The air tasted of rust and cooked gasoline. A hazy, dun-colored light filtered into the testing arena, catching dust motes in its long, slanted rays. Outside the thick plasteel walls, the muffled roar of a crowd rose and fell, a distant sea of expectation. It was a sound Monoma had craved, and one he planned to own by the end of the day.
He stood on the packed sand of the arena floor, the coarse grains shifting under the soles of his standard-issue testing boots. The uniform was a bland grey, functional and forgettable, but on him, it seemed to hang with a certain theatrical flair. He rolled his shoulders, the fabric rustling, a small, satisfying sound in the relative quiet before the storm. His eyes, sharp and a startlingly pale grey, scanned the other applicants. They were a twitchy, nervous herd. A girl with sleek, muscular legs bounced on the balls of her feet, crackles of kinetic energy popping around her ankles. A broad-shouldered boy stood with his arms crossed, his skin shimmering with a faint, metallic sheen, like polished steel. Another, further away, held his hands outstretched as a small, shimmering orb of light danced between his palms. Amateurs. All of them.
A flicker of a smile touched Monoma's lips, not a warm thing, but sharp and analytical. He was a collector, an appraiser of talent. And this place was a gallery of raw, unrefined material.
A voice, cold and amplified, cut through the low hum of anticipation. "Applicants, your attention."
A man in a crisp, formal uniform stood on an elevated platform, his face impassive. He was a proctor, a cog in the vast, bureaucratic machine of the academy. "The rules are clear. The objective is to neutralize the robotic targets. Lethal force against fellow applicants is grounds for immediate disqualification. Complete elimination of all targets is the primary metric. Begin on the signal."
A competitor, a lanky boy with a shock of red hair, sidled up to Monoma, a sneer playing on his lips. "Never seen you around. You a transfer? Or just some walking ability-sampler?"
Monoma turned his head slowly, letting his gaze drift over the boy from head to toe. He gave him the full force of his performative smile, all teeth and practiced charm. "I'm a performance artist," he said, his voice smooth as silk. "I re-imagine things, only better."
The red-haired boy scoffed, but before he could retort, a deafening klaxon blared.
The test had begun.
From hidden panels in the arena walls, the first wave of robots surged forward. They were humanoid, chrome-plated, and efficient, their single red optical sensors glowing with cold intent. The kinetic girl shot off like a bullet, a silver blur weaving through the machines, leaving dented husks in her wake. The armored boy became a battering ram, smashing through two, then three robots with brute force.
Monoma watched for precisely three seconds. His eyes locked onto the kinetic girl. He felt a familiar, subtle shift in his own biology, a synaptic re-wiring that was as natural to him as breathing. He copied. The energy that had been crackling around her ankles now hummed in his own muscles. He pushed off, the sand spraying behind him, and accelerated.
But he didn't just run. That was artless. Instead, he used the copied speed to chart a new path, a tactical vector that cut across the robots' predicted trajectory. He wasn't just destroying them; he was dismantling their formation. He vaulted over one, kicked another into the path of a third, and used the momentum to slide under a sweeping laser beam, coming up behind a cluster of four. A series of precise, lightning-fast strikes to their power cores, and they collapsed into lifeless heaps. He wasn't just borrowing her speed; he was perfecting its application. He was making it art.
He could hear the whispers from the observation deck, carried on the wind. "He's fast.""No, he's a mimic." The words were laced with a faint, almost imperceptible disdain. It was a sensitivity he was well-acquainted with, the societal bias against the art of imitation. He let it fuel him.
Another wave emerged, larger and faster. He needed something new. His gaze fell upon the armored boy, who was now methodically crushing robots with hardened fists. A simple but effective ability. Monoma's skin tingled as it took on a resonant, metallic property. He let a robot's punch clang harmlessly against his forearm, then shattered its chassis with a single, reinforced blow. He arranged his finger on the edge of his helmet, a small, cocky gesture for the cameras he knew were watching. Easy, he thought, the word a silent laugh in his mind.
Then, something changed.
A new robot emerged from a central platform. It was different—sleeker, darker, with two optical sensors instead of one. It moved with a fluid, unpredictable grace. It dodged the armored boy's charge, sidestepped the kinetic girl's rush, and fired a targeted plasma bolt that forced the magic-user to dive for cover. Its attack patterns were adaptive. It was learning.
It turned its attention to Monoma. It fired a rapid volley of plasma shots, forcing him onto the defensive. His copied armor could take the heat, but it was slowing him down. The machine was boxing him in, herding him. For the first time, a flicker of something other than supreme confidence sparked within him. His hand, for a fraction of a second, trembled. The anxiety was a cold spike in his gut.
He needed to switch tactics. Now. His eyes darted around, searching. The boy with the light orb. Monoma had dismissed him as a flashy but useless distraction. But now, he saw potential. He dropped the armor ability, feeling the familiar sense of vulnerability return, and copied the light manipulation.
The intelligent robot lunged. Monoma's hands flew up, and instead of a simple orb, he molded the light into a blinding, concussive flash. The robot's sensors whited out. It stumbled, disoriented. In that split second of confusion, Monoma solidified the light into a hard, sharp spear and plunged it directly into the robot's chest cavity. The machine sparked violently and collapsed.
A silence fell over the arena. The remaining, simpler robots were quickly dispatched by the other applicants. Monoma stood over the smoking chassis of the intelligent unit, his breathing steady, his practiced smile firmly back in place. The final wave was approaching, the largest one yet. He could feel the eyes of the judges, the crowd, the world, all on him.
He let out a quiet, controlled breath, the ghost of a whisper forming on his lips, an internal promise to himself.
"I will be number one."