Bo was able to recover energy one last time for the evening, and they squeezed another couple of matches in at a medium level of difficulty, but geared to offense. They won both. Unsurprisingly, the gains at the end of it all weren't exactly staggering, lacking any improvement to Level. Techniques continued to blip upward, at least.

Control: Collect has improved to 1.5!

Control: Cord has improved to 1.8!

Control: Throw has improved to 2.3!

Control: Spear has improved to 0.7!

Control: Strike has improved to 0.2!

Create: Grapple has improved to 0.7!

Jack went home and passed out for a couple of hours after that, waking only to eat a final meal before going right back to bed.

The next day, they had a fairly ridiculous four-hour early morning and four-hour afternoon-into-evening, sequestered for training. The rest of their schedule had to simply warp around it.

The team tried to pace themselves, sticking with a 'medium' sort of difficulty, as judged — generally very accurately — by the Memorial AI in charge of the sim chamber. After a few of these being aced, the group couldn't take it anymore, though, and began amping up the difficulty progressively.

After an undefeated eleven in a row since they'd added their fourth member, they finally lost one in an annoying straight-up 'duel' match ill-suited to their tendencies toward misdirection and ambush. The other team was perfect for immediate blitz offense, with an Energetic Bruiser ('Bubbles') that took up space something like Highfive, an ice-using Blaster, an AoE-focused air-based Controller, and some sort of 'plant growth' Disruptor. On top of this scary blitzkrieg focus, it was high difficulty, with the aggregate levels higher than theirs…

They got overwhelmed and creamed. The air-user knocked Inkblot out of the immediate fight, while Bubbles charged and locked down Highfive. Meanwhile, they had plants grow up out of nowhere, trying to root them, effectively slowing everyone down and distracting them. Bo had to counter the ice-user to avoid getting focus-sniped, and this rooted her. Jack tried to go for the ice-user, too, but found the multitasking Controller capable of blocking him enough to stage an evasion.

Jack tried to pivot to get Bo free, but it was too late — the plants stung her and scored a stun. The ice-user followed up with a torrent of freezing ice that Jack wasn't able to stop. There was some thin hope of her surviving and 'thawing' as they adjusted, but things went from bad to worse as further precision teamwork freed up Bubbles to charge Bo, executing her half-frozen form with a simple slam. The pivot they made, from utilizing the Blaster primarily before, was not properly anticipated.

They next focused on Jack with three while the air-user kept Inkblot utterly neutralized, his stealth useless. The plant user couldn't quite get Jack stationary for a stun, but weakened him over time from little slices of spines on the leaves and tiny, penetrating needle-darts that some of the more developed types could fire. It was a progressing debuff that dragged him down, as a budding jungle had grown over the battlefield, however trampled and ripped up it was in parts.

Despite a scrambling defensive effort between him and Highfive, he was overpowered from too many angles at once and got iced just like Bo. And that was basically that, as the slightly-dinged, but overall healthy enemy team went four-on-two, and soon four-on-one.

Afterward, they were all laid out around rocky natural terrain, monopolizing what patches of softer grass and earth were left, all still under the persistent red glow of a loss.

"It was a good run," Highfive declared in between breaths. "Not sure too many pull off eleven in a row, even against average sims…"

"Fraggin' air-benders," Inkblot muttered balefully. "Need to figure out how to deal with them…"

"I hate them, too," Jack replied, wincing at the general soreness in his body from the intense cold. He suppressed a shiver response. "But our answer is generally to keep Bo alive. I suspect it's going to be super rare for more than one to ignore your stealth. Aside from that, at the least, the Controller and the Disruptor were Level Six with their versatility and multitasking. That or they got simulated with lucky lower-level mutations and high Techniques."

"I'll check," Highfive said, sitting up with a groan and squinting his eyes.

Meanwhile, Bo said nothing, just remained flopped on her side, rubbing her arms. She hadn't taken her helmet off, but he could hear her teeth chattering.

"The Disruptor was Level Six," Highfive reported. "Everyone else was Level Five. The Controller had good Techs, yeah. Tracks. That Bruiser wouldn't have been my match without the ice, plants, and air gust shit constantly dragging me down."

