I was annoyed at the obvious light hazing that was happening. There was no way even six relatively new MGs could do much to a veteran who was actually trying to beat them at the given objective. Unless they were clever enough to consider… creative interpretations of the given rules.

I was also irked at the fact I had been singled out to compete separately. I get that Rebecca might have had higher expectations since I had worked with her, but I probably had been in less Breaches as an MG than at least one or two of the others. That led me to think she had a different motive than trying to make things more ‘balanced.’

Since she had been around me from almost the start of my time here, she more likely- and correctly- guessed I would be getting artsy with how I played this game and didn’t want me to corrupt the others.

I had already cheated by abusing [Covert Requisitioning] and [Act] to swap the coin being flipped for another of the same type I had stolen from Navy. A few people appeared a little more aware of the perks’ effects but no one called me out for it, so I guess I either got away with it or doing that was acceptable. Regardless, that let me watch for where the instructors were drawing the line on their own restrictions and how they approached the very biased challenge.

I took a seat on the edge of the field’s markings, and simply watched. At the half-field line, the instructors did an absurdly rapid-fire three-way game of rock-paper-scissors, where Navy ended up winning. At the same time, the group of students had gathered at the goal in a huddle. I was slightly annoyed that I couldn’t hear them and that despite being theoretically able to read lips, I currently lacked the knowledge to do so.

After a few more minutes, they broke out into some sort of defensive formation. Even with my non-existent strategic and tactical knowledge, I was sure it wouldn’t be enough. I didn’t have even an elevator pitch's worth of information about what our non-Rebecca instructors could do, but the general ridiculousness of the game they played to determine who was going first gave me some hints. Even without that, I would have operated under the assumption that no attacks I could try would work and normal defensive measures would only stall for a few seconds at best.

I mean, this was equal parts humility building and hazing; the whole point was to overwhelmingly win despite the apparent handicaps so the stars could be knocked out of our eyes.

When everyone looked to be in position, MAMC blew a whistle. Navy clearly had little experience with soccer, so they looked like they were mostly concentrated on keeping the ball under control as they started moving. The first two defenders took this opportunity to rush in, summoning their weapons as they did so. Before they got within even ten feet of Navy, the instructor’s image momentarily smeared before collapsing in the middle of the second defensive line.

Given the refresh rate of my prosthetics, they moved at least eighty feet in under one-one-hundredth of a second. While spending most of their effort carefully dribbling a ball.

Surprisingly, there wasn’t a sudden shock wave and vacuum collapse, but that didn’t stop the defenders from being stunned for long enough for Navy to awkwardly jog a little closer to the final defender. This guy stayed put, arms wide like how a goalie would act. The other defenders started running to catch up to Navy, but once again, right before they could get close, the instructor appeared to stretch and collapse into a new position, where they had an easy shot at the goal, followed by another whistle to signal the score.

While the defenders reorganized themselves, Rebecca and MAMC did another round of super-human rock-paper-scissors, with the former winning.

This time, my peers clustered closer to the goal warily and with their various weapons and tools already prepared. At the signal of the whistle, Rebecca clapped loud enough to catch the attention of the other team, who looked over just in time to be blinded by a bright blast of light. From there the attacking superhuman had an easy 150+ foot shot on the goal, with the whistle blowing as the defenders were still recovering their sight.

By now, said group was rightfully somewhere between annoyed and furious. This time I could hear some indistinct yelling coming from the huddle, but not any specifics due to the amount of talking-over each other there was. In the end, they all gathered at the edge of the circle painted around the center of the field- taking what was in my opinion the best fair defense. It was clear they were going to go all in right off the bat, hoping to quickly snatch a win before they lost momentum in this round.

Predictably, it didn’t matter. As soon as the whistle was blown, the defenders started rushing forwards, and almost immediately ran into an invisible box that Magically Assisted Moving Company had erected around himself. I could tell he was enjoying this by the smug look on his face as he casually walked up to the goal and gently tapped the ball in- all while magic, projectiles, and melee strikes rained down on his box.

Any respect the other students might have had for the instructors was thoroughly gone by now. For their part, both Navy and Rebecca looked apologetic and uncomfortable, but none of my peers noticed as first one, then the rest started stalking off the field.

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Since the instructors weren’t doing anything, I spoke up and innocently asked, “don’t you guys want to see me have a go as well?”

The shout-y one snapped back, “oh, shut the fuck up. I bet you’re in cahoots with them!”

“I mean, I’m not. But even if I was, do you think they’ll go easy on me with how they acted?”

