Piper let the power ripple out of her amplifier, the implants inside her burning with pent up energy. The slim metal wand in her right hand glowed, its tip swelling with a nimbus of violent light. Twisting her body, she dropped low, almost down to one knee, and thrust out her arm like a spear.

A destructive bolt erupted forth, tearing across the space of the training arena towards her target. The other AmpCore student braced just before the blast hit him, but his barrier barely took the edge off her attack.

An explosion thundered through the training area and the young man was hurled backwards with a howl of surprise, hitting the ground and rolling several feet until he came to a halt, swirls of smoke rising from his body. A gasp arose from the other students.

For a moment, Piper thought he might not get up.

He stirred after a moment, the instructor stepping over to him and dropping down into a crouch. The woman craned her neck, speaking quietly. A moment later she took the young man by the arm and eased him gingerly back to his feet, smoke still coiling off of him. He staggered and she heard him cough, but with the instructor helping him, the other student managed to shamble out of the room.

Presumably to one of the academy med bays, she thought wryly.

"Good," Instructor Marcellus declared once the injured student was out of earshot, though his heart didn't really seem to be in it. He stepped forward from his position at the side of the duelling line, his gaze fixing on her. "Though you don't need to try and put everyone you meet in the bloody infirmary."

"Nobody took it easy on me," Piper snorted, sliding her amplifier wand back into its sheathe and ruffling a hand through her long locks of dark hair to smooth them out.

"Nobody had your headstart," he shot back.

"It's not my fault he can't hold his barrier. Did I do what you asked or not?"

Marcellus rolled his eyes, dragging a weary hand down his face. He was a gangly man, weather- and world-beaten from the look of him, his greying hair scraped back over his skull and sporting a pair of synthetic eye augments that sizzled with cobalt light. On the shoulder of his white uniform was a great globe of orange and red against a spherical backdrop of fire, with the letters PROMETHEUS HAULAGE following the circumference.

"You've been here for a while now, Russell," he told her icily. "You're supposed be exhibiting self control. You chose to be here, to abide by the academy rules."

Piper bristled. "It's a little more complicated than that."

"Just try and take the edge off next time, you little savage. Otherwise, you'll have more to worry about than me and my opinions. Your rankings aren't exactly stellar."

That snide remark cut into her angry facade and she felt her jaw snap tight. Her eyes flickered unbidden to the ever-present performance rankings that shimmered on the academy walls, nestled among the streams of corporate advertising that flowed through the place. Right now she was decidedly middling when it came to the rankings, her listing easy to spot as the lists scrolled, with the lack of a corporate logo next to her name.

Brute force she could do. Finesse was another matter.

"I think that's enough for today," the instructor declared, making a vague motion towards the far door with one hand.

Shooting Marcellus a black look, Piper joined the flow of students as they shuffled out, the others keeping a safe distance from her, their hushed whispers and snickers niggling at her like a cloud of smoke.

For now, she ignored them. Most people at AmpCore were smart enough now to keep any jibes and comments to the shadows. Piper had already proved that she was a very dangerous person. Her classmates receded away as she stepped out into the passage, a thick stream of advertising on the far wall racing past, extolling the virtues of a Ness-Net holographic processing unit.

She followed the sweep of the advert as it slid off down the corridor, where her eyes snagged on a figure lounging against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. Piper felt some of her black mood evaporate at the sight of him.

"Sounds like you're giving Marcellus more trouble than he bargained for," the young man said, smiling thinly as she approached, his green eyes twinkling with mischief. His nose was broad; features round and welcoming, and a shadow of stubble darkened the strong lines of his jaw.

She smiled back. Dark-skinned and strikingly handsome, Odiye Tambo cut a slick figure in his AmpCore uniform, the jacket hanging open on his brawny frame to reveal the close fit t-shirt beneath. On his left shoulder a logo was printed: a cobalt circle with a line cutting diagonally through it, surrounded by a pattern of links in a chain.

The emblem of Code & Vector Incorporated, one of the premier navigation software companies in the city; just one of the many entities that made up the deep, corporate morass of Hadrian's rulers.

Her uniform didn't have a logo, and as long as she was still breathing, Piper was going to keep it that way.

"Listening in were you?" she asked.

"I was just on my way from Logisitics," he elaborated, jerking a thumb over one shoulder. "What happened?"

"Apparently I don't have sufficient control," Piper sneered, rolling her eyes.

"Is that a fact?"

