Iron Prince: A Progression Sci-Fi Epic (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 1)

by Bryce O'Connor

  “Fatal Damage Accrued. Victor: Anatoli Sidorov.”

  It had happened so fast, it took a full few seconds for anyone—including the chief warrant officer—to make sense of it. One moment Song had clearly been preparing to bring the full brunt of her Overclocked Device down on Sidorov’s immovable facade of calm calculation.

  The next, she was falling, twitching and limp, over the Lancer’s shoulder, his spear having taking her through the sternum with such force, the yellow blade and half the shaft had punched out her back.

  “OH!” Bretz finally boomed just as the crowd, too, erupted in ecstatic cheering. “And there’s the impeccable timing Cadet Sidorov is known for! A little distance seems to have been all he was waiting for! Break Step is a dangerous Ability if you know how to use it, and this Lancer sure does!”

  The applause redoubled, and Sidorov could be made out recalling his CAD so that it vanished from Song’s chest as his silver-grey armor, too, whirled away into his CAD bands. He helped the shorter girl stand until she seemed to be regaining control of her feet again, then took his leave from her and the field with the same quite confidence with which he had fought, not even looking up into the stands.

  “I can’t tell if I think he’s hot and arrogant or hot and shy,” Viv said, watching Sidorov’s bronze hair slip below the lip of the lower walkway. “

  “He kinda reminds me of the Bishop,” Catcher muttered. “The way he fights.”

  “That’s fine.” Viv shrugged. “Dent’s hot, too.”

  “I don’t recommend hitting on our instructors,” Aria said with a giggle that had Rei rolling his eyes.

  Viv, though, only grinned and said nothing more.

  *****

  The rest of the day’s fights passed in relative—if energetic—monotony, with none of the matches carrying half the excitement of either Ejua versus Heton or Sidorov’s cool trouncing of Song. Nearly 2 hours later the cadets were once more released from their attendance, and Rei, Aria, Viv, and Catcher took advantage of their afternoon and evening in the same way they always enjoyed what late leisure time the Institute allowed them: training. Claiming their favorite field in East Center, they sparred and conditioned non-stop until the four of them decided collectively no one could put off dinner any longer. After a relatively brief meal—over which they mostly discussed the variety of Abilities they’d been privy to during the second years’ fights that day—they returned to the Center and practiced again until they knew they were pushing having to run to get back to Kanes in time for curfew.

  The next afternoon—Thursday’s—proved a little more widely entertaining than the first of the second year’s days. A good few more of the class’ top-level Users took to the stage over the 3 or 4-hour tournament, and while there lacked any match quite as astounding as Sidorov’s, Liam Gross had ample opportunity to comment on some half-dozen pairings that matched or surpassed the excitement of Ejua versus Heton. Nearly every fight involved one or more Abilities being triggered, and Rei and the others were treated not only to further impressive uses of common skills like Overclock and Break Step, but a few rarer ones as well. Magnetic Hunt was employed by two different Users on the second day—a Mauler name Benson Hert and a Phalanx name Fara Saberu—and a Saber named Johnson Robel applied Distortion to his sword, causing the length of the blade to vanish unless it was in motion, when it would appear only as a dense blurring in the air. All in all it was not an afternoon without lessons, and after another evening of practice and training Rei, Aria, Viv, and Catcher went to bed with the combined giddiness of the day’s fights and the anticipation of the morrow’s.

  Friday, after all, was the start of the third year bracket…

  As good a student as he liked to think himself, the next morning Rei could not have focused on John Markus’ discussion on “Device evolution as related to improving specifications” even if the lieutenant major had been stripped naked, danced the macarena, and told them all their CADs were actually self-aware. Similarly, a lecture by Quentin Alphonse—a staff captain in Galens’ Combat Theory Department—passed with such dull enthusiasm from 1-A that the man had eventually given up and granted them all permission to review the third year roster in preparation of the day’s event. As a result, by the time lunch was done and the entirety of the Institute’s student body was once more gathering inside the Arena, there was much speculation being thrown around about who would be seen on the field that day, and what possible pairings would make for the most brilliant fight.

