Alden had a suspicion that the day might be a bit different before he even left the dorm that morning. Jeremy didn’t usually video call him from inside a bathroom stall at seven thirty AM.

“Hey! It’s good to see you instead of getting a text, but shouldn’t you be in second period?” Alden asked. He’d just pulled on a long-sleeved shirt, and he was tucking his laptop into his messenger bag.

“People have been talking about you all morning,” Jeremy said. “I didn’t call earlier because you like sleep.”

“I do like sleep. Thanks for respecting the time zone. Any chance they’ve been talking about how much they miss having me sitting in the classroom? Does that Goth girl wish I was still there to loan her pens? She owes me three. Don’t think I forgot while I was away.”

“I saw the video.”

Alden made a face.

“Did you go to a party last night and tell a girl that she was sketch and you didn’t like her?”

“Maybe…”

“In front of her parents and her Grandma, who’s a member of the Anesidoran government?”

“Aulia’s not on the High Council anymore. Also, there were a lot more people than that around. Also, that might not have been me. It could’ve been another guy who resembled me.”

“Are you okay?” Jeremy asked. “Another Avowed used their powers on you! Isn’t that a crime or something?”

“I’m fine. It wasn’t a huge thing. I just really didn’t want to have any more to do with Hazel Velra, and in the moment, letting it be known seemed like the best course of action.”

“It sucks that I couldn’t be there,” said Jeremy. He grinned. “I’ll hate her for you from here!”

“You rock,” said Alden.

Jeremy was wearing a shirt with an eyeball and a rock on it.

“More importantly,” he said, “did you sing a bunch of songs about an alien bird while wearing your gym jammies?”

“That made it all the way to you, too?”

Silver lining.

Then Jeremy’s phrasing caught his attention. “Did you just call my highly magical, very exclusive, wizard-made protective Avowed gear gym jammies?”

“That’s what Kimberly called them. It’s cute, right?”

“It’s definitely unforgettable,” said Alden.

“I know you’ve got to get to class but before you do, I had to check on you and tell you—” Jeremy pointed at him. “You’ve officially made it as a superhuman.”

Alden’s brows lifted. “How do you figure?”

“Alden, there are memes.”

******

It could have been worse, but Alden was sure it couldn’t have been weirder.

As he went through the morning, he ran across several students and even one faculty member singing Finlay’s gokoratch songs, so that was good. Lots of people minded their own business or didn’t care about his altercation with Hazel at all. A few, unfortunately, felt the need to corner him and give him their personal analysis of the situation; it was obnoxious no matter what their opinion was since Alden didn’t remember requesting critique from other teenagers who thought they knew him based on a short video clip and some facts they’d found on the internet.

But beyond all of that, most of the CNH students who wanted to interact with him because of the video wanted to talk about…

“Did you get more radishes?”

“Radish Rabbit!”

“Not my radishes!”

“You’d better make the Velras buy you a lifetime supply, mate! Can’t let them get away with costing a man his treats!”

<<I am grateful most people aren’t taking it too seriously,>> he told Lute while he knelt on a too-thin cushion during their conversation class. <<But a university student I passed on my way here from the Wong building shouted, ‘Hey, Daikon!’ So it’s getting worse. Now they’re associating me with all varieties of radish instead of just the round, red ones I actually dropped. This is my future. This is my fate.>>

<<I understand so small amount of what you say,>> Lute replied, correcting a finger position for him. <<But I understand we still speak of the gone-away vegetables from last night.>>

<<We do speak of that,>> Alden said. <<Sorry. I’ll talk slower.>>

<<How do you say ‘screenname?’>> Lute asked.

Alden frowned. <<I don’t know. I’m not sure Artonans use those?>>

<<I changed my screenname to ‘TheFirstRadish’. In its honor.>> Lute bowed his head and clasped his hands together in a prayerful posture.

Alden didn’t know whether to laugh or sigh. Of the memes Jeremy had mentioned this morning, only two seemed to be gaining traction. The first was a clip of Hazel shouting about how she mattered on Earth and the Mother while her flapper headband’s tassel whipped around. The second was Alden hastily raising a china plate in front of him and sending eleven radishes—according to the people who’d bothered to count—to their deaths.

There were slow-mo shots of them falling. In one edit, someone had drawn little screaming faces on them.

Rabbit Drops his Radishes was by far the most harmless thing that could pop up when someone searched for him, so he was torn between wondering if it was okay for something so silly to be making him instantly recognizable on campus and kind of hoping that it would become a lot of peoples’ main impression of him before they dug into everything else.

His roommates were right; the video didn’t make him look that bad. Some assholes were saying asshole things, and unless he was being paranoid, the moment when Aulia called him one of the Velras’ “family friends” seemed to be ever so slightly louder and clearer than the rest of the audio. But the family friend thing didn’t seem one hundred percent believable, he hoped, when he was in the process of complaining about a member of said family. And he looked calm and collected when he explained why he had a problem with Hazel.

