My Town, My City [Alex, Sola]

"Yeah. I noticed."

Removing his heel, Alex simply crouched down to be marginally more at Sola's eye level, his expression having hardly lightened at all. He did, however, realize this was the equivalent of beating up an annoying cat, and despite his open disdain for the guy, he also didn't really want to just kill him when he was such a non-entity.

"There’s a difference between being ‘tough’ and being what I am. I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, bud. I’ve gotten into scuffles with guys who’d turn you into a fine mist just by being in the same city. We could sit here for years and you’d maybe give me a light bruise. Only reason I haven’t killed you is that it’d be fucking pointless, and I don’t really do pointless violence.”

Not that he hadn’t in the past, admittedly. But that was all the more reason he felt strongly about it now.

“So, what’s it gonna be?”

"I ain't leaving."

Option C would be his pick. Not a chance in hell he was going to run even if he couldn't beat this guy but he also refused to get turned into a fine mist. Seems like they had arrived at a bit of an impasse.

"If you're gonna mist me though, at least see if I can make it to ten seconds. 'kay? Otherwise, we'll see if I can't get that bruise on you in just one year rather than a bunch."

He explained to big red up there. Just because he might die didn't mean he was going to back off, running from a challenge was a cowardly thing. The kind of thing he did as a human which meant he never accomplished anything out of fear that it might catch up on him. Even if he died here, he wasn't going to beat around running from reality.

"Man, you're stupid as fuck, ain'tcha? Not that I can say much. Not like I'm some fucking super genius, I just read when I'm on trips. Wife always says it's a good way to pass the time."

Rubbing his temples briefly, Alex tried to think about what the right course of action here was. He didn't really think he was gonna be accomplishing much if he just turned this guy into paste. Could he? Sure, but was this fucking guy honestly even gonna cause any problems? Not likely. Might honestly be more useful to just leave him around.

"Not planning on doing shit to you, loser. Now get off."

Seeing as Sola hadn't let go of him, Alex simply shook the leg he was holding onto with no small amount of force, heating himself up rather substantially at the same time.

"Wanna try and bruise me in a year? See ya in a year then."

Thrown away with the kick and the searing heat of the leg, Sola grunted against the ground. The ground was his best friend lately since he was spending so much time kissing it. This sucked but that's why he was improving so that he could start kicking other people into the dirt.

"Bet. You tell me where and I'll be there."

He could barely remember some important things but something like this? He'd remember this without a doubt since it was a challenge. Sola would just need to somehow get strong enough to bruise this guy in a year, ideally he'd be doing more! He just needed to practice ten times as hard then he'd get ten times the gains.

Well, whatever. Alex didn't really care about setting up some stupid rematch like this, but he was a man of his word, at least, and it did a good enough job solving this problem in the here and now.

"Dope. You ever been to the US? Catch you in the ruins of Las Vegas in a year."

It was the one place Alex felt like he could in some way cut loose, even if maybe that wasn't the best. It wasn't that he'd never gotten over what happened there or anything, but he'd be lying if he said that it didn't occasionally bother him even now. That was normal, though, so he wasn't gonna think much about it.