Fourth place: Nathan Foster, read the leaderboard.

  "You're in the top ten, Nate!" Lindy squealed. "I didn’t realize you haven’t lost a fight yet. That’s pretty badass."

  "Thanks, guys." Nate said, feeling genuine pride in his accomplishment. He had been putting in serious work the last six months. He was okay in class, Lindy was really carrying him and, well, the whole team in that department. If he could just get better test scores, he would be at the top.

  Nate kept looking over the leaderboard. Scrolling down, he found that Biff was 10th. Still in the top 10—there was no way his grades were good enough. Someone had to be doing his work for him, and he was almost certainly cheating on tests. He was undefeated, just like Nate. Their continued scuffles outside of sanctioned arena fights warranted a permanent ban on them being able to fight each other until the final tournament at the end of the year.

  The rumors around the academy said that the faculty were setting up Nate and Biff for a final showdown in the final tournament to drum up sponsors and media coverage. This was substantiated by some peculiar social media posts being made by the school hinting at a brewing rivalry. Nate didn’t care, though. He was in his thirties and had put petty drama away when he aged out of his twenties. There was still part of him though that was anxiously waiting to finally get his shot at knocking that asshole out.

  Lindy, as if reading his mind, cut into Nate’s thoughts. “You two are the only undefeated combatants on the list.”

  "Yea…" Nate said absently. He was caught up in thinking about finally settling the score.

  “Ugh, that oaf is getting more unbearable with every fight he wins. I wish you could just beat his ass already and be done with it.” Dee interjected.

  Nate snapped out of his trance at Dee’s comment. “Hey, what's our team rank?”

  “Well, with three losses now, I can’t imagine we’re holding on to the top 10 anymore. Let’s look.” Lindy said mournfully.

  Lindy flicked and tapped at her link as she pulled up the Teams League leaderboard.

  “Yea, see, we’re 17th now.” Lindy whined as she threw her face into her arms.

  “Hey, we still qualify for the tournament, and Q Week is supposed to turn things on its head. I’m confident that Jax will have something pretty awesome cooked up for us.” Nate added.

  ***

  "Ok, so I know this looks crazy." Jax said. Hands held out as if to hold back the wild thoughts his team was having.

  Team Arcane was all gathered in Jax’s small dorm room, standing to be precise, as there wasn’t room for anything other than standing. Space was already limited in the dorms, but it looked like Jax had made a miniature engineering lab and made use of every bit of space in the room, including the walls and ceiling. The walls had several tables with equipment and blueprints jutting out as if they were abnormally large shelves. The ceiling had a cage that held a neatly aligned array of clear totes, each filled with various parts, tools, and what could only be described as junk to the untrained eye.

  In the center of the small room was a larger table with many drawers of varying sizes around the sides. Above the table was a rack with various tools hanging from a magnetic rack as they were hanging without any sort of hook.

  “Hey, no judging here, Jax.” Nate said.

  “I’m judging.” Dee added.

  “How do you even get up there?” Lindy asked as she pointed at the cage.

  “Oh! I’ll show you.” Jax stepped onto a pad that was in front of one of his many desks standing on the floor. The platform raised a simple guardrail up and around Jax, and he slowly started floating.

  “That’s pretty sweet. The desks on the wall make sense now.” Nate said.

  “Yeah, the lab didn’t have some of the tools or the right, well… caliber, of equipment I needed to really make the stuff I wanted. And this is only Cat 1-type gear. I’ll be able to make better stuff as our abilities evolve.”

  “I’m sure what you got is great. Do you want to show us?” Nate said with a tone trying to encourage Jax.

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s why you came.” Jax said with a nervous laugh. “So, the rules are that you can have one weapon and one accessory, or a combo item that kind of acts as both. Let’s start with Lindy.”

  Jax proceeded to place a large metallic arm with a giant hole at one end that resembled a cannon. The whole arm was a deep navy blue with a thick yellow line running down the side from end to end. Nate noticed the color scheme was the same that the real Arcane Operators used on their uniforms and equipment, but didn’t say anything.

  “Ok, so I’m calling this “Lindy’s Goo Cannon.". When you put the arm on and strap it in, you should feel a thick handle and two triggers inside. The handle is kind of a hard sponge that will absorb your goo and store it like any regular gun stores ammo in a magazine. When you’re ready to fire, you pull the bottom trigger to pop up the scope and stabilize your arm, and then the other trigger to, well, fire.”

