Empty sand, closed shutters, the lights were still on at least but this just reeked of sudden onset blindness.

  The trainees milled about the central circle instead of lining up on its border. Grouping up to wonder or just present a unified front to what was bound to be ahead. Team ups were starting to solidify, and solo acts just reinforced. But, except maybe Kaze again, all held some amount of apprehension. Wondering eyes grazing Seth’s senses with small fear and eagerness from the usual suspects. Careless emotions clouding his own attempts to judge what was about to hit them.

  But suddenly a tinge hit Seth’s more known senses, like a booting up circuit was close by. And of unimaginable proportions. It was a buzz to the focus he used to control electricity, like before during the recitals, but peaking from distance he hadn’t yet trained enough. And was only starting up.

  He and Ohm both whirled around toward the control booth as the strong electrical surge became more than noticeable, out right felt by mundane nerves. The rest no doubt seeing this reaction, but were interrupted by the arena lights crashing to that expected blackout. Now it was just the monologues all over again, but with no spotlight afforded. Seth could hear them stumble in the pitch darkness, but that electrical surge kept up and grew.

  He took the moment to try and reign that focus, using that same path Speaker had all but pushed him through. Gradually making out the wiring deep in the walls as if reading braille. Feeling its paths, as it all lit up spectacular! Capacitor banks disgorging monumental currents, spreading them out wide, spreading… everywhere! All along the wall’s circumference through lines as thick as his arm, terminating them in points of some massive array.

  He watched in the blind as electricity spread to every corner of the arena, creating a uniform star field that only he could see in the broadest term. Suddenly though, as the last point shined into metaphysical being, his extra sense was blinded. The surge reaching a peak too excessive to make out. The ground below him flaring in kind, a surge spreading like wildfire across it. The heavy sand shaking like they were in a sifter’s pan. Back and forth till it hardened, reformed. It still had give like it was almost… road asphalt?

  Seth killed his focus as best he could and looked back to the faux star field, but was quickly blinded for real as each point flared in visible light. The sudden flash illuminated everything and everyone, sending already stumbling trainees reeling for cover in their hands and arms. The air was rippling, buzzing like foam. A completely different animal to what came before. Just by sheer scale. Every hair on Seth’s body stood up and down with each inexcusable frequency peak. Till it slowly eased down, the few seconds of blindness and flare dying back to darkness only they had to deal with.

  The Seth rubbed his flashbanged eyes, rubbed away his personal darkness, but was greeted with complete environmental transposition. Instead of the arena, instead of indoors and above it all, they were in the middle of a city block standing at the intersection. Skyscrapers filling the sky on all sides, their sudden appearance flooding vertigo stumbles. David nearly fell over as he tracked one up. But this new environment, that should be bustling and echoing, was completely calm. Empty. No cars, no people. No sound or shining lights. Even the street lights hanging overhead were dead. An empty cityscape stretching out in every direction.

  Till the arena’s speakers broke the fa?ade.

  *bwoo*

  “Welcome to Fackadia recruits!”

  They echoed through this suddenly materialized setting from all but one direction. Because, like the screen of a TV, the windows of the control booth glared and appeared out in the middle of this… simulated air. Aegis waving out to the few trainees who turned to face her.

  “You were all technically introduced to this during the monologues in a more limited capacity. Or did you think we had a few dozen bots just waiting in the winds to catch you out. The Hardlight Environmental Simulation with Tandem Inertial Automatons. The H.E.S.T.I.A. training system at your service.”

  The trainees gawked around. Seth could barely believe the League was hiding this much. The robots were one thing but this was on too big a scale.

  ‘They really have hardlight tech! Oh man, the suit I could have made with this kind of-‘

  *BWOO*

  “QUIT DAYDREAMING MAGGOTS!!!”

  Okay, that was too loud! Para was in the booth too. The trainees almost instinctively lined up facing the booth along the crosswalk nearest to it. Despite mutual distaste for him, the trainees still would rather not get their ears burst from a sonic chewing out.

  *bwoohoo*

  “Give me that! Okay. Starting today, we will be putting you through the ringer in terms of effective fighting technique. And to begin all that we need to understand just what it is you actually know about fighting. The first day was just to prepare and judge you on less serious footing, this will be a more real test. Only a simple one to start out though, just to see how well you do against… better odds. Also I have to see if you took my criticisms to heart. And to help with all this-”

  One of the doors to the building behind the trainees burst open. A lanky and obviously severely repaired robot like the ones from before walked out into the street for the trainees to see.

