Lyght pointed it out to Mikael, relieved that they had found it, and jumped off the log onto the beach. They sprinted quickly over to the base and hid behind a clump of bushes right outside the building. Oddly, Lyght couldn’t see an entrance. He wasn’t worried though; he knew they would find it. They were still about ten minutes early. Hopefully, any latecomers would be in for a surprise. Readying his Dreamcasting spirit for imminent use, Lyght crouched down and stared intensely through a gap in the trees, waiting.
A full eight minutes went by. Nothing. But with around two minutes left, a pair of contestants rounded the corner – a tall, muscular boy and a girl with auburn hair. Lyght gritted his teeth in frustration. Two? With two-against-two, they might be evenly matched. He glanced at Mikael, who nodded firmly, despite the slightly worried look in his eyes. They would continue with the plan. At this point, Lyght thought they had to.
So Lyght jumped powerfully out to the right, while Mikael did the same to the left, white cloak flying. Lyght brought his angle around to prepare to sprint head-on at the girl, as Mikael charged the boy on the other side. Lyght closed his eyes for a second, frustrated. He didn’t want to have to fight a girl. That was no fair. But it had to be done. He opened his eyes as he came around full bore, ready to strike.
He froze. He saw something that made him hesitate. The girl had drawn a weapon of some sort. It looked like… a pen? She twirled the instrument for a moment, lifted it high, and ripped it down in a slashing motion.
The next thing Lyght knew, he was sent flying, vision flashing with a pulsing black color burned into his retinas.
And then he hit.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lyght must have blacked out for a second. He was aware of a vague, sharp ringing in his head. It was in his head, right? Or was it? What happened?
Where am I?
The world was spinning. Couldn’t it stop? Lyght tried to focus. Blinding light suddenly spiked into his head, and he slammed his eyes shut. He hadn’t even realized he had opened them. He was, however, beginning to think somewhat coherently. He became gradually aware of sitting on hard ground. His back was propped up against… something. It was cold.
Gritting his teeth and bracing himself, Lyght slowly, tentatively opened his eyes again. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision, the brightness making his eyes water. As his vision improved, however, Lyght was bemused to find it really wasn’t that bright after all. In fact, he seemed to be… inside, somewhere. A huge, cavernous space, with dark walls and ceilings. In fact, they seemed to be dark steel. That made them expensive. So, where was he anyway?
Groaning, Lyght sat up, hand over his right eye. He must have hit his head – he had a roaring headache. He heard movement.
“He’s coming around, guys. Look, like I said, he’s fine.”
The voice was unknown to him. Lyght responded anyway, “Fine? I don’t know about that.”
“Quit complaining, we made it! Lucky though, considering…” That was Mikael. Lyght looked up and saw his friend standing over him on his left. Lyght tried to organize his thoughts. They had been in the forest, heading towards the base. They had sprung an ambush against another pair, and then…
All of a sudden, Lyght jumped up, his body screaming in protest. He didn’t care. He looked at Mikael urgently, “What happened?! Where did the enemies go? Did we…?”
As Lyght was talking to him, Mikael nodded his head to the side. Lyght glanced over, and saw the two contestants they had attacked in the forest. Had that just happened, or was it hours ago? Lyght couldn’t tell. Regardless, he couldn’t help tensing and jumping back a little as he was confronted with their enemies so close. Fortunately, however, Lyght’s rational side kicked in before he could attack again. They were inside again, and standing together. Did that mean the danger had passed?
Lyght straightened up hurriedly and tried to cover up his overreaction. Judging from the amused look on the girl’s face, it didn’t seem to be working. A little flustered, Lyght crossed his arms and looked at her, “What did you hit me with? And what happened, anyway?”
The girl just stood there, looking amused. Lyght looked back and forth between the two newcomers for a minute, then turned to the guy. “So”, Lyght said, trying to saying offhand, “what did she do to me? I’ll admit, I wasn’t ready for it”. He waited for an answer, but one wasn’t immediately forthcoming.
