Team Reforged; Power and Overpower
Copyright© 2026 by FozzieBare
Chapter 1: Reforged Gets Reinforcements
Reforged’s practice room had acquired a new problem.
Adrian could no longer walk into it and assume he knew everyone.
He regarded that as progress.
Mostly.
There were more chairs, more control stations, and more people who needed somebody to explain why Martin was not allowed to touch a tournament computer without supervision.
The first of the new arrivals had come through Roger Wilkins.
Ken “Red” Baker.
Just Red, as far as most of the competitive scene was concerned.
Roger had mentioned him after the Reactor Critical scrimmage. A good semi-professional pilot who had been pushed out of TotalWarfare after disagreeing with his captain.
Adrian had made the phone call.
Then another.
Then he’d watched enough footage to be reasonably certain that Red’s problem had not been an inability to follow orders.
It had been an unwillingness to pretend a bad order was a good one.
That was a trait Adrian could live with.
Provided Red could also live with hearing no.
Their first practice had gone well.
Their second had gone badly.
Not because Red was a bad pilot.
Because he and Amy had spent nearly ten minutes arguing over whether a withdrawal was a withdrawal or an invitation to be shot in the back.
Adrian had finally interrupted.
“Did either of you notice we lost the objective while you were debating the definition?”
Amy had looked offended.
Red had looked at the replay.
“Huh,” he’d said. “We did.”
That, Adrian decided, was encouraging.
The next arrival was someone Adrian already knew.
Alex Pitts.
HenriAteA, to anyone who had watched the Spring Tournament.
The former vice-captain of the Rokkitmen had been the last man standing when his own team fell apart around him in Las Vegas. Adrian had offered him a proper duel rather than letting the rest of Reforged gang up on him.
Then he’d asked Marcus to investigate whether Alex might be interested in joining them.
Marcus had investigated.
Alex had thought about it.
And now he was standing in the Pit, studying a practice schedule with the expression of a man checking whether the fine print contained a trap.
“I don’t want a vice-captain job,” Alex said.
Adrian nodded.
“Didn’t offer you one.”
“Or a platoon leader job. Not right away.”
“Didn’t offer you that either.”
Alex looked up.
“You do realize I was supposed to be the responsible one on my last team?”
“I remember.”
“That didn’t work out so well.”
Adrian thought about the Rokkitmen captain being removed from the tournament while his own players walked away.
“I remember that too.”
“So what exactly do you want me to do?”
“Play,” Adrian said. “Tell us when you see something we don’t. And get used to being on a team that intends to finish its matches.”
Alex considered that.
Then he smiled.
“I can probably manage that.”
The Reactor Critical arrangement brought a different kind of newcomer.
Roger and Jorge had agreed that some of their reserve and developing pilots could get meaningful tournament experience with Reforged. The paperwork made Elias’s eyes hurt. The practical benefits were considerably easier to understand.
Corbin Oliphant was the first to make it through.
K-Orb on the roster.
A Reactor Critical pilot with a fondness for machines that could take punishment, and the slightly cautious manner of somebody who wasn’t entirely certain whether he was a guest or a teammate.
He was good.
More importantly, when Adrian changed a plan in the middle of a scrimmage, Corbin changed with it.
He didn’t need a speech.
He needed an order that made sense.
The second trial pilot, Matthew Potts, went by MacBNimble.
Matthew was good too.
Nobody disputed that.
But a few practices made it clear that he wanted a more rigid approach than Reforged tended to use. Reforged wanted pilots who could argue before the match, improvise during it, and laugh about the mistakes afterward.
Matthew preferred knowing exactly what his job would be before the countdown started and exactly who would be blamed if somebody changed it.
There was nothing wrong with that.
It just wasn’t a particularly comfortable fit.
They ended the trial without a fight, and Adrian made a point of telling Roger that Matthew had done nothing wrong.
Corbin stayed.
The loan was for the Summer Tournament, subject to all the usual roster approvals. After that, he would return to Reactor Critical unless both organizations agreed otherwise.
