Rei thought it was a good opportunity to grant himself a little payback.
“What? This?” He pointed at his breast, where her sword had cut into the skin and muscle beneath his intact combat suit. “Oh, sorry. Did you expect something impressive? Your hits have been so weak I figured I could brush one off without much issue.” He nodded towards the Saber’s useless left arm. “Think I ended up with the better end of that deal, too.”
It was only a half-truth. It had been a gamble to begin with—and one he intended to take again, if the opportunity presented itself—but the cut had set him with limitations, if minor ones. His shoulder was stiff, and moving it was painful.
But it had been a long, long time since anything like that had been much of an issue for Rei.
Jiang’s eyes blazed, fury steeling her face into something demonic.
Then she lunged.
Rei had found his footing now, though, had learned her tricks. He held his ground again as their fight devolved into a lashing mirage of white into shielding blue, streaks of light arching and jolting in endless cuts through the air. The Saber didn’t give him a moment this time, not even a chance to look for an opening. She had been played a fool—and knew it, too—and now she attacked his quick defenses with a savage anger that Rei for once thought wasn’t entirely directed at him. He let the assault come, let himself take the beating. Shido’s plating began to grow steadily more chipped and dented, and he took one, then two, then three more shallow wounds across his shoulder, thigh, and face as the battle stretched on.
With every passing moment, though, Rei learned a little more about Lena Jiang, noted bit by bit the pattern of her movements, the rhythm of her blows he and Catcher and reviewed and practiced in intimate detail.
WHAM!
When he finally got a chance to retaliate, it was unfortunately only with his left fist, but the blow still landed. His NOED and Cognition both registered the repeated form, the down-slash, then up again, then looping over and around to come from the right. Reading it, Rei swiped out with his claws to catch the sword, powering forward at the same time with his free hand. Steel-plated knuckles caught Jiang in the gut, and she went lurching backwards down the hill, feet slipping over loose stone while she obviously fought hard not to double over. He followed after quickly, but once more the crumbling footing made closing the distance too precarious before she was up and at the ready again.
Still, two of the fight’s three real blows had been his, now…
Jiang was even more careful in her approach after this second rebuttal. She didn’t lunge at him, but instead came steadily, cautiously. She tested him first, snapping and feigning the blade up at his face, then his groin, then the shoulder she’d already dealt a minor would to. Rei didn’t take the bait, didn’t let himself get reeled in, nor fall for any of the deceptive blows meant to trap him into committing to a block. He had the advantage—had had it from the moment he’d robbed the girl of her left arm—and he wasn’t about to give it up in a sprint for the finish. Jiang was hot-tempered. He’d seen that more than once, now. If he could be patient…
Sure enough, the Saber’s lip started to curl up again not 30 seconds into her testing games, and soon after she was barraging him with cuts and sweeps and slashes again, falling into now-familiar patterns.
WHAM!
Another left-handed blow, but this time straight to the solar plexus, stealing the wind from Jiang’s lungs as she was sent flying backwards to tumble and fall down the incline once more. Again Rei didn’t chase her, content to wait, content to let his stronger opponent cut herself to death against his wall. The Saber rolled onto her stomach as pebbles and broken rock spilled around her, and she was slower in gaining her feet, now, likely suffering the limitations of bruised ribs that made it hard to breathe.
When she managed it, though, something had again changed in her face as she looked up the mountain at him from below. The fury had lessened, oddly enough, fading to be replaced by something calmer, something more reserved. Jiang looked resigned, but not as though she were giving up on the fight.
Rather, she looked like someone ready to do something she would rather have avoided.
All of a sudden Rei was on edge. An image of Logan Grant’s Overclock flashed across his mind, and he immediately hunkered and stepped back again, closer to the flow, closer to where Jiang’s mistakes could cost her dearly. She didn’t climb up after him, a frown pulling at her mouth. He watched her, scrutinizing her more carefully than he had all match.
Then, with a strain of concentration mapping itself across her face, Jiang hauled back, fighting obvious pain as she opened up her chest, drawing her sword behind her in a powerful sweep.
And then she threw the weapon in a whirling arc, sending it spinning high, high over Rei’s head.
Instantly he knew what was going to happen. Before he heard the words, before he caught Jiang’s voice yelling over the rumble of the volcano, Rei knew what was about to happen.
“MAGNETIC HUNT!”
In a scrambling blur Rei whirled, looking for the blade. Narrow as it was, it might be hard to make out, hard to distinguish against the fires and flames. Desperately he cast about, seeking the white blaze that would mark the Device’s hurtle towards him. Finally he found it, catching the streak of light directly in front of him, some ways away.
Catching it, and only just in time to see the sword splash harmlessly down into the lava in a faint spray of molten red and orange.
WHAM!