  “I’m not good at shooting.” Lindy said nervously.

  “That’s ok! The arm and straps stabilize you to help you aim.”

  “Can’t it just aim for me?” Lindy asked.

  Jax sighed. “Not yet. I mean, there’s definitely equipment out there like that, but I don’t have that capability yet.”

  “Let’s give it a try.” Nate chimed in as he warped to the other side of the room. He picked up a tool and winced as he dragged the sharp end down his arm, leaving a red scratch in its wake.

  Lindy put on her Goo Cannon with Jax’s help and felt the rough but sturdy porous handle at the end. She felt the two triggers with her index and middle fingers and pulled the bottom of the two, which immediately made her arm straighten and lock into place. She yelped as she tried moving her arm around, making her look like a less-than-amateur breakdancer doing the robot. She released the second trigger, and she was able to move her arm normally again.

  Lindy then started excreting her goo from her palm into the special handle, causing a small red light to appear. The light quickly turned to orange, then yellow, then green as she continued to fill her cannon with goo.

  Nate was waiting patiently, holding his arm to help soothe the throbbing pain. “Ready?” Nate asked.

  Lindy, without saying anything, raised her Goo Cannon nervously, pulled trigger two to stabilize her arm, and then trigger one to fire. With an audible thunk, a large glob of goo launched from the end of the cannon and hit Nate square in the chest, causing him to groan and fall back a step, leaning against the wall. The team laughed as Nate took some of the goo that now covered most of his shirt and spread it along his self-inflicted scratch.

  Dee was laughing harder than she normally did but managed to blurt out, “Lindy has a penis gun! She just jizzed on you!”

  Lindy’s face turned beet red as she became so embarrassed at the realization that her “Goo Cannon." did very much resemble the function of a penis. Lindy broke her embarrassment with a chuckle that turned into harder laughter after a moment. Jax and Nate joined in until everyone had given in to the hilarity of the comparison.

  "Alright, alright, what else do you got, magic man?" Nate said as his laughter started to slow down.

  Jax, still with a big smile on his face, pulled out another contraption that this time had two mechanical arm sleeves connected in the back by flexible metallic tubing. The arms themselves were significantly leaner and more form-fitting than Lindy’s and didn’t have a cannon at the end. These two had the same deep navy blue and yellow stripe combo that Lindy’s cannon had, but again Nate didn’t say anything.

  "What, no gun for me?"

  "No, not yet. Since you produce rocks and not a liquid like Lindy, I couldn’t make you something that would extend your power to manifest in a different location. Again, at least not yet. I could have made you a mechanical slingshot, but after a little research I decided that the action of loading and firing would take longer than just producing a rock and throwing it. So I made something that will dramatically enhance that. Now you can make and throw the biggest rocks you can and throw them as fast or faster than the smaller ones you do now."

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  "What about my rock arm?”

  "Well, you’ll only be able to do part of your arm now, unfortunately. I had to make a sacrifice in order to really amplify your other ability. You can still turn your hand into rock, and the enhanced strength will make your punches much more impactful now. Oh, I almost forgot, I also made this!" Jax pulled out and placed a clear plastic container encased in a tactical harness on the table. "Lindy can fill this up, and you can use it to heal yourself on the field in case you are too far from Lindy or if she is knocked out."

  "I was kind of hoping for a gun." Dee said, deflated.

  "Maybe one day." Nate said as he placed a hand on Dee’s shoulder. "Thanks, Jax. This stuff is really awesome.”

  “We haven’t even gone over your stuff yet.”

  "Stuff?"

  Jax was already halfway to his closet as Nate asked after him. He opened one of the drawers and pulled out a folded navy blue onesie with a thick yellow stripe left of the center and spread it out on the table. Nate picked it up and noticed it was very similar to the suit that Jarris had him wear during training before school. The material was thin and very stretchy. Examining the suit, he could see that it would cover almost every inch of his body except his face.

  "This suit should expand your shield to the entirety of your body. My hypothesis, though, is that it might make it weaker overall or even take away the repulsion part and just give you a protective shell."

  "So we have Lindy’s jizz gun and Nate has a condom suit. Were you kind of horny when you made this stuff?"

  The whole team groaned at Dee’s comment and Jax continued on.