Elias kept repeating the last part.
Corbin kept nodding.
Adrian had a suspicion the distinction was going to matter more to Elias than it did to anyone else.
By the end of the week, Red was finding his place, Alex was learning how Reforged argued, and Corbin had stopped looking quite so startled when someone asked him for an opinion.
Not everyone would work out.
Adrian knew that.
But the team was growing.
And for once, growth felt like something they were choosing instead of something being forced on them.
By the time Kevin called the meeting, Reforged felt different.
Not transformed.
Not invincible.
Amy had learned enough in Las Vegas to distrust both words.
But better.
More people.
More experience.
More depth.
Their newer pilots were settling in.
Martin’s strange little ecosystem of technical experimentation was now producing information and equipment almost continuously.
The Reactor Critical arrangement meant a steady supply of the new armor and internal structures was moving in both directions, along with test data that Martin devoured with disturbing enthusiasm.
Most of the active roster had better WarMACs than they had taken to Vegas.
They had plans for exhaustion.
Plans for substitutions.
Plans for what happened if those plans went wrong.
They had seen what the top of semi-professional competition looked like.
More importantly, they no longer wondered whether they belonged there.
They did.
The summer tournament was a few weeks away.
Amy was not foolish enough to think they would walk through it.
But for the first time, she felt like Reforged might actually arrive at a major tournament prepared.
That’s dangerous.
She smiled.
Still feels pretty damn good.
Then Kevin appeared in the practice room doorway.
“Leadership meeting.”
Amy looked at him.
“Now?”
“Now.”
Something in his expression made her smile disappear.
“What’s wrong?”
Kevin hesitated.
“I have some good news.”
Amy stood.
“And?”
“Some news that worries me.”
Ah.
That was worse.
Elias’s office had become the unofficial place where bad things were explained.
Nobody had voted on that.
It had simply happened.
Elias sat behind his desk.
Kevin stood by the wall display.
Adrian took the chair beside Amy.
A couple of the other leadership members crowded wherever they could fit.
Marcus was absent.
Amy noticed that immediately.
“Where’s Marcus?”
“Not here yet,” Kevin said.
“Should he be?”
“Eventually.”
That answer did not help.
Kevin brought up a page on the wall display.
“Good news first.”
Amy folded her arms.
“Please.”
“Remember the camera crews Marcus allowed in during Vegas?”
Adrian nodded.
“The fictional esports thing.”
“Right. The production company that wanted background footage and access because they were developing a show about a competitive gaming team.”
Amy remembered.
She remembered cameras.
She remembered being told they were not making a documentary.
She remembered signing releases that had been explained to her twice.
“Apparently,” Kevin said, “it sold.”
Elias sat up.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Kevin changed the display.
A trade announcement appeared.
Marcus’s name was buried several paragraphs down.
“He gets credited with helping negotiate part of the deal. There are participation provisions tied to the access agreement, which means Reforged should see a funding increase.”
“How much?”
“Still being calculated.”
Elias leaned back.
“That’s good.”
“It is.”
Amy nodded.
“That’s great.”
And it was.
More money meant more equipment.
More travel.
More salaries.
More opportunities to stop asking people to sacrifice their lives simply because Reforged needed something.
It was genuinely good news.
So why did Kevin look like somebody had just told him the building was on fire?
That is great news.
Amy stared at him.
Why do I have a feeling the news that worries you is going to be really, really worrying?
Kevin clicked again.
A promotional page appeared.
At the top was the title.
THE REINFORCEMENTS
Below it:
They’re Young. They’re Talented. They’re Weird. Meet the Reinforcements.
Amy read on.
They started as a team of friends who decided to play Battlemasters of the 31st Century competitively. They shouldn’t be this good this soon. But they are, and fighting their way to the top is going to take everything.
Dealing with their day-to-day lives will take more.
Silence.
Adrian frowned.
“That seems a little too close to reality.”
Kevin nodded.
“That’s what worries me.”
Amy stared at the words.
It was not them.