- Oliver -
"Hey there! Are you ready to train?" Katherine smiled as she extehe invitation, her eyes shining with renewed energy.
Before Oliver could respond, he noticed something different. Both girls seemed radiant, but there was something more in their behavior—ara pulse of enthusiasm that did not go unnoticed.
Katherine was different. Her golden hair, which usually fell loosely over her shoulders, was now tied up in an eborate hairstyle. Part of it was braided, highlighting a white strand that trasted with the rest. Moreover, she seemed slightly taller, and an aura of fideed around her.
Looking at Isabe, Oliver noticed something simir. She also seemed taller, and her skin radiated a healthy glow. There was a vitality in her movements that hadn't been there before.
"Did you evolve?" he asked, surprised. The ges weren't easily noticeable, but there was something different about them that he couldn't ignore.
"Yes!" Isabe replied excitedly. "As soon as we started training seriously, we both evolved almost at the same time."
Oliver was impressed. He remembered that John had mentiohat both were close to a new evolution, but he hadn't imagi would be so immi.
"Wow! Nice work." He appuded, genuinely happy that they had reached a new level.
The two smiled, radiating satisfa. However, Isabe quickly noticed that Oliver wasly the same as when they had parted ways.
"Hey! Hey! It 't be! I had finally caught up to you!" she protested, pyfully stomping her foot on the ground. "How the heck did you evolve again?"
As soon as Isabe finished speaking, Katherine rao Oliver, fog on his right eye. "How strange. Your eyes ged cain."
"It just happened when I was returning from Luna," Oliver expined, shrugging.
"How lucky," Isabe said, still surprised.
--
--
Over the fifteen days, the trio immersed themselves in an interaining regimen. Although it wasn't as rigorous as the training with Nico, they khey o give their all if they wao be on par with the other recruits. After all, they had lost six months trapped in prison, and time was not on their side.
Oliver pushed himself to the limit but still hadn't accumuted enough experieo acquire new enhas. His status clearly showed how much he still o advance:
--
| Status Page | User: Oliver [Nameless] | Level: 4 [Knight] | Experience: [180/800] | Credits: 11,260
--
Finally, the long-awaited day arrived. Trior, the three had enrolled in the petition and received firmation along with instrus about the event's location.
"Everyone ready?" Katherine asked before they left the building. Each wore the Academy uniform, with gaus adjusted on their wrists. They didn't need backpacks or supplies; everything would be provided during the exercise.
"Yes," Oliver and Isabe replied in unison.
Desding to the basement, they headed to the Yorks' private teleportation station. The process was quid straightforward. In the blink of ahey found themselves in a publiderground station. Climbing the stairs, they were greeted by the intense brightness of a legendary city.
"I never imagined I would e to Las Vegas uhese ditions," Oliver ented, squinting uhe scorg sun.
The star sholessly in the sky, and the desert's dry wind brought back memories of Oliver's ret experienarea Alpha. The two girls smiled, sharing simir thoughts. They had never imagined visiting such a cssid symbolic pce; although most os operate on Luna nowadays, Las Vegas still carries a nostalgid timeless charm.
"It's a shame that the petition won't be here; I'd like to explore the city more," Isabe ented. "We still o go into the desert."
The three waited for an autonomous car to stop so they could get a ride. They were heading to one of the NEA's bases in the desert—a much safer pce than the middle of the city.
"I've never seen so many different uniforms," Oliver ented quietly to the girls.
More and more recruits kept arriving via the teleportation station, each wearing uniforms from NEA branches in some ies. The boy tried to read the names on the uniforms, but it was hard to keep up. He had seen Venus and Callisto when two boys passed very close to him.
"Hoeople are there just in our css? Something like 6,000?" asked Isabe, trying to do the math.
"Something close to that," Katherine firmed.
Oliver started looking at the streets, trying to spot any autonomous cars ing in their dire, but whenever one approached them, it stopped for anroup of recruits.
"Not ting those lost on exams, but we have 44 trainiers on h. Besides the twelve ies, that gives about 300,000 recruits?" Isabe calcuted.
"More or less that, and there will be two csses sihey're from the st six months. We must have more than 600,000 recruits in this exercise. I'm curious how they will do this," Katherine replied.
"600,000 will be tested in two weeks; This will be chaos. Shit, these cars take forever," Oliver said, frowning.
As if responding to his pint, one of the autonomous cars stopped before them.
"Of course, one would stop as soon as I stopped pining," he grumbled as he ehrough one of the doors.
All the autonomous cars were identical. They looked like massive bck monoliths desigo ensure maximum safety for their passengers. The design exuded both brutality and elegance, resembling a mobile fortress. The only detail on the car’s exterior that wasn't bck was the white letters on each door dispying the MiliCorp logo.
The SUV waited for the three to be seated before firming the destination.
"Destination: Military Base 45. Destination firmed?" the car's AI asked.
"firmed," Katherine replied.
While Katherine and Isabe discussed what they expected from the tests, Oliver paid attention to the city around him.
His view was filled with gss aal skyscrapers refleg the mountains in the background. Higher up, he could see floating holographic advertisements and drones monit the road traffic.
In a few mihe car left the metropolis behind aered the vast and arid Nevada desert. The ndscape ged drastically, and the monotony of the endless horizon made Oliver turn his attention back to his friends' versation.
"I think they might do something like a Battle Royale so that they eliminate many recruits at once," Katherine proposed her hypothesis for one of the stages of the petition.
"Maybe, but it would be difficult to avoid is that way," Isabe sidered potential s with the suggestion.
As the group tialking, the car, with a precision only an AI could achieve, navigated the roads swiftly.
Finally, they parked in a line, waiting for their entry to be approved. The system's voinounced, "Authorization requested. Waiting for approval."
"We're almost there," Isabe noted, realizing how quick the trip had been.
The group stopped chatting to observe the base. To their surprise, hundreds of other autonomous cars surrouhem, almost f a voy—all moving toward the military base.
The base 45 rose imposingly and alien-like in the middle of the desert a few kilometers ahead.
The circur structure had dozens of entrances. Although the design seemed highly funal, allowing easy defense of the position, it was evident that the base had no cover. Instead, it resembled a massive steel stadium.
However, instead of simple entrances for spectators, there were external barriers, automated defense systems, and anti-aircraft systems pointing in all dires.
The base was impossible to camoufge in the middle of the desert; in fact, it seemed to want the exact opposite—to vey all the oppression and power that the NEA wielded over h.
"They really spared no expense for these facilities," Oliver whistled upon seeing the blend of stadium and military instaltion.
"John expihat they've been pnning to broadcast the exams for a long time. But after the st fiasco, the pn had to be rushed out," Katherine expined. "Bread and circuses—the Emperor needs new ways to justify to the public why so much is ied in the army."
"But doesn't the NEA proteew Earth?" Oliver asked.
"Yes, but for some areas of Earth, it's hard for them to uand that we're at war. Especially if there's good defense using Z Crystals," Katherine ented. "For many, the ies are unnecessary, or it's almost impossible to remember them."
Oliver nodded. Even though he had visited some ps, he still felt disected from the ies. An ordinary person—someone drafted but never sent to the front lihey wouldn’t grasp why the NEA was necessary.
As they reached the front of the base, the car began to decelerate and advance slowly. Gradually, one by ohey were cleared at the entrances and finally had to exit their vehicle to pass through the gate of Base 45.
"Wele to Base 45. What are your names?"
GCLopes