"Oh, shut up." She ruffled her fingers through her hair in exasperation. "So where are you supposed to be now?"

"I've got a free half hour. Then I'm off for advanced Atomspherics."

"Think you could conjure up some good weather when you're done?"

He grimaced. "Last time I tried to anything outside the local volume, I flooded one of the drainage tunnels. Had the instructors cracking jokes for a month. What about you?"

"The joy of Internals."

"And how's that coming?"

Piper pulled a face. Of all the disciplines taught at AmpCore, the Internal Principle was the one she disliked the most, no matter its potential. It required a lot of patience, and a lot of very repetitive hard work. Neither of those things came naturally to her.

"It's slow going."

Odiye nodded, leaning against the wall, arms folding across his chest. "Well, keep working," he said eventually. "Want to grab some coffee? I could give you some pointers."

A shimmer of awkwardness passed between them for an instant, one the Piper didn't know how to tackle. They'd been through a lot together, and at the apex of it all, their relationship had briefly boiled over into a hungry, physical whirlwind. She knew what was beneath that well-fitted uniform, and the memories still lingered in a pleasant haze in her mind.

But after that one tryst, their relationship had sunk back into a friendship, and Piper didn't know if she wanted anything more than that. The whole thing was a mess, and beneath it all, his was still part of Hadrian's corporate ecosystem, stamped and owned, no matter how hard he tried to pretend otherwise.

The sound of feet hammering on the corridor rescued her from trying to think of something sensible to say in response. Piper twisted around sharply, and found a slender figure pelting down the passage towards them.

The newcomer came skidding to a halt, clad in a set of dark, slim trousers and black academy jacket, the shoulder emblazoned with the dark blue and white triangular emblem of Ardenne Industries. Their wave of short blue-black hair climbed a couple of inches before being swept down the left side of their head, while the other side was shaven, bearing a tattoo of a bird of prey. Their chest heaved with exertion as they straightened up.

"Arrow?" Piper's brow's rose in surprise. "Are you alright?"

"Glad I found you," they panted. "Both of you."

"What's going on?" Odiye asked, his expression darkening with concern.

"It's Toran," Arrow's face teetered on the brink of panic. "You need to come quick. I... I don't know what to do."

"Jesus, Arrow, slow down," Piper said, making a patting motion with both hands. "What happened?"

"You know Chorla, that girl from Wayfinder?"

She dimly recalled the name, nodding faintly. "What about her?"

"She challenged Toran to a duel. Some of the Wayfinder group – Ferra's old friends – they blame him for what happened to her. He's got his own group from Skiltron, and they're all itching for a fight."

Piper felt a twist of unease in her gut. "Ah, crap."

"Where?" Odiye asked, slipping his amplifier from its sheathe.

"Training arena, L68 – it's offline for repairs right now."

"Arrow, I've seen Toran duel," Piper said carefully. "You really think he's going to need our help?"

"This has gone way past a duel, Piper," they hissed back. Arrow pulled out their own amplifier and motioned down the hall with a flick of their head. "Follow me, we need to get down there before those two kill each other."

*

Following Arrow's helter-skelter race through the academy halls, Piper and Odiye burst into the academy training hall, just in time to enter a cacophonous hail of combustive blasts. With a yelp, Piper ducked, ripping her amplifier from its holster and bending gravity around her to form a buffer against the incoming projectiles.

The three of them dived to safety behind a stack of crates, though one was blown clean off the top of the pile by a wayward bolt. Metal shards sprayed them, bouncing off their barriers.

"Gods!" Odiye blurted as he slid to a halt. "Where are the instructors?!"

"Unsanctioned," Arrow grated, pressed their back against the crates. "They want to settle it themselves."

"You spivs just can't fucking get along can you?" Piper growled, risking a glance over the crates to try and see just what the hell was happening.

Two rival camps of students traded blasts back and forth across the range, and she could just pick out Toran Knox's lean, sinewy fame in the group on the left, one side of his face slick with blood from a head wound, his amplifier wand lashing at the group opposite. The shoulder of his jacket carried the logo of Skiltron Fireware: a blood red circle with the a black city silhouette inside it, and a central icon that depicted a mechanical eye watching over it all. Once, Skiltron had been the dominant force in AmpCore – and everywhere else – but the events of the past year had changed the power dynamics in the city.

People like Toran had a lot of new enemies these days.

Chunks of armour plating melted and buckled as the battle continued. On the floor in no-man's land, she could see the still form of a young woman, her torso still smoking from what could only be an AmpCore blast.

