MAZE - The Endless Quest

For over one hour, the recruits kept attacking the spheres. Most of them kept attacking until they were too tired to continue. Then they would sit down and rest for a few minutes before going back to the training.

Hera was not one of those recruits. Her method was less strenuous, even if that meant she would hit fewer spheres. Before each attack, she analyzed the position of each target, the distance between them, and the best way to link her moves together.

After the first minutes of the training, Alex noticed what Hera was doing. It seemed so much easier to move after knowing where you should go that Alex was shocked how the idea hadn't crossed her mind. Following the older recruit's cue, Alex started to plan her attacks before striking the first sphere.

For the two girls, they were hitting fewer targets than the other recruits. However, for Mr. Greyson, who watched as they all trained, the two of them had the best record so far. Yes, they hit fewer spheres in total, but the number of times they got the timing wrong was vastly lower than the rest. This type of quick attack seemed to be made out of desperation, but in reality, it required much more planning.

The recruits kept doing that exercise for around 80 minutes when Mr. Greyson finally stopped them.

"All right, everybody rest." He turned off the projections, making a few recruits swing at the air. Even though they were not hitting something solid, the sudden disappearance made a few stumble and fall.

The recruits where panting, even Alex and Hera with a more contained approach were already drenched in sweat. Leo was in his usual starfish position looking at the ceiling, while Blue was lying face down on the ground. Hera, one of the few who were still moving, grabbed her water bottle. She needed a refill.

"Anyone else needs it?" She was too tired to form any more words.

Almost all recruits raised her hands, with hopes of not needing to get up.

Knowing she wouldn't rest if she picked all of the bottles, Hera just sighed. "Sorry, two hands." And then walked over and grabbed the closest bottle she could see. It was Blue's, the girl also looked worse than most of them.

As soon as her bottle was full Hera stepped to the side of the cooler and started to drink. In a few seconds, she had emptied the whole bottle. She proceeded to refill it once more, followed by Blue's bottle.

"Leave some from the rest of us." A honeyed voice rang from behind her.

Hera stopped filling the bottle and looked back. The dark-haired woman with chestnut skin stood behind Hera, Holding four bottles by the strap.

"Oh sorry, please go ahead." Hera stepped aside and gave way for the woman.

She placed one of the bottles under the tap and started to fill it up.

"I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Anaya" She said with a soft smile. Hera felt weird, that smiled seemed strange. It looked like the fake smile someone used to take advantage of the others. Brushing that thought aside Hera smiled back.

"I'm Hera, a pleasure to meet you. Sorry for not introducing myself sooner."

Anaya kept filling up the bottles without looking towards Hera.

"Don't worry, special people rarely have time for us common folk."

Even though her words weren't directly rude, her sarcastic tone was infuriating. Hera twisted her nose, part of her wanted to complain about the woman's attitude. At the same time, she knew that the best way to deal with those types of comments was to ignore them. So Hera did just that, moving her attention to the other explorers.

Anaya gave her another weirdly natural fake smile. "There are some cute ones here, but I'm guessing the one in the back is more your type. The one wearing a golden chain."

Hera blushed a bit and looked away before answering the woman "My type? No... I'm not interested in anyone. I was just looking at how they train."

Anaya finished filling up the last bottle and walked back toward the recruits while saying. "Oh don't worry. I'm just messing with you. I know you already have the teacher."

Hera stared at the woman, not understanding what she meant by that. She then proceeded to finish filling up Blue's bottle before going back.

"What took you so long? I was dying here, dying!" Blue said before gulping down most of the water.

"Sorry, Anaya wanted to fill her bottles too." Hera explained while she sat down near the girl.

"Oh," Blue looked toward Anaya and her group. "I don't like her."

"Why?" Hera didn't understand the reason. As far as she knew the two of them never talked.

"She's just snobby. Her introduction was so 'I'm better than all of you' that made me sick." Seeing Hera's confused expression Blue simplified "She just has a face I want to punch." Before laughing.

That only confused Hera more. Anaya had been nice to her. Odd, but nice.

Before she was able to wrap her head around the whole situation, Mr. Greyson clapped his hands.

"All rested? Good now back to yer arenas." In a few moments, all the recruits were in position.

Tapping on the tablet a sphere appeared in front of the students. But before the teacher said anything, the target moved towards the recruits at a fast speed. Some tried to dodge them while others just stood still, then the spheres started to bounce around the arenas.

"God f*****g dammit." The teacher grunted.

Then the spheres started to multiply filling up the arenas completely. Their light was almost blinding to the recruits inside.

