Chapter One: Final Exam

The Trinity River School of Engineering and Engines came into being about fifty years ago, when the first version of the United States collapsed and the former union was cut up into pieces. Texas split off to become its own thing once again, this time for good, despite the attempts of the second U.S. to absorb its balkanized state. Each campus of Tarrant County College was forced to split off into private entities to survive, and the campus smack dab in the middle of Downtown became a place for everything to do with the new standout dream career path for many kids: Mecha.

At least, that’s the story that I was told when I first enrolled. I’ve learned to take mythologized history with a grain of salt by this point, but when I walk through the frankly ancient rotating door into the cylindrical lobby of the school, it tends to come onto my mind regardless.

The air conditioning of the building is on full blast as always, useful during the summer but horrid at any other time. I shiver as I walk past the empty reception desk into the main body of the school. When you first walk in, there is an open overlook where you can see a floor below, and as I approach it I walk up to the railing to look out the glass wall across from it. The school's training yard, a well kept lake of sand designed to at least partially reduce the impact of crazy professors throwing their students around in giant metal boxes, is already home to a crowd despite it being half an hour before class even starts.

I softly curse under my breath as I speed myself up. If I can get there fast enough, I might get a chance to talk to the potential scouts attending the exam before the professor arrives to chase us off. I run a bit til I’m just above the door outside, then inhale as I activate boost, burning some dimensional energy as I vault over the railing to drop down to the floor below. I think someone yells at me for it, but frankly I don’t care enough to stop as I run out the door.

As soon as my feet touch the sand however, a hand comes down onto my shoulder to stop me. The gruff, frustrated voice that enters my ears makes my hair stand on end.

“You stop when I say you stop, Rafflesia.”

Swallowing, I turn around to find a very unimpressed Professor Quest Baxter looking down at me. He looks almost as tired as a person can look, from a deep five o’clock shadow to the messy salt and pepper hair lazily slicked back with some sort of gel.

“Sorry sir.” Nervously, I crack my fist. “Just… excited for the end of school. Y'know?"

The professor gives me a look , then shakes his head. “You should know better than to flippantly boost like that, Rafflesia. What a shit example for the kids I have to teach in the future.”

“I know sir,” I mutter, “sorry sir.”

He sighs once again, then points at the side of the stands, away from anyone else. I deflate a bit, but start walking regardless.

{“You sort of brought that on yourself.”}

I roll my eyes at that. “You don’t even know what I did, I didn’t say anything.”

The smug tone of Maribelle’s voice as she responds makes my eyebrow twitch. {“I have access to the cams thanks to my expert skills, since I wanted to watch you win.”}

“More like you want to watch me get my ass beat…” I grumble.

{“Hmph! I suppose you don’t want my help then!”}

“You’d probably end up making me crash in the end, you can never trust an autopilot.”

{“Huh?! I take offense to that you know!”}

With a scoff, I stick my tongue out at the nearest camera. It shakes vigorously at me, and I have to hold back the urge to flip it off. That’s probably too obvious. In all seriousness, there’s no way I could risk getting caught with Maribelle helping me, not here, not now. This is my trial.

I can’t help but peek over at the sponsors as I take a seat on the bleachers, but find to my dismay that they’re all either busy talking to other kids or messing with their phones for one reason or another. A bit disappointing, but I should get my chance soon enough.

Is what I think – right before the Professor casually leaps up into one of the training Mecha.

The ancient model the school uses is a simple and small bipedal model, basically a torso on legs that happens to have all the bells and whistles a modern Mecha would have. Give or take a few, I guess. There aren’t any weapons built into it for a good reason, namely the fact that half the point of sparring in these things actively is designed to help a new pilot get used to the dimensional energy drain of the Power Enhancement Module. The other half is because martial arts are flashy and impress the people with money.

Baxter claps his Mecha’s hands, getting the attention of everyone in the vicinity.

{“Okay, it’s about twenty minutes before class is supposed to start, but I’m wanting to get off early to go drink and I see all the scouts that contacted me are here, so I’m gonna start early. Bremont, you about ready?”}

Across the field from him, the other suit playfully stretches way low before giving a thumbs up. Typical Hector. How the hell can you be both the class overachiever and the clown? I will never understand how he has that much energy.

