Teamwork is a skill we lack. (II SUPERHERO AU FIC)

29

Paintbrush had almost made it back up the stairs from the lab, before the floor suddenly gave way beneath them, the stairs turning into a slide, sending all three of them down screaming, and separating them all into different rooms.

As they all settled, taking in and processing what had just happened, a voice could be heard from an intercom.

"Yeah, don't be alarmed! I'm just putting your combat skills to the test!"

"Oh you're kidding me." Paintbrush grumbled, getting to their feet, examining the room they now found themself in.

In the middle of the room looked to be a small, gray, cube shaped robot.

"Um... So what, I just fight this?"

"Well first-" A beep could be heard from the intercom- "the room is going to make a few adjustments to each of you and your weaknesses, that I've noted down over time, the room is going to do a light scan and take up something that's suitable, and the Robot is going to shift, and take the form of an opponent for you to fight."

"Let's just get this over with." Paintbrush rolled their eyes, yawning again. They just wanted to get back to sleep.

"Okay then." The intercom buzzed off, and the room seemed to shift around them, the walls shifting and changing color to convey a rooftop scene, the robot now shifting, and its panels changing and whirring until it took the shape of...

"Oh you've got to be kidding me." Paintbrush clenched their fists, now being faced with a robot version of Taco.

-

In the next room over, stood Lightbulb. The setting around her shifting into a... well... Nothing seemed to change in the room, other than the wall color, changing to a familiar shade of blue, now looking exactly like the room she had been trapped in just a week prior.

"Hey Testy, what is this?" She let out nervously, as the intercom turned back on.

"Well, the room adjusted to something you seemed afraid of. Paintbrush got a rooftop because they're afraid of heights, and the room took up a regular form because it seems like you really don't like isolation-- and also, don't call me Testy."

"Uhm... This isn't fun anymore..." Lightbulb frowned.

"Well, this is combat training. It's not supposed to be fun." The intercom buzzed out again.

Lightbulb watched the robot shift and change, as she tried to not let her nerves get the better of her.

Her expression quickly turned from unsure to scared as the robot finished re-adjusting, now looking like herself.

-

The third and final room took up the appearance of the building they had been in, the walls a dark red brick and the ground a lighter red concrete, a few broken and shattered windows around, as the robot took... a while to start shifting into a new form, seeming to change several times before finally resting on...

"Huh?"

"Um... I don't have any research on anyone you hate... it's just picking someone at random," Testtube chimed in from the intercom, as he was now faced... with a robot version of her.

"Oh..." Both of them said, seemingly at the same time.

"Well um..." she paused to clear her throat, watching all three of them from the cameras in the corner of each room.
"Good luck. I've not made the test too hard for you guys since most of you aren't really adept fighters--"

"Hey!" Paintbrush yelled out, annoyed.

"So just... do your best." She clicked the intercom button, now no longer speaking. Now she just had to watch how all of them did... Though... She watched Paintbrush the most... Sure, they were the most skilled-- at least out of the other two, but that surely wasn't saying much considering their recent failures... Maybe it wouldn't hurt to push them a bit further than the others. See if they really had anything more in them that could've prevented the incident from happening... She upped the scale on the Taco-Bot, and turned her gaze over to Lightbulb, her not throwing a single punch or hit, just evading and dodging the robot that took up... her own form? Testtube wrote that down to analyze later.