Scene: Mick's base, 2nd floor, southern bedroom
Celestia lay on the top bunk, still wearing her suit of armor, studying the tournament's regulations on a handheld display that formed a holographic image between two adjustable endpieces.
Jill closed a dresser shelf and folded another shopping bag, placing it on top of the other empty bags. She took the last bag of her new clothes to the closet. There was plenty of room inside. "I think I bought more clothes than you have."
Celestia was not bothered by the comment. "I travel light. It gives me fewer things to worry about. Also, some of my clothes are drying."
"Oh, that's right."
Mick stepped into the doorway from the hall. "Hey, Jill. I'd like to get you and Alex in the arena. Could you be ready in about ten minutes?"
Jill paused her clothes-hanging to respond. "I don't think you showed me the arena."
Mick smiled. "You can't miss it."
Jill had tried her best to forget it. "Oh. right. The... Death Box?"
"Yeah." Mick nodded happily. "Just head outside, the walkway will take you right to the front entrance. See you there." He stepped away, and then stepped back. "Oh! Don't forget your gun. I want to see what it can do."
Scene: Mick's Base, outside
Jill walked out of the residence carrying her massive alien firearm and wearing her softsuit, the light armor from Alex Smith's dimension that could be fitted to the buyer at point of sale. She stopped to look around. The landing pad and Mick's ship were ahead and to the left. To the right sat a flat area that had been divided into sections of sand and polished stones. It might have been intended for a patio. Beyond it were a few dozen yards of grass before the treeline of the great forest.
She turned to the right and saw the great looming square structure of the arena that Mick called the Death Box. It was attached directly to the back of the residence. As she remembered from the tour, some of the doorways in the residence led directly into the arena's internal structure where there were some kind of systems that needed controlling or maintenance from time to time. What kind of systems could these be?
She walked forward. The path by the side of the base led directly to the front door of the area. It was, as Mick said, impossible to miss. She looked up at the big imposing flat wall with the words "Death Box" embossed on it. A bird had made a nest in the 'o'.
The outer doors opened automatically as she approached. She took a deep breath and walked forward.
Scene: The Death Box
Jill had worried about what she would find inside of an arena called the Death Box. After stepping through the inner doors of the entryway, what little she found inside the Death Box disappointed her. It was one large room with flat gray walls, nondescript as there was hardly anything to describe other than a few orange cones in one corner where a section of the wall was a slightly different shade of gray.
"Hey! You made it!" Mick greeted Jill on her entry to the Death Box. Alex Smith was already there, sizing up Jill for a fight. Mick pointed to the softsuit that covered most of Jill's body. "Oh, by the way, you don't need to wear that in here."
Jill was confused and surprised by Mick's words. "Didn't you tell me to get this for this?" She looked at Alex who was wearing her full power armor and looking ready for a serious fight. If Jill would be using her gun, Alex would be needing that power armor, or so Jill thought.
"Oh, its..." Mick's laughed. "It's for outside work if you get into that. I was thinking ahead. We could pick up Tia's armor and your clothes at the same time. Might as well get you some armor too. In here, for today it won't hurt anything, and the emitter looks good on you. It's stylish."
"Okay..." Jill would have to accept that answer. "So now what?"
Mick spoke with a touch of compassion, knowing that Jill would not like the answer. "Now you get to sit around and wait while the arena decides what it wants to do with you. It takes about five minutes, and it'll give me time to get upstairs. So just wait and I'll see you in a few." Mick turned away and walked toward the exit.
With Mick gone from the building, Jill turned to Alex who would be her opponent but was the only person left to talk to. "Um, should I be afraid?"
Alex enthusiastically seized the opportunity to psych out an opponent. "Yes."
A few minutes later, Mick stepped into the control center with a drink and a bag of snacks that he had stopped to pick up along the way. He set them down and turned on the intercom.
"Hello down there!" Mick's voice boomed into the arena, its suddenness in the silence catching Jill's attention. "You ready to get this thing started?"
Jill hesitated, then nodded. It was time to get this over with.
Mick checked a status panel. "Sorry, you're still being scanned. It'll probably be about a minute and a half from here. That's all right. It gives me the opportunity to show off a little."
Mick pushed a slider and the arena went dark except for the glow from Alex's helmet. Then it went blindingly bright, forcing Jill to cover her eyes, before returning to normal. Mick explained. "I can adjust the light level, but that's nothing. Here, don't be surprised by this." He adjusted another slider.
Jill began to feel odd, an unknown sensation that something was not quite right. She took a step and her foot lifted further than she expected. She almost fell over backwards, but carefully righted herself. She heard a child's giggle. She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the noise to see her sister Anna happily skipping. Jill quickly turned her face forward, away from the hallucination.
