“You asked to see me sir?” a young uniformed officer asked, saluting Vice Admiral Kite as she walked through the door, arraying herself infront of his desk.
“Yes, I did. Soon we'll have three new officers and I would like you to take special care of one in particular. He shows great potential in the kind of work you do for me and I think he would be an excellent addition if trained correctly,” Kite stated, as he sat behind his desk, typing on a terminal, glancing at the officer between words.
The officer tilted her head to the side in thought, her hand to her chin, as her long jet-black hair slipped out of her hair bun. With a frustrated grunt she quickly fixed it before continuing.
“I suppose I could do that, I am a tad bit preoccupied with the other task you’ve given me but I think I can make time,” she said, thoughtfully.
“About that, it seems he also has a vested interest in that area. Don’t mention it to him in that capacity, but do try to learn what he knows of that man,” Kite said.
“And, I can do what I want with him otherwise?” she said, smiling cheekily.
“Yes, you have full authority. I want him up to speed within a week once he’s set to active status. That is all, you’re dismissed,” Kite said, returning his attention fully to his terminal.
“Yes sir!” The officer stated, before quickly vanishing in a plume of fire.
“I hate when she does that…” Kite said, looking down at his previously clean white marble that had now been marred by her flames.
With a quick tap of his foot, the floor returned to normal, the black marks and melted marble completely restored to their original condition.
---
Having been given a rest day, Alden had decided to invite Zypher out for lunch and a light training session. It was a particularly sunny day, although it was hard to say in the 4th World as the sky was always iridescent, but something about it just felt sunny to Alden. There was a popular restaurant on base that had a particular kind of rice and Alden was all about that.
“Are you sure you’re good?” Zypher asked, staring awkwardly at a teary eye Alden.
“Oh, yeah, I’m fantastic. THIS is fantastic,” Alden exclaimed, wiping a tear from his eye.
“It’s…it’s just rice man,” Zypher said, staring down at Alden’s bowl of plain white rice.
“Yeah, and it’s good, and you know what else? It can only be improved from here,” Alden said simply as he began adding some of the other dishes to his bowl.
“I wish I had your outlook, that’s one hell of a positive attitude,” Zypher said, sincerely.
“Eh, I wouldn’t say that. There’s a lot more to my outlook than my views on rice. If anything, it's a disproportionate representation of what my outlook is, but let’s not spoil the mood. Eat up, I’m really excited to try some things out and maybe get some pointers on them,” Alden said, changing the subject.
“Oh, really, pointers from me? It must be something interesting then,” Zypher mused, as they focused on enjoying their food.
After an hour of lunch and chatting they made their way to the training room they had reserved. It was a large training room, about as large as the emergency rescue simulation room. Just before they reached the room, the door slid open to reveal a few senior officers who had just finished training.
“Oh, hey, it's Zypher!” a tall officer said, almost in awe.
“Woah, you’re right, we never see you around anymore. I heard you found us some promising recruits,” another said.
“Well…uhh, you know, sometimes you find a golden egg?” Zypher responded awkwardly.
“Yes, but you seem to have found three, go figure. I guess you have to have a sharp eye in more ways than one to be the best marksman in the GDF,” an officer joked.
“Best? I wouldn’t say that,” Zypher laughed with them, his expression and tone clearly indicating he believed it to be a joke.
“Uhh, Zypher, have you not seen the scores? You’ve held the top spot for the last three and a half years…” the officer said, quickly realizing he was unaware.
With an awkward stare, Zypher silently opened up his holographic console in the air and scrolled through a page full of numbers and ranks. Four times a year the GDF would hold a ranking tournament to determine the average ability of their force. There were many categories but most people paid attention to only three of them: quanum control, weapon expertise and marksmanship. It was unlikely to be within the top of all three lists if you were among the regular officer core. It was even more unlikely to stay at the top of one for an extended period of time and yet there he was.
“Marksman - Zypher Garlden, Rank 1: accuracy rating 97%, control 95%, efficiency 99.8%, variable power coefficient 3.7,” Alden read from over Zypher’s shoulder. “Marksman - Alvaeda Jyknnier, Rank 2: accuracy rating 91.3%, control 85.7%, efficiency 88%, variable power coefficient 3.5… Zypher, my man, the difference between the two of you is vast, how were you not aware?” Alden asked, seemingly impressed.
Alden was aware of Zypher’s skill level, but honestly thought the GDF would be better than they are. Not to say Zypher wasn’t skilled, he just had expected stricter training for their forces.
“I uhh…Well…That’s surprising because I haven’t done a ranking tournament since then,” Zypher said, scratching his head awkwardly.