  “I present the League Armories Repurposed Robotic Training Dummies… What? It’s not an acronym this time. Not everything can be an acronym.”

  The unit had thin arms and legs, likely only having room for simple hydraulics or reeler motors. But judging from the beefed up servos on each joint, it could still move with some speed. The chassis was like a metal vest hung over a rudimentary skeleton, piston like collar and hip bones and a reticulating spine filling the space out. The head was plain, just a metal face plate with ocular sensors. It just had a very obvious fist imprint on it, in fact several all over its body. This thing has seen a lot of punishment. And was ready to deal it all back as it raised its empty hands up into a boxing stance.

  ’Just four fingers huh, guess the designers got lazy.’

  Its simple solid metal feet took up a stable clanking gait as it slowly advanced toward the recruits.

  “Your job today is to defeat as many of these guys as you can while their numbers last. They’re designed to shut off under enough pressure, but if you break them it’s fine. We have plenty more.”

  The doors to… to every building in the intersection all slammed opened in unison. Steady clonking rivers of robots flowing out into the street, filing into five wide platoons and taking up the same neutral boxing stance. Except multiplied and in echoing synchronicity. The trainees immediately broke the line and circled the wagons, setting up to meet this advancing clanker horde.

  “Passing or failing here is irrelevant, but the ones who defeat the most won’t have me beating their fighting styles into shape again. So good luck, and fight well.”

  *bwoo*

  Seth was slow on the draw and kept back in the center of the formation, preferring to observe until he could make a move. Ohm took over most of the East road ahead of him, jockeying out Zeleny who tried to take his right flank. Kaz moved in opposite despite this and pushed in to contest. Kabar, Cleo, and Razor took the North side. Alex, Tabby, and Marco the West behind under the control booth. Zeleny hovered away and moved in above Maya, David, and Jacob on the South as they waved her over.

  The ranks and even clanks of robots continued to build as the lone first bot plodded toward Ohm. The scene devolving with every innumerably harmonious step, like the pluck of a trigger waiting to be pulled. Everyone braced for what these things were capable of. Were they really just old service bots after all, or were the modifications enough for them to be a real threat? Or perhaps-

  *bwoo*

  “Almost forgot, ABSOLUTELY NO POWERS!! Just good old fashioned brawling. Now FIGHT!!!”

  As if by command the first bot burst forward, attempted to plow Ohm over by sheer weight of metal. And instead met resistance in the form of a swift kick to the chassis. The bot went flying back, bowling over several others in the platoon behind it. A nice clear shoe shaped indent in its chest making it obvious their armor wasn’t very hard, but the quick pace at which it and its compatriots got back up made it sure seem a lot more intimidating. The synchronized dragon stance the front line took only added to the fear factor. Ohm’s smug demeanor melted away into frustration, only exacerbated as Kaz and Seth moved to flank him.

  “I don’t need help against a bunch of useless butler bots.”

  Kaz drew his sword and took up an opposing stance to the line.

  “Too bad. You’re getting help either way.”

  Seth kept his calm and took up an ambiguous stance. He shouldn’t need the whisper for this, and it was better to see what he could do on his own.

  “Besides, losing to a group of service bots would only make your attitude worse.”

  “Grrrr.”

  All three were braced as the front line broke stance and ran at them at full speed. The flash of steel signaled Kaz had struck first, sword leveled at the farthest left bot’s waist. It stuck in between the hip pistons, grazing against the spine. And swept right through in a swift motion, slashing clean and out the other side of the waist. Disemboweling it for a more permanent first down.

  Seth took the signal and hit next, counter charging into the running right most bot. Shoulder slamming into it and crunching that light armor. The metal felt soft, more like thick rubber or plastic, but it clanged still like metal as it impacted inward. The bot was knocked off its feet and slammed down to the ground in obviously commanded shut off. Their tolerance was low, but there was a lot of them. Seth ground his foot to stop before the bot hit the floor, shifting to swing his right at the next bot in the line as it desperately tried to slow its run.

