Megan raised an arm in an effort to mitigate the damage about to descend on her in the form of a large metal hammer attached to a four-armed, six-eyed robotic monstrosity of a training obstacle in the Punishers Cane obstacle course of the Dauntless Empire Punisher Training Pod.
Megan flinched, squeezing shut her eyes and bracing for impact but was soon confused when no impact occurred. Opening one eye Megan smiled as she looked up into the face of the AI recruit construct named Wiremu who had blocked the hammer with his bare hands!
"Megan! I can't hold this for long so get out of the way bro!" Wiremu shouted through gritted teeth as he held up the hammer with both hands.
Megan quickly scrambled out of the way as a large dark skinned screaming teenager AI named Ajani along with an even louder well-built blond Viking lady AI leapt over the top of her head in order to engage the destructive robot, distracting it from landing a decisive blow on Wiremu who deftly released the robot's hammer arm and jumped away from the follow through from the second hammer.
"Wow Megan, you are very fast for a human at the start of the Focus Formation stage. You don't even have a Core Foci, and you can control energy to this extent, tickle me impressed Megan, that is quite the achievement." Jia-xin stated as she crouched next to Megan and assessed her injuries.
"I had a good teacher." Megan simply replied.
Jia-xin just smiled and continued to triage Megan's injuries as Ajani, Helga and Wiremu engaged the robotic training tool with rudimentary teamwork, circling, backing away, baiting and leading the robot around without taking any damage. They were not trying to beat the thing, just contain it enough for everyone to pass. Jia-xin held out a hand to help Megan stand, "Comon Megan let's see if the finish line is through that exit, shall we?"
Nodding Megan took Jia-xin's hand and stood with the rest of the AI recruits as they inched around the fight on the stage and stood next to the exit as Helga, Ajani and Wiremu led the robot to the far side and with three heavy decisive blows managed to knock the robot on to its back!
The AI recruits then slipped out the exit door with Megan following once she knew the three large human AIs were safe and on the way.
The final obstacle appeared quite mundane compared to other obstacles and just consisted of a winding running track with the finish line as a big simple square goalpost looking structure with two pillars on either side and a horizontal post connecting the two pillars over the track. A cloth sign had been strung up with rope that had the word Finish in bold capital letters. The running track was broken up into different sections each with a different obstacle like hurdles, steeplechase jumps and sprint courses.
Megan and the AI recruits sped forward as quick as they could, exhausted but exhilarated with the finish line in sight, they stumbled and supported each other as they traversed the path.
In no time at all Megan and the AIs collapsed through the finish line, utterly spent but grinning and cheering. The euphoria lasted exactly thirty seconds before, out of nowhere, ten identical Drill Sargeant Atkinson's materialised out of thin air behind each recruit and synchronously shouted, "WHO TOLD YOU THAT COULD RELAX RECRUITS, WE ARE JUST GETTING STARTED! GET ON YOUR FEET AND DO IT AGAIN!"
Everyone scrambled to get up as the relentless Drill Sargeant's verbally took them apart, one by one, each of them getting individual attention.
So, Megan and the AI recruits struggled to their feet and threw themselves into the Punisher's Cane nightmare difficulty obstacle course again.
This time, things had changed. Upon crossing the starting line, the weather immediately took a turn for the worse, dark clouds quickly covered the sky and by the time they had moved fifty metres down the initial sprint track the rain started in a steady drenching deluge that soaked the recruits and hampered movement.
Water was now becoming its own unique obstacle making everything in front harder by leaps and bounds. Water sluiced down the ramp leading to the platform with the monkey-bars and being drenched meant Megan was unable to just leap up and had to scramble for handholds and ended up sliding down twice before being assisted by the AI recruit Ajani who silently assisted Megan to climb then patiently waited for Megan to assist him by pulling him up to grab the platform.
Megan was only able to jump and barely grab the Monkey-bars from below this time and had to very careful when traversing to the next bar due to the constantly downpouring rain which made the bars slippery and reduced visibility by getting into her eyes as she tried to position correctly to get to the next one.
The semi-abusive shouting from the ten identical Drill Sargeant AIs was a consistent punctuation to the pounding drum beat and bass tones slowly ramping up to a steady background noise to the wet misery soaking Megan and the AI recruits.
As Megan was just jumping to platform at end of Monkey-bars a loud horn could be heard above al the other sounds and everything paused for a moment as a message was announced.
*ATTENTION, RECRUIT RANDAL HAS BEEN DISQUALIFIED*
Looking back and down Megan saw the AI construct Randal swimming through the muck below towards the sidelines, his non-descript brown hair flattened to his head with disgusting smelly swamp water. There was nothing anyone else could do when everyone was trying so hard to not fall themselves.
