“But why?” Aria looked completely befuddled. “What is going on?!”
“Oh, nothing too serious,” Catcher assured her, glancing back to give her a tense wink before stepping through the door. “This crazy bastard is just going to try to get to C4 in six days or so.”
CHAPTER 51
“I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.”
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
20th century ruler, Earth
Logan was in the middle of taking on Leda Truant and Tad Emble together when the notification pinged his NOED. He ignored it, bringing Honoris’ haft across his body to smash Truant’s testing spear out of the way so hard that she actually staggered sideways, opening her right flank up to him. He would have liked to take advantage of the chance, but needed to instead bring the axe around and keep Tad at bay as the Brawler closed in on his left. Leda recovered, and the spear slashed at Logan’s legs, now. He stepped into the arc of the strike, letting the haft of the weapon—rather than the blade—smack him along the back of his newly armored foreleg and ping off harmlessly, all while swinging Honoris around at the Phalanx’s head. Leda ducked, but it wasn’t her who was the actual target of the move. Tad, seeing his chance, darted in once more, punch-daggers driving forward.
Logan’s steel-clad fist—the one he’d released from the massive axe’s shaft once the momentum of his swing had been enough to carry it through—took the smaller boy in the side of the head before he could land a hit.
Tad went flying, the blow taking him so hard he spun twice like a disk before slamming to the plain white of the Neutral Zone. Finding herself suddenly without support, Leda cursed and retreated two steps to assume a defensive stance behind her shield.
Logan followed right after her, uncaring of the heavy steel barrier between them while he drove Honoris down at the girl.
One. Two. Three massive swings was all it took before the Phalanx’s Strength failed her. Her shield fell as the axe cleaved into the top of the metal, driving it down until the blue-and-white blade bit through her shoulder too, splitting the vulnerable flesh and bone between her neck and left arm. At once the plexus of nerves controlling the limb failed, and the shield dipped limply while Leda screamed in simulated pain. Logan didn’t elongate her suffering.
Wrenching Honoris free, he took her head off with one last, clean blow.
“All Red Team combatants eliminated. Winner: Blue Team.”
As soon as the Arena made the announcement, the blue glow of his CAD’s normally-red vysetrium faded, the change back like an odd weight off Logan’s shoulders. Honoris had become a part of him in the 6 months since his assignment. He’d had trouble at first, he could admit in retrospect. The fact that he had been assigned as a User of a common Type with his father had been unsettling, even infuriating in the first few weeks.
Now, though… Now it was as much one with his body as any of his limbs.
A slow, echoing clap from behind him caught Logan’s attention, and he looked back to see Mateus Selleck providing the half-hearted—or sarcastic?—applause. On either side of him Camilla and Giano Perez sat with their mouths hanging open, though they shut them quickly when they caught Logan’s eye. Of Jeffrey Gathers, none of them had seen much of the boy in several weeks, with the Lancer having long-since avoided sitting with their little group during class.
Logan didn’t mind. He wasn’t surprised Gathers was distancing himself from them. Giano was on the brink of doing the same, he could tell, and the only reason Tad hadn’t already fled was because he was in the same Type-group as Camilla and Ward, which would only have made things doubly-awkward for the Brawler.
That fight—that one fight—had changed a lot of things, it seemed.
“Give it a rest, Mateus,” Logan growled, turning to face the blond Saber while Leda and Tad recovered from their neural interruption enough to start staggering to their feet. “If you clap every time you see someone better than you fight, you’ll end up with stubs for hands.”
Mateus froze mid-motion, his bored face flashing briefly into one of annoyance. In an instant the facade was back, though, and he smiled before shrugging. “Just complimenting you on a good match, man. No need to get all up in arms about it.”
“Uh-huh,” Logan said, making sure the disbelief dripped from his voice. How the hell had he let himself get mixed up with a tool like this? “In that case, maybe you’re looking for a lesson.” He leveled Honoris’ blade—still called—at the boy. “Come on up. We can do a one-on-one.”
