Standing completely still, Ark watched as the other teams congregated and walked to positions at the edge of the room. Rex and Naomi carefully approached each other, before agreeing on a spot that they walked to with an arms-length between them; both making sure not to let the other walk ahead.
Next to Ark, Mino was approached by Ran, who just grunted and nodded in a direction opposite the girls. Mino looked to Ark, who could do nothing but shrug, staring as his best—and only—friend walked off to become his opponent. Did we ever fight each other in the Maze? Ark suddenly could not recall. His mouth felt dry.
“Oh, and just so we’re clear,” Alistor had approached, speaking close to Ark’s ear, “That gear stays in its sheath. Understood?”
Ark nodded, unable to speak. He knew what was coming, what always happened when he was teamed up with someone else. Alistor just grinned, clapping him on the shoulder as he walked off.
“You’ve all got 10 minutes to prepare, then I activate the field.” He called, as he sauntered over to an already prepared fold-up chair and parasol, throwing himself into it with a whistle.
Finally, Jenson walked over, a sour expression on his face. “Let’s go,” he said, nodding to a place within the training room that would put them at equal distance to both of the other groups.
Taking a deep breath, Ark nodded and followed Jenson, careful to stay a step behind. Right now was not the time for a pissing match, and he needed Jenson, if he was going to come out of this training looking at least half-way competent.
When they had nearly arrived, Ark summoned his courage and said, “So uhm… I need to link up with you, if we—“
“No,” Jenson said, cutting him off.
“Look, I know this isn’t ideal,” Ark tried again, putting some force into his words, “But I ca—“
“I said no,” Jenson stopped at the wall and eyed Ark, “I’m not about to open my netlink to you. I don’t care what you can do—you stay out of my head, understood?”
“Alright, alright.” Ark put up his hands, “Just… I’m not gonna be much help if—“
“I don’t need your fucking help, and I don’t need you.” Jenson turned and put a finger in Ark’s chest, pushing him back with ease. “If you need others to do the dirty job for you, go become a politician, or some shit. A riftwalker stands alone.”
Ark furrowed his brow. “Then why are we in a team?”
Jenson eyed Ark with a mixture of disgust and confusion. “Why? Because of the competition, of course,” he said, looking genuinely baffled that Ark had not figured this out on his own, “How else are they supposed to determine who the best of us is?”
“Is that what’s really important here?” Ark said, exasperation in his voice. He’d had enough of competition for a lifetime.
“It is to me,” Jenson said, then nodded toward Naomi and Rex, “And it is to them, don’t you see?”
The two girls still stood apart, preparing their weapons. They were not speaking, but they were clearly sneaking peeks at the other, looking for an edge even when on the same team.
Ark turned to look at Mino and Ran, who were similarly standing apart, not speaking, but without the sneaking looks and suspicions. He nodded their way and said, “It doesn’t seem so important to them. Can’t we just work together?”
“Who? Ran?” Jenson laughed with contempt coating his every word, “He’s not in the competition, that’s why. I don’t know about your friend, but he seems as stupid as he is big; he probably hasn’t figured out how things work eithe—“
He stopped when Ark grabbed him by the color, the fire in his chest burning hot. “You don’t call him that,” Ark said, teeth clenched.
Jenson just raised an eyebrow and easily removed Ark’s hand with an iron grip. “Or what?”
With difficulty, Ark got control of the fire within, stepping back out of reach from Jenson. “Just… don’t, alright?”
“No, fuck you,” Jenson said, eying the part of his uniform that Ark had crumpled, “And fuck your stupid ass friend.”
Ark felt a violent retort coming, when he was abruptly interrupted by Alistor’s voice coming over the speakers.
“One minute. Wrap up your gossip and get ready!”
Then there was a finger at his chest. Ark bit his lip, forcing himself to be calm.
“Listen,” Jenson said, bending forward until they were close enough for the their noses to touch, “I don’t care what sob story you’ve brought with you. If you can’t stand on your own, you don’t belong here. So either find a way to make yourself useful, or stay out of my way. Got it?”
Clenching his jaw, Ark nodded. He got it. He had seen it before.
“Good.” With that, Jenson squared his shoulders and raised his sword, eyes focused on the two groups of enemies in front of them.
“Field activation in 3… 2…” Alistor’s voice turned into a blur, as the bare room twisted, as if the air inside had suddenly heated up and started refracting everything in a mess of colors. Then came the sound of clattering chairs, combined with the sound of a wet rag being wrung out.
Ark had to blink to readjust his vision, trying to stop himself from getting nauseas at the confusing mess of impressions.
When everything finally settled in an understandable combination of sensory input, the room was no longer there. At the back of his mind, Ark knew that was not strictly true, merely that his interpretation of the room was different.
At his feet lay a mix of dead branches and leaves, with the occasional patch of grass sticking out of. Above, wide canopies of ancient trees had grown out of nowhere, thick and brown trunks covered in a network of branches that blotted out the sky above. Subtle realmlight cut down through the leaves, playing across the forested landscape.
