Inferno

4 - The Gauntlet

"Gauntlet run ready to start. On your mark, pilot."

Tobias gave it another few seconds for him to prepare himself. Once he felt ready, he aligned his stance properly, and then broke out into a sprint. He noticed a little timer in the bottom right of his HUD monitoring his progress.

He leapt onto the right wall of the training arena, and used it along with gravity to give him some forward momentum. Once he'd been wall-running to the point where he was beginning to slide off the wall, he pushed against it and sent himself into the air. He activated his jump pack for an upward boost in mid-air before he landed and rolled into the first group of hostiles.

For training exercises, non-sentient Spectres were used as dummy opponents. He knew there'd be four of them at the first checkpoint, just like there were every run; sure enough, four Spectres turned to face him as he came out of his roll, and they readied their weapons.

They didn't have any time to react as he immediately transitioned to a kneeling position, his gloved hand moving forward in a fist to knock aside the one in front of him. While his left arm was busy with that, his right was busy drawing his sidearm from its holster. All of the ammunition was rubber as to not damage pilots or equipment, but the Spectres would register the impact on their sensor systems and count it as a 'bullet', then go down accordingly. Each Spectre received no less than two shots each, and he began to reload as they fell onto their backs without a fight.

His ammunition replenished, he sprinted ahead to the next encounter. There were several ways to get through this next phase, but he was on a time crunch here. Opting to slide under the low opening to the front of the room, he already had his aim trained on his left where two scouts would be situated.

But upon his slide under the low hanging wall, he found that they were not there. He was only confused for a moment before realizing that they were probably switching things up on him a bit, trying to surprise him. Groaning, he picked himself back up and entered another sprint.

He almost leapt over the next wall in front of him, but he had just peeked over it before he used any momentum he had to push himself backwards and right back into cover. Every Spectre that he could think of that was on the training course was there, gathered in the center of this room.

As he began to think of a solution, a small part of him began to think back to when he'd first come to the Militia...

- Five Weeks Ago -

Tobias waited as KT's chassis was repaired. The Titan was still in the engineering bay, and had been for roughly the last two hours. He supposed that they weren't just fixing her battery case, but a handful of other minor things as well. While she was in the workshop, he had decided to sit it out in the nearby hangar.

He'd had a bit of entertainment watching Titan Pilots, grunts, and dropship pilots alike, walk around the hangar from one side to the other, from ship to ship. These people didn't know anything about him, and he hoped it stayed that way for awhile. He couldn't imagine that, despite whatever KT or Gates had said, ex-IMC personnel would be welcomed too happily here.

With a start, he realized that the vibrations in the ground were growing slightly, moving closer to him. He turned around to see KT walking towards him, until she had reached him and she stood over him.

"Hey," he called. She nodded once to acknowledge him, then turned to the sight before them.

"What are you doing out here?" She gestured to the hangar.

He shrugged. "I dunno. Just people-watching. Seeing how they all move, interact with each other. Kind of interesting, actually. Though I don't think I should push my luck by talking with anyone quite yet."

She turned to look at him, then shook the eye of her chassis slightly, almost in a disbelieving way. He noticed the action.

"What?"

"You're unusual."

He raised an eyebrow. "In what way?"

"Why would you risk your already tenuous position with the Militia to keep me from being decommissioned?" She made a shrug gesture, her eye glancing away. "I've known Pilots to be partial to risks and danger, but you seem to have an obsession."

He shook his head, a smirk on his face. "It was just the right thing to do, KT. Not to mention that you're just about the only friend I've got here."

She stiffened slightly, and looked at him once more. "What?"

"Did I say something wrong?"

The Titan was frozen for a good second or two before moving again. "No."

He wondered why she'd reacted like that, but he put it out of his mind.

"You know, I wasn't lying earlier."

"About what?"

"About us being a good team."

She gave him a funny look. "I hope so. I look forward to working with you, Pilot."

"Not a Pilot yet, remember?"

There seemed to be a slight warm tone in her voice now. "If I'm your Titan, then that makes you my Pilot, correct?"

He pondered over that. "Yeah, I guess you're right." He looked back at the hangar.

"Pilot it is."

- Present -

Focusing back on the task at hand, Tobias let a wolf's grin creep across his face as he pulled an arc grenade out of his belt. They wanted to play dirty? He'd play dirty.

He ran at the side of the room, and hopped up onto the wall. While he ran to the other side, he lobbed the arc 'nade over at the group of Spectres. Before they could take aim, their wiring was short circuited by the electrical pulses of the grenade. Arcs of lightning jumped from Spectre to Spectre, forcing them offline one by one.

He landed back on the ground, now on the other side, and laughed in exhilaration. He couldn't ever go back to the life of a grunt; a Pilot's job was just too much fun.

Noticing the objective at the end of the arena, he spoke into his wrist, though it was more for protocol than anything. Nobody was actually going to do anything, considering it was right in front of him.

"Requesting Titan fall."

"Acknowledged. Stand by for titanfall." The voice on the other end of the line belonged to Dimitri, overseeing his gauntlet run. Since they were just in training, no actual Titan fall was going to happen; but he had to get used to calling it out if he was going to be entering battle with KT. She was his objective at the end of the arena; as soon as he entered her, the run would be over.

"Titan fall touchdown." Dimitri was letting him know that his Titan was on the ground and ready. Sprinting faster to cut off any seconds he could, he gave one last kick off the ground, and soared towards KT. The Titan outstretched her arm, and grabbed him as well as opening her chassis to him in one movement. Placing him inside, the cockpit swung shut and the timer stopped.

"Gauntlet run over. Good job, kid." At the sound of Dimitri's praise, Tobias looked at his clock.

"28 seconds? Not a bad run, huh Kay?"

"You're certainly improving. If I'm not mistaken, this is your fastest time yet; even with the change of Spectre layout."

Tobias patted the armrest of the Pilot's seat affectionately. "Thanks." Then he raised an eyebrow. "Wait, you knew about the change of Spectre positions?"

"I requested it."

"Any particular reason?"

The Titan sounded smug. "To keep you on your guard."

He smirked. "Glad to see you're looking out for me, Kay."

"Of course, Pilot."

Dimitri spoke through the comms; "Alright, Four. You've been doing well these past few weeks, might be time to step it up a notch. Get yourself over here, and we'll see about getting you a proper assignment now.

"I think you're ready."