Smooth as silk, Mateus shook his head and raised both hands. “Nah. That wouldn’t help you much, would it? There’s no top-ranked Sabers left in the tournament. Whoever you get matched up with won’t be my Type.”
“Then let’s just say it’ll be a nice change of pace.”
Mateus’ mask cracked again for a moment, stiffening as he thought quickly. In the end, though, he just stuck to his guns.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” He gestured to Giano Perez, sitting on the projection steel at his right. “How about swapping out Truant for Perez? Pits you against a Brawler and a Duelist? You might not be able to handle the speed…”
Logan felt his face twitch, and he fought not to rise to the bait. The coward knew how to push his buttons, that much was for certain.
“Maybe,” he said through gritted teeth, “but Ashley Renton is the only Duelist left in the losers bracket, and I could take her on holding my breath with my ankles tied together. So I’m good.”
“You never know. She’s fast. She might—”
“Shut up.”
Logan stopped listening to the Saber, because he had only just noticed the blinking notification in the corner of his vision. Recalling the alert he’d gotten mid-fight, he felt his pulse quicken a bit when he saw the subject line of the missive.
Pairings were up.
Without a moment’s hesitation Logan selected the icon, and at once his view was mostly obscured by a single tall screen. Whereas every other such notice had required a scrolling to see all the participants, the fact was that there were only sixteen cadets left in the tournament. As a result, Logan found his name almost immediately.
And that of his opponent.
At once the pulse that had been speeding up settled, a cool, calm sort of focus grabbing hold of Logan so absolutely that he didn’t hear Mateus asking him what was up, what he was looking at. He reread the name beside his several more times, taking it in, making sure he wasn’t mistaken. On the one hand, there was no doubt left in his mind that the Intra-Schools were being rigged. What was more, there was no way Dyrk Reese could be alone in the plot, if he was allowed to get away with this after that questionable fight the week before had already raised so many eyebrows among the student body.
But on the other… Logan was suddenly very much looking forward to the coming Tuesday, more so than he could have imagined.
His anticipation was… strange, though. Had anyone asked him even just 2 months ago what he would have been thinking in this moment, he’d have said he couldn’t wait to put an asshole and a leech in his proper place. There was still a measure of that in his expectations, he knew—a healthy measure of it—but there was more, now, too.
There had been more since Lena Jiang—the school’s top Saber—had been forced to resort to dirty tricks to win that first fight in the opening week of the tournament.
Logan became aware, then, that his hand not holding onto Honoris’ haft was shaking slightly. Closing the pairings screen, he brought it up to his face, watching his strong fingers shiver. He tried to make it stop, tried to press back the excitement, but to no avail. He breathed easy. His heart was steady.
And yet every fiber of his mind screamed for the week to pass and for the fight to come.
Finally, he made a fist, then looked past his hand to offer Mateus a simpering smile before turning his gaze on Giano. “On second thought, maybe I could use a little speed training. Switch in
for Leda, Giano. Give me everything you’ve got.”
As the Duelist got to his feet nervously, Logan turned his back on them both, resetting the field and motioning to Leda that she could go sit down with a jerk of his head. The red circles showed up—two on one side of the zone, with the third on the other—and Logan headed for the lone ring while Tad and Giano jogged for the pair. As soon as they were set and Leda was clear of the perimeter, he triggered the match.
“Let’s see what you’re really made of, Ward,” he muttered under his breath, settling down into a ready position as his Device glowed blue again and the Arena started to speak.
CHAPTER 52
“Never seen anything like it. Not before, and not since. It wasn’t passion that drove the kid. Passion is too insubstantial a word. It was more like… fire. Yeah. Fire.
