The two women stood in almost absolute silence, something they were both comfortable with.

June was not much of a talker, not casually anyway. She wasn’t particularly shy about holding back an opinion, but she held value in the words she said, thinking them out precisely instead of the inane jabber that Jamie was prone to.

June was also not much of a fighter, or at least she didn’t enjoy it. It just so happened that her link was especially suited for combat, likely a product of the extremely hostile environment that she grew up in, and eventually Awakened in.

She was fast, ludicrously so. There were few in the building that could properly track her as she moved, let alone react in time for them to be at all safe from her admittedly weak blows. There were others that were technically faster than herself, though their own links came with caveats.

For example, Jeremy Baxter was technically faster than herself, at least in immediate bursts. It was astoundingly powerful for utility, and in combat it could be even more so, but he’d clearly neutered some of that lethality that his link was capable of in the fight with Ajax. The downfall, however, was that he had some limitation on using it, not being of the infinity power type.

Just about everyone that has needed to go up against Baxter’s group had tried to find out what that limitation was. Because, simply, if they didn’t, they would be crushed under the insanely fast flurry of blows he was capable of. When they graduated into weapons training, just about all of the teams there had sprinted to the first person they thought of.

Dean.

Dean was the best info link in Melbourne, probably, just by virtue of his versatility. Everyone knew that he would know any limitation that Baxter had almost instantly, it was one of the things you could count on about Dean. Dean knew everything, as far as everyone was concerned. But the trail ran dry when he told everyone; ‘That information had been bought and paid for in full.’

It was code for, ‘Baxter and his daddy paid for his secrets not to leak.’ That, or someone managed to buy it out really quick, which was unlikely. But all of that still stayed irrelevant for June.

June was, by the majority of the AASAU’s training metrics, the fastest person in training, and one of the fastest in Australia.

Where she lost in burst speed by a matter of milliseconds, she made up for being able to go for hours longer. She wasn’t just fast, she was efficient. Which was why she had linktech businesses from all over the world, blowing up her email inbox at all hours. Once she got out of training, and gained the base level certifications, she’d immigrate to some other country and work one day a week for a few hours and have enough wealth to never need to worry about life ever again.

So, she was fast. One of the fastest non-fliers in the world, even, but that only left her more perplexed.

How had Mirah been able to react, then? How was it that the girl who couldn’t possibly have done anything in the first half hour of June wiping the floor with her, could now dodge her first takedown? She didn’t ask this, of course. June was pondering the question while she determined what exactly Mirah was capable of.

Realistically, there were hundreds of possibilities that Mirah could embody. There were so many Linked now, worldwide, that it was impossible to keep up with the new record that seemed to be broken every few months. The most notorious categories were speed, physical strength, and physical durability; three of the most common attributes that links effect.

June wasn’t shy in admitting that she overly relied on her speed during combat, most of the time she’d even agree that she was actively lacking in other areas. But when it came down to it, June was exceptional at an extremely specific type of combat that was highly effective against some, and totally useless against others.

June could run fast, to the point where she could just about close any gap in practical combat so fast that it wasn’t a realistic expectation that the majority would be able to react. Jeremy Baxter would be an exception here, with his burst speed technically being higher, and would likely allow him to play on a somewhat even footing with her, at least for a while.

But the majority of people, given that they aren’t enhanced physically all that much, or that they require a trigger to activate their links, effectively cannot combat June. She moves too fast, able to trip them up and, if she had a knife, cut their throats an instant later.

It would be easy for her to take down a vast majority of Linked, especially if she were to be outfitted in linktech devices, let alone something that would allow her to kill with a touch.

But Mirah had slowly begun to do something somewhat spectacular, at least in June’s eyes. First it started with the barest movement before June could reach her. Then it became a few centimetres of movement, but not enough to throw her off from tripping her. Then, one time, Mirah managed to move the leg that June was targeting far enough out of the way that she’d actually dodged June’s attack.