Standing to Jill's side, Alex cautiously watched a number on her HUD until the number stabilized. Satisfied, she leaped high into the air. Jill, surprised by this sudden action, unconsciously took a step back. Her foot did not find the ground. Her other foot slid back on the ground and she fell face-forward, breaking the fall with her one free hand and landing on her knees.
Alex performed a somersault at the apex of her leap as she nearly reached the roof of the building, followed by a spin as she began falling. Her knees buckled as she landed and she had to plant a hand on the ground to stay on her feet, but she still made it look good as if she had planned to pose that way.
Mick's playful voice resonated through the arena again. "Nice moves, showoff. So, Jill, are you feeling a little lightheaded? Light-everythinged? I put gravity at 20 percent. I can bring it to zero, or make it negative and have you fight on the roof. I'm going to return it to normal now."
Mick continued. "So listen up 'cause here's how this works. This arena changes the laws of physics. It scans you to identify your strengths and weaknesses, and it will adjust them. It will identify your attacks, all forms of energy that you emit, and adjust them, ideally making them harmless. It takes the kinetic energy of a hit and spreads it around across a larger area and a longer time."
"When it's working right, you can shoot each other all you want and nobody will get hurt. In here, Alex could shoot her armor-piercing missiles into a normal person and it won't even break their skin. It works in reverse, too. You can punch someone's hard armor and it won't break your hand. Jill, I think you could already do that, but in here a normal person could do that too."
"Now I want to stress this as hard as I can. This only works inside the arena. Outside, you try anything and you're going to hurt each other. Also, you see that area with the orange cones? Stay out of that. The arena's safety systems are not really working in that area. I put up a little shield around it to try to keep you out but I'm not convinced it is gonna work, so just stay away from the orange cones."
Mick looked at the display panel. It said it was still scanning. He continued talking. "Now the flipside to all that, since it neuters your attacks, the combat system can enhance or suppress your movement. If it decides that you should be tired from a lot of hits, it will slow you down. If it thinks that a hit is especially strong, it will throw you around." He looked down at the panel, which now said 'Pass 1 complete' and was beginning the second of three scans with an estimated 108 minutes to completion. He looked back to the fighters. "Hey, Jill, take your gun and shoot the wall a few times. Go ahead, just shoot into the wall. Any wall."
Unused to taking directions, Jill hesitated before lifting her gun and firing a few weak shots into the wall. The projectiles were larger and slower than she expected. She looked up toward Mick in the control center. "My gun's not working right."
Mick chuckled. "No, it's working differently. The arena decided to change how your bullets behave. It does that for everyone. Try one of your cluster bombs."
Jill nodded and aimed. The barrel of Jill's gun opened wider and glowed a brighter and different shade of orange. A larger and slower energy ball launched from the barrel. When it hit the wall, it exploded into a spherical burst of energy along with six smaller energy bombs that each exploded two seconds later in their own smaller bursts.
"Nice." Alex approved.
Mick addressed Jill. "Okay, Jill. Now I'm going to have the arena decide what it wants to do to you, like how it changed your bullets. You might feel a little weird for a moment. This effects different people in different ways."
Jill felt a quick sharp pain and fell to her knees. A bolt of electricity arced across her back as the pain became an annoying pressure that she felt throughout her body.
Mick was concerned. "That's not normal. Jill, if that's your nanites doing this, tell them to stop fighting and just let this happen."
Jill stood up slowly. The pressure had not gone away. She balanced her gun with one hand and moved her free arm. This took more effort than it should have.
Mick watched, then spoke. "It looks like it threw off your sense of balance. Jill, put your gun down, walk around a bit, and run a lap around the room when you think you can."
Jill followed the directions, placing her gun on the ground and waving her arms in a circle while taking short steps to regain her sense of balance. Walking seemed more difficult than it should have been. Feeling impatient and wanting to get this over with, she started jogging. This was definitely more difficult than it should have been. Jill took deep, regular breaths but getting air was not the problem. "It feels like I'm running through water."
Mick explained that this was one of the downsides to the arena's functions. "Sorry, it looks like the arena decided you should be slow. This usually means that it will give you more powerful attacks or let you take extra hits. Fight through it. Get used to it. Watch your opponents carefully and you can predict where your opponent will be, where their moves will leave them. Lots of slow fighters win matches that way. Fight smart."
Jill broke off the lap after making a half-circle around the arena and returned to where she had left her gun. Mick addressed her. "You ready? Alex is always ready. Okay, I think we're ready to go. Let's you and her fight.
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