“What do you mean? We all have to do it every three months…” the officer said, and then peaked at the date for Zypher’s results. “So… you really haven’t done one…”
“Well, I’ve been away on special assignment so I haven’t had the opportunity to come back and participate. I guess it has been three and a half year, I should really update those…” Zypher said, nonchalantly.
“Uhh, Zypher, one does not simply update their numbers…” the tall officer said, completely gobsmacked.
“Well, I mean, these stats are outdated. They’re nowhere near what I can do now…wait, that sounded really arrogant didn’t it…” Zypher said, mostly thinking aloud.
“Yes, yes it did...Well, regardless, good seeing you again. We won't hold you up any longer, can’t wait to see your new rank,” the tall officer said as he ushered the other five officers away.
“My man!” Alden said, slapping Zypher on the back. “And here you made it sound like you’re nothing special, unbelievable,” Alden said, shaking his head in mock disbelief as he entered the training room leaving a perplexed Zypher behind.
The two began their training session together for several hours, with Zypher training Alden on the intricacies of projectile attacks. Alden, having mostly only used his sword and wide area attacks, had yet to really understand the quanum control necessary for accurate projectiles. In order to work on his accuracy he had asked Zypher to give him some in depth theory and practical lessons on the precise quanum control Zypher seemed to have. Alden was keen to finish the theory that he had been working on but was struggling a bit and wanted to get some pointers from Zypher.
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“I get what you’re saying Alden, it should theoretically be possible, I just don’t think you could do it fast enough,” Zypher said, as he sat cross legged on the ground, scratching his head in thought.
“Perhaps, but perhaps I could. I can already transfer myself within a small body of water, I just haven’t figured out how to control it in something smaller,” Alden said, leaning against a wall, his arms crossed.
“Yeah, honestly I still don’t understand how that works. To put it simply, indeed your innate quanum shares similar properties to water which eases your breakdown and transfer, but it’s a connected body of water. I think maybe you could shoot a jet of water forwards and transfer through that, or maybe a wave from your blade and transfer…but through drops of water? Nah man, I don’t see it. That goes beyond just control, you’d have to compress your quanum to such an extent…” Zypher said apologetically.
“Well, I’m sure I’ll figure it out, I have a few other ideas too for defensive techniques as well, but I’ll save those for another time. Wanna go for another round? I think I’ll try one of your suggestions,” Alden said, standing up straight and stretching.
“Oh, sure, although I’m curious, how do I measure up to Cian? You guys have fought pretty often after all and I hate to say it, you both have much more quanum and power than I do,” Zypher said, sincerely curious.
“Well, that’s a complicated question. When we fight it's usually to find the best way to piss each other off but when we got at it for real…I’m not sure. He’s fairly well rounded which makes it difficult to pick a single strategy against him as he reacts quickly to any of them,” Alden said, as he resummoned his gear and took a few practice swings. “For you, the strategy is simple, get in close before I get shot, the difficulty is in getting close. I think once you develop a stronger defence technique you’ll be relatively as well rounded as he is. If you’re asking how you’d measure up in a fight against him however? Hmm,” Alden said, scratching his chin.
“Before I fought you today, I would have said that Cian would win simply by overwhelming you with quanum, but now? You’d too easily take advantage of his straightforward nature and inexperience until he became frustrated and made a mistake that you could easily capitalize on,” Alden continued.
“Ah, well, I suppose that’s good to hear, thanks,” Zypher said, as he summoned several sphere’s of lightning around himself. “Good to go?” he asked, grinning.
“Yep!” Alden replied.
Zypher brought up his floating console and pressed a few buttons, as he finished and swiped the console away, a floating red orb appeared above them. The orb pulsed three times before turning green, signaling the start of their match. Alden started off by slashing the ground quickly creating a cover of debris in the air in front of him, this limited Zypher’s potential points of attack. Zypher responded quickly, launching the balls of lightning he had summoned earlier outwards to the side.
“I’ve got you this time!” Alden yelled as he dashed forwards, crashing through the debris towards Zypher.
Zypher however, kept a keen eye on Alden, and with a snap of his fingers lightning zapped across him, creating a wall. Alden reacted too slowly and was caught in the barrage as he lept backwards.
“How the hell?” Alden asked, then quickly noticed Zypher had used the floating balls to connect streams of lightning between them.
“Did you think I’d make it easier for you this time?” Zypher laughed.
Before Alden could completely recover from the shock Zypher quickly summoned his rifle and launched a spread of shots towards Alden. Alden jumped upwards avoiding the horizontal spray, twisted in the air and launched a vacuum blade of wind towards Zypher, but it was quickly sidestepped as Zypher launched another barrage of shots in counterattack.
