Citadel (Book 1): Training in Necessity

by Clevenger, J.

  * * *

  Anna cried out in pain. She could see the knife sticking out of her back but she couldn't get to it. She couldn't stop herself from frantically reaching for it even as her legs gave out and she fell to the floor.

  "How?" she asked the man standing over her. "I didn't see-"

  She closed her eyes.

  The man, clad in black leather with several metal plates crudely attached and a heavy helmet, retrieved his knife then turned and continued his task. If he answered her, no one heard it.

  * * *

  It had worked. Isaac's forcefield absorbed the impact, transmitting little or nothing to Jason. Even so, the boy was pretty out of it. The combination of hunger and exhaustion apparently ate through his reserves as effectively as fire. Isaac set him down carefully and approached the newly formed crater in the street. Whatever it was that had struck Kerry should be inside.

  It was a man. He wore a black spandex bodysuit and full facemask as well as a white cape and gloves. The stranger knelt in a three point stance at the crater’s center, one knee and two fists touching the ground. He slowly rose, revealing a stylized white 'T' on his chest.

  "Kneel before Todd." he commanded. Isaac was fully convinced that the line, and the pose, had been rehearsed.

  "What?" Isaac asked, having a hard time taking the ridiculous figure seriously.

  Then the other man rushed through the air, moving towards him so fast that he was barely visible.

  * * *

  Kerry opened her eyes and she was back on the tower's roof, back in her weak, human body. At least that meant she could use her communicator now.

  "This is Keridwyn Dragon. Someone just attacked me in the East section and took out my dragon body. I'm back at the tower now but Jenny, Jason and Isaac were left stranded with whoever it was. They might be hurt. Anyone nearby?" she asked over the com.

  There was a moment of silence, finally broken by a voice she didn't recognize. "Yeah, I'm in the same part of town but I'm not very fast. Anna, can you tell if they need help? I mean, we're talking about the two top ranked fighters and Isaac Dauntless here."

  That was a good point. Kerry should've just asked the Insight girl first. She'd always resented the girl, irritated by what she'd thought of as her unearned rank. However, Anna's power had proven incredibly useful over the last few days.

  No one answered. "Anna?" Kerry tried the com again. "I'm on the tower roof. I'll head down and check on her." She had a bad feeling about this.

  * * *

  Isaac was strong. More than that, he was also skilled and determined. He knew there were people that could overwhelm him. Jason had burned out his forcefield with a single blow. There were powers and abilities that could simply bypass his defense. Jessica Healer, his therapist, had been able to reach out and 'adjust' his emotional state regardless of his field.

  Todd was different. With his field up and a bit of concentration to increase its intensity, Isaac was stronger and tougher. Maybe not by a lot but it was enough to make a clear difference. Todd's blows got through but it was like being hit by a child, annoying and a little painful but not dangerous.

  His own blows did a disproportionate amount of damage to Todd. When the other man blocked a straight punch, Isaac had sent him hurtling across the street. Grazing blows tore off pieces of his costume and showed heavy bruising on the other man's pale skin.

  Despite the difference in their strength and toughness, Isaac was losing. He could see Todd's bruises heal within moments. Alone, that probably wouldn't have done more than put them on even footing. However, Todd could fly and, worst of all, he was good.

  Isaac lashed out with a series of quick jabs. If a single one of them landed cleanly, he was sure it would do real damage. Todd dodged the first by leaning to the side, the second by leaning back and the third, the one he should've been too off balance to avoid, by rapidly flying about a foot backwards. He then darted forward to land a series of quick blows on Isaac.

  By this point, the trainee wasn't even bothering to try and stop the other man's blows, simply letting his shield absorb most of the impact. Todd's fighting style wasn't as polished as Isaac's but it was clearly well practiced and it incorporated the man's powers like nothing he'd ever seen.

  Todd didn't just use his flight for simple mobility. It was clearly aiding even his most basic movements. A quick burst of forward momentum to make his blows hit harder, sudden changes in elevation and positioning that made them almost impossible to block or avoid, much less counter. It all added up to make the most incredible display of skill that Isaac had ever seen. That, even more than the familiar power set, told Isaac exactly who he was fighting.

  Isaac shot a quick glance at the alleyway where Jenny had landed. The fact that she had even survived a fall from that height was impressive, let alone that she'd done it while saving Jason and without any obvious injuries. Still, it had obviously taken a lot out of her. While he'd been fighting Todd, she'd just been standing there, more or less where she'd landed.

  He'd seen her make a few false starts, like she'd begun to move towards the fight then stopped, unsure of what to do. The look on her face was one that Isaac had never seen there before, confusion, or maybe hesitation. He hoped she could recover soon because he really needed her help.

  * * *

  Kerry had seen a pulse of red light at least once an hour since they'd started. As she understood it, those flashes served as a marker for Retcon. They let her reset someone to the exact state they had been in when the light hit, physically, mentally, everything. You had to be alive when the flash went off or it just ignored you.

  Kerry figured that when the exercise was over, everyone who had 'died' would wake up in perfect health and missing nothing but the last hour or less of their memories. She'd also figured that meant the instructors wouldn't be holding back much and the trainees would be dropping like flies.