<<Why did your grandmother sacrifice your cousin to the beasts?>> Alden asked Lute as they put their shoes back on at the end of class. <<Doesn’t this situation reflect poorly on her, too?>>

“Do you just speak Artonan all the time now?”

Alden shrugged. “I hadn’t shifted gears yet. But it’s good practice for you, so don’t complain. I was asking why Aulia—”

“I’ve got translations back on, so I understood. There are probably a hundred factors you and I can’t guess, but I assume Hazel’s been getting problematic in other ways. A few relatives mentioned that she’s become more of a menace since she started having free time. She’s used to being with a tutor, with Aulia, or asleep. Aulia’s not training her for hours a day anymore. You want to have lunch together?”

“Sure,” said Alden. “But should you really skip your theater class as often as you do?”

“No. Are you judging me?”

“So hard.”

******

That evening, Alden’s gym group stood in a huddle together, waiting for Principal Saleh to arrive and officially mark the start of class. They were all staring at their fate.

“Haoyu,” Alden whispered, leaning toward him without taking his eyes off the monstrosity the faculty had created. “Can you complete that whole course?”

Haoyu was staring at it, too. “I cannot.”

“Maybe it’s not finished?” Njeri suggested. “It looks unfinished.”

“That must be it!” Astrid agreed. She had gelled her short hair into a mini mohawk “to promote team spirit.” She put her hands on her hips. “They’ve left off some ladders. And they must be bringing us scuba equipment!”

They were all standing at the black line that separated the course from the rest of the huge gym. Jeffy stepped right up to the edge of it eagerly. “I bet I can do it!”

“Really?” Lexi said in a dry voice. Writher’s short chain was twitching at the end of its handle. “How are you going to get over the fifteen-meter-tall barrier made of magic when there are no handholds?”

“You think we have to climb that?” Jeffy asked. “Maybe we’re just supposed to walk around it. Like in the maze.”

“Jeffy, my friend in mohawkdom,” Astrid said before Lexi could add anything, “let me explain how obstacle courses usually work.”

“We’re probably meant to help each other,” Haoyu added. “That’s common for this kind of thing.”

Alden stepped over to Maricel. She had a pensive expression on her face.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I was wondering if they would let me ride my soil platform over obstacles or not. I saw your video…”

“You and everyone else.”

He’d arrived at the MPE building and gotten dressed early to avoid the locker-room takes from certain people. For now, he was blissfully unaware of whatever some of the more tedious members of his class might have to say.

Maricel watched him for a minute. “You could’ve pickled those radishes,” she said sadly. “And they wouldn’t have died.”

Startled, it took Alden a second to respond to the joke.

He shook his head at her. “Shhhhh…don’t reveal my true power.”

When Principal Saleh showed up, she was wearing her own suit and carrying a small metal triangle on a stick that turned out to be a magical megaphone.

“Good to see you again, everyone!” she said. Behind her, Instructors Marion, Foxbolt, and Ivanova were all holding tablets and checking over various obstacles. Despite Astrid’s hopes, no ladders were making an appearance. “This is part of the course you’ll all be running today. The other first years have run this route several times in their own classes, so if you’d like to compare your team times to theirs or watch their videos we’ll make that available to you.”

Only part of the course? Alden wondered.

“Let’s go over the rules!”

Five minutes later, he was standing outside in his group’s assigned lane of the MagiPhys track. They were getting one half, and the group of ten that would be running against them was getting the other. Alden listened to Haoyu and Reinhard argue over strategy and watched Lucille lace up a pair of dark purple boots that he found all shiny and fascinating thanks to Sympathy for Magic.

In the gym, people who didn’t want to risk wearing out or destroying ordinary athletic shoes just took them off. The suits protected your feet, so it was fine if you wanted. But out here, some of Alden’s classmates were allowed to bring gear he didn’t usually see.

Lucille’s boots were extra durable. Someone on the other team had complained about people getting special treatment because Wrightmade armor, but a raised eyebrow from Principal Saleh had shut the whiner down.

Alden didn’t mind. None of the approved equipment was anything that should be a game changer, and there was no point in risking an injury just so that nobody would accuse you of having a tiny advantage.

The team they’d be racing against to start with included Konstantin, Finlay, Jupiter, and Tuyet along with six others. The other half of the class was back in the gym, having school emergency procedure practice sessions with Klein and Fragment while they waited their turn to run the course.

Their race would be cut off at the twenty-minute mark if they hadn’t finished. The losers would swap with one of the teams in the gym, and the victors would stay out here for one more round. The losing team would have another race before the end of class. And then two more on Friday. So every team of ten or eleven would have the chance to face each other once.

As was typical of their gym periods, the explanation of what they should do had been brief and to-the-point, and they were expected to get to work and figure out the details as they went. Alden was going over the rules in his head again, too focused on not screwing up the basics to imagine what running the course would actually be like.