It was almost unthinkable to June, but almost hilarious that the demure looking thing that stood beside her had been the first to truly dodge an attack from her, as she hadn’t fought Jeremy Baxter yet, thankfully.

June’s mental analysation was shattered when a neutral toned voice rang out clearly inside the smaller arena. “Everyone back to your designated areas, please. We will begin the fighting again once you have done so.”

David’s, or Osmium’s, voice rang with that clear tone that June was almost entranced by. Her feet moved almost autonomously as the voice brought back memories of a time when she’d first been learning about Australia and its media. Though she’d never admit it, she’d been enamoured by the man, even going so far as to try and assume his image of stoic exactness.

Moments later, June was staring into Mirah’s eyes once more. The two green disks standing out from the rest of her somewhat tame appearance, though she was pretty. June had seen her fair share of facial scars and deformities in her youth, so the scar through her lip barely even registered.

June flicked her mind into what their trainers had called ‘combat mode’, an almost meditative exercise that allowed you to assume combat readiness at any point in time. June was excellent at it.

The world slowed as June’s highly advanced perception that came along with her extreme speed made the world move slower, like dripping molasses instead of a running stream. She could now feel the slow release of air from her lungs, lengthened by tens of times, though her eyes moved around the room faster than ever.

She narrowed her focus away from what was outside the painted box, to what was within, staring at the other girl and what she was doing. She had to be doing something, otherwise it wouldn’t make any sense that she could combat anything that June could do. She certainly wasn’t capable of physical speed or power, otherwise she’d have shown it by now.

June stared at the other girl as Osmium’s voice began to speak the first syllable of ‘Begin!’, giving the other girl a moment to try and do something before she raced towards her at horrifying speed. However, this time, June managed to notice something.

She was always so preoccupied with how her opponent moved, an affectation of her own link being physically based, and the rest of her team being the same. So, it was when she looked to Mirah’s eyes that she found the beginning to her answer.

The green disks were now cracked with little spider webs of faint gold, for only a moment. In the very next moment, Mirah blinked, and June made her attack with the opportunity. With how her eyes had changed the girl clearly had a link that influenced her perceptions somehow, maybe a hypercognitive if she was lucky.

June’s body dropped down to the floor, almost breaking physics in however many different ways, then using a strange mixture of movement that you’d almost think was dancing that pushed her forwards with extreme speed while she stayed closest to the floor you could be without crawling.

June had a prodigious amount of control over her speed and direction, capable of changing directions at great speeds, but even she was somewhat limited by conventional thought. So when Mirah’s body began to slide downwards, almost like she’d fainted, June started to realise that she was in a bad situation.

June’s entire strategy was based on the preconception that barely anyone could possibly react in any constructive way to her attacks, even if they knew it was coming. But Mirah… Mirah had known. Mirah had taken an action so simple, so mundane within a fight, but it was the exact action that June couldn’t defend against properly.

The gangly, seven-foot girl pumped the breaks as hard as she could, using every twist and turn she could as such a high speed to burn off the massive amounts of kinetic energy she was capable of generating, but there really wasn’t much she could do.

Mirah’s leg had whipped out at just the right angle to be unavoidable, right in the dead centre of her only real path forwards. It was a slow, torturous process for June, as she watched the leg draw nearer and nearer, knowing that here was no way to stop the collision.

Of course, once it did, even that wouldn’t affect June that much. She hit the leg, sending it wide and her own body into a tumble before she regained control with the sudden decrease in speed. In the next moment, Mirah was on the ground, once again. Being able to move at speeds as fast as June could made recovering much easier and exploiting the moment of weakness much harder.

The Zimbabwean girl towered over Mirah; her own skin so much darker than her partner’s that it made Mirah’s light brown look stark white.

“You tripped me.” The surprisingly soft voice June possessed slipped through her lips, though she let the unnecessary words slide. She was in too much shock that someone had managed to counteract her even a little to care.