"We could probably take them," Jack mused. "Just need to focus hard on the Controller first, and have the right timing for Bo while staying constantly on the move. Hmm. Wonder if I could levitate her briefly? That avoids the plants, I presume."

"Gotta worry about the ice guy, though."

"You're a giant hand. Kinda with a wrist. I assume you can screen her, and high enough over the ground to heavily mitigate the power of the plants."

"Hmm. Avoid fighting? That's a new one."

"There's no way the Bruiser will do much if he actually goes for you."

"They'll pivot and go for you."

"Good. Steel barriers will hold them off long enough."

"Mm." A doubtful noise. Scathing commentary from the ever-confident Highfive. But maybe Jack shouldn't be surprised — he was suggesting he could stall three higher-level enemies at once.

Is this hubris on my part? I kinda wanna find out. I could move with Bo, but then it would almost force them to canvas for Inkblot and protect Airhead. Not ideal. We want to spread attention away from them. "How about this… I present the target only for a moment, but high-tail it to also dodge behind you once they commit. The ice guy and Bubbles are almost entirely line-of-sight oriented. Once they realize I'm out of play, they might try to pivot to Ink, but Bubbles will be out of position by then. If Ink succeeds against Airhead, he should have a chance of escaping before getting ganked, especially if Bo remains free to sow discord. And everything should happen fast enough that the plant-user hasn't turned the battlefield into a damned jungle by then."

Highfive didn't say anything, just nodded thoughtfully with his eyes looking off.

"I like it," Inkblot said up at the ceiling, still flopped spread-eagled on the ground.

Bo suddenly stood up. "Let's do it. Now." Her voice was insistent, and her fingers were twitching.

Oh shit. She's pissed. "Alright. I'm officially naming the others. The ice guy is Snowcone, the Controller is Airhead, and the plant lady is Ivy."

A chime sounded, and a feminine voice resonated, "Names have been applied for your reference. Do you wish to reset the scenario and begin again, with a one-minute prep period?"

There was a pause for objections, in which Highfive and Inkblot simply rose and nodded to him. Jack also took a moment to add a bit of a clandestine 'improvement' to Bo's metal ensemble, crafting strips of metal into a framework around her boot soles and such, just to anchor her better for maneuvering while levitating. He didn't think of this as any big 'cheat,' as he could prepare like that for any given match, but he also didn't want to be doing it in the prep period, where it might be noted. That was just inappropriate extra knowledge provided to the sims. Potentially, anyway.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

With that, Jack said, "Yes. Begin."

The red glow vanished, and the general area was cleaned up, while across from them, behind a gleaming barrier, were the four they'd previously fought. Directly behind and not far to the sides were more barriers, restricting their starting position and offering them no natural cover.

Jack made spare metal into a series of movable wall panels to their front, with connecting tough cords between them, somewhat like a net, slightly loose and bendable, but difficult to pass. Speed bumps, mainly, for Bubbles — and line-of-sight breakers. He added nasty spikes in the front to dissuade full momentum, and made angled poles in the back, so any direct charge would end up bracing into the stony earth instead of knocking the metal to the side. Not foolproof, just slightly more annoying to navigate. In less stony terrain, he could make actual anchors, but there wasn't enough 'diggable' space in this particular field, and he wanted to be able to move them on a dime.

Behind this, in his general vicinity, he made another fence structure as far left and right as he could go. He had no need to advance on the battlefield, so it would serve as another annoyance getting to him.

The last thing he did was scatter scrap metal everywhere, for versatility in the middle of battle. Shapes varied, but there were plenty of darts, steel cables, and plates to act as shields. Plates were great not only for protection, but for blunt impact, and even for cutting, as he could make their edges taper down to razor sharpness, having no need to handle them directly.

When the battle started, Jack did not go offensive, but defensive, moving and reinforcing a barrier to block Snowcone's attack — while also personally moving down the fence line, as the plants were licking at his feet already. This wasn't expressly necessary, as Bo was already being simultaneously moved behind Highfive, but keeping a bit of attack off of Highfive was counter enough. During this, Bo successfully beat Airhead on the trigger, going for a simpler 'disorient' on her, not technically disabling or countering powers — but when she went for her previous 'air knock' again on Inkblot, it was diffused and inaccurate, failing to do anything but clip him. He advanced.