With a quick swipe of his sword, Alden froze a shell of water in front of him, blocking the projectiles before making a counterattack of his own. With a large swipe of his sword he sent a surging blade of water towards Zypher and Zypher instinctively knew what was coming. With another quick side step he positioned himself just perfectly, and with his hand coated in lightning he stuck it through the side of the blade of water, forcing Alden out. Zypher surged the lightning in his hand electrifying Alden as he attempted to retreat. Except, Alden had suddenly turned to mist and from behind Zypher five more blades of water came flying towards him.
“Wha-” was all Zypher could manage before the blade of water struck him to the ground, freezing him in place.
“What the heck did you do?” Zypher asked, as Alden’s blade appeared just above Zypher’s head.
“I figured, since we had talked about it, you would know I was planning to come out of the blade of water. I had actually launched two blades and placed a clone in the one you attacked. From the second blade of water I came out and launched another barrage,” Alden said, as he melted the ice holding Zypher constrained.
“Well it worked,” Zypher mused, as he sat up.
“Indeed, but I think it needs a lot more thought before it can truly be used. If you had sent out a wave of lightning it would have disrupted the blade to the point where I'd have been forced out anyways. I think no matter what, if I can’t get it to work with a smaller projectile, it’s not safe enough to use in actual combat. Perhaps as a last resort, but I’d rather not risk it,” Alden explained.
“That’s fair. Anyways, thanks for the training session. I have a report to work on regarding the island so I’m going to have to head out,” Zypher said, a bit of disdain on his face.
“No problem, good luck on your report!” Alden said with a chuckle.
Alden headed back to his room to wash up and take a much deserved nap. He noted that, lately, he spent all his time in the 4th World, even during his down time.
“Perhaps I’ll go do some homework from home for once…but first, I nap,” he grumbled as he fell backwards onto his bed.
Several hours later he awoke to a base wide alarm and his com beeping. Groggily, he pressed the button.
“Hello?” he said, sleepily.
“Finally, what were you doing?” Zypher’s voice came over the com.
“I uhh…was taking a nap,” Alden admitted sheepishly.
“Good grief man. Hurry and get up, you’re going to miss the quanum storm, they’re insane,” Zypher said, excitedly.
“Wait, a quanum storm? How come this is my first time hearing about this?” Alden asked, with much confusion and skepticism.
“They’re kind of rare events, maybe once every couple of years? We’re not really sure what causes them but you definitely do not want to be caught outside in one,” Zypher explained.
“Interesting, well let's head off then?” Alden said, intrigued.
The Guardian Defense Force head quarters had a rather large atrium that also served as an observatory. The atrium was built into the side of the mountain the base sat upon. The atrium had a massive window which spanned roughly twenty meters wide and ten meters high which allowed a magnificent view over the valley below.
At first, as the quanum storm rolled in it looked more like the beginnings of a hurricane with a distinct lack of cloud cover. Instead of clouds and a grey sky, the sky almost seemed to swell in colour as an aurora formed, beaming all the way to the ground. As it swept through the valley blowing up dust and debris, the valley began to take on the colours of the aurora, glowing brilliantly. Mixed in with the waves of the aurora were strange avian creatures, glistening with iridescent feathers that seemed to bend light around them as they moved swiftly through the aurora. As the storm progressed it became clear where the true dangers of the storm lay. Particular bits of land that were touched by stray tendrils of the aurora, thick in quanum, changed and twisted. The tendrils shifted in scale, being anywhere from the size of a giant squid to that of a kraken like monster. They left anything they touched marred and twisted into unbelievable states.
“Well, that’s terrifyingly beautiful,” Alden said, awed.
“Yeah, it truly is a wonder,” Zypher agreed.
Suddenly one of the tendrils quickly whipped towards the window, sweeping across it in a brilliant show of light and colour as the barrier and material of the base did its best to resist the effects of the tendril. Luckily it passed over quickly, leaving nothing but stunned officers, Alden included.
“Well…it’s nice to see these windows can sustain a tendril…” Zypher said, his hands trembling.
“You’ve never seen that before?” Alden asked, curiously.
“It’s never happened before…These windows were purposely designed but had yet to be actually tested,” Zypher admitted.
“Interesting risk to take,” Alden said, as he observed the coloured aura that was left over from the tendril.
“Well, they were created and designed by Lord Ruari, a genius scientist. He’s designed most of our structures here in the 4th World. Most of them should be able to withstand a quanum storm we figure,” Zypher explained with a shrug.
“That makes sense. Thanks for this by the way, this was certainly an event worth seeing, it also gave me some ideas I’d like to ponder, also I have homework to do so I’m going to head out. I’ll catch you later!” Alden said as he left, his mind clearly invested in whatever he was thinking.
“I guess that’s fair. I suppose I’ll stay here and run some numbers on the storm…” Zypher said aloud as he pulled up his console.