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

by Bryce O'Connor

  “Ah,” Catcher looked away again with a shrug to peer up into the clear sky of the early day, hitching his school bag higher onto his shoulder. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Bull,” Rei snorted. “I spent part of the morning with her going over our Tactical Studies paper. I think she tried to apologize before that, but asking for my help was the best she managed to get out.”

  “Well that was certainly nice of her,” Catcher said with feigned approval. “I guess she must be warming up to you.”

  “Like she would do that without someone pushing her.” Viv looked around Rei to peer at the blond Saber suspiciously. “I don’t know if you’ve taken too many blows to the head since the start of term, but I seem to recall Cashe looking about ready to throw Rei’s ass out of school herself, if they’d have let her.”

  There was a quiet gasp from Viv’s left.

  “That happened?” Aria asked, eyes wide under the brim of her cap and she, too, bent to look between Rei and Catcher as they walked. “I haven’t heard any of this!”

  “Because you’re lucky enough to have no drama in your suite,” Viv replied, turning to her with a jealous expression. “Want to switch? Cashe leaves her room so little I’m basically living with two boys and Catcher.”

  “Hey!” Catcher exclaimed in indignation, finally look down at them again and earning a laugh from everyone.

  Everyone except Aria, who was gazing at Viv with dead seriousness.

  “Are you actually offering?” she asked as the mess hall came into sight at last. “Cause I can make that happen, and I think I’ve yet to exchange more than ten words with any of my roommates at his point.”

  “Oh,” Viv looked taken aback. “Uh… No. Sorry. I was just joking, and I don’t think—”

  She stopped at the grin that split Aria’s features.

  “That’s not fair!” Viv exclaimed with a laugh. “You’re too good at saying stuff like that with a straight face!”

  “Don’t hate the player,” Aria answered with a giggle, moving slightly aside to let a couple of third years pass along the path in the opposite direction. “No one said you could be the only tease of the group.”

  “Yeah, but it’s no fun when I’m the one getting teased…” Viv grumbled, pouting. Then she perked up. “Weren’t we interrogating Catcher? How did this get turned around on me?”

  “Oh, there’s some friends from class!” Catcher exclaimed suddenly, waving in towards a group of first years who were distinctly not looking at him before taking a step in their direction. “Guess I’ll catch you guys later! See you at lunch!”

  “Yeah, no.” Rei said, snagging him by the gold stitching of his collar before he could get away. “Nice try, but you still haven’t answered my question.”

  Catcher seemed to deflate a bit, then sighed as he stepped back to walk alongside them again. “Okay, yes. I told her a little bit about you—but nothing too important, don’t worry!” he added in a hurry when Viv glared at him sharply. “I wanted to clue her in before she put her foot even deeper in her mouth. Cashe is… kinda behind the ball on a few things.”

  “Like what?” Viv pressed him in a slow, menacing voice.

  “Like the fact that accusing Rei of having his family get him into school was kind of the epitome of a faux pas,” Catcher answered quickly, lifting both hands in a sign of peace. “That’s basically it, though, okay?”

  “She did what?” Aria hissed from Viv’s left.

  “Oh this is a fun story,” Viv replied with a grin, and proceeded to launch into a retelling of their first afternoon in 304 that was—in Rei’s opinion—rather hyperbolized. Regardless, by the time they reached the hall, Aria had been caught up, and she looked somewhere between livid and mortified as Viv finished describing that initial exchange with Chancery Cashe.

  “You’re kidding me,” she seethed as the doors to the arboretum slid open for them. “How could she say something like that? Did she not know?”

  “No, she didn’t,” Catcher explained calmly. “And believe me when I say she regrets it. Cashe has a chip on her shoulder when it comes to Users—not even just getting into Galens.”

  “Why?” Aria pressed him, falling in behind Rei and Viv along the breakfast line.

  “Her business,” Catcher said firmly, and quailed only a little under the look Aria gave him, then. “It is. If you want to know, ask her yourself. How would you guys feel if I went around spilling the beans about Rei’s fibro? Or the fact we basically had to chase you down before you would be seen in public with us?”

