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

by Bryce O'Connor

  A finger shoved at Rei’s right shoulder, sending him back two paces before a palm pushed on his chest, keeping him stumbling without so much as a chance to settle.

  “I looked up who you’re fighting, Ward. If I had to guess, I would say you’re outclassed in five out of six specs, and most of them by head and shoulders. You’re opponent isn’t just strong, either. He’s talented, and he adapts to whatever field he’s put in. If you want a prayer of taking him on, then you’ll need to adapt, too. You’ll need to adapt to the fact that you’re facing a guy who has every advantage on you as you are right now.”

  There was a flash of light in the Lasher’s eyes, and abruptly the field took form. It wasn’t the usual Neutral Zone though, and Rei felt a foot catch in a sudden swell of grass as it materialized under his backpedaling foot. With a yelp he spilled backwards, but managed to tuck into a roll that had him landing in a crouch. Taking the opportunity, he tried to spring sideways as the sloping incline of a Grasslands variation bloomed into being around him, swallowing the chamber they’d been standing in with the bright blue sky of the zone.

  Trying to escape Christopher Lennon, though, was like trying to outrun your own thoughts.

  Rei blinked and the boy was gone from his place halfway up the hill. Almost in the same instant he felt a hand shove into his back, and he was suddenly hurtling down the slope, fighting not to fall. In the end he caved in, diving forward and tucking, twisting to snap him back onto his feet at the ready. This time he held his ground, waiting for the attack.

  It came head-on in the form of a frontward kick, catching him in his defending forearms with enough force to send him reeling back once again.

  Despite this, Lennon didn’t seem displeased.

  “Good!” he said again. “Good adjustment! When someone is faster, you don’t try to outpace them. You don’t try to escape. You stand and fight. Forcing yourself to stay on the move will only lend itself to a faster loss.”

  Picking up what was happening, now, Rei went with his gut, dropping the next time an open palm struck him below the neck. He rolled backwards before shoving off the ground with his hands in a modified spring to land deliberately hard, digging Shido’s clawed steel toes into the dirt for purchase as he dipped into a half-crouch, keeping his body low. Another blow came at his shoulders, but this time Rei went with it, giving in a single tucked step back that didn’t allow Lennon to throw him off balance again.

  “Now we’re talking!” the young man shouted, and Rei thought he saw the flash of white teeth that might have been a smile, accompanying a pulse of the Lasher’s NOED. “Let’s see how well you keep up, shall we?”

  And then the field began to change, and the Lasher became a blur.

  A Cliffs variation lifted them into the air, and for an untold count Rei hunkered down, blocking where he could but always giving to the direction of whatever attack came, absorbing most of the impact with a step or two back and never allowing himself to be robbed of his footing. He barely saw his instructor in those long minutes, barely made out more than a streaking shape of black skin mixed with the red-on-blue of his combat suit. He didn’t need to see Lennon, though, to take in the lesson.

  One had to be able to adapt, but there were times when standing firm was the only decision to be made.

  After two more field changes and maybe 10 more minutes—in which Rei’s leg’s started to burn from the constant adjustment—the barrage of shoves and pokes and prods finally ceased. He was left reeling a little across the dusty road of a Deserted Settlement, breathing in gasps of air that still made his chest hurt from the initial blows Lennon had delivered. The Lasher himself was standing some 10 feet up the way, watching with an approving air, arms crossed.

  “All right,” he said after a moment. “Now let’s see how you do against strength.”

  Then he took a step forward.

  Rei’s arms snapped up, expecting the shredding wind of a second Break Step, but Lennon just approached at near-normal pace, like he was doing nothing more than taking a casual stroll through the buildings projected all around them. When he reached Rei, he stopped, looking at him flatly for a moment before bringing up one hand slowly.

  Rei was so confused he didn’t even move when that hand took him about the wrist of one guarding arm.

  And then he was literally flying.