  Ohm was last to hit, meeting the charging middle bots with swift duel arm bars to their hip pistons, crumpling them and shutting them down in harsh adjustment. Because he’d rather push past and charge headlong into the rest of the army waiting behind them.

  Kaz struck again as Ohm’s bot fell into his next target. Drawing his sword over to his right and slashing the off balance second bot across the chassis. It cut straight through its blocking arm, falling to pieces as he pulled his sword down to push ahead in toe. Seth successfully conked the fourth bot across the face plate, causing it to fall with its own forward momentum. But he didn’t stop there, instead dropping down and grabbing it by the leg. So he could sweep it around with intent on shot putting it into the platoon.

  Ohm smashed into the middle of the new front line, stumbling the platoon and himself into a heap as he brought the middle unit to the ground. The sides regained balance and closed in around him as Seth’s shot put slammed into the right side. Metal crumbled and limbs spattered about from three more units. Kaz arrived at the left with an upward slash to the front bot about to swing down on Ohm. Its arm sent flying as Kaz turned his blade around and slashed down. A pommel strike smacking the last one trying to close in, knocking in the faceplate and dropping it into reach on the ground.

  Ohm was pummeling the middle unit until that one fell beside him, shifting to bash it in the face to cave it in. And yet he throwing himself up and out of the melee he’d tried to precipitate, as the gravity of his predicament finally hit him. As the army only slowed to stomped over its shut off comrades.

  Seth ran forward to clock the last unit on the right as Ohm backed up. Kaz finished off his flank’s two with another shift to the right into a sweeping waist slash, before backing up as well.

  “They are easy to destroy, but too light to effectively push back.”

  Ohm sneered.

  “I get that!!”

  Seth scanned the approaching line as it reformed. He could hear the sounds of fighting behind him, clanking and crumpling, but he had to focus forward.

  “Let them come to us, they’re slow on the draw and make for good ammunition.”

  Ohm continued to sneer.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “If you think I’m letting you dictate my stra-”

  “Yeah yeah, we get it! You think you can handle this. You can’t! All you’re going to do is get yourself beat to shit and leave us to pick up the slack!”

  Ohm never let up his sneer, but refocused forward as the new front line charged.

  But then were left in the lurch as it stopped short, taking up blocking stances as they slowed to a walking advance. Seth spotted something though, the arm thickness was different, a clean shine run across them. He popped forward to simple jab at the new defen-

  *crack* “aAAaahh!!”

  And his fist clanged off for real this time, soft give replaced with hard metallic rebuke. He retreated with the same speed as he approached and a pained shake of his hand.

  “They’re… fucking adaptive!!”

  Kaz leveled his sword again.

  “That just means we need to fight harder.”

  The line bared down on them as they stood their ground. Prepped for another wave harder than…

  They… just stopped. Like someone hit pause on a video that-

  *bwoo*

  “Sorry! You can use your powers now. Some ASSHOLE turned the adaptation protocol on before I got here. Don’t expect this all the time, but don’t hold back on our account either. We can still judge you easily enough. Now go ahead and have fun!”

  *bwo*

  Like a lightning bolt, Ohm lit up at the news.

  “HA, YOU GUYS ARE FUCKED!!!”

  Like he’d been holding a charge back this whole time, he burst forward, relapsed electric ferocity bashing through this sudden metal defense. Bolts arcing off and through the lines with every swing. Reeling unit after unit as their systems were overcharged. And driving Seth, and Kaz it seemed, to exacerbation. But they just shrugged and went to work.

  ‘No more limits at least.’

  Seth popped forward again, this time with a bit of his own power focused in. His own reserves poured in to even the score. He shifting low under the guard of the right most bot, slammed a fist straight through the bot’s exposed abdomen. No sense in aiming for the heavy parts even with the strength. It fell limp as its spine snapped, but he caught and lifted it up by the bottom of its chest plate, javelining it into a spray of metal scrap as it impacted the next bot in line.

  Kaz pushed up at the same time, pushing his sword through the guard of the left most bot and skewering it in the chest. He pulled up hard, bringing the sword out the bot's shoulder and turning it over again to slash its head off. Bringing the sword back in tight, he pushed through the falling bot into the still shifting second one. Skewering it through the faceplate, slashing out the side and tossing it aside as well. Another line down, another line up, but both stayed as the conditions were worsening.

