During the fourth week of training, the Argentian military tightened up on skills related to mission execution and success. The platoon was split up into four equally sized groups. Each group was given a corner of the woods outside of the headquarters building, far away from the suburbs of the city. They were then tasked to maintain their encampments for one week while one of the groups was randomly chosen to attempt to infiltrate them.

Each day they would be pulled for a new task related to the theme of that day. On the first, they were told to defend a caravan from assault by a squad of bandits. These roles were played by members of their own platoon guided by officers and intelligence support. Success meant getting goods out to a predetermined location.

The next day they trained their ability to operate in urban environments. Most of the students did not know about this training area in the city, as it constantly appeared as if under construction. No curious neighborhood kids ever spoke about what they saw inside if they managed to break in at all. Almost the entire day was spent on edge clearing rooms of a mock enemy, or simulating various hostile scenarios.

As the phase progressed, lessons further expanded into security and patrol protocols. They learned what was needed to disperse crowds and mobs, control the movement of those crowds, as well as how to organize anti-riot tactics with the tools provided to them. An opposing platoon would take the role of an aggressive mob, while Holiday’s platoon prevented their advance into controlled areas. They were harassed by throwable incendiaries, rocks, gemin casts, and chemical irritants.

Near the end of this training, a special course was given on improvised explosive devices. Recently, Lillyvon’s pirate clan had been using gunpowder charges encased by a tube of black gemin stones. Everyone in the platoon was required to learn how to disarm these devices safely. Not only was the explosive itself dangerous, but the black gemin inside had insidious properties of their own. The Argentian military was not afraid to reconstruct the live device in its entirety. This was done outside of the city, where any such device would be dangerous only to the personnel attempting to disarm it.

Black gemin are highly illegal in almost every nation of Una. Because of their fickle and volatile nature, they can cause great harm to their surroundings if disturbed or given access to unprotected skin. These gemin are capable of interacting directly with the mysterious properties of a person’s spirit, one’s “soul” so to speak.

A novice of the platoon was asked to remove the black gemin-containing tube from the inside of the device. Suspended by an iron bracket, to center the material within the gunpowder charge. His hands were clad with a thick pair of leather protective gloves sufficient for this task. Under normal circumstances, his protective equipment would have left him safe.

This time the thick gloves made the cylinder difficult to grab in his relatively small hands. The black gemin tube and bracket fell, with the iron bracket slicing open the pants of his fatigue uniform. The tube was packed with low-grade black gemin stones of assorted sizes. These contents poured all over the ground, but some entered the slice of his pants leg.

Only half of the black gemin stones were dangerous to touch, but with this many small gemin packed into an improvised device; nobody was going to check them individually. The enemy certainly wouldn’t be kind enough to do that for you.

Medical support did not get to the young man fast enough. Some of the black gemin that contacted his leg began to set, transmuting his flesh into a tumorous amalgam. Tooth enamel shards, fatty tissues, organ meats, and tendrils composed of elements of the nervous system attempted to lift themselves away from the leg. To free themselves of their hosting dreamer.

“GRAHHHH--- help...” The young man’s shoulder plunged into the ground where more of the gemin laid as sharp shards, determined to cause damage elsewhere. “he---hel---helaaAaa AaAaA AAHA-AAHA PLEASE! Don’t let ME DIE! Here, it-i--- burn-urns...”

The sharpest of the black gemin managed to penetrate the cloth covering his shoulder, performing the same transmutation of material there. Some were resting on his neck from his collapse. He lost his head cover in the fall. His forehead and cheek were becoming affected by the setting gemin as well.

Medical personnel approached with Professor Holiday taking the lead and kept their distance from the black gemin spill. Argentinian military research on black gemin was extensive. They had procedures for this kind of spill.

“Tomel. Price! Talk to us, boy. I know it hurts, but it’ll be over soon.”

“Why, why do I see them? Why do I HAVE TO SEE THEM!” The young novice was either starting to lose touch with his surroundings or was becoming aware of the small creatures trying to burrow their way into and out of his flesh. He raised his hands and up toward his face in an attempt to block his eyes, but this only caused further damage to his face.