Jack had hoped to pull Bubbles into an offensive charge, but the deterrent of the barriers caused him serious hesitation, and he successfully detected that Airhead was in trouble. He pivoted that way.

Deterrent too effective. Needs nerf.

Meanwhile, Snowcone had little else to do but redirect to the juiciest target that was Jack, and that's exactly what he did. Unfortunately, this positioned Jack between having to do something to keep Bubbles from saving Airhead and protecting his own ass against a freezing torrent of ice. He couldn't spare divided attention or power if he wanted to succeed, so he focused on Bubbles while running for his life physically, hoping for a dodge but knowing he was going to take a lick. On the plus side, that did also mitigate the slow-developing plant debuffs that preferred stationary targets…

Bubbles' movement was impaired by not really being able to charge like he'd want to, as he couldn't actually detect his presumed target. Jack took advantage to sling a large bundle of steel cord in his way, unfurling and halfway wrapping around the huge sphere surrounding him, bracing with all the strength Jack could muster.

He succeeded in jamming Bubbles up, who roared in annoyance as he was slowed down. At that point, he took a chance and activated his charge, evidently picking a spot where he thought Inkblot would be and hoping to luck out. In a move that had to be called 'Rolling Bubble of Doom,' he 'burst' forward, the cord ripped along with him and promptly thrown to the side.

Shit! Please miss!

Jack had no more thoughts or eyes to spare on that, nor on how Bo was doing in hopefully setting up Inkblot — Jack's world was suddenly filled with a flash-freezing, strange liquid quickly turning into ice, aiming to do so while touching him, if possible. Not fun times.

Jack dove to the ground while presenting his shield against the bulk of it, and felt the metal instantly get biting cold over his arm enough to numb it. As he was rolling, fingers of ice progressively licked over many parts of his body at once — some on his helmet, vest, neck, leg, and especially his foot, which went totally numb. Though Snowcone wanted line-of-sight for full effect, he was not helpless to pursue around shit. Jack could see he was maybe one second from getting enveloped as he managed to avoid pitching, coming to a knee at the price of pain shooting up from strained muscles in his leg. They vehemently protested being moved. A limitation that was extraordinarily bad for him.

Damn. Hope we got Airhead.

<Shifted position to help!> A voice-not-a-voice in his head, from Highfive; speedy communication. <Keep her behind me!>

Jack felt a momentary annoyance from a request at a time like that, but it quickly changed to relief as he saw Highfive had smashed down and broken the line of ice connecting to Snowcone, weakening his ability to 'grow' it.

Jack jerked his body, dragged his leg, and otherwise ugly-tumbled away from the slowing claw of ice coming for him. Simultaneously, he threw his shield away, ice already crawling around it, with the simple touching of the metal having been progressively damaging. As it was, he barely managed it. Meanwhile, he was stuck in the middle of plant growth he knew was sapping him. Sickly blue-green vines were thickening; leaves were growing before his eyes, hardening into something razor sharp.

He tried to get up, keep moving-

An urgent communication from Bo. <Move me now, damn it! Ahhh->

Jack looked up just in time to see Snowcone diverting ice to attack an exposed Bo, levitating in the air and wriggling helplessly in his anchored steel frame. Jack quickly jerked her back behind Highfive just as ice flared where she was, eliciting a cut-off yelp. Ice came down something like the sweeping nightmare twin of a flamethrower. It buffeted and enveloped the adjusting Highfive and his psychokinetic hand-sheath, but narrowly missed Bo entirely on the backend, as Highfive turned to face it and widened his stance.

When Jack promptly tried to move, he couldn't. Vines had rapidly entangled his legs.

Just before Jack could 'politely request' assistance, he felt the vines shudder and weaken their hold. Bo has interrupted her.