  Aria, predictably, flushed crimson at that.

  Then she relaxed. “Fine. I guess I can’t argue with that.”

  Viv, on the other hand, was less placated.

  “Nuh-uh,” she said, looking at Catcher sharply. “I don’t buy that any Galens cadet could be so far removed from reality. Spill.”

  In response, he only stared her down.

  Breakfast that morning was spent in an unusual fervor of Viv grilling Catcher for more information, and him refusing to bend as stoutly as a steel rod. By the time they had to split for lectures, the two of them looked about ready to actually kill one another, and it was with some relief that Rei and Aria said goodbye to the Saber before chasing after Viv, who was already stomping off in the direction of the Tactical Studies building.

  “Come on, relax,” Rei told her with a smile once they’d caught up. “It’s not that big a deal. If Cashe was willing to open up a little like she did this morning, you’ll get your chance to interrogate her as thoroughly as you want at some point, I’m sure.”

  Viv grunted noncommittally, not so much as glancing at him over her clenched jaw.

  Aria edged in between them, giving Rei an “I’ve got this”-look before slipping an arm into the crook of Viv’s stiff elbow.

  That got her to turn around, finally.

  “He’s right, you know,” Aria said with a smile, matching steps so the two of them could walk side by side as they approached the Department. “It’s not worth getting upset over.”

  “Yeeeah, fine,” Viv grumbled. After a moment she glanced down at their joined arms, then grinned back up at Aria. “But if I get to walk to class like this as a reward, I might just have to get pissy every morning. Gotta make all those suitors jealous.”

  Aria laughed, disengaging herself and shoving Viv away playfully. Following behind the two girls as they started talking about the day’s courses and their planned training that afternoon, Rei couldn’t help but smile.

  For someone who claimed not to have made many real friends in her life, Aria Laurent had found her place in their little group with surprising ease. Whether it was a proper social upbringing or just her bubbly nature, it hadn’t taken more than a few days for her to come out of her shell enough to join in with the trio’s banter, to everyone’s shared delight. Far aside from being the first year’s prodigal top ranker, she proved herself equally smart and quick-witted, and could keep up with their jabbing dynamics even when Viv and Catcher managed to get on each other’s nerves, like that very morning. Rei had had no regrets in his choice of new friends so far in the term, but he didn’t think there would have been any argument if he’d said the last 2 weeks had been more fun than any of the previous since arriving at Galens.

  Fun…

  Rei caught himself smiling a little, watching Aria from behind while she and Viv continued to chat. It felt good, somehow, seeing the girl happy. Before she’d bucked up the courage to approach him, he’d never considered the fact she may have been anything less, but witnessing her now had opened his eyes to what her school life must have been like before he’d invited her to join them. It was an astounding change, and if he’d thought Aria alluring then, his interest in the girl had only redoubled with seeing her bloom, especially around Viv. It was like watching two grade-schoolers meet and make friends for the first time, the enthusiasm and energy infectious. He might even have been a little je
alous, actually, were it not for the fact that—in reality—he was the one who probably spent the most time with Aria Laurent.

  As excitable as she was—as happy and full of life as she seemed when they were all together—not even this talkative, laughing version of the girl compared to the one he faced off with on the Dueling field almost every night. When Hippolyta was live over her limbs, Aria always changed in an near-indescribable way. She was terrifying, yes, always terrifying, but she was also mesmerizing, and the sole reason Rei thought his growth hadn’t slowed down much since hitting the D-Ranks budded from her endless intensity. As odd as it was to say, Aria thrived on the battlefield, her technique and ability all grace and all power all the time. The two of them had become habitual sparring partners—though they all four cycled a bit throughout every training session—and for the first week of her having joined them Rei had argued that Aria should have spent more time matching off with Viv or Catcher, who could have at least provided some kind of challenge.

