“Fantastic.” Rei grumbled, deciding it wasn’t worth the effort of trying to stare the asshat down, choosing instead to turn and face the ring. “I swear since the day he caught me checking out Aria Laurent the dude has been glaring daggers at me every chance he gets.”
“Oooh so you admit it, then?” Viv latched on, sporting a too-eager grin as she, too, faced the perimeter. “You were checking her out?”
“Shut up, you know what I mean.” Rei brushed her comment aside, feigning an interest in Field 2 to his right as he felt his cheeks flush a little. “If you want to give someone a hard time for having the hots for her, go pester Grant.”
“Nah. I’d have to blame him for it, which I can’t. That girl is a serious smoke-show. I’d probably make a move myself if I got the impression she’d go for it.”
That got a laugh out of Rei, but as he turned back around he found Viv looking over her shoulder. Following her eyes, it wasn’t more than a second before he identified her point of interest.
Aria Laurent, like Viv, hadn’t moved from her original training ring. Field 5 was the typical home of 1-A’s four Phalanxes, and while the rest look to have scattered about the other rings, Laurent was left standing a little apart from other gathering students—including Sense and Kay Sandree—as was her habit. She was as stunning as ever, and stood quietly waiting, bright auburn hair in a bun with her red-gold and green CAD bands gleaming in the overhead lighting.
“I don’t know…” Rei said tentatively. “She doesn’t seem… aloof, to you? She’s always on her own.”
Turned away from him as she was, it was hard to make out Viv’s expression, but when she answered she sounded… sad?
“No.” She shook her head. “If anything she seems kinda lone—”
“Eyes forward, cadets!”
The quick order had Viv, Rei, and the other four students who’d gathered with them—including Grant—snapping to attention as they faced Field 4. Before them Sergeant Major Liam Gross was standing expectantly, his tight tail of pale hair in sharp contrast to his tanned skin and dark eyes. The Duelist Type-instructor, Rei had worked with him twice before during cross training, and his unimpressive showings in those classes was clearly reflected in the subtle frown of the young officer’s face when his gaze fell briefly on him.
“At ease,” Gross said, and the six of them relaxed at once as he continued. “No preamble, and straight to it. Each of you will have three matches for a total of nine bouts, timed at five minutes with ten minutes of recovery and discussion in-between. Keep in mind you are not just here to practice your own fighting. I want all of you to pay attention to every match-up, and be ready to answer questions as we break down each pairing during recuperation.” He checked the time on his NOED. “Let’s get to it. Arada and Jax, you’re up first. The rest of you have a seat.”
So much for going to see Sense fight, Rei thought dejectedly, whispering a quiet “Good luck” to Viv as she stepped onto the field with Adam Jax, a wiry Lancer he didn’t know well. Rei was extra disappointed when he realized there would be two top-rankers at Field 5 with Laurent and Kay both there, and so it was somewhat dispirited that he sat in one of the six black chairs that had been projected into being at Gross’ order, identical to the ones the department and school heads had taken to at the Commencement Ceremony. The others left out of the match claimed their own seats around him, and Rei was wholly unsurprised to find himself sitting between two empty chairs, Grant and another tall boy taking up the far two to his left, a girl with onyx eyes and ocean-green hair a space to his right.
Sighing internally, Rei had to physically stop himself from rolling his eyes.
After his performance in the last assessment of the parameter testing, the Brawlers had largely come around to his presence in their group. Camilla Warren was still stand-offish, and Bretz—undoubtedly subconsciously—went easy on him in the occasional training, but Emily Gisham and Tad Emble had taken to treating him as another member of the group, and Rei had come to count Sense as the only friend he had outside of Viv and Catcher.
Unfortunately, the rest of 1-A still had a tendency to eye him strangely whenever they thought he wasn’t looking, particularly after it became common knowledge that he’d become the first of Galen’s new class to evolve his CAD in school.
“Cadet Viviana Arada versus Cadet Adam Jax. Combatants… Call.”