Despite the near-magic of augmented reality, Ark had no time to enjoy it. Beside him, Jenson burst into a sprint, heading straight for where Mino and Ran had been moments before.
Drawing out his training gun, Ark checked if it was loaded on instinct, before running after Jenson as fast as he could. His teammate—even if name only—was not paying him any attention, and was clearly enhancing his strength and speed with psions already, vastly out-pacing Ark’s mortal ability to keep up.
“W-Wait,” He called, knowing it was pointless. Ark's breath quickened, a mix of frustration and determination bubbling inside him. He watched Jenson sprint away, feeling the sting of being left behind. His fingers tightened around the training gun, the cold metal grounding him to reality.
If he was left behind, he had to make the most of it. Looking around, desperate to figure out if any enemies were around Ark made whatever plans he could. Seeing no one, he activated the third of his primary authorities, mapping.
Like the administrative form, the activation was bound to intent, and with a visual scan of his surroundings, a small map appeared in the corner of his peripheral vision, even displaying the environment from the augmented reality.
With the base map established, Ark began calibrating the scanning into several different signals, one of them looking for body heat—
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Two signals popped up to his right, and with wide eyes, Ark threw himself to the ground as an arrow thunked into the tree right behind. Rolling back into a crouch, he tried to get a shot at the enemy, but the snapping sound of a bowstring made him reconsider.
Throwing himself once more, he did not bother attempting to aim at the opponent, but ran around a tree that would hide him from the two red dots on the map. Breathing heavily, Ark put his back to the tree and focused. He was used to this, now think!
Studying his map, Ark saw the two dots separate, flanking him from both sides. From the arrow, he knew that one was Naomi, making the other Rex. Which to go for?
Naomi, as the ranged attacker would be more dangerous if he didn’t take her out first. Licking his lips, Ark noted that one of the red dots was moving closer to him than the other, approaching melee range. That had to be Rex.
Waiting for the dots to get a little closer, Ark focused on his breathing, clamping down on the immediate panic and centered himself. This was what he was trained for. With control of his breath, he listened. The sound of careful footsteps upon crackling leaves filled his soundscape, coming closer… and closer.
The moment the dots were about to achieve a visual on him, he sprinted out of cover, away from the melee attacker, and into the sights of the ranged. It was a risk, but he could not be caught between them both.
Gun raised, breath under control, Ark aimed at the spot where Naomi should be standing, bow raised for the kill. The one to pull of the shot first would win this. Instead, he found Rex grinning at him, her staff split in two; one half held at her side, the other already moving forward, a thick whip slicing the air toward him.
He had no time to shoot. The whip hit his hand with such a violent crack that he felt the shockwave in his face, much less his hands. The pain sent him reeling backward, teeth gritted in order to master it and regain control.
Turning to run Ark found himself face to face with Naomi, pointing the sharp end of a short sword right at him. Quick as lightning, she attacked, cutting at his arms and legs without leaving him as much as a breath to respond.
Though the weapon did not cut through his flesh, the augmented reality system made sure Ark understood that he was very much in pain, and probably about to die. Ark crumbled to the ground without a sound, refusing to let out the pain for others to hear. Instead, he swallowed it, feeding it to the little flame in his chest.
Having disposed of him, the two girls did not waste any time, but moved on to their next prey, leaving Ark on the ground, useless, and with plenty of time to think on his failures.
I didn’t even fire off a single shot, he thought, his senses deluding him into thinking the ground was soft and wet. And they played me like a fiddle.
They had known he had little to no information about them, and what little he had came from seeing them train in their weapons. With lacking information, he had made wrong assumptions about them and their fighting styles. It was a fatal mistake.
He lay there for a couple of minutes, every nerve in his body telling him he was limbless and bleeding out, before the AR-world fell away, and the pain was nullified. Groggy from sensory whiplash, Ark stumbled onto his feet and found his teammates in the opposite end of the room, three of them gaining their feet just like him.
The only two who walked away from the battle were Rex and Naomi, who continued their silent dance for domination by walking side by side. They barely looked winded.
Stumbling forward, Ark found Mino dusting off his pants with a furrowed brow. “You alright, Buddy?” He said, looking the big guy over for any visual damage.
“I’m fine,” Mino said, brushing Ark off, “Where were you?”
“Yeah… Where were you, shithead?”
Ark stiffened at the address, and turned to face Jenson. “You left me,” he simply said.
“No, you just couldn’t keep up,” the red-head approached, a sneer on his lip. “Thanks to that, I had to fight big-boy and the drone, all on my own.”
“If you had just waited—“ Ark tried again, voice as reasonable as he could make it through gritted teeth.
“I told you,” Jenson moved in close, but was stopped by a hand from Mino. The red-head looked up at Mino, body tensed for a fight. “You wanna another go? It didn’t work out great for you just now.”
“It’ll be different this time,” Mino said, his voice a quiet certainty.
Jenson opened his mouth, about to say something, presumably very witty, when he was interrupted by Alistor.
“Ladies! Assemble! We ain’t got time for your sewing circles here.”
