The moment Gears caught up to Kevin—Ghostshade—and Sentinel, something clicked.
The three moved in sync, not just fighting, but flowing. Dodging fire, dismantling bots with precision, their every movement felt orchestrated. A brutal ballet of instinct and strategy. Less a battle—more a performance.
Every strike had weight. Every dodge, intent. And that unspoken rhythm carried across the battlefield, echoing through comms where instructors and students alike paused to watch.
The bots were formidable—but not enough. Not yet.
Tson—Sentinel—had already carved a path through half the arena. His hyper-speed let him vanish and reappear mid-swing, strikes landing before the eye could track them.
Kevin moved like a glitch in the simulation. Half-there, half-not, his body flickering through space, blades whispering through steel and circuitry. Every motion was graceful. Calculated. Lethal.
Then there was Gears.
Unrefined. Improvised. Scrappy. He didn't have years of combat training or a legacy to inherit. What he had was instinct—and a slingshot rig that hummed with potential. He wasn't born for this level of combat, but he was adapting. Fast.
Sentinel watched him between strikes. This kid showed up with a cracked visor and a homemade weapon—and now he was standing beside elites. Was it bravery, or something worse
Gears glanced at the two veterans—Ghostshade and Sentinel—his voice full of awe. "You two… you're part of the Hood, right? The ones who protect the city? I've seen you on TV."
He hesitated. "But… I thought you guys were criminals."
Sentinel shrugged. "Yeah, me too. But the mayor said we had to register as heroes. Told us we weren't allowed back out there until we did."
"Ohhh," Gears nodded slowly, piecing it together. "That makes sense. It's probably the popularity polls, right? The mayor didn't wanna get roasted for locking you up—especially with how many people support you now."
He looked between them. "If anything, people wanna be like you. You're helping shift the conversation… showing that folks like you don't have to stay in the shadows. That you can fight for the city and still be heroes."
Ghostshade smirked. "Well, we figured if they're gonna make us choose a side… we might as well pick the one with cooler jackets."
Sentinel rolled his eyes, but a hint of a smile played on his lips.
Ghostshade gave a dismissive wave. "Ah, that? No big deal. Just another day."
Gears shook his head. "No, seriously. That Ezron kid… they said he got life in prison after what he did. Because of you two, he didn't hurt anyone else."
He hesitated, then added, "They said he killed his own mom by accident… and after you caught him, he didn't even have his IL anymore."
Ghostshade's grin, though hidden beneath the mask of his suit, faded—replaced by a shadow of something heavier.
Sentinel said nothing. His gaze stayed locked on the horizon, unreadable.
But behind that silence was the truth.
Ezron's IL—unstable, destructive—wasn't gone.
It had been taken.
Assimilated.
Now it lived inside the Sentinel suit, reforged and restrained.
A weapon turned shield. A curse reined in by discipline and will.
And Sentinel carried it without a word.
Suddenly, the terrain shifted. Turrets burst from the ground, their barrels already rotating, flanked by a new wave of elite bots—taller, heavier, and glowing with adaptive tech.
Kevin narrowed his eyes. "We've got a bit of a problem."
He pointed to the advancing units. "Those ones look sturdier."
Sentinel stepped forward, his voice calm. "Then we hit harder."
Elsewhere on the field…
The war still raged.
One student, forged of living metal, struck like a seismic hammer—each blow cratered the ground. Another moved unseen, cloaked in shifting shadow, her knives leaving only silence in their wake.
Twin flyers, wings ablaze, wove through the sky in tight, blazing formation. Below them, a boy cloaked in fire dove like a meteor, flames pouring from his mouth with each dive.
A girl skimmed across the wreckage, bending metal beneath her with a gesture, transmuting the battlefield into something living—hers to control.
And above it all, a final figure soared.
No wings. No tech. No illusion.
Just raw, unrelenting power.
His fists shattered steel. His voice, when it came, was thunder.
Not a beginner.
A contender.
And the trial was far from over.
Nyra hadn't called the end.
Not yet.
The storm still raged.
And the legends were still being written.
But not all were ready.
Mira, a girl who could shift into smoke, scattered too early—before she learned how to pull herself back together. A bot anticipated her return and launched an EMP grenade mid-transition. Her form fizzled, half-formed and gasping as she crashed to the ground. Two more bots dragged her to the edge of the field, where medics were already waiting.
Talo, a cocky pyrokinetic, underestimated the AI's learning speed. He lit up a dozen drones with an impressive firestorm—only to get flanked by two stealth-class bots that doused his flame with cryo-foam. His scream echoed across the comms before his signal went dark.
Another—Lenna, whose power was technomancy—tried to hack the bots mid-fight. She got one… maybe two. But then the rest adapted. They overwhelmed her with data overload, her visor sparking violently before she dropped to her knees, nose bleeding, her hands trembling.
The Group That Might:
One tight-knit squad moved with uncommon unity: The Quad—four students trained not as individuals, but as a single, seamless force. Vex, a blur of motion, carved through enemies with twin sonic blades, her movements a flicker—barely seen, but always felt. Brin, the gravity manipulator, bent the battlefield to her will, turning every leap, fall, and shift in weight into a weapon.
Joro, soft-spoken and sharp-minded, was their silent eye—a telepath who whispered enemy positions before the bots even moved. Isha, the shieldbearer, stood as the wall between them and defeat, her kinetic light panels folding and shifting like liquid armor, always in the right place, always in time.
They moved like one thought, one heartbeat—and for now, they were holding. But how long could precision stand against evolution?
They fought like one mind, moving with terrifying synchronization. They hadn't fallen yet—but their stamina was wearing thin, and the elite bots were adapting. Joro's nose bled. Brin's steps grew sluggish. Isha's shields were flickering.
They were good—but were they good enough?
The Rising:
A boy with a plasma staff, Yvren, twisted through the fray with dancer-like agility. Each spin of his staff cracked with blue heat, sending bots staggering backward. His timing was impeccable. Controlled. Calculated. Where Gears brought raw instinct, Yvren brought form and finesse—discipline forged from years of simulation drills and obsession.
Above him, a girl with silver-feathered wings—Kaelis—soared overhead. Her feathers weren't just for flight; they were razors, controlled with micro-magnetic pulses. She dove through a squad of bots, wings flaring wide, and left a rain of shredded metal in her wake.
Then there was Dendrik, a giant of a boy made entirely of obsidian-tinted alloy. He didn't dodge. He didn't run. He stood still, letting the bots crash against him like waves against rock. His heavy fists sent shockwaves with every punch, flattening steel into scrap.
A man forged from steel and another cloaked in living shadow moved through the wreckage, their steps calm and deliberate. Around them, the shattered remains of bots littered the ground—twisted metal, scorched circuits, and silence where chaos once raged.