  Aria, though, refused to hear any of it, insisting that he was simply more fun to fight.

  Rei chuckled to himself, considering this. On the one hand, he imagined there was some amusement to be had in his amounting to what was essentially a living punching bag for the girl—though she’d obviously blushed and squeaked to the contrary the one time he’d joking accused her of sporting a rather wide sadistic streak. On the other, however, he supposed he could credit himself with posing a different kind of challenge, and one Aria might not have had the opportunity to face off with often even during the summer training months.

  While he couldn’t meet her strength for strength, Rei could match her now for more than a minute at a time, every time. Despite their difference in specs, despite their difference in experience and rank, he’d slowly over the course of 2 weeks gotten to the point where he could stare down the length of Hippolyta’s spear and say with confidence that he wasn’t about to be taken down without a fight. He never actually won, of course—never—but he took in, processed, and adapted to Aria’s style a little more with every encounter. It had been the same for Viv and Catcher before the Phalanx had joined them, but between their constant cycling and the fact that they were a bit closer to his own ability, Rei hadn’t been nearly as purposeful with his observation, nor his responding to the pairs’ styles. Against Aria, though, he had had no choice but to deliberately tailor his combat if he ever wanted to last more than a few seconds, and as a result improvement was more measurable, his growth more apparent against the height of their clearer mismatch. In the end, it was against her that the realization had come:

  Of a fashion, Rei could study his way to advantage in a fight.

  Then again, he supposed there was no real surprise there. He’d adjusted to more than a few opponents in his time on the training fields under Valera Dent and Michael Bentz’s watchful eyes, and he couldn’t imagine competitive SCT combatants didn’t agonize over any footage of upcoming adversaries they could get their hands on. Still, it was a concept Rei hadn’t thought to consciously apply until matching so consistently with Aria, and he suspected it was these subsequent adaptations that provided challenge enough for her to come back again and again, even against a low D-Ranker like him.

  He tested her, he had realized, helping her identify her own weaknesses by finding them for himself.

  They reached the Tactical Studies Department, climbed the several floors to their classroom, and took their usual seating three-abreast along the center of the lower rows, Rei in the middle of the two girls. Viv made some last-minute adjustments to the paper they had due that day with his and Aria’s input, and once Takeshi arrived the course passed quickly, as did the rest of the morning’s lectures. Lunch proved a bit more of an awkward affair, with Viv and Catcher refusing to look at one another and staring daggers when they did happen to catch each other’s eye, and it was with a further wash of relief that they split once more to head for the Arena and their afternoon training. Taking the elevators down to SB2 together, neither Rei, Viv, nor Aria noticed the eyes that followed them into the locker room, or out again and down the hall to the combat area.

  It was only as they stepped into the cavernous expanse of the underground field space that the three of them got their first surprise of the day, and anything but a pleasant one—at least by Rei’s estimation. It had become standard protocol for Valera Dent to wait for the class to gather around the elevated platform for Field 3, sometimes reviewing the day’s program with her sub-instructors, sometimes standing silently while the cadets arrived in a steady trickle. For this reason, the initial oddity they noticed was that 1-A appeared to be congregating around Field 2, to their left.

  The second was that it was not the chief combat instructor who overlooked them from the raised projection, but rather an aged man in standard regulars, his temples clean-shaven under the ridge of his cap, eyes deep-set and dark.

  It took Rei a moment to recognize him.

  “Is that… Reese?”

  Viv and Aria nodded together to his left, and the three of them exchanged a confused look before joining the steady flow of their classmates towards 2. They found a space in the groupings wide enough to accommodate, and all around them there was excited murmuring from the other cadets. Rei caught Sense’s eye, giving him a questioning look, but the Brawler only shrugged as though to say he had no idea what was going on either.

  “What do you think this is about?” Viv asked in a hushed voice, taking in the major as he stood with the sub-instructors in a formed line at his back.

  “No idea,” Aria whispered back, she, too, observing the higher officer with a mix of interest and confusion. “The Intra-Schools aren’t for another month, but maybe there’s a second announcement?”

