Distractions

Regis turned towards his right and frowned. A cadet had entered the range of his helmet. The said cadet also turned towards him and started approaching him but

'Isn't he one of those five bastards? What does he want this time?' Regis recognised this cadet as the one who had been insisting on taking a look at the information stored in Regis' holowatch.

Heim made signaled Regis that he wanted to talk and that he meant no harm when they were still more than two hundred meters apart. Regis' helmet picked up the gesture and he decided to stay. While he was still out of Regis' direct visual range and behind the densely grown trees, Heim dropped something on the ground.

Surprisingly, this action did not register in Regis' helmet, and he stayed on the same spot. After a few seconds, Regis could finally see Heim as the distance between them shrunk to twenty meters.....fifteen...ten..'

'That bastard does not seem to be slowing down.'

Regis immediately jumped back to add some distance between them. Heim continued charging forward and extended his clenched fist towards Regis' stomach. Regis was already prepared for the attack and twisted his upper body to the side. His hand gripped around the elbow of his opponent's extended hand and Regis swung his leg at the exposed obliques.

Instead of blocking or dodging, Heim also swung his leg towards Regis. Regis blocked with his left arm while his kick connected, sending Heim a few meters towards the side.

'The armor should have absorbed most of the impact.'

Regis immediately followed behind Heim and threw a punch at him. Heim also threw a punch towards Regis.

'It feels like he is insisting on trading damage. Does he have someone following behind?' Regis frowned at the speculation and raised his hand to block the incoming punch. Heim continued on the aggressive and threw another punch towards Regis, but Regis' punch was first to connect and nearly lifted Heim off the ground.

Taking advantage of the unsteady balance of his opponent, Regis swung a low kick aimed at Heim's ankle while he parried the incoming punch. While he was aggressive, Heim had not lost his rational. Heim did not continue with another attack and instead fell back. He looked back towards Regis with a slight shock.

With the newly created distance between them, Regis was in no rush to attack and instead looked at his opponent.

'The strength and speed stats shouldn't be that far apart, but his skills are lacking. I should have the advantage in endurance.' Regis immediately came to a conclusion.

"You should know that the assignment is being monitored." Regis looked the cadet in the eyes and spoke.

The cadet immediately loosened his stance.

'He should have known this from the start, but what is that reaction?'

Regis looked at the blank eyes of the cadet who seemed to be suddenly frozen after his last statement. Heim was standing there like a statue, without moving a single inch.

'Cacha!......Cacha!....Cacha!.Cacha!Cacha!..'

A mechanical sound began emerging from the body of the frozen cadet. At first, Regis was surprised by the sound and thought that some mechanical creature was moving towards him, but when the frequency of the sound increased, he was able to pinpoint the source of the sound.

'Its his chest!' Regis suddenly felt an uncomfortable feeling rising up his chest. He turned around to leave, but it was a little late for that.

'Crackk!'

With the sound of bones shattering, something emerged from the chest of the frozen cadet. Regis turned back and immediately knew the source of the uncomfortable feeling.

Four pipe-like structures had torn out Heim's chest and fell to the ground.

'Dull grey metal with brownish ends. That is Asceptus technology..'

Regis recognized the material used to form the tentacle like pipes that had emerged from Heim's chest. There was no blood around the hole in the chest and the eyes seemed to be on the verge of popping out. These were the symptoms of blood reacting with the metal.

The cadet in front of him was nothing but a husk that was hiding the metal in its veins.

'Cacha!..' The metallic sound continued as the cadet raised its head towards Regis. It leapt forward.

As soon as he met eyes with the body, Regis felt goosebumps rising. He leapt backwards.

'Bang!'

The ground where he had been standing was now covered by a carter. One of the four mechanical tentacles was at the Centre of the carter. Regis looked at the cracks that had been made in the artificial ground and felt a chill rising from his spine.

It was just a brief instant between Regis jumping back and the present, but he had already come to a conclusion. Regis was absolutely powerless when compared to the thing before him. That being the case, Regis did not contemplate any further and immediately dashed away.

'Crashh!'