Distracted by the others’ avoidance, Rei had completely missed Gross’ instruction for Viv and Jay to take up starting positions, the Arena’s voice telling the pair of them to manifest their Devices rousing him abruptly. The field—which would ordinarily have risen up 10 feet while manifesting either a pre-selected or randomized stage—only lifted about a yard, and had taken on the hexagonal patterning and pitching of the Speed & Agility assessment of their parameter testing course. On opposite ends of the ring, 20 yards separating them, the two cadets were facing off in the starting circles, Gemela’s two purple-yellow and silver blades already in Viv’s hands, while in Jax’s a 7-foot spear was in the process of manifesting already held at the ready, its shaft solid green steel, its blade yellow and edged with sky-blue vysetrium.
“Combatants… Fight.”
The moment Viv rocketed off her starting point, Rei knew Adam Jax was going to lose.
It wasn’t that the guy was unskilled. He’d had the longer weapon in place precisely in preparation for a forward assault, set against an aggressive press that would have immediately lost him any reach advantage he had if Viv had gotten into his range. His positioning forced her around, barring off her momentum as she was made to shift directions over the uneven ground, and Jax even managed the true opening attack of the match, following her half-loop with his eyes and cutting forward at the place she should have been in the next step.
Unfortunately for him, the fact of the matter was that Viv was simply too fast.
Seeing the tensing of the incoming strike, she planted and pivoted on the spot, dodging the slash—which caught nothing but empty air—even as she lunged at Jax’s body. To his credit the boy corrected quickly, snapping the haft of his spear inward in time to block the slashing downcut of Viv’s sword.
Unfortunately, locking up only one blade was hardly enough to stop a Duelist.
In a flash Viv’s knife vanished into Jax’s gut, then was retracted. She’d stabbed again before the boy managed to slam the shaft of his Device into her chest, sending her flying into a rising of white pillars, but the damage was already done. Instead of following up in the opening he’d given himself, Jax’s spear was slow in coming up, the grimace on his face apparent as the field registered the injuries to his abdomen and applied the appropriate restrictions.
“Thaaaat’s got to hurt…” the blond cadet closest to Rei’s left—whose name he wasn’t familiar with—muttered with a snort.
Deciding to attempt a conversation, Rei nodded as he continued to watch. “He’s done for. She’s too fast for him, and that damage is going to bind up his core. He won’t be able to move well enough to keep off her next attack.”
The boy blinked, then looked at him oddly, as though he hadn’t been aware of the fact that Rei could speak. After a moment he turned his attention back on the fight, and said nothing more.
Another forceful avoidance of rolling eyes, and Rei placated his irritation by watching Viv put an end to the bout in style, pinning up Jax’s spear with both of Gemela’s blades as he attempted a weak thrust at her chest, then delivering a cracking kick to the side of the cadet’s head. He fell like a rock, his Device slipping from his grip, and Viv looked about to pounce and finish the job when the Arena spoke again.
“Fatal Damage Accrued: 57%. Winner: Viviana Arada.”
“Nice,” Rei said under his breath, watching Viv stand straight, breathing lightly as she recalled her Gemela. Jax’s reactive shielding appeared to have swallowed most of the ending blow, because he sat looking only a little cross-eyed, and graciously accepted the hand up Viv
offered him once he’d regained his bearings.
“Good fight, both of you.” Gross—who’d been observing from outside the ring to the right of the chairs—stepped into the Dueling perimeter as the field retracted back into its plain projection plating. “Take a seat.”
Viv and Jax did as they were told, sitting to Rei’s left and right respectively as the sergeant major continued.
“General thoughts before I ask my questions?”
“Jax was done for the minute Arada stepped onto the field.”
Logan Grant’s voice was flat, devoid of any sympathy as he spoke, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed. At Rei’s right he felt Adam Jax tense, but didn’t look around at him.
He hated to agree with Grant, but the guy had read his mind.
“Elaborate, Grant.” Gross said smoothly.
