The blaring of an alarm pulled Seth out of the emptiness of his drift. A late time was glaring at him as he silenced its insistent beeping. His schedule popped up on his terminal to outshine the numbers blurring into…

‘Hrmmgh’

He shook the half thought up image away. His times were set back a bit, so he was allowed to sleep in. A nice reprieve so he could recollect himself. The guilt and dry depression still slowing his routine, but not able to drag him away so easily. He scooped up the trainers he’d been issued early in the month prior, just a toughened up white t-shirt and breezy yet long grey shorts. He trudged into the bathroom with crud in his eyes, and blindly brushed his teeth with a hand to his face. But as he cleared his vision, he paused. He’d been wearing his connector suit the entire last month and never really noticed the muscle he gained. He wasn’t scrawny before, lifting suit parts was a pretty decent workout before the Garkah taught him to use his powers physically, but now he was at least on par with most of the other heroes here. Not too bulky but definitely built up. Though the similarities seemed a little… too similar.

‘*sigh* They really did put steroids in the food, didn’t they?’

Leaving the ethical questions of possibly drugging trainees behind, and whatever else was left of his empty sleep, he headed out for training. But his suit stayed put against the wall. There was no sense in lugging it around everywhere anymore if he still couldn’t use it.

The rest of the trainees filed into the arena as usual, musing about the late start and whether it was ‘another’ trap. The fact that there was no one to greet them only exacerbated that thought. No Para, no Aegis, not even Mediknight to meet them. Even the stands were empty of power scouts. They milled about instead of lining up, grouping up to wonder what was going to happen. But suddenly a tinge hit Seth’s senses, like a booting up circuit of considerable proportions. He and Ohm both whiled around toward the control booth as the strong electrical surge became more than noticeable. The rest saw this reaction, but were interrupted by the arena lights crashing to blackout. It was like the monologue test, but no spotlight was afforded to the trainees. Seth could hear them stumble slightly in the pitch darkness, but that electrical surge kept up.

He took the moment to focus, trying to see what was going on. Gradually making out wiring liting up in the walls, spreading out, spreading… everywhere. All of it terminating in a massive array of points. He watched as the electricity spread to every corner of the arena, creating a uniform star field that only he could see. Suddenly though, his extra sight was blinded, the surge reaching a peak too excessive to make out. The ground below him flared in kind, the surge spreading like wildfire across it, shaking the sand like it was in a sifter’s pan. It hardened, reformed. It still had give, but it almost perfectly mimicked road asphalt.

Seth killed his focus as best he could and looked back to the faux star field, but was quickly blinded again as each point flared in visible light. The sudden flash illuminated the arena and the trainees, sending them all to cover in their hands and arms. Good few seconds of blindness and the flare died back down. The trainees rubbed their flashbanged eyes, but were greeted with environmental transposition as they took back in the world. Instead of the arena, they were in the middle of a city block, standing at the intersection of two major roads. Skyscrapers filled the sky on all sides, their sudden appearance disorientating some of the trainees, David nearly fell over as he tracked one up. But for some reason this new environment was completely calm. No hustle and bustle. No cars, no people. Even the street lights hanging overhead were dead. An empty cityscape stretching out in every direction.

*bwoo* “Welcome to Fackadia recruits!”

The arena’s speakers resounded, echoed through this suddenly materialized setting. Like the screen of a tv, the windows of the control booth glared and appeared out in the middle of simulated air. Aegis waving out to the few trainees who turned to face her.

“You were all introduced to this during the monologues, or did you think we had a few dozen thugs just waiting in the winds to catch you out. The Hardlight Environmental Simulation with Tandem Inertial Automatons. The HESTIA training system at your service.”

The trainees gawked around. Seth could barely believe the League was hiding something this big from the scientific community. ‘They really had hardlight tech! Oh man, the suit I could have made with this kind of-‘ *BWOO*

“QUIT DAYDREAMING MAGGOTS!!!”

Okay… that was 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 back! 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. Te first day was just to prepare, this will be the real test. Only a simple one 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 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.”

