"Trust is beautiful and comforting, but also delicate and fragile. In order for trust to be gained you must first present the chance for it to be broken, even for yourself."

"I hope you aren't sending the same pieces of scrap that I saw out in the yard" A voice says as he enters a small domed arena. In comes a giant young man fastening his gloves onto his hands and looking around the battleground he was now seeing for the first time. He looks up to where he notices a one-sided window lies.

"Try not to disappoint me, alright old man." He says as he takes his stance.

"3, 2, 1, BEGIN" goes the sound and black Atlesian Knights are released into the arena rushing the young man. Seeing what his competition is he simply sighs and begins effortlessly evading all of their strikes. As one attempts to go for his legs he grabs it by its arm and swings it into a group of the machines. His skin tone changes color making him lighter and he rushes toward the bundle of robots with speed that is uncanny for a man of his size. Watching from above the "old man" smirks and chuckles lightly as he can see all of the Knight's limbs flying up to his window. Eventually an entire Knight is flung at the window by the young man and gives 1 light crack to the glass.

"I'm tired of these toys, Merlot didn't give me any of this crap and neither should you, I know you have more to throw at me!" Shouted the young man in frustration.

The speakers for the arena echoed "Keep your tail on Samuel you know thi…"

"Oxton!" he stated in a stubborn corrective tone

The voice sighed "Alright 'Oxton' let's see what you can do". The gates opened up once again this time revealing the sleeker, more up to date models of the Atlesian Knights. The young man quickly took note that none of them had any type of melee weaponry, and the barrels of their guns were all pointed at him. He began to charge at them seeing that he had no means of beating them from where he was standing. The Knights opened fire and the young man's skin became light once again, he bobbed and weaved through until all of the units held their fire and unloaded their clips onto him all at once. There was a bright flash of light with all of the energy that had hit him and once the "old man" could see again he saw that this time his skin had turned black and metallic. The Knights continued their fire but to no avail, the young man approached slowly and opened his palm to one of one of the knights as his glove began to glow purple pulling it through the air and into his grasp as he crushes it with just one hand. He picked up the next and tore it in half with ease and used the two halves to break down the rest of the Knights. He tossed aside the pieces of scrap and taunted to the window again.

"Come on Ironwood, is that all ya got? Because I'm starting to wonder why I even got up this morning."

"Alright tough guy" laughed the general "I got something special just for you then since you asked. Just make sure you don't kill whoever is inside this one… if you can that is."

Samuel watched the gate to see what his last challenge would be but right before it was too late he saw a Mech suit dropping from above and ran out of the way. Samuel looked surprised at first but then grinned.

"Throwing in one of your new toys huh, I must really be something special."

"I wouldn't consider it a blessing just yet." Said the general

The mechanized giant came at Samuel and tackled him into the wall of the arena. He pushes the Paladin off of him and grabs it and attempts to pick it up, but the arm of the machine quickly circles around knocking Samuel to the ground. It jumps up again to land on Samuel but his skin turned black once again. When the mech lands on him he merely winces as it would have hurt a lot more had he not changed in time. He takes his left hand and the detailing in his glove begins to glow white, as a gust of wind knocks over the mech from his body. After being staggered it rushes towards him swinging its metal fist and Samuel manages to catch it in his hands. He stares at his opponent as he struggles to not be overtaken by the force of the attack. Samuel then raised his right fist as the glove began to glow light blue and smashes it into the ground, creating a spike of ice going through the machines arm keeping it in place stuck with shards of ice spiking through its limbs. He takes his right hand again and, as he grips the link between the arm and the spike going through the Paladin, it begins to glow red burning the metal and weakening it as he rips its arm. He then tosses the arm into the air and raises his left hand towards it as it begins to glow a dark violet, and the arm comes rushing down piercing through the core of the suit. Panting in exauhstion Samuel falls on his back to the ground.

Atlas medics rush down quickly, as well as General Ironwood to be sure of Samuel and the pilot's safety. As they open up the mech the driver was completely unharmed and Samuel begins stretching like he had a really bad creak in his neck.

"Impressive," said the General looking down at Samuel "I wasn't sure if you could pull that off the first time through but excellent performance"

"Are you sure you can afford to be having me break your new equipment like that" Said Samuel breathing heavily "I don't think that was cheap by any means"

"No," said Ironwood Calmly "but it did give me a really good idea where to start with you. Your training will begin tomorrow at dawn, make sure you're not up late."

"As long as you'll have more actual workouts for me than I'll be up whenever you need me" said Samuel wiping the sweat from his forehead attempting to get off the floor

Ironwood began speaking while walking away "I'll have you know that what you fought today was just a prototype, quite honestly no first year of my school could have beaten it so you'll have a bit of a leg up when you enroll, but rest assured the later models will not be so easy on you" he says has the doors are closing "and neither will I."

Samuel Oxton Briar