  Her class had made it to halfway through the second day without losing anyone. Plenty of people had been hurt, some badly enough that their Healers hadn't been able to get them back up to full, but no one was dead. Before Kerry was halfway down the stairs, she knew that wasn't the case anymore.

  "Fuck." she swore when she got to the main floor.

  Anna Insight was the first one she saw. The girl was laying in a small pool of her own blood, her arms and legs weirdly contorted. Rick and the other Healers were near the door. Their 'patients,' about a dozen trainees that had been hurt bad enough that the Healers had made them stay in the tower rather than just patching them up and sending them on their way.

  Everyone was dead. Throats cut, stabbed in the chest or back, they all had two things in common. They'd been killed with a knife and their faces were locked in a rictus of pain and fear. More than a quarter of their combat force, all five of their Healers and Anna, the one that had been coordinating everything.

  "What do we do now?" Kerry asked, barely aware that her communicator was still active.

  * * *

  Jenny stood up.

  Isaac could barely see. He wasn't sure if Todd was hitting harder or if his forcefield was failing as he tired and his concentration slipped. Either way, his face was a bloody, swollen wreck. He wasn't fighting with any kind of skill any more, just struggling to keep his field up and swing his fists while Todd seemed to strike him at will. Isaac was barely aware of anything else.

  Even so, he saw Jenny stand up. He saw every sign of hesitation, of confusion, vanish like it had never been there at all. Isaac couldn't hear the rest of what she said then but he heard what she said to him just fine.

  "Just hang on, Isaac."

  And all of a sudden, keeping his field up wasn't a struggle at all. Silver-white light came forth, so bright that it seemed to outshine the sun. He swung his fists, a simple overhand hammer blow, and felt the impact as they connected and Todd slammed into the ground. Isaac followed him to the ground, hit him again and again, not letting the other man recover.

  All across the city,
the trainees heard Jenny speaking to them over their coms. In some cases, it was a few words of encouragement. Most received simple advice or orders. The effect was immediate. Where there had once been a scattered collection of trainees, tired, hungry and- in more than a few cases- scared, there was now an organized group of operatives.

  Ana had been the one more or less in charge. It made sense, she could see problems as they came up and direct the nearest person to them. She'd filled the same role in more than one training exercise and it worked... in an exercise. But this wasn't an exercise, or at least, they'd been told not to treat it like one.

  No one had eaten or gotten any real rest since entering Fake City. Almost as bad, the nearest person was rarely the best suited to handle a given problem. In the field, reacting like this would've gotten most of them killed.

  In minutes, Jenny had them split into three shifts. One was resting, another active. The third group protected the first. They couldn't afford to let their guard down again.

  Soon, everyone had at least a little food, taken from a supermarket with a note left behind to explain that real operatives had access to expense accounts.

  Anna's vision couldn't be replaced but each shift had a scout, someone that could come close. Samantha Soar had an extreme level of situation awareness and almost ridiculous speed. Benjamin Stone could detect vibrations in the ground, as well as concrete buildings, for several hundred feet around himself and travel through the earth at a surprising rate. Drew Stasis was more than capable of making a thorough patrol of the city every five minutes.

  Each shift also had a designated first responder for combat, someone who could reliably end most fights in a moment without collateral damage. Jason Grim and Greg Warp both needed transportation to make a timely arrival but that was simple enough. No one liked that Drew was filling a slot as both scout and first responder but at least he was also the only one who had never had an issue with rest or hunger.

  If one of those three couldn't win on their own, the heavy combatants were sent in: Donald Dust, Isaac Dauntless and Kerry Dragon, the ones with truly devastating power and a commensurate risk of damaging public property, not to mention the public itself. If numbers or a bad power combo meant that wasn't enough, the rest of the shift was available as backup. Mostly though, the other guys were dealing with the non-combat stuff. Fires, building collapses and minor crimes, they were the sort of thing where an operative could make a big difference but outright combat power wasn't really needed.

  For the rest of the day and throughout the night, the incidents just kept coming. None were quite as big as the Battlegrounds invasion and nobody was as tough as Todd had turned out. Isaac had beaten him to a literal pulp while Kerry held her flamebreath on him for a solid five minutes. The street where they'd fought was basically destroyed and still, after all that, he'd managed to break loose and flee on his own.

  * * *

  With a little rest, food and better organization, the trainees felt like the exercise was finally under control. Despite using less than a quarter of their original numbers at a time, keeping up with the incident rate was... well, it was almost easy. Maybe that was why the dawn of the third day seemed so strange.

  Nothing happened.

  It went on for an hour. No attacks, no disasters, not even any simulated traffic accidents. The 'civilians were just standing around or laying on the ground, unmoving.

  "Maybe... maybe it's like a reward for doing so well last night so we don't get all tired out before graduation? They want us to rest or something?" Samantha suggested.

  No one bothered to answer that.

  After another hour of silence, Jenny sent Fred Ghost to see what was happening. He couldn't phase his entire body at a time but, so long as it wasn't too thick, he could make it through a wall by making everything intangible but one foot, stepping through and then shifting which foot was solid.