  “Maybe…” Rei said uncertainly, studying the major for himself. He actually had his own suspicions, and a twinge of excitement thrummed at his insides as he considered it. Hadn’t Reese and Dent told them squad leaders for team events would be selected from the Sectional qualifiers? If that was the case, it might make sense if those involved with that decision saw the cadets work, and not just in the tournament…

  Before he could voice his hunch to either of the girls, though, Dyrk Reese’s dark gaze found him in the gathered students, and the anticipation in Rei’s gut turned abruptly to stone.

  Twice now he’d gotten the impression that the major wasn’t his biggest fan. The first had been at the Commencement, when the man had obviously tried to intercede when Dent had granted him the demonstration match against Aria. The second had been 2 weeks ago, when he’d thought Reese’s disapproving gaze had picked him out of the crowd at the special assembly.

  Now, though…

  Now, Rei’s misgivings were instantly etched in steel.

  He had seen the look Dyrk Reese was giving him before. He had seen it a thousand times. Leron Joy. Logan Grant. Mateus Selleck. It was the same look the students who’d never accepted his presence among them had been shooting his way since the start of school, the same distaste and disgruntlement of an ego forced to bend, rather than allowing itself to. It wasn’t the first time Rei had been greeted with a similar treatment from a staff, even—Liam Gross and several of the other sub-instructors had never really warmed up to his lagging behind the rest of the class—but at least those officers always made even some minimal effort to hide their disappointment.

  Reese’s disapproval, on the other hand, was so blatant that Viv spoke up from Rei’s side.

  “What’s his deal?” she half-whispered, half-snapped

  Rei was about to answer that he didn’t know, when a voice rose up from behind them.

  “Apparently the man’s got half-decent standards.”

  Together Rei, Viv, and Aria all turned on the spot, finding themselves facing off with a tight-lipped Logan Grant. His usual entourage looked to be scattered among the other students behind him, but Rei didn’t miss Selleck’s cold stare from a nearby group of Sabers, nor Leda Tru
ant’s from where she stood with the class’s other two Phalanxes.

  “What do you want?” Viv spat, and Grant actually blinked at her, like he hadn’t expected the venom.

  After a moment, though, he looked instead to Aria. “I thought you’d eventually get over your phase, Laurent, but it doesn’t look like it. What the hell are you doing?”

  “What are you talking about?” Aria’s face was already growing pink, but she didn’t look away from the tall Mauler.

  “I mean that if you were looking for a decent sparring partner, you could have just asked,” Grant snapped back, taking them all off guard. “You’re going to ruin yourself training with this asshole.” He gestured at Rei dismissively.

  Rei, for his part, could only take the black-haired boy in in confusion. Was Grant… angry?

  “Are you that willfully ignorant?” Viv snarled, taking a step towards the Mauler. “Since you seem to have your head buried under a rock, maybe someone should clue you in on the fact that Rei’s already practically—”

  “Caught up to some of the others?” Grant finished for her in a low growl, narrowing his black-red eyes at Viv. “Don’t treat me like an idiot, Arada. Obviously I’m aware. I also don’t give a shit. All I’ve ever seen Ward do on the field is run away and try to pull the wool over his opponents’ eyes. Super impressive. Real quality fighter.” The bitter sarcasm of his last words came through hard.

  “I’m sorry, where the hell did you get a leg to stand on when it comes to criticism?” It was Rei’s turn to join in. “I seem to recall you getting a week in the brig for trying to cut my head off after our match ended.”

  “Yeah, well maybe next time you’ll think twice about mouthing off about my parents, dickwad.” Grant didn’t even glance at Rei as he spoke, his eyes still on Viv, and it was she he addressed again next. “It’s not just Laurent. What you’re doing with him has me at a loss, too, Arada.”

  “Excuse me?!” Viv seethed, but before she could get another word in Rei held her up with a hand on her arm.

  Not that his own anger had subsided in the least.