“Have fun,” she said with a snort before starting to jog after the Lancer.
Rei only grunted a sardonic thanks, and had only just enough time to plant his feet before Lena Jiang was on him.
It was a good thing, too, because he was shoved—hard—the moment she reached him.
“What the hell was that?!” the Saber half-screamed, half-hissed, following him when he staggered a step back. Before he could answer she’d shoved him again, and this time he almost tripped onto his ass as she kept after him. “All you needed to do was keep them off the damn pole long enough for us to get there! Are you completely useless, Ward, or did you just want to throw the game to piss me off?!”
“Lena, calm down!” Gillian North—a muscular Mauler with green hair who Rei was pretty sure was part of the B-1 class block with Jiang—exclaimed, reaching them in time to pull the Saber away from pushing him a third time. “Calm down! I’m the one who let Arada get by me before we could regroup!”
Jiang, conveniently, seemed not to hear the girl. “You’re basically a Brawler!” she growled at Rei. “If you’d gotten inside Dorne’s range, you should have been able to take him down, and then you could have distracted Arada long enough for us to get there!”
Rei, though, wasn’t about to let himself get steamrolled. “I am basically a Brawler, which skews me heavily towards Speed and Offense specs!” he snapped back. “I’m a stupidly poor choice for a defensive position, which I told you at the start of the match!” He pointed a finger at Jiang. “You’re the one who made the call to keep me back. You’re the one who refused to listen to me when I said I wouldn’t be able to hold a position long, especially if I got outnumbered!”
“I kept you back because you would have been useless in actual combat, but apparently you were useless everywhere else, too!” Jiang’s free arm was tense at her side, like she wanted nothing more than to shove North off and lunge for Rei’s throat. “We lost because you couldn’t hold the objective!”
“We lost because your positioning decisions resulted in not one, but two enemy team members getting by you!” Rei snarled back. “Don’t put this on me because you can’t deal with the fact that you messed up, Jiang! Maybe learn from it, and next time we can—!”
“What is going on here?”
The slow, deathly calm voice had Rei starting, just as it did Lena Jiang and Gillian North. Behind the two girls Emily Gisham, Mirnov Yurievich—a Duelist from D-1—and Conrad Fae—a Phalanx in the same C-1 block as Catcher—had just reached them, but instead of the fight they were looking apprehensively over Rei’s shoulders. Whirling, Rei was unsurprised—and hardly pleased—to find himself on the receiving end of the sour glare of a familiar pair of cold, deep-set eyes.
Major Dyrk Reese, who had been arbitrating the match—as he always did on their squad-format training days—had appeared behind him like a ghost in the night. In his officer’s regulars he stood with his hands clasped at his back, and his expression was one of such disapproval that even Rei felt like shrinking down into himself a little.
“Cadet Jiang—” to Rei’s surprise, he wasn’t the first to be addressed, the major’s gaze lifting to the girl “—you may be among the top rankers of your class, but that is no excuse to lay hands on a fellow student. If I catch you doing so again, I will have you cleaning every one of the first year bathrooms for a week. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” came Lena Jiang’s resentful reply, and it was apparent Reese didn’t miss the tone as the major arched an eyebrow at her.
“Congratulations, you’ve just lost your team valuable feedback on their match.” From over Rei’s shoulder, Emily Gisham started to protest, but Reese cut her off. “No. If a cadet under my purview can’t be bothered to treat their fellow students and instructors with respect, they hardly deserve my criticism, especially if they’ve been assigned as squad-leader for the match. Convene amongst yourselves and discuss what you could have done better. Maybe next time—” the major continued to glare at Jiang “—you’ll have the sense to address your officers more appropriately. Dismissed, all of you.”
In disgruntled silence all six members of the team saluted. Rei, in retrospect, probably could have done a better job of hiding his satisfaction at seeing the Saber reamed out, because as he was turning away with the others to make for the tunnels that would lead up to the stands, Reese addressed him directly.
“Not you, Ward. Stay.”
Rei felt a chill, but he faced the major again dutifully, standing at attention before him. Reese waited for the others to move out of earshot, watching them go before speaking.
“Let me clarify something for you, cadet,” the aging man said slowly, his gaze so unwavering as it fell on Rei again that it might have been chiseled out of angry stone. “As arbiter and instructor of this course, it is my responsibility to ensure your safety and monitor the behavior of my students. For this reason, and this reason alone, Cadet Jiang’s actions were addressed. However… Do not for a moment misunderstand the fact that I agree with her wholeheartedly.”
Rei had seen it coming, but he still had to bite his tongue to keep from retorting. It had been 2 full weeks since Reese had taken over half their training days, and—just as the higher officer had done on the first day he’d shown up to class, when they’d run the agility course in preparation for maneuvering large fields—he had always gone out of his way to keep an unfairly sharp eye on Rei’s performance.