The Mauler shrugged. “Arada is a D7 according to the database. Jax is a D4. It was already a skewed pairing, but Jax’s Type is a particularly bad matchup when set against a Duelist. Lancers have to depend on their reach to keep their opponents at bay, using offense as a defense. Arada’s Type leans into Speed, allowing her to get inside his guard. The minute she managed that…” He dipped his head at the field, obviously indicating the results of the match spoke for themselves. Then, surprisingly, he looked around at Jax. “You’d probably do a lot better against a Phalanx, or a Mauler like me.”
At his right, Rei felt Jax relax a bit, while on his left Viv—like he had—blinked in astonishment.
Not before the heat-death of the universe would either of them have believed they’d hear Logan Grant offer a positive comment to anyone, even as underhanded as it had come…
“Good summary.” Gross granted with an approving nod before scanning the group as a whole. “Right now, as you are in the very earliest stages of upgrading and evolution, I would agree that there are ideal and inopportune matchups. A Lancer’s reach is at a disadvantage to a Duelist’s Speed spec, just like a Mauler’s power might be at a disadvantage to a Brawler’s reflexes. However, that Brawler’s lower Offense will have a hard time against a Phalanx’s Defense, who in turn might have that Defense overrun by the Mauler’s Strength. For now these are valuable considerations. However—” he spoke the word pointedly “—these differences close quickly, as you and your Devices grow stronger. At the System level and above, Type means nothing compared to skill and ability. The Mauler may catch the Brawler, the Brawler may smash through the Phalanx’s shield, the Phalanx may withstand the Mauler’s assault. Do not lean into or away from the strengths and weakness of your Type as compared to others. Instead, lean into your own capabilities, and develop yourself from there. That, of course, includes most and foremost learning from your own failings. Jax—” Jax flinched beside Rei as Gross’ eyes fell on him “—give me one thing you would do differently if you could repeat that exact fight.”
“My opening attack.” Despite Jax’s obvious discomfort at being called out, he’d clearly been ready with an answer. “Arada saw it coming. That was when she closed on me, and got inside my range.”
Gross looked Viv. “Would you agree?”
“Yes, sir.” Viv answered just as quickly, using her hands to demonstrate intersecting paths while she elaborated. “I was actually trying to get further around him. There was a line of raised pillars I wanted to try a leaping attack from, forcing Jax to defend upward, where his spear would have been less stable.” She shook the hand pointing away from her, and bent the fingers of the other inward. “When I saw he’d committed to interception, I pivoted. That’s when the fight was mine, I think.” She—like Grant—looked over Rei’s head at Jax. “If I hadn’t seen that attack coming, you might have caught me exactly as you intended, or at the very least forced me to back off well out of any optimal range.”
“Excellent observations all,” Gross said with a bit of a smile as Jax looked to be considering Viv’s feedback. “Now, can someone tell me—”
Until the end of the recovery period, the sergeant major grilled them on everything from the field, to where Viv could improve on, to what they each individually would have done under similar combat circumstances. Rei wasn’t surprised when Gross pushed him a little less enthusiastically about how he would have dealt with Jax’s reach than he did the others, but shrugged it off as they moved on. None of the other Type-instructors had ever been supremely keen on his presence in their cross-training groups, and he had been a good reminder that not every staff at Galen’s was aware of his Growth spec. Even Bretz seemed pleasantly surprised each time Rei reported an improvement in Shido’s performance.
He was in the process of considering that it might have made sense to keep knowledge of his S-Rank as limited as possible when a light cast over the sergeant major’s NOED.
“Recovery time is up. Grant. Yang. On deck.”
Grant pushed himself up from his chair, mirrored by the girl with black eyes two seats over on Rei’s right did the same. They didn’t look at each other as they took to the field, only sizing each other up once they faced off in their respective starting points. Once again the projection of the Speed & Agility course rose up around them, here forming the looping staircase of pillars, there dipping down into shallow pitfalls.
“Cadet Logan Grant, versus Cadet Biyu Yang. Combatants… Call.”
“By the way… Did you hear he made C0?”
