“Group scenario?” Athena asked as both her and Lacy approached. She waved a hand toward Lacy and I. “With them?” The words weren’t exactly laced with acid, but her baseline pre-teen levels of attitude caused us both to stare at her in annoyance.

“Unless you wanna go back to the kiddy course?” I asked with raised eyebrows. “Leave the tough stuff to the adults.” Her snarling face was all the justice I required for her glib remark.

After a moment of seething, her face smoothed and she crossed her arms with a smug look.

“Puh-lease. I crushed that course.”

“Yeah, right. Totally crushed it. That’s why I saw your ass getting launched by that log half a dozen times.”

“But I cleared it, didn’t I? All you did was look like you had to take a shit for an hour—”

The pressure in the room suddenly intensified, like the air had become ten times as thick. Athena flinched while I scanned around with my senses. Lacy had been quiet, clearly deep in thought, when she also flinched at the sudden uncomfortable feeling.

After a confused moment, we all looked to Kurian, who casually stood there—well, as casually as a fifteen-foot-tall blue-skinned alien could be—and regarded us with a disappointed scowl.

When he saw that he had all of our attentions, the pressure siphoned away, releasing us from its grasp.

“Maybe I misjudged,” he said to no one in particular. “It has been a few millennia since I’ve taught Nascents in earnest. Even the best teachers make mistakes.” He shook his head and closed his eyes. “To think, I considered them ready for the next step of training when they can’t even cease bickering for five seconds.”

Athena’s eyes had grown wider as he spoke and my own feelings mimicked her open shock.

“Sorry, Master Kure!” she said frantically. “It won’t happen again. We promise!” She turned to me. “Tell him, dummy.”

Before I could reply, he shook his head.

“I don’t believe you.” Athena opened her mouth to say more, but he held out a hand. “No more talking.” Her jaw clamped shut. “There is one way you can prove me wrong, show me that you three are capable of the maturity necessary to Climb this Tower.”

“Hey,” Lacy complained. “What did I do?”

He turned his heavy gaze to her and she wilted immediately.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

Turning his face to regard each of us for a moment, he shook his head again in disappointment. It felt like getting scolded by the high school track and field coach when he caught us smoking weed behind the bleachers.

“This next course will require the three of you to reach a level of teamwork you haven’t yet achieved. Harmony and trust will be essential if you wish to complete my course.”

“Yes, Master Kure,” Athena replied diligently and we nodded along with her.

With a wave of his hand, Athena’s obstacle course disappeared into the ground and Lacy’s castle course expanded outward, the walls rushing toward us at high speed. For a moment, I feared they would crash into us and even though I knew we couldn’t die in the safe zone, I also knew that the pain was very much real.

Thankfully, it stopped a few dozen feet away, the walls rising almost four times as tall as Kurian. There were no visible guards now, but the walls stretched across the length of the room, angling back and out of sight. It looked like the Beasts’ stronghold in the Tower, stacked stone bricks with crenelated battlements. The difference was the moat that suddenly materialized around the exterior, along with corner watch towers at either end of the square castle. Behind the walls, a large stone structure rose high up toward the ceiling, little arrow slits spread evenly across its surface.

“The objective,” he started, after the castle had fully materialized. “Is to work together to steal an item deep within the castle.”

My eyes went wide in excitement.

“It’s a heist? What are we talking here? Ocean’s Eleven or Heat? I’m partial to the guns blazing approach myself, but I can get behind a cerebral misdirection play if that’s what the situation calls for…” I trailed off as I saw the anxious look on Lacy’s face. “What is it, Lace?”

She looked to Kurian, who waved for her to speak.

“It’s definitely not Ocean’s Eleven,” she said with a dejected tone. “Heat…maybe. If you married Heat with…” She looked up, clearly wracking her brain for the appropriate movie reference. Then her eyes lit up. “Reservoir Dogs.”

I stared at her blankly for a moment before tilting my head in question.

“Uh, Lace…have you seen either of those movies? They don’t exactly slot in together.”

She held up her hand asking for patience, but Athena cut across her.

“How about some references this decade?” she asked with an exasperated tone. “I’m only ten, Lacy.”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Okay, no movie references. Let’s just say, the guns blazing option equals death.” Her good humor disappeared in an instant. “This isn’t like Heat where you can fight your way out if you get caught. I ran this scenario twenty-seven times and I got into the vault four times…” She paused, letting that sink in. When Athena and I shared a surprised look, she snorted. “And that should have been the easy part. In one of the runs, my players—” She cut off at our confused looks. “Sorry, I was able to control these versions of Climbers. They followed my directions like players in a game. You’ll see. Anyways—”

“No they won’t,” Kurian interrupted. Lacy turned in surprise. “For this scenario, you will be overseeing like before…only Athena and Dirk will be active participants.”

Her eyes went wide, then narrowed as she crossed her arms.

“That’s impossible.”