  “We should have started a betting pool,” Catcher could be heard muttering to himself while Viv was still scrolling through the class roster.

  “I think you said Archer made it to Systems last year, right?” She had taken on a more enthusiastic interest in the fights since the second years had started—particularly when it came to Duelists—and had been not-infrequently grilling the rest of them for any bit of information they had for 2 days now. “If they pit her against Hamilton, who do you think would come out on top?”

  “Kevin Hamilton?” Rei asked. “He’s another Duelist, right? A2? That puts him a rank above Archer, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t make it higher than Globals last year so…” he considered a moment “…Archer.”

  “How do you remember that stuff?” Aria asked him, almost indignantly, as she looked him up and down from her usual seat at his right, like she wasn’t sure if he were impressing her or freaking her out.

  Rei would have settled for both, and he grinned at the thought.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not some weirdo. If you’re as into the SCTs as I’ve been my whole life, stats like that just stick with you naturally. Watch this.” He turned to Catcher. “Catcher, what CAD-Type is Anthony Weston, and what’s his rank?”

  “No idea. I’m not a weirdo.”

  Aria and Viv both snorted at the answer, and Rei glared at his friend, who was looking at him with a perfectly innocent smile behind his live NOED. A second later, Rei got a private message.

  Lancer. A1.

  “Traitor,” Rei grumbled, blinking out of the message as Catcher stifled a chuckle on Viv’s other side.

  At that moment, though, the clock struck 1300, and on cue the observers stepped out from under the walkway.

  Dyrk Reese looked the same as he always had, walking briskly with his shaved temples gleaming beneath the lip of his military cap. On the other side of the field, however, a woman was matching his pace, and the already-vibrant thrum of the stands redoubled with excitement as the student body recognized Valera Dent herself even from behind. Upon reaching a common point, the two officers about-faced to stand at ease looking slightly away from each other, and Rei wondered if he was the only one to feel a sort of tension in the flawlessly composed expressions masking the pair’s features.

  “Those two do not like each other much, do they?” Aria muttered from his right.

  Guess that answers that, Rei thought, trying not to smirk.

  Soon Reese and Dent were in the air. They had only just reached the apex of their climb, the projected disc stabilizing under their booted feet, when the captain stepped forward and delivered the most to-the-point opening speech of any commentator thus far.

  “Today, as you all know, marks the opening day of the third year bracket of the 81st Galens Institute Intra-Schools. Those of you seeking to climb as high as you can in this world would do well not to look away from the field for so much as a moment, this afternoon. This is the day you will understand how the difference in the time and effort you put in now will affect you in ripples and waves for years in the future.”

  For a while silence greeted her, the audience transfixed by the cool, steady words. After a time, her composure finally broke a little, and the Iron Bishop managed to crack the smallest of smiles, one corner of her synthetic lips curling upwards ever so slightly.

  “Then again, there’s always value in simply allowing yourself to be entertained. Therefore, and without further ado, pl
ease welcome to the stage your first combatants: Mira Esku and Sabina Thren!”

  As the audience responded to the warmer shift in the woman’s tone, the Arena erupted in cheers, spiking and fluctuating when two girls, both pale-skinned with blonde hair, stepped into view. Rei, for his part, sat quietly, watching Valera Dent with a frown.

  To their credit, Aria, Viv, and Catcher all did the same.

  “Cuts right to it, doesn’t she?” Viv was the first to speak, not looking away from the captain as the two girls—Esku and Thren—came to stand opposite each other along the east and west edges of the Dueling field.

  “Yeah, she does,” Rei grunted, zooming in on Dent’s face, where the thin smile was still suspended. “Call me a pessimist, but I’d be willing to swear that opening speech was the only bit of honesty we’re gonna hear from her today.”

  “And I’d bet you’re right,” Aria muttered, finally uncrossing her arms to sit forward in her seat a little. “She’s been pretty clear she’s not the biggest fan of the SCTs.”

  “I think it’s less that she’s not a fan, and more that she thinks there’s better things to be done with our time,” Catcher said, looking around Viv and Rei’s backs to the girl.

