The observation deck had gone very, very quiet.
Professor Krenn stared at the screen with the expression of a man whose entire worldview had just been politely disassembled. "Did he...just weaponize a volcano?"
"He really weaponized a volcano," Professor Iona confird, her voice unnaturally calm. "Using a pulse gun to deliberately destabilize the thermal gradient of an active geological formation, thereby triggering a premature eruption that eliminated his opponent while simultaneously accepting his own elimination with a calculated timing differential."
"That’s..." Krenn struggled for words. "That’s not really sothing we could ask our students to do."
"Yeah." Iona’s eyes hadn’t left her data streams. "But it just shows his adaptive combat cognition is at an extraordinary level.
"He realized that he couldn’t win through conventional ans, so he identified an environntal variable that could be manipulated, and executed a strategy that prioritized victory conditions over personal survival." She finally looked up, eting her colleague’s gaze. "When’s the last ti you saw a student think like that?"
Krenn didn’t answer.
The question was not that important anyway.
In the student section, Michael had both hands pressed over his mouth, eyes wide. Michelle sat beside him in stunned silence, her avatar’s expression frozen in disbelief.
"He won," Michael whispered. "He actually won."
"By blowing himself up."
"Still counts!"
The chat exploded.
[StormRaider]: WHAT DID I JUST WATCH
[TheGreatest33]: did he really just...???
[RandomStudent47]: VOLCAN WINNER CONFIRD
[ProPilot_X]: That move should be illegal
[VeteranWatcher]: I’ve watched academy tournants for twenty years, but I’ve NEVER EVER seen anyone think of that just because this is a ga.
Michelle finally found her voice. "He’s insane."
"He’s a genius," Michael countered.
"I don’t know about that."
○●○●
Back in the ga lobby, Neville allowed himself exactly three seconds of victorious gloating before Grayson’s avatar materialized beside him.
Grayson had... a complicated look on his deanor.
His expression cycled through several emotions of disbelief, irritation, and grudging respect before settling on a kind of helpless exasperation.
"A volcano, really?"
"Well, there is one, so I just had to use it." Neville agreed.
"What were you thinking when you triggered a volcanic eruption to win a cha match?"
"Nothing much really. And technically, I just destabilized the pre-existing geological instabilities. The eruption in that map was just a natural occurrence."
Grayson rubbed his temples, "You know that would never work in real combat, right? If—"
"Good thing this isn’t real combat," Neville couldn’t stop smiling.
Still, he won against all odds.
"Now, that’s one-to-one. We have one more match to decide it."
"You’re still thinking about continuing?"
"I already said best of three." Neville faced Grayson’s avatar head-on with defiant determination. "Unless you want to forfeit?"
The exasperation remained on Grayson’s avatar, and so was the helplessness.
"Fine," Grayson said, and his voice carried a soft note. "One more match. But I’m not going easy on you this ti."
Neville grinned. "Like you can."
[MATCH 3 PARATERS]
Mode: 1v1
Ti Limit: 5 Minutes
Map: Desert Expanse (Random Selection)
Loadout: Standard cha - Plasma Blade, Light Pulse Gun, Triple-Shot Projectile Laser Missiles
The world materialized around Neville in a wash of golden light and scorching heat.
Desert Expanse.
Of all the maps, the randomizer had chosen another one of the hard maps in this ga.
Endless dunes stretched before him, broken only by scattered large rock formations that jutted from the sand like the bones of so ancient behemoth. The artificial sun beat down rcilessly.
Even though Neville knew it was just a simulation, he could swear he felt sweat forming on his brow.
His cha stood motionless on a rocky outcropping. In the distance, perhaps a kiloter away, he could just make out another shape.
Grayson’s cha.
Neville’s hands rested on the manual controls.
[MATCH START]
Seconds ticked by.
Neither cha moved from their places.
The wind howled across the dunes, sending streams of digital sand cascading down slopes.
Neville’s sensors pinged with environntal data.
The visibility was drastically reduced during sandstorms. The heat signature tracking was compromised by thermal interference, and the structural integrity of rock formations was at 43% and continuously decreasing.
Still, Grayson didn’t move.
And neither did Neville.
[Aren’t you going to do sothing?] Grayson’s voice ca through, tinged with genuine curiosity.
"I’m thinking."
[About what?]
"About how much I’m going to enjoy annoying you."
A pause stretched between them, filled only by the whisper of sand against tal.
Then, incredibly, a soft laugh ca through.
[Really, now?] Grayson said.
"Really."
Then, Neville made his move.
His cha’s arms extended, fingers releasing the plasma blade and light pulse gun. The weapons tumbled through the air, landing in the sand with dull thuds.
Across the map, Grayson’s cha went very still.
[What are you doing?]
"Surrendering."
[...what?]
Neville let the mont hang, savoring the Graysons’ confusion on the other side.
"Just kidding!"
The missile launchers on his shoulders roared to life.
’NOW!’
Triple-shot projectile laser missiles streaked across the desert in a blazing arc, homing in on the stationary target that had, for just a split second, hesitated.
[That’s cheating!] Grayson shouted, but the sound of explosions drowned out his voice.
○●○●
In the spectator feeds, absolute chaos erupted.
"Did he just—"
"How could he do that?!
"A false surrender! He—"
"That’s a war cri!"
Michael had both hands pressed against his face, watching through the gaps in his fingers.
Beside him, Michelle had abandoned all pretense of composure and was screaming at her screen.
"How could you do that? He’ll kill you! Run!"
Professor Krenn’s expression could have frozen lava.
"A psychological warfare," he murmured, making a note. "Unconventional, but effective."
"You’re calling it that now?" Professor Iona’s eyes were bright with academic fascination. "Look at the response ti on that pivot. He’s compensating for manual control lag with predictive positioning."
"Is this even allowed?" soone in the crowd asked.
"The rules don’t explicitly forbid false verbal surrendering. After all, he did attack imdiately after, so it can be classified as a distraction?" another voice replied with an uncertainty in his tone.
"That feels exactly like sothing the rules should forbid!"
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