Seizing the moment, Jack ripped himself free of unnatural foliage with the help of some metal nearby, and soon limped away. This made him the premier target again for Snowcone, who shot out a cone of ice once again, but Jack was ready with his undivided attention this time: he moved a steel barrier segment in the way, blocking it long before it got to him. It caused a veritable explosion of ice that pushed the barrier with severe groaning noises. But it held, poles digging and grinding into stone.

Highfive declared to everyone mentally, <We got that Airhead bastard! 4 on 3!>

Inkblot somehow communicated a mental nod. <Bubbles undershot me, just barely. Carried his ass out of position. Airhead had a last gasp, but I handled it with Bo's help. Now, time for Ivy.>

<No!> Jack commanded. <Snowcone. He can disable, even killshot us with one wrong move; she can't. Go for him, too, Highfive. Keep him between us if you can manage.>

Highfive seemed to surge with pent-up, preserved zeal. <Roger!> Out loud, he said, "Oh, ho ho ho! It's on now, you frostbitten asshole!"

Jack jerked Bo over to himself and set her down, as he otherwise pulled walls together to screen them, and cannibalized half of it to make into a thick, steel 'floor' to block the plants from below. He smothered or crushed a lot of foliage with the initial maneuver.

Briefly, he saw Ivy's face across the field. Thankfully, her plant-face wasn't one typically hidden behind helmet faceplates, because she looked like the famous old world meme, Surprised Pikachu.

It was a matter of mopping up from there, the hellstorm of Highfive and then Inkblot attacking Snowcone, making short work out of him, with Bubbles once again slowed down by Jack, and Bo able to disrupt Snowcone for the killshot. Ivy had managed to passively AoE blanket-weaken Inkblot as he passed through her 'territory,' but not nearly enough, as he happened to be especially resistant to blood-borne effects. She was otherwise unable to pinpoint him for long enough to truly slow him down.

And she still almost got Bo right after Snowcone went down, black vines shooting out from where they had grown unseen behind them. The happenstantial timing of things, and Bo's suspicious nature and reaction speed, allowed her to react just in time to disrupt some sort of newly-unveiled poisonous damage-dealing, allowing Jack to subsequently dice up the vines to free her. Bo still got scratched on the arm, which poisoned her, weakened her, and put her on a clock, but the sheer number of dripping barbs on the thing made it clear it would've been worse if not interrupted.

Damn. Ivy would be good on defense, too. She taxes you for any time you take up before dealing with her, even though she might generally seem like a lesser priority.

Inkblot noticed a few black vines growing on her side of the field, but not quite as developed as those that came after Bo, and she hadn't gotten to use them. Likely, she'd expedited growth on the other side as fast as she could. Not quite fast enough.

Highfive ended up carrying Bo back to the breakroom. She'd burned a lot of energy, but everyone felt like it had been worth it to take revenge on their hated streak-breakers. While they weren't the complete Achilles Heel team match, it was far from an ideal scenario. Their team was actually very good against a Catalyst support, especially if more single-target oriented, because if Bo could focus on neutralizing the main damage dealer, this screwed up not just one but two ideal role functions. The support could pivot, or they might have other pressures requiring Bo's application, but it had been rather damning most of the time.

They rested for quite a while. Ira continued to treat the minor injuries the chamber allowed the crew to take, bandaging, applying creams, and utilizing hot or cold packs as needed. She now carried a backpack full of notebooks, one for each person. Technically, two for Jack, as the original notebook was full of what she called her 'legacy notes.'

Your Level has improved to 3.7! Please enter the trance and Calibrate, as this changes your total Allotment.

Control: Throw has improved to 2.4!

Control: Collect/Collect (Sphere) has improved to 1.6/2.7!

Control: Cloud has improved to 1.3!

Transmute: Fluidity has improved to 0.7!

Create: Lift has improved to 0.5!

Create: Grapple has improved to 0.8!

Interpret: Fieldsense has improved to 0.4!

Evasion has improved to 3.4!

Parry has improved to 0.5!

Bo suddenly shot up from her perpetual lazing spot, sprawled on a couch. Her eyes were wide as she said almost reverently, "I just hit Level Six."

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.