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Micheal gave a deep jaw stretching yawn, momentary fogging the inside of his helmet. "Its a week till our next match, so why the fuck are we here again? Besides, last I checked doesn't team captain pick the training schedule.," he groused, banging his fist against on of the plates on his armored thigh emphasis.

Jacob looked around at the barren surface of Tovelis-4's moon, and shrugged. "What team are you on, bro? Wes has always taken care of this kinda stuff. Besides you didn't have to stay out all last night drinking like a fish."

Micheal grumbled.

A moment later a the silver light of a teleport beam deposited Wesley and Jase a few meters in front of their waiting teammates. They were both in full armor, in the Shadow's black accented with navy blue and white. They had teleported together holding hands. As they walked over, Jacob gave them an expansive overhead wave, but Michael scowled. Thankfully his expression was hidden by a glare on his helmets visor.

"Sorry we're late, I had to take care of a few last minute things," said Wes taking his hand from Jase. "Dragon, since I already explained everything to you, mind setting up the practice field?"

"Sure thing," he replied, giving the side of Wes' helmet an affectionate pat, before taking the cylinder of holographic markers from the smaller male and walking off.

"So.... I have some news to deliver. Some of it bad, the rest of it worse. Which would you two like first?"

"Oh boy, I get the feeling that I should have stayed in bed today," said Jacob with a laugh.

"Alright Runt, lay it on us."

Wes huffed "Bad news then. Our next match has been moved up by two days. Apparently the Andromeda Reds, met with an untimely accident on their way here, some kinda dark-matter storm shredded their shuttle. So the whole tournament schedule has been revised. "

Michael and Jacob both groaned.

Shaking his head Wesley continued, " It gets worse by random lottery our team will be the one picking up the slack. Our next match is going a three way Colosseum match verses the the Paradise Islanders and the Gatekeepers.

Of the various types of matches the Colosseum match was notorious for being the most dangerous and bloody. Two or more teams are placed at equal distances from the center of a circular field that is about 200 meters across. At the start of the match the arena orb, usually referred to by players as "the ball", is placed at the center. When the buzzer sounds the objective is to be the first team to take possession of the orb, and keep it from being capture by the other team or teams. At predetermined intervals during the course of the match, which has a set duration of 90 minutes, holographic goals are projected at random points on and up to 7 meters above the surface of the field. Points for a match are calculated based upon total time the orb held by a given team, and an algorithm the correlates the number of times a team gets the orb through a goal and the relative difficulty of each given goal. A team can win either by having the most points at the end of the match or by incapacitating all members of the opposing team or teams. The second automatically ends the match. Colosseum matches are notably the only match type in which flight and plasma blasters are disabled for the entire duration. Leaving melee combat and Hexing as the only viable options.

"You. Have. Got. To. Be. Shitting me," exclaimed Jacob.

"I though you told us that Colosseum was taken off the type roster this season," growled Michael taking one hard step into Wes' personal space.

Wes put up his hands in a placating gesture. "That's why I was late. Mom, myself, and the owners and managers of the other two teams, were lodging a protest. The commission however, was firm on their decision. Its either this or forfeit and leave the championship."

"And I was looking forward to_not_dying this season," said Jacob, trying to lighten the mood. "Oh well, maybe next time."

Any further discussion on the subject was interrupted when the blue grid lines from the holo-markers flickered into existence, and Jase made his way back to Wesley's side. Taking a look at Jacob and Michael's faces he immediately knew that they hadn't taken the information any better than he had. He shrugged his shoulders to signal his solidarity, as he casually used his tail to pull Wes closer to him. He hadn't failed to notice Michael's menacing posture, it bothered him even though he knew it shouldn't. Jase decided to just chock it up to over active instincts.

As a team they were aware that they could just back out of the next match and try again next season, but they each knew that none of the others would. So in spite of the circumstances hanging over their heads three pairs of eyes turned to look at Wes. He motioned them to the edge of the projected field and headed for the center.

"All right, since there is nothing about combat or strategy to really go over for the match, we are going to skip straight to a test match," he pulled five disks from his belt. Two he dropped to either side of himself, and the remaining three he tossed them to the edge of the field. "I've programed hard-light constructs with the stats for the two teams we will be facing."

