[Erick Sanders]

“You didn’t think to have one of your own? You’re an idiot,” Diera scolded me.

I huffed as I pushed the weight over my shoulders, straightening my legs as they shook with the effort. I slammed the bar down on the rack and draped my arms over it, to stop myself falling. “I’ve never needed one. Plus Jack carries all kinds of shit, can always get what I need from him.” I muttered.

“What if he wasn’t there?.. That’s your problem,” Diera sighed, “What rank are you now?” She asked.

“Um… Rank eighty-two,” I answered checking my scanner. I had risen in the ranks steadily since coming to Nerion. It turned out that hard work and training grew a person just as well as killing hundreds of people.

“Great, but you’re a one trick Canine? A shuttle with only one gun,” she said, knocking my hand away from the bar. “You’re good. Creators you're deadly, but only in the right situation!”

“So what’s next?” I glared at her.

“Leave those at the door from now on? Better yet, leave them in your room,” Diera said, kicking my black swords from where they rested against the wall. They tumbled and clattered across the floor.

“What do you want me to fight with?” I said, lifting my hands in frustration. I could kill with just those hands, but the swords that now lay across the cold floor were like two extra limbs to me.

“Anything. Everything. Hold on.” Diera turned her back on me and jogged from the room. I rested my back on the wall, sliding down to the floor and concentrating on just letting my fatigued body recuperate. I had seen this look on Dieras face plenty of times before and it usually meant that I was going to get my ass kicked.

It wasn’t long until Dieras boots pounded on the floor as she ran back into the training room. I looked up to see a thick leather bundle cradled under one arm and a bulging duffle bag under the other. There was a resounding metallic sound as it thumped on the floor at my feet.

“Up,” She ordered.

I groaned at her in annoyance as I stood. She opened the duffle bag, from which she pulled a variety of metallic balls. “Look at them all. Feel them all with your augment. You have the standard ones, shrapnel, smoke, light and noise,” she said, handing me them one at a time as she listed the off. I scanned each of them with my EM sense and felt the weight and size. Small coloured bands ran around the outside, denoting which type of grenade they were. They were all the size of my palm or smaller.

“Those are pretty standard...Then you have the more interesting ones. This one will stick,” she explained handed me an orange labelled ball, “it creates heat in excess of three and a half thousand Kelvin. You stick that to a rifle or a sword and people won't be hanging on to it for long.”

“This one makes an electromagnetic pulse, It will knock out an augment and comms for a few seconds, Including yours if you're still in range,” Diera handed me a small yellow labelled ball. No larger than a large marble, It was dense and I could feel the inner working of current and electrical circuits.

“This one will arch a current into anything nearby. Stop a Truskle in their track for a couple of seconds. One of my favourites.” I didn’t bother wondering what a Truskle was and scanned the grenade, it was labelled with an electric blue and felt similar to the previous one.

“So you want me to do… what exactly,”

“Use them. You need to be more adaptable and more functional. From now on you’re going to spend two hours a day at the range, you can pick the time. Your strongest when you can smell your opponent’s breath, but useless at a distance, so that needs work. The grenades… well, you need a way to get close and do some damage while you’re at it.”

Diera pulled another thermite grenade from the bag, “Slow your perception and watch,” she ordered. She pressed down with a finger, a small panel depressing into the metal. Then with a thumb, she began tracing along the edge of the grenade in a sharp triangular pattern. I twisted the dial in my mind and watched her hand, then as she tossed it casually onto the chair that leaned against the wall, “The triangle, gives it a three second timer.” She spoke quickly so I could understand her with my slowed perception of time. “A square will make it four.” On the chair, the grenade burst into a white light and horribly oppressive heat. I flinched away, not wanting to burn my retinas. The light lasted for a solid five seconds before it flickered and died, leaving a glowing orange pool of melted steel on the black floor.

“It won't melt through most high-quality nanite layers or armour, but you can still roast someone alive. I tend to find them more useful for getting through walls and doors but you do you.”

