Straightening, he found Valera Dent standing not a foot in front of him, staring down at him with the same intensity she’d just lectured the whole of the class with.
“You need to get stronger, Ward,” she told him quietly, her face set. “Whatever it takes. I intervened there because you are a student under my purview and protection, and Grant was out of line, but you won’t always have someone there to step in for you.”
Rei swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.” His answer was subdued, and he hated himself for it. He wanted to be able to snap back, but there was nothing to snap back with. Valera Dent here. Kana Loren at Grandcrest. Viv for the better part of the last 4 years before that…
If anything, the captain didn’t know the half of how acutely Rei felt the truth of her statement.
“Tricks have their place,” Dent continued, a little more gently this time. “Don’t ever lose your cunning. But strategy will only get you so far in this world, or the SCTs Champions would only ever be the cleverest of Users, rather than the strongest. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rei repeated.
“Good. Off with you.”
Rei saluted the captain, then stepped around her into the moving mass of the class. Viv had paused to wait for him at a discrete distance, but joined him to pass through the exit together.
“Well that was a mess,” she muttered under her breath once they were in the hall. “I knew Grant was an ass, but what the hell was that all about?”
It took a moment for Rei to shake his head, the events still tumbling around amongst his thoughts. “I’m not sure. That was… weird, though.”
“‘Weird’?” Viv repeated in a hiss as they passed with the others into the locker room. “‘Weird’? The guy tried to cut you down after the match ended, Rei! What in the MIND’s name did you say to him to set him off like that?! He looked ready to murder you!”
“I-I don’t know,” Rei answered truthfully as the pair of them made for the twin showers at the back of the chamber. “He was getting mouthy, so I lashed out. And then he—”
Rei, though, stopped dead so abruptly that some girl following close behind him cursed and had to dodge around him. At his side, Viv halted too, and was about to demand what he was doing when she seemed to take note of the blaze of his NOED.
“Oh boy…” Rei thought he heard her say, but her apprehension was lost on him as he took in the script tracing itself across his frame.
...
Processing combat information.
...
Calculating.
…
Results:
Strength: Lacking
Endurance: Lacking
Speed: Severely Lacking
Cognition: Lacking
Offense: Lacking
Defense: Severely Lacking
Growth: Not Applicable
…
Checking combat data acquisition.
…
Adequate data acquirement met.
Device initiating adjustments to:
Strength. Endurance. Speed. Cognition. Offense. Defense.
…
Adjustment complete.
Strength has been upgraded from Rank F8 to F9.
Endurance has been upgraded from Rank F6 to F7.
Speed has been upgraded from Rank E0 to E3.
Cognition has been upgraded from Rank E0 to E1.
Offense has been upgraded from Rank F9 to E0.
Defense has been upgraded from Rank F9 to E1.
…
Calculating.
…
CAD “Shido” has been upgraded from Rank E6 to E7.
…
Checking combat data acquisition.
…
Adequate data acquirement met.
Prioritizing reasonable evolution parameters.
…
Selected Prioritization:
Speed. Defense.
…
Recategorizing for future parameters.
…
Processing.
…
Evolving.
…
Evolution complete.
As the protocol came to an end, Rei was left standing with his mouth hanging open, staring at the final line of the script. At his side Viv looked to be vibrating with anticipation, her blue eyes following every passerby, clearly ready to demand if Shido had upgraded again once they were alone in the aisle.
He didn’t give her the chance.
“Viv, we’ve got to go.”
Her surprise was only momentary.
Then she glanced around and stepped closer to speak so that only he could hear. “That big?”
“Yeah,” Rei affirmed, hardly able to articulate anything else. “That big.”
Viv looked at him carefully, taking in what he imagined was the pale shock of his face.
And then she’d taken him by the arm, only having to drag him for a moment back towards their lockers at the north end of the room before he’d turned to join her hurry.
“Fine. But I don’t care if all your stats miraculously jump to S. You’re still letting me shower before you show me anything.”
*****
From the end of the aisle Aria watched Reidon Ward and Viviana Arada turn and rush back towards the exit of the locker room, earning themselves a few dirty looks from the wash of the other students headed in the opposite direction. She’d been following behind the pair unnoticed, trying to eavesdrop on their conversation. This would have been embarrassing enough, but when Ward had stopped dead halfway to the showers she’d nearly run straight into his back, and had to dodge around him and move on as though nothing was amiss. The fact that neither of them seemed to have noticed her sparked Aria’s already-smoldering curiosity, and so when she heard two lockers open near the north end of the room, followed by a glimpse of Ward and Arada dashing for the exit together with their regulars folded over their arms, her interest got the better of her. She was alone by then, everyone else already split off into the men and women’s chambers to wash off the sweat of the intense training day, so it was with no distraction that Aria pulled up the ISCM database, bringing Ward’s information up for what had to have been the dozenth time in 2 weeks.
Seeing the new label of E7 beside his CAD-Rank, she was doubly glad no one was around to witness the stupefaction she knew had to have been printed all over her face.