  The rest of the active shift gathered to watch him go, quiet and restless with nerves. His communicator shut off as soon as he was through, which was totally expected and not at all a reason for anyone to get more freaked out. The next hour, during which he didn't come back and they still didn't hear anything, was a much better reason.

  They gathered everyone, woke up the sleepers and brought up the guards. The only ones not involved were Samantha on over-watch and Drew on city wide patrol. They talked it over and decided that caution was pretty much done with at this point. Ben opened up the wall and Isaac led the charge out, accompanied by the rest of the class's straightforward Strong types. Kerry went through next, with Greg and Jason on her back, while the more maneuverable members spread out to the sides and the heavy hitters waited for a shot. Most of the trainees were at least half expecting to find themselves facing a small army.

  There was one man.

  Isaac was on him in an instant. The guy ducked beneath his first blow and Isaac saw a spray of red. Before he could understand what was happening, he’d fallen to the ground, too dizzy to stand. The last thing he saw before the world went dark was Rich and Steph Strong, staring at him in horror.

  The man was already moving past him. He wore heavy black leather with metal plates scattered here and there, seemingly at random, and a helmet hiding his face. Half the Strong types were down before anyone knew what was happening, their blood caked the heavy knife he was holding.

  "Fuck!! It's Monster!" someone screamed.

  The panic and confusion set in immediately. Donald Dust and Ben Stone cut loose, holding nothing back and uncaring that the stone spikes and skin stripping Dust storms did more damage to their classmates than their opponent. He ducked and dodged with ridiculous ease, putting nearby trainees in the line of fire more often than not. Others ran or froze or just started screaming.

  "Calm down. Stop fighting and run. Carry someone if you can." Jenny's voice cut through the confusion. It shouldn't have worked but it did. The panic ended as quickly as it had come. The trainees withdrew, quickly and efficiently.

  He didn't pursue but they each heard his voice. "Why? Why run?" Hoarse and strained, it still seemed like he was standing right behind them. "Operatives defend. Why not stay and fight me?"

  One of the last to run, not out of hesitation but to make sure no one was left behind, Jenny answered him. "You don't fight Monster. Everyone knows that. Just take what you want, we won't interfere." It should have sounded craven, cowardly, but there was no fear in her voice. Everyone who heard was absolutely certain that it was simply a decision she had made, every bit as calculated as her shift assignments or combat strategies.

  The voice came again, no longer strained but with a touch of a familiar accent instead. "Well then, the exercise is over."

  * * *

  CONCLUSIONS

  * * *

  Instruction Area

  Ester Reyes was happy. It was a simple thing but, for her, the realization seemed profound. There were plenty of reasons for that happiness. Outside, the sun was shining but it wasn't too warm, a beautiful day. It been a long time since she could appreciate one of those.

  Her son was graduating from the Citadel's operative training program, quite an achievement and one she was justifiably proud of. She'd been worried at first. Citadel training was famous for its difficulty and movies always portrayed the operative course as especially grueling. Hector had told her, more than once, that while it was pretty tough it wasn't anything like the movies made out to be. That hadn't helped.

  Hector had a perfectly understandable tendency to see her as someone in need of protection and it would have been entirely in character to... to withhold certain details. Her long period of... illness had seen to that. What he'd never seemed to understand was that if she'd actually been the sort of woman who needed such coddling, she never would have survived. Even so, it was good to see Achala Juggernaut in person.

  Even if Hector hadn't told her about how the man had stopped that horrible Chemo creature, she would've found him reassuring. From what Hector had said, 'Coach' A
chala had been their primary instructor. He was responsible for all the physical parts of their training so it couldn't have been too bad. She didn't believe anyone with eyes that kind or an aura that was so... so serene could behave anything like the instructors did in the movies. She decided to pay a bit more attention to his speech, rather than her own musings.

  "By this point, most of my students should be familiar my power. Anything that I set in motion cannot be stopped unless I will it." Without pausing in his speech, the man removed a small rubber ball from the pocket of his white uniform and set it on the podium before him. "Listen when I tell you that I have set you in motion." he told the graduates.

  "You will go out, into the world, and you will do your duty. You will be a shield for the weak, a wall against the rising tide of chaos in the world. You will be a living Citadel with no other purpose than to protect those who cannot protect themselves.

  "Eventually, there will come a time when you feel outmatched or overwhelmed. Though your brothers and sisters stand by your side, you will feel alone. When this time comes..."

  He nudged the ball forward, let it fly out across the room. It was... eerie was the only word Ester could use to describe it. It flew perfectly straight, not dropping at all and not even very fast. It was completely, obviously unnatural. Her every instinct seemed to scream that it shouldn't be moving that way.

  "...I want you to remember that it was I who set you in motion, and it is not my will that you stop."

  In the silence that followed his speech, the man withdrew. Shortly, he was replaced by an older woman who walked a bit stiffly, relying on a cane to help her. She introduced herself as Director Melody Shift and began calling the graduates up one by one, both to congratulate them and give their first assignments as operatives.