“All the devices are activated the same way,” she said as she tossed me the rest of the bag, “Get yourself acclimated, I’ll be back later,” She turned and kicked the rolled leather bundle as she walked past.

“Thanks,” I muttered, looking down at the now exposed bundle, it held weapons. Nothing fancy. Just an assortment of simple killing tools. Hatchets, scythes, punch daggers, throwing knives. I looked between the duffle bag of grenades and the roll of weapons. So much work to do.

Hours later, I darted left between the crumbling pillars, weaving as bullets slammed into the cobble work around me, sending up puffs of holographic dust. Grabbed at my chest, at the newly attached vest clips that held grenades, pulling the last smoke from its mount my finger pressing into the sensor and my thumb tracing a single line across its surface. It began billowing white smoke before it even left my hand. The smoke filled the spaces between pillars, spreading out and blocking me from view. I changed direction, jumping to the next row and sprinting directly at the shooter.

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I reached for another grenade, finding my vest empty and stuffing my hand into a pouch on my back, I twisted the dial in my mind, using the extra time to scan its contents. My hand emerged with a shrapnel grenade. I stepped off the remained of a destroyed pillar. Tracing a square on the grenade, I leapt up over the top of another pillar and for a brief moment, my head emerged from the smoke.

With a clear sightline, I tossed the grenade and dropped back into the smoke a moment before a bullet zipped right where my head had been. I hit the ground and began sprinting again. I had a few seconds while the shooter changed position, getting away from the grenade. In my EM sense, I could feel them running left. I changed direction, and pulled another grenade from the pouch, This one a shocker, as I had come to call them.

I primed it for three seconds by tracing a triangle and tossed it. Right where the shooter was running. It exploded and I changed direction again, This time running right at the epicentre of the electric blue explosion. I only had seconds while the shooter was stunned, I could feel their body like a candle as the electricity coursed through them, their muscles tensed and unresponsive. Only a few seconds. Thankfully that was all I needed. All the training since coming to Nerion and I could cross this fifty meter distance in less than three seconds. I pulled a pulse grenade and tossed it with only a one second timer. It erupted as I leapt, stepping from one pillar to the wall of another and up onto the upper platform where I was getting sniped from.

The grenade flashed and I could feel my EM sense fail and my perception of time reverting to normal. The grenade had knocked out my Augments, but it had done the same to the shooters. And Diera needed her augmented legs more than I needed my senses. She was rooted in place, twisting on the spot and bringing her high powered rifle around. My hand flashed as a throwing knife flew between Diera and I. It probably wouldn’t hit blade first, It was pretty much a fifty fifty split between hitting what I wanted to, and missing completely. I still needed more practice, but Diera wouldn’t take the chance. She used the rifle to knock the knife aside, removing her final opportunity to shoot me.

I drew two punch daggers from my belt and attacked. Diera knocked one of my fists aside with the rifle butt and twisted on the spot again to dodge the second. Then the rifle butt moved and my vision went black.

When I came around I was lying sprawled on my back, Diera squatting beside me, her arms crossed and looking at me like I was a stupid puppy.

“I would have had you if I could use my swords,” I said, trying to preemptively defend myself.

“Relax, you got closer than you think,” She smirked. Diera pulled her arms wide revealing cut in her armour and a thin line of blood across her stomach.

“Shit… I really would have gotten you if I had my swords,” I sat up and pumped my fist triumphantly.

“Don’t talk yourself up too much, You’re still a child.”

“I’m a child?” I knew she didn’t mean it in a literal sense. But still… “How old are you exactly?” I asked.

“Really. I’m sure even on your planet, that’s a rude question.”

I just shrugged my shoulders, “I’ve been curious for a while, since we learnt about the other planets. How long will it take me to get as strong as you?”

Diera looked at me for a moment, then nodded in understanding. “I’ve lived for thirty three years.” She said.

“Wait, thirty three of your planets years? Or my planets years?” I asked. I didn’t know how time worked in the rest of the universe,

“Whatever number you heard, it’s in your planets definition of age. The system does the translating for us.”