  “Is she wrong?” Aria answered. “Twenty percent of the ISCMs Users are in the circuits, rather than the front lines.”

  “The top twenty percent,” Viv added, and she lifted a hand to draw a line horizontally across her face with one finger. “And we all know Dent’s probably got more reasons than most to wish there was more firepower aimed at the archons…”

  Rei stayed out of the conversation, reminded a little too vividly of a certain interview he’d been forced to sit through, nearly 6 months ago now. Not for the first time he suddenly found himself wondering how many eyes and ears there were in his immediate vicinity, and how many of those were trained on him in a single given moment.

  Fortunately for Rei, all involved in the conversation were given an excellent reason to forget about it the moment Dyrk Reese finished the customary questioning of the combatants’ understanding of the rules, and the field began to rise.

  It took them longer than usual to guess the stage, this time. There were no markers, no rising obstacles, but neither did the lifting ground beneath Esku and Thren’s feet give any indication that it was a plain Neutral Zone that was coming into being. Instead, the projected sky above the combatants turned a clear, aquamarine-blue without so much as the hint of a cloud, and only when the two cadets had reached the 10-foot ascent did the floor of the field seem to shimmer into view.

  No… No. It didn’t seem to shimmer.

  It actually shimmered, reflecting Esku and Thren in a rippling distortion, like an imperfect, twisting mirror.

  “Field: Salt Flats.”

  The Arena’s announcement brought a muttering of excited conversation and a few whoops of anticipation, which Rei found amusing. The ISCM was—like any entertainment behemoth before it—constantly reviewing and refreshing the parameters of its business. The Salt Flats were one of the most recent additions to the SCTs field-types, having been added to the rotation along with the much acclaimed Zero-Grav and Free Fall zones only a month or two prior. In Rei’s opinion it was by far the most mundane of those three inclusions, but the masses would always find something enjoyable in anything shining and new.

  At least for a time.

  “Cadet Mira Esku versus Cadet Sabina Thren. Combatants… Call.”

  The two girls—standing 20 yards apart from each other as their reflections danced beneath their feet—did as commanded, and this time when the crowd cheered, Rei was right along with them.

  Among the third years, there was as wide a discrepancy in rank as there was in both classes below them. The difference, however, was that the amount of training and discipline it took to catch up from D6 to C3—the current gap in power among the first years, as far as Rei knew—was a world of difference compared to what was needed to rise from B6 to A3. This, of course, was what Valera Dent had been alluding to in her opening speech. The discrepancy in the third year class, the silent awareness that those not in the highest tiers among themselves had fallen behind, and had likely fallen behind a long time ago. There would be duds, in the coming 2 days, Rei was sure. Matches in which the lower ranks were pitched against each other or—even worse—where one of the overwhelming strong would be paired with someone with far lesser ability. There wasn’t a single student among the third years who wasn’t terrifying of course, but it had to be acknowledged that those who’d fought and struggled and shed blood for every moment of every day of their time thus far at Galens had risen higher and farther than their less-willing classmates.

  And what had excited the crowd was that Mira Esku and Sabina Thren were very obviously in that higher category both.

  Though Rei had seen full-bodied CADs before, it had exclusively been through feeds, and certainly never in a setting of such trembling energy. Esku, it transpired, was a Mauler whose heavy Device was grey-white with murky blue vysetrium teasing its joints and lines. Her armor was layered and built up, much like the thick plating of the knights of ancient Europe on Earth that Rei had read about. The massive hammer she lugged over one shoulder with both hands had an uneven, jagged head, and could have been a solid hunk of some deep-sea glacier strapped into place atop a long haft by threading steel ribbons. Her form-fitting helmet had a decorative tail of projected blue light, and a single flat, circular viewing scope was embedded in the center of its faceplate, just between where her eyes would be. Its lens, glaring in the sun, was trained on the other cadet standing 20 yards across from Esku over the shimmering salt flats.

  Much like everyone else’s eyes in the stands.