Kurian regarded her coolly. “Oh?”

She wilted under the pressure of his gaze, uncrossing her arms.

“Seems like it, anyway,” she muttered.

“Hold on,” I said with an upraised hand. “Why is getting into the vault the easy part? Is the item bulky or…?” I cut off as Lacy shook her head.

“Nope. Looks like a simple crown. Getting in is the easy part, because an Adept guards the inside.”

I rocked my head back and forth, but didn’t feel like that warranted her concern. “We’ve beat Adepts before.”

She nodded. “True, but this one appears to be a Peak Adept, on their way to the next Stage. But that’s not why I’m worried.” She hesitated a moment, chewing her lip. After a moment, she opened her mouth to speak, but Kurian cut her off with an upraised hand. Her eyes widened in surprise, but she didn’t argue.

There was no expression on his face to give away why he’d cut her off, but I swore there was an evil glint in his eye in the way he examined Athena and I.

“Let them find out on their own,” was all he said and a pit formed in my stomach.

Lacy, however, did have an expression. And if I were to describe it, it would be closest to a shit-eating grin and that had me on guard.

“Oh, you bastards,” I muttered.

Athena looked between Kurian and Lacy with a barely contained snarl and I knew she was accepting the challenge. Her own determination sparked the same in me and we locked eyes.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“Let’s fuckin’ get it,” I said and raised my hand up for a high-five.

She looked between me and my hand, then shrugged.

“Fuck yeah.” Then she threw her whole body into the motion, a loud crack echoing in the room. We grinned at each other, the moment holding for a beat longer than usual. It was like that meme of Rocky and Apollo Creed sharing that bro-moment with their biceps glistening in the light.

Except my Rocky was a ten-year-old girl coming in at a whopping five-feet-tall and a hundred pounds soaking wet.

Unimpressed, Kurian waved at us impatiently. “To your places.”

***

Lacy’s palms were sweaty as she watched the two of them get into place. A vise gripped her stomach when Kurian had declared they would run the game without backup and it had never released its hold on her.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust their capabilities—she knew the impossible things Dirk had accomplished and the impossible things he would go on to accomplish. And Athena, despite her age and size, was a feral cat with pure hellfire coursing through her veins in place of blood. There wasn’t anyone else in the team she’d have picked to replace the girl for this particular scenario, and that was saying something.

But she also knew what was coming. Knew how difficult this scenario was.

From her perch on her elevated platform, she saw Kurian give the two of them some brief instructions and she looked at the board before her.

The board was a large top-down view of the castle and the surrounding area. It was an isometric view like a strategy game and nearly all of it was clouded in grey fog. She knew from experience that her top-down vision would clear as her players explored. She couldn’t see or hear anymore than them, but her unique vantage had allowed her to notice details that her artificial players hadn’t.

With a thought, she connected to Dirk and Athena through the board’s interface. A sudden influx of sounds and vision appeared in her mind. It had been overwhelming at first, but she had learned over the hours to tune out most of it, allowing her subconscious to pick out the important details.

But that was with the artificial players provided by Kurian. This was a far different experience.

Athena’s voice sounded in her ear as the girl spoke quietly to Dirk.

“…they weren’t telling us?”

In the girl’s vision, she saw Dirk shrug.

“Don’t know. Let’s take it slow and steady. It’s been a while since I died and I’m not exactly chomping at the bit to experience it again.”

Athena nodded and they both got into a ready stance.

Lacy felt a pang of guilt in her chest. They were going to die and a lot. Even if it was just the safe zone style of death, she knew it hurt like nothing she’d ever experienced before.

But the least she could do was acclimate them to the system used by this game. With a thought, she keyed her voice into their ears.

“Athena, Dirk, it’s Lacy—”

“Holy fuck!”

“Jeeeeeesus!”

The two of them jumped in surprise and whirled around to look up at Lacy high on her platform.

She cringed and waved back in apology.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said softly. “The artificial players just accepted my commands without issue. I didn’t realize how jarring it might be.”

“How the fuck are you—” Dirk started, then shook his head. “Nevermind, nothing should surprise me anymore. Is this your power or part of the scenario?”

“Scenario. I’m like an overwatch, giving commands and guiding the players through the scenario. I think it’s supposed to train my Leadership Affinity, but I haven’t noticed anything yet.”

“What can you see up there?” Dirk asked.

She chuckled. “Everything.” She hesitated. “Well, everything you two can, I mean. There’s a little bit more to it, but essentially, I’m your guide and spotter. The objectives appear in my interface, as well as the…” How to phrase this? “The warnings…”

She felt their questions coming, but before they could speak, Kurian started the scenario.

Scenario: Immortal Castle

Objective: Retrieve the Immortal’s treasure from within the castle.

Bonus Objective: Retrieve the treasure before the alarm is raised.

“Sounds straightforward,” Dirk said.

Athena grunted in reply as she crouched at the ready.

