I bat aside a humanoid Sentinel arm and spin, dropping my weight to slash my heavy sword across its leg at superhuman speed, but the sword bites only enough to get trapped in the hardened metal. I release the sword and keep moving as a second Sentinel’s leg flashes out almost faster than I can follow, my momentum letting me deflect the brunt of the blow off my shield. Without hesitating I step in close and smash an elbow into its chest to knock it off balance and drive up with my legs, leading with my shield straight up under its chin with all my considerable Strength.
We both shoot up to the ceiling and the Sentinel smashes against it, all my weight behind my shield with a thrust. It’s not enough to decapitate the Sentinel - they’re built to withstand more punishment than I can dish out - but I see the track lights on its body go red. Focused, I barely get my shield up behind my head as I fall and twist to block a vicious blow aimed at the base of my neck. Intense force meant to take me down blasts up along my arms and I slide across the floor until my Strength can take hold and solidify my connection with the ground to kill my momentum. The clang of metal against my shield reverberates through the training room.
A punishing blow crashes a crunching blow into my ribs from the right and despite my armored jumpsuit and Strength I’m thrown against the wall. My helmet smashes into the unyielding black coating as I fight to orient on my attacker. When I bounce off, I leap and thrust my legs against the wall to shoot across the room. My ribs grind and scream at me as I twist to land on my feet, crouched with my shield in front, blaster in hand. I slide right, staying low, and fire repeatedly into the newly introduced wolf-like Sentinel with a heavy tail that ends in a heavy ball of steel. The beams bounce ineffectively off the body, but it’s downgraded to simulate E+ Ranking for the spar, so the body glows red and collapses to the floor.
My Perception is dialed up to maximum and my body strains to execute my will through the pain and how hard I’m pushing myself. For the first time I’m really going all out, maxing my new Attributes. The sword I embedded in the first Sentinel’s leg is now in its left hand, making it more difficult for me to position and block with my shield. Before I can swap my shield to my right hand, the Sentinel forces me to overextend my guard in a blur and reverses its cut to stab me in the thigh. It’s driven with enough force to go deep through my armored jumpsuit and my damage resistance. Pain lances through me again as I drop my blaster and grab the arm holding the sword and yank it toward me while aiming a vicious punch with the edge of my shield to the base of the Sentinel’s neck. The body lights up red and I leap quickly, sword still embedded in my thigh, and twist in the air to land with my back to the corner, shield up. With a grunt I pull the sword out of my leg and stay ready. The addition of new Sentinels can be unpredictable in this exercise.
My Health Regeneration kicks in and the blood flowing down my leg slows to a trickle and I can feel the flesh starting to knit together. My ribs are sore but won’t stop me from moving through the full range of motion. I take stock - Stamina good, Health good, Mana untouched. Four Sentinels set to E+ Rank equivalent now lay on the ground. I feel a thrill at how awesome it is to be able to take all the years of training I’ve done and ramp it up ten times with my Power and higher Attributes.
“I’ve seen enough,” says Strike Leader Reyes, and the powerful force field at the end of my training room drops so I can exit. I pick up my blaster on the way while I weave through the Sentinels that reactivate and take their places back against the wall. As promised, he’s joined to see me spar against these purpose-built Sentinels. From what I can tell, at least while we’re still around Kaltor, he’s going to follow orders to the letter - put me under duress, observe me, and kill me if I’m infected, but not send me on a suicide mission.
The two Captains are standing in a roomy, square central room that opens up into three large wedge-shaped rooms with high ceilings in a semi-circle; I’m in the one to the left of the entry door. In the middle of the central room is a raised circular platform with a control panel facing us on a pedestal that Kaltor has used to set the Sentinels in this room, which seems to be rated for combat a lot higher Ranked than me. The walls extending diagonally from the central room to form the wedges are thick - four feet of reinforced concrete at least, coated by some kind of black material. The lighting overhead is strong and it smells of sweat and blood, not just in my training room. Lined against the walls of the central room in a way that reminds me of the PowerSuits on Bobby’s ship are a dozen inert Sentinels that haven’t been deployed - yet.
“What you’ve got is great for D Rank or lower, but as you go higher you’re going to struggle to make an impact unless your physical enhancements are a lot higher and you have access to the really top end tech,” assesses Captain Reyes. I thought from our earlier conversation he was more keen to kill me than help me, but maybe he’s just a professional who takes his assignment seriously. “For some of this mission we’ll be dealing with higher Ranked threats so you’ll need to watch yourself and stay with your team.”
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“You promised me a go,” says Dalib as he walks in. “He looks pretty good for fresh meat.” I’ve been waiting for Kaltor to either ramp up the tests to D- with fewer Sentinels or throw something else at me, but Dalib seems overkill.
