Strength: Lacking
Endurance: Lacking
Speed: Severely Lacking
Cognition: Severely Lacking
Offense: Lacking
Defense: 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 D2 to D3.
Endurance has been upgraded from Rank E9 to D0.
Speed has been upgraded from Rank D4 to D6.
Cognition has been upgraded from Rank D3 to D5.
Offense has been upgraded from Rank D1 to D2.
Defense has been upgraded from Rank D0 to D1.
…
Calculating.
…
CAD “Shido” has been upgraded from Rank D8 to D9.
…
Checking combat data acquisition.
…
Adequate data acquirement met.
Prioritizing reasonable evolution parameters.
…
Selected Prioritization:
Speed. Defense.
…
Recategorizing for future parameters.
…
Processing.
…
Evolving.
…
Evolution complete.
Closing the script, Rei realized that his hands were shaking. He knew why, of course. For one thing it had been a while since Shido had made a really solid jump like that. It was strange that the Device didn’t manage these sorts of improvement against Aria—aside from in their first match—but he supposed it had to pay off to face a variety of strong opponents with scattered skillsets and specializations.
More importantly than the specs, though…
Rei paused for a second, debating what to do. The underworks housed any number of side chambers he could have snuck into. Team locker rooms for visiting combatants. Break areas. Classrooms. All Rei needed to do was follow the hall down a ways, and he knew there was an auditorium under the south stands where Michael Bretz had once had him and the Brawlers watch over an hour of repeated Team Battle positioning. He could bolt down the tunnel, slip inside, and a moment later…
But no. No. That felt wrong, somehow. Maybe it was the fact that Aria, Viv, and Catcher had all been there for Rei’s last evolution, with the latter two witnessing the one before that. Or maybe it was that they’d all also shared their own moments of change as their CADs had one by one gone through their first changes—or second, in Aria’s case—in the last month.
Either way, doing it without them just didn’t sit right with Rei.
And so it was for that reason that—15 minutes of forced patience later, after he’d showered and changed back into his standard uniform—Rei stepped out into the stands again and started making up towards the seats where he knew his friends would be waiting for him.
Aria was the first to notice him climbing up the steps in their direction, still in her combat uniform as she waved him down. Viv and Catcher found him only a moment later, and grinning up at them made avoiding the eyes of the other first years easier while he ascended to their row. Reaching it, it only took him a few seconds before he was sitting between Aria and Viv again, forcing himself to keep a level expression as he looked to the Arena, where what had to be one of the last matches of the afternoon was just getting started. “What did I miss, anything good?”
Silence greeted him, and after a moment Rei looked around at his friends. To a one all three were staring at him, bearing not even a hint that any of them were buying his nonchalant attitude.
“How you doing?” Aria was the first to ask him, and he turned to find her studying his face with a little concern. “That was a really good fight, you know…”
Oh. Right. It struck Rei as amusing that he hadn’t even given the fight a single thought since Reese’s lecture. He supposed, though, that from their perspective Aria, Viv, and Catcher would all be thinking he was trying to play off the disappointment of his defeat.
He did, after all, have reason to be disappointed…
“Uh… I’m okay. A little bummed, I guess.”
Catcher—ever the optimist—reached around Viv to slap him on the chest genially. “Dude! You stood nose-to-nose with the top Saber in our class, and almost had her! I mean seriously! You almost had her!”
“More than once,” Viv agreed rather fervently. “That was a great fight, Rei. Anyone weaker than Jiang and you would have had that match in the bag.”
Rei snorted. “Hardly. She ended up beating me at my own game, didn’t she? Pulled the wool right over my eyes at the end, there.”
“Maybe, but Viv’s not wrong. Most anyone else would have gone down before they had the chance to trick you.” Aria spoke firmly, like she really wanted him to listen. “The majority of the summer training group is going to pass through to the first round of the winners bracket. Your matchup for next week isn’t likely to be as tough a pairing. You’ve got this.”
Rei was starting to feel bad. They were so concerned about his potential dispiritedness, and all he could do was sit there waiting anxiously for the first day of the Intra-Schools to wrap so he could drag them all somewhere and share his exciting news.
“I know,” he tried to assure Aria with as winning a smile as he could manage. “Don’t worry about me. Reese was never going to pitch me into a match I really had a chance of coming out on top of, was he? Next week will go better. And that’s more time for me—for all of us—to train.”
“Exactly.” Catcher was nodding along vehemently to his left as below them a Lancer Rei didn’t know fell to Biyu Yang’s sword and shield. “Keeping your chin up and your head high is what you need.”
Viv nodded as well, but was still watching Rei in concern, and as he looked from her to Aria he realized she, too, appeared largely unconvinced of his “okay-ness”.
The guilt was finally too much for him.
“Look,” he lowered his voice to avoid being overheard, pulling up his NOED as he did. “Sorry. I’m a little distracted. I’ll probably beat myself up a bit about Jiang later, but for now, well…” He swept through his script history, snagging a screenshot of the Shido’s most recent notification and sending it to the other three in a group message. “Like I said. I’m a little distracted.”