  "There’s one more thing." Jax said as he placed a metallic spear on the table that had half of its length colored blue and the other half yellow. The yellow end of the spear was pointed like a seat belt cutter from back on Earth that had the window breaking attachment, but the pointy end was much longer.. Jax picked it up and separated the blue half from the yellow to reveal a metallic cord that unraveled a bit before Jax pressed a button, causing the line to contract and snap back into spear form.

  "Oh ho ho ho, I like this one. I like this a lot." Nate said gleefully as he took his spear from Jax’s hands. Nate walked over to the only partially open part of the room and started twirling his weapon around like he’d seen in the movies. He then separated the halves and started twirling them like they were nun chucks, and, being totally untrained in nun chucks, he promptly knocked himself in the head.

  The team burst out laughing as Nate rubbed his head, looking down in shame. Lindy, still laughing, rubbed some goo into his head to make the pain stop.

  Nate, gathering his composure and stiffening himself up like some tough guy, turned to Jax. "How far does the cable extend?"

  "About 10 feet, and you hold the button down to let it extend. The second button retracts it."

  Nate played with the buttons, the one causing the upper quarter of the rod closest to the pointy end to drop instantly to the floor as the line went limp, and the other rapidly pulling it back faster than a tape measure retracting.

  "This is really sweet. Thanks, Jax, for all of it. Should we go test it out?" Nate asked.

  The team nodded in agreement, and they headed for the training room.

  When they arrived Biff was training alone with the reflex and hand eye coordination trainer. There were five small punching bags that would drop down one at a time in random order. Nate noticed Biff was sweating pretty hard so he must have been working out for a while. Nate didn't want to start something, and he certainly didn't want the team showing off their gear in front of their stiffest competition so he did his best to not bring attention to himself more than he was about to. Biff noticed them walk in right away though and put in extra effort with his final punches which loosened the machine from its bolts holding it to the ground.

  “Ah shit stain, and his pretty posse. Oh and the rat, didn't see you there little buddy.” Biff said, grabbing a towel and wiping his face.

  “Hey Biff, we are just trying to train man.” Nate replied.

  “Wah wah wah. Give me a break, it's an open gym, do what you want shit stain. Don’t mind if I watch do you?”

  “We do actually, but-” Nate started saying but was interrupted.

  “I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to her, obviously.” Biff said, pointing to Lindy with his towel in his hand. “She’s my favorite show to watch.”

  “You’re such a creep, ugh, I’ll bash your head in right now.” Dee said, sliding on her mechanical arms Jax had made for her.

  Biff stood up but not fast, and without any anger on his face which put Nate at a little ease though he was still on alert. He walked over to Lindy casually looking her up and down. Biff was wide and tall making Lindy look like a little girl when she stood next to him even though she was a full figured adult woman. She had a mean frown on her face though, defiant to anything he was about to pull.

  “You know I got a couple of spots that just opened on my team, I’d love to have you ladies. Especially you, princess.” Biff stuck out a finger and slowly lifted some of Lindy’s hair, staring at it like it was his prized possession.

  Lindy slapped Biff’s hand away and stepped away from him to stand next to Nate’s side.

  “Oh I love spicy women, I love when they yell at me a little bit too.” Biff turned to Dee. “Speaking of, if I can't have the princess, what do you say we go out to dinner and you can yell at me a little more?”

  Nate’s face was turning red from the rage boiling inside him but suddenly Lindy tucked her hand in between his arm and chest and held onto him. He looked at her and she looked at him, and he could tell she was afraid. Her eyebrows, her eyes, her lips all spelled fear. He had to diffuse the situation. He couldn't let this escalate or they might get kicked out of school. He looked at Lindy again and as she was looking at Dee throwing insults at Biff, he couldn't help but notice her beauty. Her hair was all flipped to one side, her pink hair fell beautifully on her shoulder and down her back and chest. The length, the curls, the color, her figure, were all perfect. As if he told an artist what the perfect woman looked like and they painted a portrait of Lindy. His heart rate increased, but he was calm now.

  Not realizing he was interrupting Dee’s profanity laced tirade, Nate spoke. “Hey Biff, I heard your team quit on you, sorry about that. I'm looking forward to seeing you in the solo tournament though.”

