Night Woman once again met us at the city simulator, wobbling on her feet slightly as she looked us over. As soon as Tala and I arrived, she had everyone. "Wow... Everyone passed... That's a first in..." She looked up at the sky, her eyes drifting off.
For about thirty seconds we all waited for her to finish, until Tala finally said, "She's asleep..."
"How can you tell?" I asked.
"It's subtle, but she's snoring. Also, she smells asleep."
I didn't know people had a sleeping smell. I hope mine's not too bad...
One enterprising student with grass for hair and hands covered in tree bark poked her on the arm.
"Battle royale!" Night Woman said as she started. "Wait... where was I?"
Nobody felt like answering, so she cleared her throat and tugged on her leather top. "Right. Um. This year's practical will be a battle royale against, uh, robots. You'll be assessed on your performance, and receive points for every robot defeated except the three kaiju-scaled ones. You'll be let in at random. Oh, and at the request of our school's biggest sponsor, this exam is a two-parter. The ten of you who perform the best will be pitted against each other in single elimination."
"What?!" "We're fighting each other already?" "What about teamups?!" The protests and cries of each student filled the air.
I was the one most concerned about the scenario, because I knew what it was supposed to be like. The addition of a third kaiju-sized bot. The ambiguous language describing the first part of the exam.
It all pointed at one thing...
"Tala, Fiona, team up with me," I whispered.
Fiona blushed guiltily. "I uh... can't. Dad found me while you were away and told me I needed to succeed or fail on my own..."
That utter fucking bastard! I knew it! He was using his job at the school as an opportunity to drive me and Fiona apart!
I bite my tongue as Fiona's "old" friends arrive to team up with her.
"I'm good with teaming up. What are your Talents?" Tala asks me.
"I can make a lot of electricity and have a durability factor of three," I reply.
Tala winces. "Oh, uh... I have a strength factor of six, I can harden my claws, my hearing and smell are sensitive, I have night vision and a regeneration factor of DP12. Pretty much werewolf stuff. My mom can make sound attacks through her howl, so I might get that down the line.
"DP12?"
"I forgot what the DP part meant except it means I heal really fast. I think it's named after someone called Mr. Poole-"
"Students! Please file into the appropriate locker rooms for your temporary combat suits." Night Woman looked at her cell for a moment before reading. "Generously provided by, yaa~aawn, Heroics Incorporated." She smacked her lips together once more as the students divided themselves by male, female, and enby.
Tala, to my surprise, approached the enby room.
"Oh no, have I been misgendering you?" my face turned red from embarrassment.
"Oh, uh, no you haven't. I mostly need the space. And they said it was alright for me to use the enby room since I'm, uh, trans..." Her ears drooped a little, but I couldn't care less about what was between her legs. Not until we turned 18 at least.
"That's great!" I said, pouring as much authenticity into my words as I could. "I don't really care about that sort of thing."
Her ears perked up a little and she smiled. "I'll see you on the other side then? Good luck until then."
I shook my head. "That's not what you say when you're going into battle."
"What do you say?" she asked.
"Good hunting."
My smile lasts all the way to my designated locker with its little digital nametag.
I open it and find...
"Ugh. Spandex."
*
Thirty minutes later, I'm in the equivalent of one of those spinny wheels from carnivals when the door opens and I'm pushed out; depositing my dizzy ass in what looks like a convenience store stocked with plastic versions of products.
The first thing I do once I'm in the weapons-free zone is toss my balled-up spandex uniform into the air and hit it with my railgun, watching in satisfaction as the bolt powders a meter-wide crater into one of the skyscrapers.
That, naturally makes me the center of attention for a squad of stalking robots.
With a wide grin, I put my hands in my pockets - one feature those shitty spandex skin suits didn't have - and find the remote for my backpack.
The grapnel arm, which doubles as an extra hand, puts my targeting glasses on my face and four taps later, my EMP arm has floored the bots.
Approaching the fallen bots, I clip off their antennae with a pair of pliers - you never know when you'll need a good pair of pliers or rope - using the cutting bit in the middle. "Let's see what we have here..."
Within ten minutes, I have two bots up and running, linked to an improvised control board made of components of a third bot.
I set them to follow and hand the board off to my secondary grapnel arm. That's when I hear a scream from nearby.
Running towards it, I spot the tall afric girl roaring as she puts down a bot like the ones I fought, only to get grabbed from behind.
Now, this is a battle royale. There is, technically, no reason I should help her. From the sounds I heard while reprogramming the trash bots, I noticed bigger sounds coming from the center of the city, indicating that the biggest bots - and therefore the biggest points (aside from the kaiju bots) were that way.
We still had fifty minutes, and I was feeling generous, so I put a series of low-powered EMP shots into the bot until it fell away from Naomi with a clank.
"You saved me," Naomi gasped. "Thanks." This close, her Creole accent was more obvious. "I'm-"
"Naomi, I know," I said. "You good? Do you need medical attention?"
"I have a regeneration factor of one. I'll be fine in five minutes."
"Cool. Wanna team up? You seem to have your head together better than most."
"Sure, boslet. My maman raised me to keep a cool head. You're the one who's a fan of The Engineer? Mel said you got pissed over Nanomancer's weapons."
"Mel? Oh, you must be talking about Oil Stain. And it definitely wasn't junk from some amateur."
Naomi spurted out a laugh. "Yeah, she did come a bit dirty. We come from the same middle school. Maybe I introduce you properly after we're done? She's not that bad."
I shrug noncomittally.
"What are your Talents? Mine are electrokinesis and Rank Three in durability." I keep the precognition in my pocket, having not revealed it to anyone, even Fiona.
"Well..."