“Do it, before we lose him!” The professor barked at the medical unit, as they procured a staff, wrapped in fine white Coopracian silk.

Professor Holiday’s own weapon was a moderate-colored fine glidewood cane short in length. This was an entirely different class of weapon, a staff topped with three large identically cut gemin white in color; a full triad. The body of the staff was daisel, a naturally white wood, and a fitting aesthetic choice. Whoever created this object cared about it very much.

The young boy began to enter a complex combination of neurotoxic and neurogenic shock, as the damage done to his nervous system was substantial. He began to convulse violently on the ground, contorting in grotesque orientations that alone could cause lasting damage to his limbs.

A member of the medical unit lifted the staff vertically by both hands and thrust it to contact with the ground firmly. A blinding light radiated from the staff’s crown. It even outshone the midday source. The expanding light formed a thin spherical shell of white light that swallowed every member of the medical personnel, the dying young man on the ground, the black gemin lying in the grass, and every student in the platoon. It continued its expanding bubble of light partway into the road just outside of the training area.

This pure light washed over the black gemin, and they became enclaved by it. The black color within them began to fade, and the gemstones became clear and inert. A deeply sooty smoke wisped and billowed from them as the white light refracted within the crystals. Scattering and dispersing it into rainbow colors.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The white bubble of light pulsed again with another round of expansion from the staff, washing over the body of Price. Black gemin that had embedded themselves in his skin pushed out and became clear as well. The creatures moving through and transmuting his skin, created by these crystals, released their material as a powder of dusty skin cells and bonemeal.

Two members of the medical unit ran up to Novice Tomel thickly dressed in personal protective gear. The ground in its current state was mostly safe, but the black gemin underneath the novice’s body needed to be touched by the light of the staff to be destroyed by it. They turned him over, and once he was, the black gemin on the ground were rendered inert like the others.

They continued to roll his body across the ground a safe distance from the spill area. He was stripped of his protective gear so that the white gemin light could reach every part of his body. Once the team was absolutely certain he was no longer in contact with the gemstones, his body was lifted onto a gurney and wheeled toward a carriage. The entire time, the young man remained screaming, presumably in pain.

The entire platoon, including Professor Holiday, remained silent for an extended period of time. All of their eyes fixed on the gurney being loaded into the warbird-driven carriage. Still, long after the medical team had left, the collective stare focused on where the spill had occurred.

After intense contemplation, Holiday spoke up. Not toward the platoon, but toward trees in the distance or perhaps the sky and clouds themselves. “Training will continue in the auxiliary range further up the trail.” His head lowered to face the grass where the unconsumed black gemin were being recovered by trained personnel from what remained of the device.

“Our resources can prevent fatality. Although, it is painful. If you encounter black gemin in the field, you are unlikely to be so quickly rescued.” Professor Holiday turned to walk toward the trail expecting the platoon to follow. They would, but only after processing that any one of them might face the same fate Price did. Reluctantly, each one of them made their way to the trail; subconsciously convinced to do so from the movement of their peers and friends.

The remainder of that day saw no further incident. The rate of training slowed as each platoonmate took much longer to disarm their respective devices. The subsequent days introduced them to other gemin-based weaponry and equipment. During one of these days, the group was familiarized with some of the more advanced equipment the military had on offer. The professor briefed the young group on the tools available to them.

“Is anyone here happy to be seated back at a desk?” Rosin leaned forward from sitting on his own large desk at the front of the lecture hall, with a bent leg propped up onto its surface.

Temora and Albe looked at each other with the same thought obvious between them. Everyone here was glad to be able to sit after weeks of marches. Even Cocole was paying attention, who would otherwise be daydreaming in his own world of fantasy, or drawing into one of his notebooks. He was thankful it was not bright-to-night of putting his feet on the ground. The professor had done probably a hundred rounds training novice soldiers during his tenure at the academy. He used this lull in physical training to finish out the military classwork.

