Reach clapped once, the sharp sound echoing off the nearby palisade walls. “Ok! Find someone from the opposite team if you haven’t already. Loose circle around the yard — Rotating spars. Best two of three rounds per matchup. HUD will track points.”

  He gestured with a flat hand. “Class A moves clockwise. Class B, stay where you start.”

  He looked at everyone, waiting long enough to catch every eye. “I want to see sweat and blood. This is for real. The creatures in the forest won’t hold back. The monsters in the dungeons won’t hold back. YOU will not hold back. There is nothing off limits in our spars short of killing each other.

  Danny jogged off to find a match and tossed a “Good Luck” over his shoulder at Alex.

  “Yeah, you too.” Alex rolled his shoulders and waited. After a few minutes Brandon Ruiz walked up to him with a smile.

  “So it looks like a wizard battle! Did you get your gear from HEX yet?”

  Alex couldn’t help but smile back. “Sure did. You?”

  “Some of it, I have to go back this afternoon. But check this out!” You could hear the excitement in Brandon’s voice, he was clearly dying to show off whatever it was he got. He held up a hand and showed Alex a ring. It looked like obsidian with little fangs poking out around the edges.

  “Check it out…” Brandon focused on his hand for a second and the ring started to emit a black smoke that got thicker and thicker. Brandon waved his hand around a little and the smoke took on the form of a swirling mist that enveloped him. When it did, Brandon disappeared. Not because the mist was too thick, Alex could see through the mist, although everything behind it looked blurry.

  “Crazy!” Alex said and waved his hand through the edge of the mist. His fingertips disappeared and reappeared as he moved them around the mist. “What is it?”

  The swirling mist seemed to all start moving in the same direction and after a moment Brandon reappeared in patches and splotches until he was all there again. The black mist returned to his ring.

  “It emits a cloud of ionized nano-particles that… I don’t know, they either absorb or scatter light I think. Cool though, right? And I can mostly control the mist too, so like, I can move it around, or have it follow me as I move.”

  Alex wasn’t sure it was an effective combat tool, but it sure looked impressive and he said as much. Brandon was all smiles.

  A moment later their HUDs projected a little nameplate above their corner of the sparring ring.

  MERCER vs RUIZ

  Brandon gave Alex a nervous smile. “Please don’t break me. Connor hasn’t stopped complaining about the beating you gave him last week.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, mostly he complains that you tricked him, but we all saw the fight.”

  Before Alex could respond, Reach shouted, “Begin!”

  Brandon came in, light on his feet. His stance was tighter and cleaner than it had been the previous week. Obviously he had been practicing too.

  Brandon feinted left. Alex didn’t bite. Brandon switched to a right hook—

  Alex stepped inside, pivoted, and tapped Brandon’s ribs with a palm strike while tight-blocking with his left arm.

  Brandon wheezed. “Okay… cheap shot!”

  Alex laughed and let Brandon catch his breath. “Hardly. For a fast guy, you just have a really slow punch.”

  Round one to Alex.

  Round two went pretty much the same: Brandon gave it his all, but Alex had been training four or five hours a day all week and the ANIP multiplied that training by almost ten times, which meant the equivalent of something like two hundred hours training so far. He felt like his movements were now smooth, balanced and consistent.

  After round two, the HUD flashed:

  WINNER: MERCER

  Brandon collapsed on his butt. “Why are you like this?”

  Alex offered him a hand. “Caffeine and childhood trauma. Kids in school can be really mean to us autistic kids.” They both laughed.

  Alex turned to watch Jay and Connor who were sparring in the space beside them. He was pretty sure Connor planned his spot just so he could fight Alex next.

  Jay’s face was tight with concentration. Connor’s in arrogance.

  They were on their third round with one each so far.

