Inside the Ravenville Stadium.
The 50 feet deep pit of an Arena field was fully decorated with a very realistic landscape of a ruined city block.
Empty back alleys and blown-off walls on the sides of several buildings spreaded through the entire terrain together with various broken vehicles that were strewn about here and there.
The previously flattened green grass field inside the pit had all been replaced with either hard ground or asphalts. The whole environment gave off the feelings of an abandoned city after a huge disaster.
Standing on the field, one would easily be able to imagine themselves being in the middle of a zombie apocalypse movie set.
This was the terrain for the new season of Battle Arena worldwide. The Ruined City Block.
.
Although the sceneries had successfully made the many different walls and pillars of the buildings looked brittle and easily breakable from the outside, they were actually anything but.
And it would be quite evident if one just simply look at the activities being done to it.
*BOOM*
an explosion of highly pressurized air hit one of the seemingly worn-down pillars inside a 2-story office building!
The strong impact of the blast successfully propelled the instigator out the broken glass window, but it could only leave minute scratches on the pillar.
Irvine did a backflip once and landed outside the office building on the main street. His entire body was fully covered by an exosuit.
'As usual, all the props of a standard terrain are sturdy as hell!' He casually complimented the works done on the university's stadium.
"This guy..." But before he could think any further, a held back voice resounded from inside that same building,
"Stop running!!"
Another man in full exosuit also jumped out of that same window following Irvine's move. As he jumped, he pushed the ledge on the window while extending both his feet to aim at Irvine.
Even without the voice, seeing the Fielder's helmet and the familiar number on the suit, Irvine could easily recognize him as the 2nd year Fielder, Derrick Wallace.
Back on the ground, he prepared himself to counter the oncoming dropkick from Derrick with a [Joint Blast].
Irvine carefully circulated and compressed the air in front of his fist and get into a lower stance to aim at one of Derrick's knee.
*sharp inhale*
As the distance between the two slowly shrank, Irvine was about to release his blow when the corner of his eyes suddenly detected a glint of an arrowhead homing in towards him!
*whoosh*
'That's--'
It was the arrow from an enemy Ranger.
Medea had changed positions from when he had last locked onto her and was now aiming at him from a completely different direction!
'This terrain really makes it hard to continuously keep tabs on players...!' Irvine complained in his heart.
Right now, his choices were to either complete his counter on Derrick while sustaining a shot himself, or cancel his attack entirely and focus on guarding.
For the current him, it's actually not that much of a problem to simultaneously evade and defend against these two's pincer attacks, but he had to give up his own initiative in the process for it.
'Let's just play it safe for now-- Hm?'
Irvine was just about to focus on defense while employing his new [Blast] technique when he suddenly noticed another presence that brought his expression back to a smile.
'...Ah, just in time!'
Before he could complete it, Irvine forwent his defensive stance and changed back to offensive, releasing his [Joint Blast] on Derrick's knee.
"!!"
*BOOM!*
"Shi--"
The blow caused the mid-air Derrick to spin dive to the side, but Irvine couldn't relax just yet. The lone high-speed arrow was still coming towards him unhindered!
But when the anticipated shot from Medea was about to arrive on his head...
*snap* *snap* *snap*
*WHOOSH* *THWACK!*
Suddenly, a barrage of short crossbow bolts filled the space in-between and intercepted the arrow mid-flight! Knocking it down not with pinpoint accuracy but through the sheer quantity of the shots.
A person in a Ranger helmet with the same-coloured suit as him appeared from the shadow of the building to the side.
It was the other regular Ranger of the Illusions, Clint Silver.
The guy was carrying two semi-automatic hand crossbows in both hands, still aiming them at the air where Medea's arrow was supposed to pass through.
"Thanks!" Irvine opened his comms to speak because there's still quite a distance between the two of them.
"...Did you notice me coming in and continue your attack just now?" Clint's cautious voice resounded back through the built-in speaker of Irvine's helmet.
"Yeah, almost missed it though... If I did, I would've probably given up on attacking just then."