“Go for it. Captain Reyes and I have a few things to work out,” Kaltor says, and Dalib hops into the empty training room. Kaltor does something to the control panel as I follow and a number of platforms of different shapes and sizes and heights rise up from the floor. The highest is about fifteen feet tall, halfway to the ceiling. All of them are covered with the same black substance that coats the other surfaces in the room. Some have flat surfaces and areas on the top, whereas others have wicked looking spikes that emerge all along their length.
Dalib takes up a position near the entrance where he’s fully visible and I do the same. He’s wearing a light armored ESF jumpsuit and an easy smile with a glint in his eye. No weapons to be seen, but that’s to be expected based on what Kaltor told me about his Power. I consider for a second and then sling my shield across my back. I have a feeling Dalib will just use it against me, so instead I pull one of my blasters into my left hand and a sword in my right. Dalib raises his eyebrows and nods to himself in approval.
Nothing more is said by the Captains and Kaltor activates the force field to seal us in. I crank my Perception up to maximum and my adrenaline spikes, expecting Dalib to overwhelm me with speed immediately. I dart to my left, sword facing where I think he might be. Immediately my Perception picks up that he hasn’t moved. Instead, he’s watching me with a critical eye. It’s clear I’m the one who will go on the attack, so I ignore the drain it will cause and fire my blaster multiple times in a second to target his left eye, groin, and left foot. I’m confident the blaster isn’t powerful enough to actually hurt Dalib, but that’s not the point - I’m trying to get him to move in a way that’s predictable while I cover the distance between us in a split second and dart in.
Dalib outclasses me at superhuman speed.
A sword appears from nowhere, accelerated through a deadly spin by Dalib at a speed I can only barely perceive. I strain and barely deflect it then fire my blaster just in case, but the beams deflect off a mirrored shield that appears in midair. The beams sear into my chest and shoulder as I spin, trying to locate him while my nerves are on fire. I dart to my right behind a pillar and billow my Mana out to try to locate Dalib. I sense some movement to my right and leap to the top of the pillar while slashing down as a polearm slices through the space I was just in with bone crunching speed. Dalib slows down to a speed I can perceive and I seethe, annoyed I can’t keep up unless he regulates his sparring even though there’s 4 Ranks between us.
Before I can react a warhammer slams into me from above and I rocket toward the ground where Dalib is waiting for me. I twist and desperately push with my Mana to instinctively stave off the final blow and feel shock as the Mana flows, forming a shield that disintegrates as gunfire peppers it. Bullets tear into me, stopped after shredding my skin and the flesh just beneath by my damage resistance and I grunt, pain coursing through me - but it’s not enough to stop me, not nearly enough.
Through the haze my senses somehow tell me where Dalib is and I launch myself from the pillar at him. I slash my sword and roll, pulling my other sword from its magnetic harness on my back. I stab up and keep coming. Flashes of movement fly by and Dalib stands before me again holding a sword and dagger. I push through the pain and we dance, blades flying. Dalib’s blades slice me time and time again and notifications flash red in the corner of my eye as he takes me apart piece by piece.
Anger surges with my inability to touch him. All the impotence I had as a Powerless, freakish failure rises up and I push what Mana I have left through my body, ripping me apart to drive my speed and Perception higher and higher. Our blades clash dozens of times a second but I can’t hold on. The pain and overdrive is too much so I redirect the small amount of Mana I have left into my Health Regeneration to try to stop the pain and heal the sliced ligaments and tendons that stop me from fighting at my peak.
I yell and call on all the thirty years of training I’ve had, all the rage and all my frustration. I hammer Dalib again and again from all angles. I spin and feint and stab and slice. I take wounds gladly in exchange for a better position to land a strike on Dalib. I lose myself in the combat and as I’m about to fall when Dalib hits me yet again, this time with a katar that appears out of nowhere, I channel all my anger at him and thrust the Mana that my Aura has regenerated at him along with a lifetime of frustration. A beam of pure Mana forms in an instant and shoots right at Dalib’s chest. He bats it away with another shield that appears in his hand and I collapse on the floor of the sparring room, bleeding everywhere.
“Seems like you have a lot of unresolved anger,” remarks Dalib with a smile as he looms over me with curiosity. Nothing I’ve done has even dented his cockiness and he’s right. No Power, loss of my parents, corruption in their businesses, wrongly accused of murder, believed to be an extinction level threat… fuck it. Yeah, I’ve got issues.
My Mana ticks up again and I try to add it to my Health Regeneration rate because I’m still spilling blood all over the floor, but it’s elusive. I focus as Dalib pulls me up to my feet and manage to slightly make it work to at least start the healing of the worst that’s been done to me.
“Still satisfied?” asks Kaltor.
“Yeah,” says Reyes. “See you on the ship, Corvin.”
