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

by Bryce O'Connor

  It was behind her back, however, that the portions of her Device that qualified her as an Atypical waited patiently.

  In a graceful pattern of angular red-and-white, the steel of the captain’s eight externals flared outward like paired wings beyond her shoulders. Light rippled from the flattened insides of the metal, pulsing with every slight movement of her body. So powerful was the anti-gravitational counterforce provided by these modules that Dent didn’t actually touch the ground even as she waited for the fight to start. Her feet, instead, hung loose below her as she hovered nearly a full foot off the floor of the field. Like an armed angel of red-and-blue she lingered there, suspended before them all, and from around the ring Rei could make out echoing gasps of amazement.

  It was a few second delay before he realized that one of them had been his own.

  And then the Arena spoke again.

  “Combatants… Fight.”

  CRACK!

  Instantly, Michael Bretz vanished in a spray of fractured flooring. The Break Step was so fast that even as high above them as they were Rei thought he could feel the wind of it after the chief warrant officer made his appearance once again directly in front of Valera Dent. A black hook flashed, but not at the captain. Instead, Bretz had angled his opening attack to go for the externals of the Bishop’s right wing.

  And still he was too slow.

  With a grace that seemed impossible given the speed at which she moved, Dent slipped leftward, skating over ground she never touched, like a leaf blown by a smooth wind. Bretz’s attack caught nothing but air, and by the time he turned to follow his opponent the captain was nearly a quarter of the way around the field.

  And it had all taken about 2 seconds.

  “Chief Warrant Officer Bretz is correct in triggering an early ability, here.” Valera Dent’s voice came through the Arena’s system, magnified so they would hear over the sounds of the fight. “He knows I have superior Speed, so his prerogative must be to close the distance between us as quickly as possible, or be put at a disadvantage due to the better reach of my weapons.”

  Sure enough, Bretz approached her more cautiously now. He still moved with a terrifying agility—his armor shimmering purple and white like the skin of some hulking, jeweled serpent—but it was with less direct power as he closed the distance between them again.

  Dent let him come as she continued to explain.

  “The chief warrant officer—if you noticed—also elected not to attack me directly, but instead aim for my externals.” Bretz reached her in a barrage of cutting blows, which she defended herself from with blurred blocks and deflections of both sabers while she kept talking. “This was advantageous for several reasons, namely that it can be a largely surprise attack, particularly from a Brawler. One expects their limited range to bring them very close, and if I had prepared only for a targeting of my person I would likely be suffering a severe reduction of Speed at the moment.”

  Which might have been as good as a match loss, Rei thought to himself, scooting closer to the edge of the elevated ring to get a better view.

  Dent had disengaged sideways again, but this time brought herself around in a loose loop in an attempt to get behind Bretz. The Brawler, though, was too quick for her, spinning smoothly to keep pace with her circumvention even as he snapped up a thick arm to block a testing slash from the Bishop.

  “If you wonder why we insist on teaching you physics, that right there is a simple enough example,” Dent continued, retreating backwards as Bretz launched into and aggressive counterassault. “Despite my advantage in Speed, my attempt to flank the chief warrant officer failed because I went too far around, allowing him to stay with me. I could try for a tighter wrap, of course, but it comes with disadvantages.”

  Despite the statement, she did exactly that, and in a blink got behind Bretz successfully.

  Or almost successfully.

  Before the captain could bring her blade up to strike, her opponent was whirling, arms coming around in a cutting swing. Dent was forced to jerk away to keep from losing her head, but she turned the motion into a dancer’s back-spring, both feet catching Bretz under the chin just as he finished his turn. He was sent flying, but tucked and rolled with such athletic precision that he landed in a crouch not a moment after the captain herself found her footing again.

  “Against almost any other Type, such a flank can be incredibly effective.” For once Dent initiated, lunging forward with a powerful pulse of her externals. “The length of their weapons does not allow for as quick or as close of a counterattack. Brawlers, however, can respond even faster than Duelists to surprise assaults, particularly ones from directly behind. It can make ambushing and flanking extremely difficult, not to mention dangerous.”

  Bretz met her aggression with his own, feigning a leading punch that he changed into a spinning kick. Dent blocked the blow with a blade—the white vysetrium digging only a little into the limb’s thick scales—and Bretz shifted immediately into a whipping backflip that brought his other foot up at her face. She dodged it by an inch, but was again forced to bend away, giving Bretz enough time to land and launch forward again.

  That was how the first quarter-hour of the lesson continued, with neither the captain nor the chief warrant officer showing any signs of fatigue over the course of the 15 minutes. It became clear very quickly that the match was rather one-sided, with Bretz being the only of the two of them actually intent on downing his opponent, but it was a fight worth drooling over all the same. Dent continued her live commentary all the while, and very occasionally would ask the man to repeat something he had just done, or perform a specific attack of defensive technique so she could demonstrate an appropriate response. Within 5 minutes Rei was regretting not having brought his pad to take notes, but when he’d muttered his disappointment out loud Aria had only laughed, then pointed to her NOED when he turned to look at her with a frown.

