Which meant they’d be alone together in 304…
A slight pressure took ahold of Rei’s chest unexpectedly, then, surprising him. It occurred to him that, unlike the other two, he had never been on his own with Aria, and for some reason had trouble imagining it.
“Uh… Sure! I got a start on them, but definitely haven’t put in the time I should yet.” He paused, considering. “Maybe we can meet in the lobby? Claim one of the couches or tables?”
Aria shrugged, finishing with her shirt to turn and reach for her own jacket. “I don’t mind studying in your suite. I’m actually curious to see if all of them are set up the same.”
Rei swallowed nervously, and didn’t remotely miss Viv cocking an eyebrow at him as her eyes slid from him to her and back again.
He actually saw the moment the lightbulb went off in her head, and would have cursed her to a hundred terrible deaths then, if he hadn’t thought it would look too suspicious.
“One of our suitemates uses our wall display a lot,” Viv said smoothly, managing to keep her voice completely even despite grinning at Rei while Aria had her back to them. “Might be best if you guys study in Rei’s room, just in case.”
Aria visibly froze at that, her jacket halfway pulled onto one arm. When she started moving again, Rei got the impression she was very deliberately not turning around to face them. “O-oh. Well that’s fine, I guess. Are you going to come, Viv?”
“Nah,” Viv answered, still smiling at Rei as he glared at her with what he hoped was all the fire of every star in the universe. “I actually just remembered that Catcher and I promised to meet some people before 1-C’s session.”
Aria half-looked around at that, and Rei could have thrown himself at the girl and hugged her when she asked her next question.
“Really? Aren’t you two fighting right now?”
Viv’s gleeful expression stiffened as she saw the noose she’d accidentally set for herself. “Uh… Yeah.” She reached down for her boots, obviously trying to give herself a moment to think. “Like you guys said, though, I shouldn’t have gotten that worked up over Cashe. I’ll apologize, and we’ll get over it. I’ve been looking forward to meeting some of his friends from his class, anyway.”
“Yeah, sounds like fun.” It was Rei’s turn to go on the offense. “Tell me… When exactly, did you guys make these plans? It’s the first I’ve heard of it. Aria too, apparently.”
Viv glowered at him as best she could without showing her face to Aria. Before she could come up with an answer, though a voice called out from the end of the aisle.
“Ward! Bretz has asked all of the Brawlers to meet for a minute.”
Rei, Viv, and Aria together looked about to find Warren had poked her head around the far edge of the line of lockers. She was already dressed, her hair tucked neatly under her cap, and was smiling again.
“Bretz did?” Rei asked, surprised. It was the first time the instructor had ever requested an after-class meeting of any kind. “What for?”
Warren shrugged. “No idea. Apparently he told Gisham to have everyone gather up downstairs. Sounds like there’s something he wants to review about the Intra-Schools.”
“Huh.” Rei frowned, but he pulled his own cap out from his locker to pull it over his white hair. “Okay. Just give me a second.”
“Sure,” Warren answered, beaming. “I’ll wait for you.”
She disappeared around the end of the aisle again. Rei was really having trouble acclimating to this new-and-improved personality. He wasn’t about to complain, but it was still strange to consider when he compared the Warren now to the stand-offish classmate she’d been only a few days before.
“Sorry, sounds like I’ve got to run,” he told Viv and Aria, looking to the latter. “I can’t imagine this will take too long. You okay to meet in the lobby at Kanes?”
“Definitely,” Aria answered only a little too quickly, and Rei suspected she, like him, was happy to dodge the trap Viv had set up for them. “I’ll spin by my room to change, but then I’ll be good to go.”
“Awesome.” Then Rei smirked, his eyes falling to Viv. “Have fun with Catcher and his ‘friends’. I’ll be sure to ask you guys all about it at dinner.”
He thought he might have seen Viv start to give him the middle finger from where she was still bent lacing her boots up, but before she managed it he closed his locker with a bang and started up the aisle, smiling to himself. Reaching the end of the row, he found Warren waiting for him as promised, looking in the other direction towards the exit, knee bouncing nervously on the wall she’d leaned up against.
