51 First Battle

Daniel did not even have the time to curse as he fumbled to strap on his bulletproof vest while buckling two Glocks around his waist at the same time.

Placing two carbon fiber hunting knives with homing beacons on the belt rings of his trousers, he finally looked up only to see that his supposed partner in this war game have already ran two blocks away.

"WTF?!" Daniel could not help but exclaim loudly as he saw 666 ran even further, looking as though the other was running away from a plague or something.

Without waiting for another second, Daniel directly followed. It's actually quite lucky that 666 decided to run in a straight line through the main road since it would have been impossible to follow this teenager if the latter were to take any other route instead.

The arena itself went as far as Daniel's eye could see. The ceiling itself has been projected by holographic technology, allowing for people to believe that they were standing underneath the cloudy sky, with the sun in full view, instead of actually being a few dozen kilometers underground.

The buildings on the either side of the road were only a few stories tall at most, with most of them being built with what looked to be concrete using the technology back in the early 21st century.

The sandy surface of the ground along with how the architecture of the buildings were designed made Daniel realize that this war game seemed to be set in the early 2000s Middle East, from what he had learned back when he had history lessons in his old school.

Though, Daniel did not have the time to lament about the cultural background of his AR game since a robotic voice had suddenly resounded throughout the entire arena.

<This training regiment will begin in 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Training begin!>

Although Daniel managed to decrease the distance between him and 666, he was still about a block away from the other person when the training regiment started.

Without warning, Daniel suddenly felt a chill on his back. Instinctively, he instantly crouched down and did a barrel roll towards the right side, shielding himself from whatever was behind him by placing himself against the wall of the concrete building located right next to him.

At the same time, he found a few burnt marks from the location he was in before, meaning that something must have fired laser beams at him from behind and he only managed to barely dodge from it.

Cold sweat started forming on his back whn he realized what a cold save it was. It was also at this time that he found part of his t-shirt on his upper back have been slightly burnt.

Without even giving him time to heave a sigh of relief, Daniel found that the thing that had fired at him -- a combat drone -- have instantly appeared next to him in no time and was about to reorient itself to shoot at Daniel again.

Daniel really thought that he was done for this time since he had nowhere to dodge when suddenly someone directly shot through the center of the spherical drone, causing it to explode and fall onto the ground as a pile of debris.

Before Daniel even had the chance to gape at the situatiom before him, someon went through the black smoke emmitted by the burning drone and muttered at him in a dissatisfied tone, "Didn't I tell you to follow me closely? How come you cannot even follow such a simple instruction."

Daniel was about to give his protest to 666's ridiculous expectations for him when he suddenly pointed towards his partner's direction and shouted, "Behind you!"

However, midway through his sentence, 666 already moved and instantly twisted his body in a weird angle, shooting a few laserbeams through the smoke on his back.

The sound of machines being broken could be heard even before Daniel could finish warning 666 about the silouette he saw behind the other's back.

"Do you have eyes behind the back of your head or something?" Daniel instantly changed the wordings in his mouth and exclaimed subconsciously, blurting out his thoughts in a somewhat embarrasing manner.

"No. I simply took a look at Minerva's security cameras around my location to see if there were anything that could harm me." 666 said as though it was obvious before suddenly shooting at Daniel's direction, making the latter flinch.

It was only after hearing the exploding sounds behind him that Daniel realized 666 saved him again, making him feel somewhat speechless.

"No, how can you focus on shooting, looking in front of you and watching the security camera feed at the same time? I thought a human brain could not handle that many tasks at the same time!" Daniel exclaimed.

"It seems that the biochip within my brain is an experimental one invented by the T7 Corporation which has a higher processing power and compatibility to a human's brain than before." 666 shrugged nonchalantly. "It seems that the biochip is still in its experimental phase and not available to the public yet, which is why you have't heard of people being able to do such a thing."

"... Thanks for saving me." The corner of Daniel's lips twitched befire he finally manage to utter out in order to safe face. "I owe you a favor."

"Why don't we continue our conversation after the end of the training regiment." 666 replied before looking at a certain area behind Daniel. "It seems we have company."

Hearing this, Daniel directly jumped up and turned around, instantly paling when he saw what is walking up towards the two of them. "Why the f**k is there a mech here?" Daniel cried. "I thought this arena is set in the early 21st century?"

"I've told you." 666 replied with an emotionless face. "We're playing in lunatic mode."

Without warning, 666 directly pulled on Daniel's hand and started running in the opposite direction as quickly as possible before turning to the right again when they arrived at the next interjunction.

Just as the two of them made the turn, the original road instantly brightened, almost blinding the eyes of the two teenagers as the huge laserbeam shot directly through their previous position.

Seeing that he had just escaped death for the third time, Daniel could not help but curse under his breath. "F**k! The next time you ask me to go training with you, I'll definitely reject it! Who would be crazy enough to join such a game with you!"

666 simply ignored the other's banter before directly shoving the other through the doorway of an adjacent building, allowing Daniel to fall into the darkness while jumping in himself.

Then, he turned around and placed a device at the very middle of the doorway. The device instantly generated a shield as replacement for a door, allowing the two teenagers a brief moment of respite in these desperate times.

Unfortunately, before Daniel could speak again, 666 suddenly looked towards another side of the building, looking as though he could see through its walls when he narrowed his eyes and spoke in an urgent tone, "We're moving! Now!"

He then suddenly dragged Daniel up the stairs located by the end of the building and ran upwards. Just before they reached the second floor though, a similar blinding flash appeared below them, instanly burning everything on the ground floor to a crisp. As even the walls have disappeared, the building itself directly collapsed, burying the two teenagers beneath the rubble. It was also at this time that the giant mech finally appeared before them.

Towering at about 10 stories high, the mech seemed to be one of those heavy models normally used for mining asteroids in space. This is the reason why it took such a long time for the mech to catch up the two teenagers when any other mech would have closed the distance within an instant.

When the mech finally appeared before the rubble, it charged the laser eyes again, wanting to shoot a third beam at the two men when he suddenly heard a loud banging sound coming from underneath it!

Without warning, the ground underneath the mech directly collapsed on itself, forcing the heavy duty mech to fall onto the ground. It was also at this time that Daniel finally managed to climb out of the rubble, only to be greeted with such a scene.

"How the heck did 666 managed to do that while the two of us are still buried within the rubble?!" Daniel exclaimed within his heart. After looking around, he found that the person he's been looking for is still not out from the rubble yet.

"Where the heck did he go?" Daniel thought to himself as he patted the dust off from his own body.

Unfortunately, Faniel did not have the time to dally around since the mech beforr him looked to be getting up from his fall soon.