By the time the morning bell rang, rumor had already spread across the lower halls: Professor Aldus Grin was planning something explosive.
Kai, Oliver, Selena, and Valerie arrived early — though "early" meant standing outside the lab door while faint sounds of whirring drills, muffled laughter, and what sounded suspiciously like a chicken cluck came from inside.
Oliver raised an eyebrow. "Tell me that's not another live experiment."
Kai smirked. "With Grin? It's probably the assistant."
Selena groaned. "Can we at least have one day where he doesn't nearly kill us?"
The doors whooshed open with a hiss of pressurized air.
Aldus Grin stood atop a hovering podium, his coat dramatically fluttering as sparks fizzled behind him. "Ah! My little disasters have arrived! Welcome… to The Cultech Clash!"
The room was transformed — half laboratory, half arena. Circular platforms hovered above the ground, each surrounded by shimmering energy fields.
Students stared in awe.
Valerie whispered, "He built a battlefield… in a classroom."
Aldus pointed theatrically. "Today, you will demonstrate your grasp of Cultech fundamentals! FMS stability, Resonant Vein synchronization, Quantum Bio-Echo reaction time, and Thermal Flux endurance!"
Selena blinked. "You mean… fight?"
Aldus grinned wider. "Simulate! I am not licensed for actual death!"
Laughter rippled through the crowd.
"Teams of four will face off," he continued. "Your task: protect your node and disable the opponent's. Creativity, control, chaos — all count! Destruction of the lab does not count!"
A nervous chuckle followed.
Round 1: Team Kai vs. Team Vorn
The holo-board flickered, projecting names.
Team Kai — Kai Zore, Valerie Quinn, Selena Ardent, Oliver Cross.
Team Vorn — Vorn Tesh (brawler), Mira Dune (technologist), Aisha Rel (strategist), Fen Wight (tactician).
Vorn's team stood tall — each wearing smirks of confidence. Vorn himself cracked his knuckles.
"Hey, Zore," he said, grinning. "Hope you brought backup ideas. You'll need 'em."
Kai smiled faintly. "We'll manage."
Valerie whispered, "Please tell me we have a plan."
Oliver adjusted his gloves. "We'll improvise."
Selena sighed. "We always improvise."
Aldus threw a switch. "ENGAGE!"
Battle Start
The platforms flared to life. Both teams' nodes pulsed at opposite ends, glowing white.
Immediately, Vorn charged forward with a crude but powerful prototype gauntlet — veins glowing red.
"Bio-Harmonic Vein overdrive!" he roared, slamming down.
Kai blocked with his own FMS field — sparks flew.
Valerie shouted, "Echo layer — link now!"
Her orb floated, projecting a ripple of harmonic blue light. The pulse synchronized with Kai's breath — amplifying his reaction speed.
Vorn's team spread out. Mira deployed a drone cluster — three floating disks firing weak plasma shots.
Oliver sprinted to cover. "I'll take care of her!"
Selena crouched beside the node, forming a defense circle. "Thermal flux stabilizer online!"
Steam rose as her barrier shimmered.
"Not bad!" Aldus shouted from above. "Nobody's exploded yet! Improvement!"
The crowd laughed.
Engineering Under Fire
Kai countered Vorn's brute strength with agile maneuvers — redirecting each strike instead of meeting it.
Valerie channeled resonance energy through her fingers. "Kai — duck!"
She fired a harmonic pulse that hit Vorn's gauntlet, causing it to vibrate violently. He yelped, shaking his hand.
"What the—?"
"Resonance Disruption!" Valerie called. "If you can't tune, you lose control!"
Aldus clapped wildly. "Brilliant! Attack the music, not the musician!"
On the opposite end, Oliver tinkered under pressure — reconfiguring his hand module mid-fight.
"Selena! Boost frequency to seventy percent!"
"Seventy? That'll burn out the layer!"
"Trust me!"
She hesitated, then adjusted. A burst of light flared across their defense grid, intercepting a plasma volley from Mira's drones.
The crowd gasped.
Oliver grinned. "See? Controlled luminescence. Overheat becomes weaponized glare."
Mira shielded her eyes. "I can't see!"
Fen shouted, "Retreat and flank!"
Vorn roared again, slamming down. The shockwave cracked the surface.
Kai jumped back, panting. "He's running full Vein surge — his suit will fry!"