They started out here on the morphable track, where they would run three laps with the same sorts of hurdles Alden had encountered on combat assessment day. At the end of the third lap, they ran down a flag-marked path to the gym, where the more dangerous and impossible-looking half of the course was. Their interfaces would give them instructions as they approached obstacles if necessary. Both teams would begin their run at the same time, with all teammates participating.

That was all simple enough. But then the aspect of the race that Instructor Marion had called “strategic interference” came into play.

Just so that he wouldn’t forget a detail, Alden typed a list for himself while he explained it all to Jeffy out loud again.

For a team to win the race, every member has to reach the end of the course.

A runner who reaches the finish line may not participate in the race except to offer advice to their teammates.

Every time someone crosses the finish line, their active teammates may take one hostile action to impede the other team’s runners. One hostile action is defined as a single talent use, obstacle modification, or physical attack by one team member. The hostile actor may enter the other team’s half of the course. On the outdoor portion of the course, only harmless attacks and obstacle modification may be used to impede runners. Within the gymnasium, all attacks, including lethal ones, are allowed.

Injuries will be simulated by movement restriction.

“Dead” runners must return to the start of the race.

No killing your own teammates.

Reinhard and Haoyu were energetically disagreeing about a dozen different aspects of the race, and Alden could see why. The amount of strategy that would be needed to maximize a team’s speed was huge. Excelling at this game would take planning, practice, and careful teammate selection. They would be getting the opportunity to do that in later academic terms, but for this, their first time, they were flying blind.

Alden liked the notion of an obstacle course, and he had a hundred and twenty feet of paracord weighted with a heavy-duty carabiner to contribute. It was fine with him if they all looked at this as an interesting opportunity to test their abilities, like usual. But he was getting the feeling that most of the others were more anxious and eager to prove themselves than they had been on Monday.

“I can shoot Tuyet!” Reinhard was saying. “I know I can take her out.

His preferred strategy was for Lucille and Maricel to plow through the course together and hit the finish line, so that they could get two attacks on the other team as quickly as possible.

“I’ve watched uni obstacle course competitions,” Haoyu insisted. “It’s different because a lot of those people can complete a whole course without assistance, but in this kind of team run, you don’t send all of your strongest competitors to the end. You keep some of them in play so that they can help everyone else.”

“He’s right about not losing critical players,” Njeri said. “Though I’m not sure Lucille is actually our strongest competitor.”

She looked over at the quiet girl. “You’re literally our strongest of course. But you couldn’t run the whole route on your own if you got left behind, could you?”

Lucille shook her head.

Could any of us, though? Alden wondered.

“Start in thirty seconds!” Lesedi Saleh announced.

Maricel was shaking her hands out and staring at the track ahead of them. Reinhard made a strangled sound.

Astrid bounced eagerly on the balls of her feet.

“Save your energy,” Lexi said to her.

“Who me?”

He grunted.

They all stood at the starting line. On the other team’s side, Jupiter was humming and glancing longingly toward the mound of freshly cut limbs and twigs she’d stolen from someone who’d been pruning the grounds. Her team had barely managed to talk her out of telekinetically hauling the whole pile with her during the race. Appropriate elemental weights were being provided for each Shaper to use here and in the gym, but if they wanted something special, their teams were required to transport it through the entire route. A couple of the others were carrying heavy branches for Jupiter, so that she wouldn’t be slowed down.

[Race Start in 10…]

“I don’t want to lose,” said Everly, getting in a ready position.

“Your ice will work great for messing with the other team,” Njeri told her. “If we can get someone to the finish line.”

“I don’t even know what we’re doing,” Reinhard muttered, checking the straps on his quiver one last time.

“Just run as fast as you can and send back news once you hit the gym to report on the obstacles,” said Lexi. “Don’t be idiots.”

“Nobody cross the finish line without consulting the rest of us,” Haoyu said.

“The principal is watching,” Jeffy whispered.

“We know,” three of the others replied at once.

Reinhard scowled. “I’m more worried about the fact that they’re making this footage available to the rest of the first years. Two hundred other people will be trying to decide if we should’ve gotten into the school with them or not.”

[3…]

“It’ll be fine,” said Haoyu.

“Only if we do well. This is going to be their first impression of us.”

Alden preserved his cord. He was wearing it wrapped around him in loose, cross-body loops. Haoyu was his entruster, which was becoming a usual thing for gym class.

“Win,” Lucille whispered.

[1]

Here we go.

They took off.

From the first few steps, Alden knew it wasn’t going to be anything like his last time running the track. For one thing, this was a race, and for another…these weren’t a bunch of B-ranks who’d failed to make the cut.

Thank goodness running with my trait is one of the things I’ve practiced the most.

It was a relief to finally have a ground element surface under his feet in class. He didn’t bother to look at what was going on with the other team since no attacks would be coming in yet. Instead, he focused on his form, his speed, and eating ground as fast as possible.

One day, they’re going to give us something like mud to run across, and I’m really going to shine.