“Slow and steady like you said,” Lacy transmitted in their ears. “We really don’t want them to raise the alarm.”

“Roger.”

She examined the details of the board, scanning for any access points that looked like good entry points. In her vision, the notification timer began to count down.

10…

9…

8…

She ignored it, her eyes tracking across the castle exterior. Experience had taught her that the castle layout was randomized on each reset, along with the positioning of the guards. However, after many, many, failures, she had begun to discover patterns. Certain truths held regardless of how the rest of the castle randomized.

For example, the sewer entrance she spotted on the western exterior was most likely booby-trapped. She had lost seven scenarios trying to sneak her team into the sewers beneath the castle before giving up on that avenue.

She continued to scan, examining the three separate gates on the north, south, and east sides of the castle. Unfortunately, the south side was obscured in the fog of war, along with most of the east side. She needed more information before she could create a plan.

4…

3…

“Dirk,” she said quickly. “I need you to scout the exterior more. Can you do a lap around the castle without getting spotted?”

She could see him down below in a crouched stance, but he looked up at her words.

“Got it,” he whispered.

1…

Guards are active. The treasure has been set.

You may proceed…

The two of them took off in a low stance, sticking to the artificial tall grass that surrounded the castle on two sides. On the backside, Lacy could see trees in the distance and hoped they were dense enough to provide the cover they would need.

Of course, she could have tried to use her illusion magic to shield them from the guard’s eyes, but knew that there were special guards with an ability called [Truesight] that could pierce her illusions even from a hundred feet. She’d lost more than a few scenarios before they’d even reached the castle walls that way.

Turning her attention back to the board, she watched as the fog cleared slowly as Dirk and Athena moved around the exterior. She was pleasantly surprised to note that they were able to move much faster than her artificial players had been without being seen. They practically cut through the tall grass at a sprint, unveiling the entire castle in only a few minutes.

Once they made it back to their starting point, Lacy spoke.

“Good work, guys. Give me a minute while I study the—”

“Sewer grate, Lace,” Dirk said. “West side. Bet that’s our best option.”

“Ewww,” Athena groaned. “Fake or not, do we really have to crawl through shit for this thing?”

“You’ll have to do a lot worse in the Tower,” he said in a chastising tone.

“Blood and guts are whatever, but—”

Instincts took over and she cut across them.

“Cut the chatter,” Lacy ordered. “Keep the lines of communication free unless it’s mission critical.”

“Damn, Lace,” Dirk muttered.

Athena grumbled something under her breath, but Lacy thought she heard something about a…hard ass.

She sighed, closing her eyes. After a deep breath, she opened them and looked down at the two as she spoke.

“I should have briefed you two better. Here’s the deal. I am overwatch. That means that you need to trust me implicitly and do what I say. Chances are, I know something you don’t. The two of you are the operators, meaning that you need to dial in only on what’s in front of you. If you try to do both jobs, you’ll only suck at both of them. Clear?”

She paused, waiting for their replies. Athena grumbled some more but it was Dirk she was more concerned about. He was used to being solo, doing everything himself. She had the faintest suspicion he wouldn’t be great at following orders.

Which meant she needed to make a point.

“I get it, Lace. But I’m not exactly a noob here.”

A sad smile touched her lips and she sighed as if she was conceding the point.

“You’re right, Dirk. Do your thing. I’ll be your support.”

She felt his eyes on her from down below, but she ignored his gaze.

“That’s not what I mean, Lacy. I want your help and experience. I’m just thinking we should work as a team instead of us being just the pieces on the board…”

“I hear you,” she replied neutrally. “Let’s try that. You were saying something about a sewer grate…”

Five minutes later, the two of them gasped and thrashed on the training room floor. The scenario disappeared with a notification she was very familiar with.

Scenario failed. All players dead. Reset?

Lacy had watched with mixed emotions as the sewer they had infiltrated flooded with water as the gate they had just come through slammed shut behind them. They had spent precious minutes trying to force the gate back open, but had realized that it wouldn’t budge or be cut through. Finally, Dirk and Athena had switched directions to try and swim through the sewer, but the torrent of water had fought them the entire time. Using Red and his powers, Dirk had pushed against the current, pulling Athena along behind him, before she eventually drowned in a convulsive fit. He had followed her into artificial death a minute later.

As the water and castle cleared, the two of them lay on their backs and gasped. Once the water was no longer in their lungs, their body realized that they weren’t actually dead and ceded back control. Still, it was a few minutes before they had the strength to get to their hands and knees.

Athena was the first to speak.

“That…fucking…suuuuucked.”

Dirk looked up at Lacy, and she could feel the conflicting emotions in his gaze. After a moment, he spoke.

“Okay, Lace. We’ll do this your way. You’re the boss.”

It took every ounce of self-control she possessed not to let the smugness she felt reach her voice.

“Glad we’re on the same page. Here’s where you went wrong…”