Lyght stared at this strange new guy, sizing him up. He recognized him as the girl’s companion from the forest. He stood tall and muscular, larger even than Mikael, in a black sleeveless shirt, and Lyght couldn’t help but notice the massive sword slung on his back. Dark steel. That wasn’t something you just came across anywhere. Somehow, Lyght felt, this guy was important. And he had to admit, with his black bandana and icy blue eyes, this guy looked kind of intimidating. But he still wasn’t talking. Lyght frowned, then decided to take the initiative.
Lyght sighed, walking up and holding his hand out to shake, “Lyght, nice to meet you.” For a second, Lyght thought he would leave him hanging, but the tall guy blinked and shook Lyght’s hand. Lyght grimaced slightly, but tried not to show it.
Strong grip.
Lyght waited a few moments, but the guy didn’t deign to introduce himself. So instead, he turned to look at the shorter girl with auburn hair standing to his other side. Admittedly, he was confused about her. She didn’t look all that dangerous. It had been her who knocked him out right? And anyway, with what? He sized her up, frowning.
Dressed in a similar black to her companion, she stood confidently to the side, hand resting on something sheathed at her belt. It looked funny, but Lyght couldn’t tell what it was. Her auburn hair was tied together at the back, presumably to keep it out of the way in combat. She wore black combat boots and protective armor on her forearms, but nowhere else. She was relatively small and petite; overall she didn’t look very intimidating. Lyght frowned.
It was her who attacked me, right?
She raised her eyebrows, looking slightly amused, and spoke to Lyght. “I’m Iridia, nice to meet you, but call me Iri, it sounds much better. And that’s my friend Seth over there. Don’t ask me why, but he can’t talk. He can listen, read and write though. So don’t be a stranger.” She looked back over her shoulder for a moment, then continued.
“Sorry for earlier, but you guys did attack us. You’re wondering what I hit you with? Well, I wouldn’t want to give away all my secrets, would I?” She laughed again as Lyght closed his eyes in mild annoyance. “Fine”, she said, “it’s called ‘Sanctum Imperius’ – a really dramatic sounding name for a very simple Dreamcasting technique. Well, simple in theory, if not in practice. It’s the application of force to invisible particles; the air, that is. I used my pen to ‘draw’ the area of the force I was applying.” She drew the thing from her belt and twirled in in the air, and indeed, it did look like a very large pen. Lyght frowned; how could someone conduct Dreamcasting though an object? It was typically accessed from your body and controlled and directed by your dominant arm.
She held a finger up, explaining with a gleam in her eye, “I can see the question you want to ask. ‘Why do you need an object to do that?’ Well, air particles are minute and constantly moving; to what degree depends on the temperature of the air. Anyway, it takes a really subtle and intentional touch to manipulate any one air particle due to its miniscule size and constant movement, and immense concentration to do control millions of particles at once. My particular skill with conducting Dreamcasting through this pen gives me a much more precise degree of manipulation than any normal Dreamcaster would possess. I’m not gonna lie though, that was the first time I’d tried this particular technique. I’m kind of surprised it worked. Not complaining, though.”
Lyght was still confused, but tried not to show it. Mikael spoke up, “After you got hit with whatever that was, I circled back and waited for you to get back up, but you didn’t. However, Seth here came over and picked you up to carry you into the building. We didn
’t have that much time, as you know, and had to get in here fast to pass the test.”
Lyght frowned at that, checking out his surroundings for the first time. They were in a very large, open room – apparently in the building at the center of Zone Zero. So he had only been out of it a few minutes. Lyght tried to hide his frustration at being beaten so easily as he glanced around at the others standing around the room, who were by themselves for the most part. There were a few dozen of them there, all of them looking to be around Lyght and Mikael’s age. Though Lyght didn’t feel like counting them all, it looked like very little, if any, people had failed the test. He frowned at that realization. Wasn’t that supposed to have been very difficult? He and Mikael had almost missed the time limit as it was. Lyght clinched his hands as he remembered that the whole ambush thing had been his idea. If their own enemies hadn’t saved them, they would’ve failed.
Failed.
