Deep downs in the depths of Lillipa roamed a lone Lillipan walking along the hanging metal pathways of an ARKs mining area. Wearing the usual yellowish cloak like attire worn by the members of its tribe, it had to remove the cloak’s hood to see its companion waving about on a level above. Due to the short stature of the Lillipan race, the pathway almost looked like a metal bridge built miles high into the roofed sky. So while trying to regroup in blissful joy, the brown bear like critter panicked and leaped backwards when it almost fell into the dark sea below, and over the walls that kept it from realizing what the area truly looked like; a maze of tubes and pathways suspended in the air.
Seeing as it had to work its way up now, the Lillipan looked to the left to see a dead end. The circular platform it had landed upon after falling through the hole of yet another end above it. Since there was no way to get anywhere from that direction, the fuzzy critter looked to the right; in the direction where all the production belts and various ramps could be seen; along with the machines that traveled upon it. Seeing all those machines skittering like they did, it chilled the Lillipan down to the bone, but regrouping with a friend was worth the risk. So with new found determination the Lillipan pointed in the direction it was going and started marching forward, but as it did, a green portal opened up and the creature leaped aside in fright. The critter hid from the sudden rapid flashing that started to occur and behind a broken machine lying nearby and peeked through the gaps in it.
“All operatives have successfully entered. Proceeding to the next phase of the operation.”
As the Lillipan moved to the side to get a better view of the white object standing before it, it could see four other children looking at the thing with obvious confusion. From what the Lillipan could make of the situation, the children were not used to the metal people and thus were confused by its statement. But since the critter couldn’t speak their language either, it couldn’t tell how accurate the assumption was.
“From here on out,” the white robot continued, “You four are on your own. Though I will be here to observe all of you, it is not my job to assist you unless the situation demands it. Are you getting this, Henry?”
The white shiny robot turned around to face another person who coolly leaned against the railing of the walkway. That must be Henry. As the two stared at one another, the pointy eared red headed man cleaned out an ear and replied,
“Yeah, I heard you. I won’t get in their way.”
From there Henry put a finger in front of him and flicked something yellow aside. Though the yellow spec flew across one eye, he wouldn’t turn his gaze away from the children standing in front of him. For some reason, the red head kept a close eye on a white hair girl who looked around all over the place. Though at first it seemed she was just looking around to get an idea of the area, once the Lillipan got a closer look at her, getting a better view under the arm of the fallen robot it hid under, it could then tell that she was actually following her twitching ear. From what it could then guess, she could apparently sense something lurking about somewhere deeper in the area.
“Right,” responded the robot. “While Henry and I stay behind, you four can commence when ready. Remember, your objective is to get to the end of this path as quickly as possible.”
“Yes, sir,” said the white haired girl almost immediately. “Everyone, javelin formation.”
“Where do I go in that again?” asked a teal hair girl next to her.
“You go in the back, Yoshi. Right behind me and Noreen, and Kazamir walks in the front until the enemy gets close.”
Yoshi’s shoulders dropped and hunched forward.
“Right,” she said with great disappointment. “The back row.”
She then twirled her dual blades around and walked by Kazamir, who unhooked a sniper rifle from his back and looked to the titanic white CAST to see if they had the right terminology. Though the CAST did look back at him, he did not nod or move his head and instead remained entirely still. This made the dewmen feel sillier after Henry smirked at the black hair boy with knotted arms and silently chuckled to himself.
Kreszentia placed a hand on Kazamir’s shoulder. “That means you lead the way.”
Made re-aware of his surroundings, Kazamir bounced in his skin and scrambled to shoulder his rifle.
“Oh right,” he nervously responded. “Let’s get to it then.”
Kazamir moved ahead of the group and pointed his weapon forward. Since the area already seemed cleared out and safe to travel in, he started marching and led the other three up the passageway, leaving the CAST and Henry behind.
“You seem awfully interested in them, Henry,” said the CAST. “Did you truly come here under family orders?”
“Oh yeah,” Henry sarcastically nodded. “Got to protect family; even the ones we don’t get along with. But if you really want to know why I accepted this job, there are matters I want to clear up by the end of today.”
“Such as?”
“Kreszentia has always been unusually tough, especially for a newmen,” Henry began as he examined his hand. “. . . and it has gotten to the point where it has made her the black sheep of family when it comes to our yearly bouts. One of the things I have came here for is to see is if she rigs the fight in some manner and to dispel the rumors that have popped up as of late. I want to see how she fights, how she trains. They surely aren’t Durene or Borchard in origin, so I want to know why. How is she able to break her opponent’s blade after recklessly charging into it? What style of fighting does the academy teach you that makes their fighting style defensively superior to our own on the physical level? And who is teaching her?”