As the force of a sprinting body took him in the back, Rei cursed his own stupidity for the second time. Jiang’s shoulder slammed into him, smashing against his spine with all the hurtled weight of the girl and the rest of her Device, and only then did Rei’s Cognition register the signs. Once already the Saber had surprised him with her Speed, hadn’t she? And why had she yelled the Ability trigger when her chest was injured? A simple voice command would have been enough.
As he was launched forward, turning as he flew and limbs flailing in a desperate attempt to find solid ground again, Rei understood. The glimpse he caught of Jiang’s face—that same resigned, regretful look—echoed his certainty.
You’re not the only one with tricks up their sleeve, that look said.
And then, with a searing, blinding flash of agony that was fortunately kept mercifully short by the fast-acting Arena, Rei tumbled into the boiling lava with a heavy splash.
“Fatal Damage Accrued. Winner: Lena Jiang.”
*****
From her secluded vantage along the walkway that crowned the highest point of the stands, Valera Dent watched Reidon Ward thrash only for a moment before the Arena eliminated his sensory input and began to dematerialize the field. As the boy started to sink towards the ground—Lena Jiang dropping with him—Valera couldn’t decide if she was disappointed or thrilled with the match’s results. On the one hand an early defeat like this put Ward in the loser’s bracket from the go, meaning he would have to take part in—not to mention win—six more pairings in a row if he wanted to qualify as one of the sixteen first years guaranteed to make it to Sectionals.
On the other, Ward’s CAD was growing splendidly, and despite the discrepancy in their levels the boy had had his much stronger opponent on the ropes more than once during the match.
Was it the end of the world if the boy didn’t qualify? Doubtful. Not anytime soon, at least. If anything it wasn’t unlikely he’d be asked to join one of the Sectional squads regardless, and Valera was pretty sure she could guess who of the likely leaders would be first to approach him.
But she knew, too, that Ward could make it on his own, that he had the ability, and certainly the will.
Valera—after all—had been tracking the boy’s additional training hours more closely than anyone, using the Institute’s log and recording systems. That was saying something given just how many silent eyes the cadet was steadily accruing, within Galens and without. Valera had known him capable—
had deduced that the day his file had fallen across her desk—but even she had expected to have to steer him along now and then, to guide him here and there. Instead, not only had Ward taken it on himself to push his body, mind, and CAD together to limits that outpaced all but one single other member of his class excluding his training partners, but he had managed to recruit Aria Laurent as one of those partners. If anything, Valera had been starting to wonder if she would be nothing more than a passenger along for the ride since she’d gotten Ward into the ISCM system.
Now, though, watching the boy pick himself up from the ground and stagger as his opponent swept unceremoniously from the ring, she decided the time had come to meddle a little.
“Kel,” Valera spoke to the air, “where’s Lennon?”
It was only a moment before her NOED lit up on its own.
In a brief blur a myriad of hundreds of familiar faces from a dozen angles whirled dizzyingly through a small window in the corner of her vision. The features and expressions of the Institute’s gathered cadets were a varied mix ranging from bored to elated as they waited for the next fight to start, and after a second the flashing images cut from every recording device in the Arena stopped. One young man’s soft face remained, black-skinned and strikingly blue-eyed under a wash of designed, iron-grey hair braided into dreads that reached his shoulders, and Valera wasn’t surprised in the least to find him watching the upcoming fighters intently.
Despite the fact that the day’s combatants were first years, he never did miss an opportunity to try and learn…
A pause, then two perpendicular red lines traced across her retinas, interlocking over a point in the third years’ section. Zooming in on the spot with a quick command, Valera found him highlighted near the end of an upper row.
Perfect.
Blinking away the zoom—but keeping the trace on—Valera made no attempt to hide her speed as she moved. High up as she was, no one was likely to notice her with all eyes on the floor below, and so it was in hardly a breath that she was at the top of the stairs in question, then another before she was halfway down. Only then did she slow her pace to that of the average human—as was expected of all Users in polite company—the heels of her leather boots clicking over the stone as she descended the rest of the way.
Finally reaching the highest row of the third years, she dismissed the trace, noting her interest’s position herself.
“Cadet Lennon.”
At the sound of her voice several of the closest students started and whirled, not having heard her coming. Ignoring them, Valera watched the grey-haired young man turn with a confused expression, one that shifted into surprise the moment he saw her.
Leaping to his feet, he saluted sharply. “Ma’am?” came the curious question as below the newest pairing were told to take their starting positions.
“Come with me,” Valera told him simply.
Then she started down the rest of the stairs, not looking back to see if the third year was following her.
At the bottom of the steps she went left along the walkway, making for the nearest entrance to the underworks. Reaching it, she slipped in for a bit of privacy, then finally turned around. As expected, the young man had been on her heels without pause, and had already come to a halt just inside the frame of the tunnel.
