do, King Han shouted in an embarrassed manner. He did not mean to overdo it and expose himself. "Shut up!"
Unfortunately for him, the criticism and boos became much louder.
Without much choice, he explained, "How do you know if this pipsqueak didn't cheat? For all we know, he's hiding his ability from all of us?"
Doubt then enveloped the audience, they became silent.
Zhao Li An frowned as he wiped the blood from the cut near his mouth. "I told you before I don't have an ability."
Since it had come to this, King Han continued his lies, "Of course, you could say that. But how could we prove that you weren't lying? We had no way of proving that you don't have an ability!"
At least to King Han's knowledge, there was no current method of figuring out if a person did possess an ability or not. With this, hopefully, people would not think too much about him cheating.
"I have a way!"
Everyone looked at the direction where the shout originated. It was the nerdy female with bad looking glasses.
"Meng Meng. What are you doing?" asked in surprise by her friend.
(A/N: Meng Meng from History: Stay Away From Me. I guess we know what kind of role she would have.)
"Don't worry. I got this," Meng Meng whispered as she patted her friend's back. She looked around her and then quickly showed the scanner that was in her pocket.
She pushed through the crowd so that he could go to the arena. Her friend wanted to stop her, but she was too late.
"I invented a scanner that could identify whether a person has an ability or not. I've been scanning everyone to see if my scanner is accurate or not. So far, it's 100% accurate."
Once again, the people started talking. Everyone knew who Meng Meng was. She was part of the Information Technology Division of the police department. In a nutshell, she would deal with the problems with the computers in the office.
"How do we know that it works and you're not tri-tricking us?" The bald captain said nervously.
Meng Meng did not say anything. With her scanner that looked like a futuristic gun, she first approached King Han. She directed the scanner on his forehead and pulled the trigger. On the screen of the scanner, a green light showed up with a text that says, "Ability User."
"He's an ability user," Meng Meng smiled. She then went to the Special Ops Unit members and checked them. After checking all of them, it was confirmed that they were all ability users.
Meng Meng then turned around and moved towards Zhao Li An. She somehow felt nervous approaching him. When she was right in front of him, she hesitated to look at him at first. Then with her scanner, she checked to confirm if Zhao Li An was an ability user.
A red light showed up. "Non-ability User."
Meng Meng directly looked at Zhao Li An for a second then was momentarily stunned. She gulped then looked away.
"Non-ability User. He's a non-ability user," Meng Meng confidently said as she fixed her glasses.
"Then that meant that the kid had been playing fair. He's truly quite feisty for opposing an ability user," one of the senior police officers said with an approving gaze.
Everyone in the audience would have the same view on Zhao Li An. He was an amazing person!
With everyone's opinion changing again in favor of Zhao Li An, King Han felt embarrassed and angrier. Although he wanted to continue to fight Zhao Li An, he could not do it anymore since everyone was now against him and his image was already ruined. He did not want to sink any lower, so he admitted defeat.
He clicked his tongue. "We're not finished," King Han said with a threatening tone.
After that, he left the training room in a bad mood. His comrades then followed him with their tails tucked away.
At that point, a loud round of applause could be heard.
"ZHAO LI AN! ZHAO LI AN! ZHAO LI AN!"
Zhao Li An's name would be shouted repeatedly by the people in the training room for some time. He deserved it. For a non-ability user to defeat an ability user could be considered as a huge thing. He just simply trampled a tyrant king in the police department!
After the epic duel between S.I.D and the Special Ops Unit, everyone dispersed. Before leaving, Zhao Li An personally went to Meng Meng to thank her.
"Thank you earlier. I was unsure how I would've handled that situation," Zhao Li An said with a smile.
Meng Meng just stared at him in a daze. What an adorable smile!
Thankfully, her friend was there. She nudged her with her elbow. Coming back to her senses, Meng Meng looked at her friend then refocused on Zhao Li An.
"No! No! Not at all! I'm-I'm glad I could help you," Meng Meng stuttered. Seeing that Zhao Li An was still bleeding, Meng Meng became concerned as she pointed at the cut on his face.
"Yo-you're bleeding! We should treat it!" Meng Meng voiced out.
Zhao Li An quickly wiped the cut with his hand. "It's okay. It doesn't hurt. I'll handle it myself."
"Are you sure?" Meng Meng asked.
Zhao Li An smile and nodded. "En."
"Zhao Li An! Let's go back and treat you!" Jun Wei shouted.
Zhao Li An turned around. "I'll be there."
"What's your name?" he resumed talking with Meng Meng.
"My name's Meng Meng."
"I'm Zhao Li An."
Meng Meng replied with a suppressed laugh, "I know. Everyone was shouting your name."
Zhao Li An chuckled. "You're right. Alright, well, thank you again for earlier. Nice to meet you and I'll see you around, Meng Meng!"
Before Meng Meng could say anything back, Zhao Li An already ran towards his S.I.D friends. After that encounter, Meng Meng's friend had to drag her back to their I.T. office.
Soon, some hours had passed and it was time for lunch.
"Zhao Li An, are you coming with us?" Jun Wei asked as he patted his friend's head.
Zhao Li An immediately said while he looked at the bandage that was on his face through his phone, "No. I'm eating with someone else."
Jun Wei suddenly became enthusiastic. "Ohh! Are you going to eat with that girl, what's her name again? Meng Meng?"
"Ahh, no," Zhao Li An replied with a chuckle.
"It's fine. You don't have to be shy," Jun Wei teased. "Alright, you shouldn't let the young lady wait that long. I'll leave it to you. I believe in you!"
Before he left, he said as he showed his fist of encouragement, "Zhao Li An! Fighting!"
Zhao Li An wanted to explain, but Jun Wei already walked away quite fast. He could only scratch his head and shrugged what happened.
"Oh well."
Quickly, Zhao Li An prepared to leave to meet with Jack outside of the police department. He wanted to taste luxurious food as soon as possible. He never thought that he would have a chance to experience luxury in his life, so he could not let this opportunity go!
As soon as he left the police department, he looked for Jack excitedly. He was smiling from ear to ear. He just could not wait!
"Where could he be?" Zhao Li An whispered to himself as he looked from left to right.
He did not notice that the person that he was looking for was already behind him.
"Guess who?"
Zhao Li An's eyes were suddenly covered by hands from behind.
Knowing who it was, Zhao Li An happily played along.
"Mi-Mickey Mouse?"
"...."
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Later!