The unit had thin arms and legs, more than likely housing very limited wiring and even more limited muscle 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 certain 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 all at once. A steady clonking stream of robots walked out into the street, filing into five wide platoons and taking up the same neutral boxing stance. 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 to work on their fighting style with me again. So good luck, and fight well.” *bwoo*

Seth kept back in the center of the formation, intent on observing until he could make a move. Ohm took over most of the East road ahead of him, jockeying out anyone who tried to take a share. Kaz moved in opposite Seth despite this and pushed in to contest. Kabar, Cleo, and Razor took the North side. Alex, Tabby, and Marco the West behind and under the control booth. Zeleny moved in above Maya, David, and Jacob on the South.

The ranks and even clanks of robots continued to build as the lone first bot plodded toward Ohm. The scene devolved with every innumerably harmonious step, like the pluck of a hair-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 and attempted to plow Ohm over, meeting 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 chassis 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 with a bunch of useless robots.”

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. Kaz swept it right in a swift motion, slashing clean through and out the other side. Seth took the signal and hit next, counter charging into the running right most bot. Shoulder slamming into it and crunching the 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 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 the bots down. He push passed, preferring to charge headlong into the rest of the bot army 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 behind Ohm. 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, he dropped down and grabbed it by the leg and swept it around 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 was sent flying as Kaz turned his blade around and slashed down on the bot. A pommel strike smacking the last unit flanking Ohm, knocking in the faceplate and dropping it into his reach on the ground. Ohm had pummeled the middle unit until that one fell beside him, shifting to bash it in the face to shut it off. He threw himself up, realizing the gravity of his predicament, as the army only slowed as it 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 and reforming line. 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 think I’m letting you dictate My stra-”

“Yeah yeah, I 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 that next line stopped short, taking up blocking stances as they slowly to a walking advance. Seth spotted something, the arm thickness was different, a clean shine run across them. He popped forward to simple jab at the new defense.

*crack* “aAAaahh”

His fist clanged off, soft give replaced with hard metallic bounce. 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… They just stopped. Like someone hit pause on a video they-

*bwoo* “Sorry! You can use your powers now. Some ASSHOLE turned the adaptation protocol on. Don’t expect this all the time, but don’t hold back on our account either. Have fuuunn!” *bwo*

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

“HA, YOU GUYS ARE FUCKED!!!”

He slammed forward, bashing through the metal defense with relapsed electric ferocity. Bolts arcing off with every swing and killing the power on unit after unit. And driving Seth and Kaz to exacerbation. But they relented and went to work on the line in front. ‘No more limits at least.’

Seth popped forward again, this time with a bit of his own power focused in. He shifting low under the guard of the right most bot, slammed a fist into and through the bot’s exposed abdomen. No sense in aiming for the heavy parts. 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 with an upper right swing. Bringing the sword 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 the bot aside. Next line… But Seth and Kaz looked back to the platoon.

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 waning in effectiveness. He wasn’t running out of juice or anything, this place felt like a massive power sink after all, the bots were just taking the attacks like they were nothing at all. Rubber linings, proper grounding, they had quickly adapted to electricity based attacks. A little too quickly. And Ohm was not getting the hint.

“*sigh* Let's go save him.”

Seth squared up his side of the platoon, an instinctual unison matching Kaz to his actions. A more than welcome feeling as they both charged toward the remassing front line. 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, but held them expecting those angles, so shifted quickly. But fell for the feint as both pounced on the opening by double crossing. Kaz bounding high with a blade set to cleave heads, Seth bounding low under Kaz’s blade with a heavy left to crumple legs. They hit their openings simultaneously, sword meeting neck, fist meeting knee.

Seth didn’t stop at the knee though, grabbing the other leg as his fist broke through. He spun up, swinging the bot around and overhead. Kaz for his part stepped closer and cleaved the next bot deep. The two used their weapons to carve through the platoon, slashing and bashing until they reached Ohm. With a massive wind up, Seth chucked whatever was left of his improvised weapon at the units crowding over Ohm. Kaz came in after, clearing the area with slashes and skewers as he rushed in and grabbed Ohm by the collar, dragging him back out of the platoon. Seth pulled him all the way back to the intersection, looking bruised in ego and condition, but okay. Seth let go and moved ahead of him as another line up formed, Kaz moving back at his side.