Christopher Lennon, unlike many Users, did not possess any overly imposing presence. He was shorter than most of his classmates—even the girls—standing under 5’ 10” with narrow shoulders that had him looking rather diminutive in his Galens uniform, complete with the red-on-blue griffin about his left arm. Aside from the grey dreads that clashed handsomely with his dark skin, his features were rather plain as well, his blue eyes watery and his cheeks stubbornly holding onto a little fat despite his CAD’s genetic correction and the Institute’s intense training regimen.
All in all, his countenance did an excellent job of disguising the monster within.
“Lennon, I’m going to get right to the point.” Valera had little patience for pleasantries now that she’d made her decision. “You asked me at the start of the term if I would be willing to train you personally. Do you recall?”
The question could have been rhetorical, of course. Despite the hassle her fame could cause her, Valera was not unaware of her value as a Knight-Class S-Rank.
Sure enough, the abrupt resuming of the topic took even the stoic Lennon aback.
“Uh… Yes, ma’am,” he said, clearly doing his best to hide the hint of hope in his voice. “You told me I would be better served to focus on my instruction in class, as I remember…”
“I lied,” Valera said flatly. “The truth is that I was too busy to take on a student for individual practice. I’m still too busy, to be honest. However…” She paused, looking him up and down. “Are you still interested?”
“Yes, ma’am!” the cadet answered at once, snapping up straight as his hopes were realized. “Very much so!”
“Good. I’m willing to take you on, but you will need to free up your schedule two nights out of the week for the next two months. Mondays I will work with you independently here in the Arena, in SB3.”
Lennon looked delighted, but also a little confused.
“And the other night, ma’am?”
Valera smiled.
“The other night will be spent with you paying the favor forward.”
CHAPTER 39
“I find the stories irritating, in their own right. They so often paint the image of some lone hero, some singular legend left to his solitary climb, bearing on his own the building hardships of a violent life.
It’s all ludicrous. It’s not even that I never would have made it alone.
I never would have even taken the first step up…”
- The Stormweaver
c. 2495
“Unbelievable behavior!” Major Reese snarled in Rei’s face. “If you think base insults are appropriate to bear in an official match, cadet, then I’m of a mind to throw you back in the brig until your next pairing!”
To her credit, Sarah Takeshi attempted to come to the rescue at once. “All due respect, major, but Cadet Jiang is the one who instigated the taunting. If anyone is going to be lectured, it should be—”
“Cadet Jiang at least has a win to her name to show for it, captain,” Reese snapped without looking around at the woman. “Given the means of her victory, I’m inclined to believe her words were calculated to get Ward here to drop his guard.”
Rei’s ears burned with angry impatience. He had better things to do—such better things to do—than to sit here and get reamed out like this. Beside, logic like that could be applied to any instigating commentary in a match, if the major was going to go that far.
At his elbow, Takeshi seemed to be thinking the same thing, because her face darkened, though she opted to say nothing more.
“In this instance, I will consider your defeat punishment enough for the disrespect you’ve leveled at my feet, and that of this Arena and school.” Reese’s lip curled at the words, like they left him with a bad taste. “If you deign to lower yourself to such a level again, I will have to have a discussion with Captain Dent as to what lessons she has been teaching her trainees.”
That spiked at Rei’s fury, and not for the first time he almost snapped back. Threatening him was one thing, but implying that Dent—the chief combat instructor of the Galens Institute—was doing anything less than a superior job in her assignment was asinine and disrespectful.
Still, getting him to rise to the bait was exactly what Reese was trying to do, Rei knew, and he wasn’t about to give the man the satisfaction this time.
Besides, the unblinking tab in the corner of his vision—indicating the script he had minimized quickly when the major had come storming up on him while he’d been recovering in the east tunnels post-match—really meant that he had better things to do.
“Yes, sir,” he said simply, still standing rigidly at attention with
his eyes fixed on the wall of the underworks behind the major. “Sorry again, sir.”
Reese’s irritation visibly peaked at this lack of response, and he looked about to say something more before deciding better of it. Instead, he just whirled and marched back up the ramp towards the Arena and the SCTs he’d paused for the sole purpose of ripping Rei a new one.
“You’re dismissed, cadet,” Takeshi said, waiting—very obviously deliberately—until the major had vanished back onto the floor above them.
Rei gave her a stiff salute, and had snapped around—eager to get to more pressing matters—when she brought him up short by speaking again.
“Also… Good fight, Ward. Even as a loss. It was a very good fight.”
A little of the anger drained from Rei. Turning around again, he offered the woman a more genuine salute, as well as what vestiges of as grateful a smile as he could muster up. “Thank you, ma’am.”
With a nod the captain turned and followed Reese’s path up the ramp, disappearing into the impatient hubbub of the cadets looking forward to the closing matches of the afternoon.
Rei waited—wanting to make absolutely sure she was gone—before finally giving in and pulling open the script again.
...
Processing combat information.
...
Calculating.
…
Results:
Iron Prince: A Progression Sci-Fi Epic (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 1) Page 68