It turned out that Lucas didn’t have to wait long to see the newest duo he would be working with. After a full day of hard training, Lucas sat down heavily in his corner of the mess hall. Setting his dinner tray aside, Lucas set his head down on the table and sighed loudly.

“These scenarios are getting a bit too much Lilly.” Lucas complained to the AI across from him.

“Well they wouldn’t be if someone wasn’t so much of a perfectionist.” Lilly poked his head playfully “Besides, we’ve been running through scenarios that aren’t meant to be completed alone.”

Lucas’ head shot off the table. “We have?”

“Well yeah.” Lilly snickered. “I meant it when I said we’d make a great team. The solo scenarios were proving too easy for you so I’ve bumped us up to squad level threats.”

“Oh.” Lucas let the information sink in.

A large weight lifted off of his shoulders. Since he’d been failing more scenarios lately, Lucas had been growing worried that he wasn’t as good as everyone said he was. Turns out Lilly had been throwing him to the wolves and urging Lucas to fight extremely unfair odds. After the initial surge of relief subsided, a small amount of resentment began to creep its way in.

“And you didn’t tell me?” Lucas narrowed his eyes. “You know how stressed I’ve been.”

”I do feel a bit guilty about that, but it won’t matter anyway.” Lilly turned her head to the side and gazed towards the front of the mess hall. “We’re part of a squad now, remember?”

Lucas followed her gaze and felt his pulse quicken slightly. Ashten had apparently shown up to eat dinner just after Lucas and Lilly had. Her long raven black hair was gone, leaving her with nothing but a small bandage peeking out from the black beanie she wore. Like Lucas, she had been provided spare clothes to wear for the duration of her stay here. She too wore a simple, loose fitting army green t-shirt and simple black pants. Her piercing blue eyes had locked onto Lucas and Lilly’s table. Lucas watched Ashten approach, flanked by what he could only assume to be Amber, Ashten’s AI. Surprisingly, though Lucas suspected something like this might happen, Ashten’s own AI was of a similar construction to Lilly. Amber was smaller, sleeker, and looked to be far more agile than their other counterparts. As they grew closer, Lucas suspected that Amber might be a tad smaller than Lilly but it was difficult to judge based upon appearance alone.

Ashten stopped a few feet away from Lilly’ seat, on the opposite side of the table from where Lucas sat. Lucas watched Ashten’s gaze flicker between Lilly and himself for a few tense moments.

Lucas opened his mouth, determined to take the initiative. “Would you like…”

“I always eat with my team.” Ashten blurted out.

Lucas blinked. Lilly’ eyes darted over to look at his face and he could feel her suppressing laughter through their connection. Lucas frowned, unsure of how to keep the situation from getting more awkward and give Lilly even more ammunition she could use later.

“... That’s why I’m here.” Ashten’s own face seemed a bit more flushed from embarrassment but it was difficult to tell in this lighting.

“Of course.” Lucas gestured to a chair next to Lilly.

Lilly pulled out the chair Lucas had singled out. With a wink, Lilly gave the chair a little pat from her metallic hand. The action made Ashten’s eyes narrow and shift accusingly to Lucas.

Lucas lifted both hands in a rush. “I’m sorry. Lilly just likes to poke fun at others. She doesn’t mean anything by it.”

Ashten remained guarded but she allowed herself to sink slowly into the offered seat. Amber, who had yet to speak, shifted in place. The maroon lights that made up Amber’s eyes darted between the open seat next to Ashten and the one across the table next to Lucas. Before Lucas could reach out and suggest where she could sit, Lilly spoke up.

“So, you’re Amber I presume?” Lilly turned fully to her fellow AI.

Amber recoiled slightly but nodded.

“Perfect,” Lilly laughed as she stood, “Then let's give these two pilots a little time to warm up to each other while we go for a short walk.”

Amber remained silent, simply electing to look at Ashten quizzingly. Ashten, for her part, merely shrugged.