This afternoon, he wasn’t doing badly compared to his own teammates. Lucille and Jeffy were ahead of him, but having the magical help from Azure Rabbit had put him ahead of the A-ranks and Maricel.

It’s a nice change from being slower than most of them in the gym.

The hurdles out here were walls of varying heights that rose from the track itself. He leaped the first easily, mentally thanking the trait for the height he got and Bobby for the fact that he could feel confident about proper form and knowing his limits when it came to making landings.

He kept going.

After climbing a steep hill near the end of the circuit, Alden jumped and pulled himself onto the top of a much higher wall than any of the others had been. He was relieved to find a mat waiting to catch people at the bottom.

He hit it, ran a few more steps, and got the [Lap One Complete] notice through his interface.

I feel pretty good about this. He thought he was pacing himself correctly; his body was moving well.

He completed the second and third laps in exactly the same way as the first, bypassing Jeffy, who’d taken on the task of standing beside the high hurdle and boosting people over it. Chat on their team voice call suggested everyone was doing all right on their own or with the helping hand for the last jump.

Lucille had made it through the first indoor obstacle and was reporting on the next one as Alden left the track behind and ran down the marked path toward the gym. Reinhard wasn’t very far behind him.

Who’s ahead of us on the other team?

Finlay and Tuyet were way out front. He thought at least one of the other Brutes was ahead of him.

Alden flew through the open doors of the MagiPhys building and down the short hall into the gym.

“Floor On!” Instructor Foxbolt called loudly from her post at the start of the indoor course. “Green line!”

The obstacle course loomed in front of him. Green and red lines on the floor and the obstacles themselves indicated each team’s path. Alden had a momentary flashback to the children’s play area outside a fastfood restaurant he had visited when he was little as he got down on his hands and knees and started crawling through a long plastic tunnel. When he emerged from the other end, he found the obstacle Lucille had mentioned in her update from just a short while ago.

[Go through.]

Yes, that was obvious.

It didn’t make the assignment look any more appealing.

“So,” he said aloud for the benefit of the rest of the team, “the shipping container obstacle is on fire, as Lucille mentioned. It’s a little bigger than a regular shipping container, I think, and the walls shoot jets of flame. The floor doesn’t. Should I go through on my own or do you guys want me to stick around and shield you?”

Haoyu answered first. “Be there in a sec. Lucille, how much damage did you take running through?”

“Not bad,” she said succinctly. “Like a sunburn. Ten percent movement reduction. My suit got stiffer. ”

“Ten percent is bad,” Reinhard said. “Take a penalty like that a couple more times and we’ll be moving like snails.”

“I can probably ice the whole thing over!” Every sounded slightly winded. “I don’t think that’s against the rules, but I’m not at the halfway point for my last lap.”

That’s unlucky, thought Alden as the heat from the box in front of him made him take a step back. If Everly was standing where he was now, she could’ve handily solved the problem for everyone and then run on.

I wish I’d picked the poncho now, don’t I?

The point was to force himself to come up with non-obvious solutions, but he still would’ve felt cool waltzing through the fire obstacle.

The sound of rapid thumping from the tunnel behind him made him turn, and he saw Reinhard emerging. “Carry me,” the archer demanded, before he’d even stood up. “Do your trick. You can right?”

“Yes…should we just wait for Everly and get everyone else through without damage all at once?”

“I’d like to go ahead,” Reinhard said impatiently. “It’s important to get people to the end as fast as possible. Finlay and Tuyet are way ahead of Lucille.”

Alden looked down the course. Tuyet and Finlay were climbing the high magic wall by having her embed her darts in it and using them as handholds. “Can you do that with your arrows?”

“I won’t know until I try to stab it with one and see what kind of settings they’ve got on it.”

“All right, but let’s try to make sure I don’t end up with a huge movement penalty either.”

It was less than half a minute before Lexi climbed out of the tube. “Shield me instead.”

“I just put on my Reinhard outfit,” Alden replied, quickly shifting the archer’s weight. “Does this look easy to achieve?”

Reinhard was draped over his back with his feet hanging almost to the ground, human-cloak style. His arms were stuck straight out past Alden’s ears, gripping the quiver to offer some protection for Alden’s face and torso. It was a very uncomfortable way to carry someone, but time seemed to be of the essence, so…

Off we go.

He hauled his human shield into the fire box, sticking closer to one wall and shuffling sideways as fast as he could along it with Reinhard positioned to take the brunt of the flames. He was through it quickly and feeling relieved as he dropped the other boy.

“I really didn’t take any damage!” Reinhard slapped Alden on the shoulder and thrust his paracord back toward him. Alden took it. Reinhard was his target now, so it was formally re-entrusted.

“It’s an all or nothing kind of shield. Do—?”

Reinhard started to sprint ahead only to stop and curse two steps later as he saw the next obstacle.

“Lucille already moved these for us!” he protested, staring at the line of black weights in different shapes that stood before him. Each weighed either 500 kg or a full metric ton.