“You seem to fail to grasp the fact that until the day arrives where you have caught up to your classmates completely, you are a burden to them. You slow them down. Jiang’s frustration is utterly understandable. You did lose your team that match. Your CAD is currently manifesting as a Brawler-Type Device. You managed to get inside of Dorne’s defendable range. Had you been even on a level with the average member of your class, you should have had no trouble at least injuring your opponent enough to render him impotent to the outcome of the match. Then you would have been able to engage Arada, and perhaps kept her at bay long enough for your teammates to retreat to your location and provide reinforcements.” Reese made a face that seemed to be masking disgust with disappointment. “I admit that Valera Dent’s interest in you has not been without merit. You have certainly come a long way since the start of term. However, had it been my decision, you would never have set foot on these grounds. The admissions board has seen fit to prioritize your potential—a single cadet’s potential—over the rest of all of your classmates’. Even should you eventually outstrip every one of them, you will have cost many of the other first years valuable time and energy.”
“So you do think I could outstrip them, sir?”
The snide question didn’t so much slip out as Rei more let it loose. It wasn’t smart of him, he knew—and the flash in Reese’s eyes told him he was wading into dangerous waters—but he was getting rather sick of hearing how much he “didn’t belong” at Galens. He was fairly sure he scored the best grades of the first years in classwork, and he had continued to beat out Tad Emble—who, along with Warren, refused to look him in the eye anymore—with more and more consistency in combat training. Michael Bretz had let slip that he had high expectations for Rei’s upcoming parameter testing, and he’d even started landing the occasional hit on Sense and Emily Gisham, the latter of which was quickly rising in prominence as one of the best Brawlers among the first years.
More than anything, though—more than all of that—he, Aria, Viv, and Catcher had all been getting up early, going to bed late, and giving up their Sunday leisure days in favor of even more additional conditioning, nearly doubling in the last 2 weeks the hours they’d been putting into their extra training.
He was sick—so, so sick—of being told he “didn’t belong”.
“Of everything I just said, that’s all you registered?” Reese asked dangerously.
Rei didn’t even bother trying to stop himself.
“It seemed all that was important, sir.”
&
nbsp; The major stared at him for a long, long time. A full 10, maybe even 15 seconds passed as the man took Rei in with dead eyes, like a vulture looking at carrion.
When he spoke, anger had finally snuck its way the slightest bit into his words.
“Two days in the brig for sheer cheek, Ward,” Reese breathed. “Ever disrespect me like that again, and I will make it a week without training privileges. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Rei said, keeping his face blank and lifting his eyes to look beyond Reese. He hid a smirk, deciding he’d done enough standing up for himself, for the moment.
“You will report to the Security Center after class.” Reese, for his part could have murdered with the quiet venom dripping from his voice. “Someone will be assigned to deliver your coursework to you. Dismissed, cadet.”
Without hesitating Rei snapped up the expected salute, then spun on his heel and made a line across the field for the tunnel entrance. Beyond the perimeter of the Team Battle area most of the twelve first years who were slotted to fight next gawked at him as he passed, obviously not having missed the tone of the exchange even if they hadn’t been able to make out the individual words.
Only Aria, standing slightly to the side of the rest of one group, shot a curious look at him, and Rei could only roll his eyes at her to indicate his irritation before he was across the silver border, beyond the new Red and Blue Teams, passing out of the larger Wargames field to cross the 5-yard buffer zone and slip into the underworks.
All of their Squad-training had so far been held on the main floor of the Arena, which had yet to stop making Rei feel giddy every time he stepped out onto the field. As an additional bonus, however, the first years had also steadily become intimately familiar with the tunnels and halls beneath the expansive stadium seating of the massive structure, and so it was without much thought to where his feet were carrying him that Rei took the ramp down through the automated double doors into the back passages. A sharp left to pass the seemingly endless smart-glass paneling that depicted Galen’s most celebrated Users and SCT combatants, then another left to start up the steep set of stairs leading into the stands. A few seconds later and Rei was in the open air again, stepping out of the stairwell into a space between the white marble seating sections, and he barely blinked at the daylight once more as the fervor of the noise around him drowned out the distant sound of Dyrk Reese telling the squads to take their position.
Despite the major’s handling of the training, squad-format days had quickly become something the entirety of the first year class had taken to looking forward to. For one thing, it made for an excellent change from the more direct conditioning and repetition of the one-on-one Dueling that Valera Dent still drilled into them Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. For another, they incorporated true fields into the practice, and Rei could now say he’d fought in more than a dozen different settings, though today’s Woodlands area had been a new first for him.
Perhaps most interestingly of all, however, was the fact that squad-format days were held collectively with all class-blocks present, making them the busiest—and liveliest—trainings they’d had all year.
A notification pinged his NOED, and Rei opened it with a quick command.
Above you to your left.
Rei closed his frame and looked around. Two sections over and some rows above him, Viv was waving in his direction, looking to have already found Catcher in the scattered crowd. Their 128—or 116, rather, given Aria and another eleven students were currently prepping to fight down in the Arena below—looked like nothing more than a spattering of grey-and-red combat suits against the ivory of the seats, but since matches were happening one at a time in the south Team Battle field, most everyone was gathered in the lower aisles of the areas closest to that zone. As a result, the ensuing conversation and discussion regarding the day’s battles so far reverberated and echoed in the vastness of the Arena, even with the ceiling plates raised to frame the open sky in the now-familiar black crown high overhead.
