Taking SPACE

IT BEGINS

*Two months later*

Daniel's robot stood opposite of Stephanie's. Closing his eyes, he forced himself to concentrate.

In a lightning fast movement, the robot dashed forward. Right before it reached Stephanie's, it jumped into the air and punched down, aiming straight for the chest of Stephanie's robot. This should have easily disabled it, but Stephanie's droid stepped back on her right leg and pivoted, causing the attack to pass just millimeters away from making contact.

She continued the pivot, putting her robot's back solidly against his in a movement so fast, that he had no time to react. Her droid leaned back, swinging its arms up over its head, grabbed hold of his robot's head, and twisted. The head of his robot broke clean off.

The headless robot dropped onto the ground. A millisecond later, the pain hit Daniel, and he dropped to the floor as well.

Stephanie gave him a wolfish smile.

Steven had long ago figured out why these mental-powered controls were so much more efficient. Unlike the controls of their time, these not only received signals from the controller's brain, but sensors were buried under the droid's skin, which allowed the user to truly feel and connect with the robot. The feelings were so acute that a wisp of a wind blowing across the droid could be felt by the user. Thankfully though, Daniel was only using one of the cheap training robots that had very few sensors, which meant the pain wasn't nearly as acute. Still, it hurt like hell when Stephanie did something like that, and she knew it.

As the pain from the dying droid faded he glared up at her.

"Want to go again?" She asked mockingly

This was humiliating for Daniel. He had always been the strongest and most capable physically in the family. The very thought that Stephanie could beat him over and over like this was groveling. He'd like to say that he could probably beat her in a hand to hand combat without the robots, but he knew better. For the last months she had trained not only mentally, but also physically. She probably could easily wipe the floor with him now.

The Lionhearted had a rather advanced computer training program that he and Steven had modded and turned it into a fun game that Stephanie had become addicted to. He, however, had not found it as fun as she did, because it wasn't open-world enough for him. He had found it a lot more fun to play the modded flight simulator game Steven and he had made from the Lionhearted Starfighter training program.

He closed his eyes and wished he could beat her just once.

"Looks like I'm too much for you."

Daniels eyes shot open. "No, I'm so going to beat you!"

Daniel repositioned the hat on his head, and mentally took control of one of the robots standing along the wall. It came to life and walked in front of Stephanie's droid.

She smirked at him and said, "I see you're cruising for a bruising. Begin!"

Instead of attacking, this time he had his droid do a backflip away from her. Then he turned and ran into another section.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

Daniel smiled as his robot found a training sword and whipped it out.

"Oh I see. Well, if you want to play it that way then..."

To Daniel's surprise, three robots along the wall came to life and dashed towards his.

He gaped at her. "How?"