Val ducked her head to the side as her opponent’s punch went whistling by her ear. Taking another step forward, her right arm rocketed forward in response, catching the larger man in his torso. With a pained grunt, he tried to turn his missed punch into an attempted grapple, but Val nimbly hopped back out of range. A moment of calm came over the practice pit as they each took a moment to recover their breath and take stock of the match. The last exchange seemed to be the consistent story of their match. Val’s speed and reflexes gave her plenty of opportunities for glancing blows, but she lacked the power to do any lasting damage. Her opponent had strength and endurance, but couldn’t keep up with her.

Val gritted her teeth and reflexively shook out her hand a few times. Punching this guy is like trying to beat down a brick wall. He’s probably running some standard body enhancement subroutines. Val could almost feel the power rushing through the man’s traces, strengthening his body and healing any damage from her impact. Can’t concern myself with what he can do, just have to do the best I can. With a sigh, Val activated one of her own subroutines and felt a wave of energy wash through her nano system, starting at her core and spreading outward through her traces. The nanomaterial came alive in her body, breaking down lactic acid in her muscles and replenishing her cells’ energy stores. Chemical processes that would have taken minutes or hours were accomplished in mere seconds, leaving Val feeling refreshed and ready for the next exchange.

Not wanting to give her opponent more time to repair any damage from her last blow, Val shot forward again. The man reacted immediately as he also launched forward, closing the gap between them quickly. Too quickly. Val’s eyes widened as she pushed off in a different direction, desperately trying to control the distance between them to her advantage. She almost managed to stay out of range, but the man’s meaty hand closed around her wrist at the last second. He wrenched her arm, the violent impulse dislocating her shoulder and sending her body careening towards him. Val bit back a cry of pain, staying focused as his other fist rocketed towards her face. From this distance, there was no mistaking the telltale sign of nano rushing down the traces in his arm towards his fist.

Can’t let that hit me, Val thought frantically. Taking a punch with just his physical strength was one thing, but this enhanced punch could easily blow through walls or small trees. Val didn’t have the capacity to use the body enhancement routines needed to survive a direct blow. Well, I’d survive, but… Her gaze briefly flicked upwards to the edge of the practice pit. She could see hundreds of her training cohort watching, but more importantly, she could see the panel of human judges in the upper stands. Some were quiet and withdrawn, while others seemed to be engaging in light conversation. But they all watched the proceedings below with a measured, cold objectivity that left no doubt to Val about whether they were taking their roles in deciding the next set of Users seriously. Of course, she couldn’t see any of the Daemons watching, but they were almost certainly analyzing her performance in excruciating detail in their digital worlds as well.

If it were just pain, she wouldn’t mind taking this punch. Even the several days she would almost certainly spend in the medical ward were acceptable, if greatly annoying to her. She had plenty of ideas for how to improve her current set of subroutines that she could tinker with for the better part of a week. But making a bad impression and losing her chance to make it to the next round of User selections… that was unacceptable. Why tinker with her own subroutines when she could have the chance to be paired up with a Daemon? She had worked way too hard over the past three years of mandatory Guild rotations to squander her chance against this brute.

With a yell, Val channeled nano into her shoulder. Physical nano manipulation wasn’t her specialty, but long nights of training paid off as she felt her humerus slide back into place. A red warning flashed in her vision, drawing her attention to the meter superimposed in her vision showing her energy reserves. Her core energy levels had dropped below a quarter with that last infusion of nano, so she needed to end this fight now. Gritting her teeth, she yanked sharply on her newly fixed shoulder, pulling herself closer into her opponent. She watched in relief as the man’s fist brushed and then shot past her shoulder. The brief contact from the foreign nano sent shockwaves through her nano system, but she had dodged the majority of the impact.

Val rotated inward and thrust her palm forward, slamming into the man’s solar plexus. This time, her impact visibly knocked the breath out of him. Using all your nano in that punch, trying to take down my system, eh? Well, two can play at that game. Val grinned menacingly as she sent the remainder of her energy barreling down her arm and into his chest. She might not be good at enhancing her body, but messing with nano systems was another story. Her opponent roared in pain as her nano slammed into his core, momentarily disrupting his body enhancement subroutines. Taking advantage of his weakness, Val planted a foot behind him and threw him to the ground. He gained control of his nano a moment later, but it was too late as Val had him pinned down and was ready to continue her assault. She grinned down at him with her fist cocked above his face.

“Yield?”

“Nice fight, Val!”

“Way to turn that around, girl!”

“Oof, I knew I should have bet on you instead of that oaf... Good showing out there.”

Val accepted the compliments from her fellow trainees with a slight smile or an acknowledging tilt of her head, but she kept moving up through the seats until she reached the familiar face of Fynn. A broad grin covered his face as he slid over, opening up the aisle seat for her. She sat down heavily with a sigh, already feeling the new bruises coming in. She leaned forward with a wince as the next match was starting up.

“Well, I don’t think I did as well as you. That was a tough one,” Val said with a sideways glance at Fynn. His smile got even wider as he looked up from the arena to meet her gaze momentarily before refocusing down below.