“I don’t mind.” Ashten gave a little scoot of her hand to the pair of robots.

“Excellent.” Lilly looped her arm through Amber’s own. “Let's go circuit sister.”

Amber allowed herself to be led away by the far more outspoken Lilly.

“Is Amber okay with going along with Lilly?” Lucas asked, concerned for the quiet AI’s well being.

Ashten turned to watch the pair disappear from the front doors across the room. “Yeah. Amber is just a bit shy. She was looking forward to meeting your AI. Though, I have to admit…”

Asthen’s gaze returned back to Lucas. “I didn’t expect your AI to be so… exuberant.”

Lucas looked down at his tray of food. “Yeah… maybe… sometimes.”

The pair slipped into an uncomfortable silence and they both began eating quietly. Lucas thought he could still feel Ashten’s eyes on him from time to time but Lucas was suddenly too timid to lift his gaze and find out.

Why am I so nervous? Lucas thought to himself. I was doing just fine before now. So why can’t I even look at her?

The shock of being brought here had removed his inability to hold conversations over the past week, or at least that’s what Lucas had assumed. He’d been able to speak to Lilly, the lieutenant, Jackson, and the general without much issue. Why was he suddenly clamming up now? He felt like he was right back in the real world. Back to being that socially awkward weirdo who only knew how to talk about games.

Oh, Lucas felt the uncomfortable weight of his own understanding drop into his stomach.

Maybe it was because he hadn’t been considering this as the real world. Lilly’s playful, carefree attitude and the exhilaration of tackling challenging new opponents had driven Lucas’ mind to think of this whole experience as little more than a game. And if there was one place that Lucas felt comfortable, it was in a game. Now that Ashten was here, the alternate reality was forcing that lie into the light. Still, he hadn’t felt like this when he first spoke to Ashten a few days ago, however briefly that might have been. So what’s missing now? Lucas’ eyes lifted just enough to look at Lilly's empty chair.

Yeah. Lilly’s presence has given me way more confidence than I’ve ever had before. Lucas admitted to himself. Still. I’ve got to make my own progress.

Lucas straightened himself in his chair and forced his eyes to where Ashten sat. She turned slightly, one eyebrow raised to question Lucas’ sudden change in posture.

“Soitakeityouwonfirstplace?” Lucas’ forced sentence came out at light speed.

Ashten’s blue eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What did you say?”

Lucas felt like his face was going to melt from the embarrassment but he pressed forward. “The tournament. I take it you, I mean your team, won first place?”

It took her a painful second to make sense of what Lucas was asking about.

“Oh. You mean the Focal Point championship?”

Lucas simply nodded. His disappearance the night before the finals spelled certain doom for the rest of Defcon Gaming. There was no way that Ashten and the rest of Phoenix Esports would have lost.

Ashten shook her head. “It hasn’t happened yet.”

Lucas frowned. “They rescheduled it?”

“No. It hasn’t happened yet. It’s still tomorrow.”

Lucas recoiled. “What do you mean tomorrow? I was brought here over a week ago.”

Something about Lucas’ statement put a sour look on Ashten’s face.

“Yeah well.” She stabbed a piece of broccoli with excessive force. “Any time I asked, all I was told was, ‘it’s classified’, but apparently we were taken on the same night.”

“But we weren’t.” Lucas restated.

“Here, no. Back home, I was taken on the night before the finals, same as you.” Her eyes grew hard and a fire blazed to life behind her irises. “So we haven’t played our deciding match yet.”

Lucas’ head spun as he processed this new information.

“Looks like our AIs are back.” Ashten stood just as Lilly and Amber returned to the mess hall.

“We’ll see you in training tomorrow.” Ashten didn’t look back once as she picked up her tray and left the table.

Lucas watched Amber give Lilly a small wave farewell before they split and returned to their respective pilots. Ashten walked out of the room with a swift stride, once again leaving Lucas with more questions than answers.

JTNestman

Thanks for reading. Next chapter in two days.