CHAPTER 22
“Nothing is given, in the world of CAD-fighting. Nothing is handed out. It is earned, rewarded. In some fashion or another, the inches we gain little by little as we climb to the top are always paid for in blood, sweat, and pain.”
- Dalek “the Gatecrasher” O’Rourke
Post-Match Interview, c. 2435
While moving across campus in your combat suit wasn’t strictly permitted unless you were specifically conditioning your Endurance spec, that allowance was enough to get Rei and Viv back to Kanes without more than a few curious glances from some older students. Reaching the dorms, they elected to take the stairs along the west side of the building rather than risk waiting for the elevator, darting up the steps, then down the halls of the third floor until they reached 304. Rushing in slightly out of breath, they slammed the door shut behind them and hurried into the common area.
“My room,” Rei said quickly. “You’re not going to believe what—”
He stopped, though, entering the living space, because two people were seated across from each other on either couch, looking like they’d just been talking. One, fortunately, was Catcher, who was turning towards the door with his typical beaming expression, obviously pleased to see them.
The other, less-pleasantly, was Chancery Cashe.
“Hey you two!” Catcher greeted Rei and Viv with enthusiasm, his grin fading only a little as his yellow eyes took in their combat suits and the black-and-gold of their jacket, slacks, and caps tucked over and under their arms. “What�
�s with the new look?”
Rei exchanged a glance with Viv. He had completely forgotten, in his excitement, that some of the other four classes would be in leisure hours before their own combat training later in the afternoon.
“Uh…” Rei began, scrambling for an explanation that wouldn’t have Cashe snorting at him derisively, but before he could think of anything the silver-haired girl was on her feet. She was—he was surprised to notice—astonishingly red in the face despite her dark skin, and her lips were closed so tight as she looked at him that they might have been glued shut. She stood like that for almost 5 whole seconds, as rigid as a tree, and Rei had just started to wonder if she wanted to say something when she turned away from him and Viv to make—a little too quickly, he thought—for the open door of her room. She stepped inside without a word, shutting it at once, leaving the other three to stare after her.
“What was that about?” Viv finally asked in a pseudo-whisper when they heard the familiar sound of Cashe’s study feeds starting up on her window.
Catcher shook his head in answer with a resigned sort of sigh. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. She’s just hard-headed.” Before either of them could press him, though, he looked around again, smiling once more. “So what’s up? You’re back earlier than expected. I was just thinking of grabbing a bite before my class’ training starts at 1600, if you guys are hungry?”
“No,” Rei answered immediately, and it was his turn to know he’d been too fast on the draw.
Catcher raised an eyebrow, his expression growing distinctly more suspicious. “Okay… How about this, then? We don’t pretend like you’re not acting weird, and you guys just tell me what’s going on. Hmm?”
Rei hesitated, taking in the blond Saber. Catcher had quickly become the closest friend he had after Viv, but they’d still only known each other for 2 weeks. He trusted him, but there were some things that weren’t smart to share with anyone he’d only had half a month to get to know, no matter how much he liked them.
Then again, if Shido’s protocol meant what he thought it did, there were also some things that couldn’t be hidden one way or the other…
“In here.” Rei made his decision and moved for the door of his room, pushing it open. “Come on. Both of you.”
Viv—despite her early drive that a shower superseded all other news—stepped in immediately. Catcher only frowned in confusion at the two of them a moment longer before he, too, got up from the couch to join, Rei following in behind him and closed the door at their backs.
In the 2 weeks since term had started, very little had changed in his private quarters. The smart-glass window was opaque and scattered with a handful of notes and references over his desk he hadn’t bothered to close out of before leaving for lectures that morning. His bed was unmade and the closet was open, revealing a wanting collection of civilian clothing he’d brought with him from Grandcrest, but aside from that the room was about as sparse as the day he’d moved in.
“Sooo… What’s up?” Catcher asked again, watching Rei move to the window, tossing his uniform on the bed as he passed.
Not answering immediately, Rei swiped away the data of the smart-glass, then with a few taps turned it translucent, letting in the light of the late summer afternoon. Putting his back to it, he faced his friends again, meeting Viv’s eye first.
“Ready for this?” he asked her.
She nodded just as Catcher started to look—for once—a little irritated at being ignored.
“Ready for what?” he demanded, getting heated now. “Hello? Can someone clue me in on—?”
“Call,” Rei said, cutting Catcher off as he focused on Shido’s weight around his wrists, bringing his arms up.
The Device whirred into life, as it always did on being summoned. In a blink the now-familiar claws extended from the knuckles along the jointed glove that covered Rei’s right hand. At the same time, the white underlay manifested fingers-to-elbow about his left, the heavy steel plating taking shape a blink later. When it was done, Rei took in Shido’s form expectantly, seeking what was new, looking for what had changed. He searched, then searched again, and ended up finding…
Nothing.
“Wait… What?” he asked out loud, confused as he turned both wrists over, looking for the promised improvements. Had he not understood? Had the protocol meant something else? No. That couldn’t be it. The scripting had clearly stated that Shido had evol—
“Uh… Rei?”
