Academy: The Entrance Exam, Day One
Tales from the Armory
Battle Dome [megastructure]
The Mattis Academy
New York, Earth [planet], Sol [star system]
07 Sep; 05:28:37 Hours - 15 Year Ago
“Listen carefully - This will only be said once,” a voice called from the front of the two hundred Squires who all stood at attention, “You all have been paired with another! Your partner will be your key to passing the entrance exam! You two must survive three rounds within the Battle Dome where the lot of you will be reduced by half! Do you understand?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” the Squires answered in thunderous unison.
“An identification tag was issued to you upon enrollment, and that tag will be assigned to your partner!” the Command Sergeant explained as a three-dimensional display constructed behind him where a recreation of the Squires’ Tethers was shown with an example partner dossier. “You will have less than a half hour to find your partner, report to your injection point of the Battle Dome, and get on the same page before zero-six-hundred! Understood?”
Sweat beaded up on the brows of the Squires as realization sunk in on them all, but yet without missing a beat, they again all answered in unison, “Sir, yes, sir!”
There came a pause as the Command Sergeant simply looked out at the two hundred thirteen-to-sixteen-year-olds who all donned survival-mail and sidearms. He could see the concern in many of their expressions, but a smirk soon curled out of the right side of his mouth as he caught determination within quite a few’s eyes. The Command Sergeant then took a single step forward, where he nodded to the Squires before raising his arms to his sides and said, “Time starts now…”
In a blink, all two hundred Squires frantically pulled out their Tethers where they looked to find who their partner was. Thunderous talking over one another consumed the massive chamber with them beginning to run and try to locate their other half, many yelling out the name of their partner while others panicked.
“James?”
“Lily!”
“Darnell!” sounded out with more screaming.
“This, this isn’t what I thought we were going to be doing!”
“Did he say survive?”
“I think we could die!”
“Ohhhhh, no,” a sixteen-year-old, black young man sighed as he looked to his Tether while others ran past him from all directions, and he finished with his bottom lip curled down and brow furrowed, “Why? Why? Why him—”
“GABE!” another young man’s voice called to him, and he slowly closed his eyes tightly while biting his lip. “Gabe, we’re partners, bay-beeeeee!”
Gabe Hightower slowly turned around to see the massive six-foot-tall thirteen-year-old, Klaus Walker hurrying up to him. Gabe shook his head, chuckling in disbelief. “No, no, this isn’t right. Nah, it’s, it’s got to be broken!”
“Nah, it ain’t broken! We’re partners!”
“Klaus, listen to me…” Gabe raised his hand out at Klaus to keep him back, saying, “Just because your brother and I are best friends doesn’t mean that we’re best friends, you get that, right?”
“I don’t care about that,” Klaus chuckled briefly, grabbed Gabe by the shoulder, and grinned nearly ear to ear, “but you and I are partners now! And that means the fun is just beginning, bay-beeeeee!”
“Oh God…”
A young sixteen-year-old woman looked to her Tether at her partner’s dossier, she let out a sigh before uttering his name, “Theo Walker,” and then pushed several strands of her long black hair out of her face before she looked up and glanced around.
Most of the other Squires were now gone, as they had found their partners and headed to their injection point. However, the young woman simply turned from her left to her right and then one hundred and eighty degrees as she still looked around for Theo. She saw roughly three dozen others still shuffling around, watching as they partnered up one after the other, and she sighed again with her eyes sinking. After several moments, she then looked back to the dossier where she saw Theo’s test scores and battle stats which now caused her eyes to open large and her eyebrows to perk.
She gasped slightly louder than a whisper. “Oh my…”
“Hel?” a deeper voice called and she, Helena Madds quickly looked up from her Tether before she glanced back over her shoulder to a blurry silhouette.
“Theo?” she asked while turning around and finding the young man donning dark gray survival-mail while shrouded in a crimson cloak with his hood up.
“We’re gonna be late.”
“La-late?”
“Yeah,” he chuckled and took a few steps toward Helena, “We only have a half hour and that was about… fifteen minutes ago.”
“Oh my God!” Helena shrieked and frantically looked to her Tether for where they were to go. “We only have fifteen minutes left! What injection point? Which one? Where, um, where do we go? Wuh—”
“Injection point two,” he calmly told his partner and lowered his hood from atop his head, cracking a smile at Helena who looked him in his blue-green eyes before she sighed.
“Two? How far, how, how far is that?”
“Like five minutes to our east.”
Helena covered her mouth with her left palm and blushed. “Oh.”
“It’s okay, Hel - You and I are gonna be fine.”
“I, I could see,” she smiled and raised her Tether showing Theo his partner dossier.
“You’re pretty good yourself,” he smiled back at her.
“Oh? Am I?”
Theo was just about to answer her when a voice called over the intercoms, alerting the Squires, “T-minus eight minutes! I repeat - T-minus eight minutes!”
The two looked at one another with their eyes growing large, and Theo smirked as he held his hand out in the direction of their injection point, “You ready, Hel?”
“I’m ready,” she said and nodded before they took off running.
***
Seven minutes later…
Helena and Theo stood in front of a gigantic metal door with numerous holographic displays in front of either, each display possessed vitals for them as well as various maps and schematics for the Battle Dome. They were going over and taking in as much as they could before a voice again came over the intercoms, counting down, “Twenty seconds… eighteen, seventeen, sixteen…”
“Are you really ready?” Helena softly asked as she glanced over to Theo who looked to her solely out of the corner of his eyes.
“Yeah.”
“No, I, I mean are you actually ready to kill other teams?”
“Yes.”
Helena gulped before she looked away from him and to the door in front of them as the holographic displays dissolved, and the lights dimmed until they were nearly off.
“I don’t mean to scare you, Hel.”
“You, you didn’t.”
“… eleven, ten seconds, nine, eight…”
“You sure?” Theo asked as he finally turned his head and looked at his partner.
“I mean, I knew this was something we might have to do at some point,” she admitted, “I just didn’t, well, I didn’t think it’d be this soon.”
“Hey,” Theo called to Helena and she quickly looked over at him, “I got your back.”
A smile slowly broke free of Helena’s concern and she reached her right hand out to Theo who in return reached his left out to her, with their fingertips grazing. Crack, boom, boom, boom erupted as the thunderous cranking rumbled around them and the steel door slowly separated from its middle. Their attention quickly shifted to the door with bright lights flaring through the small and growing opening as the voice finished counting down, “… four… three… two… one - DEPLOY!”