Battle Arena was a sport where two teams fight and compete with each other with the objective of dismantling the other team's towers while protecting your own.
But the 'dismantling' of a tower was not done through attacks or damages as one might expect.
The tower used in Battle Arena matches was actually a thick pole-shaped tower puzzle where the side of the outer layers contained different sizes of slightly protruding components that can either be pushed, pulled, slid, or rotated to ultimately unseal the interlocking inner parts of the tower.
With its very peculiar mechanism, the tower of Battle Arena was not exactly an object to be hit or destroyed so much that it was a puzzle to be solved.
Hence the term dismantling was used rather than destroying.
However, with the way the sport was designed, it's also not such a passive game where the two opposing teams simply needed to compete to see who can solve the puzzle faster.
Every player of Battle Arena had a fixed amount of HP that was calculated digitally through the sensory technology of the exosuit whenever it received certain amount of damages.
Once the number on a player's HP reached 0, the player would be out of the game for the rest of the match and may not participate any further.
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There were a total of 4 positions in Battle Arena:
The 1st position was the [Guard]:
This was a position where the players can only move within the 15 m radius of any tower. As its name suggested, the guard's main job was to protect their tower from the enemy's 'Solver' by any means necessary.
2nd was [Ranger]:
The Ranger position usually acted as the central command of the team, scouting for the enemy's formation and activities while issuing the plays and tactics to his teammates.
This position can only move 'outside' of the tower zones, which was the 15 m radius around every tower in the field. In return, this was also the only position that was allowed to use ranged weapons in matches.
The 3rd position was the [Fielder]:
Unlike the other 3 positions, a Fielder didn't have any zone restriction and can move through any area on the field unhindered. That said, a Fielder's main job was to protect their team's Solver from the enemy's Guards while they try to dismantle the enemy's towers.
And the 4th and last position was [Solver]:
The only position in the team that was allowed to touch and solve the tower puzzles. Solver was a highly specialized position that required a fast eye-to-hand coordination to solve puzzles in chaotic situations while evading the Guards protecting their towers.
What's more, this position's zone restriction required a Solver to always be tethered to a Fielder as they could only move within the 15 m radius around one.
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One might notice that aside from the Fielders, every other positions in Battle Arena each have their own zone restriction that, at a glance, might look like it limited the sport's tactical options and playing means.
But that's not really the case either.
Every Battle Arena player had a function in their exosuit that could disable their zone restriction for a limited amount of time.
And that time was exactly '5 minutes' for every player.
This function could be turned on and off at will during a match as long as the total time was still within the allocated 5 minutes.
This particular function was called 'Restriction Disabler' in Battle Arena.
One infamous coach from the pro team used to say that knowing well the timing to activate the disabler was the key to winning every game in the sport.
Irvine couldn't help but to agree with the saying to some extent.
.
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Grant and the others from the team were all currently standing on the same open field next to him. Both he and Grant were each carrying a 2-meter-tall pole that was roughly 50 cm thick in diameter.
These were the Battle Arena towers.
If one looked closely to the side body of the pole, they'd be able to see the uneven surface carved all over the three sections of the tower in random patterns that made up the puzzle.
"Wow, did you somehow get stronger? I remember that you used to have a hard time carrying a tower last time we had to lug one out."
"Not really. I just learnt the best way to carry it that took the least amount of effort." Irvine calmly explained.
With his more than 10 years of experience playing in the pro league, these little bit of trivia was just the tip of the iceberg on his knowledge of the sport.
"Hah, you've been holding out on me Lang!" Grant laughed at his response and continued,
"We're playing a single-tower match right? Obviously the two of us should be on opposing side, how do we divide the rest of the team?"
Both Grant and Irvine were the most skillful players in their high school team, so it wouldn't make much sense for the two to be teaming up for a practice game.
And plus, the two of them played the same position as the team's Guards. Since a single-tower match was held in a 3-on-3 format, it's all the more reasons why they should be on different sides.
However, Irvine's next sentence greatly surprised Grant.
"Just divide it randomly. Oh, and by the way, I'm playing Solver today." He said as he stretched his limbs in preparation.
"What??"
Not only Grant, but everyone else was dumbounded as well when they heard him.
Although he was not as big as Grant, Irvine was still a tall guy standing above 185 cm in height. In high school Battle Arena, guys with the strongest and largest physiques usually were the ones who played for the Guard position.
"Hey hey, can you even solve a tower?" Grant asked in suspicions.
"I should be able to. It's been a while though so I might be slow."
Unlike high school Battle Arena where the players tend to focus on their own position's technical skills, you'd be a laughing stock in the pro team if you couldn't even solve a tower puzzle.
Of course, solving the puzzle in high-speed with various distractions during matches was another matter altogether.
'I should use this time before college to build up and polish my new playing style that I hadn't had the chance to develop previously.'
"Huh... So are you thinking of changing your positions full-time in college?"
"Nothing's fixed for now, this is just an experiment of sort."
Grant and Irvine kept making small talks as they walked towards the smallest line partition within the large open field that was dedicated for single-tower matches.
The smallest perimeter divided by the white lines within the large 150 x 80 m field was just about the size of a futsal field covering about 45 x 25 m of the ground.
This was the officially recognized field size for a single-tower match.
Just like its name, a single-tower match followed the rules of 1 tower per team with only 3 players on each side. A guard, a Fielder, and a Solver.
This was the format that was most commonly played by the normal populace since the space required for a match was just small enough to be made into public Arena fields around the city.
One could consider it as the pick-up game version for Battle Arena.