  Biff’s smile turned to a frown. “Yea, I’ll see you there shit stain, I’ll be seeing you there too Princess. I hope you come cheer me on in my corner.” Biff turned and left the training room whistling a tune.

  “Psychopath.” Dee said.

  Lindy was still holding onto Nate when he turned to her. “You ok?” He said softly.

  Lindy nodded and flashed him a closed lipped weak smile.

  “What do you guys say we give our new toys a try?” Nate said, trying to help the team move on.

  Nate underestimated the struggle it would be to get his new suit on as he reached furiously for the zipper on his back like he had an itch he couldn’t possibly reach. Lindy walked over and placed her hand on him to settle him down before zipping him up.

  “Ok Dee, why don’t you-”

  Before Nate could finish his sentence, a small boulder was hurtling at him. Nate panicked and warped to the side, allowing the big rock to crash through the wall behind him.

  The gym janitor was busy cleaning up a mess another team had left behind across the training room when he saw what Dee had just done. After he gave a disappointed sigh, he dropped the shovel he was using to clean up the other rubble and walked away muttering to himself.

  “Dammit Dee, a little warning?!”

  “But did you die?” Dee replied, smiling.

  Nate, without saying words this time, powered up his ability and was enveloped in a translucent black aura. It was like you could see him through a pair of very cheap, very lightly tinted sunglasses.

  “I wish I could tan that fast.” Lindy said.

  “Remember that time he burnt his toast at breakfast and tried to wipe off the charring? He kinda-”

  “Ok, ok, I get the point." Nate interrupted Dee. “Can we just…?” He continued as he gestured with his arms, signaling Dee to fire another rock at him.

  Dee conjured a rock in her hand about the size of a baseball and lobbed it much slower at Nate. When the rock hit Nate’s shield, it simply dropped to the floor and rolled back a little.

  “Yes!” Jax yelled with a huge smile on his face.

  The team looked at him kind of confused.

  “What? I didn’t actually know if it would work or not.”

  “Seriously?!” Nate shouted angrily.

  Jax shrugged.

  Nate looked back to Dee with his shield still up as he gestured for her to go again. Dee formed a similar-sized rock in her hand but threw it at almost three times the speed. When the rock hit, Nate was forced to step back from the force, but the shield had a similar effect on the rock as before. It stopped dead in its flight path and fell to the ground.

  “Ok so, it seems like I will still block stuff, but I can’t repel the force of the attack the same way. Dee, I want you to give me everything you’ve got. We have to know what the limit is so I can act and plan accordingly.”

  Dee nodded and conjured a bowling ball-sized rock above her head and, with all the strength she could muster and the help of her new equipment, she threw the rock straight for Nate.

  Nate winced as the rock flew at him with a speed he had never seen Dee accomplish before. The rock hit Nate’s barrier and fell to the ground with a loud bang. Nate flew back however, crashing into the wall, and fell to the ground groaning in pain.

  The rest of the team ran to his side, Lindy getting there first.

  “Hey, I got you, where’s it hurt?”

  “Ugh, all over.” Nate replied through gritted teeth.

  “Let’s get him to the infirmary!” Lindy said.

  Dee rushed to Nate’s side and picked him up with her enhanced strength and ran to the infirmary station on the opposite corner of the training center. A grumpy old human healer stood there as Dee placed Nate on the bed.

  “Doing a little equipment practice for Q week I see.” The healer pulled the section of Nate’s suit that was covering his head and placed a small white circular object on his forehead. He then pulled out his link, flicking and tapping through it before he put it away almost as fast and placed his hands on several parts of Nate’s body. The healer’s hands glowed green, as did the parts of Nate's body that were being healed.

  “Well, looks like he has several broken bones, ribs, and his liver was punctured. Whatever you guys were doing, I probably wouldn’t do that again.” the healer chuckled as he walked off.

  “Oh my god, Nate, are you ok?” Lindy said with desperation.

  Nate, coming out of the shock from his injuries, nodded slowly.

  “Dee… Dee, are you there?”

  “Yea Nate, I’m here.” Dee whispered in reply, sincerely.

  “Dee, you saved me. You saved me, Dee.” A big smirk now lighting up across Nate’s face. “How can I ever repay you?”

  “Ugh, you prick!” she screamed as she punched his arm and stormed out of the infirmary.

  The rest of the team burst out with laughter as Nate cried out to Dee.

  “My hero! My hero!”