He felt fatigue taking over his body, Alex exerted too much stamina and power to create that giant sword and controlling the shards to rain down on his parents, he rested on a tree as he tried to plan something out while taking a short breather.

“Hghk!” Alex winced in pain as he rubbed his cheek. That’s right, he got hit by a baton to his face so hard he was turned sideways, but the pain didn’t arrive until now when the adrenaline died and him resting against the tree.

“Think Alex. Your parents are monsters, Mom's too fast and hits hard, and Dad hits too hard and is fast. They fight in tandem and Mom's mostly on the offensive with dad being the defensive, He blocks and counters while my Mom hits hard.”

He thought quickly, as exhausted as he was, he attempted to bring back the adrenaline in him to keep going. He unsummoned his shield. “So to make them less effective—” He said aloud softly and summoned two batons similar to his mother’s. “I should separate them.”

Julius was covered in cuts and slits from head to toe since he was the one who shattered his son’s sword, but his arms up to his elbows were not cut due to his gauntlets. taken aback a bit from Amanda’s smile, it’s a smile he hasn’t seen in a long time. “Uhm…Mandy, your smile...”

Amanda felt a mixture of pride, relief, frustration, and surprise. But those feelings were shadowed with her excitement, her calm blood turned hot and her smile grew wider with her teeth showing. She looked at herself, cauterized cuts everywhere so that her wounds were barely bleeding.

“Hm?” She touched her face, feeling her smile. “Ah!—” suddenly realizing she's smiling like a maniac, she closed her eyes shut and shook her head rapidly, then patting her cheeks. She took a deep breath as she tried to calm down. “S-Sorry about that, I shouldn’t be this excited.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it, Mandy. You’re just getting into the fight, remember that we’re fighting our son, not some random enemy.” Julius reminded her as he realized that even though she quit fighting, She can’t exactly get rid of that urge inside her.

“Of course…” Her open eyes closed shut and she looked at Alex, resting against a tree as she expected him to recover after using that sort of stunt. She crouched and leaped towards Alex, halfway through she summoned a ring of 10 batons circling around her waist as she rushed at her son.

Alex took notice of her running to him at a terrible speed. “No good. My shields are too weak to block anything my Mom hits…what if...” Alex readied himself as he summoned two batons of light similar to his mother as the two clashed as Alex parried the first strike.

Expectedly, Alex’s batons shattered, but unexpectedly the batons flashed a bright, blinding light when they broke, He made his batons intentionally weak but modified to make a flash of light when broken. The light’s flash aimed directly at Amanda’s eyes.

“Nghah!—My eyes!” Amanda dropped her weapons and clutched her face, halfway dropping the weapons disappeared in sparkles of light. Despite her closed eyes, she was still staggered by the intense flash as she rubbed her eyes.

“That worked! Now next!—” Alex took the chance to quickly summon a baseball bat of fire. “Batter up Mom!” Alex shouted as he swung the bat as hard as he could, the bat’s swing let out a burst of explosive flames with such force that it was like a landmine exploding and the explosive force was used to enhance the swinging power of the bat.

The bat struck her on the side, the strike sent her flying towards the shed and crashing into it, making a large hole. The batons flying around her dropped on the ground and disappeared as she was launched too fast for her own batons to follow her.

Julius appeared in front of him the moment he swung his bat. His gauntlets becoming opaque and loaded with flames as he's charging a powerful and devastating punch.

His charging strike gave Alex enough time for him to lunge his bat on his father’s gut with all his strength. “Should’ve charged it while you were running, Dad!” The bat let out an explosive force from the bottom. Like the baton, it was modified. The modification was that the bat lets out an explosive blast whenever he swings or lunges the bat for extra knockback and swinging speed.

“Gh!—” Julius coughed out the air in his lungs from the impact, he was caught by surprise from his weapons being modified, something that both his mother and father didn’t get to learn or figure out until they first met each other back when they were rivals and teens. Julius blasted away and crashed onto the ground, leaving a deep trail and a small hill of dirt for him to rest on.

“Woah, Sharky’s getting crafty!” Sal is impressed that he’s seeing his ability evolve.

“He’s aware that he doesn’t have a chance in beating them head-on, So he’s going to keep backing off and surprising them until five minutes have lasted.” Lea checked the time, leaning on her seat to look at the kitchen’s wall clock through the window. “It’s only been a minute and a half—I think he can do this.”

