The morning air at Blackridge was sharp, like a blade honed just for cutting pretenses.
Ace stood in the center of the North Arena, surrounded by fifty other students in standardized training uniforms. The arena was a massive dome—steel walls, retractable platforms, and ceiling-mounted turrets that tracked movement with eerie precision. The floor beneath their boots pulsed faintly with electromagnetic charge.
Orientation week was over. Evaluation day had arrived.
Not everyone was going to make it to sunset.
An instructor barked orders from a raised control platform above them. Dressed in full combat gear, face obscured behind a mask, he paced like a lion in a cage.
"Today's evaluations are not academic. They are survival-based. You are not students here—you are assets under scrutiny. Think, move, adapt—or be removed."
A mechanical hiss echoed through the dome as floor panels shifted and slid open.
Steel crates rose from the ground, each marked with a student ID.
Ace stepped forward, grabbed the crate with his name, and flipped it open.
Inside was a combat vest, reinforced gloves, a retractable baton, stun darts, and a modified neuro-blade—a compact weapon capable of discharging temporary paralysis via nanoshock.
He strapped everything on with efficient precision. To his left, Kiera was already battle-ready, tying back her braid and loading her darts.
Across the arena, clusters of students murmured among themselves. Some were visibly anxious. Others too confident. A few—like Ace—remained unreadable.
The masked instructor raised a hand. "Your objectives will vary. Your opponents are not fellow students—but not allies either. Elimination of targets, objective retrieval, and environmental navigation. No instructors will intervene."
The turrets on the ceiling clicked loudly.
"Begin."
The lights cut out.
Total darkness for three seconds.
Then—
Boom.
The arena split apart. Sections of the floor dropped out, creating shifting platforms. Walls rose to create a labyrinth. Screams echoed from every direction—startled students falling, scrambling, fighting. Automated drones zipped through the air, firing stun blasts that left trails of electricity behind them.
Ace moved instinctively. Low, fast, quiet.
He sprinted down a narrow corridor, leaped over a collapsing platform, and rolled into cover behind a steel crate. The neuro-blade snapped into his hand. He could hear footsteps approaching.
Not Kiera's.
A shadow leapt over the barrier. The cadet was tall, masked, wielding twin batons.
Ace parried the first strike, spun low, and used his momentum to slam the attacker into the wall. The cadet grunted but recovered fast—too fast for a standard student.
They weren't here to win. They were here to test him.
He ducked the next strike and jammed his neuro-blade into the cadet's ribs. A sharp jolt sent them convulsing to the floor.
Ace didn't wait.
He sprinted forward, passing by two more students who were already unconscious—both marked with black bands on their sleeves. Class A operatives.
The test was rigged.
They weren't just evaluating students—they were hunting targets.
Elsewhere in the arena, Kiera slid down a steep metal ramp, spun to her feet, and fired a dart into the visor of a drone. It spiraled out of control and crashed into a wall.
A boy with trembling hands peeked out from behind a console. "Are you—are you Class C too?"
"Yeah," she replied, yanking a stun baton from her belt.
He held up his hands. "I—I don't want to fight. I was told we were just—"
A loud whine cut him off.
He turned—and took a drone blast to the chest.
Kiera lunged, grabbed his vest, and pulled him out of the way as two more drones swarmed in. She tossed a flash charge into the air. It detonated with a burst of light and static.
The boy moaned, half-conscious.
She dragged him behind a barricade and looked around.
The arena was chaos. But there was a pattern.
The drones weren't attacking everyone.
Only certain students.
Ones with combat experience. Ones with military records.
Ones like her.
And Ace.
She didn't waste time. She sprinted back toward the core.
Ace had reached the center chamber—a circular platform surrounded by rising walls, like a gladiator pit.
He knew it was a trap.
He stepped in anyway.
Three figures dropped in from above—heavily armored, visors tinted black, movements synchronized.
No student would be that organized.
Operatives.
Real ones.
Ace let the neuro-blade retract into his wrist sheath and raised his hands slightly.
"You know I'm unarmed, right?"
They didn't speak.
They advanced.
The first struck. Ace ducked, pivoted, grabbed the attacker's wrist, and used their own momentum to flip them. The second came from the side—he blocked with a forearm and jabbed a palm strike into the throat guard.
No effect.
Enhanced armor.
The third struck him from behind—Ace dropped to a knee and rolled forward, but not fast enough. A baton cracked against his shoulder. Pain lanced through his nerves.
They were testing his limits.
Seeing what the Phantom Initiative subject could really do.
Ace's eyes narrowed.
"Alright," he muttered. "Let's see how far you want to take this."
He kicked off the wall and launched into the first operative, knocking them into the second. Using the brief gap, he reached into his vest, pulled the only real weapon he had left—a stolen EMP pulse charge—and slammed it against the nearest chestplate.
It detonated in a burst of magnetic disruption.
The operative screamed.
Ace didn't let up. He swept the legs of the second, used their fall to leap over the third, and delivered a hard elbow strike to the side of their helmet.
The last one staggered—but recovered.
Too fast.
Ace's reflexes kicked in again.
He anticipated the swing and countered with a brutal takedown that slammed the figure's head into the floor.
The silence that followed was loud.
Ace stood in the middle of the chaos, bruised, panting, blood trailing from his temple.
The platform locked.
Walls retreated.
The entire arena shifted again—resetting as if none of it had happened.
A voice boomed over the speakers.
"Evaluation complete."
The lights returned.
And all across the dome, unconscious bodies littered the floor.
Ace stared up at the viewing platform.
Behind the mirrored glass, Wolfe stood with Commander Sloane.
She turned to him. "He's ready."
Wolfe's voice was low. "No… he's just waking up."
Later that evening, Ace sat in the infirmary with his shirt off, letting the med-bot tend to the burns and bruises.
Kiera walked in, holding two sealed nutrient packs. She tossed him one.
"You're a mess."
"You're not wrong," he muttered, cracking it open.
"You beat three armed operatives," she said, sliding onto the bench beside him. "No way that was just a school test."
"They're escalating."
She nodded. "Trying to trigger something in you."
Ace looked down at his hands. They were steady—but he remembered the moment. The way time slowed. How his body moved before he could think.
He hadn't just survived.
He had adapted.
Like something inside him had been waiting for the right pressure to wake up.
"I think the next phase is coming," he said quietly.
Kiera stared ahead. "I think it's already started."
The intercom pinged overhead.
"All cadets from Class C: report to Assembly Room Sigma. New directives incoming."
Ace stood.
The game was no longer about surviving the semester.
It was about finding out why he was still alive.
And what they were trying to awaken.