As the four of them stood there, a set of double doors behind them banged open and a handful of uniformed military sergeants walked in, accompanying Lyn in his full Legend gear. Judging by the reactions of the other people in the room, Lyght didn’t think any of them had seen a Legend before. Shock was the common feature in the many faces around the room, turning variously to awe and disbelief as the retinue made its way to the center of the large room, where a stage was in place. The group filed up onto the stage, forming a semi-circle with Lyn standing to the side, looking almost bored. A sergeant stepped forwarded and yelled out, “OK, everybody gather in front of the stage.”
After a brief pause where nobody moved, the sergeant barked out “Now! That’s a direct order. I want neat, orderly rows. No questions. Now move!
Muttering, the group of thirty or so Academy students hurried to line up in front of the stage, many gazes still fixed on Lyn – gigantic and glittering in his deep blue armor with the trademark navy cape, emblazoned with the slanted white L of The Legion. For his part, Lyn just stood there are looked indifferent, largely ignoring the batch of new recruits in front of him. For the moment, at least. Lyght figured he had to say something eventually. After all, he was a teacher, right?
When the students had all lined up and sufficiently quieted down, the sergeant raised his voice again and addressed the audience. “My name is unimportant, so don’t ask. You will call me Sar. And that’s at all times, got it? Ok, so welcome and all that… yeah, whatever. You get it. But what you idiots apparently don’t get, was the entire point of that “test” you just went through. I hope it’s gotten through at least some of your thick heads that the whole thirty-one who took the test are here? Sound odd?”
Lyght frowned. So the whole thirty-one were here. How had they all passed?
“Me and my comrades here, the sergeants, are going to be in charge of directly training you during your time here. We’re Dreamcasters too, so don’t you go acting superior to us, because you’re clearly not right now. Many of us are former Academy students, so you would do well to take our advice in training and otherwise, because we know the standard you need to reach to make the Legion. In addition, Lyn will make his wisdom known to those actually look like they’re showing promise, but it falls to me and the other sergeants to work with the less-skilled of you. Unfortunately, it looks like there might be too many of that group here. That’s too bad.”
He let his words sink in before continuing on, “It’s too bad, because it seems to me that what we as the test-setters were doing here should’ve been painfully obvious to you elite Dreamcasters. But it seems like most of you completely missed it, so let me explain. Here’s your lesson number one at the Academy: don’t believe everything you hear. Information is by nature manipulated and framed for the communicator’s benefit. This is a fact of life, and you all need to accept it. It doesn’t matter what rank or station they are, take information you receive from anybody with a grain of salt. Ask yourself; ‘Does this make sense? What is the context here?’ If you had all done that, for instance, you would have noticed that…”
“Hang on!”, Mikael cried out all of a sudden. Lyght cringed a little, turning to look at his friend as he spoke up to the sergeant. “How can you tell us to question everything we hear, then call it a ‘fact of life?’ Well then, I’m questioning right now if that really is a fact of life. How can it be, if what you told us is framed and manipulated information?” Mikael stared down the intimidating sergeant without a trace of worry, a look of mild amusement on his face. Lyght really shouldn’t have been surprised, but couldn’t this wait? This didn’t seem like the best time…
The sergeant suddenly burst out laughing, interrupting Lyght’s train of thought. “Very good, kid! That’s what I like to see. What’s your name, son?” Mikael raised his head, “It’s Mikael.” The sergeant shook his head, chuckling. Lyght was thrown by the man’s sudden change in demeanor. He didn’t look like the only one either. Regardless, he listened back in as the military man went on.
“And I promise I’m not twisting the truth when I say I like the way you think, as well as your confidence to tell me. But considering what me and my colleagues have seen, I’m honestly not that surprised.”
The man glanced at Lyn quickly, who nodded. The sergeant adopted his barking voice again, “Right! So, this brings me to the point I was getting to. If you had questioned the information given, you would’ve found it very odd that thirty-plus Dreamcasters with no training or experience were forced into a do-or-die scenario, where success or failure was determined by how willing you were to attack and destroy your fellow students. Let me be clear: this is not the way the actual Legion operates. Quite the opposite actually. So, let me use an example.”
