MAGNUS

The excitement waned a bit when we returned to school and had to get ready for whatever would come next. I didn’t have to get my gun examined this time, thanks to the fact that the faculty had access to my research notes. Stormleaf was happy with the prototype badge, but had told me it wouldn’t grant me any leniency in our first combat class. Apparently he had reached out to an old friend to come help teach the personal combat classes, as there was a major difference between squadron and individual combat.

Our two friends that had gone home instead of on the hunt with us were thrilled when we presented the Book Wyrms to them, especially Selena who insisted on studying with the little dragon.

Now though, it was time for our Integrated Combat course. We were gathered in the gym as opposed to the training field for our class; though it was mostly dominated by a canvas covered cube about forty feet on each side. We had actually passed students in the Military program drilling on the field.. Since this class was required for Operatives I wasn’t surprised to see Vara and Jessica, but I also saw the Kono siblings and Kathrine were present of the people I recognized. In total the class had twenty students, and I knew only some of them were actually in the same program so they must have taken this as one of their extra classes. Professor Stormleaf, dressed in a long coat over his uniform, stood with his arms crossed before the canvas covered cube waiting for the class to gather.

When everyone had arrived the man once known as The Endless Blade spoke in a voice designed to carry over a battlefield, “Fourteen of you are in the Operative program, a couple of you are in the Military program, and the rest decided this would be a good class to round out your skills. A soldier has to learn to work with their unit, and how to best fight against large numbers of opponents. You all are going to focus on either small group tactics, or fighting as an individual. This requires a different set of skills tailored to you individually. You need to learn to fight with each of the tools you have, the summons you can call, and the spells you have available. You need to learn to face man or beast and overcome them.”

He gestured to the cube behind him and the canvas faded into motes of light as he drew it into a binding. It looked like a large glass box at first glance. At second it looked like a large glass box on top of a set of smaller glass boxes, the floor of every piece etched with runes. The smaller boxes on the bottom had handles and hinges, and were about the size a person could comfortably fit in. In one of the small rooms on the far side I could see a figure wearing a hooded long coat that was in a fairly worn condition. The coat reminded me of those used by the Calburn Empire, but the style was out of date. The man stood ramrod straight, his left hand holding a staff made out of the same aether crystal summoning stones or my energy sources were made of.

“Oh shit,” I muttered.

Takahashi, who had been standing nearby, asked, “What is it?”

“This is going to suck,” I replied, not giving away the identity of the man in the coat.

I recognized the staff, even though I couldn’t see that man’s face. My grandfather had helped fashion the implement before the legend before us had placed the summoning bindings on it.

The professor continued speaking, “Behind me you see what we have taken to calling the ‘Image Arena. It operates on a similar principle to image binding, except that it projects a copy of what is in the chambers beneath it into the space above. While active your motions will command the image avatar, which duplicates everything you are carrying and capable of doing. You will also feel the pain of combat, though will not suffer any injury. Which means you will fight until ‘death’ stops you. Marcus back there has agreed as a favor to the school to help train each of you. There will also be a tournament each month where you will face each other, or a challenge of our devising. Any questions?”

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Vara asked, “Why is he already in the chamber?”

The voice of the old soldier resonated from the chamber, confirming my fear of his identity as I recognized it, “Thank you for volunteering, young miss. Enter one of the chambers. There is room for four more volunteers for the first round. Any takers?”

I wasn’t going to let my oldest friend face this man on her own, so I stepped forward and entered one of the chambers. As I closed the door behind me I felt a stomach dropping sensation as the world around me shifted. When my vision settled I found myself in a sand covered arena of pale brown stone. Next to me was Vara, and across from us on the sands was what I presumed would be our opponent. Jessica, Tak, and Mai soon appeared next to us and I grinned as I realized our friends weren’t going to leave us hanging in what was sure to be an embarrassment of a fight.

“This is going to suck, yet you volunteered?” Takahashi said with some amusement in his voice.

“Oh he’s going to do this to the entire class,” I said.

Jessica asked, “You know him?”

I nodded and said, “Yeah, he used to wander around with grandfather back before they both retired. I should have guessed the professor would reach out to him. Whatever you do don’t hold back.”

Vara looked at me as realization dawned in her eyes, “Is he?”

I nodded as the man lowered his hood to reveal a short stubble of white hair, and a face aged and scared from conflict. His grey eyes studied us and I could pick out the moment he recognized me as his lips quirked just a little bit. He called out, “You have a couple of minutes to prepare while the professor sorts out who’s next. Might want to come up with a plan.”

I gathered our team around me and whispered, “Expect various creatures to show up, and don’t under any circumstances underestimate his capability in personal combat. He’s either going to dominate us as an example to the class, or try and push us to see our current limits and skills.”

Vara asked in a worried tone, “Can we win?”

I shrugged and replied, “Anything is possible. I doubt it though. He’s had decades of combat experience to hone his own skills, let alone the skills of his summons.”

Takahashi cursed before I saw him, for the first time, summon armored gauntlets and boots and his two dragons. Mai called her creatures and weapons as well, and I could feel the wind start to coalesce around her. Jessica tapped the side of her head, activating the visor we had made for her, and drew her pistols as Riku appeared before her, crouched and ready for a fight. I activated my own visor and made sure my new gun was in hand as I mentalled called to Linaravax, “Are you ready for a fight?”

“Fly high, fly free, into battle go we,” she replied.

“You know you don’t have to rhyme anymore right?” I said.

“Habit, can you call me out? From your conversation it sounds like I’ll need every scrap of aether I have for this fight,” she said with a tinge of embarrassment.

I trickled aether into the summoning crystal and heard her voice say, “Whoa, that’s an odd sensation. I am still in the crystal but not at the same time. I’m assuming it’s the arena.”

The dragon formed before me, no longer the ash grey color she was before. Now her scales were a dark glistening black. Her eyes had changed from the ember red they were before to a pale luminescent white, and she had shrunk from the size of a horse to a sleek form the size of a jungle cat. Her wings spread and I could see specks of white, like stars, appear in the membrane. When we had channeled the aether to fix her broken talents, with help from my grandfather, she had changed from an Ashwing Drake to something we had never heard of before. The broken talents had changed from the failed Linguist talent into something related to reading the stars, and the attempt to gain teleportation change changed to something that allowed her to affect what grandfather called gravity.

As Vara called out her own summons and drew her rapier Jessica asked the question, “Who is he?”

“When he actively wandered about he earned a nickname for himself based on a comment from my grandfather. They called him Legion,” I answered.