The instructions flashing in front of their eyes indicated all the shapes needed to be moved down the course twenty meters and up a ramp to be dropped into the appropriate compartment before anyone else on the team could go forward.

“The obstacle must reset.” Alden was bending his elbows and knees experimentally to see what the three percent movement restriction he’d earned from being slightly singed on his way through the tunnel felt like.

He looked around to see Haoyu and Lexi both running through the fire, with Haoyu shielding Lexi from the brunt of the flames. Meanwhile, their group call was getting busy.

“I’m at the gym!” Astrid shouted.

“I’m not far behind her,” said Maricel. “I can shield us both with the sandbags.”

“Jeffy, get Everly and Njeri over that last hurdle.” Haoyu hurried toward a tire shape and squatted to get his hands underneath the edge of it. He pushed it up and flipped it, and it hit the floor with a loud bang. “We’ll be nearly done with these by the time you get here.”

He squatted again.

Lexi was concentrating on wrapping Writher around a cone shape—a little worrisome since this wasn’t one of the challenges where they were allowed to chop things in half. Reinhard was shoving a sphere toward the ramp.

Alden laid a loop of cord around the base of a waist-high dodecahedron. He bent down, preserved, lifted. He was gratified when it moved easily. Here we go, protecting our precious rope from this eleven hundred pound villain that wants to crush it.

The shape of the weight meant that when he lifted, it settled into the loop he’d made. He carried the weight out in front of him, being cautious on his way up the ramp because he was nervous about dropping it and having it roll back on him or someone else.

After this, there’s the rope climb straight up and then those bar swings. I can do those. The cord’s going to be useful for the vertical ascent, too. He could lift people up, and then they could pull him up. Maricel could lift herself and others too. All together as a team it would be fast.

From the top of the high wall there’s the diving tank. That one looks harder to manage.

He dropped the weight in the designated area and headed back for another. Maricel and Astrid had just run out of the fire.

“Alden,” said Maricel, letting a pair of charred sandbags hit the floor beside her, “let’s move this one togeth—”

A bell sounded. The red lines all over the other team’s course flared bright, and Jupiter, who had just arrived at the weight-moving challenge with a pair of smoking branches in tow, cheered.

A ripple in the air indicated the lowering of an invisible barrier between the two halves of the course.

Reinhard was swearing.

“Lucille!” Haoyu called. “Can you see who crossed the finish line from up there on the bars?”

“It was Finlay,” Lucille said.

So he’s out of the race now, thought Alden.

“Should I hit him?!” Jupiter was shouting.

“No!” one of her teammates shouted back. “Stick with the plan.”

“Everyone look out!” Haoyu said

“Especially men,” said Lexi. “She said ‘him.’”

“We’re screwed,” Reinhard spat. “Tuyet’s standing on top of the wall.”

Alden looked. Tuyet was up there, her chin-length black hair dripping, having obviously backtracked from the water obstacle.

She fixed her eyes on him. He moved to position his paracord in front of his torso for some protection, but she moved faster. Her arm whipped through the air so quickly he only realized that was what the motion was when it was already over.

A large dart made of a shining, nacreous material bounced off his forehead and hit the ground at his feet. It didn’t hurt, so it took him a second to realize he’d just been killed.

[DEAD - Back to Start]

“When you die, take the path of least resistance out of the gym! Don’t worry about the obstacles!” Principal Saleh announced through her megaphone.

“Go!” shouted Reinhard.

“Hurry!”

Alden had already taken off.

Shit, he thought, focusing on his injury list as he ran.

If this had been real life, Tuyet’s dart would have killed him so quickly his brain wouldn’t have registered the pain. She’d loaded it with an explosive spell that blew outward in a fan shape from the point of impact.

Just that fast. I didn’t even feel her target me.

Possibly he’d been too distracted? He didn’t think so, though, since he’d known an attack was incoming.

Alden had assumed a Meister with ranged weapons would have a targeting ability, but maybe she didn’t. He hadn’t worked with Tuyet in gym before. The S-rank could just be highly accurate thanks to stats and talents, no additional targeting features necessary.

It could even be that she targets points in space instead of people. I don’t think I’d feel that. When Reinhard had shot him previously, the arrows had seemed to be semi-attracted to specific body parts. Like he’d told them to hit “Alden Thorn’s left knee” even if Alden’s left knee moved.

Doesn’t matter. Just get around the track three times as fast as possible.

He passed the final members of his team on his way out the door. A death is really going to slow us down. If the reset timer on the weights is just a minute or two, someone will have to hang around or backtrack to help me move them

It felt bad to be the one who’d gotten hit, but there wasn’t anything he could’ve done about it that he could see. He wasn’t sure what the best course of action for stopping something that small and fast was. Dodge, shield, or try his newfound ability to grab it out of the air?

When his feet hit the pavement of the track, a filming drone whizzed into position beside him, and as he approached the starting line, he got the “Race Start” notification with no countdown.

