Nox lay on the bed. It was tiresome, creating a firearm from scratch. The Aimshot, as he named it, had been added to his gun cabinet. He couldn’t take it out, of course - that would insane. But he could send it to the TechFrame for modifications.
He briefly considered going back to it, but his mind felt strained already. No point in getting himself fatigued for his next class.
[Wait, when is my next class- Oh, crap.]
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“Hello, everyone. My name is Ms. Nel.” A medium-height lady walked into the classroom. “Welcome to strategy class.”
[Hm. The boys are especially quiet today.] Nox thought.
She walked up to the electronic board. “Does anyone know how many Vamp classes there are?” A boy near the middle raised his hand. “Yes, you over there.”
[And more attentive. Oh, I wonder why?]
“Six, ma’am?” The boy answered.
“Correct.” She began scribbling on the board. “There are six classes of Vamp - Swordsman, Ranger, Assault, Medic, Scout, and Spellcasters. If we only had one, we would never have lasted this long in the war. Versatility is one of the Vamp Army’s main strengths.”
After writing down the six names, she turned back to the class. “Each class has its strengths and weaknesses. In fact, today you have a very special opportunity. Six seniors are here to demonstrate their combat abilities to you.” The door opened. “Let us go to the combat room.” The doors opened as she walked out, murmuring students following quickly after her.
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“Now, these seniors are actually being tested for their final examination. So do not interfere with them in any way. We are spectators, nothing less.” The massive glass unblurred itself, revealing five people in Exosuits. three were boys, and two were girls. “The first to be tested is a Vamp of the Swordsman class. The Senior of the Assault class is absent today, but they’re quite boring to watch anyway.”
It was Nox’s first time actually seeing an Exosuit properly. There were a few wearing them in the entrance hall, but he wasn’t paying attention to them back then.
The suits the seniors were wearing were sleek, form-fitting armour. They all had a streamlined design, although a few of them looked bulkier than the others. On five of them, there was a pair of thrusters on the lower back. On one of them, however, there were four, with an extra pair near the shoulder blades. [The scout, I’m assuming.]
Their helmets were quite peculiar. Like most helmets, it had an aerodynamic design, with a triangular front. However, there wasn’t a visor, nor faceplate. The helmet completely covered the Vamps eyes and mouth.
Nox tracked down Clover, who wasn’t too far away from him. “How do they see? Or breathe?”
“Y’know, it confused me too, at first. Turns out, there is an in-built air circulation system to help them breathe in whatever environment they’re in. As for sight, they have hundreds of miniature cameras on the front which display an image on the inside.”
“Wait, what if the cameras break?”
“Well, um… They take off the helmet.”
“What if the screen breaks?”
“They also take off the helmet.”
Of the five standing in the combat room, four of them left. The lone Vamp stood in the centre as the landscape changed around him. The students gasped.
Instead of a white box, he was in a hellish landscape. Several pools of lava were spread across the colossal space. Where the pristine, white, walls were supposed to be, instead were towering black and grey walls of endless rock.
The Vamp wasted no time drawing his blade. In a flash of red light, like that of Mr. Adderall, a sword appeared in the senior’s hand.
“Damn!” Clover exclaimed. “That’s no regular blade! That’s a complete demonite one! Sigil enhanced and all!”
As the first demons materialised out of the air, the senior jumped high into the air, Jumpack thrusters burning. His first target appeared to be a flying demon, charging straight at him. But the demon, instead of trying to get into melee range, unleashed a series of purple bolts of fire from its mouth.
The Vamp swiftly cut through the firebolts before boosting again through the air and cutting the demon clean in half. Seeing another flying demon coming towards him from the right, he slashed through the air, apparently hitting nothing.
At first, Nox was confused. But then, a glowing red slash materialised itself from the swift blade’s edge. It flew through the air with neck-breaking speed, before slamming into the demon, instantly killing it. [Air slashes? Now this is some anime crap right here.]
As the carnage continued in the combat room, Ms. Nel began to speak. “Swordsmen are the most common type of vamp. Obviously, they are mainly Close-Quarters-Combat specialists, but they can expend essence to create a few ranged attacks, such as the slash you just saw there.” She paused as the Vamp slashed through three demons simultaneously. “Other than swords, they can use shotguns, and other melee style weapons.”
Nox looked at the scoreboard on the wall next to the control area.
WAVE: 5 ENEMIES ALIVE: 12 ENEMIES REMAINING: 20 TOTAL KILLS: 92 SKILL: 804
“Most Swordsmen don’t produce a lot of essence on their own, so they are forced to gain it from their enemies. Hence, the melee attacks.” She turned to the students. “You will all be given low-level implants to allow you to see essence soon enough.”
On the ninth wave, the Swordsman Vamp boosted himself towards a horde of demons. Nox didn’t need cybernetic implants to see that he was getting tired. Move after move, spell after spell, he was getting slower.