“He has to. If he’s gonna be grounded again, our training will be for nothing.”

“And then the cycle of being grounded and losing; it’ll just be painful and humiliating for Alex to keep repeating it over and over.”

“So they are gonna wall him over and over until he's finally ready or gives up.”

“Their last stand on keeping him around.”

“If he does lose…there’s always running away.” Sal smiled as she looked at Lea. Who tried to take what she said as a joke, but her smile and tone said otherwise.

“I hate that I know Alex will agree to that Idea.”

Alex panted, running out of stamina and power to keep up with not only making a massive sword to rain down on his parents but also making weapons with enhancements to give him the upper hand.

“How long can I keep this up? This is my first time actually thinking of enhancing my weapons. I’m surprised just simply creating and imagining the weapons to have some ability would do the trick.” He thought to himself, “But I don’t know what will last longer, my parents’ attacks or my body scraping whatever energy I have left to make special weapons? Just keeping this bat around is already draining me, but with its speed and knockback power, I can hold out like this…”

Something came out of the shed at a blinding speed, it made a zipping noise as Alex turned to look what was coming at him, It was only a moment but it was a knife made of light before it exploded a blinding light right in front of his eyes.

“Agh!—” His eyes stung from the irritating flash, he gritted his teeth as he rubbed his eyes with his arm, staggering back and hugging against the tree to shield himself from anything else thrown at him.

“Of course Mom would know something like that, we have the same ability! Damnit!” he heard something snap. Leaves falling and bark crunching as he made the right choice to protect himself against the tree, because what hit it was a massive and heavy axe that left a deep gash through the tree’s trunk before it disappeared into sparkles.

Rising out of the shed was Amanda, her breathing ragged and shakey, not from pain, but from restraint. Struggling to control her excitement from the feeling of being struck down, her body urging to strike back whoever hits her twice as hard.

“Hgh…control yourself Mandy…deep breathes—just breathe…” She constantly reminded herself that her opponent was her son. “Just breathe deeply…just b-breathe…” Her teeth showed as she unconsciously smiled. “Just breathe deeply…Ufu-...fuha-...haha—No!” She covered her mouth, she closed her eyes half-lidded as she looked at her cowering son.

“Holy shit!” Sal exclaimed at the sudden axe throw as she's ready to get out of her seat until Lea stopped her. “What the?—Lea?”

“We can’t help him.” Lea looked at Sal, with her face hesitant in stopping her.

“But his mother’s gonna kill him if this keeps up!”

“She might, but look!” Lea pointed at Julius, recovering from being struck in the gut by a baseball bat. “Mr. Ares is back in action, he might call off the fight!”

“Mgh!...” Julius grunted in pain, he rubbed his stomach. “Should’ve gone full armor instead…” He complained as he looked at the tree with a blinded Alex hugging against it with a struggling Amanda who was restraining her violent urge to fight. Julius bit his lower lip, realizing that Amanda's having trouble holding back even against her own son. He knew what he had to do.

“Gotta stop this before Mandy does something crazy…” His body was immediately covered in armor, the same armor he wore when he fought Michel. “Armor of War: Juggernaut... ” Julius crouched, the boots of his armor released a powerful burst of fire underneath, the charring from the intense heat.

“Jet!” Julius’ boots lifted him off of the ground as he launched towards Amanda like a flying rocket, a flaming trail was left behind caused by his jet boots and he picked up Amanda in almost an instant, her feet are off the ground before she realized it as he sent her flying along with him to the sky.

“Eh!?—D…did he just!?” Sal was stunned, seeing Julius just suddenly picking up and sending Amanda up in the air.

“He…he did…” Lea was just as surprised as Sal was. The two witnessed the flying spartan dragging a woman to the sky.

“I am hearing things but I can’t see a damn thing!” Alex was still blinded from the flash as he attempted to see what happened, he heard noises like a flamethrower but he’s not feeling any heat and when his vision came to, He squinted to see a leading trail of flames that lead to the Shed as he looked up. “Is… Is Dad flying?!” He looked at the two who quickly nodded at his question.

Amanda didn’t expect her husband to pick her off of her feet like he did with their wedding, granted they decided to make a shotgun wedding while they were fighting against an army of demons.