Ignoring multiple sets of curious glances as people caught sight of him, Rei began moving toward Viv and Catcher’s section. Since the day they’d started these joint trainings he’d been one of several students from 1-A that tended to get gaped after by the other blocks who had had—until that point—limited contact with their class. Aria always got an eyeful wherever she went—half because her looks had guys and girls alike fawning over her, and half because she was Aria friggin’ Laurent—as did Logan Grant for similar reasons. Rei, on the other hand, knew it was neither stunning handsomeness nor any overwhelming power that made him the center of attention when he passed, so he didn’t deign to meet any of the new gazes that still followed his every move 2 weeks into the squad-format training. It had taken 1-A months to get used to his scars and diminutive stature, and he didn’t think anyone—himself included—would ever really become accustomed to Shido’s meteoric growth.
Rei supposed he could give the rest of the first years a little time before their staring started to piss him off.
“Yo,” Catcher greeted him cheerfully from where he was leaning back in his seat, lifting a hand in a friendly salute as Rei finished climbing the stairs to reach them. “What was Reese chewing you out for this time?”
“If I had to summarize: being a plague on all life as we know it.” Rei dropped down onto the cushion to the Saber’s right with a disgruntled sigh. “Any idea if they expel students for the murder of teachers, here?”
“More like attempted murder,” Viv said from Catcher’s other side, and Rei looked around the back of the boy’s head to see her watching the Arena. “Don’t know if you’ve checked, but the ISCM database has Reese ranked as an A4.”
“Seriously?” Rei grumbled, pulling up his NOED, intending to tap into the major’s public file to check Viv’s assertion—for no good reason other than his unwillingness to give Dyrk Reese more credit as a User and instructor than he absolutely had to.
Before he could, however, the neuro-optic started scripting off on its own, interrupting him.
...
Processing combat information.
...
Calculating.
…
Results:
Strength: Lacking
Endurance: Adequate
Speed: Adequate
Cognition: Adequate
Offense: Adequate
Defense: Adequate
Growth: Not Applicable
…
Checking combat data acquisition.
…
Adequate data acquirement met.
Device initiating adjustments to:
Strength.
…
Adjustment complete.
Strength has been upgraded from Rank E8 to E9.
“Nice,” Rei muttered to himself as the upgrade script winked out, Major Reese’s CAD-Rank forgotten. He wasn’t unenthusiastic about the Strength boost—it certainly would have come in handy trying to break through Sam Dorne’s guard—but what was more exciting, ironically, where all the “Adequates” of his other specs. Despite the fact that the Lancer had been a full 5 levels higher than him—not to mention with un-skewed stats—Rei had held his own well enough for Shido to judge most of his measures as balanced to the point of not requiring modification. Maybe it was due to the brevity of the fight—Rei couldn’t help but wonder who, in the end, would have won their clash had Viv not arrived to interrupt them—but it still had him feeling good about himself.
Finally, at long last, his stats were starting to look like he was actually catching up.
“Another spec upgrade?” Catcher asked.
Rei nodded without looking around, pulling up a Specification Request. “Yeah. Strength, this time.”
“‘This time’,” the Saber repeated mournfully, shaking his head. “Could you try not to rub it in, at least?”
“Sorry,” Rei said with a grin, looking over his numbers quickly. It was t
he second adjustment Shido had made since the evening before—Endurance having ranked up shortly after Aria had drilled his face into the field for the fifth time that morning—and he wanted to see how things were shaping up.
Specifications Request acknowledged.
…
Combat Assistance Device: Shido. User identification… Accepted.
Type: A-TYPE
Rank: D5
…
User Attributes:
- Strength: E9
- Endurance: E6
- Speed: D1
- Cognition: E9
…
CAD Specifications:
- Offense: E8
- Defense: E7
- Growth: S
Rei, despite himself, frowned just a little.
“What’s with the long face?” Viv asked, apparently taking note.
“I’m behind,” Rei grunted honestly. Casting about to make sure there was no one seated close enough to be eavesdropping, he dropped his voice. “There’s only two weeks left before the Intra-Schools start. I wanted to be at D6 by now, and C0 by the time the second quarter hit.”
“Dude,” Catcher breathed in exasperation as below them the field on which Aria and the rest of the Blue and Red Teams stood started to glow. “What did I just say? If talking about hitting C0 before I do—much less Viv—isn’t the definition of ‘rubbing it in’, I don’t know what is.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Rei muttered with an apologetic grimace. “If it makes you feel better, though, there’s not a lot to it. If you discount Growth, all my specs have me sitting at an average closer to E8. Speed is my only D-Ranked stat, actually.”
Viv snorted, turning her attention to the field again as the Arena announced the match would be an Elimination-type bout. “Somehow I get the feeling you’ll be just fine, Rei.”
“What makes you say that? E8 is a full tier behind any of the competitive first years, and that’s just right now. If you’re not C-Ranked by the time the Intra-Schools kick off, I’ll shave my head.”
Iron Prince: A Progression Sci-Fi Epic (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 1) Page 53