His teammates were having an argument over comms about forcing people through to the end—who should run ahead, who should hang back, what talents they needed to get everyone through the rest of the obstacles.

I’m just going to focus on running.

He was alone out here, so there was nothing else for it.

“You guys tell me if someone from their team comes back toward me!” he said as he cleared the first hurdle.

He pushed himself. He didn’t want to be the hold-up. As he lapped the track, he tried to plan the most efficient ways through everything ahead of him. Do the laps, through the tube, fire…if it was still iced over from Everly’s spell he was good.

The only bright side about this situation was that dying had removed the movement restriction on him, and it wasn’t much of a comfort, since his restriction had been so minor he’d barely noticed it.

“Halfway through the third lap,” he said. “Be back in the gym soon.”

“Maricel’s lifting Jeffy over the wall!” Haoyu reported. “He’ll be through the water obstacle fast. Once he hits the finish line, the threat of one of us taking out Tuyet might force her off the top of the wall. And toward the finish, too, if we’re lucky.”

“She’s still up there?”

“Sniper perch,” Reinhard said.

That’s more intimidating than I would have imagined it being at the start of this.

Alden was on the grass, sprinting back toward the building, when Lucille said, “They’re waiting for something.”

“What do you mean?” Lexi asked.

A pause.

“Lucille’s in the water!” said Maricel. “I think she means that other Brute who’s been standing there. Why haven’t they gone through the finish line?”

“Alden, stay off the gym floor!” Haoyu shouted.

Alden reached the gym seconds later and stopped right at the edge of the white floor. “Why?”

He tried to take in everything. Tuyet was still in position on top of her team’s half of the fifteen-meter wall, a dart in hand. Jupiter was lifting Konstantin up with a lifematter bag. It looked like a very rough ride. He was hugging the bag with his arms and legs. Maricel was providing a gentler elevator service for Haoyu with one of the sandbags.

“I can’t just stand here,” said Alden.

Haoyu’s head was whipping around. “Jeffy, you need to get over our finish line now.”

“But what if you guys need help with the water?”

“We have to take out a member of their team. Kon’s best. Now. While Reinhard’s got a clean shot.”

“I’m going to take out Tuyet.”

“No, you can’t!”

“You think I can’t hit her?”

The bell rang as Jeffy crossed the finish line. The green lines for Alden’s team flashed bright, and the barrier went down.

Before the green had finished flashing, the bell rang again and the red lines flashed.

Haoyu said, “Take out Konstan-”

An arrow cut through the air and struck Tuyet in the ribs with force. She fell backward off the wall.

“No!” said Haoyu.

“I told you I could get her!”

“That’s not what I meant! Why would you shoot the fastest runner they have left? She’ll be back right away.”

Seconds later, Tuyet was whizzing past Alden on her way to take her second set of laps around the track. Water droplets flew off her as she passed him by.

Alden made a hasty shield for himself out of his cord while he waited anxiously for a sign to go. He chose the same zigzag design he’d used versus Big Snake on Monday, even though it wouldn’t do much for the fire, and he had to assume Tuyet could dart him through it. There were other combatants to consider, and this should help against some of them. He thought he could crawl through the tube with it on his back so he wouldn’t lose it.

He also thought he knew why Haoyu had asked him to stay off the gym floor. Dangerous attacks could only happen there. Anyone interfering with him before he stepped onto the white surface couldn’t use much force, so he couldn’t be sent back to the start again.

But if I just stand around until Tuyet gets back, we’ll lose anyway.

“Lucille’s coming back for you!” Haoyu said.

“Meet Lucille at the weights!” Maricel said at the same time.

The other team still hadn’t used the attack chance they’d just earned. I don’t like this.

He crawled through the long plastic tube. When he was halfway through, Lexi said, “Stay in there!”

“Why?”

“We’re coming back for you.”

<<Cover your head!>> Maricel shouted.

Alden dropped his preservation on the paracord shield and refroze it in a split second. Later, he would feel slightly clever for the quick thinking. The zigzags of cord draped down over his back, butt, and head. It wasn’t like it was great armor, but it was the fastest armor he could possibly have managed with so little warning while stuck on his hands and knees inside a tube.

Right then, however, it felt like a pitiful effort.

He covered his head with his arms. He heard people shouting. A crack. And then a lot more cracking and popping as a damn forest shot into the pipe and through it. Jupiter’s largest tree limb hit him so hard it ejected him from the tube, and he rolled backwards, his arms and legs unable to stop his momentum, to crash into the barrier that prevented students from getting thrown into the bleachers. Heart pounding, Alden tried to scramble onto his feet only to find he couldn’t move. His suit wouldn’t let him.

[Penalty: 100% restriction, unconscious]

[Injuries…]

The list scrolled for a long time. With the low pain setting they were working with today, he felt fine, but apparently he was on his way to being dead. Again. He was hemorrhaging.

“By the way, you shouldn’t talk or text your teammates when you’re listed as unconscious!” Lesedi Saleh announced through her megaphone.