Navy and Rebecca looked slightly more despondent at my comment, but it got the reaction I wanted in the form of low grumbling from the other students while they stopped and begrudgingly turned around.

I took this time to find a backup ball, which I deflated before filling with a specific ratio of atmospheric oxygen and some gas from my own supply. The mental effort it took to keep it relaxed and non-explosive was taken from processing my normal sight, which would be useless for this event anyway.

“So, Navy’s up first again?” I asked. There was a flash of something like ‘I am? I guess I am’ across their face before they jogged over to the middle of the field.

I took this time to go around behind the goal and struggle to flip it over, eventually succeeding in making it so the open side was facing away from the field with a satisfying wham. Everyone looked baffled- with the exception of Rebecca who looked on the verge of laughing- as I went and sat on the now grass-touching crossbeam.

The whistle called out again and Navy smeared, resolving back a few feet in front and halfway to the sideline from me. As they mundanely dribbled, I called out, “make sure that the ball doesn’t touch out of bounds! I don’t want to have the shot not count because of that”

Since I wasn’t making any moves, Navy ignored me and put all their effort into trying to juggle the ball with only their feet, getting a few steps before dropping it and sighing in disappointment. Seeing this I walked over, trying to stay calm, gave them a smile and nod in recognition of their attempt before I picked up the ball, immediately saying, “I got it now, so point for me, right?”

I got a short tweet from the whistle and glare from MAMC, which I shrugged off. Luckily, Rebecca decided she was next, fitting right into what I had planned. My solution for her was equally simple: sticking myself to the ball with a nice slathering of glue that covered my fleshy palm.

Maintaining an act of innocence, I jogged over to the middle of the field and sat cross legged with my hand holding the ball right on the center dot. MAMC wasn’t signaling to start the round, so I calmly asked, “what’s the problem? You never said we were playing my soccer rules, and explicitly stated to do anything and everything to win.”

Before he could reply, Rebecca spoke up, “she’s got you there. I’ll give this a shot, it’s more fun anyway! Alright Silvia, can you stand up so I can get a better look at what you’ve done?”

I smiled and complied, holding out my hand for her to take as she carefully inspected my gluing job. Since my thumb was perpendicular to and separated from the other fingers and my palm, she was able to use a small laser to cut through the glue securing it to the ball. I was briefly surprised that she had the control and precision to do even that, but the curvature of the rest of my hand made it impossible for her to repeat the feat without eventually burning me.

With an amused shake of her head she conceded.

“Since this one’s stuck to me for the time being, I guess we’ll need the backup I inflated.” I helpfully pointed out.

“So yer’ were plannin’ to cheat this whole time?” MAMC accused, but angrily grabbed the ball and walked over to where I was still standing at the center. “How’re you planning t’ test me, huh?”

My only response was to back away- behind him for safety.

Someone blew the whistle and I immediately dove to the ground and detonated my bomb.

I hadn’t used ClF3, so there was no dangerous fallout, but the silane had shredded the ball beyond repair and staggered the instructor, who whipped around while transforming into their boxing gloves, shorts, and trucker hat costume. At a gesture from them, I saw magic forming in the air above me and also transformed, feeling cold panic overtake my mind.

A barrier came crashing down, only visible to my special sight. My arm reached up to meet it before it could crush me at which point unnecessary processes were terminated to dedicate more power to contesting ULE control. If emotions hadn’t been deemed unnecessary, I would have been shocked at the ease with which the ULE bent to my mind’s will. All it took was likely anger-induced flitter of instability for infiltration and domination. As soon as my mind had control, MAMC pushed back with somehow more anger in his eyes, which provided a connection back to the source not unlike what I felt after taking over the cameras.

It took a few million iterations of cracking protocols to get a solid grasp on the connection- taking all of a tenth of a second- after which my mind was able to shift its focus to shredding the thread.

Both of us had violent reactions to this. I immediately felt a wave of nausea and confusion crash through my mind as it registered that my body temperature had increased by a little over two degrees and some of my silicone components burnt out from overuse. MAMC on the other hand, jerked back and fell to the ground screaming in pain. Looking entirely taken by rage, he tried to get back up, but his arms gave out almost as soon as any weight was put on them, eliciting more groans of pain.

At that moment, a three foot wide torrent of burning light ripped through the space between us and I found myself a few hundred feet away being princess-carried by Navy. With no followup attack from MAMC due to the pain finally becoming fully incapacitating, someone expressed the general sentiment by muttering, “what the hell just happened?”