  The first couple of rows were in pieces, a crater in the formation surrounded a desperately punching Ohm. He was bashing robots as fast as he could, electrical discharges accentuating every swing. But Seth could see his strikes were both waning, and ending at his knuckles. He wasn’t just running out of juice though, the bots were just taking the attacks like they were nothing at all. Rubber linings, proper grounding, they had way too quickly adapted to electricity based attacks. And Ohm wasn’t getting the hint.

  “*sigh* Let's go save him.”

  Seth squared up his side of the platoon, while some instinctual unison matched Kaz to his actions. A more than welcome feeling as they both charged toward the remassing front line that wanted to keep Ohm buried. Kaz kept his sword high to his right shoulder, Seth kept a low stance and locked in a left hook. As they neared the line they crossed paths and planted feet in opposition of their attack angles. The front line bots that had turned prepped metal defenses to meet their attacks, the sheen over their armor expanding to encompass them completely. Bracing for each as they angled proper. But fell for the feint as both pounced in double cross. Kaz bounding high with a blade set to cleave heads that aimed low, Seth bounding low under Kaz’s blade with a heavy left to crumple legs left exposed. And both hit their openings in near simultaneous choreography.

  Seth didn’t stop as the first was knee shattered through, grabbing the other leg and spinning upright, swinging the bot around as his own weapon of war. Kaz in turn cleaved deep into the formation. Lopping heads off and kicking crumble zones into platoon. The two used their weapons to carve a path, slashing and bashing until they reached their beleaguered fool of a teammate.

  With a massive wind up, Seth chucked whatever was left of his bot club at the crowd over Ohm. Kaz came in after, clearing the area with slashes and skewers as Seth rushed in and grabbed him by the collar, dragging him free of the rubber barrage he’d been under. Pulling him all the way back to the intersection, looking bruised in ego and condition. But okay considering. He let go and moved ahead back ahead as another line formed, Kaz moving back at his side to reset.

  Ohm held a hand to his bruised head as Seth turned to regard him.

  “You need to focus. Don’t just expect everything to go your way because you can hit hard and fast. Try and use more of your power on enhancing, not just propelling and electrifying like when you rushed Aegis or when you punched the sphere. These things will just adapt to anything else and leave you struggling with nothing to show for it.”

  He looked up with a stare of burning indignation, but got up without a word. Seth turned back to the enemy, but felt him out. It was a little hard to parse through the buzz of the arrays but he could feel him try to keep his power in and use it. And strain rather similarly. Seth refocused forward as the line advanced, with a whole new round of adaptations. Even thicker legs and arms, craging out almost like concrete. They chugged forward even slower like a stone wall, but something else formed up behind them. Poles rose up between with crescent shaped heads atop. Mancatchers.

  “Okay! This is getting ridiculous! Where the fuck is this stuff coming from? I’m starting to think these things aren’t even…”

  Then it all clicked as Seth slapped himself in the face and looked harder at them. At the empty unpowered shells… just literally made of energy. He turned back to Ohm, passing the realization on in an almost sneering droop. They were made of hardlight just like the environment, which meant they were just solid energy. Just mimicking rubber and grounding before, raw electricity probably wouldn’t work on them anyway. But siphoning probably would. Seth rolled his eyes at the wasted effort and stepped aside. Kaz, looking like he knew all along, mirrored.

  “Took you all long enough.”

  Seth just shrugged.

  “Grrr, yeah sure. Should have known. Never trust anything that doesn’t have an acronym.”

  Ohm stepped between them, back up to smug.

  “I told you I wasn’t going to need help.”

  “Just… try and hold back. A little.”

  “Fuck nah.”

  Seth let his head go slack as he and Kaz squared up. They had to kill everything Ohm missed because there wasn’t going to be anything left. He lit up with power again and all three shot forward into the line of stone bots. The mancatchers dropped to stop their advance in its tracks, but Ohm powered ahead full, at least using the enhancement Seth told him to. The catchers swiveled to meet, blunted crescent blades set to keep him at distance. But never made contact as they disintegrated around him, hardlight matter breaking down into just normal light and energy. Energy that flowed right into him like he was plugged right into the air itself. A punch thrown through the derezing particles just passing right through. No resistance or give, just sparking flashes of breaking simulation. Ohm taking it all in like greed personified. That maniacal smile returning in full bounding force.

