Five scout droids form ahead of Dante as the rules of the game briefly appear ahead of him.
_RULE: DESTROY THE TARGETS WITHOUT TAKING DAMAGE.
Without much thought, Dante immediately gets into a rhythm, and forms his hula hoop blade around him.
_HP: 100
_MANA: 15% REMAINING
_DETAILS: 35/230
_ARENA: TEST BEGIN
All five spheres immediately bolt in different directions, and like a lion, Dante commits to his prey- starting with the one to the left of the arena.
He sprints full speed, skipping between strides and shifting his direction so that he’s a tougher target for the other four droids. Each of them firing at where he was, trying to compensate for his movement.
As he encroaches on the target, he uses his blade to deflect any approaching lasers whilst strafing the rest. Preparing for a large swing, Dante gyrates the blade over his head and down his arm, and uses all of his energy to jump in the air the moment he’s in range.
As he takes flight, the droid flies upward, trying to evade Dante.
I knew it, he grins whilst slashing straight through the droid once it reaches him mid-air.
_TARGETS REMAINING: ⅘
And as he hits the ground, he spins his hula hoop back around his shoulder to waist and continues running. Whilst trying to decide on a target, he notices they're in a diamond formation, which exposes him to a lot of fire if he attacks head-on.
In fact, the nearest one, the tip of the diamond, is also further forward than the others.
Are they trying to trap me?
He shifts directions, sacrificing a lot of momentum to opt for a different approach.
Well, the approach they want him to take- but he’ll use their trap as his own.
As Dante has been running, he’s noticed they aren't all able to attack. There’s some overlap that might result in friendly fire. If Dante sprints straight at the trap droid, the back three wouldn’t fire until he’s taken out the front one. But if he doesn't take it out, he has an easy way in which only one of them can fire.
So, he sprints straight at them, dodging and deflecting the laser blast. As he encroaches the nearest droid, the tip of the diamond, he picks up his pace and doubles his rhythm.
As his blade spins faster he slides underneath the nearest droid, it rotates underneath itself to keep tracking but it’s reacting to unknowns.
Dante leaps up, now inside their formation, and uses a big swing to take out the centre to droids from below. Flipping in the air as he prepares to land and keep running.
_TARGETS REMAINING: ⅖
But, before even touching the ground, the remaining droids have adjusted and fire at him.
Shit, Dante panics, trying to rotate himself midair but it's unsuccessful.
Two beams pierce through Dante, one at his thigh, and the other through his chest.
He drops to the floor, groaning in pain and noticing the pool of blood accumulating on the floor.
_ARENA: FOURTH TIER TEST
_TEST: HIGH-STRESS COMBAT
_STATUS: FAILED
_TARGETS REMAINING: ⅖
_COMBAT DURATION: 1 min 18 sec
The most Dante ever managed to take out at the Academy was 2 droids when they tried out the test, but Dante hadn't put up enough of a fight back then to know what they're capable of- something he’d never considered was their range of movement. The ease in which they can rotate and refocus their aim.
_ARENA: SIMULATION ENABLED
“That wasn't bad,” Nadia chuckles, “I honestly didn't think you'd even take out one of them,”
Dante coughs up blood trying to reply to Nadia’s cheeky remark, but doesn't have the strength quite yet.
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“Don’t worry, I’ll show you how it's done,” Nadia claps as she steps into the arena.
Dante manages to get up to his feet now that his internal organs have regenerated, and makes his way out of the arena- Suddenly completely healing and even recuperating the energy he had prior to entering.
Woah, Dante notices the change in his body. I've never stepped out of the sim before fully recovering- how does this thing work?
“Reset it,” Nadia calls out from the middle of the arena.
“Oh yeah,” Dante says before accessing his HUD.
_START
_LIFELINE: ENABLED
_TEST 1: HIGH-STRESS COMBAT (Fourth Tier Testing)
“Alright,” Nadia mumbles to herself as she takes a deep breath and spawns her energy whips beside her.