“Anyone here seen an airstride game before, or have played in one yourself?” The professor's weak attempt to sympathize with the youth was met with a display of three hands. Albe was one of them. He sheepishly lowered his hand as he realized that his enthusiasm about the sport wasn’t equal to his platoonmates.

“Albe.” The professor pointed a single expertly fabricated boot toward him.

“Professor?”

“Do you know what I am holding here?”

The entire platoon’s eyes were trained on Albe, and they all knew that he knew. Living this close together for weeks had him spend a lot of time talking to everyone about the outcomes of airstride games. Remarking about specific plays.

“It appears to me to be a Calido-branded Skysurfer professor. The Geledo Gravitys’ shoe.” He panned his head around to the elevated seats of the lecture hall around him. “They are required equipment. You cannot play the game without them.” he astutely projected motioning his hand toward the professor's shoe.

Rosin set the boot down upon the table, whereupon its clap the stones inside sprang alight. The boot then hovered in its place on the wooden desk surface accompanied by its paired boot which he then also activated. The boots hummed to vibrate the air around them, fanning the entire room as the air underneath the shoes accelerated away from the stones.

“These boots are kept aloft by the same technology that keeps an aeroship in the clouds. Many of you have seen the yellow gemin on the inside of a ship’s nacelles. This is the same type of floatstone, only smaller.”

Starting from with a right bent leg, he grabbed the appropriate boot and quickly swapped his brogued dress shoes to operate the skysurfers. Sitting on top of the table, his feet were off of the ground. As he placed his legs on the lecture stage floor, he effortlessly maintained himself a hand’s width from its polished hardwood surface.

He swung his head to view all of the soon-to-be soldiers, lifting his leg up high, and binding his knee. The professor then put his weight upon the boot. As if climbing an invisible stair, he lifted his entire body, changing to a new flat elevation. The mates who had not seen this feat before: gasped.

“The crew of a ship uses an outdated version of this product, cloudwalkers, as personal protection equipment to save themselves from falling while working on the hull of a ship. Those old boots are starting to be replaced by these. You might find yourself encountering an opponent who can move both above and below you.”

The professor then sprinted forward, with each step climbing further into the air. Once near the high vaulted ceiling of the lecture hall, he rotated his body to dive down toward the floor breaking his fall by stabilizing the boots’ orientation. Changing his height from the top of one story of the building to the bottom of another after a short freefall.

Each of the platoonmates erupted into various discussions. Some were excited they might be able to fly, and others discussed strategies to combat such an enemy. Rosin wrangled the class back into the conversation at hand.

“The only way to disable an object like this, is to disable its gemin stones. Either by deactivating them, or by removing them. Equipment like this is mantled by the stone. This type of equipment is called a mantle, and it is disabled by dismantling the stone from its equipment.”

The professor, in his back arched supine position pulled a knife from his pants pocket. He reached toward the closest boot prying the tip of the knife underneath the stone. The stone, set in place by a pair of metal clips popped out from the released tension, dismantling the equipment. Half of his body lurched toward the ground, now under the influence of gravity. He did the same to the farther to reach of the two boots. After doing so, he crashed from being two feet above the ground to the floor of the lecture hall.

Each of the boots still had one yellow floatstone in each of them, but it was clear that the shoes needed two of the stones to function correctly. Losing a floatstone caused them to became unstable and difficult to control. Quickly changing Professor Holiday’s position, and threatening to send him elsewhere. He removed and deactivated the boots by fighting with each to tap them against the floor. The professor then stood removing the skysurfers, and reshod himself with the brogued dress shoes.

Temora noticed the professor was out of breath. This practical display was a physical one. Albe did tell her that airstride was an athletes’ sport. It must take significant effort to fight against the shoes that are keeping players in the air. A weakness that could be exploited. They might be in the air, but moving to a new position gasses the muscles.

“The Calido Company has a defense contract with the Argentian Military. These are quite expensive. A ten-thousand to a million carats depending on the specific model. The military will not be issuing them to novices.” The class devolved in collective audible disappointment.