They all managed to reach the platform with the horizontal bars, wet and exhausted. Wiremu and Jia-xin grabbed bars and leaped up to cradles. carefully traversing one rise at a time to the top, next up Ajani and Helga flawlessly raised themselves to the top followed by the twins Ananya and Anya.
Megan stood below Anya when she realised the AI was having difficulty, the small female AI managed to miss the following cradle with one end of the horizontal bar and the displacement coupled with the angle of the bar with rain pouring down it caused Anya to lose her grip and she let out a sharp scream as she began to fall. Thinking quickly Megan braced her legs, thrust out her arms as Anya tumbled and managed to grab an ankle as the AI passed her. Unfortunately, the manoeuvre ruined Megan's carefully positioned balance, and she started falling forward about to take both Anya and her over the edge when the hands of Jun-jie slammed down and gripped Megan's waist, pulling both Anya and Megan back from the brink of failure.
Turning to Jun-jie Megan said, "Thanks Jun-jie, we owe you one."
Jun-jie smiled and gave a jaunty salute with a quick flick of a hand toward his head and with a slight bow to Megan, replied, "Anytime Megan, I know you'd do the same." He then gestured to them to continue as Anya and Megan picked up the horizontal bars and made their way up, this time making it to the top platform and Megan stuck around to assist Jun-jie as he came up behind them alone.
Looking over the edge of the diving board in front of them Megan saw Helga performing a perfect straight dive into the water and disappearing into the gloomy depths. The water in the diving pool was no longer the clear calm water in the first run through the Punisher's Cane, this water was now dark, turbulent and if the ice floating on the surface was any indication, very cold as well.
Megan didn't hesitate; she jumped into the rain and dove down into the underwater tunnel.
Freezing cold and impenetrable darkness filled the tunnel surrounding her and if Megan hadn't come through this before she honestly would have panicked at the lack of direction. She knew all she had to do was swim forward and she would surface eventually so she powered forward, her enhanced body allowing her to effortlessly cut through the water. As Megan burst from the tunnel to the surface she was immediately pulled back under as the calm zig zag pool she remembered was now a raging rapid moving river! Megan bounced from the edges and only just managed to keep above the frothing water to get to the end, as she was pulling out another horn sounded and another announcement:
*ATTENTION, RECRUIT ANANYA HAS BEEN DISQUALIFIED*
Ahead of her Megan saw the sight of a Drill Sargeant pulling a limp Ananya from a hidden mud pit that was apparently underneath parts of the shifting sands covering the track leading to the barbed wire covered trenches. A loud sobbing gasp could be heard behind Megan and she turned to see Anya there, tears streaming down her cheeks as she ran off the course in order to follow the incapacitated form of her twin sister. Another horn sounded as Anya ran off the course.
*ATTENTION, RECRUIT ANYA HAS BEEN DISQUALIFIED*
Megan had no time to think before another Drill Sargeant mysteriously appeared behind her to yell, "What seems to be the problem Recruit! Are you giving up? GET A MOVE ON!"
A hand gently gripped her shoulder as Jun-jie passed her while informing, "Comon Megan, we have to keep going." as yet another Drill Sargeant appeared behind him with more 'words of motivation'.
The crawling trenches now had Drill Sargeant AI constructs randomly ramming spears through the wire from on top of the trench walls. Wiremu failed at this point.
*ATTENTION, RECRUIT WIREMU HAS BEEN DISQUALIFIED*
The ropes on the rope climb now had grease traps to avoid and the rain made them very difficult to traverse. They lost Helga when she fell from the ropes while trying to grab the top of the wall.
*ATTENTION, RECRUIT HELGA HAS BEEN DISQUALIFIED*
The five remaining recruits stepped up to the Flying Foxes. The increased difficulty here was in the form of large rubber balls which would fire at the recruits hanging on as they slid down the wire. Of course, the recruits were not aware of this extra obstacle until Levi was completely caught by surprise and tumbled into the disgusting mud pit with a scream that went like, "What th... SHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT, *splash*, ARGH! What is this bullshit! Fucken balls mate! Really?!?"
*ATTENTION, RECRUIT LEVI HAS BEEN DISQUALIFIED*
The four remaining recruits now stood before the entrance to the narrow corridor of traps. Jun-jie spoke up to the other three, "If the difficulty of this obstacle is increased from the first time we took it then caution is advised I believe." The rest of them nodded in agreement. "That being said I propose we each of us utilise our strengths to work together to overcome this, is that acceptable?" Again, nods of acknowledgement.
