“And tails,” said Naomi with a private smile.
“And tails,” said Leonis, reaching out to clap her on the shoulder. “With you here, I think we might have a chance of surprising Rex.”
The light over the door pulsed again, and the third team went in.
“That was fast,” said Lianshi.
“Come on,” said Leonis. “We’re up next.”
They lined up before the large, red door. Scorio felt pleasantly tired from the day’s activities—the morning run, the large meals, classwork, then the training with Feng, and the meditation cycle with Hera. But excitement made him feel light, ready for more, and he stepped in close to the others. “When do we ignite our Hearts?”
“Let’s evaluate the situation on the other side first,” said Leonis. “I’ll give you your cue.”
They waited another few minutes, and then the light over the door pulsed.
“Here we go,” said Leonis. “Stay close.” And led the way in.
They emerged into a large, ruined room, the ceiling missing, the floor strewn with broken furniture, torn clothing, and shards of glass. There were two doors, and no sign of anybody else.
Leonis gestured for everyone to move against a blank wall and dropped into a crouch. “No visibility, and I’m sensing mostly Copper. We’ll form a wedge, Naomi on point, and clear each room before moving on. Naomi, you’ll move in first, engage whatever enemies you see, and Lianshi and I will move in to flank and provide assistance right behind you. Scorio, take a moment to make sure we haven’t missed any hidden threats, then engage when you’re sure we’re aware of all dangers. Saturate your Hearts, but don’t ignite till we’re given cause. Clear?”
Naomi shifted up into her Nightmare Lady form and moved to the door on the left. Glancing up, Scorio saw Rex hovering in the darkness above them, the purple Eye floating by his side, his expression stern, forbidding, the cavern ceiling barely visible beyond him.
Leonis and Lianshi flanked the door as the Nightmare Lady slipped inside, and a moment later rushed in after her. Scorio stepped up to the doorway and peered inside, watched as the Nightmare Lady prowled down the length of a hallway to an arch, Lianshi and Leonis some six yards behind her, and then moved in once they were halfway down.
They repeated this process a couple more times, moving swiftly and silently through a series of rooms, all of them missing their ceilings, all of them looking as if a cyclone had torn through, and Scorio was just starting to get confident when violence exploded around them.
The walls, it turned out, weren’t as solid as they looked. They were traversing a long hallway when claws exploded through the painted wooden boards, grasping and clawing at Leonis and Lianshi in the center.
They reacted swiftly, but were hampered by the close quarters; the claws passed through their chests and necks and both flashed as red light flooded over them. The Nightmare Lady threw herself right at the wall and burst through it, crashing into the next room, and laid about her with her tail, slashing and decapitating a number of shadowy foes before being mobbed by dozens more who simply piled onto her.
Scorio ignited his Heart and sharpened his darkvision as he leaped in right after, striking and tearing foes off his friend, but there were too many of them. Those whom he focused on appeared like emaciated humans, genderless and without hair, features melting off their faces, arms elongated and roped with muscle. They swung and crowded in on him from all sides, and though he lashed out viciously, he soon flashed red as well.
“That’s it for your team,” said Rex from above as the walls and rooms and foes all faded away, revealing a huge, empty cavern easily a hundred yards long. “Move to the side quickly now.”
Leonis cursed and led them at a jog to the far side of the cavern where the other teams had gathered. A moment later, the battlefield manifested again, though for Scorio and the others all they were presented with was a long expanse of blank wall that no doubt formed the border of the ruined rooms within.
“Damn it,” said Leonis quietly as they gathered round. “We went down fast.”
Lianshi let out a deep sigh and gathered her hair behind her head into a ponytail. “We did almost everything right. Only mistake I can see was that we took the walls at face value.”
“Agreed,” said Naomi, tone curt. “I should have thought about that. If I could punch through them, anything else could have, too.”
Leonis scowled, genuinely upset. “That’s my mistake. I failed to evaluate the terrain properly. Still tend to think of things in terms of normal, human abilities, and not what we or our enemies can do. Won’t happen again.”
“Don’t get too down on yourself,” said Lianshi, slipping an arm around his waist. “You were leading two new people into combat. We just need to learn from this and not make the same mistake again.”
“That’s nice of you to say,” said Leonis, visibly trying to shake off his anger. “But how am I supposed to live up to being the Golden King and all that if I can’t even pull off a raid like this?”
“You probably didn’t earn those titles right away during your first life,” said Lianshi, sounding concerned. “Go easy on yourself.”
“Go easy?” Leonis stepped away. “There’s no time for going easy. Or, more accurately, all I do is go easy. But in moments like these, I need to do better. I need to show my quality. I owe it to myself, to my past, to—”
He cut off and turned away, frowning.
“Start with the basics,” said Lianshi. “Don’t make assumptions about walls. It’s a valid lesson.”
“Very valid,” said Naomi. “One I learned in the ruins but forgot here. My apologies.”
“Lianshi’s right,” said Scorio. “We’re here to learn, right? Well, let’s learn that lesson. I bet we won’t take any of the walls for granted when we make our Gauntlet run at the end of the semester.”
Leonis sighed and hung his head. “We’d better not. Mistakes like this could cost us everything. And I want to come back for the next semester, not be shipped out to some half-assed outfit in the Rascor Plains.”
“How so?” asked Scorio. “We don’t get to come back?”
“Remember? I think we mentioned it ages ago when we had our second lunch or something. You only get invited back if you’re in the top half of the class,” said Lianshi. “The fifty percent that does the worst at the Gauntlet doesn’t get to continue training.”
“Motivation,” Leonis said darkly. “Though it’s ironic that the ones who end up washing out each year are the ones who are given little more than Dark Star pills and receive no patronage upfront.”
“Self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Naomi. “Think of it as the Academy’s real lesson to you all. It’s the truth about how the world works.”
“We’ll make it,” said Lianshi firmly. “Scorio, you managed the top eighteen out of the whole class on your first run. We’ve Naomi now, and I didn’t do too badly either. If we can convince a top student to swap in for Leonis…”
And she laughed, ducking away as he made to grab hold of her.
“I stayed in the tournament longer than you did,” he said, expression dark. “So don’t mock me too much.”
Lianshi’s expression became concerned. “I was just joking, Leonis. Come on.”
“Yeah, I know.” But still, he turned away to stare morosely at the battlefield wall and Rex floating high above it all.
Lianshi shot Scorio a plaintive look, but he gestured for her to relax and give the big man some space. She nodded reluctantly, and they waited in silence thereafter as one team after another seemed to fail the course in roughly the same amount of time.
The battlefield faded away for the last time as the tenth group jogged over to join them, and Rex descended from the air, one hand upon the purple Eye, and frowned at them all.
“Pretty miserable showing, to be honest. Did you think you were running through your mother’s house, trying to find the kitchen for some warm milk? Oh, that’s right, none of you sorry bastards can remember your mother. You run like that through a battlefield, none of you’ll want her to remember you either. What’s the difference between cover and concealment?”