“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, but we have to finalize the contract, then you have to go through Ascension’s basic training program before you can pilot power armor,” Jarvick groaned, rubbing his temples to ease the budding headache after explaining to the persistent young woman faction policy for the umpteenth time.
“And I keep telling you, I can do this all much faster and better once I have the power armor. It’ll be easier for everyone involved if you just fork it over now and we deal with the details after.”
“That’s not how things work!”
“Why not?!” Ivy glared defiantly back at Jarvick.
He counted each moment, anticipating the moment when he could pass off the petulant girl to the basic training rep. Jarvick would take great enjoyment from watching her go through extensive attitude adjustment therapy during her stay.
And if they didn’t see a reason to put her through it, he’d be sure to find one. Even if he had to arrange it himself.
However, the image of James’ final demonstration caused all the steam to disappear.
“Just give me the power armor. That’s the whole reason I wanted to join your faction in the first place, and all this red tape? It’s so not cool,” she continued, reigniting Jarvick’s desire to lock her in solitary.
“That’s the whole problem, you see,” a voice, like music to Jarvick’s ears, replied to Ivy in his stead. Calm, ancient, but also not who Jarvick anticipated seeing.
He gave the honorary salute to one of the twelve elder councilmen and bowed his head deep, making sure not to make eye contact to avoid causing disrespect. “Seventh Seat Abellar, it’s my honor to see you again.”
“You’re too stiff, Little Bird. Lighten up.” The elder’s behavior deeply confounded Jarvick, as Abellar was the type of man to only preach policy, tradition, and protocol as absolutely necessary and fundamental to one’s way of the world within the tower.
Jarvick saw the sharpness replace the kind, calm elderly guise for but a brief moment. He almost didn’t believe what he’d seen, but it was long enough for Jarvick to be certain.
The elders would give Ivy special treatment to garner loyalty in order to keep on the better side of her brother. Even Abellar.
They were afraid.
“So when can I get my own suit of power armor?” Ivy asked the elder, completely lacking any shame or decor, skipping up to him and looking behind him as if he’d brought one to her as a surprise present.
“Much to my chagrin, Little Bird is right, though I can show you the power suit we’ve prepared specially for you, little miss Ivy.” He gestured behind him toward an elevator that only led down toward their underground training facility for those who qualified to be a pilot.
It had taken Jarvick three years of accumulating achievements, merit, and several recommendations before he’d ever stepped foot in the elevator. He was resigned to be envious for the rest of Ivy’s stay, however short or long that might be, now that the blatant nepotism was on display.
“What could this basic training possibly provide me to make it worth going?” she asked, huffing a displeased breath and ruffling elder Abellar’s robes.
“Most would consider even being able to attempt our program as a once in a lifetime opportunity, little miss Ivy,” Abellar said, a slightly harder edge to his voice. “As you are currently, you will be unable to pilot the suit of power armor we’ve created for you. That would be a shame if we had to scrap it or find a new owner.”
“Just show it to me already, old man,” she said in a sickly sweet voice with a condescending grin on her face.
Jarvick saw Abellar’s temple pulse, but he managed to keep himself collected. Had Jarvick been in the man’s position, he knew better than to think he’d have achieved the same level of self-control. He still had so much to learn.
“Right this way.” Abellar took the lead, and Ivy fell in step at his side.
When Jarvick moved to follow, Abellar gave a slight shake of his head. As the duo, elder and incessant young woman, got on the elevator headed down, Jarvick didn’t know whether to fume at the treatment or celebrate for finally being relieved of the responsibility of listening to Ivy yap and demand one thing after another and argue for the sake of it.
So he simply stood there numbly, questioning his life choices, as the elevator dove deeper and deeper.
----------------------------------------
“Class?”
Merek paused. He’d been putting off this decision, since he didn’t feel any personal connection to Brawler as a class, but once chosen, a class couldn’t be removed. Only evolved. The amount of energy humming through his class was enough to move two steps from the basic. He brought up the evolution schematics to double-check his options, and two potential paths stood out to him.
Acrobat - focuses on evading until the perfect time to strike. Augments all Protection and Observation type cards.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Striker - focuses on hitting fast and hard. Augments all Movement and Contact type cards.
He didn’t have any protection or movement cards, but two of his new rares were observation types, making Acrobat a clear statistical winner by weight of numbers. But with Burst being the sole common left in his deck, the augment to contact attacks from Striker would go a long way toward keeping him from becoming too unbalanced. He had healing and awareness aplenty now, and with the improvements to his personal card, he didn’t need to worry about evading.
Unreachable prevented enemies from getting within striking distance, regardless of their reach, so long as he remained actively focused on the ability. It would leave him vulnerable whenever he attacked, but in a chaotic melee, the ability to remain absolutely sure of your positioning was incomparably valuable. He could hold until the right moment, then strike and push everyone away again.
