After the kids took their battle stance, they advanced slowly through the forest, in the same manner. Treading carefully and on high alert.
Amy suddenly frowned, she suddenly felt her stomach churn, it felt like something was staring dangers at their very soul.
They couldn't see it, neither could she but the feeling was so real, it came from somewhere behind them or so, her gut told her.N.
Cyrus was still advancing slowly, the rest followed behind him in total oblivion, all except Amy. She eventually fell behind the squadron, that was when Cyrus noticed her, and asked her what was wrong.
She raised her index finger to her lips and quietened him down at once, still peering somewhere far into the thicker parts of the jungle. As if on cue, she suddenly made a backflip and landed neatly in a genuflect.
Then she swiped her finger on her left cheek, there was a small cut on her cheek! Everyone noticed that and they made up their minds to run to her as she was about five meters away from them. However, she stopped them in their tracks as she entered combat mode, her little appearance and demeanor changed into an icy cold goddess in an instant.
Her originally brown pupils turned a lifeless and pupil less sky blue as a spear about the same length of her arm materialized in both hands.She was attuned with water and ice.
Entering combat mode made her able to pick up all traces of the unknown enemy. It was all along the tree barks and high up, just a few could be seen on the ground.
Just from the look of it, she could tell that their assailant was agility based. "Everyone calm down!" She yelled. "I can tell that the enemy is agility based and is extremely skilled in stealth, ill try to lure it out, Cyrus, Cyril and Bianca, stand back to back and let Elsa stand in your middle, watch over each other's backs!"
As the situation demanded, she took on the role of an ad-hoc leader. This left the instructor watching the screen speechless. He knew he had to pay extra attention to this girl in particular from then on.
Meanwhile, Amy walked gracefully in a specific direction, her overly pronounced hips swinging left and right as her her fluttered in the wind. "C'mon out now, it's no use hiding." She tried to coax the unknown beast to come into view.
Suddenly her ear twitched, she quickly spun around and threw one spear towards Cyril, her comrades had been standing back to back like she had instructed, with Elsa in the middle as they kept walking slowly in circles, in order to keep a balanced watch over the unfamiliar terrain as it tipped the odds in favor of their opponent.
Cyril saw the spear headed toward him and started to flinch, he couldn't react fast enough, but definitely he couldn't have been the target could he? Amy never looked like the sort to commit friendly fire. He decided to find solace in that simple logical assumption and it worked, the spear just nipped his cheek and flew off into the nearby bushes, out of their line of sight but certainly within earshot. They suddenly heard a high pitched squeak in that direction.
As if their minds were linked, Cyrus, Bianca and Cyril dashed in that direction, even the greatest fool could tell that Amy had pinpointed the exact location of the enemy, thus they needed no preaching on what next to do. Their enemy had remained out of sight the whole time after all.
"No!" Before Amy could stop them, there was a sudden scream, they had abandoned their battle formation, totally forgetting about their non combat camaraderie, Elsa's headless virtual body fell to the ground.
Then in a flash of white light, her body disappeared into space. It took everyone by surprise and they were thrown into confusion, instead of watching each other's backs like Amy told them to, they all spun around to see what happened, from behind, Bianca was decapitated as well.
Cyrus was furious, and kept slashing blindly all around him. Then he vanished as well, without being killed, he just vanished alongside Cyril his twin brother, leaving only Amy on the battlefield.
All four of them reappeared in front of the antique screen, watching Amy as she stood indifferently, staring into space. They then heard her exclaim, "tricks won't work on me, face me right this moment, Mano a Mano if you have the gulls!"
The bushes rattled behind her and all the onlookers screamed in their minds for her to look back, but she didn't. Contrary to everyone's expectations, she dashed in forward into the thick foliage. "Roar!" The beast roared in rage as it had failed to fool Amy.
It was only at this moment that the other four kids saw what they had been up against all this while. It was a disconcertingly ugly looking Mandrill. It had sharp teeth with saliva dripping from its mouth, it had a slim body and was quite tall, in fact too tall to be a Mandrill, it's forelimbs possessed terrifyingly long claws that looked like they could tear through steal.
Looking at those claws, the four of them felt their necks itch, Elsa was in an even worse state, they had sliced her head clean off like a hot knife cutting through tofu. It lay weakly on the floor with with the ice spear in its waist, with blood dripping from the wound.
Although it could no longer move, Amy didn't approach it recklessly, this was a stealth based beast and all stealth based Avengers and beasts alike were always sly, she wasn't going to fall for that childish trick.
She stood some distance away from it and kept bombarding it with a barrage of ice on spears. Conjuring one after another, she looked disdained as she stared down on the creature.
However, before she could fire another one, the Mandrill disappeared from the spot. She expected it though, in fact that was what she was waiting for, she spun around and at the same time, the Mandrill lunged at her, baring its fangs and waving its claws in midair, it was too close, and that meant she couldn't conjure another ice spear in time.