“Have you always been dreaming?”

“You mean, like this? No. I was seventeen when our planet was discovered.”

“How long do you sleep a night?”

“Six hours,” I tried to do the maths in my head. 'Tried' being the key word. I gave up with the knowledge that Diera had sixteen years more experience in The Dream than I did. Sixteen years more practice with a sword, with that rifle that rested on her knee. I had to work harder.

[Jackson Sanders]

“He didn’t come back to the dorm last night?” Jack asked, “You sure?”

Mia looked over at him, “Of course I’m sure, I fell asleep in his room waiting for him,”

Jack smirked, “You do that often?”

Mia only shrugged, “Every couple days, His bed’s warmer than mine,”

“Sure it is. What are you two anyway? I honestly wouldn’t have expected you two to last this long, figured it was just a bit of fun”

“It IS just fun,” Mia argued.

Jack looked over at her as they walked across the campus. Someone had to go check on Erick, they were expecting their next mission brief any minute, and they hadn’t seen Erick in two days.

When Jack didn’t respond, Mia let out a short huff, “I guess it’s more than that. It’s nice, all the shit going on, the training, It’s nice to have someone to share a bed with. And Ericks…”

“Not really what he wants everyone to think he is,” Jack finished.

“Exactly!” Mia exclaimed, “Like, the guys deadly but he also kind of …soft and kind,”

“Yeah, He was never like that before all this. He’s like dad…”

“Like your dad?”

“Yeah, we always joke around about is not actually being brothers because he looks so much like our mum and I take after dad, but in terms of personality, Erick’s just a copy of dad, at least his more personal self,”

“How so?”

“Dad’s a real man's man. Grew up in a pretty rough area, been a forester his whole life. He used to spend months out in the bush, chopping down trees and living off whatever he hunted. But he wakes up every morning before the rest of us and would put the fire on and make us all hot chocolate and coffee for mum, bring them to us in bed to wake us up for school and work. He falls asleep on the couch at night with his head on mums lap, even calls the dog Darling. I’ve seen Erick do all that kind of stuff for ex-girlfriends,”

Jack picked a leaf from a nearby shrub as they passed and flicked it from his fingers, watching it spin away. “ I remember when mum decided we were old enough to make our own lunches, by the second day, dad was making sandwiches and sneaking them to us when he dropped us at the bus.”

“He sounds like a good dad,” Mia said, understanding a little more about Erick.

“He is. I’ve only ever seen him get mad once. Someone tried to start a fight with me when I was sixteen. He went from being the calmest man I’ve ever seen to being this fucking storm. Even I was scared.”

“Has Erick always been like that?”

“Well, I’ve never known him to get into any fights. He was always so docile,”

“Well everyone has a limit I guess,”

“Yeah, and he was definitely pushed past his,”

Jack pulled open the door to the training halls and held it open as Mia walked past him.

“Well, apart from the whole, cutting people up like it’s nothing, he’s a sweetheart.”

“You’re coming to Auckland, right? Going to see him?”

“Yeah, He’s going to show me around.”

“Nice, He’s much prettier in real life, None of the scars,” Jack smirked, pulling open the door to the training hall Erick used. Inside, it wasn’t exactly what they expected. Erick was running around the outside of the room, which was filled with stone pillars. His arms lashing out in blurs of motion. Jack frowned and pulled a drone from his pocket, tossing it into the air and controlling it remotely. It sped off after Erick following him as he ducked and ran between the pillars. His face was flush and dripping in sweat, his hair damp and plastered against his head. Where he ran was worn clean of dust. Has he been doing this all night? Jack thought.

Erick’s hands flicking out and …knives sunk into targets as they appeared around his course. One after another. “So now he can use throwing knives too?” Jack said whistling slowly.

“What, you never learnt to throw a knife?” Mia asked with a chuckle.

When Erick ran out of knives he drew a pistol from his belt and began hitting the targets with bullets instead, all while keeping a blistering pace. “This boy trains too much,” Jack sighed.