"Yeah, I saw..." Clint was still slightly taken aback by Irvine's awareness and quick-thinking just now.
He'd noticed that the guy was about to change his stance but decided against it not a second later. It had seemed now that it was truly because Irvine had taken note of his arrival on the scene.
'It's like all his senses has been cranked up to 11 during a match... I've caught glimpses of it in the training camp videos but to think it would be this much.'
His gaze bore deep into Irvine's exosuit.
While Clint was reevaluating Irvine's sharp senses and decision-making skills, The man himself was also feeling astonished at the Ace Ranger's timely arrival.
'He's supposed to be scouting ahead, but have already arrived back here at just the slightest pinch... What timing...'
Clint Silver could be categorized as a rare type of Ranger even in the future pro scene.
Unlike the typical Ranger like Medea who had pure long-range accuracy, he was in his element when doing close-to-mid range support.
His 'weapon' was not his precise shootings but instead his machine-gun style of damage output that he could produce with heightened effect through the help of his Gene Mod Ability.
Of course it's not like he had zero accuracy, as evidenced by what he'd displayed earlier when he had successfully intercepted the single thin sniping arrow.
But this sort of style required a lot of ammos with its every usage, the users couldn't afford to waste even a single one because of bad timings on their part.
In this aspect, Clint was at an almost genius level as a player. He always timed precisely the best and most effective moment to use his barrage of shots.
And each time, it never failed to deliver the support needed by his teammates. Not to mention the massive range and damage to an HP such a move had were it to be aimed at enemy players.
'Bullet Rain Clint Silver.' Irvine remembered his nickname from the future.
.
All the evaluations between the two of them happened in less than a split second in real life.
Neither Irvine nor Clint pondered too much on their small victory this time because they were still in the middle of a match.
And with the main Fielder Derrick being right here, it meant that the enemy's Solver a.k.a their Captain should also be around here somewhere.
Both the benefits and disadvantages of the complicated terrain was truly on full display right now.
"Found their 2nd tower yet?" Irvine asked with quickened breath.
"Yep, Derrick's getting up, we should start pushing and move away from the halfway line now!" Clint commanded.
"Right!"
...
.
.
The hustle and bustle inside the Ravenville Stadium continued.
It was a morning game for the Ravenville Illusions.
On this tuesday, all 15 members of the 1st string was doing their preparatory match to 'get used to' the new season's terrain.
Their schedule that was yet harsher still than the 2nd string's, had been handed to them yesterday after the meeting between the new and old regulars had concluded.
And as most had expected, their timetable had also included the morning practice within them.
Every morning, a 7v7 full match plus 1 observing member would be held with regular changes and rotations based on the Head Coach's instructions.
The main reason for this was to have Lark to observe the different teamworks and find the optimal set of strategies that worked best on this newly composed team.
Not only that, as explained before, the regular change-ups and games would allow the players to familiarize themselves with both each other and the new environment that they would be fighting in for the next year.
.
In the end, the match had ended on time with a 4-3 scores.
Irvine and his team was the final winner alongside Clint, Baron, Naomi, and one of the Young brothers.
Even though their team had won, Irvine couldn't help but to note that the biggest contributors to today's match was not himself but Clint and Baron with their plays on both the offense and defense.
'Especially Clint.'
From his strategic towers' placement that was hard to locate even though he was also not that familiar with the terrain... To calling the correct play each and every time.
His commanding skills were something that Irvine hadn't experienced in a long time since his pro days.
It had even felt quite refreshing for him.
.
Right now, all of the 15 players had returned back to the one locker room they'd used to gather for debriefing.
It was the locker room inside the Ravenville Stadium that could only be used privately by the 1st string team, the same with the Stadium itself.
Irvine was taking off his exosuit armor while wiping away his sweaty head with a towel when suddenly,
*tap*
"Good work." The Captain, Renee Morgan patted him on the back.
It was not just him though,
The young woman was going around the room tapping her hands on everybody's shoulders and backs one-by-one.