The professor claps the Mecha’s hands again, before he calls out, {“As a reminder to the students and the spectators, this is how this is going to work. You will be graded depending on how long it takes for you to land a hit on me. If you are rendered unable to fight any longer and do not manage to land a hit, you automatically fail. Is that understood?”}

All the students in the bleachers stiffen, (including me, Baxter can be scary), and stand up. “Yes, Professor!”

{“Good!”} The professor’s mech raises its hand, gesturing towards Hector. {“Let us begin!”}

The fight starts off fairly typically for these two, with both of them circling around the edge of the arena, reading the intentions of the other while slowly getting closer. It’s an excruciating process knowing what is about to come, especially with these two in the pit. Out of all the students in our class, Hector has by far the best chance of winning, somehow having reached V2 halfway through the year. The logarithmic power scaling of multiple Ignitions is more in his favor then the rest of us – with the Professor being V3, he only has to deal with a rough deficit of 50% total dimensional energy stores and a 20% stronger boost. It’s still not something Hector can just sneeze at, but it’s way better than the 300%/40% gap the rest of us have to contend with.

When the two of them get about half of the distance towards the center, they suddenly burst into movement, the differences in their styles immediately apparent as they do. Professor Baxter is a tried and true melee fighter, his skills gained in war and refined through combat, and it shows with how aggressively he is now pushing forward. Hector however, shifts into a defensive stance as he cautiously shifts forward, waiting for the Professor to get close.

Frankly speaking though, this is kind of a bad matchup.

As Professor Baxter reaches close enough to go for a punch, Hector suddenly appears to blur, three separate copies of himself overlay upon each other, each separate on moving differently. From experience, it’s stupidly difficult to tell which is the true version of him, and nine times out of ten he manages to get a cheeky blow in from this. The few times I’ve seen him lose when this power is activated are all from someone abusing their own to counter it.

The issue is, Professor Baxter can’t use his power. Not anymore.

Somehow though, he still somehow casually kicks out to send the true Hector rolling across the field, though the boy catches himself nearly instantly. If Baxter can differentiate between the copies how will Hector even be able to –

All three spectral copies separate as they rush forward, each going for a different angle on the Professor.

I blink. He can do that?! Is that the power upgrade he got from reaching V2?

Seemingly nonplussed, Baxter raises a fist to block one attack, but as the clang of the impact resounds, one of the other copies hits as well. The impact is barely even enough to move the Professor forward just a tiny bit.

It’s still a hit though.

{“Geh, that’s annoying. You pass, Bremont. You’re up next, Taylor!”}

Hector cheers as he leaps out of the Mecha, running over to the bleachers before he is swarmed by the scouts. I sigh, a knot of anxiety tightening in my chest as I watch him be congratulated by everyone. The anticipation of having to wait to get my turn over there is… frankly awful.

Fight after fight after fight, I sit there twiddling my thumbs, hoping I get to go next. One wins with a wide range ice attack that the Professor still almost manages to dodge. One makes it through by throwing up a dust storm before sweeping the professor off his feet. Someone doesn’t even have to fucking move to win, his stupid sound power doing enough damage in a second to make the professor have to allow it as a pass. A girl manages to barely pass despite her lacking melee abilities by desperately solidifying a chunk of rock to throw at him.

I’m frankly bored out of my mind when I finally hear my name. I basically sprint off the bleachers, running over to the Mecha before the on-site engineer even finishes with it. It’s short enough that with just a split second boost, I leap up and step into the cockpit without any effort. As I sink into the Engine’s seat, there is a distinct chthunk as two metal spikes pierce into a pair of intentional slots installed above my hips. It might be crude, but since it’s basically a symbol of being an Engine at this point I can’t complain about it.

First things first, I make sure that the Power Enhancement Module is set all the way down. No need to make everyone piss their pants… well, yet at least. As the lights of the aging machine flicker on, I clench my fist around the controls and grit my teeth to endure that beginning tinge of burn in my heart that the machine initiates as it begins to drain my dimensional energy to power itself.