Mirah’s face turned upwards sharply to look at her, craning her neck to see the other girl’s gaunt face. She nodded slightly before picking herself up off the ground and brushing her training wear off. They continued to look at each other for another few seconds, but there was no conversation to be had. This wasn’t a conversation; it was a contest and a challenge.

Mirah might not be able to trump June’s speed, but she could counteract it. And for June, even one counteraction was enough to show her that she needed more than just speed, otherwise someone who had prepared for her would be able to kill her in moments with a simple extended foot.

Mirah had won this round, in a practical setting. It was up to June to rectify that.

This marked the beginning of a true test of both their abilities, their links, and their minds. And it was all done in complete silence.

By this point, Guy had been well and truly punished for his ‘crimes’.

The punishment had been rather tame in comparison to what Jeremy was truly capable of. Guy could only suppose that the man was too busy with his father and trying to manipulate the AASAU into letting their team rip the other team apart within full legality.

It was a longshot, even Guy could see that, but they were playing for a few steps down from that. It’d taken an age for them to come to some sort of conclusion on the matter, where Guy had been put into ‘intensive training’ for his poor performance at their little showdown with the other team.

Guy just sat in bed, having anchored himself to the soft fabric of the mattress and let himself fall into a comfortable heap of soft material—something that he’d been doing almost as soon as he found himself as a Linked one morning.

It was a weird dream to wake up from, to have a disembodied voice that seemed to only register to Guy’s brain as the concept of durability itself, or maybe even material.

‘Touch the world, and let it become you. With the world at your disposal, you can become unshakable, indestructible.’

The words leaked into his mind, just like they had countless times beforehand, and like they did every time he had a moment to sit and think. He returned to the sentence that he’d heard in his Awakening dream, to analyse and question it, to find some deeper meaning in it beyond what he already had.

He wondered if other Linked had their Awakening experiences float into their mind like his did. They must, otherwise they wouldn’t be so taboo. If you could simply forget how you Awakened, only to have it be dragged up when someone asked you about it, then it probably wasn’t that… eye opening of an experience.

Guy sighed deeply, knowing that he had to get out of bed, even if his mind protested the thought of unanchoring himself from the surface. He walked around his two-room apartment, mercifully separate from the others in his team, though he wasn’t to be separate for long.

There was a knock at his door, lackadaisical and almost jolly. It was easy to tell who it was, just by their knock, and it was thankfully someone that Guy could actually deal with at least somewhat.

Guy quickly threw on some clothes before making it to the door and opening it with a nervous speed. There was a wave of rushing air as Slip burst past Guy with an explosive speed, the only visual indicator of his presence being the flash of the gaudy golden hoodie he wore, stretched out along with his body.

Guy sighed; though he was a little relieved that Slip wasn’t here because Jeremy had asked him to be, a far worse possibility. He closed the door, then locked it as per Slip’s usual request, then turning and walking in to sit down on his couch as Slip lounged in the big comfortable chair opposite in his branded beanie and oversized hoodie.

“G’day Guy. How’s it been?” Slip asked, grinning with his somewhat yellowed though perfectly straight teeth, something that guy could envy the man for unreservedly.

“Come on, Larry. You’re not here to check in on me, man.” Guy said, even managing to be somewhat insulted that the man thought he could pull that one on Guy however many times without him learning at least one trick from the book.

“Ey,” The man shrugged, pushing his har up as he did, “nothing wrong with some pleasantries.” Guy rolled his eyes but locked with Slip’s own and sighed deeper.

“Just tell me what’s up.” Slip chewed on his lip for a second, a flash of anger over coming him before he shoved a hand up into his beanie and scratched at the back of his head with a powerful sigh of his own.

“Look, you know the blonde bitch right? On that Undefined team, yeah?” Guy hesitantly nodded, and then Slip struggled for a moment longer before letting his info ‘slip’, “She’s a fuckin’ Flinn, man.”