Taking in the range of reactions from his friends was as amusing as it was affirming of his own excitement. Viv smirked as she read over the evolution notice, apparently hardly surprised. Catcher groaned with envy and leaned back to cross his arms over his chest as he rolled his eyes at the ceiling.
And Aria—newest to the phenomenon that was Shido, and therefore still impressionable—squeaked with such exhilaration that most of the heads in the row before them turned around in confused alarm.
“Sorry, sorry,” Aria whispered, first to the students in front of them, then to Rei and the others. “I just… I’ve only seen one of your evolutions!”
She barely managed to keep her voice under control this time, and Rei couldn’t help but laugh quietly. “Don’t get too excited. Just like when it added the elbow and knee guards, there’s never been anything special about Shido’s physical changes.”
“Not yet,” Catcher grumbled. Then, with a sigh, he uncrossed his arms and sat up straight again to look at Rei. “So? What is it this time? Did your greaves fill out? I feel like Shido is definitely leaning towards a Speed specialty.”
Rei shrugged. “Don’t know yet.”
There was a blank staring from the others, all three of them looking at him like they didn’t understand.
“What you mean, ‘don’t know yet’?” Viv repeated in a low hiss, glancing around to make sure no one was tr
ying to eavesdrop. “Could you not tell? Maybe it’s something to do with Shido being an A-Type?”
Rei shook his head. “No. I mean that I haven’t checked yet. It didn’t feel right, running off to see what had happened without you guys.”
Viv gaped at him with her mouth open for a solid 5 seconds. Catcher did the same, and glancing over his shoulder Rei saw Aria was no different.
“Rei… Are you insane?!” Viv finally got out, somehow managing to both yell and whisper at the same time. “This is an evolution we’re talking about! Why would you wait?!”
Rei squirmed uncomfortably. “Well… I mean… I’ve been at all your evolutions, so I guess I just thought it would feel weird if you guys weren’t there…”
Viv’s eyes went so wide they looked like they were about to pop out of her head, and Catcher decided to try and intervene with a strained grin.
“Dude, it’s not like it’s the birth of your first child. You don’t have to wait for us for anything like that.”
From Aria, too, there came something like an exasperated giggle. “Rei, you’ve only been with us of ours because the majority of our training happens as a group, in extra hours. I’m sorry, but if Hippolyta evolved during Duel- or squad-practice, I’d probably fake sick just to get to the locker room as fast as possible and see what happened.”
Rei sunk down into the projected back of his Arena seat, feeling somewhat embarrassed. “Well fine. Next time I’ll know better. Maybe I just wanted you all to be there, I guess.”
Though it hadn’t been his intention, Rei couldn’t deny some amusement when these words wiped the grin from Catcher’s face and had Viv looking a little less frustratingly-astonished. Aria, too, sobered a little as she traded a pained look with the other two before speaking again.
“Sorry. We didn’t mean to tease.” She tried for a smile. “If it means anything, it definitely makes me happy.” She was quickly regaining a bit of her original excitement. “Ooh, I can’t wait to see!”
Catcher sighed again. “Yeah, it makes me happy, too, I guess. Way to guilt that out of us.”
Rei snorted as Viv mumbled something quietly from where she sat between the two of them, making Catcher frown at her.
“What?”
Viv didn’t repeat herself, so Rei was left to translate the words he was sure had been spoken.
“She said she’s glad I waited, too. She just didn’t want to say it out loud.”
Viv gave him the evil eye, and Rei, Aria, and Catcher all enjoyed a rare laugh at her expense before more glares from the row in front had them shutting up to wait in eager silence for the afternoon’s matches to end.
*****
Four fights later and the last pairing of the first day of the Intra-Schools ended in an exciting upset when Aadhik Khatri, a Mauler in the same class block as Catcher—and one of the top sixteen from the summer training group—got taken down with surprising ease by a Brawler from D-1 called Misha Fethers. After the field they’d been having it out on—an interesting, multi-level variation of Abandoned Depot—had dissipated, Sarah Takeshi announced a wrap to the day in a clear, cheerful voice that only barely managed to mask her fatigue.
Commentating on thirty-two fights in a row could only have been exhausting, after all.
“And with that, we conclude our first day of the Galen’s Intra-School SCT! Attendance at 1300 will be mandatory for the remainder of the week as the rest of you have your own shot at showing off! Look forward to commentary by Lieutenant Kayla Johnson tomorrow, and you are all dismissed!”
With the final word, the suspended disc the captain and Reese were still standing upon started to descend to the floor, and a thrum of conversation picked up at once among the Institute cadets, the mass of the first years discussing the excitement of the matches they’d watched, or debating if it was too early for dinner, or if their regular groups wanted to go grab a training field in the East or West Centers. For their part Rei, Aria, Viv, and Catcher were relatively quiet, exchanging nothing more than a whispered affirmation that they would accompany Aria downstairs to SB2, where her uniform was still in her locker.