  Jay swung wide — too wide. Connor stepped inside, shoulder-checked him off balance. Before he could strike though, Jay jumped with the check and got his feet under himself again. He came forward again with a driving cross that caught Connor on the shoulder but put him off balance. Connor took the punch and drove his fist in hard on Jay’s side. He hit twice, hard and Jay’s knee buckled from the pain. Connor brought a fist down hard, stopping just before the punch landed on the side of Jay’s head.

  Jay laughed and got up slowly, holding his side.

  WINNER: DRAKE — 2:1

  Alex winced. Connor didn’t even look proud that he won, just annoyed that Jay had lasted that long.

  Connor circled back to his starting position and looked over at Alex, smiling.

  Brandon whispered beside him, “Good Luck. Not sure he’ll pull that punch when it’s your turn.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “I can take it if it comes to that.” He walked forward and squared off against Connor.

  Alex’s HUD updated:

  MERCER vs DRAKE

  Connor smirked like this was the moment he’d been waiting for all week. He rolled his shoulders as he walked over. “Real combat starts today, Mercer. Are you ready Wizard? Or are you going to whip out more cheap tricks like last week?”

  Alex kept his expression neutral. “Not sure, but try not to telegraph your moves so much today huh?”

  Connor’s smirk vanished.

  Reach looked over at them and called out: “This isn’t chat practice. Begin!”

  Connor came in hot.

  A jab-cross-hook combination, all executed with his natural prowess enhanced by ANIP. Alex blocked the jab, dodged the cross, but the hook slammed into his guard like a battering ram. The impact rattled his forearm.

  Crap! Connor had gotten a lot stronger and he was already too fast last week.

  Alex didn’t even think about a counter strike. He stepped back as Connor reset and tried to put some space between them. But Connor was already stepping in with a follow-up elbow strike.

  Alex blocked, barely.

  Jab, shoulder ram. Alex staggered backward two steps and tried to not drop his guard.

  Connor pressed, grinning now, throwing a front kick that caught Alex right in the stomach. Not enough to send him flying, but enough to knock him off balance. And more than enough to hurt like hell.

  Connor stepped in and landed the punch that he had pulled for Jay. Alex’s vision exploded in colour. By the time he refocused he realized he was looking up at the sky and didn’t remember falling down.

  The HUD chimed:

  POINT: DRAKE

  Alex just lay there for a moment, trying to get over the shock of the blow. He’d never been hit before. Not really. Not a real punch with hurting intent. The whole side of his face felt numb and his ear was ringing. He rolled over and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees; just breathing.

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  He could hear Connor behind him, but wasn’t listening, or couldn’t focus on whatever he was saying.

  It took almost a full minute before Alex was ready to get up and face off against Connor again. He knew that letting Connor control the fight was only going to make him lose. He was just too fast and too strong still. The only chance Alex had was to find a hole that probably wasn’t there, or do something unexpected.

  Connor was giving him the time he needed, but smiling brightly at Alex’s pain. “Last week you beat me with a cheap trick. You got lucky and I’ve got one more turn to show you why it won’t happen again.”

  Last week Alex had just studied the correct counters for the moves he knew Connor was going to use. It was a smart move, but Connor kept calling it a cheap trick. Whatever. He would always use everything at his disposal to win.

  After Alex signalled that he was ready once more, they squared off again and again Connor lunged almost instantly. It was predictable really. Connor wanted to win and he wanted a fight that was quick and decisive. The problem wasn’t knowing what he was going to do, it was dealing with his explosive speed.

  But this time Alex was ready. The worst had already been done. This time he knew what he had to do. He focused.

  He didn’t move as Connor closed the small space between them. He stood with his forearms raised in front of him in a standard block position. The same as he had in the last round. Exactly what Connor expected him to do again this round.

  But this time Alex imagined his drone-powered bucklers forming.

  The bracer hummed, although only Alex could tell.

  A burst of thick mist exploded out around the edge of each bracer as the embedded microdrones burst outward, forming a wide matte disk six inches above his wrists and two feet across. Alex blinked as the drones from each bracer joined into one large buckler.