  ‘This was bad idea.’

  Kaz and Seth made contact with what was left of their hardlight foes, remaining mancatchers extended to meet them. Kaz rushed ahead and ran parallel to the line and sliced off the crescents. Seth slowed to give him space, but leapt over the neutered defenses and behind the stone wall. He landed between the now stick-bearers with both arms locked, releasing dual back hands to the side of their turning faceplates. A hard spin around and he was grabbing the stone bot behind by the rocky collar and waist, wrenching up like a toppled turtle and hurling it at the remaining line. Stone shattered and metal buckled as the weight slammed against them.

  Kaz came in around him, cutting down two straggling stick-bearers with as many strikes. Yet another line cleaned up they turned again to the remaining half platoon, Seth expecting there to be some kind of rubberized super bot towering over a pulverized Ohm. Instead all they saw was dissipating hardlight particles wafting away like chaff, and a maniacal Ohm beating a straggling robot he’d left intact. If barely. Both shared another look of concern but turned away to view the rest of the class’ progress. There was nothing left to do after all.

  The intersection was clear, every team pushing into their respective platoons. Straight ahead Seth could see two Tabbys and a Marco duking it out with a similar stonewall to his team’s. But instead of mancatchers this wall sported spears, blunted obviously. But their strike speed was phenomenal, not to mention they swiveled far more than expected, some kind of tube was being clutched around their middles. Tabby and Red Tabby (Alex) both had taken the form of tigers and were desperately swatting away the spears as they pushed in. Marco in between them at the wall. And rapid fire air blasting into it. Kicking up a storm of false dust as he manually weathered a stone bot into submission. The other two covered him so he could create an opening into the back line. And judging from the scrap behind them, this had proved an effective strategy.

  Seth and Kaz stepped into the intersection to view their flanks, just as a bot bearing some kind of elaborate staking system on its feet came flying in from the north. Both turned to see just as a monstrous leather strap coiled around its leg and dragged it scrapping back toward its platoon, flopping it over and slamming it down into the crowded mass of bots with a massive metallic crash. At the base of that obscene leather titan was of course Cleo, decked out in… actually sensible leather armor. Complete with a helmet. It was all black of course, but it didn’t expose or add contour to anything. Occasionally a bot pushed toward her, through the withering barrage of titanic leather slaps, and was summarily beaten down by leather clad fists.

  Kabar was close by under the leather titanoboa's umbrella, fire whips pooled at his feet. The crowd of bots ahead of them looking charred, smoke clouding as they steamed off the excess. Suddenly Kabar began swirling his arm around, winding the line up slightly but leaving enough to drag into a fiery circle beside him. Once at speed he underhanded the line out into the crowd, a perfect wheel of fire running along with it. It crashed into one of the bots, engulfing its already charred exterior in flames and flinging it backwards.

  But Seth saw something, the line still coiled in the fire. Continuing along with the wheel. It wasn’t made of fire, it was a wheel of burning line. The bots ignored it running straight into their crowd as Kabar dropped low and gripped it hard. And pulled to the side deeply to snap it back to the other side, whipping the line sideways creating a fast moving bulge in it. The bulge swept the feet out from under the bots around it, opening a view into the hoard. That had surrounded a desperately slashing leather clad Razor. Cleo must have made him armor… and probably thrown him into the thick of things. He saw the opening and rushed over the toppled bots, skidding to a halt under the leather basher and-

  “WHAT THE HELL YOU LEATHER LOVING PSYCHO!?!?”

  It was looking like it wasn’t very consensual.

  Things seemed pretty covered there so Seth looked over to the South at M.J.D. +Z. The team of four were spread out, each taking a section of the platoon. Maya was off to the left for some reason, David was center, and Jacob right. Zeleny hovered overhead, looking to be waiting for something to-

  “NOW!!”

  She suddenly flew forward and… and blasted the front line of the platoon with a laser from her hands. She’d said that, but Seth had never really seen her powers before. They were green, because of course they were, but it looked like they flowed out from her suit.

  ‘And her highlights?’