  10 yards into the air Lennon sent him with what looked to have been a casual, pulling throw. Rei yelled as he spun, trying to deduce which way was up and which was down. In seconds gravity took hold of him, and he felt a pull in his gut as he started to plummet.

  As it turned out, hitting the ground from a 3-story drop was a quick way to recoup one’s bearing.

  Even if one left said ground as cracked asphalt and dirt, only to return to find it had turned to solid stone.

  THUD.

  Had he been any regular person, Rei was pretty sure he would have broken most of the bones on the left side of his body, his shoulder and hip being the two parts of him that struck first. Instead—while the landing certainly wasn’t painless—he was turning himself over and shoving up to his feet with nothing more than a couple grunted curses, blinking around. The last of the dirty grey sky of the Deserted Settlement was fading, the final hint of color vanishing from the edge of the field. Dark smoke swirled through the air to join a smoke-choked sky, and only a few feet away a wide river of bubbling magma flowed by at a terrifyingly languid pace. Lennon had sent them to the Volcanic Slopes.

  Lennon.

  Rei whirled, intent to search the choking smoke of the zone for his opponent. He didn’t have to look around long, because the minute he turned he found a hand splayed wide as it came at him, reaching for his face. With a thrill of alarm Rei felt his neuroline going into overdrive again, and the fragile rock cracked under his feet as he lanced sideways, away from the Lasher and out of his dangerous reach. Lennon didn’t pause, following him with surgical precision, but he’d slowed his movements down substantially.

  In favor of going full-bore on the power, Rei realized, finally sure of what was happening. Lennon wasn’t training him on how to fight just any opponent, today. He was training him on how to fight a stronger opponent, one that could potentially outclass him in every way.

  Despite the reduction in his speed, the Lasher wasn’t moving at an easy pace. 5 more minutes of dodging and dancing past, then 10, then 15, the field changing again and again and again around them. Despite his best effort, Rei got caught no less than thrice more, and sent sailing just as high and far every time. It was a terrifying experience with every repetition, and a solid reminder that a single mistake was all it could take to end a fight against an enemy with the right amount of power behind their blows.

  Plus, when the actual flight didn’t nail that awareness in for Rei, the landings—consecutively suspiciously close to lava, broken brick walls, and the long drop of snow-swept ledges—certainly did.

  “Okay! Break!”

  Rei was so taken aback when the Lasher called for a pause that kept dodging backwards for a full 2 seconds before he realized the boy wasn’t following. Coming to a sharp halt that ripped carpet up from the battle-torn hall of the Hostel variation they’d ended up in, Rei kept Shido up before him warily at first, suspecting another surprise attack as he fought to catch his breath.

  “Recall your CAD, Ward,” Lennon assured him with a snort, his NOED live. “We’re taking a rest.”

  Sure enough, the field was already vanishing under their feet, the walls and floor of the hotel fading to drop them down to black plating as the training chamber reappeared around them.

  “Al-Already?” Rei wheezed, dropping his hands. Not that he wasn’t grateful for the reprieve after a half hour of high-intensity action, but he also didn’t understand.

  A half hour gone meant a half hour less of the precious day Lennon was offering him.

  The Lasher, on the other hand, gave him a strange look, like Rei had said something weird
. From out in the hall there came the buzzing of another drone, and this time a bot zipped into the room carrying several chilled bottles of water.

  “Already?” Lennon repeated, almost amused as he reached out to accept a drink. “30 minutes of non-stop anaerobic fighting, Ward. That’s what we just did.”

  “Y-You usually keep us going non-stop…” Rei argued, still not having caught his wind when the drone floated over to him. Recalling Shido, he took his own water and cracked the bottle, immediately gulping half its contents down before speaking again.

  “I guess—” he had to pause, gasping in a breath “—I guess I just thought you meant ‘no breaks’ when you said we wouldn’t leave here till curfew.”