  Connor couldn’t do anything about it as the shield appeared an inch from his fist.

  CLANG-THNNNK!

  Alex felt the impact, but only enough to notice it happened as the swarm of drones redistributed the kinetic force across the whole. The surface rippled but held strong. He smiled and released the shield which seemed to melt back into his bracers.

  Connor jerked back, shocked.

  “What the—?!”

  Alex didn’t wait.

  He pivoted, stepped inside Connor’s loose guard, and smacked Connor’s ribs with a palm strike. He wasn’t nearly as strong as Connor or Jay, but strong enough that Connor felt the blow and retreated a couple of steps. The look on his face was fierce.

  Connor snarled and came in again, now angrier.

  He jabbed. Alex called the shield on just his left wrist and blocked just in time. The shield buckled under the force, rippling like a heat mirage but the force wasn’t enough to move Alex’s arm at all.

  Connor spun into a low kick.

  Alex called the shield on his right wrist and thrust towards the kick —

  THNK!

  The kick bounced. The microdrones rippled.

  Alex struck back with a sweep, catching Connor’s ankle.

  Connor was already off balance after his failed kick and the hit tripped him up. He stumbled, off balance.

  Alex moved in and launched a series of punches towards Connor’s chest and face. Four strikes, four hits. Alex’s hands never made contact though, it was four hits with the edge of his shields.

  Connor spun around and hit the mat, blood spraying across the mat from a large gash across his eyebrow.

  The HUD chimed:

  POINT: MERCER

  One–one.

  Connor stood slowly, eyes blazing.

  “You’re using gear in a spar?”

  Alex shrugged. “It’s part of my standard HEX-issued defence equipment. This is ‘defensive arts’ class.”

  Connor’s jaw flexed. “You can’t win in a straight fight so you have to use your toys. Cheap Tricks.”

  Alex just rolled his eyes and squared up again. “One more.”

  Connor snarled at him and wiped the blood off his face with the back of his arm. After a few moments he stepped up though and lifted his arms again.

  Alex lifted his arms and called out the bucklers again, but smaller this time. Enough to block a strike, but not enough to get in the way of what was coming next. If he could get a good strike anyway.

  The microdrones from both bracers flared outward in synchrony, forming twin rippling bucklers that hovered above each wrist like distorted circles of force.

  Connor scowled. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

  Alex didn’t answer.

  He had no intention of hurting Connor, and had a lot of respect for Connor’s skill. But he really hated arrogant jerks, and bullies worst of all. For most of his life Alex had either been the brunt of bullying, or on the sidelines; watching his friends get bullied. Helpless to do much about it.

  But he had options now.

  Connor charged with the same aggressive combination as the first round, the jab-cross-hook. Explosively fast. Powerfully delivered. But predictable.

  Alex blocked each strike with the left shield:

  CLNK — CRKK — THNNNK!

  Each impact sent a ripple across the buckler and what looked like tiny sparks scattering across the mat.

  Connor switched to a low sweep kick.

  Alex angled the second shield down—

  TNNK!

  Block.

  Connor stumbled.

  Alex lowered his stance and telegraphed an uppercut.

  Connor saw it coming and even as he got his feet under him, he moved his arms to block. One-to-one, Connor could easily block Alex’s punch.

  But Alex wasn’t punching.

  His right bracer dissolved as he stepped forward. He could see the look on Connor’s face flicker from confusion to confidence as he realized he was only going to have to stop a fist.

  Alex swung forward in a tight arc like he had every intention of landing a punch on Connors blocking forearms.

  “Dragon’s Breath - 10%.” Alex wasn’t loud, but loud enough to be heard.

  A burst of super-heated sparks roared out of the bracer in a wide cone in front of Alex’s punch. It was white-gold with streaks of blue ice. It crackled and hissed as it expanded towards Connor’s block.