It was like his every fiber burned for more, to become more, growing stronger and hotter with every breath he took…”
- Lieutenant Michael Bretz, S-Rank Pawn-Class
concerning the Stormweaver
By the time Friday evening came around, for Rei to say that he was dead on his feet would have been the understatement of a lifetime. They were all tired, to be fair—he, Aria, Viv, Catcher—all of them, but his friends had only been rotating the morning trainings, each taking their turn getting up at 0400 with him to knock out an extra 3 hours or so of sparring before breakfast and the days’ classes. Rei, on the other hand, had been getting barely 5 hours of sleep a night, and felt the weight of his decisions in every second he spent fighting not to doze off in lecture, not to mention the long, sluggish walks between buildings as the weather grew steadily colder and the days greyer.
Still, he’d thought sparring itself had always woken him up, so Rei was surprised when barely 20 minutes into the last training session with Christopher Lennon, the third year called a halt to their bout.
“All right, stop.”
Rei, having no way to pause in the massive punch he’d just thrown at the young man’s face, nearly choked as the blow ripped towards Lennon’s eyes. At the last possible moment, though, a dark hand snapped up, sliding fingers between Shido’s claws with impossible precision, taking hold and stopping the fist as absolutely as might a stone wall. The impact was jarring, and Rei actually grunted as the force transferred into the bones of his arm, making them throb. Standing up straight, he pulled the Device away carefully from Lennon’s hand, shaking his wrist out in an attempt to dissipate the lingering ache.
“What’s up?” he asked, doing his best to come off nonchalant.
Lennon, though, was frowning at him, ice-blue eyes burning into his own like they were trying to read his soul. They were alone on their half of the field, just the pair of them. Aria, Viv, and Catcher had all insisted Rei take these last 2 hours to himself to try to eke out every advantage he could from the session, and—when the Lasher hadn’t said a word to the contrary—Rei had accepted gratefully, deciding it was all right to be a little selfish for once.
In hindsight, though, he was wondering if this one-on-one training hadn’t been exactly what he should have been trying to avoid…
“Attack me.”
Lennon’s command caught Rei by surprise, and he hesitated, fearing what the trick was. After a moment of silence in which the Lasher said nothing else, though, Rei shrugged internally, and did as he was told, lunging forward to swipe at the third year’s arm, hoping to catch his instructor unawares.
Of course, he hit only air, Lennon stepping back in a blur of motion.
“Stop,” he said again, and Rei halted once again. The Lasher approached once more. “Okay. Again.”
With a frown, Rei stepped forward to go for a kick at Lennon’s side, this time.
Another whiff.
“Again,” came the command, and Rei followed through.
“Again,” it came for a third time, then twice more after that, Rei stopping and starting in silence as he did as he was told.
“All right,” Lennon finally said, clearly having made some decision or discovery Rei wasn’t to be privy to just yet. “Let’s try one more time.” He took a step to stand in front of Rei.
Then he closed his eyes.
“Again.”
Rei didn’t budge, suddenly nervous. He might have always wanted to land a hit on the A-Ranked Atypical, but this was hardly the way he would have liked to go about it.
“Uhh, sir…?” he started, unsure.
Lennon didn’t so much as crack an eye.
“I said ‘again’, Ward. Come at me.”
“But how are you going to—?”
“Again.”
The Lasher didn’t raise his voice, but the order was firm. In the corner of his vision, Rei became aware that the other three had all paused in their own training to peer through the dividing wall between them at what was happening.
Deciding there wasn’t anything for it, Rei braced himself, crouching low in preparation. Lennon didn’t budge as Shido’s boots ground into the field. There was a pause, Rei trying to deduce what trap was coming, but he got nothing. No hints, no alarms, no red highlights in his NOED. It looked like a free and clear shot.
In the end, he took it, rocketing forward with as fast and powerful a thrusting punch as he could muster right at the red-on-blue griffin in the center of the third year’s chest.
He was on the ground almost immediately.
WHAM!
Still with his eyes closed, Lennon had reacted to the sound of Shido’s steel armor. In a deliberate movement that couldn’t have been any faster than Rei’s own C2 Speed, the Lasher kicked a foot out to hook the back of his leading ankle, lifting it up and inward. The result had been Rei toppling sideways under impetus, right side hitting the field floor hard under his own weight with no way to break his fall himself, and sending him sliding several feet along the smooth projection.