Jenson and Mino kept staring at each other, neither wanting to back down first. Ark decided to intervene, and grabbed Mino by the arm. “Let’s go, Bud. He’s not worth it.”
Reluctantly, Mino let Ark drag him away. Jenson barked a laugh at their retreating form, then jogged to overtake them, so that he could walk in front.
Ark let him.
They got into line, where Alistor immediately started pacing up and down, chewing on his toothpick. “So,” he said, tilting his head back and forth, “That was a shitshow.”
With a snap of his fingers, a virtual image appeared beside him, showing Ark and Jenson from the top, as the battle had started. The moment it began, it showed Jenson flying off, leaving Ark behind.
“Jenson, explain,” Was all Alistor said.
“I knew speed would be important, Instructor,” Alistor said, his face a picture of reasoned intelligence, “I had dead weight on my team, so I figured team 1 would come take us out first. I needed to deal with team 2 before I could face them.”
“Tiny, you turn.” Alistor turned on Ark, showing no hint of his thoughts about Jenson’s explanation.
Ark knew the drill. Excuses would make him look weak, so he simply said, “I couldn’t adapt to Jenson’s strategy, Instructor.”
“Adapt—he says,” Alistor grinned, looking from Ark to Jenson and back, “You’re a mindweaver, Tiny. Why didn’t you two link up?”
Licking his lips, Ark couldn’t figure out a way to avoid making it sound like an excuse, so he said it as plainly as he could. “Jenson did not want to.”
Looking to Jenson with an eyebrow, Alistor simply said, “Explain.”
Somewhat uneasily, Jenson squared his shoulders before responding. “I didn’t see the point. If we linked up, I’d have to slow down in order to maintain that link. What use is he, if I have to limit myself to be on a team with him, Instructor?”
“A good point,” Alistor said, nodding, “And one you’ll have to deal with, Tiny, if you want to stay here.” He then walked away without another glance, snapping his fingers for a new image to appear.
This time, it was the three-way struggle that had ensued after Ark’s incapacitation—the one he had not seen. Studying it closely, Ark saw it began when Jenson launched a direct assault on Mino and Ran.
Mino tried to block him, but was too slow, and Jenson engaged Ran while ignoring Mino. The spear and sword clashed in a myriad of flashes, while Mino tried to support Ran. Each time, he was simply rebuffed by Jenson, who barely registered the interruption, before continuing his fight with Ran.
That all ended when the girls appeared. With Naomi as the only ranged attacker on the field, she could stay at a distance and take out Mino while Rex stopped his mobility with her whip and baton combo. Within seconds, they had wiped the floor with Mino, and then proceeded to harass the duel between the boys, which was still ongoing.
Finally, Rex just burst into the duel, her whip retracted and turned into a staff, battering the two sides into positions where Naomi could take them out. It was, in all honesty, a masterful display of tactics and martial ability.
“Excellent teamwork, team 1. You compliment each other nicely, and understand both each others strengths and weaknesses. No notes,” Alistor said, with a demonstrative nod. “Team 2, you were an absolute mess.”
He turned and pointed a finger at Ran. “You need to get your head out of your ass, Ran, and start looking at the bigger picture. If your teammate is being taken out, then continuing the duel as if nothing has changed is an incredibly stupid thing to do. Understood?”
“Yes, Instructor,” Ran intoned, his voice as gravelly as it was monotone.
“I don’t think you do,” Alistor narrowed his eyes, then dismissed him with a wave, “Although you handled yourself competently, at least. You, Mule, did not.” He turned to Mino, who stood with his face placid, staring into space. Alistor walked closer, like a snake, ready to strike.
“Do you know what a tank was, Mule—back in Homerealm?” He said, his voice sickly sweet.
Mino kept his eyes forward as he responded. “No, Instructor.”
“You see, they were these machines; vehicles built for war, back when humans fought each other. The tanks were front-line weapons, with inch-thick steel plating that protected its crew from enemy fire. Do you know why they were effective?”
“No, Instructor.”
“Because they were bloody hard to take out, that’s why. You needed serious firepower, manpower, and time to take out those bad boys in the field. Which meant they were soaking up all the attention, while the infantry could advance behind. Clever right?”
Alistor was now right in front of Mino, forcing him to crane his neck slightly to look up at the gentle giant. “Don’t answer that, I’ll just tell you. It was fucking brilliant. Wars were won with that tactic in mind. That is why, to this day, we call big, burly guys like you—who can take a lot of damage—for tanks. Do you think you’re a tank, Mule?”
“No, Instructor,” Mino said, his jaw clearly clenched now.
“You’re damned right, you’re not. Because a tank—“ Alistor raised his hand to Mino’s forehead, pointing his index finger right in the center of it, “—Has a big fuck-off cannon in the middle that makes it dangerous. Without it, it is just a shield on wheels, and who would waste time on that?”
After a moment holding the pose, Alistor stepped back and stood at attention. “Everyone but the newcomers, go prepare for one-on-one fights.”
Ark saw Jenson grinning out of the corner of his eye, as the red-head stepped out of line along with all the others, leaving just Mino and Ark alone with Alistor.