"Good work."
"Keep it up."
"..."
The scene was actually quite awkward since it looked like the person herself was not used to it.
But everyone had understood that Renee was just trying to cultivate the responsibilities a Captain of the team should have, so nobody would say anything bad about it.
In fact, the 4th year players even smiled and encouraged her back when she greeted them.
'...This Captain as well.' Irvine looked on at Renee's figure from a distance with meaningful eyes.
She was probably the only other player that had brought him surprise from this morning match aside from Clint.
Though her group had lost, when the bell signalling the ending of the match was sounded, her HP that had been shown on the scoreboard back then was still at 97.2%.
97.2!
During the entire long match, all the damages she'd sustained had only amounted to just about 3% of her HP!
And it was not from avoiding the battlefield at all. When Irvine had seen her dodging several incoming attacks at once, he had understood it too.
'Her dodges had long reached the level of pro...' He commented.
Not the top of the pros that's for sure, but a pro level nonetheless.
'Plus her Gene Mod's...'
"Learning from these people will be worth a whole lot for me." In the end, Irvine simply smiled while muttering to himself in a low voice.
This was one of the main reasons that he had tried so hard to get into a top Tier-1 school.
.
Not long after,
"...How was going against Silver feel?" Irvine suddenly turned his head to the side and asked.
Beside him was the figure of Medea sitting down on her locker while taking off her armor too.
Ever since the practice match had ended, she had had a deep contemplating look on her face.
"Most of my lethal shots were intercepted by him one way or the other. When I saw you choose to hit Wallace back then, I thought that one would hit, but..."
"He always seems to be there?"
"...Yeah."
"Yea, I was surprised myself when that happened." Irvine smiled wryly,
"You've managed to lose my detection on you though, otherwise I wouldn't be in that situation in the first place... I'm still lacking myself."
"No, if it's you, you could probably still get out of that." Medea retorted.
"..." Irvine didn't say anything back because that was also true.
"Plus I could only lose your mark on me because of the terrain."
"And what's wrong with it, that's your ability to adapt, isn't it? If I myself could adapt better just then, I wouldn't be caught in that mess in the first place."
"Mm."
"Don't worry, you're improving plenty fast already that It's actually quite scary... You can slowly learn from that other scary guy from here on out."
"Clint Silver... But his style's pretty much opposite of mine."
"I didn't say learn his style, I said learn from him. What his consideration is as a Ranger, what he feared most from an enemy Ranger. If you can learn to counter him, you can surpass his level. That's how I'd go about it."
"...You have ways to counter him?" Medea was perked back up at Irvine's last sentence.
"Well, depending on the situation, maybe some." He replied casually.
"Teach me."
"Um, they're just my passing thoughts, they're not actual proven ways..."
"If it's your thoughts, I have to consider it." Medea replied back without missing a beat.
"Please don't put such a crazy high expectation on me."
"No pressure. Just tell me."
"..."
"--Sure, next time we're teamed up on morning practice maybe."
"...Okay then." Finally persuaded, Medea obediently nodded her head at the end and continued with what she's doing.
'She's VERY competitive.' Was the only thing etched on Irvine's mind during that exchange.
.
.
After the short yet intense morning session was over, what followed for Irvine were a string of regular classes.
At 10:00 in the morning, Irvine came to his class to find two familiar figures sitting on the backmost row of seats.
They were his only two friends from the same major, Wilson and Ella.
Yesterday, he had also found out that the two were people who'd been planning to get into the Arena team through regular try-out.
'Today should be the last day before the actual thing right?' Irvine clearly remembered that the try-out was supposed to be held tomorrow afternoon.
Without thinking too much into it, he chose to just go ahead and greet the two while taking the seat next to them,
"Good morning guys." He called out.
"Hm? Ohh Irvine, morning dude!"
"Good morning."
The two of them greeted him back with different level of enthusiasm, though he was quite sure that the look on Ella's face right now was that of nervousness.
It was a look that he's quite familiar with as a player.