The both of them stared forward in silence and watched the four children climb up a ramp. Without warning Henry picked up the hiding Lillipan, leaped onto the platform above them and planted the critter down beside its friend.
“And the fact that at least one of them has a nice ass is always a plus too,” Henry shrugged before running into the darkness.
MultiCore, the white CAST, shook his head and did the same. He flipped over the rails of the walkway and started walking upside down underneath it. Since it saved him the trouble of trying to hide, it made it rather convenient to follow and listen to the children while they took care of the exam. For the most part everything was going smoothly. The bots would drop out of their hiding holes and Kazamir would take care of them. If any of them got close, Kazamir would retreat into the back and the others would take care of it. It was all according to plan. Then the CAST started picking up some weird readings. Readings the children couldn’t detect.
“You know,” said Kazamir after taking down the last Spardan in the area. “These things are really easy to take down. You would think they’d be a bit harder to kill, right?”
“Hmm,” hummed Kreszentia. She looked to a similar spider like robot lying next to her and stabbed her backup weapon into it. It was the kind that didn’t emit an energy blade. Noreen watched. To their surprise, instead of bouncing off the metal skin like they expected it to, the blade went in like a heated knife through butter. “They are made to be easy,” Kreszentia then informed everyone, removing the blade to feel the texture of the faux metal skin. “These are not the real thing.”
Yadira folded her arms behind her head and loomed over Krezentia’s shoulder.
“Well that’s lame,” she added. “I worked my ass off to prepare for these things.”
“Incoming,” shouted Kazamir. “Tranmizer, normal variant.”
Jumping off of a suspended building, a bipedal robot with two large claw arms landed in front of them and let out a metallic roar. As usual Kazamir shot a bullet but to his dismay, he watched it ricochet right off into the distance. Right when the large machine moved in to counterattack, MultiCore came swinging out of nowhere from under the bridge and punched the machine’s cockpit like head into the floor. After that, he picked it back up by the nose, punched his fist straight into the machine’s belly and ripped out a handful of components, killing it.
Noreen and Yoshi clapped and leaped for joy.
“Wow,” Yoshi screamed as she grabbed Kreszentia by the shoulders. “We got to get a CAST on our team pronto.”
“That was so cool,” Noreen cheered.
Kreszentia lifted Yoshi’s hand from her shoulder and tossed aside.
“We have four members and none of us will be left out.”
“But did you see how he just punched the thing?”
Uninterested, Kreszentia moved past the group and walked up to MultiCore.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
MultiCore looked to his hand and placed it back onto his rifle.
“The damage is minimal, but that’s not important. That Tranmizer was not part of the exam. Someone seems to have tampered with a real one and sent it here. Henry,” the CAST shouted.
In a stylish manner, Henry landed next to him and gracefully swung his great sword over a shoulder.
“You rang?” the newmen responded, making a clicking sound when he glanced at the girls.
“I need you to watch over them while I go investigate. Let nothing happen to them, do you understand?”
Henry summoned a spear to lean upon and stabbed it into a gap in the walkway’s panels.
“You got it. Nothing is going to get by me.”
MultiCore nodded and leaped away. While he did, Noreen walked up to Henry and eagerly asked with both hands clasped in front of her,
“Did you see that, Mr. Borchard?”
“Eh, it wasn’t anything special,” Henry waved away. “My father did the same thing once too.”
“And broke a finger doing it,” butted in Kreszentia.
Henry smirked and loomed over his cousin. “Hey, when it comes to mother, anything is possible. I’d like to see your father do the same.”
Kreszentia bared her teeth and leered. However once the memory of Bitol breaking a Banther’s jaw— to keep it from biting her leg— came to mind, she stopped and monotonously responded, “I am sure he has done it on more than one occasion.”
To that Henry nodded unconvinced, said, “Yeah, I bet,” and moved over towards Yoshi. “So you’re Yoshiblue now, huh?”
Kreszentia lift the man’s chin to stop him from examining Yoshi’s breasts. At the same time Yoshi glared at him and growled,
“You’re getting in our way, Henry. Leave us alone.”
“Ouch, I just wanted to see how Armon’s baby sister was doing, sheesh. But that’s alright. I like them tough anyways.”
Yoshi unsheathed her blades and pointed at the newmen saying, “You wanna go?”
“Anytime, anywhere, but preferably before a date.”
Yoshi raised her weapon into a fighting stance but Kreszentia dragged her away.
“He is wasting our time, Yoshi. We are leaving.”
“She doesn’t know who she’s going against either,” added Henry. “Let me give you an example of how strong your brother really is. The average completion time for the final exam is an hour. That includes the real deal. The kind of stuff that will really make you work. How fast do you plan on finishing it?”
“In ten minutes,” Yoshi screamed.
Henry leaned against his spear again and crossed his arms.
“Your brother finished it in fifteen . . . by himself.”
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