"Aren't you short a disk, little bro?" asked Jacob.

Wes issued a mental command to his armor's on-board computer, to activate the simulated opponents. Each of the disks he had tossed projected a 3D image of a figure in armor, with varying heights and apparent builds, the two nearest him were green, and the remaining three were red. A second mental command caused and holographic orb constructed of the same glowing lines as the field to appear in the center of the field in front of Wes. It was about the size a small melon, and was warped in a force field to make it feel solid.

" Since these things are hard coded to avoid lethal strikes, I'll be taking the place of the Islanders' Hexer. I want you guys to be prepared, and given the extra danger of the upcoming match. I figured adding a wild card into this simulation would help you prepare and give me the data I'll need when I'm tweaking your equipment for the match," said Wes taking the orb.

He could see by the look on their faces, that his brothers were uncomfortable with this. They always were when he actually took such a hands on role in the combat part of their training. He knew they were just being protective of him, but the way he was always kept to the sidelines was starting to chafe more than a little. His genetics may not have been skewed towards being in combat situations like their's were, but still he wasn't as helpless or fragile as they seemed to think. It was an old argument, but one that he had no intention of giving up on. Michael was giving him a look that said he was about to challenge his call, but Wes looked right back at him and held his ground. After a moment that seemed to stretch on for ages Micheal looked away and have a half nod indicating his begrudging acquiescence. He couldn't argue with Wesley's logic, so he let his youngest brother win.

"We will be starting with the worse case scenario," continued Wes, not missing a beat. "An enemy combatant, i.e. me, has the ball, the time is down to 10 minutes, and points are equal. Victory will be decided by who is holding the ball at the end. As per Colosseum rules, flight and blasters are now disabled. You all ready?"

They nodded, getting in to position to strike. The computer controlled holograms did likewise. Wes levitated himself three feet into the air and shouted over the intercom "Go!".

Jacob fell first, within the first minute of combat. He had tried to charge directly at Wesley. He had easily slipped past both the Gatekeepers and his brother's holographic teammates, but at last minute gravitational anomaly generated by Wes sent him flying right into the waiting war hammer of one of the Gatekeepers. The blow shattered three of his ribs, effectively removing him from combat, and he was teleported off the field. Immediately Wesley forced both of the opposing teams back to the edge of the field by sending a storm of superheated plasma in all directions. He kept this up for several minutes, consuming a large amount of his armor's energy reserves, but at the same time effectively running out the clock. During this time the Gatekeepers were taken down by Wesley's Islanders. They had passed through the plasma storm under a protective field from Wesley, and taken the three holograms by surprise.

Low on energy, Wesley stopped concentrating on the storm and let it dissipate. He the directed his team to attack Micheal and Jase. Jase took down his opponent easily with a quick chop of is battle axe, and barred across the filed. If he had been less caught up in them moment he would have payed attention to the warnings being given by his suits on-board computer, or taken notice of the glowing characters around Wes' head. "Sorry, Dragon," was the last thing heard before his visor suddenly turned opaque, and all of his armor's systems the previously inactive flight and blaster went haywire. A moment later a heavy blunt object slammed into Wesley's forearm , shattering bones and his concentration, sending him crashing to the ground in the process. While dealing with Jase, Wesley had taken his attention of his brother. During this brief interval Micheal had taken down his opponent, and thrown his mace across the field to strike Wesley.

As what had just happened dawn on Wesley, suddenly felt a knee drop on his chest driving the air from his lungs, and a had grabbed his throat in a crushing grip. Micheal, the ball tucked under his arm, had Wesley pinned and helpless. Between the mild panic of not being able to breath, and the pain of his broken arm, there wasn't a chance in hell that Wes could have regained his concentration well enough to attack with a hex. Even with the strength enhancement granted by the armor he knew that he stood no chance of dislodging his brother. The match was over, for him.

As Wesley's vision was beginning to fade, a buzzer sounded, and the computer announced the Victor. A few heartbeats after that, Micheal let go and climbed off his brother.

"Good try, Runt," said Micheal as he helped his gasping brother to his feet.

"Apparently, not good enough," rasped Wesley.

Micheal didn't say a word in reply, he just gave a satisfied grin.