“Everything okay?” Rei asked, eyeing her fidgeting.
The Brawler started, jerking around to face him, eyes a little wide. It took her a moment, but the smile returned once more.
“Yeah! Sorry. Was just stressing over what it was that Bretz wants to talk to us about.”
“You mean about the SCT?”
Warren nodded. “Yeah. Yeah… Hopefully it’s good news. Brawlers tend to be at a disadvantage early in their development, so I’m a little worried we might be a bit handicapped for this first Intra-School…” She trailed of, apparently losing herself in thought as she looked at him.
Then, all at once, she was back and bright, pushing off the wall again to start making for the locker room entrance, waving for him to follow. “Not like we can do anything about it right now, though, so no use stressing. Come on. Emble’s waiting in the hall.”
“Oh. Great.” Rei tried to sound enthusiastic, but suspected he didn’t manage it. As they strolled by the other rows, he peered through the pockets of changing students. “Should we tell Sense where we’re headed?”
“Gisham said she was going to find him,” Warren responded quickly, moving with a little more purpose for the door. “We’re gonna meet them downstairs.”
Rei nodded absently, distracted at the thought. He’d never been to any of the other sub-levels other than SB2, and was definitely curious to find out what secrets lay further beneath the Arena. Was it possible there were other layers of Wargame fields? If so, just how big was the actual building?
Reaching the exit, the doors slid open for them with a hiss, and they stepped out in the hall. As forewarned, Emble was waiting for them, his arms crossed and his mood not improved in the slightest judging by the somber look on his face as he caught sight of them. Falling in on Warren’s other side, the boy didn’t say a word as the girl prattled on enough for all three of them put together.
“So today’s training was fun, wasn’t it? I had a hard time getting the hang of the course at first—especially when it kept changing like that—but it was definitely good practice. It made me really think on what Bretz was saying about taking advantage of our strong points as Brawlers—our Speed and Cognition and whatnot. I mean I always knew we were the fastest aside from the Duelists, typically, but I never really considered how we could use that.”
“Yeah, it’s definitely important to be aware of, especially in squad-formats,” Rei agreed somewhat weakly.
Warren, though, clearly needed no more encouragement to keep talking as they reached the elevators.
“Exactly. And if squads are so important for Sectionals, maybe there’s a way we can seriously use that. Like, what team wouldn’t want someone who could get a good sense of a field, especially a Wargame zone. And then you could kite opponents to lead them into ambushes and the like. There’s so much I haven’t really thought about when it comes to—”
She didn’t stop talking even after they stepped inside and Emble had punched the symbol for “SB7” that appeared in the smart-glass wall of the car, the lowest level displayed. They dropped quickly, Warren chattering all the way, requiring only the occasional “Uh-huh,” or “Yeah, definitely,” from Rei to keep her momentum going. It was honestly impressive, in a way, and he couldn’t help but wonder how many other students—even just in 1-A, he really had yet to get to know.
His impression changed rather abruptly not a second after the elevator settled and the doors opened on a wide, open lobby that could have been identical to SB2’s above.
WHAM!
The blow came as a foot slamming into Rei’s lower back. It took him so suddenly that he didn’t even have time to yell as the Strength behind the kick sent him flying out of the elevator to tumble and slip across the polished floor of the subbasement, his cap flying away. Confusion lasted only a moment—his neuroline and decent Cognition keeping his head clear—and it was long before he came to a sliding halt that he’d registered what had happened.
“Emble, what the hell?!” he snarled, shoving himself up, intending to glare back into the car at the brooding Brawler who’d been standing behind him while they’d descended.
As he stood, though, Rei registered at once that Tad Emble was the least of his worries.
Warren had finally stopped talking. She’d stopped smiling, too, and the expression she graced him with as the two of them stepped onto the landing was anything but friendly. Her mouth was tight, orange eyes narrowed, taking him in with nothing short of angry disdain. It was a look Rei had seen before.