“Owe…” he groaned, more out of habit than anything else after he’d come to a stop and rolled onto his back. His Defense was tied with Endurance as his lowest spec, but well into the Ds as it was his reactive shielding had been more than enough to weather the minor impact of the fall.
Just the same, Rei felt almost naked when Christopher Lennon’s shadow slid across him as he lay there, the older boy’s form looming over him, silhouetted black against the overhead lights.
“You didn’t listen to me, did you Ward?”
Rei swallowed, his worst fear realized. Scrambling for an out, he decided to try a redirect.
“I did! I studied up on every User I might have been matched up against for the fight next week. Even after I got my pairing, just like you said.” He tried at a smile. “Give me any name. I’ll wow you.”
It wasn’t untrue, to be fair. In fact, studying the other fifteen first years left in the final of their Intra-School losers bracket had very often been the only thing that kept him awake in class for the last 3 days. Reviewing his potential opponents—well, theoretical opponents, now that he knew for a fact who he was up against—had been a hundred times more stimulating than a majority of the week’s lecture topics, and stimulating turned out to be exactly what he needed while running off 5 hours of sleep a night with more than twice that many spent training every day.
“Don’t be cute,” came the answering growl. “I told you you need to pace yourself.”
Rei cut the act.
“I know.” He pushed himself into a sitting position, squinting up at his instructor. “I’m sorry, I just…”
He trailed off, not sure how exactly to explain himself.
“Just what, Ward?” Lennon pressed him, sounding like he was bordering on legitimate anger. “Just decided you would go-go-go until you keeled over?”
“I’m fine,” Rei started to say, moving to stand, now. “All I need is a little bit more time, and I’ll—”
Thud.
For the second time in less than a minute he hit the ground, this time landing on his ass. Lennon h
ad shoved him down again, stepping in and around to hook him behind the knee, this time.
“You’re not fine,” the Lasher growled, lip curling in irritation to reveal white teeth. “You don’t even realize it, do you?”
“Realize what?” Rei demanded, starting to get near snapping himself. He was too tired for a ribbing like this.
“You don’t even realize I can read you like a book right now.”
This brought Rei pause, and he frowned. “What are you talking about? You can always read me like a—”
“No, Ward. No I can’t.” Some of the anger left Lennon’s face, and he crouched to be level with Rei. “The reason I can wipe the floor with you any time of any day is because I have A-Ranked Speed and S-Ranked Cognition. I react to you. I don’t read you. I told you when we started this: you’re unpredictable. Almost too unpredictable, sometimes, but on the whole it works in your favor. Usually you’re a storm, the embodiment of chaos theory on the field. It’s good. Really good.” He cocked his head at Rei, then. “But you didn’t realize every single one of those opening attacks just now led with your right foot, did you? Every. Single. One.”
Rei stared at the young man, registering his words with disbelief and alarm. Could that be true? No way, right? There was no way he would do something so amateurish.
And yet…
“Shit,” Rei breathed, thinking back on the repetitions and realized Lennon was, in fact, correct. “That’s how you hooked me. That’s how you took me down.”
“With my eyes literally closed, Ward.”
Rei nodded, at a loss for words. He replayed every attack in his head, every opening lunge, every first step.
Every right-footed first step…
“Shiiiiiit,” he repeated, letting the curse linger as his disbelief and irritation grew.
They stayed like that, quiet for a bit, Lennon seeming to want to let his criticism sink in. Rei could say nothing, as mad at himself as he was frustrated by the catch-22 of the situation. More than 30 hours of training he’d put in, since Tuesday. 30 hours, and his last match had been scheduled for the next Tuesday, giving him more time than he could have hoped for. He could do it, he thought. He could push and make it to C4, snagging himself one more chance to snatch at the carrot the very person before him had teased him with.
Iron Prince: A Progression Sci-Fi Epic (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 1) Page 92