Standing the Mecha up, I then walk over to the designated starting position as the professor returns to his. It’s weird, we’ve done this casually so many times over the last few years that I almost relax a bit as I get into place. An abrupt video feed of Professor Baxter appears on my hud, and he chuckles when he looks at me. {“Nervous kid?”}

I groan. “I’m not a kid anymore, Professor.”

{“You’re always going to be a kid in my eyes, but regardless, you probably got this. I believe in you.” }

I can’t help but smile at that. “Thanks.”

{“Certainly doesn’t mean that I’ll take it easy on you though.}

My smile turns into a smirk. “I wouldn't dream of it.”

{“Good!”} The professor’s mech raises its hand, gesturing towards me. {“Let us begin!”}

I take a deep breath, then push my mech into a slow approach circling forward, moving to the side as I creep forward to obscure how close I really am to him. After a few seconds of seeming unphased by my approach, the professor takes a single step, then breaks into a rushing sprint at me. I was prepared for this though, and as he makes an attempt to knock out my mecha’s legs from underneath it with his right leg, I jerk backwards a few centimeters to barely evade the kick.

Not letting up, the professor uses the rotational energy to whip his left arm nearly 180 degrees around himself for a backhand strike, which I simply parry with my own left hand before lunging forward to strike at his center with my right. The professor is more than used to our lightning quick exchanges though, and slams his parried left arm down in an unnaturally fast way to deflect the attack.

Now in a particularly awkward position, I attempt a risky follow up by forcibly extending my lunge with a second step, hoping to ram my mech's upper body into his for my single hit. Unfortunately, he sees that coming too and utilizes the remaining momentum from his spin with his right arm to knock me down entirely, the impact pushing me into the concrete floor.

The blow isn’t enough to knock me out of the fight entirely, but it’s humiliating nonetheless to be knocked flatfooted when I need to be showing off. Gritting my teeth, I roll to the side and push myself back onto my feet, then as he rushes for another quick hit, I flick the PEM to max.

The feeling of the Mecha strengthening my power mid-fight is nearly intoxicating considering I had it off until now, and I can’t help but grin as I see that not only has the Professor locked up because of it, but all of the crowd has as well. Utilizing my momentary advantage, I take a risky step to the side before going for a shoulder rush, catching the Professor off guard and forcing him to block with both his arms to not be knocked off his feet.

Not letting up, I step forward with my left leg and swing a right uppercut, knocking both his arms upwards and out of the way just as I slam my left arm forward. My palm cleanly connects with his center chassis, and the impact almost seems to freeze time as everything comes to a stop after that.

Neither of us move for a few seconds. I stare at the scene for a few seconds, feeling almost in shock that it worked. That I got my hit. I don’t blink, unwilling to look away, at least until my Professor’s laugh begins to echo into my ears. {“Holy shit kiddo, that was a brutal combo! Where the hell did that come from?”}

I flush, then scratch the back of my neck as I turn the PEM back off. “I uh, was keeping it in my pocket for this?”

{“Well, good on you then!”} The professor calmly begins to walk back to his spot, where he waves me off. {“You passed kid, get off my field.”}

Still feeling a bit in shock, I move the mech back to the starting position, then get out of the engine’s seat and leap down onto the ground. I look up to see both the mechanic on duty and the next student cautiously approaching me as if I’m some sort of monster. Swallowing the feeling in my throat, I take a breath before vacating the field as fast as possible.

Stiffly as I think I possibly can, I walk through campus to one of the far elevators, spamming the shut button until the door is finally closed. The knot that has been in my chest all day unwinds, and I throw my arms up as I scream in excitement.

I did it!

I won!

Take that Baxter!

I leap up and spin around in excitement, giggling the entire time. The door abruptly opens to reveal one of my professors as I slam back down onto the ground and shake the entire elevator. I deeply flush, then awkwardly cough before I rush around her towards the lobby of the building. Once I am clear though, I pause, then begin to crack up as I collapse onto one of the big couches they line the halls with.

Eventually, I stop laughing, taking a slow breath as I look up at the ceiling.

Finally.

Finally Done.

Finally time to move on to the next step.

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