That was no problem for her though as her most terrifying tendency was the inhuman strength contained within her tiny puny body. She smiled tentatively as her little jade hands curled into a fist. "Boom!" All the onlookers gasped, a head on frontal collision, that was synonymous to suicide!
But their speculations went down the drain, after the head-on collision, Amy still stood lofty as the Mandrill was sent reeling backwards through the air like a cannonball! It kept its airborne backward dash till it slammed into a nearby tree. Sliding down its bark before falling with a thud. It looked quite lifeless, to the onlookers but Amy was not of the same opinion, another ice spear materialized in her right hand, longer than the previous ones.
She then turned as if she wanted to flee the scene, in a last burst of adrenaline, the Mandrill lunged at her receding silhouette in a bid to drag her down to hell with it.
As soon as it was airborne, Amy span around gracefully again, firing her spear with such force that she was jerked forward with it, falling face first on the lush forest floor.
She lifted up her head and saw that the Mandrill had been pinned to a tree, hoisted like a flag, but most importantly, lifeless!
She sat up and breathed heavily from time to time, taking in lungfuls of air. She stared at her right hand, the knuckles were as good as broken and it was twisted from the collision earlier. The bones were visible, and blood fished out in an endless stream.
She didn't care about the wound though, it was just a virtual body after all. She prepared herself to leave but then something caught her attention again, there was something shiny in the distance, it was beside the tree to which the Mandrill has been pinned.
She cautiously walked toward it and after a good squint, she was able to recognize what it was, then she beamed. It was the Mandrill's life essence! She had earned a beast essence! It should be something good given how vicious the beast was.
After bonding with the beast essence, she logged out of the Virtual Training platform. When she appeared beside her friends in front of the antique screen, they all looked at her with respect.
"Sir Lynch, Amy should lead the team now!" Cyrus said suddenly, drawing everyone's attention. Amy was startled and almost lost her balance."No way!" She bellowed as her cheeks turned cherry red, she covered her face in her palm and said, "you are the leader, why should you give up your position for a puny lucky girl like me? I was just lucky after all."
"You deserve it!" The four said in unison. "Sharp senses, extraordinary battle instincts, level headedness, pinpoint accuracy and precise judgment. That's the very constitution of a great leader no doubt."
The instructor then drew all of their attention, "now look here! You did very bad as a team, that was rubbish! Amy, you should have alerted the whole squadron when you felt unnerved, that's what you lot were there for, to work as a team. Falling out of the battle formation has serious effects, you don't need me to tell you hat the squad fell Into disarray the very moment everyone noticed you have fallen out of order, make sure you work on it! Had it been reality, you could imagine what you all would be now, dead!" He poured a bucket of icy cold water over Amy's elation. "And you four!" When he turned towards Cyrus and the others, they all felt a chill down their spines and they broke into a cold sweat in an instant." His gaze lingered on the four, they felt like he was staring into their very souls.
"First of all where were your senses huh!? You just kept walking forward in total oblivion, for God's sake you were on a goddamned battlefield not some holy nirvana! You were daft enough to think about admiring the scenery first? That was stupid guys, and don't ever repeat it or you'll be expelled! Am I clear!?" He paused for their answer, "yes sir!" They said dejectedly in unison. "Cyrus! It was stupid to have dashed with Bianca and Cyril into the bushes, tricks are very dangerous on the battlefield when you fall for them, learn from Amy all of you! You'd notice that when a sly enemy's tricks fail to work on you, they became comical in your eyes, take Amy's disdainful look that she cast to the Mandrill when it was trying to play dead and attack her using its last breath. Two, never trust a 'dead' enemy, attacks they launch during the last minutes of their breath are the deadliest as they would want to drag you with them. Three, this goes to you three, Cyrus, Bianca and Cyril, what happened to the 'look out for each other's backs' that you were told, you all moved in a beeline ignoring the rear? Huh? Cyrus, one more thing, learn how to seal your emotions when on the battlefield, anger, sorrow and happiness will only drag you down the drain. The sorrow from losing your friends and felling powerless against the enemy led you to doing what I hate the most, attacking blindly all around you in rage.
And you!" Elsa shivered. "Don't be useless on the battlefield! Equip yourself with some basic defensive skills so as not to have your friends babysit you when you are on the battlefield! Am I clear all of you!?"
No one answered, looking at their teary eyed faces, Lynch knew he had gone too far with the tongue lashing this time but he also knew that this will make them strive to be praised next time, he could only hope that they won't repeat this mistakes again and his class would hold the best of the best recruits that year.
"Now head to your dormitories and rest, I'll seek explicit permission or you today. Amy, you need to meditate upon the battle earlier, in fact all of you!"
They scampered away in mere seconds, like the gates of hell had been opened after them, they had wanted nothing more than to get out of instructor Lynch's sight and be free of his tongue lashing.