The lines down the steps grew quickly, but emptied just as rapidly as the walkways designed to accommodate 150,000 people funneled barely 400 out through the Arena’s two entrances. As soon as they could Rei and the others stepped out of line into the underworks—empty aside from a couple other first years that still needed to get changed—and it wasn’t long before they were down the elevator, around the hall of the subbasement, and shoving open the locker room doors.
The moment they were inside—and with no one having followed them down—Aria turned on Rei in a whirl.
“Okay! I can’t take it! Show us! Show us now!”
Rei laughed. “Go get changed! It can wait till—”
“Nope!” Aria cut him off, putting her hands on her hips and fixing him with a glare that said she would bear no additional argument. “Show. Us. Now. Rei.”
Rei only cast around to Viv and Catcher for a moment before he realized they were both staring him down with the same insistence as Aria.
Then again, it wasn’t like anyone really needed to tell him twice.
“Hold onto your socks,” he muttered, more to himself than any of his friend as he focused on Shido’s weight and spoke the word.
“Call.”
The last time his CAD had evolved, it had taken him a moment to realize the change, to identify the growth of his armor up his arms and over his knees and elbows. The time before that, he’d only noticed the metal encasing his legs after Viv had pointed it out to him.
This time, on the other hand, Rei started to see the change even in the blink it took Shido to whirl into being over his limbs.
“Oh holy fu—,” Catcher began in a hiss, staring wide-eyed right along with the others once the call was done, but Rei didn’t hear him finish. He was too busy gaping at both his hands as he raised them up to look at.
Both his clawed hands, now.
In what was distinctly the greatest evolution the CAD had yet demonstrated, the Device designs around his arms looked to have combined, then mirrored. The heavy defensive plating originally along his left forearm and elbow had slimmed and softened to smooth, cleaner layers, and now covered his right as well. Similarly, the curved, black lengths of sharpened steel that had before only protruded from one set of knuckles now extended from both. Along the limbs the white of the underlayer was a little less visible beneath fluid, polished metal, but the blue vysetrium now ran between the plating even more intricately, like a dozen lines of glowing thread that moved smoothly with his careful flexion and extension of elbows, wrists, and fingers.
“Whoa…” was all Rei managed to get out, and the other’s echoed his amazement only with their silence.
The armor about his legs too, had changed, though not as significantly. There had been no growth, with Shido still only extending up to cover Rei’s knees, but the metal had taken on the more polished look of the steel about his arms. He kicked off his boots to let the CAD encase his feet, too, then tried standing on his tiptoes, then jumped up and down a couple times, and he hoped he wasn’t imagining it when the Device felt more responsive, more intrinsically entwined with his own motions.
In one go, Shido’s Defense, Offense, and possibly Speed had made collective, massive bounds…
A strong hand took him about the arm, then, and Rei was pulled from his astonishment as he was suddenly being dragged backwards, towards the locker room entrance again.
“Hey! Hold on!” he started to protest, but Aria didn’t so much as look around at him as the doors slid open once more for them. “What are you doing?”
“Oh like you aren’t curious,” she said over her shoulder, and Rei caught a glimpse of a wide, excited grin as with her free hand she started twisting her red hair into a single tail again. She’d turned them right, pulling him north along the tunnel so quickly Viv and Catcher were having to jo
g to keep up with them.
“Aria, you won’t be able to fight down here,” Viv told her with a frown. “Rei calling Shido on his own might not draw any attention, but if both of you summon your CADs, there could be trouble.”
“Not on a sanctioned fiiiield,” Aria answered in singsong as Rei caught onto why he was being led towards the main combat floor of the subbasement.
“But none of us have access to the projection flooring!” Viv continued to argue, starting to sound a little concerned.
Aria didn’t answer. Instead, they reached the great gap in the left wall that led unceremoniously onto the main gym floor, and she pulled Rei without pause to the closest of the zones—Field 4, where Viv and the other Duelists always trained. Only once they’d crossed the edge of the silver perimeter did Aria finally let go of him, but not until after she’d steered him to right around where the east starting ring would be.
Then she started tying her hair up in truth again, her NOED blazing as she did.
“Whoa!” Catcher exclaimed in surprise as the field beneath their feet suddenly began to glow white.
“Sorry,” Aria said, still grinning and blinking away her frame to look at Viv. “The summer training group was given access permissions to every field on campus, other than the main floor of the Arena.”
It took a moment for Viv to answer, frowning down at the projected area incredulously. “Wait… Then why haven’t we been training here instead of in the Centers? We could have had our own zones instead of splitting one!”
“Oh…” Aria’s excitement shifted into something almost alarmed. “Uh… We aren’t really supposed to use them often. Or at all, honestly… Not without prior permission…”
She glanced at Rei with a pleading expression, and he suddenly understood. He doubted very much the entirety of the summer group had access like this.
He doubted anyone other than Aria specifically, in fact, had access like this.
Doing his best not to smirk, he nodded and attempted to cover her ass. “Makes sense. Dent’s said from the beginning those who earn them will be handed advantages, but I bet the higher-ups don’t exactly want unsupervised combat running amok in the school every day.”
Iron Prince: A Progression Sci-Fi Epic (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 1) Page 69