Alden’s teammates were talking so much that he wouldn’t have been able to get a word in edgewise anyway. Apparently, Lexi had tried to stop the flying limb with Writher, but all he’d done was “trim it a little” according to Reinhard. Now he wanted to trim Reinhard a little. Maricel, Lucille, and Everly were frantically trying to assess Alden’s injuries from the readout they’d gotten and guess how long it would take him to die. Njeri was asking them all to confirm if she should cross the finish line or not.

What a mess.

The principal walked over to have a look at Alden. He was lying on his side, disturbed by the answers he’d received when he mentally requested more details about the injuries.

“You can talk to me if you want,” she said, squatting down to give him a smile. “How are you enjoying school?”

“Less at the moment than usual,” said Alden. “It’s been good. I have cool roommates.”

“Glad to hear it.” Her dark hair was in the same sleek bun she usually wore. “After viewing a certain video, Instructor Colibrí, from the university, wants me to strongly encourage you to come by her office and talk about your on-camera presence and your dress sense.”

“Really?” Alden said in a high voice. “How nice of her. So nice. Uh…I’m very busy right now, but maybe next quarter…”

“I want to strongly encourage you to keep up the good work. Instructor Waker was impressed with your efforts in class on Monday.”

“I kind of wish he was here to throw tennis balls at me now.”

“Ha!” She shook her head. “He’d love nothing more probably. I’d also like to ask you to stop by my own office if you find yourself running into any trouble here at school.”

“Thanks,” said Alden. “But it really has been pretty great so far.”

She stood. “I hope it stays that way. We’ve got a lot of talented kids, but things get tense for some groups when we actually start bringing combat into class. The team exercises should build some camaraderie at the same time. We’ll see.”

The bell rang. Njeri had just crossed the finish line.

Alden’s suit finally decided he was a goner, and he pushed himself up and ran toward the door.

He heard the bell ringing again and Haoyu said, “That was them crossing the finish line, Alden.”

So they have another attack chance.

He had rounded the second curve of the track and was heading up the slope toward the final hurdle when Maricel said, “Where’s Tuyet?”

“I think she’s in the pipe,” Njeri replied. “I don’t see her from the finish line.”

Alden was running as hard as he could. It wasn’t easy to find air for a conversation, but he was listening to theirs.

“She’s not in the pipe,” Jeffy said. “I’ve been watching for her.”

I just assumed she was back in the gym.

He hadn’t been able to see the course properly from the angle he’d landed at when he fell. So he’d thought she’d made it while he wasn’t looking. She was fast enough that she should’ve been back in the gym by now.

“I didn’t pass her,” he got out as he launched himself up and caught the edge of the wall. He dropped down onto the mat. “I didn’t see her on my way out here.”

There was a beat of silence.

“We need to pause for a second and think,” said Haoyu. “Where is she? And why is she there?”

“Ah!” said Maricel frantically. “This is bad.”

“What is?” Lexi demanded.

“The rules! Tuyet might be able to use her—”

A human shape flew out from under the thick mat Alden was about to step off of, and an arm shot toward his foot.

“Fuck!” he shouted, leaping back.

“Sorry!” Tuyet cried. Her wet hair was plastered to the side of her face, and she had an impression on her cheek from the asphalt. “Did it hurt?”

Alden clutched his chest. “What the hell?!”

Giving people heart attacks had to be against the rules.

“Don’t back off the mat,” said Tuyet. “You might hit your head when you collapse.”

“What?”

She pointed down at his shoe. A dart was sticking out of the top of it. He realized his foot stung.

“You stabbed me?”

“I’ve got a bandage! It’s a tiny needle! The magic on it just makes you go to—”

Alden’s knees gave out. He flopped onto the mat.

About twenty minutes later, he woke up lying on the bleachers with one bare foot. A small bright yellow bandage was placed just above his toes, and someone had used a pen to draw an animal on it that might, charitably, have been called a raccoon. It had little z’s coming out of its mouth.

Groaning, he covered his face with his hands.

[Haoyu: He’s awake! Hi, Alden! First of all, I am so, so sorry.]

[Lute: I hear it was hilarious.]

[Alden: What happened?]

He sat up and looked around the gym. His teammates were up on top of the bleachers across from him, listening to Fragment explain something about the MPE building’s ceiling, if the direction her finger was pointing was any indication.

[Haoyu: We didn’t plan well. It all collapsed. They killed Astrid and Lexi. We got Jupiter.]

[Alden: I take it we did not win.]

Tuyet was back in her sniper position, running the course with her team, so it was obvious.

[Haoyu: Reinhard and Lexi didn’t hit each other with their weapons. That’s a win.]

Alden put his shoe back on and went to learn some school emergency procedures.

Our next try will definitely be better than that one.

******

Dragging himself out of the gym after class, dripping wet and exhausted just like the rest of his team, he decided he hadn’t been wrong.