  She was recording the fight, he realized, and with an exaggerated palm to the face in silent acknowledgement of what an idiot he was, he started to do the same.

  After that quarter-hour, Dent called an end to the fight, bringing Bretz up short just as he’d looked to be preparing himself for another rush. Thanking him for his assistance, she dismissed the man, who saluted and recalled his CAD in the same moment before turning and in one go leaping the 12 feet or so to clear the head of a seated Biyu Yang. As he did, Claire de Soto took his place by dropping down from the other side of the ring, her pink pixie-cut a strange flash of color to Dent’s clean red-and-blue.

  The moment the Saber sub-instructor had taken her starting position in the red ring that had popped up on the floor for her, the Arena spoke.

  “Lieutenant Claire de Soto versus Captain Valera Dent. Combatants… Call.”

  The lieutenant—as the only of the two not already clad in her Device—did as she was instructed, and at once Rei suspected he knew where she had gotten her hairstyle from. The woman’s CAD was a dark shade of pink over grey, but whereas one might have found the color amusing in conjunction with the profession of an A-Ranked User, Rei wasn’t sure he’d ever found pink so terrifying.

  Like Bretz, de Soto’s vysetrium was black, and it lined every piece of the solid plating that covered her body. The armor was angular, with sharp, jutting edges that looked like claws, and her faceplate was a rounded sheet of pure vysetrium framed in a pink helm by several triangular overlays along the top and bottom. It gave the impression that the headpiece had been formed in the shape of a beast’s mouth, with this image only made stronger by the heavy wrap of shimmering black “hair” that looped about the sides and back of the woman’s neck like a mane.

  The only thing more impressive than de Soto’s armor, however, was her sword. As a Saber, it was revealed that she was one of the two-handed variation. There was no black in the massive blade, its single 6-inch edge instead formed by solid grey steel along a heavy pink core, but for some reason this only made the weapon more
intimidating. When the glow of vysetrium was what was swinging at your head, there was a part of the mind that made it a little easier to swallow, as though that especially fantastic nature of CAD technology could be acknowledged as just little less real.

  On the other hand, Rei was pretty sure a solid sword like de Soto’s cleaving at his face would leave him with an altogether different level of terror, phantom-call or not.

  “Combatants… Fight.”

  Unlike in the match against Bretz, it was Dent who made the first approach. Lieutenant de Soto, in response, set her legs and stood her ground, bringing her great blade up flat before her. It accepted the impact of both of the captain’s flashing sabers like a shield, the sound of the steel slamming against steel harsh even from above. At once Dent corrected, collapsing one arm to put the rest of her attacking momentum behind the shoulder she leveled into the defending sword.

  De Soto took all of a half-step back.

  “When fighting a Saber—” the captain’s voice picked up as she disengaged for another assault “—one of the most important things you need to figure out is where their strengths and weaknesses are. With the other Types, it can usually be assumed that certain specs are at advantage.” She sent of fury of slashes at the lieutenant, who continued to hunker down and defend with little more than the occasional twitches as a blade slipped passed the quick adjustments of her broad sword to ring against her reactive shielding. “Brawlers and Duelists share an affinity for Speed and Cognition. Lancers have their reach in addition to excellent Offense, which they share with Maulers, who also generally possess excellent Strength. Phalanxes have impeccable Defense, and usually the Endurance to back it up. With Sabers, however—” Dent leapt and planted a massive drop kick into de Soto’s wall-like blade, sending her back another bare step “—their specs are much more balanced, with any favoring usually going in no more than one specific direction.”

  She paused as her opponent found her footing again, waiting until de Soto was set before continuing.

  “Lieutenant, could you please share with the class what your field name was, when you competed in the Sol System’s SCTs?”

  “Stone Lily,” came the answer at once.

  Dent waited, looking up at her cadets as though expecting someone to laugh. When no one made a sound, she nodded in approval.

  “Yes. You have good heads on your shoulders, all of you. As I suppose you can image, the lieutenant’s style leans heavily into Def—”

  CRACK!

  With another shattering of projected light, de Soto lunged at the captain, massive blade arching in a diagonal cross-cut. She hadn’t triggered any Break Step, but as close as the two of them were there was no need to. She was on top of the Iron Bishop in a heartbeat, weapon screaming down to—

  WHA-BOOM!

  A thrumming pulse of air and space, and an invisible force caught the lieutenant mid-stride. Incredibly, Dent’s Repulsion didn’t send the woman flying, but instead only staggering backwards, forcing her to slam her blade into the ground to keep from falling over. Rei knew, then, that not only did Claire de Soto have S-Ranked Defense, but the spec had to be S5 or higher to weather the captain’s Ability so well.

  “Stone Lily” didn’t even begin to do the Saber justice as a name, he thought.

  “An excellent example by the lieutenant on how to turn one’s perceived weaknesses into advantages!” Dent called out in approval, having not moved from the place she’d trigged the Repulsion, though she had dropped her gaze from the students back to face de Soto ago. “I admit that I let my guard down for a moment, there, because it is easy to assume that a User with high Defense and Offense won’t have the maneuverability necessary to make a quick attack like the one you just saw. If I hadn’t had that Ability built up, that might very well have been FDA for me!”

