Fwoosh!
A teenaged boy, called Cael Breckenridge rushed across the rooftop of what resembled a dense, urban environment. The enchanting sun within the clear, blue sky beamed across the collection of buildings and illuminated the dazzling glass towers in the distance.
He was clad in a sleek, futuristic suit that covered his body from the top of his neck down to his feet.
It was almost totally black in colour, with glowing blue finishes across its intricately designed exterior.
He was in an artificial arena built by the Carlo City 3rd Institute, the school that he was attending. Here, they'd go through several drills to simulate military-style operations and practice various skills like hand-to-hand combat and teamwork.
He ran across the concrete roof with immense speed and once he reached the edge, he planted his feet and crouched down. The powerful pistons within his legs vibrated before extending explosively.
There were several metres between the building he was just on and the 3-story building ahead but he covered the distance no problem.
Even though he had dropped down a story, he landed and felt nothing from the impact of his fall. The piston muscle systems in the lower half of his exoskeletal suit took most of the impact of his fall, making him feel very little.
He continued across the empty roof of the next building, until he stumbled.
"Damn it, not again..." He thought to himself.
His exosuit was struggling to co-ordinate itself with his own body, which caused him to lose his footing.
"I got Jake in Section G. Advancing to D!" A person said from his comm unit within his left ear.
"Alright. Their flag's in Section A so just keep moving forward. I'll regroup with you once I beat my guy, Blaine." Another student said.
"Cael you're in H. Are you still alive?" The first teen asked, causing the other students to burst out laughing, which was all heard in Cael's comm.
The square-shaped artificial battlefield they were within had 9 sections, from A to I that read left-to-right, top-to-bottom.
"Just about." He jokingly replied, before shutting off his comm unit by lightly tapping slightly above his ear.
Cael came to a sudden stop, and the exit rooftop door ahead of him burst wide open. There was another student, with bronze-coloured hair and pale skin.
He was taller than Cael, standing at 6'3.
Upon seeing this student, he readied himself for the battle that was about to commence. There was a slight tremble in his stance, but the fighter he faced was totally calm and confident.
He slowly approached Cael, who also circled around him.
"I'm still in Section H and Marco already found it all the way here?" Cael wondered.
Cael remained firm and was not looking to find an opening. Instead, he looked around and was thinking of ways to escape this situation.
However, he was notorious for being terribly weak and slow. If Marco wanted a fight, he would have to take the battle.
Marco closed the distance between them in a flash, leaping into the air. He span around with explosive speed, before slamming the sole of his shoe right into Cael's chest.
The force was too sudden and strong for Cael to do much, causing him to be launched off his feet. He harshly hit the ground and slid back but flipped right back onto his feet.
There wasn't any time for even thinking about the discomforting pain in his chest, as his opponent was already a mere arm's length from him.
He threw several punches that Cael managed to block with his turtle-like stance. However, that wasn't to say that these attacks didn't cause excruciating pain upon every impact.
Even if none of the hits were landing, Cael wasn't throwing any hits of his own.
He spent this time behind his fists studying Marco's attacks. They were powerful and fast, but they were predictable.
He simply throwed combinations that had been drilled into them after years and years of combat training. If he thought hard enough, he could find an opening.
Marco wasn't placing much thought into defending himself, either, giving Cael even more opportunity to strike back. He cocked back his fist, smiling as he prepared to throw yet another punch, but the smaller fighter anticipated his telegraphed attack.
He punched Marco right in his jaw before he could properly react, landing a clean shot. This punch of his even surprised himself, and he broke out a smile upon landing it.
However, his opponent looked far less pleased with the punch that he had just thrown
Voom!
There was light vibration in Marco's legs, and he drove his fist right into Cael's open stomach. The force behind his strike launched him to the edge of this building's rooftop, then he received two more punches, both to the head.
The final punch was an uppercut that flung his head back, while also causing him to lose strength in his legs. He fell to the ground, stumbling away from Marco on his hands and knees.
Gritting his teeth to try and steel through the agony, he held his stomach with one hand while trying to keep his upper body up with the other.
Marco then kicked Cael into the short barricade of this rooftop, causing it to break apart.
As much as he wanted to fight, as much as he wanted to get back up, the pain he felt was just too intense.
"Stand down if you know what's good for you." Marco ordered, before rushing ahead.
Cael strugglingly raised back to his feet and felt like chasing after him, but all he could see was the back of his body slowly receding.
He held the side of his body in pain, feeling put down by a sense of utter defeat.
All he could do was stand there, totally powerless.
"I've got two people approaching the flag, I need some backup now!" A deep-voiced student called out in his comm unit.
"Cael, you couldn't even get to Section E before Marco found you?!" Blaine roared from within his comm.
Cael didn't even have the guts to reply to his furious teammate after hearing his harsh comment. All he could do was sit there in silence.
"Goddamn it, I just got one of their guys down too! Alright, I'll come back, I might not make it back to you in time." Another student called out.
The comm units fell silent for a long time, and all Cael could do was wait to hear their feedback.
"How was I supposed to take on two damn people?! They got the flag!" The boy announced.
Their communication channel was then filled with groans of dissatisfaction and anger. Cael remained silent, since he knew this anger was directed at him.
The reason the protector of their flag was forced into a 2v1 situation was because he couldn't handle his own man.
"Cael, do something now! Best believe they're taking the flag through Section H! Everyone, close in on them before they can get any further, I'm going straight for their flag!" Blaine called out, with a bold tone.
He talked with arrogance but also conviction. He could easily command and co-ordinate his teammates with his powerful tone of voice.
"That's a good idea, I'm going for them." The deep-voiced student, called Keagan, replied.