The second race was much closer, and he’d died only a single death to Heloísa, who’d tackled him so hard on top of the big wall that she took Everly Kim and herself over the edge with him.

They’d lost, but he’d been more useful at shielding people and helping them maneuver over obstacles than he had the first run. And he’d made it across the finish line in the end. So at least he’d been able to experience the full course.

They were focusing more on killing me than they should’ve been, though, weren’t they? I guess because they saw the other team do it, and they figured it worked.

Of course Alden wasn’t happy with how it had all gone, but it was more upsetting that his teammates were disappointed. Everly was so frustrated after her second death that she’d been crying a little even as she kept going. Lucille just got quieter and quieter until people started snapping at her for failing to communicate. Reinhard blamed everyone else for everything. Lexi blamed Reinhard for everything.

Njeri had asked Maricel if she couldn’t go a little faster at one point and Maricel, who was under a lot of pressure because of how useful she was on most of the obstacles, had almost bitten her head off. They were talking quietly to each other now as they slogged their way toward the girls’ locker room ahead of Alden.

By the end, even Haoyu’s attempts at peacemaking were leaning toward intimidating instead of peace-inspiring.

Too many different pressures building up.

They’d all screwed up in gym before now, but this was different. More personal. Tuyet was the politest of assassins, and Alden was still kind of miffed that she’d picked him to kill. Twice.

Not that he’d ever showed it.

“Maybe if I’d carried Everly on my back around the track,” Jeffy said. “I think that’s what I did wrong.”

“I think everyone did stuff wrong,” Alden said. “Don’t punch a hand dryer over it or anything. On Friday, we’re going to do so much bett—”

“Because he’s dead fucking weight!” The heated voice from behind them made Jeffy, Alden, and several other people turn around. It was Winston. He was pointing at Max.

Their team had lost twice today, too.

“I’m sure he was doing his best,” Vandy said. “We were all trying hard. Maybe if we meet tomorrow to plan—”

“He didn’t have magic for most of the second run!” Winston shouted.

Max shoved through the group. He looked furious.

“What? You don’t have anything to say for yourself?” Winston called after him.

“Did you do what Max suggested during the race?” Alden asked.

Winston rounded on him. “I’m not talking to you.”

“And I don’t know why I’m talking to you, but here we are. Stop being such a dick. Max is amazing at strategy and his spells are harmless traps and movement enhancements. He’s got to be one of the most valuable members of your entire team for this activity.”

“This isn’t any of your business.”

Alden shrugged and turned away.

“Only the teams with B-ranks lost!” Winston said. “It wasn’t fair.”

Someone shushed him. A couple of people shifted uncomfortably.

Very scientific reasoning, thought Alden. He followed Max, Haoyu, and Lexi through the locker room door.

“I didn’t ask you to do that,” Max said waspishly.

“I wanted to. He’s annoying. And I got killed in multiple embarrassing ways. My self-control is shot.”

Haoyu shook his head. “Again? Oh, Alden. The last time that happened you took the lives of eleven—”

“Not you too!”

“—innocent young radishes,” Haoyu finished.

Alden looked over at him. “I am sorry I died so much.”

“It really wasn’t your fault. I think it was actually Kon’s strategy. He’s an asshole.”

Kon was standing in the corner of the locker room, unsealing the front of his unitard. “Haoyu!”

“Was it your idea?” Lexi was staring at him.

“Why do you look shocked?” Kon asked. “I can have ideas.”

Lexi raised an eyebrow at him.

Kon gave Alden a nervous smile. “It wasn’t really a strategy. Just us trying to pull something together to fit a couple of goals. But I was the one who suggested we focus on you. I’ve been thinking I should do more brain work since I’m kind of useless at everything else in this class for now.”

“It’s fine. But why—?”

“Our goal was to incapacitate somebody as far away from help as we could. You seemed like a decent choice because you were going to be a really useful assist for the rest of your team. Having you out of the way was convenient for us. And you could clear the final hurdle on your own. If we’d taken out Everly or Njeri, one of you would have headed back to the track with them right from the start and been on hand to help out. When you went down, they had to run all the way back out there for you and then run twice around the track carrying you.”

I think I’m glad I slept through that.

“It could’ve worked out a lot of different ways. Or not at all. We were lucky Reinhard shot Tuyet. Most of us were just planning to use the obstacle creation tablet to increase the final hurdle height so you had to call for help. Tuyet put you out of commission for the whole game.”

Alden sighed. “Thanks for the nap I guess.”

“You’re not mad?”

He shook his head.

“Hey!” said Kon, brightening. “When are you guys going to invite me to see your apartment? I’ve invited you to see mine!”

“It’s just an apartment,” said Lexi. “Nothing to see.”

“I have a slow cooker,” said Haoyu.

Kon blinked at him.

“I have a rug. Or two,” said Alden. “Lexi assigned us all our own food shelves.”

“Okay. That’s really homey, but…why do I feel like you’re all leaving something out?”