Ashes

[MAR 10 2015]

Much to Kara's relief she'd been mostly right, not even a week had passed and the news cycle had already moved on from the mysterious juvenile delinquent pilot. Someone else had completed the first stage just a few days after her, followed shortly by a slow trickle of others. These new pilots were now under the eye of all the press. Kara was grateful for the distraction, it allowed her to keep her focus on the task at hand; defeating the second stage.

The second opponent looked almost identical to the first one at a glance, but fighting it was much different. It was much more aggressive -able to close the distance and attack the pilot in only a few short seconds- but it possessed the same defensive capacity as the last one. Kara learned this first hand moments after completing stage one, the cheers around her had hardly subsided before she had been knocked to the ground and swiftly dealt with. Thus the process began again, with a new set of skills to be learned on a new opponent.

[MAR 16 2015]

There were more people in the library today than normal, it seemed that the breakthrough in stage one had encouraged people to come back and try the simulators again. Naomi sighed and got in the back of the sizeable line to enter the egg, hopefully this wouldn't stick and the lines would get shorter soon. Finally she got to the front of the line and leaned her crutches against the egg as she always did. Naomi slid into the seat with a familiar twinge of pain in her left knee, pulled the door shut, and entered her information.

Buildings and blue skies faded in and the round started. Her nervousness had diminished somewhat since her first run, she would even go as far as to say she was getting the hang of it. She'd adapted to the delay and her moves were starting to execute with correct timings. Her eyes no longer had to wander from the enemy to look at the controls, so she could focus all her attention to throwing the proper moves at the right time. As an added bonus the massive scale of the robots made their movements feel slow, which allowed her significantly more time to think than in a real fight, where she only had a split second to react to her opponent.

Naomi held her ground in a defensive stance to let the enemy approach a few steps. Just as it was stepping into her range she pushed her left hand forward and visualized a jab right towards the opposing robots guard. It raised its hands for a block but Naomi pulled her punch and immediately followed with another one of the same. Again she pulled it before it had time to connect fully, then started yet another jab. Just as the third jab was about to connect Naomi dropped her Eva's right arm to its side and shoved it forward for a body shot. Impact forces from the direct hit to the abdomen caused the opponent to fold slightly and it dropped its arms to defend against Naomi's follow up to the same spot, where it blocked the incoming attack. Without slowing down Naomi followed with a left cross to the robot's unguarded face, causing its head to twist to her right. Naomi lunged closer and threw a swift right knee to the ribcage, she sucked air through her teeth as she pressed the left foot pedal and sent pain up her leg.

Stage one was stunned, Naomi whispered to herself

'One more'

She grabbed the robot by the shoulder and sent a devastating right straight into its head. A loud crunch played through the speakers as the robot's head crumpled under her fist.

Time slowed down in the simulation and the screen faded to black. Naomi grinned into the darkness. Green text appeared on the screen and a giggle escaped.

She'd done it.

Naomi wiped her brow and looked at the ceiling of the egg to take a deep breath. She saw the light change as the next stage faded in, but she'd barely gotten her hands back on the controls before stage two had reached her. Before she could get her hands up it had put a high speed right hand right into her face, Naomi knew from the sound that she was down for the count, and just decided to watch it unfold.

She'd beaten stage one, and that was enough for today.