“Hey, Gary, get your butt over here and check out the highlights from yesterday’s Altered fight!” a boy yelled from his seat.

The sound of the school bell rang out through the halls, signaling that it was time for lunch. Immediately opening the drawer under his desk, the boy pulled out an object. However, it wasn’t a packed lunch like one would expect; instead, the boy took out a tablet and put it on the table, propping it up and tilting it so he could comfortably watch the video.

The immediate destination: PouTube, the number one video-sharing platform. Soon, there was a crowd of classmates around him, all with their eyes glued to the screen.

“If you’re not here in five seconds, I’m starting the video without you,” Tom warned. But Gary was focused on playing with something under his desk, moving his knees up and down, and making sure to cover his actions from the eyes of others. Tom was starting to think his friend was doing something that could get him in serious trouble.

Bro, we’re in the middle of class, come on! At least go to the bathroom if you’re that desperate, Tom thought.

“Just give me a sec, okay?” Gary shouted back. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?”

Underneath his own desk, Gary was staring at his phone. He had received a message and wasn’t sure how to reply. It was already the fifth time he had typed out his response, but he ended up deleting it because it seemed insignificant.

“Be there this evening at six,” the message read.

Duuuuun nun, dun, dun na na!

With the sound of the opening theme song playing, Gary understood they had really started without him. He had given up coming up with a proper response, and in his haste, he wrote one letter. K.

“‘K’…?K? Who does this kid think he is?” a man shouted in frustration as he received the message on his end.

Meanwhile, Gary had gotten over to the others by shoving his way through the crowd, allowing him to stand directly behind his friend Tom. Just in time, for the fight was about to begin.

Two men stood opposite each other in nothing but tight shorts. Their muscles were on full display. They were proud of all the hard work they had put in for the fight that day.

In one corner, weighing in at two hundred pounds, undefeated for thirteen fights in a row, stood Kirk Summerfield, a man with a small goatee and black spiked-up hair that was short on the sides.

His opponent, weighing in at one hundred ninety pounds, with a record of ten straight wins, was Sam Dillpickle. He was a shorter, bald-headed man with a creepy smile.

“Hey, don’t you think these two look a bit like Tom and Gary?” one of the students suddenly mentioned.

“Holy crap, you are right! They totally look like those two!”

The students in the crowd laughed together at this discovery. Everyone but Tom and Gary themselves. Unfortunately, it was hard to deny the similarities between the two friends and the fighters.

Although Gary didn’t have facial hair, even though he was sixteen. He never could grow a single hair on his face, torso, chest, or legs. He was hairless.

It was the genes that some women wished they had. Although he did have hair in one area, he promised and made sure everyone knew that.

It was an incident many of his male classmates wished to forget. Having been teased so much about it, he decided to show everyone proof. Of course, flashing your fellow classmates wasn’t the best way to prove it, and it had cost him a week’s worth of detention.

At least he’d made sure it was during the boys’ PE class; otherwise, it could have been worse.

Still, he did have the same hairstyle as Kirk, only his hair was green. It wasn’t his natural hair color but a decision he had made over the summer. Everyone was initially surprised when he had come to class looking like that, but at the same time, it wasn’t that strange for Gary to do something like that. He already had a reputation for doing absurd things.

As for Gary’s best friend, Tom, he looked like the spitting image of the other man in the video. He wasn’t exactly bald, but he always got a number one when going to the barber.

When Gary asked him about his hairstyle choice, Tom explained that it was low maintenance to keep it so short. That was pretty much his goal in life. He liked things like computers, games, TV shows, and books, things that couldn’t talk back to him.

Tom hated interacting with people so much that he refused to go to anything but the self-service scanner at supermarkets. The idea that someone would try to make conversation with him about something he didn’t like was enough to send shivers down his spine.

Given their complete differences in character, it was odd that these two boys had become friends in the first place, but it had somehow worked out.

While their classmates were all busy laughing away, the fight had started.

As soon as the bell rang, the appearances of both men in the ring started to change slightly.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like our Altereds are starting at full throttle right off the bat!” the announcer said, hyping up the crowd.

The most notable changes in Kirk were his grown-out nails as well as his skin color, which had slightly yellowed. Black spots started to appear up and down his arm, and small patches of fur showed up on his face.

On the other side, Sam’s cheeks had puffed up, and his legs appeared to be slightly webbed after his change.

“As you can see, Kirk is an Altered based on a cheetah-like beast, while his opponent Sam is based on a frog type. It’s going to be an interesting matchup if I do say so myself!” the announcer shouted.

The transformations took less than a second, and the first one to make a move was Sam. He whipped out his toadlike tongue and grabbed onto Kirk’s forearm.

The look on Kirk’s face just screamed disgusting! He tensed up his arm, making his huge biceps grow even larger. The veins were visible, practically bulging out, and with a single slash of his claws, he managed to cut off his opponent’s tongue.

“Yes!” Gary shouted. “Come on, Kirk!”

Sam had leaped up, jumping higher than any normal person could thanks to his frog-powered legs. Alas, he just wasn’t quick enough. Kirk managed to grab him by the leg before he slammed his opponent to the ground.

It didn’t take long for the referee to declare Kirk the winner of this match and also the winner of this Altered fighters’ rookie tournament.

What everyone was watching was known as an Altered match. It was currently the most popular combat sport globally, mostly because it featured a new breed of humans called the Altered—although some argued whether they could even be called humans anymore.

Humans had discovered fossils of the ancient beasts that used to roam the Earth. They were undoubtedly the progenitors of today’s animals, only fiercer, larger, and more powerful.

In the end, a scientist made a major breakthrough and discovered a way to alter humans by injecting a fossil’s DNA into them, thereby creating what people now knew as Altereds.

These special humans possessed the ability to shift their appearances, changing parts of their bodies to mimic the beasts they had been infused with. They were stronger and faster and they even aged slower than normal humans. If one was ever struck with a disease, it could change its human composition to the point where it felt like it had a new body, ridding itself of such a thing.

But, not everyone could become an Altered. The fossils discovered were limited in number, and although new fossils were unearthed every so often until science could find a way to re-create them artificially, they were valued at absurd prices. Only the rich and powerful could afford to turn themselves into Altereds.

Even the contestants they were watching right now had only received this opportunity because they were sponsored by big corporations.

Nearly every boy looked up to the Altered. In a way, they were like real-life superheroes. But the two biggest fans in the room were undoubtedly Tom and Gary. They were the ones who had gotten everyone hooked on the sport in the first place.

It was normal for people to wish to one day become an Altered, and it was the same for the two. Only the reasons for them wanting to become one differed greatly.

“A big round of applause for our winner, Kirk Summerfield!” the announcer called out at the end of the show.

When a beautiful woman came onto the stage to deliver the oversized check for ten million dollars, Gary’s eyes practically turned into dollar signs. The young boy was obsessed with money, and watching the Altered fight, especially the large check, he couldn’t think of an easier way to quickly become rich and famous.

Ironically, this obsession with money would soon take him down a dark path, a path from which he wouldn’t be able to turn back.