Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary
Chapter 205 205 Hostile Encounter (2)

Avery's eyes darted around as he swiftly counted the number of his followers that Doyle Sarkur had brought with him.

It was obvious that the man was not here for a pleasant chat, and Avery's instincts were telling him to get ready for a fight.

'Forty-seven, huh. That's a lot of guys.'

Between Avery's team that numbered fifteen in total, this left them outnumbered by more than three times.

Still, he was more confident in the quality of his group compared to the people Doyle had brought with him. Some of them honestly looked sickly with heavy dark circles under their eyes, and other discolorations under their skin that were telltale signs of heavy drug use and improper medical care.

With only a few glances, Avery was able to tell that Doyle and his gang were exactly the types of mercenaries that often gave the profession a bad name.

"You Avery Asteria?" Doyle said, his tone laced with ire.

"Yeah, that's right. And your Doyle Sarkur. So, we both know each other's names." Avery replied sardonically, "Now what do you want? I'm sure that you can see that my team is celebrating right now, so if you have any business with me, leave it for later. I'll get back to you if you go through the proper channels send me a message through the Mercenary Association."

Not wanting to appear weak, Avery stood his ground against Doyle. Of course, he did not want to get into a brawl with the man and the men backing him up, so he at least tried to defuse the situation by bringing up standard protocol within the Mercenary Association.

Nevertheless, his dismissive attitude only made Doyle more furious. He looked ready to snap at any moment.

"That's not going to work after what you've done to me and my mercenary company. You think that just because you recently got lucky and were ranked up to a five star that you can go throwing your weight around in my territory. I bet that you're just some executive's toy and that's how you rose through the ranks so quickly. There's no way a twenty-year-old brat that's been at this for less than a year could ever breach the four star barrier normally."

Obviously, Doyle's words were meant to provoke Avery, but he was not particularly riled up by someone he found to be quite pitiful. It was clear from his build and stance that in the past Doyle had been an impressive mercenary. But at some point, he had started to let himself go.

His breath smelled heavily of alcohol and his overall condition was clearly deteriorating from drug abuse.

"Truthfully, I let you off easily already out of consideration for the Mercenary Association branches in the systems that your company frequents. So, before I change my mind and make things much worse for you, I recommend that you get out of my face and don't approach me outside of an official capacity again." Avery said threateningly.

He was already done with this conversation and wanted to get back to enjoying a bit of relaxation with his team.

Doyle's anger only flared up more fiercely though, and he began shouting at Avery.

"You little punk! I'm not going to let you push me around like this just because some stupid organization says that you've got a higher rank than me! If you know what's good for you, you'll get down on your hands and knees and beg for my forgiveness! Then have that stupid fine you got the Association to impose on us removed!"

After their boss had told Avery off and given his demands, Doyle's followers sneered at Avery and his team and started jeering at them.

This was incredibly unseemly behavior and Avery felt embarrassed that he was involved.

'I'll have to make sure to give the restaurant and its staff some reparations after this is done if we ever want to come here again.' Avery thought, internally sighing.

Seeing that he was not doing as their boss had told him, one of Doyle's men approached Avery and reached out to grab him.

"Didn't you hear what he said. On your knees and start begging if you don't want that pretty boy face of yours rearranged."

The large man put his right hand on Avery's shoulder and tried to push him down. Yet Avery did not move an inch.

While the man's muscles bulged and he clearly had received some minor physical augmentations, his strength was nothing compared to what Avery current possessed even if his body had not yet fully adapted to his recent enhancements.

"Aaaah!"

A scream of pain resounded through the building, but it did not come from Avery.

The man that had just accosted Avery was the one kneeling on the ground holding the now mangled arm that he had grabbed Avery with.

"Don't you dare touch him." Kasandra said, her voice colder than Avery had ever heard before.

He had nearly forgotten how she had used to be before their meeting, but it seemed that this situation had brough out the return of ice queen Kasandra.

Her gaze as she looked at the man and the rest of Doyle's gang made it clear that she saw them all as less than worms.

'She was willing to attack Kaiden, her own brother for me, so I suppose that she won't have any consideration for these guys.'

Avery was a bit pleased that Kasandra was so devoted to him, and of course, he felt the same way. If anyone ever tried to attack her, he would respond violently just as she had right now.

Kasandra's actions though had not helped to deescalate the growing tensions, however.

Seeing her shatter one of his men's arms was the last straw for Doyle. He had already come here hopping mad to confront Avery. Now there was no going back.

"Get them!"

At their boss' command, the followers Doyle had brought along surged forward and a chaotic brawl between his team and Avery's commenced inside of the restaurant.

The staff and other customers that had been watching began screaming and running away. Though, a few at least retained enough composure to send in a call to the colony police as they fled.

Now that a fight was inevitable, Avery quickly assessed that the fastest way to end this was to take out the leader.

If he incapacitated Doyle and took him captive, his goons were likely to stop as well.

With his right fist balled up, Avery lashed his arm like a whip and aimed for Doyle's chin. A solid hit to that area would stagger most people and possibly even knock them unconscious.

Except, as Avery's blow cut through the air with a whistle, Doyle hastily took a step back and avoided it.

There was a bit of fear in his eyes momentarily as he witnessed how fast Avery could move and the power behind his blow.

Naturally, as one of the leaders of his mercenary company, he had received some pretty extensive enhancements himself. But with only one interaction, he could tell that Avery's physical abilities were better than his own.

For Avery's part, he grimaced that his first strike had missed.

He had pushed himself pretty hard to move the way he had. His body was still recovering, and he was unable to fully utilize his augmentations and pushing himself caused a sharp soreness to shoot through the arm he had swung with.

'I'm not going to be able to fight seriously for long. And Kasandra and Jasmine may be in better conditions than me, but they shouldn't push themselves as well. We need to end this quickly.' Avery thought, forcing himself into a fighting stance despite his body's protest.

If there was any solace, it was that no one had drawn any deadly weapons. It seemed that they had all implicitly agreed that this was a brawl and not a fight to death. Of course, this was more to avoid severe consequences with the law rather than because they were against killing each other.

After Avery's first attack, Doyle had back off and four of his followers charged forward to attack Avery instead. He had the greater numbers, so Doyle had no intention of ending things in a one-on-one brawl between leaders.

Taking a deep breath, Avery heightened his focus and his opponents' movements seemed to slow to a crawl.

Instead of attacking with force and putting more strain on his body, he took a step forward and moved his foot in-between the man in the lead.

As he knocked the guy off-balance, Avery turned his momentum to the side and slammed him into one of the other of Doyle's goons coming at him.

The two tumbled over and the first fell on top of the second.

For the next two, Avery had no need to do anything, as two other bodies went flying through the air and slammed into them.

"Sorry to interject, but since your still not in the best condition, I'll take over the lead." Ezra said, stepping in front of Avery and giving his leader a confident grin.

His massive and imposing body intimidated Doyle's followers for a couple of seconds, but a command from their leader stirred them up into a frenzy again. This fight was not going to end so easily.

No matter how strong the individual members of Avery's team were, they were heavily outnumbered. Doyle felt assured that his forces would come out victorious and he could show the upstart that had crossed that he had made a grave mistake.