And it was mirrored on the features of the other four people standing in a box around him, surrounding him in the wide space of the lobby.
It was as he recognized the faces of this group that true understanding of the situation he had found himself in dawned on Rei. Two of them he only knew as Gathers and Perez, from 1-A’s Lancer and Mauler groups respectively. The third was Leda Truant, the Phalanx and class gossip.
And the fourth, who moved in a blur even as Rei took in the six to land a heavy punch to his torso, was Mateus Selleck.
“Oomph!” Rei gasped as the Saber’s strike hooked him in the gut. His reactive shielding absorbed most of the impact, but not all of it, and he staggered backwards several steps, just able to keep himself from doubling over. He only barely caught sight of Selleck’s bared teeth when a second punch took him in the face, landing across his left cheek, and this time he stumbled and fell again, slamming his temple against the wall of the lobby opposite the elevator he’d been kicked out of.
Even as he curled over himself, though, clutching at his head as his neuroline worked once more to try and clear his thoughts, Rei could only laugh.
A pair of large hands took him by the collar of his uniform, and he was hauled roughly to his feet and shoved up against the wall.
“Mind explaining what’s so funny, Ward?” Selleck asked through gritted teeth.
Rei grunted in discomfort, unable to keep from clutching at the blond Saber’s wrists as he blinked through faint stars to meet the cadet’s eyes.
“A little surprised, that’s all. I honestly expected Grant to show his ugly mug when he finally decided to stoop this low.”
Selleck sneered. “Logan’s got better things to do than deal with a shit-stain like you. That’s kind of the point, actually, since you’re apparently too thick to realize it: we all have better things to do than deal with a shit-stain like you.”
As he spoke the others gathered up around and behind him. Rei looked past the Saber, meeting first Emble’s dark gaze, then Warren’s.
“Pathetic,” he spat. “From my own group, too. Then again, I guess I’m the idiot for not seeing it. I should have figured the bubbliness was an act.”
“Shove it,” Warren snarled back, every ounce of friendliness and cheer gone, to be replaced by irritated contempt. “If you’re looking for an apology, go find it somewhere else. Do you have any idea how much of a pain in the ass it’s been, having you in our group?”
“Let me guess,” Rei grunted, still gripping at Selleck’s wrists, “I’m dragging you all down. I’m dead weight.”
“You’re damn right,” Warren answered, color darkening her cheeks. “Why are you still here, Ward? Why can’t you see you don’t belong at a school like—?”
“Bullshit,” Ward snarled across her. Then, turning his glare on Selleck, he let go of the boy’s wrists with his right hand, forming a fist under the Saber’s forearm. Not a one of his assailants had summoned their CADs, and for good reason. Devices weren’t tracked on the regular, but the ISCM could and did keep tabs on every manifestation in order to prevent abuse of power by Users. If any of the six drew out their phantom-calls, there would be a record of their pinged location, which wouldn’t have suited the nature of this particular kind of ambush.
Rei, on the other hand, was under no such restrictions.
“Call.”
Shido took form in a blink, covering his arms and forelegs. The Device felt uncomfortably tight over his uniform, and hadn’t manifested at all over his boots, but the important part was that the razor claws extend even as they formed, the phantom-call punching up through Selleck's bone and flesh. The boy screamed in pain, but managed to keep his head about him, twisting and rolling Rei over his shoulders to slam him with a crunching thud into the ground.
“Hold him down!” the Saber bellowed even as he wrenched his arm free of the Device. Immediately the others piled onto Rei, who kicked and cut and slashed at any and every limb that reached for him. He managed a good few hits before their numbers completely overwhelmed him, and it wasn’t more than 15 seconds before Gathers and Perez were kneeling on his arms, pinning them spread-eagle, while Truant, Emble, and Warren did much the same to his legs.