  She ran that laser over each of the bots in the front line, and each looked to react to the blast differently. The right, thinned and lightweight, dodged out of the way or getting cut in half. The middle ones, some kind of frog bots with grippy feet and smooth chassis, recoiled and burned but stayed upright. The left, obviously heated and glowing with cold countermeasures, were pushed back and heated to brighter brilliance.

  Behind this laser fire though, Maya shifted to the middle, David to the right, and Jacob to the left. Once the barrage lifted all three charged into their sectors. The lightweight bots had the ground beneath them frozen with a slick sheet of ice, causing them to slip when they tried to dodge, heads slamming into shut off. The middle plodding frog bots were crunched by Maya, unable to get away easily from a rain of rapidly forming, and probably fake, bricks of asphalt. The right hot bots, melting with the overheat, were doused by water before they could cool at a reasonable degree. Their wacky heated systems hardening to solid metal melt. Seth smiled, they’d countered adaptation with rotation.

  ‘Now if only I’d gotten a team like that.’

  Seth was left looking at the fairly covered sectors, no openings that needed filling, no aid that could be offered. So he shrugged at Kaz and watched from the sidelines as the robot army dwindled under the teamwork of the other trainee teams. Ohm joined them as the last few units were being felled, manic expression replaced with what could only be described as a power crash. Slumped over with eyes wide and bloodshot, the juice had a cost it seemed. He did well at least, but letting him run wild would probably cost them too. The teams soon joined back up in the center, tired, sore, hoping they contributed enough, or grumbling at the ‘strategies’ employed.

  *bwo*

  “Great work everyone. You certainly took my critiques to heart. Buuut a few of you fell short, or more specifically left yourselves short. Kaz, Seth, congrats. You get remedial training. Razor, congratulations as well. You don’t have to do doubles since you actually participated. Even if it was a little… forced. Everyone else, normal fight training starts up tomorrow. Fuel up, rest up, you all performed wonderfully.”

  *bwoo*

  As the speaker died out the environment soon lost definition. Edges became blurry, details reduced to colored splotches. Then the hardlight fabrication disintegrated, all at once. The bright light from before came back, but flowed in reverse, flaring up to brightness at least with a time delay so the trainees could shield themselves. And all of it strobing into the points dotting the arena. They still rubbed their eyes as the real arena came back to them, complete with Aegis and Mediknight walking out of the main doors to meet them. Mediknight took care of the few bruises and scrapes, nothing he could do about the power withdrawals except lead Ohm out to rest back up. Kaz and Seth though stayed put, already knowing they were going to be told to. Aegis looking obstinate at their correct presumption.

  “Not to sound discriminatory, but I find it a little disheartening that the two recruits with the least outward abilities were the ones who fell behind when powers were allowed. I’m not trying to say anything, but it just looks bad on paper you know.”

  Seth resignedly shrugged as Kaz bowed out.

  “But hey, you still fought pretty good, despite the fact you basically just let Ohm cheat in the end…”

  Seth looked up and away trying to nonchalance his way through the ‘You’re getting a week’s worth of remedial training for this’ look he was getting. Still the hard part was over, he knew what to expect, or at least extrapolate. All that had to be done was to work on his fighting skills. However that was going to go.

  “You caught it this time didn’t you? You were fully tracking?”

  “We all saw it. What’s your problem now?”

  The booth was powering down from its full standby, simulation disengaged and headed back to C.A.S.P.E.R. for review and refinement. The unscheduled adaptation program listed as a wildcard test. Para wanted to see proof and so waited for Medi to get done coddling. And yet all he got were reactions and observations that shouldn’t have been made so easily.

  “He was hiding behind Clarence. He saw the emitters spool up. He is still hiding something!”

  Para was stuck glaring at a clipped recording from the boot sequence. Watching his recruits lurch just as the arena went dark. Watching Ohm and Seth turn fast toward the booth like it was a sudden new star.

  “We already clocked him. He’s in the upper percentile. He could just be reacting to Ohm feeling the boot.”

  Para ignored Medi’s justifying. Replaying the tape over and over. Watching across cameras built to break frames down into fractions of a second and catch even the highest reaction times in perfect detail. Watching as five whole milliseconds went by before Ohm turned. Five whole frames of Seth looking right at them. Right as he pressed the button to engage.

  “I’m making a call. Tell Aegis she can have the rest of the month. Midterms are mine.”