_ARENA: TEST BEGIN
Nadia immediately lasso’s the two droids that appear directly ahead of her- increasing her energy output to fry straight through them. The other three droids open fire, and Nadia runs to the nearby wreckage, barely avoiding a laser that nearly hit her foot.
_TARGETS REMAINING: ⅗
The sudden crack of the speed barrier startles Dante as one of the droids explodes on impact. I didn't even see her winding it up, It's a damn good thing Dante respected her range during their fight.
That could've been his head!
_TARGETS REMAINING: ⅖
Nadia then uses the debris of a droid's shielding to reflect the incoming beams. Clever, Dante didn't even know the droids were shielded against lasers. Lucky guess?
As the droids concentrate fire on her position, the arena becomes a laser show as beams ricochet and bounce all around the arena.
As the droids whizz by to reposition around her cover, she throws the debris at one of the approaching droids, knocking it off course before the crack of her whip bursts through the room- and the pieces of the droid drop to the floor.
_TARGETS REMAINING: ⅕
She leaps aside to evade a few blasts from the droid before using the whip trailing behind her to block two more blasts by the time it catches up to her. She keeps sprinting, trying to evade the laser fire whilst closing the distance.
She already took Cassie’s advice to heart and committed to her offensive strategy- She hasn't slowed down since the test started.
This droid’s more aware of her tendencies, and is maintaining its distance, drifting away from her when she gets close.
“It knows you're-”
“Shut up!” Nadia yells, twirling one of her whips above her as she runs past Dante.
She casts it at the droid, barely missing as the droid parties to the side- prompting a wide grin from Nadia before her second whip bursts through the air, detonating the droid with another clean hit.
“Nice!” Dante yells.
“Boom!” Nadia pumps her fist in the air and smiles at Dante as the Arena blinks green.
_ARENA: FOURTH TIER TEST
_TEST: HIGH-STRESS COMBAT
_STATUS: PASSED
_TARGETS REMAINING: 0
_COMBAT DURATION: 1 min 08 sec
Before Nadia can continue her celebrating, the arena switches back to its neutral, blue tone before commencing the start sound.
_START
_LIFELINE: ENABLED
_TEST 2: EXTRACTION (Fourth Tier Testing)
Dante watches in awe as the arena simulates an entire environment. His view is filled by a concrete wall that cuts off any spectating of Nadia before it all shrinks into a miniature, open-top warehouse with various rooms and two stories.
It fills the entire arena, and Dante notices a miniature Nadia spawn at the entrance of the facility. The entire thing is almost like a hologram, aware of Dante’s spectating and allowing him to see through the walls or roof of the building.
“Woah,” Dante stammers, “This is insane,”
The Academy had nothing like this- Their sim was nowhere near this advanced! The complexity of the sim baffles him, leaving him to wonder how tech can be so advanced beyond the wall but lacking at the Academy.
Wasn't it all developed there?
_RULE: RETRIEVE THE HOSTAGE WITHOUT ALERTING THE ENEMY.
Interesting! Dante's mind lights up at the sight of the rule. It appears the tests aren't just combat-oriented.
“What the hell?” Dante hears Nadia saying from inside the sim.
“This is so cool!” Dante says, looking at her from outside the sim. “I must look like a giant,”
Nadia grunts, rolling her eyes before admitting, “You do,”
“That’s so cool!” Dante says before stroking his chin, “Can you still use your powers for this test?”
Nadia activates her energy whips, and they drop to her side, “Yeah,”
So it wants to test us on using our ability for anything other than combat. This should be one of Dante’s better tests- his versatility would thrive in an environment like this.
“Do you think I can fight?” Nadia asks.
“It’s an extraction sim,”
“What if I need to get passed a few of them,”
“I guess you could, but you'd have to do it without alerting the others,”
“Hmm… wanna tell me where they are?” Nadia asks.
“Nope,” Dante chuckles, “That’d be cheating,”
“Well it would only be cheating if-”
“Good luck,” Dante says, turning to have a seat on the stands.
“Wow,” Nadia sighs before pumping herself up, “I’ve got this... I've got this.”