“Mikael and his friend here…”, the sergeant paused, looking at Lyght with his eyebrows raised. Lyght spoke up hurriedly, “I’m Lyght.” The sergeant nodded. “Mikael and Lyght here had the foresight to at least try to team up, and we noticed they had a pre-determined method to meet up in case they got separated. This is the sort of thing real Legends do.” Lyght kept his cool, but glowed with pride inside at the compliment.
“However, what they did next is not what real Legends do. Without questioning the information, they decided to wait as a team outside the base and ambush any approaching parties, to knock them out of contention. Strategically, this was not a bad idea, but again they didn’t question the mission or its validity at any stage. Had they checked out the base, as was prudent, they would have noticed that all the exits were blocked off with multiple, massive boulders. Should’ve been pretty obvious. Had they looked for that, it would’ve become clear that the efforts of not just a few, but many Dreamcasters would’ve been needed to remove those.”
“It should have been instantly obvious that a team effort would be needed to complete the mission. Nothing else would work within the time limit. Not only that, but we know it took nearly the full time limit to reach the base. Thus, you would all arrive at about the same time. If you had all fought it out at this point, that wouldn’t really have benefitted any of you, now would it?”
Here, the man turned to the Iri and her companion Seth, still standing next to Lyght and Mikael. “You two, what are your names?” Iri answered, of course, “I’m Iridia, but call me Iri. And this guy next to me is Seth. He can’t speak, but he can listen and communicate through writing.” The sergeant looked surprised, but evidently decided not to go into it. “OK. Got it.” His gaze lingered on Seth, who stood tall and stared right back at him with those icy blue eyes. The sergeant moved on quickly.
“Anyway… Iri and Seth here were apparently the only two; unfortunately, to grasp the central idea of whole test. They defied convention, acting in a way that ensured they passed. Even though they didn’t know each other, they met and teamed up early on, set on uniting everybody in the arena. Am I right in saying that you realized that if everybody in Zone Zero cooperated, nobody could fail?” Iri and Seth nodded. The sergeant looked pleased.
“And so”, the sergeant continued, “they happened to be the firs
t two to reach base outside of Lyght and Mikael, though the rest of you were not far behind. Lyght and Mikael sprung the trap as planned, but Iri here was able to keep her cool, stick to the plan, and knock out Lyght over there to simultaneously foil the attack, while preserving Mikael to help with finally breaking into the base.” Lyght clinched his hands and glanced downwards as the other students looked over at him, surely all wondering the same thing.
She knocked him out?
Unconcerned with how Lyght felt about being called out like that, the sergeant kept on with his explanation. “And so when the rest of you all arrived with a very short amount of time left, the team of Iri, Seth, and Mikael was able to convince you all to work together to break in here. You should all count yourselves as very lucky that those three had the presence of mind to rapidly unite all twenty-seven of you into a single force.”
“You see, this wasn’t a real pass or fail test. Remember how I said to question odd information? Well, just know that if there were some of you who didn’t complete the objective by using teamwork, or who knocked others out to prevent them from getting here, you would have been placed at the bottom of the class rankings. And that is not a place you want to start in. As it is, you’re all about in the middle, with no points for or against you.”
The sergeant glanced at Lyn again, then spread his arms out and spoke even louder, “But, a certain number of you, due to your impressive actions in the Zone, are now ranked at the top of the class. These students, whose number varies year-to-year, will lead the group and be responsible for galvanizing morale and group unity during the training program. You will all be undergoing a very strenuous serious of physical and mental tests, so these leaders are all-important.”
The sergeant smiled, and Lyght was thrown off guard again by his change in demeanor. He continued, “But perhaps the highest honor of being in the leadership of this group is that while you’re a leader, you get to do something that has very possibly always been a dream of yours. Something very few people ever get to do in their lifetimes. Yes, while you lead your comrades, you will be given the official Legion uniform, which is yours to keep assuming you make the Legion. And most group leaders do.” There was a sharp intake of breath from students around the room. Lyght was one of them. This was very unexpected. It was a shame though. He wished…
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