  While the Mauler’s armor and weapon were indeed impressive, it was Thren’s CAD that was swallowing all the attention, taking the form of a Lancer-Type in a whirling blink. A rare solid-green with vibrant yellow vysetrium detailing, the Device was leaned away from Esku’s heavy plating in favor of slighter, slimmer steel that appeared almost skin-tight around Thren’s legs, body, arms, and neck. Her head, too, was enveloped, with her face shielded by a pane of opaque yellow that curved overtop to cover her hair. In her right hand Thren held her weapon casually, a massive, tapered lance of green steel and bright vysetrium that looked far too heavy for any single person to be carrying so easily, counterbalanced by a shorter, heavy base that had to have been as thick as Rei’s calf.

  The girl’s armor and armaments, however, was not what had everyone’s attention.

  Over Thren’s shoulders, a solid half-loop of thick green steel lined with yellow floated like some broad, suspended collar. It drifted, seemingly lazily, shifting gently this way and that with every subtle movement of its User’s body, appearing benign to any uneducated eye.

  Well… Technically it was benign, but that hardly made it unworthy of attention.

  “Is that an external?”

  For once it was Viv who posed the question first, hissing out loud as the very query was repeated in a hundred different ways from as many mouths among the first- and second years. Her disbelief was well masked, but not completely hidden. Rei, too, couldn’t help but gape in amazement and delight down at Thren, focusing his NOED in on her Device to observe it in careful detail.

  “Has to be, right?” Catcher answered Viv after a second. “But for an A-Rank to have one? That’s impressive!”

  Very impressive, Rei agreed, taking in the odd, looped component floating above and behind the Lancer’s shoulders.

  External modules—or simply “externals”, as they were much more commonly known—were hardly common as it was. Aside from usually being exclusive evolutions achieved by S-Ranked Users, they weren’t even developed by every such CAD-fighter. Even as high as the Intersystems not all combatants were lucky enough to wield an external, much less more than one. It was unfortunate, too, because the modules provided an incredible advantage to any User who possessed them:

>   Flight.

  Well, not true flight, exactly. Even Valera Dent—whose Kestrel held the living record of eight externals, as far as Rei knew—couldn’t achieve that. What they did allow for, however, was near-flawless mobility, applying anti-grav tech to the User’s Device that allowed them to skate over even—and sometimes uneven—ground like a dancer sliding over smooth ice. The more powerful—or numerous—the modules were, the greater the effect achieved, or at least the lesser the impact such mobility had on the User’s neuroline. Rei was astounded to find Thren in possession of even a single external, and wondered if it hadn’t been a recent gracing of a new evolution by her Device.

  As far as he’d been aware, there was supposed to have been only one third year at Galens with such an advantage.

  Rei’s musing, though, were interrupted by the Arena’s cool, calm voice.

  “Combatants… Fight.”

  CRACK!

  The speed at which Esku and Thren launched themselves towards each other in that moment was so astounding, it took a moment for Rei to convince himself one or both of them hadn’t just broke the sound barrier. Two lines of disturbed earth and settling dust suddenly appeared in the originally perfect surface of the flats where the girls had rocketed towards each other from either side, and even in the brilliance of the sun the flaring, flashing colors of their Devices shown blue and yellow through the air.

  “Both combatants open with a Break Step, looking to catch the other by surprise!” Captain Dent’s voice cut over the clanging of metal and the roar of the crowd. “They’ve met dead-center, and are now putting their all in a close-quarters match!”

  Rei heard Viv shout in astonishment at the announcement of the early triggered abilities, but he ignored her. Even Esku, a Mauler, cut and cleaved so fast that he doubted an opening Break Step would have put much strain on her body. More interesting to him, rather, was the fact that the fight had indeed immediately devolved into one of incredibly close proximity. Despite the pair possessing what was arguably the greatest standard range among CAD-Type, they had stepped well into each other’s reach, exchanging a furious flurry of sweeps and blows that left him dizzy as he tried to follow them. He wondered, abruptly, how he had for so long been able to appreciate CAD-fights at this level and beyond before he’d developed a decent Cognition, and could only imagine it had been a simple, potent fascination with the sheer power and speed A- and S-Ranked Users could bring to bear.