It was 12:30. Lunch was over and now it was time for the Practical Exam. The desks have been moved out of the Stadium and in its place was the exposed, reinforced metal floor that spanned four hundred meters in length and in width. Overhead, were four Jumbotron screens that hovered over the center of the Stadium. Below, the proctor with the microphone walked across the Stadium floor then stopped dead center of it. Meanwhile, the bleachers went silent, awaiting further instructions from the proctor.
The proctor tapped his microphone before speaking, "I will say this again. If you are taking the Standard Entrance Exam, please head down to the Small Stadium. If you are taking the Team Exam, stay here."
The moment he finished speaking, a surge of examinees left the bleacher leaving around four hundred examinees in the Stadium along with the proctors. By looking at the examinees remaining, Drew noticed that he, Elias, and Wan were on the lower end in terms of power. He couldn't be completely sure but he could feel the power difference between himself and the other examinees. Based on his intuition, most of the examinees seemed to be around Low to Mid E-Class while the rest were either Mid to High F-Class.
"Elias," Drew began talking to Elias before Elias interrupted him.
"I know," Elias replied. "You could sense it? The power difference."
Thinking of what to say next, the proctor resumed speaking. "Welcome to the Team Exam! As you may know, you will have five minutes to defeat as many robots as you can. You will begin with one robot, two robots, three robots... and so one. The robots that come out will vary in strength but none of them will be any stronger than High E-Class. To get a pass, you must defeat 20 robots, to get a perfect, you need to defeat all forty. You may not use your own weapons nor equipment, all of that will be provided by the staff. If you bring in your own equipment or weapons, you will automatically receive a fail. We will now begin the Team Exam. Each team leader received a number at the entrance before the Written Exam, we will be going in chronological order starting with Team 1. When the previous enter the Stadium, the next team should get ready. You are allowed to leave the Stadium if you are numbers twenty or higher. We will call you around two-thirty to return. Once you are done, you will receive your results immediately and you may leave."
Wan tapped Drew on the shoulder, "What number are we?"
Passing on the message Drew whispered to Elias, "What is our number?"
Glancing at a slip of paper, Elias quickly responded, "We're number nine."
"So we have a little over an hour if we account for clean up and set up." Wan calculated. "The exam is scheduled to end at four, so we'll be out at around two-fifteen."
"I guess the only thing we can do is watch until it's our time to get ready." Drew sighed leaning back a little.
"This should be a good opportunity for us," Elias commented staring intently at the Stadium. "We should watch how the other Teams fight, maybe we could do some last-minute integration if needed."
Meanwhile, the proctor below began to call out numbers. "Teams 1 and 2 please come forward! Teams 1 and 2!"
Scanning the bleachers, Drew found two groups stand up. One of those groups was the group with the pompous and arrogant Thomas.
"I guess it's our time to shine. Time to show these maggots that the Nevassuare family is superior!" Thomas declared in front of everyone in the Stadium.
Drew was going to snap but he managed to keep his composure after seeing Elias who glared at them with malicious intent, his fist clenched to the point where his veins began to pop out of his arm. His face was fuming with anger turning red like a tomato. He felt the same way.
Thomas and his crew of five got up from their seat and left the bleachers as if they were royalty, all attention was on them but it wasn't the good kind. A few seconds later, the second group, a team of three, left the bleachers, there was nothing notable about. They were your average joes, their faces are so common that one could find them in every place there were people.
A few minutes later, Thomas's group emerged first from the left endzone wearing their silver skin-tight combat suits which were covered in a layer of armor, protecting the chest and other sensitive parts. In their hands, were the weapons provided by Star's facility. Thomas held a claymore, a kind of sword similar to a broadsword. The voluptuous girl Rose had an Otrio staff. The glasses guy held a bow with a quiver of silver arrows at his waist. The other girl, who Drew assumed was Vera, held a large shield. Finally, the last guy, who seemed to be Jonathan, had on a pair of gauntlets. This kind of team was considered ideal in the Orion Alliance for a five-member team. You had a Swordsman, Thomas, who serves as the captain, close-ranger, and ace; a Caster, Rose, who works as the medic, mid-ranger, and team support; an Archer, the glasses guy, who serves as a long-range precision attacker; a Defender, Vera, who functions as the main defense for the team, a tank; and finally a Brawler, Jonathan, who serves a master of close combat. However, with such a well-formed team, it all comes down to teamwork and trust in one's teammates. In the end, it's the team with a higher level of teamwork and trust which can overcome an opponent even if they are stronger.
Watching Thomas and his gang approach the center of the stadium, the proctor seemed to have told them some things that Thomas and his company brushed off before the proctor ran off to the end zone. Once arriving in the end zone, a metal shutter closed off the entrance to the zone with the proctor disappearing into its darkness. With the final sound of the shutter closing, the exam had begun. The metal shutter from the other end zone opened and one, singular robot appeared out of its mouth. It was around two and a half meters tall with a white armored body, gaps to show the separation of joints, and a red core glowing in its chest. It hovered slightly above the ground with its pointed legs keeping it standing. It had no eyes but only a plate of armor, like a helmet, for its face. Its arms were just as pointy as its legs which made Drew wonder how it was going to move. The shutter behind the robot closed shut with the sound shot clock buzzer buzzing and the screen of the Jumbotron illuminated indicating that the five minutes had started.