Viv’s voice was quiet, and Rei looked up at her more out of reflex than intent. He frowned, at a loss to see both her and Catcher staring wide-eyed at… the floor?
And then it hit him.
Slowly, Rei looked down.
Starting just below his knees, his formerly bare legs were now encased in gracefully plated black-and-white armor. Two pairs of narrow, curved panels of carbonized steel extended to cover the front of each of his shins, bisected by clean lines of glowing, blue vysetrium. The backs, over his calves, were more intricate, made of multiple smaller, thinner sheets layered over one another like long scales, but the armor stopped along the collars of the boots he’d put on to run across campus.
“Take them off,” Catcher hissed quickly, like it was a matter of life or death, also looking at his feet. “Take them off, Rei!”
Rei did so immediately, bending to undo his laces in a rush before kicking the boots off one after the other. As soon as he did there was more blurred shifting of metal, and an instant later he felt himself standing half an inch taller on soles of padded steel. The pattern encasing his feet proved the most delicate of the armor, made of several small panes that shifted and moved along more vysetrium jointing as he put his weight on one leg, then on the other, then stood up on pointed—almost-clawed—toes.
“You’ve got to be kidding me…” Viv breathed, taking him all in, mouth still agape. Then, as though coming to her senses, she snapped out of it and looked him in the face with a scowl. “You evolved again? Seriously?!”
“You tell me,” Rei answered weakly, only barely able to pull his attention from the armor long enough to glance up at her. “Is this real? Or did Grant hit me harder than a thought?”
“Oh it’s real,” Catcher muttered, he too apparently unable to take his eyes off of the black-and-white steel jointed in blue.
Then he seemed to register what Rei had said.
“Wait… Grant? What’s Grant got to do with this? Actually, never mind.” He held up a hand to stop Viv when she opened her mouth to answer. “You can tell me later. For now—” he turned back to Rei, staring at him intently “—the more pressing issue. Namely: WHAT THE HELL MAN?!”
The volume and excitement of Catcher’s demand finally shook Rei from his reverie with a start.
Still, he hardly had an appropriate reply.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” was all he could answer. It was true, too. He’d deduced that he was obviously going to be ascending through the CAD-Ranks a lot faster than his classmates—probably even well-after he caught up to them—but this was something else. Twice. Twice now Shido had evolved, this second shift in form coming only 2 weeks after the first, and only three ranks apart. How was that possible? Most evolutions took months, even years in the top tiers, but more importantly they occurred only every seven to ten levels on average. His had happened in three. Did this mean there was more to his S-Ranked Growth than the simple matter of improving faster? Did this mean his potential number of evolutions was higher, too? If this gap was anything to judge by, Shido would adapt more than twice as many times as the average CAD, which meant an enormous probability of development even long before Rei achieved the A- or S-Ranks, if he every managed it.
“Rei! Twice! Twice in two weeks!” Catcher had continued his half-excited, half-disbelieving yelling. “That’s not unheard of, that’s insanity! Do the instructors know about this?!”
Rei only shook his head, still contemplating the potential impact and meanin
g of his new armor.
“We were out of the gym before his protocol triggered,” Viv started to explain in his stead, but paused as some thought struck her. “Why was that?” she asked, looking to Rei. “We had more than ten minutes between each match. All of my upgrade protocols trigger whenever I’m out of combat for about thirty seconds.”
Rei opened his mouth to answer, anticipating some response to form, but nothing came. He pondered it a moment longer, then shook his head. “No idea.” His voice still came unsteadily. “Maybe… Maybe because we were slotted to keep fighting? Maybe Shido was aware of that, and the amount of data it had to process at the end caused the last delay?”
“I’m sorry, ‘Shido was aware of that’?” Catcher repeated, looking between the two of them with a blank expression. “Is there a reason I should believe a Device suddenly came to life and is taking note of our training schedules?”
“Well… No…” Rei answered, struggling to find a way to explain that didn’t have him oversharing just yet. In the end, he decided a kernel of truth was the best solution. “Do you remember telling me you trusted that I had a reason I didn’t want to explain why I made it into Galens?”
Catcher nodded, his gaze suddenly very intense.
“Do you still believe that?”
Another nod.
“Good.” Rei took a breath, mulling over his words. “I do know why I made it into the Institute, Catcher. Viv does too. I’m sorry… I want to explain, but it’s…” He paused, struggling.
“It’s big,” Viv took over, looking at Catcher pointedly. “It’s really big. The base truth is that the fewer people know about it, the better for everyone for now.”
Catcher’s eyes were wide again, and he was studying Viv like he were trying to deduce if she were making some kind of exaggeration. When he apparently found no hint of deceit in her expression, he looked to Rei, doing the same thing.
After several seconds of silence, Catcher took him a heavy breath.
“Is this why Valera Dent sought you out after your Commencement match with Laurent?” he asked carefully.
Iron Prince: A Progression Sci-Fi Epic (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 1) Page 34