"And those will be the teams for the Exam Wars, the games will be announced as they come, with exception of the first one who was already informed to your team captains." The Principal Pig said from a big screen that was projecting his visage to everyone within the auditorium, "Most of your captains should have already told you what will be the first event, but here it is..."

  The Pig said as the sound of drums resounded in the auditorium, the lights went off and some people cried in panic, but only for a second, as the sight of the screen brought light to the darkness, almost as Alexa did when she opened the refrigerator in the middle of the night for her 3:45 AM mango.

  "The first game of this Year Exam wars will be...." The voice of a woman said from the big screen as images of multiple sports started passing by, "DODGEBALL!"

  And sure enough, the words dodgeball came out, not that Alexa had thought another sport would come; she already knew this one was coming after all, Glory and An had prepared her for this one. And she trusted them to know what was going to happen.

  They had been students far longer than Alexa, and more importantly....they seemed to be smarter than the average kid, besides they had access to great deals of data!

  Then again, so did Alexa, if she used her bracelet to ask the Saintsworths, a thing that Alexa hadn't done...and perhaps she should have done, but that wasn't her fault!

  If it was important then surely the naggy one would have done it! So if she didn't do it, then it wasn't important!

  "You didn't give me a chance to do so!" "Yeah, I'm with Alexa on this one, 'Naggy One' it's your fault we aren't prepared...heh."

  "It was obvious even before they announced it," Glory said from the side to Alexa.

  "The plebians still need it spelled to them, look at them go," An added as he nodded and pointed with his hand to the other csses.

  "YES!"

  "LET'S BEEPING GOOOOOO!!!!"

  "WE WILL, WE WILL ROCK THEM!"

  "SING IT!"

  "WE WILL, WE WILL ROCK THEM!"

  Some even started singing that while rocking their feet against the floor and cpping at a quite honestly, catchy tune. Even Alexa had started to hit the floor with her feet and cpping at the same rhythm.

  "Okay, leaving their bloodlust aside," Glory started turning to Alexa, who silently stopped doing as the other kids did. "...Did you get the rules?"

  Did Alexa get the rules? Kind of...

  "First, don't get hit." Alexa said raising one finger, "Second, catch the ball or make sure you or An can catch it if I can't catch it."

  That was also important, or they would end up losing.

  "Third, if one of you gets hit. Alexa needs to catch the ball to save you." That one was important, since Alexa's team was only three compared to the other side that had five, they were at a disadvantage from the start. "And fourth, Alexa must win."

  The fourth was also extra important, her mango supplies depended on their win.

  "Yes, that is right." Glory nodded at Alexa's recount of their situation, "You must not overwork yourself and be calm about it, even if you don't manage to win we are in a good situation so long we tire them out."

  Tire them out?

  "How so?" Alexa asked confused, wouldn't it be better to defeat them? Surely they would grant them enough time to recover and the means to do so.

  Not even Alexa would be tested multiple times in a day unless it was an endurance type of test, so far this one seemed to be more of a [Combat] type of test, or even an [Evaluation].

  Surely, they would make them participate only in enough scenarios so that they would prove their mettle.

  "The teachers like to use this to evaluate us, from our athletics to test our strategy, so stamina management is as important as winning." An answered before Glory could.

  Stamina management?

  "Alexa has good stamina." Alexa said thinking about her normal status, hell, even her sealed status was still better than average.

  Her stamina mostly depended on how much Biomass she had access to, granted she had less than half of her normal stamina, same for her strenght and most of her abilities.

  But even like this, she was still better than her peers stamina-wise, at least by two!

  "Hope so, most Core Users can't keep up with normies after getting their powers stripped, even physical Core Users like you," An said turning to look at Alexa, "I know most of your strenght comes from body modifications, but will you be up to dodge? The normal kids from other css do take great joy in bullying us in the court."

  An said that st part pointing at the hungry eyes of the other kids, most licked their lips while looking at them, Alexa could swear a few of those even seemed to look more dangerous than most of the other P-series subjects she had fought during the test at the boratory.

  "...Alexa will be [Devoured] in case of defeat?" Alexa decided to ask first, if that was on the table she would need to act in a different way to ensure her survival. She was not pnning on getting [Terminated] in such a scenario.

  "...No?" Glory answered confused, "Define [Devoured]? You will not loss any status or anything, if anything we may loss access to some facilities, usually they either take some of our early dinning rights, like access to the cafeteria or they ask for the right to decide the first expedition of the next year."