  He might have imagined it, but he suspected he caught Lennon rolling his eyes then, bringing his own drink down from his lips. “There’s something to be said to endless perseverance, Ward, but there’s a point at which it becomes being bullheaded. Pacing. Without pacing, training can become counterproductive, as you should damn well know. This isn’t a 2 hour, once-weekly crash course. We’re here all day. How do you think your fight Tuesday would have fared if I let you step into the ring in the same shape you were on Friday?”

  Rei’s ears went hot, recalling the way the Lasher had put him down with his eyes closed.

  “Not great,” he admitted, taking another swig.

  “No, probably not,” Lennon agreed, capping his bottle and tossing it beyond the edge of the ring. “Which is a polite way of me saying you would have made an embarrassment of yourself, even if you’d reached C4.”

  With no means by which to refute this, Rei could only nod silently as he imitated his instructor. His bottle landed with a thunk by the door to roll until it hit the wall below his hanging bag.

  “I just… I didn’t think I had the time,” he said after a moment as the Lasher pulled first one arm across his body, then the other, loosening his shoulders and back as he looked to get ready to go for a second round. “I don’t think you get it. This match—”

  “No. I definitely don’t get it,” Lennon interrupted him, shaking his wrists out now. “I’ve never been in your position, Ward. No one has. We don’t have the luxury of being able to time—even roughly—how close we are to ranking up.” He paused, giving Rei a scrutinizing look. “But I have had matches I wanted to win more than anything in the world. Some of which I ended up losing, by the way. So if you have a fight that you’re willing to train more than 10 hours a day to prepare for, I can get on that ride with you for a bit.”

  Rei grinned, and was about to voice his thanks when his frame popped up unbidden across his vision.

  ...

  Processing combat information.

  ...

  Calculating.

  ...

  Results:

  Strength: Lacking

  Endurance: Severely Lacking

  Speed: Severely Lacking

  Cognition: Severely Lacking

  Offense: Lacking

  Defense: Severely Lacking

  Growth: Not Applicable

  ...

  Checking combat data acquisition.

  ...

  Adequate data acquirement met.

  Device initiating adjustments to:

  Defense.

  …

  Processing.

  …

  Adjustment complete.

  Defense has been upgraded from Rank D6 to D7.

  …

  Rei sucked in a breath, then let it out in a hiss.

  “What?” Lennon asked, sounding almost interested. “What is it?”

  “Defense upgrade,” Rei told him. “D7.”

  Lennon frowned at that. “Only Defense? No Speed? Or Cognition?”

  Rei shook his head. “Speed and Cognition are my best specs. They take more time than the others.”

  “Which tells me they’re in a higher tier,” the third year said with narrowed eyes. “You need to be more careful about saying stuff like that, Ward. You never know how people might piece things together over time.”

  Reprimanded, Rei averted his gaze and nodded. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  After a moment more of watching him, Lennon relaxed, then gestured at the empty field.

  “Ready to go again?”

  Rei grinned, looking up again. “Yes, sir. Just say the—”

  WHAM!

  For the third time, the Lasher’s fist took him in the gut, blindingly fast, and as Rei double over for the third time to retch, some sick part of his mind wondered why he had bothered packing lunch.

  *******

  They weren’t 4 hours into training before Rei understood why Lennon was so adamant about their frequent rests and recoveries. For the first 3 he hadn’t been so much impatient as merely eager to absorb more, to take in all he could from the A-Ranker. He’d pressed for shorter breaks, asked if they could keep going a while longer. The Lasher hadn’t indulged him a single time, to the point where Rei had finally stopped asking.

  At the end of hour 4, he knew for a fact he wouldn’t be doing so again.

  “All right, break.”

  Rei staggered back, the sloshing of the Sunset Beach shallows about his shins fading with the dematerialization of the field. As soon as Shido’s heels touched down on the projection plating he dropped to the ground, recalling the Device weakly to fall back and lay with his eyes closed against the coolness of the steel. It felt wonderful, biting through his sweat-dampened combat suit and soaked hair. For a time he just lay there, his heart hammering uncomfortably in his chest while the room felt to be spinning around him.