“Sure looked like it, but I had faith in you,” he replied. Val rolled her eyes, but let a small smile creep on her face. His trust in her abilities sometimes felt unwarranted, but it was always nice to have someone in your corner. “Oh, I know you won’t thank me for helping you work out those kinks in your recovery subroutines, but I’ll just say you’re welcome anyways,” he continued as his elbow nudged her ribs lightly.

This time, Val couldn’t hold back her exasperated sigh. “Of course you would take credit for that. Well, I expect some credit when you manage to pass your nano subsystems written exam then,” Val responded. Fynn waved a hand dismissively in her direction but she could tell he didn’t mean it. She glared at him for another moment before looking at the current fight. She didn’t recognize either of them, but that was no surprise. The User Selections pooled together all the trainees finishing up their rotations, and she had only spent time with the Technician, Guardian, and Scout Guilds. Considering the martial prowess on display, it seemed likely both fighters had spent one of their rotations at the Mercenary Guild instead.

“After my match, I’ve been keeping an eye on the judges like you asked,” Fynn said after one of the fighters struck a decisive blow. Their opponent fought on, but it was clearly a losing battle now. “Obviously it’s hard to tell, but it looked like several were intrigued by how you turned things around. Risky to gamble the rest of your nano like that, wasn’t it? What if he had some defenses up still?”

Val shrugged. “He didn’t seem like the guy to think that far ahead, so I went with my instincts and went for it. Plus, you saw the power he had in that punch. If I hadn’t ended it right there, I would have been in trouble.”

Fynn nodded in agreement. “Well, it was certainly a good showing. Above average. With your excellent written scores, I’m sure that’ll be enough to put you in the running.” Val nodded but internally wished she could have done better than just above average. She didn’t have Fynn’s knack for combat and while Users were supposed to be well-rounded, it was a harsh reality that Users saw more than their fair share of fighting in the offline zones.

Hopefully I’ve done enough to be in contention for some of the support roles at least. As the day wore on, Val’s initial happiness and confidence with her performance eroded slowly as she watched hours of impressive fights. She couldn’t help comparing her low physical abilities to everyone else, even though she objectively knew her strengths lay in other areas. It was too bad the combat assessment was on the last day of User Selection, leaving the judges with a less-than-ideal impression of her abilities.

Val squinted her eyes as she and Fynn stepped out from the arena as light rays from the setting sun slammed into her retinas. A mental command sent nano flowing to her irises and into the vision centers of her brain, allowing her to quickly adjust her light sensitivity. Fynn shot her a look of annoyance as he shielded his eyes with his hand while his eyes adjusted the natural way. The slow way, Val thought with a smirk.

“Stop thinking you are better than me just because you can tweak stuff in your brain like that,” grumbled Fynn. Val just stuck her tongue out at him, dancing a few steps away into the crowd as Fynn lashed out with a hand to smack her shoulder. Fynn gave her the stinkeye while he formed a pair of sunglasses in his off-hand, nano flowing out of his traces into the object. Once he had settled down and put on his new shades, Val retook her place next to him and they continued to walk away into the streets of Peakpoint towards their apartments. The hundreds of candidates quickly melted away into the cityscape, soon leaving Val and Fynn walking alone down a narrow street. They passed the time by discussing the fights from the day. Val was just about to launch into a heated defense of why one of the fighters should have won when she received a message notification.

Turning her attention to the notification, her superimposed display came to life in her eyes. To her, it looked like screens were floating in midair, but it was all due to nano interfacing with the ocular functions of her brain. Glancing over at Fynn, she noticed that a notification had also popped up on his nano-constructed sunglasses. He reached out and gave her shoulder a quick squeeze before turning his head to the side, presumably to read the message. Val maximized the message in front of her and felt her heart skip a beat when she saw the sender was the User Selection Committee. Suddenly her throat felt much drier, and she swallowed heavily. Another mental nudge displayed the contents of the message:

The User Selection Committee is pleased to inform Valriya Peakcour that they have been selected for the next round of User Selection. Report to the central arena tomorrow morning for Daemon compatibility assessment.

Val’s mouth dropped open as she reread the message several times. Despite the lack of fanfare in the message, this was what she and Fynn had been working towards for years. Fynn! She whipped her head to look at Fynn and saw his expression mirroring hers: excitement and astonishment. Presumably he’d just received the same message. He slowly turned back around to look at her. His trademark broad grin reappeared on his face and he swept her up in a big hug before she could even react. Val was in such a good mood that she didn’t even care, playfully slamming her fists on his shoulders as he picked her up and twirled her around.

“I can’t believe we made it!” laughed Val after she finally escaped his grasp.

“I totally CAN believe we made it,” replied Fynn joyfully. “Aww man, this is the best!”

Val chuckled. “No, you know what’s even better?”

“No, what?”

“The cake your dad is gonna bake us when we tell your family the good news,” said Val. Fynn’s eyes widened even further.

“You’re right! Gaia take us, we’ve got to get home as soon as possible!” Fynn took off down the street at a full nano-enhanced sprint. Shocked, Val just watched him for a second. She knew his dad’s cake was a good idea, but apparently even she had underestimated how extra this cake was going to be if that was Fynn’s reaction. Val took off after Fynn’s fleeing form, shouting for him to slow down, completely oblivious to all the bemused looks the two of them got from other passersby.

Today was a good day, Val decided. A very good day.