  Expedition?

  "What expedition?" Alexa asked turning to Glory, she had seen one of their expedition. They had gone to the testing site she was living before in one of these after all.

  "Each year the school takes us to a expedition to some facilities in the city, this year for example we went to a Research and Development boratory of the Saintsworths," Glory said bringing a pamphlet with the picture of the same site Alexa had ran away from, "The css F, the one you came from actually, took the right to visit it from us. Weren't you there?"

  ...Yes, yes she was.

  "I transferred after that," Alexa said, taking the pamphlet from Glory, "So if Alexa wins, can she decide where we go?"

  She needed that victory if this was on the table; she did NOT want to go back there, even if she was now allegedly under the protection of Alexanders as her little sister, she didn't want to go there at all, the people there where the ones who knew her the most, they had all her data!

  They knew all Alexa's sizes! They even knew what type of oil she liked to use to make sure her legs were fully functional!

  ...Also, they were bullies who didn't fill Alexa's tank above one-fourth! She needed all the fuel! Her [CRAB] form was fuel expensive!

  "I guess?" Glory said confused, "Usually the css that wins decides among everyone where to go, st year they picked the R&D boratory since there were some rumours about a new type of pet being developed there."

  Glory then turned to An and made a motion with her hands.

  "Ah, right, it was around here..." An said, scrolling on her phone, searching for something, "Here it is, the smart pet Bunny edition."

  And then turning the phone to Alexa, he showed the image of one of the P8 test subjects, the ones Alexa had seen the other [Human Kids] py with.

  "...So can Alexa ask for the right to pick?" Alexa needed to confirm this, if worst came to worst...Alexa would need to do the impossible...she would need to fail. No matter how hard that would be.

  "...I mean...we are mostly given up with the right to pick anyway...right?" Glory said, turning to An.

  "Yeah, we will not be able to go there again this year anyway. So may as well, I think this year was going to be an attractions park, a buffet and a trip to an army base?" An answered Glory's query, "I doubt the other students will care, if anyone wants to go anywhere they go on their own after all."

  So Alexa could pick? Also there was a very interesting choice there, "Will Alexa get more data in the sites?" Alexa needed to confirm her suspicions first; well, even if they didn't give her much data, she could probably still pick the same one.

  "Yeah, they will give us some brochures with the data of the sites." Glory answered, "But we need to win first, and that will be hard. They are extra motivated this year since the attraction park is one sponsored by the Saintsworths, so the attractions are top tier."

  Who would even want to go to a site monitored by the Saintsworths, not Alexa. She had greater pns for that victory.

  "Good, you better remember your promise!" Alexa said nodding, she would need to pull to the maximum her body, but it would be so worth it.

  "Don't forget that we will need to clear it with [Haephestus' Forge]." "Not that they will compin, they owe us plenty as is."

  Even the Naggy and Mean one thought Alexa's decision was the correct!

  "Then let's go!" Alexa said raising her fist to the air, it was time to boogey!

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

  The combat zone was more weird than Alexa had thought it would be, she had thought it would be an enclosure like the ones she had fought before within the Saintsworths Research and Development boratory. But it wasn't like that.

  Instead it was a wooded floor with white lines delimiting the area of combat, and even that was weird. First of all, the site was a big rectangle, at the middle of it was a white line making it so there were two rectangles on the floor.

  Outside, this was a bigger rectangle, delimiting a small area of about one meter wide between the exterior and interior rectangles. The only difference between these two was the fact that the external rectangle didn't have a delimitation in the middle.

  Something like...

  The game would start soon enough and right now Alexa was supposed to do something of great importance.

  "Okay boy and girls," A teacher person (Female) wearing a pair of weirdly short shorts pants and a very tight white blouse that didn't cover her belly button was standing in front of them, "The changing rooms are that way, we have your uniforms there so just go and pick the ones with your name. You know how to read right?"

  "Yes, we are taught how to read." Glory answered with sarcasm the question.

  "One can't be too sure these days, had one of the B - Css ask where was the person that was going to read for him," The teacher person with clothes too small for her body said shaking her head.

  "Alexa can read too!" Alexa said, raising her hand to make sure the teacher, without enough money to buy appropriate clothing, could know that she was able to read.

