“You know, I remember that smile from the trip mine incident,” Hitori said, rubbing his temple. They walked through a pair of sliding doors. “I’m pretty sure I still have shrapnel banging around in here.”

“Oh, come on,” Protius said. “I’m sure this won’t be that bad.”

“Really? She put us in the largest room. What, is she planning on sicking the Drake on us this time?” Drakes were giant lizards that breathed fire and shot lightning. Even juvenile Drakes were classified as an S-Ranked threat. Protius and Hitori both only recently made one rank below, A-Rank, a prerequisite for graduating.

“Doubtful, they phased metafauna out of combat training, remember?”

“Great, so she’ll find something even worse than a Drake,” Hitori sighed, but he couldn’t stop a slight grin. “I’m guessing a tank.”

“She’s not that crazy.”

“Please, your girlfriend is trying to get us killed.”

“I wish,” Protius said under his breath. Hitori looked at him side eyed. “I meant girlfriend, not, uh, the dying part.”

“Right,” Hitori drew out his reply. “And on that note”—he punctuated the sentence by thumping a glowing red panel with his fist. The door snapped shut, sound echoing through the massive chamber for a few seconds.

“Preparing phase one of Urban Combat 3, Level Five,” a mechanical female voice chimed from an unseen speaker. Large metal frames descended from the ceiling, some spinning or rotating as they fell.

“Wait, what?” Hitori said. “Shit, this is a Firestorm exercise.” Hitori hovered his hand over the control panel for a few seconds. It sounds fun. He smiled. “She really is trying to kill us.”

Hitori withdrew his arm and instead readied his sword and dagger. Firestorm was one of the class groupings in Nova, called Brigades, although Firestorm was organized into squads of thirty rather than teams of five.

“I’m sure she only wants to maim you,” Protius said. He prepared a Flame Arte for each hand, which, much as the name suggests, was an arte used for setting things on fire.

“Oh, is she hoping for a chance to nurse me back to health,” Hitori said, making a suggestive gesture with his eyes. “Or maybe your little pine tree is hoping she’ll maim you.”

“S-Shut up,” Protius said. The red on his cheeks provided stark contrast to his pale skin. “What’s the objective for this exercise anyway?”

“I dunno, not die?”

As the metal scaffolding finished deploying a loud hum filled the room. The space inside the frames filled with a silvery material and lights flickered around them. As the noise flared in volume it changed into an electric crackle. With a final surge the room was transformed from an empty chamber into a decent facsimile of a city street. The ceiling changed to the image of a cloudy sky, and a light drizzle began.

“Scenario preparation complete,” the mechanical voice said. “The exercise will begin in five seconds.”

A whirr could be heard from behind the farthest building, followed by a loud clunk. Something heavy began clanking its way from an unseen hanger.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Hitori said.

“What?” Protius replied. Hitori didn’t have to answer, as a tank rolled into view. The pair sprang into action.

Hitori gave a command to Protius, then moved to engage the swordsmen that swarmed from behind the armored vehicle. Their opponents weren’t real people, although an arte made them look that way. Instead, these were machines controlled by a central computer.

Protius led by launching two bolts of fire, then created a silver barrier to separtate them from the tank. The Flame Artes did nothing, bursting harmlessly on its metal carapace. The wall proved far more effective, absorbing the first round from the tank’s main gun. Jagged cracks bloomed from the point of impact.

“It won’t take another,” Protius yelled over the echo of cannon fire.

“Then deal with it.”

Protius started mumbling through a mathematic proof, while Hitori fought three swordsmen who made it to their side of the wall. Although he could hold them off, their numbers and skill were too great for him to take them down alone. Several patches of skin showed through his armor, surrounded by blood soaked tears.

The tank fired again, shattering the barrier into silver splinters. Light shimmered through the metallic cloud as the remaining fragments dissolved into nothing. Protius stilled his hands and stopped murmuring, then a burst of apparent lightning arced from the ceiling. It lasted several seconds, and when it finished the tank lay silent.

Hitori spared a quick grin for Protius. When the Arteficer put his mind to it he could be quite dangerous. Unfortunately, he wasn’t fast enough to save the barrier, so six more fighters arrived. Worst still, one of them was the lumbering hulk affectionately known as Brutus. He attacked with a massive hammer, swinging in wild arcs that drove the pair apart.

The swordsmen went after Protius, leaving Hitori alone to deal with Brutus. He kept ahead of the brute’s thundering strikes, but couldn’t find space to counter attack. One missed block or dodge would be the death of him—metaphorically, at least.

His best bet would be a Sword Arte, a sort of malhahonic attack—and the signature skill of a Knight. A perfect plan, except where Hitori was a Knight in name only. The prerequisites to reach A-Rank were fairly lax, under the assumption using a Sword Arte in combat once meant it could be done regularly.

Hitori hadn’t found that to be the case, and instead relied on a marginally better selection of techs. He couldn’t keep enough on hand to qualify as a Saber, but was usually good at loading the right combination to deal with the situation.

If only you hadn’t heedlessly jumped into this fight.

It was clear Hitori couldn’t defeat Brutus on his own, so he needed a little backup from Protius. The Arteficer wasn’t having it much better though, and would need a helping hand to get out from under all the Elites piling on him. Hitori couldn’t break away from Brutus, but he did have an off-hand dagger that wasn’t doing him much good.

He alerted Protius with a whistle, then chucked the small blade towards one of the swordsmen. It soared through the air, spinning in slow motion, straight towards the head of an offending warrior. Then struck hilt first, bouncing off harmlessly

That was a terrible strategy. Or maybe you suck at throwing.

His teammate tried to take advantage of the distraction, launching a bolt of flame towards Brutus. It struck home, but didn’t do enough damage to take him out of the fight. The effort cost Protius what little defensive momentum he had, and in short order was driven to the ground by a hail of slashes.

Hitori watched his friend fall in an air of melancholy. The Training Center was equipped with a system that drip fed Vital Energy to fallen trainees, keeping them alive but out of battle. They would both survive defeat, but he was disappointed their last fight before the field exam, and their hopeful graduation, would end so pathetically.

He glanced at Brutus just in time to see the massive hammer on route for his face. That was not going to be pleasant.

The world slowed to a crawl as a whirlwind of fury poured into his body. Something pressed into his hand.

I’m not getting foddered by some fucking robot.