“J-julie?!” Amanda looked at her husband in surprise as she attempted to let go of his hold.

“Mandy! Just gonna point this out but, you’re going to kill Alex if we keep this up.” His ascent to the skies halted as the two had a quick talk in the air.

Amanda stopped her struggling as she bit her lower lip, something she consciously attempted to not do because of her shark teeth, the moment she bit it, her lower lip bled as she felt too ashamed to care about her own habits harming herself.

“I…i know that. The moment he bashed me in the face, I felt something I thought I lost, the feeling of excitement, pain, vigor—that nagging feeling of wanting to hit back that person twice as hard, and that feeling doesn’t discriminate.” She embraced her husband, holding on him to stay afloat.

“The feeling of going berserk?” He’s known her for years. He knows how terrifying she can be back when they were still in the Guild. She's a rampaging monster and has only mellowed out when their daughter was born, only going wild when it was just Julius around as they kill a monster together. It’s in her nature to be a violent fighter with the sadism and masochism to enjoy the thrill of fighting someone until she comes out bloodied and victorious.

“Yeah…” She held him harder. “I made a mistake in arranging this whole fight.” She regretted, realizing it was a mistake to do this fight because of her urges. “I should’ve just let you fight instead.”

“Now now, don’t regret it now. It’s something that everyone struggles, restraint isn’t easy for people like us but you managed to restrain your bloodlust 'till now, that’s something you should be proud of. How about this. You take a break, tag out, and let me do all the fighting, and once I’m done with fighting, I’m gonna do you next.”

“You mean…like fighting me right?”

“I mean if you still got the energy after fighting I think we can squeeze in some nighttime fun.” Julius chuckled as he's aware of his phrasing.

Amanda couldn’t help but smile as she playfully shoved him from his flirt. “Oh, you! You got yourself a deal. With Alex gone, we can be as loud as we want without having to be quiet.”

“Haha! Yeah, that’s something I’m looking forwa—Hey! You saying that I can’t beat my son in five minutes?”

“Well, you are wasting time flying in the air and talking for about...” She looked at her watch, surprised her watch hasn’t been damaged so far from this fight. “Two minutes. So it’s more about Alex winning because we ran out of time than you beating him~” She's slowly going back into her old happy self, wiping her bloody lips with her sleeves.

“I say it’s worth the time since I get to carry you like this. Haven’t carried you and flew you at the sky since our wedding.”

“Aww, you remember!” With all this flirting and affection, Amanda calmed down and lost the drive to fight, her eyes are back to always being closed and her teeth no longer showing. The couple landed back on the ground as Julius lets her go. “Okay. Alex dear?”

The entire time this all happened, Alex was sitting down with his friends, resting as he waited for them.

“Yeah?...” Alex stood up from his chair, not moving to her as he was hesitant to approach his mother.

“I’m forfeiting.” Amanda smiled sweetly at her son.

“You’re what?” He heard her but he was more surprised if anything since this was her idea to start this fight in the first place.

“I’m forfeiting! I’m done! I’m going to go and make dinner for everyone now. After that, I’m going to take a nap. To be clear, I’m forfeiting, but your father isn’t.”

“That’s right. It’ll be unfair if we said that the timer paused while we were talking, but I think it paused the moment your mother forfeited.”

“I don’t mind that. If you’ll excuse me.” Amanda walked away from the group to go back inside the house, before walking back, she stopped to look at her son for a moment. “You are improving real fast Alex, I’m proud of that.” She smiled softly at Alex as she went back into the house to prepare a big meal for everyone, Including Sal.

“Oh—uhm…thanks Mom.” He softly smiled back at her as his cheeks flushed red from the sudden compliment.

“Alright!” Julius grabbed the attention of his son and his friends by smashing his fist together. “Get ready, Alex, because the clock is ticking! If you want to get out of being grounded. You’re gonna have to last two minutes in the ring with me!”

Alex smiled that showed his teeth as he ran to the opposite side to get ready. “Bring it!”

“Mr. Ares sure likes wrestling.” Lea said with a small bead of sweat forming on the side of her face from how cheesy his line was.

“It shows, cheesy lining and the obvious wrestling moves…I love it.”

“Of course you do…”