Without giving the robot a chance to move, the glasses guy shot an arrow at the robot's head, hitting it dead center in the head with the arrow appearing on the other side of the robot's head, piercing the ground. A hole the size of a golfball was left in the robot's head and the glowing core embedded in its chest dimmed before it collapsed face down on the ground. Only a second had passed and a robot was down. Just how high was the glasses guy's archery skills? The arrow was so fast that Drew was barely able to follow it. There wasn't even a trace of Otrio on the tip arrow, that was just pure physical strength!
A second later, the shutter opened and two robots came out, the seemed a bit stronger than the last one but, once again, those robots were on the ground in seconds before they even had a chance to attack. Each with arrows piercing their heads. However, Drew could feel faint traces of Otrio emitting from the tip of the arrows.
The glasses guy had gotten a little more serious.
"Jeremiah," the arrogant leader ordered as the glasses guy whose name was Jeremiah place his bow down at his side, "you may shoot only if 'necessary'."
"Understood," Jeremiah replied pushing his glasses as three robots emerged, not from the endzone, but from the ground, surrounding the team. But the robots were different. These three were around three meters tall, they were clad in white armor but unlike the last ones, they were a lot bulkier and they didn't hoover off the ground. Again, their cores were emitting a red hue. As instructed by his leader, Jeremiah did not shot but instead, stood in the center as the others handled the robots. Thomas took the initiative, drawing his sword from its sheath as the robot in front of him charged, pulling its bulky arm back for a powerful punch. Once it got within proximity of him, Thomas swung his sword, making a crescent ark with it, slicing the robot into two before it could even have a chance to follow through with its attack. There was no Otrio used either. Drew realized, the guy had a good reason for being arrogant. His strength alone was enough to cut down these terrifying machines as if they were trees.
Averting his attention to the other member of the team, Drew had found that all three of the robots were on the ground, the second one with its core ripped out and the third one with its body smashed into pieces. To powerful! It's only been thirty seconds since they entered the arena and all members were standing strong. They have defeated six robots at this point and they only needed to defeat fourteen more to pass but Drew and everyone else in the Stadium knew they were aiming for more than that. They were aiming for a perfect score!
"They completely annihilated those robots." Drew heard one spectator say.
"They might actually get the perfect score!" Another one said with awe.
"Hey, isn't that Thomas Nevassuare?" He heard another one murmur.
"Yeah, the second son of the Nevassuare family? I heard his family are members of Ozwarth's High Council."
Suddenly, Wan began to tremble. It was understandable. Her brother was falsely accused of rape by a High Council member, and the High Council, despite being a symbol of peace and order in Ozwarth, was corrupt. She had every right to hate them.
"Those bastards again." She snarled gritting her teeth together. "That name, I'll never forget it! They were the ones. The ones who put my brother in prison!"
"Hold up," Drew interacted, "the Nevassuares did?"
"Yeah. I remember the day of the trial. The whole Nevassuare Family was there. They were looking at my family like they scum, ants beneath their feet. Pawns dancing to their rhythm. I could hear their whispers and I remember one vividly. 'Glass Road is no better than trash. They are all losers who don't know anything other than committing crimes. They should have never messed with the all-powerful Nevassuares.'"
"We'll show them," Elias responded clenching his fist. "We'll show them that we are not the 'trash' that they speak of."
"Wan, don't worry." Drew assured, "We just have to pass. I think that will deal the largest blow to them if we pass."
"You might be right." Wan smiled wryly as she stared down at the floor. "I guess, I just wanted to prove them wrong..."
>>>
Five minutes had passed and the Nevassuare team had crushed the exam, wiping out thirty-seven out of forty robots. They breezed through the first ten with pure physical strength but after the tenth, the difficulty of the robots drastically increased. It was still easy for the team to destroy the robots but their pace had slowed down substantially. Finally, they reached twenty-one robots and half the time had elapsed but that is where things went downhill. The team began to fall apart, the formation broke and each person was facing a robot or two and with painstaking effort and flashy attacks, they were barely able to defeat all of them. There was still a minute left and a group of eight robots had emerged from the ground like zombies rising up from the graveyard. The team was getting exhausted, their movements have slowed down even further and they were only relying on pure endurance. The team had finally crumbled, Drew could sense the tension between 'team members'. Otrio attack flew all over the arena, some almost hit teammates on accident. Before the knew it, time was up and Drew had understood that even if each individual team member is strong if the teamwork is weak, a team will eventually fall.
As they came back to the bleachers, Drew could see the bitter expressions on their faces. Even though they passed with flying colors, they were not satisfied with their results. They were too overconfident in their power that they forgot what a team was.