Valerie muttered, "Let him."
And it did. The gauntlet sputtered, then locked up, smoking.
Vorn froze. "What—?"
Selena raised her voice. "Node pulse — NOW!"
Kai and Valerie combined their harmonic fields, directing energy straight at Vorn's exposed node.
It flared red — then dimmed out.
The scoreboard blipped: TEAM KAI — VICTORY.
Aldus threw confetti from nowhere. "Ha! Excellent! No fatalities, moderate burns, and one moral lesson! 10 points!"
The class erupted in applause and laughter.
Vorn sighed, holding his ruined gauntlet. "Next time, Zore."
Kai extended a hand. "Looking forward to it."
Vorn blinked — then shook it, smiling faintly.
Break Between Rounds
As the platforms reset, students buzzed with chatter.
Selena slumped onto a stool. "We almost got flattened."
Oliver grinned. "Almost. Keyword."
Valerie stretched. "Did you see how the harmonic field resonated with your pulse, Kai? It's like your Divergent Flow's learning rhythm."
Kai nodded. "Feels like the suit's breathing with me now."
From above, Aldus floated down on a drone platform, holding a tray of cookies.
"Refuel, my apprentices of disaster!"
Valerie blinked. "Are those… shaped like circuit boards?"
"Of course! Fiber and sugar — two fuels of invention!"
Selena took one skeptically, then burst out laughing. "It's crunchy. Like a resistor."
Aldus grinned. "Sweet resistance! The foundation of innovation!"
The room echoed with laughter again.
Round 2: Rival Schools' Challenge
As the session continued, other student groups faced off — sparks flying, drones crashing, and occasional comedic screams of, "I didn't mean to press that!"
Each match ended with creative chaos — one team used gravity inversion to float their node out of reach, another overloaded their Flux Layer so badly it blinded half the room for ten seconds.
Aldus applauded every failure like a proud parent.
"See? Mistakes are the universe's way of saying 'Nice try!'"
Kai's group watched intently.
Selena whispered, "They're all using different Cultech variations. No two systems alike."
Oliver nodded. "That's the genius of it — adaptive engineering. Every resonance pattern's unique."
Valerie smiled. "It's like we're all building personalities, not just tech."
Kai gazed across the room — the laughter, the light, the sparks. "Feels alive."
Professor Grin's Surprise Twist
When the final battle ended, Aldus hopped down dramatically.
"Splendid chaos! I am… moved!"
The students cheered.
"But!" he said, raising a finger. "Engineering is not just combat! It is creativity! And so — bonus round!"
The crowd groaned and cheered in equal measure.
"You will now — as teams — build something entirely useless but incredibly impressive!"
Oliver blinked. "Useless?"
Aldus nodded. "Absolutely! Because if you can make nonsense function, you can make genius intuitive!"
He gestured. "Fifteen minutes! GO!"
Chaos Creations
The lab exploded into activity.
Valerie immediately began sketching. "Let's build a self-bouncing wrench."
Selena stared. "Why."
"Because it's funny!"
Oliver shrugged. "I can make that work."
Kai smiled. "Then do it."
They scrambled together — infusing micro-resonance fields into a simple wrench, adding flux layers for kinetic rebound.
Five minutes later, Valerie threw it across the floor.
It bounced. Twice. Then backflipped.
The class howled with laughter.
Aldus pointed. "YES! Engineering comedy! Glorious absurdity!"
Nearby, another team had made a floating teapot that whistled in perfect pitch. Someone else built a glove that only clapped when it approved.
When time was up, Aldus surveyed the room, tears in his eyes.
"You beautiful lunatics… you've learned!"
He pointed at Kai's group. "You win! Your wrench has purpose through pointlessness!"
Valerie bowed dramatically. "Thank you, maestro of mayhem."
After Class
As students filed out, buzzing with excitement, Aldus called after them:
"Tomorrow — we begin your first official Cultech assignment! Design your prototype frameworks. Function optional, creativity mandatory!"
Kai's team paused at the door.
Selena looked back at the lab — still glowing faintly from the chaos. "You know… for a combat academy, this feels like home."
Oliver smirked. "That's because it's full of maniacs like us."
Valerie laughed. "Then we'll fit right in."
Kai glanced at them — then up at the academy ceiling, where faint threads of resonance energy shimmered like constellations.
"Yeah," he murmured. "Feels like this is where it really begins."