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Irvine's team ended up being the 2 freshmen from the group, one of them was even the person who had informed Grant about the other members' absence previously.
Truth be told, Irvine had had no clue about each of their names until Grant had called out to them at some point during their earlier conversations.
'High school sure was a long time ago...' He thought in his mind.
The two freshmen had a very different disposition from one another. The guy that had spoken to Grant back in the locker room looked very timid while the other one looked rather plain and wore a pokerface all the time.
The timid one was called Dave while the other pokerfaced one was Dan. They were both freshmen of Greenwood High.
The three of them were standing on their half of the field with their tower propped at the center-back of their formation.
All six of them, including the people from Grant's team, were already wearing something that looked like a cheap knock-off version of the Battle Arena Suits that the pro players on the broadcast had worn.
The armours' materials were made from composite hard rubber and only covered parts of their bodies, arms, and legs. Even the helmets were not the tight-fitting full-cover type but an open-faced ones.
'Well, this'll work... At least it still had the tracking sensor and disabler function.' Irvine commented internally as he kept on tightening and loosening his fist to check his hand's dexterity while wearing the armour.
"So, which one of you is gonna play the Fielder today?" He turned to ask his other teammates.
"Ah, um, me. I'm a Fielder." The rather timid Dave raised his hand at the question.
"Right, I'm going to set my zone tracking sensor on you, so come here for a bit."
Before a game, all players needed to set up the tracking sensor on their suits to the object of their zone restrictions. Guards to their ally towers, Rangers to all towers, and Solvers to their ally Fielders.
The sensor on the suit would ring whenever a player went out-of-bound.
After he finished setting it up, Irvine casually tapped Dave's shoulder to give him some encouragement, "Done! I'm counting on you to carry me alright."
"R, right!"
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"Ready over there?" Grant shouted from the other half of the field. It was apparent from his positioning that he was playing a Guard.
"Go with the plan alright?" Irvine confirmed his plan one last time with his teammates.
"Yes!"
*nod*
Dave answered rather enthusiastically, in full contrast to Dan's light nod.
"Okay then..."
"Ready!" Irvine shouted back, standing side-by-side with Dave.
"Begin!"
The button on top of each tower was pressed simultaneously causing the three: upper, middle, and lower section of every tower to scramble their puzzle formation and move all the components randomly.
[MATCH START]
The moment both towers had finished scrambling, Irvine quickly dashed forward together with Dave by his side to reach the halfway point even slightly faster than the opponent.
The two junior students from Grant's team also rushed to the front, but with their Fielder in front of the Solver.
This was the standard formation since the Solver was usually the one most prone to being targeted on the team. Without a Solver, a team won't have the ability to solve towers and will lose the match.
There were substitutes and multiple Solvers in an official match, but in a casual 3-on-3 like this, when the Solver's HP reached 0, it was the end of the match.
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The two pairs advanced together towards the halfway line.
However, when they both reached each other's attacking range, Irvine, who was the Solver of the team, suddenly moved forward and grabbed the Fielder in the front formation.
He decisively seized the upper-side of the Fielder's body armour with his hand before turning around and performing a well-executed shoulder throw, hurling the enemy towards his own side of the tower!
*SWISH*
The Fielder was sent flying for a good 5 or so meters before his body eventually touched the grassy field again and bounced for another couple paces.
"!!"
Grant who saw what had transpired from a distance quickly realized Irvine's plan and shouted at his other teammate,
"Todd, run to their tower! He's trying to separate you two!"
'That was sharp...!' Grant felt a cold sweat forming on his forehead.
Unfortunately, before Todd could react to the command, Irvine who had just finished performing a throw was already squatting in front of him with an open hand ready to land a blow on his abdomen.
*BAM*
A palm strike!
With the correct angle, distance, and sufficient force behind it, the palm strike also managed to knock the enemy's Solver back a couple meters in the other direction.
Todd fell down from the strike without being able to recover his balance, but Irvine didn't let up. He stepped up and delivered a kick towards the downed Todd immediately.
*THUD*
The kick sent him floating up the ground allowing Irvine to follow through with another shoulder throw which this time was aimed towards the enemy's side of the tower!
Throw, strike, kick, and throw.
The four consecutive attacks flowed smoothly one after the other within the first couple seconds after contact, where at the end...
*BEEEEEEP*
Irvine managed to push the enemy's Solver outside of his zone restriction.
Todd's Fielder was just about to stand up far at the back of the enemy's line after Irvine's first throw.
Fielders were supposed to carry their Solvers so he had no business being there even if he's close to the enemy's tower.
The alarm on Todd's suit blared as the top of his helmet shone with red light.
Out of bounds.
When any one player on a match became out-of-bound, the rest of the players on the field cannot initiate further actions be it attacking or solving towers until the out-of-bound player got back within his/her zone.
But everyone could still move as usual and reposition themselves.
"Come on Dave, run!!"
Irvine shouted towards his stupefied Fielder teammate that could only looked with shock at what had occured in the span of a few seconds.
"R, right!" Dave started running again following Irvine's lead.
In the end, Irvine himself was a Solver in this match, so he needed to stay within the 15 m distance of his Fielder.
The two of them ran past Todd who had been trying to get up quickly and reenter his zone.
However, by the time he managed to get closer to his Fielder and get the out-of-bound sensor turned off, Irvine and Dave were already inside the enemy's tower zone facing-off against Grant 2-on-1.
Grant's figure was stunned silent with an open mouth looking at Irvine and Dave in front of him.
"...Godd*mn, how did we even lose the qualifiers last week?" Grant whispered under his breath.