  “Liar,” Rei muttered aloud before he could stop himself. Aria elbowed him in the ribs with a smirk, but even Viv on her other side nodded.

  “That was deliberate, wasn’t it?” she asked of them in a whisper. “What S-Rank would look away from an opponent in the middle of a fight like that?”

  “None,” Aria told her.

  “Definitely none,” Rei confirmed.

  Then they shut up, because de Soto had lunged again, bringing her two-handed blade crashing down once more at the Iron Bishop, only for Dent to slip just beyond the range of the attack before launching into a countering barrage, calling feedback up all the while.

  That was how the remainder of the class passed, in rotation every 15 minutes or so between Bretz and de Soto, with every match becoming a little more intense as the captain had less and less to point out of the sub-instructors’ tricks and techniques with every passing fight. By the time the last of the rounds was wrapping, the final matches had been spent in near-silence, with the other teachers up on the ring with 1-A encouraging them to watch closely for examples of what Dent had been listing out for them all afternoon, as well as answering what few questions were asked. When the period came to an end, it was with more than a few groans of disappointment, which were met with a laugh by the captain.

  “Don’t worry, you’ve got plenty more to see over the next two classes!” She was inputting the command to dismiss the projection field even as she recalled Kestrel, and a moment later the class was being lowered gently to the ground again while de Soto called back her own Device behind her. “Remember that regulars will be allowed on Wednesday and Friday, and be prepared to answer questions next week from your sub-instructors on individual expectations for your evolutionary direction and developing combat style.”

  There was a collective “Yes, ma’am!” from the group, and as one the class got to their feet and started making for the east entrance. Before Rei and the others could take more than a couple steps to follow the flow of traffic, however, a call from Dent brought them all up short.

  “Ward. Stay. Laurent, Arada, you as well.”

  They turned back to look in confusion towards where the woman still stood on Field 3, the instructors all having begun splitting up to attend to whatever post-training duties or break time they were allowed before the next session started. At her words, however, Bretz, Gross, and Imala all glanced around in interest, the others doing the same with a frown.

  Dent dismissed the lot of them even as she motioned for Rei, Aria, and Viv to approach. “See to your reprieve, officers. This conversation isn’t anything to concern yourselves with.”

  Most of the sub-instructors did as she ordered at once, with only Bretz lingering a little longer, looking torn between following his superior’s command and wanting to know what sort of “conversation” would involve his most-prized student. Eventually, however, he gave in, and left the floor after the other teachers, speeding up to catch Gross and Imala, who seemed eager to confer with him on what might be going on.

  It would have made Rei laugh, seeing the three adults put their heads together like children and casting furtive glances back at them until they were gone from the room, except he was too busy wondering himself what Dent wanted with him and the girls.

  Once they were alone, the captain took them in, a knowing smile lingering on her prosthetic lips.

  “Lennon tells me he may have overdone your training on Friday.”

  This statement brought a measure of relief to Rei, having expected something of much greater import to guide the conversation. Dent hadn’t attended their second session with the Lasher, though, so he supposed it wasn’t surprising she was curious about the special training given the lengths she’d gone to set it up for them.

  “No, ma’am.” he told her, feeling comfortable speaking for the group on this matter. “We’ll just need to get accustomed to the intensity is all. We’re incredibly grateful for the opportunity to learn from Cadet Lennon, even if the lessons are hard.”

  On either side of him, Aria and Viv both nodded their agreements.

  “Good to hear.” Dent sounded genuinely pleased a
s she reached up to wipe a line of sweat off one cheek with the back of her hand. “I told him much the same thing, but he was still worried. Apparently he expected at least one of the four of you to call for a break at some point.”

  Rei’s mouth went slack at that, and it was a second before he looked around at the girls. They, too, appeared to have been taken by surprise, but as he considered it Rei indeed realized something.

  None of them had bothered asking for a reprieve while they’d fought, had they?

  Dent, for her part, laughed out loud. “By the looks on your faces, you’re only just realizing it. Amusing. Lennon may be a third year, cadets, but he does not outrank you. He can’t order you to do anything, and if you’d wanted a break in training, you could have taken one.”

  Rei almost let himself feel like a fool, but Aria saved him the chagrin.

  “Thank you, ma’am, but I think we’ll keep going as is. We only have two hours a week with the Lasher. Every second we can squeeze out of training will matter, at the end of our time together.”

  Dent cast her with a look that might have just been a little proud. “Fair enough. Still, don’t expect another reprieve from me. This week worked out because the idea of exhibition matches to give you all some broader direction was actually one thrown out by Allison Lake, so I didn’t look too bad putting it into motion. Next time, you’ll be fighting your pairings tired.”

  Rei, for his part, stood there blinking at the captain for a moment before looking at his companions. Aria was staring at the tall woman as well, but Viv caught his eye, her expression just as surprised.

  “Uh… Ma’am?” she managed to ask, turning her attention back on the captain. “Did you adjust the class trainings for… for us?”