Viv’s sidelong whisper had Rei’s fingers twitching, and he looked around at her sharply. She didn’t glance away from the field, but gave an imperceptible nod of affirmation, and he cursed under his breath. Rei hadn’t been tracking anyone’s specs aside from his, Viv’s, and Catcher’s, so it wasn’t surprising he’d missed their class’ second C-Ranked User making his jump out of D9. He stared at Grant, taking in the cold focus that lined the cadet’s handsome face while his Device manifested into both hands. Adam Jax groaned in jealousy or disbelief from Rei’s right, either of which would have fit the moment.
The Maulers practiced on Field 6, which meant Rei had largely only had occasion to see Grant’s CAD from a distance, the two of them having mercifully been spared getting matched into a group together during their Types’ cross-training days. Nearly entirely comprised of white steel, the massive axe had a flat, narrow blade that extended halfway down it’s 6-foot haft, making it look almost more like a sword than a proper Mauler weapon. Red metal accented the Device’s grips and joints, coupled in a rare-double coloring of red vysetrium along the pommel and sharp edge of the steel. His form, too, was armored, with both Grant’s arms encased to the shoulders in white-and-red.
Despite having not evolved since arriving at Galens, Logan Grant’s CAD looked to be even with Aria Laurent’s when it came to its physical coverage.
“Combatants… Fight.”
The Arena announced the start of the match, and hardly two heartbeats later Grant and Yang smashed into each other in the middle of the field.
Yang, it turned out, was a Phalanx, her yellow-and-purple shield longer and narrower than most, and whereas Laurent had wielded a spear, the D-Ranker held a double-edged longsword in her right hand, the body of its blade cored with glowing orange. She proved herself the owner of a rather prodigious Strength spec, too, taking her opponent’s opening attack head on without flinching.
At least not until he cut straight into her shield.
Logan Grant, it transpired, was a C-Ranked User for very good reason. His two-handed axe cleaved down at Yang’s defenses, shearing into the steel of the Device itself. Not pausing to try and wrench his weapon free, Grant twisted and delivered a crushing kick to his opponent’s left side. Her defense locked up and her sword on the other side of her body, Yang could do no more than hunch and shift into the blow, which connected with a painful thud. She was sent jetting sideways, her shield dislodging with her, but the Phalanx demonstrated surprising agility for her Type when she nimbly turned the momentum into a side-roll and came up ready for Grant’s follow-through. He was on her
in an instant, leading with a lateral cut that Yang just managed to dodge under, and for about a minute the two traded back and forth presses, cutting and stabbing and dodging and blocking as Grant pushed Yang back three steps for every one she got out of him. When the end finally came, it was abrupt, the axe thundering down in an overhead crush, and the Phalanx smashed the blow aside with the combined weight of her shield and sword together. As Grant’s white-and-red Device slammed into the field, digging itself 6 inches into the hexagonal pattern, Yang reversed the deflection to bring her weapon cutting up at the Mauler’s neck, going for the kill in the opening his failed attack had allowed.
And stepping right into the trap Rei had watched Grant set up for her.
Instead of a clean strike through her opponent’s throat, Yang found the momentum of her blow cut short when Grant caught the wrist of her sword arm with a ready hand. Wrenching it out of the way, he didn’t give Yang the opportunity to lift her shield in defense of her face before slamming his forehead into her nose. Her reactive shielding accepted most of the blow, but Rei still saw blood as the girl stumbled back, dazed. Jerking his axe free of the ground, Grant’s motions were almost lazy as he brought the weapon up, then down on the undefended space between Yang’s shoulder and neck, slamming her to the field as most of her body went limp.
“Fatal Damage Accrued: 92%. Winner: Logan Grant.”
“Excellent!” Gross called as Grant recalled his CAD while standing over Yang’s limp form, the field retracting into itself all around them. “That was well done by the both of you. Give me a moment, and we’ll get a medical drone over here for your nose, Yang.” The sergeant looked to the four still seated, his NOED blazing as he addressed them. “Did anyone else catch how Grant gained himself the upper hand, in that fight?”
Iron Prince: A Progression Sci-Fi Epic (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 1) Page 31