"Oh... shit," Piper murmured as she dropped back down again.

Arrow looked up at her sharply. "What is it?"

"I think Toran won the duel."

"Chorla...?" A horrified expression crawled across their face. "Did he...?"

"I think so."

Belatedly, an alarm began blaring.

"Just in time," Odiye muttered. "What do we do?"

"Pick a side, I guess," Piper replied, edging around to the side of the crates. "Who the hell are all those people anyway?"

"Wayfinder, Gammaton, and anybody else that's got a code to split with Skiltron." Arrow peeked up, then ducked down sharply as a crackling spit of sparks and flame sizzled overhead. "Shit! We've got to do something before they all kill each other."

"We've got to help, Toran," Odiye countered. "They've put a target on his back ever since Ferra died."

"It wasn't his fault."

"Yeah, we know that, but-"

"Enough, enough!" Piper shot them both an irate glance. "Just follow me."

Without waiting for their answer, she braced herself and lunged out from behind the crates. Breaking into a run, she lashed out, gathering a wave of gravity at the tip of her amplifier and sending it rippling out towards the opposing group of students. She tried to get a look at their logos; the arrow motif of Wayfinder Navtech was there, along with the glittering 'G' imprint of Gammaton Avionics – two corporations that she knew were no friends of hers. Not anymore at least.

A blast of literal lightning from one of the Gammaton students interrupted her examinations, and she just barely deflected it away, blowing a crater in the room's ceiling in the process. Behind her, Odiye let loose with a trio of sharp combustive bolts, sending the perpetrator diving for cover. Arrow's wand traced a wave-like pattern, and a thick mist spilled out across the centre of the room, obscuring the combatants from each other.

It didn't stop the fighting though.

Bolts flashed and flickered in the fog and she could hear the scream of twisting metal amongst grunts, screams and curses. Darting forward into the crush, she came face to face with a male Gammaton student, and only just managed to punt him away from her with a pulse of gravity before his wand could erupt. The combustive blast screeched off at an angle as he vanished from sight again.

Piper forged ahead, trying to get to Toran in the middle of the melee, feeling Odiye and Arrow close behind. She saw him advancing in deliberate strides, stepping right into the teeth of the fighting. His body glowed, implants throbbing with power as he let his power flow. Another student from the opposing group advanced to meet him, their both amplifiers screaming with destructive force.

They crashed into each other, the resulting clash blowing a crater in the plating all round them. Fire washed out across the room in all directions, and Piper dragged a narrow wave of water into existence in front of her, dousing the encroaching wall of flame. More steam boiled into the air, further obscuring the mayhem. She swore, ignoring the heat and the stinging sensation in her eyes as she pressed forward.

Then the doors at the far end of the room blew open.

Arrow's mist evaporated in a hiss of steam, revealing the two warring factions in their entirety. The students froze in mid lunge, some quite literally at each other's throats. Toran and the black-haired leader of Wayfinder's group had their amplifiers pressed against each other's chests, hands clenched into fistfuls of each other's jackets.

Through the doors strode Senior Academy Administrator Mattise, fury shimmering on his face. His sleek salt and pepper hair hung longer than when she'd last seen him, combed back into a short cascade down the back of his skull, but his grey eyes remained as fierce as ever. His amplifier throbbed with a pulse that made her eyes ache, and behind Mattise strode a quartet of white-uniformed senior instructors.

"Stand down!" Mattise roared, his voice echoing deafeningly like a roll of thunder under the manipulation of his wand. "All of you!"

He didn't break stride, the other instructors peeling off to form a square to either side of him, their amplifiers flicking, forcing combatants apart. Piper felt a nudge of force, and for a moment resisted it. Then she caught Odiye's eye; a small shake of the head. Reluctantly, she sheathed her own weapon; allowing herself to be pushed to the left side of the room.

Mattise stormed right up to Toran and his opponent, and physically yanked them apart. She thought he was already angry, but when his eyes fell upon the corpse of the girl, Chorla, Piper felt his implants flex and bend, sending a wave of disbelieving rage coursing through the air.

"What in the name of...?" He shoved the pair away from each other, looking from one to the other. "One of you had best tell me just what in the hell happened here, before I tear your implants right out of your bones!"

"What do you think?!" the dark haired boy snarled, a sob choking his throat as he pointed. "Toran fucking Knox just killed my sister!"

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