  "Good, then go and change into your uniforms, you will find a pair of white shorts, shirts, sneakers, stocks and every fancy thing you need. Go and do your things," The teacher person with clothes that seemed to want to burst at any moment said motioning for them to go on their way, "I need to speak with the dodgeball pyers and make sure they don't hurt your feelings too badly."

  And in that tone the teacher person left.

  "Hurt our feelings?" Alexa asked as An and Glory started walking towards the door that the teacher person pointed them to.

  "*Sigh* She really will do that," Glory said standing at the doorway into a room with the figure of a weird human stick-like figure with a triangle on the lower body, "Some of our peers are...proud..."

  "Dumb, dumb is the word you are looking for," An said from the side with a wry smile, "We are prideful, we are very proud of who we are, what we are...and what we will do. There are very few things that we aren't successful at...But we are humans, even with the accelerated learning...the csses. The coaching...we are humans, worse...We are brats."

  That...didn't sound like what a [Brat] would say, if anything the only normal kids Alexa had seen where in other cssrooms, and in a mirror. When she was looking at herself.

  And that was not saying much to be honest either.

  "And so, to protect the brittle pride that we have in our bloodline, in our name, in our achievements...She will attempt to make sure they aren't too happy when they trounce us in the physical exams..." An ended up sighing, "It's the same every year, and the result is always the same, too."

  The same result?

  Was that why the teacher person didn't have enough money to buy clothes of her size?

  "Or at least it used to," Glory jumped in the conversation, "This year we will be different since we have you Alexa, you are our hope for this, so don't mind their feelings. Utterly crush them."

  Glory's eyes seemed to have fire in them as she said that, was it that much of an issue?

  "Okay," So Alexa answered as such, and without saying anything, An walked into the door with the stick figure without a triangle on the lower body.

  "Let's go and change too," Glory said pulling Alexa towards the other door, looking closer to the door it also said "Women" below the stick figure, perhaps Alexa should have paid attention to that before?

  Walking into the new room, Alexa found a white floor made out of small square-shaped pieces; a quick sample from the floor resulted in the white squares being made of ceramic polished to this almost reflective color.

  The room also had metallic boxes at the sides; most were closed with locks on them, there were a couple wooden benches between the metal boxes and a few towels on the bench; no mango towel had been detected yet.

  "Come this way, the lockers for us are at the end, we are always given the free sicne we aren't members of any sports club." Glory said pulling Alexa deeper into the room, sure enough in one of the far end walls stood a group of lockers, most were open and empty but two stood closed and alone.

  In the first was written the name [Gloria Bckthorn] and besides it another one read [Alexa Saintsworths].

  "They should open with our biometrics, but in case they don't use your student ID." Glory said pcing her hand in the locker and showing Alexa how to open, it was simple enough from what Alexa saw.

  So doing the same Alexa pced her hand on the handle and...

  "[Detecting Hail from foreign server...]"

  "[Initiating handshake...]"

  "[Checking credentials...]"

  That...wasn't good, Alexa didn't have any good memories of this event.

  "[Handshake sucessful, sved foreign server.]"

  What? That...was new, and what Alexa should have seen in any of the other instances!

  "[Opening locker room.]"

  "[The Saintsworths Conglomerate thanks you for your efforts.]"

  Heh, Alexa had won!

  "Is everything there?" Glory asked as she removed her bzer and hanged it inside the locker, "You should have at least a blouse, a pair of shorts, socks and sneakers, Mother added some hair ties for me and a pair of sweat wristbands for me."

  So there was personalized stuff?

  "I have the shirt, the shorts, a pair of socks and a box!" Alexa said extending her hand towards the box, it had a cute mango on it, so surely it was for Alexa! Also it was on her locker, so it was hers now anyway.

  "Oh, wonder what they send for you. Mother left the things just on the lockere, your Mother is more careful huh." Glory's words made Alexa pause.

  "...So only Mothers can put things here?" Alexa asked, she didn't have a Mother. Then who put this here? If the school provided the uniform...who gave Alexa a gift?

  "I mean...I guess Father could too? But he doesn't care that much about events without good earnings," Glory answered, Alexa could hear her struggling with something, was she having trouble dressing? "You are the one who knows your family better, which member of your family would send you a box?"

  ...Yeah, that was the issue. Alexa didn't have a real family, only coworkers, and one blonde asshole who seemed to find her amusing.

  Then who sent the box?