So, the three AI recruits Jun-jie, Jia-xin and Ajani and the one human Megan put their heads together and strategised on how to pass the trapped corridor by working to each other's strengths.
The big solid Ajani would tank the big things, the quick fast-moving Jia-xin and Megan would bait the quick firing arrow and fireball traps doing their best to clear the way for Ajani and Jun-jie would use his superior reflexes to call targets and jump between tanking and evading depending on the situation.
The trapped corridor no longer seemed as daunting as before as the three AI and one human recruit steadily moved forward. Ajani would trigger the large traps which mostly rebounded from his forearms with a flash of core energy mitigating almost all the damage and only leaving dark bruises on his flesh. Jia-xin and Megan would then slip past and trigger the darts and arrows dodging all the way, then Ajani, with Jun-jie's assistance, would pass these triggered traps and trigger the next set of large traps. In this way they passed the trapped corridor in record time.
The AIs and Megan now cautiously approached the building now before them which had changed since last run. The building was no longer a featureless two-storey white box with square boarded up windows and black metal doors. It now looked like a fairly new warehouse building with large rolling doors big enough for semi-trailer size vehicles to enter side by side and large glass panelled windows that were well maintained and did not show any missing panes or broken fixtures.
Choosing to remain in the formation they had laid out already the differences in this obstacle continued inside as there were now small mobile robots that looked like mechanical spiders designed made by someone who was verbally described what a spider is rather than seeing one first hand. These robotic terrorists were adept at ambushing the recruits when they least suspected it. Behind doors, in shadowy corners and even sometimes popping out of trap mechanisms after they had been triggered. Suffice to say, it was a ragged and exhausted crew of recruits that finally made it to the auditorium with darts and spears raining down on them and on the stage now stood two of the massive four-armed robotic monstrosities one with the hammers and one now sporting large scimitars as well as shields.
The synergy the AI recruits and Megan that had begun to solidify now really started to shine as Ajani focussed on tanking and deflecting the hits while Jia-xin and Megan kited and exploited weaknesses and Jun-jie expertly switched up whatever role was needed in a situation. Using these tactics the group of four came together to succeed where singularly they would have failed.
The recruits could not disable the robots, but they could, through careful manoeuvring, position the robots in such a way to make it past them.
Ajani would stand tall and with a burst of energy discharge allow the hammers of one robot to smash against his core energy shields similar to Megan's platform constructs but different. The energy looked... frayed? fractured? No, that wasn't right, the energy was... layered! That is what Megan could 'feel' with her mind, the core energy that Ajani commanded was not strong by itself, but when he layered the energy in a certain pattern the overall defence of the structure was leagues ahead of just having one thick layer.
Jun-jie would run in and engage with the other robot, leading it away and keeping it there while Jia-xin and Megan engaged with the first robot and prevent it from using its shields or the other hammer to harm Ajani as he manhandled it to the edge of the stage.
When the recruits emerged from the auditorium battle they all struggled forward under clear skies, which when you think about it should have been a big red flag as the rest of the Punisher's Cane second run through before them had been done entirely in a storm filled environment.
They struggled forward supporting each other down the last running track toward the finish line, oblivious to the danger in front of them until a loud *crack* resounded and Jun-jie rocketed back so fast he was off the track and tumbling away in an instant before anyone could react.
*ATTENTION, RECRUIT JUN-JIE HAS BEEN DISQUALIFIED*
Jia-xin, Ajani and Megan could only look on as a Drill Sargeant picked up Jun-jie's limp body and carried him away. Megan, realising a second beforehand, leapt out and tackled Jia-xin to the ground as another loud *crack* sounded and a ball commonly known as a dodgeball made of leather whisked past above them, "Come on, watch out for the balls!" Megan shouted as she picked up Jia-xin and herself off the ground and into another stumbling run, they dodged and evaded while occasionally taking a glancing blow but fortunately were able to persevere until finally they crashed to the ground past the finish line in a heap of tangled limbs and burning regrets.
For about thirty seconds the remaining recruits both AI and human sat and contemplated their life choices with particular attention to the reasons why they were here and still going.
It was not long though before three intense Drill Sargeant AI constructs appeared from behind them and barked in unison, "WHAT ARE DOING RECRUITS, THE PUNISHER WILL NOT COMPLETE ITSELF, GET MOVING, MOVE MOVE MOVE."
The AIs Ajani and Jia-xin and the human Megan stirred, groaning and moaning, into motion again.