A tree fell behind him, but Regis did not turn back. Half of the screen covering his vision was predicting the most efficient path to distance himself from that thing, while the other half was displaying what was happening at the rear. The predicted trajectories of the mechanical arms was also displayed before Regis, so he had no need to turn back in order to follow the movements of his adversary or to dodge its attacks.

Heim had died. His brain was taken over by the multiple metallic fragments that were embedded inside it. The processing unit that controlled the mechanical structure picked up a signal from the air and immediately executed the order.

Two mechanical lenses emerged from the chest cavity of the human husk and adjusted the view. Multiple similar lenses emerged from the body, making holes all over the body and preparing a three-dimensional projection of its surroundings. The projection was sent to the CPU, which processed it data and locked onto the target which seemed to be moving away.

Two of the mechanical arms pushed against the ground and propelled the body forward. A third mechanical arm struck at a tree between the trajectory. The tree collapsed and it made its way forward unimpeded.

When Regis saw the tree collapsing on the screen, he was certain that he couldn't fight that unnatural creature. But things didn't seem to be going well. The creature was using all four of its mechanical arms to grab onto nearby trees and propel itself towards Regis. Anything that hindered its path was hit with one of the free arms and met the same fate as the collapsed tree.

Regis really hoped that the instructors had taken a note of the situation and were taking action in response. He knew that he won't be able to run away forever, nor could he face the thing directly. After a few seconds into the chase, Regis could feel the distance between them shrinking.

The scale-like mechanical units that made up one of the four mechanical arms flipped and rearranged themselves. The result was very long structure with one side being a sharp edge and the other side was a curved surface that could be used for blunt impacts.

Regis focussed his attention at the half displaying the scene behind him and rolled forward to avoid the swinging mechanical arm. The arm passed from over his head and struck a tree, nearly chopping it off in one swing.

Unfortunately, the blade did not remain struck into the tree, instead it deformed once again and easily detached from the tree. After ending the roll, Regis took cover behind a tree and used the blind spot to change his direction, but his decision proved to be a bad one. Just like the scouting gear, the thing chasing him could also map its surroundings.

The tree was cut clean at a height similar to Regis' chest and another mechanical arm approached Regis from his left. Regis knew that he would be stalled if he tried to dodge or block the incoming attack, but he had no choice but to dodge it by jumping upwards.

'Since running away does not work...'

Regis landed on the sturdy metallic arm but didn't dare keep standing on it. He immediately propelled his body forward, barely missing the folded edge of the arm and a second one which had been aimed at him. The structure under his feet began deforming and Regis leapt forward. The thing had two of its mechanical arms attached to trees while other two were accounted for in the previous attack.

Regis used his hoverboots to accelerate himself and stretched his knee towards the chest cavity of the former cadet which now had four mechanical arms and two lenses emerging out of it. The thing was quick to react and detached one of its four mechanical arms from the nearby tree and pulling itself with the another.

Regis unfolded his leg in an attempt to kick the thing and managed to barely hit its chest, sending it flying in an arc centered at the tree. Two of the arms that were behind Regis also curved their trajectories and aimed at Regis.

Regis dodged the first one while gripping the second one with his hand after it had passed from over his head. Regis wanted to use the momentum of the second one to carry him away and out of the trajectory of the third arm which was no longer attached to a tree, but that didn't work.

At the chest cavity, the third mechanical arm coiled around the one carrying Regis. The third arm approached faster than expected and from a completely altered trajectory. Regis loosened his grip.

'Too late!'

Regis could only raise his hand to block his ribs.

'BANGG!'

'CRACK!'

The impact was strong and Regis was flung away. A severe pain hit him. The source of the pain was his forearm that had been used to block the attack. Regis clenched his teeth with all his might to prevent a pained moan from escaping his mouth and immediately moved his other hand towards his space expansion bag.

He took out a bottle of healing solution and gulped down the contents. The pain subsided, but his arm refused to move properly downward of his elbow.

Regis had been tossed away dozens of meters by the impact, but the time taken to drink the healing solution was enough for the thing to catch up.