  There was a light thump next to his ear, and Rei opened his eyes to find Lennon had deposited a fresh bottle of water beside him, the drone he hadn’t even heard being summoned already zipping out of the chamber again.

  “Drink,” the third year commanded, his own forehead actually beaded with perspiration for once. “Then tell me if you get an upgrade.”

  Rei pushed himself up with a grunt onto his elbows, half-rolling to pick up the water. Cracking it, he guzzled most of it down once more in one go.

  Unfortunately, even after pausing for a little while after that to wait, he had only bad news to report.

  “Nothing,” he got out between heavy breaths, fighting the urge to clench his teeth in frustration. “Nothing again.”

  He supposed he shouldn’t have been completely surprised. He might have notched up his Defense in the first hour, but it had been a while since that particular spec had ranked, so there wasn’t too much astonishing there. It was still disheartening, though, suffering the throbbing ache of effort in every muscle and bone in his body, but feeling like he had jack to show for it. They were already approaching noon, and he didn’t sense he was that much closer to C4 than he had been that morning.

  Was it all going to be for nothing, in the end?

  “Too bad. No worries, though. We’ll get there.”

  Lennon’s nonchalant response took Rei aback, and he looked around at the third year, unsure if he’d made himself clear.

  “I’ve only ranked a single spec,” he stated more deliberately. “Tied for my lowest one. If this keeps up—”

  “It won’t,” Lennon assured him, something like a knowing smile playing at this lips. “You spent half the week in training already. You’ve started the race. Our job now is just to push you as far and hard as we can in the hours we have left.”

  “You haven’t been doing that?” Rei huffed.

  He had intended the question to be rhetorical, even intended for it to be a little bit audacious, but Lennon looked at him with such pitying amusement in that moment that he immediately felt a fool for putting the idea out into the world.

  “No, Ward,” the boy said slowly. “Not even close.” He pointed at the half-empty bottle of water. “Finish that up. We’re starting again in a minute. We’re going to try to get your Speed and Cognition up. Hopefully both.”

&
nbsp; Feeling some nervous excitement, Rei did as he was ordered, downing the rest of the drink before tossing it to join the other empty bottles by the wall. It was a testament to how much he was sweating that they’d only taken one bathroom break all morning, but that was the least of his worries as he shoved himself to his feet. He watched Lennon carefully, this time, always keeping one eye on his instructor’s movements, particularly in the moments he might otherwise have been caught by surprise. The Lasher always moved too fast for him to dodge, but he had managed to block the last three or four ambushes, keeping himself from getting gut-punched again.

  Lennon appeared to take note of his vigilance, because he offered a nod of approval while he pulled his NOED up. For the first time, he summoned the field before they got to fighting, and Rei was on high alert the moment ragged walls of jagged stone started to rise all around him, curving over his head as the ground beneath his feet became sandy and the ceiling above shifted into the grey, rumbling sky of a coming storm.

  Sure enough, as the Arena made its announcement, Rei felt the first drops of rain against the bare skin of his scared shoulders.

  “Field: Canyons.”

  “Call,” Rei said at once, not waiting to be told anymore. In a second Shido was around his limbs again, and he was pleased to feel his heart settle into a normal rhythm. He’d been hoping to see a notch up in his Endurance already, but he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t happy with the difference in his ability to recover compared to the days when combat team practice would see him recovering on the bench afterwards for a half hour, usually with Viv pretending she needed a rest too, just so he wouldn’t be sitting around on his own.

  He smiled a little at the memory, but didn’t take his eyes off the ravine in front of him. Canyons was a maze of a field—sometimes literally, depending on the variation. Only 6 feet across, the narrow gorge Rei stood in extended before and behind him before curving away to the right and left respectively, with a half-dozen turnoffs he could see cutting into the stone walls in every direction. He was going to have to be wary, especially since he didn’t know what Lennon was planning to—