After selecting Striker, the pressure in his class eased somewhat, but there was still one more choice to be made. This one was simpler, but he still considered it carefully before making a choice.
He’d already done plenty of reckless decision making lately. If ever there was a time to stop and think things over, it was before choosing the final evolution of one’s Rare class.
Twinstriker - adds the Echo effect to all attacks.
Shadowstriker - adds the Conceal effect to all movement.
He glanced at the available class cards in the uncommon and rare tiers, which had shifted to accommodate the change to Striker. They retained the same type—if he were going to shard them, they would give the same shards—but the specifics changed subtly.
“Twinstriker.”
The tower guard recorded his answer while he looked at the card options. Heave or Truestrike, that was an easy choice. He already had a better knockback than the class would provide. Truestrike made attacks unnaturally accurate, targeting weaknesses in slow-moving targets flawlessly or tracking rapid enemies, despite there being no reasonable way to keep up. It would be the only non-Rare card in his deck, but he overwrote Pushback without hesitation.
For Rare, the options were Demolish or Sweep. He was mildly irritated that both his choices had contained the pushback-equivalent. Apparently some part of him really wanted to be left alone. This was too many times to be coincidence. Demolish was something like Burst, except it didn’t stop after one strike and required a several-second cooldown. It was a toggle.
Merek found himself grinning as he overwrote Burst. A week ago, if anyone had proposed he’d be happy to lose his one precious purchased card that he’d saved up for so long for, he’d have called them crazy.
Perhaps he was crazy. Or perhaps it was finally his time to start winning.
----------------------------------------
Ivy had never quite managed to get over childhood dreams of a high-tech suit of armor that would enable her to go wherever she wanted and do things she’d never been able to. Even after Archaniel had showed up and healed her physically and then James and the shop carried her away to fantastical Aiguo, the idea had lingered quietly at the back of her mind.
Thinking about the arena world of Cyrel had brought those desires flaring back to life and now…
She grinned, barely resisting the urge to jump up and down with excitement.
The underground lab was dark as they descended, then lights powered up to illuminate one section at a time. Nearest was a collection of tables and tools, and several hanging sections of disassembled power armor suits. After seeing Jarvick’s armor, she’d tempered her expectations to moderately sane, but as each section lit up, her expectations were far surpassed.
Jarvick’s suit had been the least of what was available.
She was off running the moment the elevator doors opened, sprinting down the line of power suit after power suit, each more specialized than the last. One side boasted streamlined and slim designs with everything from basic weapons to cutting tools and force fields, flight, and hi-tech energy manipulation. The other side was bulky and oversized, heavy armor, heavy everything.
She couldn’t stop running from one to the next, back and forth across the long room.
“It’s like a museum of awesome! I want them alllllll!”
“Yours is down at the end here,” Abellar said, walking calmly past her excited squealing without comment. “Keep in mind, this is a very sophisticated tool, and one which—”
Ivy ran past him to the suit at the very end. It was white and slender at the top, with nicely large, deep red stompy legs and outfitted with even more awesome everything. “So how do I turn it on?”
“You’ll need months of training in order to utilize—”
Ivy climbed up the scaffolding behind the armor and began poking at the seams in an attempt to get it open.
Abellar pressed a button, and one of the walls opened, revealing a large training area. Several other people were already there, working together or in groups. “Perhaps undertake basic orientation before you start trying to force your way into sophisticated weaponry?”
“Nope. Power armor first, orientation later. I’ve waited all my life for this. No way I’m going to delay now!”
Abellar walked around and pointed to an indentation on the back. “You need to pair it to your block before it’ll let you in.”
“James has ours.”
“You mean you’ve been sharing a…” Abellar shook his head. “Nevermind. I’ll get you one of your own. We should have some prototypes lying around.” He strode back to the work tables and started opening drawers, then pulled out a slender silver block that only looked about five times as thick as a clunky old cell phone. “This one’s open at the moment. Go ahead and log in.”
Ivy took the block and turned it over. “You’re supposed to log in?”
Abellar stared. “You were using one without locking it first? But then anyone could come and read your personal details.”
“Oh, is that all? I don’t care. If it means I can get going sooner.”
“How are you still alive?”
“Give me some credit. I’ve been here for two whole days, and we didn’t have all this stuff back where I’m from,” Ivy absentmindedly muttered, more focused on the fancy power armor promised to her.
It took another three minutes to align the thing, sync the block to her vitals, and then lock it before connecting to the armor itself, but finally the glorious thing was standing open before her, ready to try out.
“I do suggest you at least read over the instructions,” Abellar said, “but I understand you’re in a hurry to get going.” He rotated the platform the armor stood on until she was facing the large opening to the training area. “Good luck.”
Someone grumpy-looking with a clipboard came walking toward them, which Ivy ignored. She hopped in the power armor, and grinned as it fitted snugly to her shape. She wasn’t about to let anyone stop her now!
----------------------------------------