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

“You need change up your style a little. Focus more on enhancing not just propelling and electrifying. Like when you rushed Aegis or when you punched the sphere. Otherwise these things will just adapt, eat up your attacks, and burn through everything you’ve got.”

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 in this sea of solid energy 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. Thicker legs and arms, almost like solid concrete. They chugged even slower ahead like a stone wall, but something else formed up behind them. Poles rose up between, crescent shaped heads atop. Mancatchers.

“Okay! This is getting ridiculous! 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 brimming with energy. He turned back to Ohm, a look of realization on both faces. They were made of hardlight just like the environment, which means they are just solid energy. They were just mimicking rubber and grounding before, raw electricity probably wouldn’t work on them anyway. But siphoning would. Seth rolled his eyes and stepped aside. Kaz, looking like he knew all along, mirrored.

“Took you all long enough.”

Seth just shrugged.

“Eh they would have frowned on this at the start. Besides, they mislead us a little.”

Ohm stepped between them, back up to smug.

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

Kaz and Seth squared up again, a renewed purpose to their moves. They had to kill everything Ohm missed because he wasn’t going to get surrounded this time. 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, using the enhancement Seth told him to. The catchers swiveled to meet him, blunted crescent blades set to keep him at distance. But as they made contact they disintegrated, hardlight matter breaking down into just normal light and energy, energy that flowed into him. And charged up into a punch at the first stone bot in his way. It passed right through with no resistance as the bot sparked into deresolution, Ohm receiving that energy dissipating around him. That maniacal smile returned, fueled by every punch and wild bound through every bot in his path. ‘This was probably a bad idea, but it’s better than getting the shit smacked out of us.’

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, then 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 grabbed the stone bot he leapt over 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. Another line cleaned up, they turned again to the platoon, half expecting there to be some kind of rubberized super bot towering over a pulverized Ohm. Instead all they saw was nothing but dissipating hardlight particles, and a maniacal Ohm beating a straggling robot he left intact. Both shared another look of concern as they turned away to view the rest of the class’ progress.

The intersection was cleared, every team had pushed into their respective platoons. Straight ahead Seth could see two Tabbys and a Marco duking it out with a similar stonewall to his teams’, 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 took the form of tigers and were desperately swatting away the spears as they pushed in. Marco was in between them at the wall. Rapid fire air blasts kicking up a storm of false dust as he manually weathered the 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 Cleo, decked out in… an actually sensible leather armored suit, complete with 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 looked charred, smoke clouding above them. 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, it continued 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. He pulled to the side deeply then snapped 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 crowd. In the center was a desperately slashing leather clad Razor. Cleo must have made him armor… and probably thrown him into the thick of things. Razor saw the opening and rushed over the toppled bots, skidding to a halt under the leather basher.

“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-

“NOW!”

She suddenly flew forward and… blasted the front line of the platoon with a laser from her hands. She wore laser patches after all, 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, thin and lightweight, dodged out of the way. The middle ones, some kind of frog bots with grippy feet and smooth chassis, recoiled and burned slightly. The left, obviously heated and glowing with cold countermeasures, were pushed back and overheated. 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. The right hot bots, melted slightly by the overheat, were doused by water and cooled before they could try to reform themselves. They were stuck in solid metal melt. Seth smiled, they had countered adaptation with rotation.

Seth and Kaz looked 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, tired eyes, the juice had a cost it seemed. He did well at least, though letting him get all the kills was going to cost Seth and Kaz. The teams soon joined back up in the center, tired, sore, and hoping they contributed enough.

*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 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. But all of it flowing into the points dotting the arena. The trainees rubbed their eyes again 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 stayed put, already knowing they were going to be told to. Aegis looked 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 sighed.

“But hey, you still fought well, 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 from Aegis. 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.