Keagan was bald but had very large muscles, and a large, bulky exosuit.
He charged forward with heavy, but long strides as he chased down the retreating duo who possessed their flag.
After a few seconds, Cael could hear commotion in a nearby street and decided to head in that direction. He wasn't just going to let himself stand by, he had to do something to redeem himself.
As he charged forward in a sprint, he soon found Keagan that viciously attacked the student holding their flag.
He hit him with his large fist and continued with a continuous, relentless combination of haymakers. He was tall and large and was almost an unstoppable force that only cared for hurting his opponent as much as he could.
Cael felt a rush of confidence come over him as he saw this intense battle.
He charged ahead, only to feel his exosuit clench tightly across his skin. It forced him into place and made him lose his step.
He ran with his torso down, as he was about to floor, then received a shove from the other fighter that was stood beside the flag holder.
After already losing his balance, he fell over and the next teammate of his arrived at the scene. His two friends fought valiantly but their opponents weren't trying to stick and fight with them.
This was a capture the flag operation and so, their mission was only to retrieve the flag and bring it back to their own base.
They had already done half the job and all they had to do now was return to their own base.
As soon, as they found an opening, they were gone in a flash.
The five teammates were now huddled together, with Blaine having a twitching eye from his intense anger.
He had blonde hair and was around as tall as Cael but was much more muscular. You could even see that through the several layers of his exosuit.
"I mean, Cael, what are you useful for? What are you useful for?! You're only in this damn institute because your dead father bribed the headmaster to keep you here!" Blaine roared, before they all heard a static noise in their comms.
"The capture-the-flag operation has been concluded, with Team Alpha taking the win in 14 minutes and 47 seconds."
Silence befell the team as they slowly approached Section D, where both teams had entered from.
At that section, there was a dense group of students, all wearing their own exosuits.
There were also holographic projections hovering around them, showcasing the action from various tiny drones that flew in the air.
They were so small that nobody could even see where they were. Whenever they'd be close enough so you could see them, their attention would usually be diverted toward something else.
Many students snickered upon looking at Cael, who didn't even have the confidence to look anyone in the eye.
"Please will the next teams get to their bases!" A large, muscular man said with a booming voice.
He had a grey beard and clean-shaved brown hair, with a craggy face. He was their teacher that was the main person directing them through their training.
Several other teams went through their own capture-the-flag operations and their teacher gave the teams collective feedback from what he had seen.
"I hope that you all can put the advice that I have told you about into great practice in the coming sessions. I want to see more communication from you all the next time we run this session." The man ordered.
"Sir, yes sir." The students said simultaneously, with Cael doing the same but just with a much more mellow tone.
Cael felt quite detached from what was being said to him and was just slowly waiting to return home.
The end of the school day soon came, and he approached the entrance of the large scholarly institute.
There were several buildings of 4 stories and 5 stories, while there were four cuboidal skyscrapers were placed at the centre of the complex. The buildings were also connected to each other through sleek glass bridges, that seamlessly blended into the main tower structures.
Cael entered the bustling streets of Carlo City, being surrounded by buildings that were tens of stories high.
He was surrounded by several people, walking across the streets in masses.
Cael just continued on his path home, totally zoned out.
He entered a dim alleyway, taking a special shortcut route that he had found from his school to the local airbus stop.
His mind was filled with thoughts of the several people in his life that had doubted his success. Now, he was one of those people who constantly put himself down.
Both of his parents were killed in intense conflicts across the galaxy. They were proficient exosuit warriors that fought for the Soburg Empire, Cael's home nation, valiantly.
He was left with small monthly payments from the government, due to his parents' service.
"Why did you have to go and leave me here all alone?" He asked himself, feeling saddened by his thoughts.
Clank!
He looked startled as he hit a hollow piece of metal. Looking down, he saw a black, circular object that resembled a helmet.
Lifting it, he couldn't make out why such a thing was just left in some random alleyway.
Tapping it with the knuckles of his fist, he could tell that the metal was thin but still strong and robust.
"This damn thing seems like it hasn't even been used. Why would this just be lying here?" He wondered.
As he lifted it to his left, the helmet fragmented into smaller parts so that it seamlessly fit onto his head.
The helmet condensed back again, fitting his head shape perfectly. He looked through the dark black vice, before being afflicted with an intense agony.
It felt like his brain was on fire, and his screams were being totally muffled by the helmet.
"HELP!! HELP, *cough* *cough* HELP, PLEASE!!" He roared, but all that was heard on the outside were quite muffles being drowned out by the noise from the bustling streets around him.
The pain slowly subsided, and he laid on one of the walls of this alleyway, taking heavy breaths of relief.
The helmet split into two pieces, before crashing to the ground and shattering into very small fragments of metal like brittle glass.
[Warrior Mechanic System Activated!]
[Assessing User...]
[User Assessment Complete!]
[Combat Quality: F-]
[Mechanic Quality: D]
"What? System?" He asked himself, standing up to view several panels that partially blocked his field of view.
They were blue holographic panels, that resembled the holograms of any standard projector.
"F- combat quality?! I mean, that's probably accurate but what's this mechanic stuff about?" He inquired internally.
[User: Cael Breckenridge]
[Titles: None]
[Strength: 3]
[Speed: 5]
[Durability: 3]
[Intelligence: 15]
[Dexterity: 6]
[Creativity: 3]
[Focus: 10]
[MP: 4/4]
[Skills] [expand]
"These are my stats? This is like the RPG games that people used to play all that time ago back on the first world. This helmet did all this?" He realised, looking down to the crushed pieces of metals by his feet.
"If it really is like how those games were said to be like, this might be the luckiest day of my life!"
****
Hope you enjoyed the opening chapter to this series!
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