“Bullshit!” Rei yelled it, this time, lifting his head awkwardly to glare at Brawlers. “You had your chance to tell me to go screw myself, to chase me out of this school. You had six weeks of chances. But you didn’t do shit. Not until you realized that you’re not as high above me on this mountain as you thought!”
WHAM!
The kick took Rei in the side, his shield barely keeping the power of it from bruising his ribs. He coughed and wheezed, blinking as he grimaced and found Selleck standing between Gathers and Warren at his left.
“Shut up!” the Saber spat at him, shaking his arm at his side as the last of the neural interruption faded quickly outside of a sanctioned field. “You want to pretend it’s some big achievement to crawl your way out of the Es? What a joke! If anything the fact that you spent all that time around Users who could break your damn neck with barely more than a thought should have woken you up to the reality that you don’t belong here!”
Rei sneered, wrenching at his arms and legs to no avail. “Do you—cough—Do you have any of your own thoughts on the matter, or are you just going to repeat Grant this entire time?”
Another kick, and this time Rei felt his shield giving a little, not pleased with the repeated abuse.
“Guess that… answers that question,” he croaked. “Do you even… see the irony in saying any—cough—any of you could break my neck, but need six people to pin me down?”
Before Selleck could answer, though, Rei had managed to lift his head again to address Emble, who was leaning on his right leg. “And you. You’re the—cough—the proof, you know? If it was the rest of these… losers, I might even believe it. But you.” He did his best grin at the Brawler. “You’re just scared. All of you are just scared. Pathetic. What a pathetic bunch of—”
This time Selleck came around to drop his heel right onto his face.
Rei’s head cracked against the floor, this time, and for several seconds his vision went dark. He could taste blood in his mouth, and the Saber’s screams that he was the pathetic one were utterly lost to the pain and nausea of what felt like a concussion. Another impact, and this time he felt his shield give even more, his nose making an unpleasant crunching sound as boot met cartilage and bone. The shock of pain had him thrashing, and at a word from someone Rei’s limbs were freed, but he was too shocked to put them to any use. All of a sudden the kicks doubled, then tripled, until Rei realized all six of his classmates were stomping and striking at him, and all he managed to do before his shielding gave way completely was roll over and curl into a ball, protecting his head and face with Sh
ido’s steel plating. He dove, then, into himself, into the distant place where he always went when the pain became too much. From deep within his own head he watched as though from above as he was battered and bruised, watching the six cadets kick and beat at him without mercy. It was a good thing none of them could call on their own Devices to amplify the torture, but he doubted it wasn’t for lack of desire on any of their parts. He guessed, too that there were no eyes to see them, in the lobby of the bottom floor. No cameras. No witnesses.
No one would know.
He considered—with the startling clarity only one who had already known every kind of pain the world could grant—trying to call up his NOED and make an attempt at recording the assault, but decided it wasn’t worth the risk to his face now that his shield was gone. He considered calling for help, too, but he knew no one would be able to reach him in time. He wanted to lash out, want to cut at his assailants again, but without Shido’s reactive defenses he knew his body wasn’t up for the task anymore. Selleck and the others were conscious enough not to go so far as break any bones, but just the same he was a huddled, bloody mess by the time someone started shouting that that was enough, enough! Most of the kicks subsided quickly, though a couple more landed shortly thereafter for good measure, but only after a few seconds of silence did Rei allow himself to return to his waking consciousness, to slide back into the present.
The present, and the pain.
He moaned as he felt every inch of himself trembling, felt the throbbing, pulsing ache of battered muscle and bloodied skin through the torn fabric of his uniform. Barely able to move he did his best to shift one arm, to clear his vision enough to see by. Dimly all he made out where the blurred shapes of booted feet stepping by him, the faint echoes of voices telling the others it was time to go. His neuroline could only do so much, and only as he registered the sounds of the elevator doors sliding open and several people filing in did any single voice reach him.
“This time, learn your damn lesson,” Selleck growled.
And then Rei was left alone, shivering and groaning, on the lobby floor.
Iron Prince: A Progression Sci-Fi Epic (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 1) Page 46