  Connor yelped and threw his arms up instinctively, stumbling back as the sparks slammed into his padded training vest.

  It didn’t burn through, it wasn’t set that high, but the heat was real. The impact was real. And the display? Spectacular. Sparks blasted off Connor’s chest and exploded out in every direction.

  And then it was over as Connor tripped and fell back on his ass hard.

  Alex’s HUD chimed:

  POINT: MERCER

  WINNER: MERCER — 2:1

  Silence filled the yard. Alex looked around and saw that everyone was staring at him, wide-eyed.

  Then noise. Gasps. A few impressed curses.

  He could hear Danny say, “Holy crap… Alex just Iron Man’d him…”

  Alex stood there smiling.

  It didn’t last long though. Connor vaulted to his feet, face bright red, hair disheveled, smoke still curling off the scorched front of his vest. The smell of burnt hair was strong in the air.

  “That —” he pointed sharply at Alex’s bracers “— is a cheap trick! That wasn’t fair! That wasn’t training!” Connor sputtered and looked around for support. “He just used a flamethrower!”

  “It’s called Dragon’s Breath,” Alex said before thinking. “And it was on low power, you were safe.”

  Connor wheeled on Reach. “You saw that! He can’t use that crap in a spar! He cheated!”

  Reach walked over calmly, hands behind his back, posture relaxed.

  “Connor,” he began, voice level, “what do you think will happen in the forest on Monday?”

  Connor blinked. “What?”

  “Do you think the monsters you face will fight fair?” Reach asked, tone almost gentle. “Do you believe they will forgo claws, fangs, venom, camouflage, or leverage?”

  Connor opened his mouth.

  Reach continued.

  “Every opponent you face, monster or otherwise, will use every tool they possess to kill you. You can call that a cheap trick if it makes you feel better. But you will still be dead.”

  Connor swallowed. His jaw clenched. His fists tightened.

  Reach didn’t raise his voice, but the firmness in it was unmistakable.

  “Alex used his issued HEX defensive equipment responsibly. This is defensive training. He did not use a sword, or an axe. He used his bracer. And he held power to a low training level. No rule was broken.”

  Connor sputtered and looked around the ring.

  “And you lost the round.”

  Connor’s face flickered between outrage, humiliation, and something darker.

  But Reach didn’t let him stew.

  He clapped once. “Rotate!” Then he turned and moved away again.

  Training moved on.

  Connor didn’t look at Alex again.

  Not directly.

  But Alex could feel the heat of his resentment like leftover sparks in the air.

  ***

  John, I read your memo. Twice.

  What you’re describing isn’t a failure of the program, it’s a side effect of it working. These are young people placed under pressure, given authority over their own survival, and told—explicitly or not—that strength, confidence, and decisiveness matter. Aggression is not a bug in that environment. It’s a byproduct.

  Yes, they’re forming rivalries. Yes, tempers are flaring. That’s kids being kids, amplified by adrenaline, cameras, and the uncomfortable realization that the person standing next to them might one day decide whether they live or die.

  We need them sharp. We need them competitive. We need them willing to push. That inevitably comes with ego, anger, and personality conflicts. Frankly, if everyone got along too well, I’d be more concerned and it would make for terrible TV.

  Let’s not pretend the optics don’t matter. Rivalries make for compelling television. Viewers don’t tune in to watch polite cooperation, they tune in to watch friction resolve into competence.

  Your job isn’t to eliminate the tension. It’s to put rails on it. Make the lines clear. Make the consequences unmistakable. They can posture, compete, and even hate each other, but they need to understand exactly where the line is, and what happens when they cross it.

  Fear of punishment has its place. So does structure. Use both.

  Keep them alive. Keep them dangerous. And keep it contained.

  Internal Memorandum

  From: Valentina

  To: Reach

  Re: Trainee Rivalries and Interpersonal Friction

  Consider checking out this story as well: (???)つ━━???: *?

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