"...998... 999... 1000!" Zack rose out of his final squat and punched the air with a grin, "You owe me 100 gil, Kunsel - piece of cake!" Kunsel gave a grimace and rolled his eyes. He pulled out his cell and quickly tapped a few buttons on its screen, then put it away again.
"There, transferred," he said bluntly, "I'm never betting with you again, you always win!" He stood up and stretched.
"That's because you always bet against the squatting champion of ShinRa!" Zack grinned again and shook out his legs, before walking over to the repository ports that were hooked up to the wall. He checked them daily, mostly because he liked to see what he could use in his next training battle to finally prove that he was ready to fight in the real world, on real missions.
"Zack, you're the only one that competes in that.." Kunsel muttered, fixing his belt and tightening the laces on his boots.
"Hey, Kunsel look at this!" Zack called, picking up a strange device from the repository bin and turning it over thoughtfully. Kunsel jogged over to him and frowned.
"It must be something new the science department are trialling.. I've never seen anything like it."
"What do you think it does?" Zack held the device up and checked the back, then pulled out his cell to see if there were any emails he had negated to read about it.
"It looks like a button," Kunsel said, "maybe it fits to your armlet and does something to your materia," he suggested with a shrug.
Zack made an appreciative noise and balanced it against his metal armlet, then pushed the button. At first nothing happened, then it glowed and Kunsel looked impressed, before Zack disappeared. He looked around, confused. "Zack?!" he called.


Zack landed roughly on the black metal grill of the base and for a moment he stood, dazed and tried to find his balance. He looked around carefully and instinctively reached up over his shoulder to grab his sword's hilt. He let out a relieved sigh when his hand grasped it firmly and he slowly drew it, dropping into a defensive stance. The area didn't look like anything he normally saw in his training realities, but he supposed that the science department were always looking for new ways to challenge their recruits and the SOLDIERs. "Alright, Professor Hojo... show me what you've got..."