"For f**k sake." Mr. Greyson's voice was angrier.

Hera did her best to hold her laughter. In her mind, there was an image of the teacher, as an old man, having trouble turning on his computer.

A few moments later, he had finally managed to return the arenas to normal. With a single bright sphere in the middle of each of them.

"Ok, this will be different, when ye attack. The sphere will disappear and the next one will show up around you. Ye have to attack and react quickly to get the next one. Ready? Begin"

As if trying not to give any chance for any jokes, Mr. Greyson said the instructions in a single breath. Before anyone could even enjoy his clumsiness, they were already in a new exercise.

Hera frowned when she heard the explanation, her experience with thinking before acting would be useless with this setup. Before rushing in, she stabbed the first sphere. Immediately the target lost its glow and a second sphere appeared a few steps to the right. Without rushing, Hera walked towards the second one and stabbed it. The third target materialized in front of her and a bit to the left. If she were to make a line connecting the 3 spheres, it would make a triangle.

Before she even started to move, the sphere glowed red and vanished. At the same time, the sphere in the middle regained its bright glow. Hera walked toward the center of the arena and stabbed the target. This time, however, the next sphere appeared in front of her, in a different place than both previous spheres.

"Well, it was worth a shot."

For the next ten minutes, Hera stabbed the sphere and watched where the next one would appear. With this, she figured out a few things. First, the second sphere would never be closer than one step away. Second, when a sphere showed up it would never take more than two steps to reach it. Third, the sphere would always show up within her line of sight. If not the sphere would appear behind directly her head, but it would always be in the same position relative to her head, and it would be brighter than a normal target.

With that in mind, Hera took a deep breath and started to attack. During the previous part of the training, Hera tried holding the daggers in different ways. Although the movements seemed more precise if she was holding them pointing to her elbow. It was easier to move if she held them like small swords.

She slashed the first sphere making the second one appear in front of her. Taking one step forward, she straightened her arm to stab it. Sadly, it wasn't close enough. Hera had to take another step and attack the target. The third one only appeared to glow red and disappear.

"That's just annoying." Hera mumbled to herself. The way the last target disappeared made her remember the times she would be close to beating a level in a video game, and died just before the ending.

After taking a deep breath, she charged at the sphere in the center of the arena.

It took Hera five tries before she was able to hit the third sphere. But her happiness was short-lived. The moment her dagger hit the target, a fourth sphere appeared, instantly turning red before vanishing again.

Hera let out a long sigh and looked around. Most of the other recruits were having the same types of problems. Blue struggled to get the third target. While Bonnie could barely get the second one in time. Leo seemed to be doing better than most. The man was able to hit the fourth target three times out of five. To Hera that was impressive, to Mr. Greyson that was a sorry excuse for an explorer.

The teacher was having a hard time holding back. He planned to use the dummies for this exercise. But after the problems with Bonnie's skill, Helena made him promise to use the updated version of the training.

Seeing the students swing their daggers at the air annoyed him. What was the point? There was no weight in the attack, no bounce, no impact to feel. This was supposed to help them train for real combat, but they just looked like a bunch of kids playing with sticks.

Taking some time to observe the other recruits, Hera noticed that the fourth target didn't appear every time. But she wasn't able to tell if there was a reason for it or it was just random. Still, her biggest surprise was Alex, the girl was able to consistently hit the third and fourth spheres. Only missing one in every ten tries.

She left her arena and walked over where Alex was. There Hera waited for a good moment to talk, so she wouldn't disturb the girl's attempt.

"Alex, sorry to bother you, but can I ask a question?"

Alex turned around, her hair stuck to her face and most of her shirt covered in a dark wet shadow.

"Sure, what's up?" Alex opened a big smile seeing Hera.

"How are you doing so well? Is it just instinct or is there a trick to it?"

"Well... I wouldn't call it a trick. And honestly, I'm not sure if it's actually a thing. After a few tries, I realized that before even finishing my attack, I looked around to see where the next one was. I thought about how would that work in a real fight. Mr. Greyson said that we should never take our eyes off the enemy. So I tried that."

Alex took a sip of her water and continued.

"I'm not sure if I'm crazy, or if the exercise is making me see things, but right when I'm about to hit the sphere, there is a flicker where the next one is showing up. Then I kind of do a leap of faith. Moving before the target even appears."

Hera considered what Alex had just explained. She was doing the same, her eyes would look for the next sphere before even finishing her attack.

After thanking the girl for her advice, Hera went back to her arena. Her eyes locked in the glowing sphere in front of her, and after taking a few deep breaths she attacked.