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He boosted himself as he cut through the horde, clearing out half of them. However, there were still half left. He desperately swung his blade this way and that, trying to clear them out, but there were too many, on his left, on his right, everywhere. Soon enough, the simulation ended.
Nox checked the scoreboard. “Wave 9? Is that good?”
“Well, I’ve certainly seen better.” Clover shrugged. “I’ve heard the average is 15 on a final exam. But hey! He gave it his best!”
The next Vamp walked into the room. They briefly shook hands, and the Swordsman said something, before walking away.
As the Vamp stood at the centre of the room, the scenery shifted once again. However, instead of a mountainous landscape, they were in a plains-like area. Only the atmosphere was a dangerous shade of red, and the dirt was bloodsoaked with demons that never existed in the first place.
Ms. Nel talked to them once again. “For the final exam, the combat room is designed to create a landscape that is the most unadvantageous for the Vamp. In this case, since she specialises in Ranged weapons, a flat landscape with no cover would be the worst possible terrain to fight in.”
As the demons began to appear again, the ranger pulled out something that looked like fired a flashing projectile into the air.
“Oh! She’s doing the splitshot thing!” Clover pointed wildly.
“What do you mea-”
Nox didn’t need to say anything more. A second later, with a red flash, the Senior swapped to a sniper rifle of some kind. However, instead of shooting any demons, she looked through the sights…
…And shot the glowing sphere falling through the air. Nox could feel the shockwave from behind the glass. He watched as the single sniper shot was split up into a hundred separate ones, each targeting a different demon. Holographic blood licked the walls of the glass.
“That’s just dirty. Splitting a shot a hundred ways? Who thinks of these kinds of things?”
“I don’t know, but it’s as cool as heck!”
As the next wave of demons closed in on her location, the Vamp boosted backwards, wiping out several demons with her shotgun as she did. A shockwave of superheated plasma burst out of the barrel, consuming a large portion of the demons and instantly frying them. She bounced of the walls of the simulation, before boosting herself again to the other side of the arena.
“Rangers are mainly long-range fighters.” Ms. Nel explained. “They use all types of weapons, but mainly rifles and snipers. As you saw, they aren’t defenceless in close combat.”
“Oh come on.” Ayesha complained quietly. “Let us watch in peace!”
The Ranger fired another volley of grenades at the momentum-gaining horde. The explosions knocked the demons back a bit, but as the Wave number got higher, the demons were getting stronger and stronger. In less than a few seconds, the fiends recovered and resumed their charge. However, they, or the AI, made a fatal mistake - The demons were all lined up.
Landing back on the ground, the Ranger swapped to a different weapon of much higher calibre. A railgun. For half a moment, the lights along the barrel lit up in a shade of blue, and electricity crackled on the inside of the four-pronged barrel. Then, she pulled the trigger.
In a single blast of electricity, all the demons in the row were turned to ash. A few body parts not in the line of fire fell to the ground, then disappeared in a cloud of pixels.
Clover looked amazed. “She’s got to wave 12.”
“What happens on wave 12?”
“The first Greater demon.”
An especially large creature materialised itself. It was twice the size of a normal human, but it was the same shape. However, where skin should have been, instead were large, red scales covering its entire body. In its hand was a massive, crude blade, seemingly carved out of bone. As it stepped forth, newly spawned in, the Ranger boosted backwards.
Despite its great size, however, it was fast.
In a few steps, it had caught up with her, swinging its blade in a deadly ark, treating it more like a hammer than a blade. The Ranger barely avoided the attack. What she couldn’t avoid, whether because of stunning speed, or lack of essence, was the massive foot coming down from above her.
A few moments later, the simulation dissolved in front of them. The girl lay on the floor… Laughing? Another one of the Vamps came into the arena and helped her up before they both walked out.
“Death by getting stepped on? Seems a little anti-dramatic.” Ayesha commented.
Clover put his own thoughts forward. “Well, by the looks of it, she passed!”
The next two students being tested - A medic and a spellcaster - weren’t very interesting. The medic didn’t last very long, naturally, and the spellcaster… Well, he had an issue.
“Why did he blow up?” Nox looked at the body on the floor. “Is he alright?”
Ayesha waved a hand “He looks fiinnee. Probably tried to store too much essence in his suit,” She explained. “Can happen sometimes when a Vamp tries to save up for an especially powerful spell.”
As the student was carried away, Ms. Nel sighed. “That was disappointing. Anyway, onto the last Senior to be tested.”
The last Vamp walked out into the combat room. Where the other Vamps had two jets on their back, he had four. In one hand, he held a sheathed sword. In the other, a rifle. The landscape shifted for the last time.
There was something about this Vamp. Nox couldn’t tell what it was but it certainly felt… Like power.
The landscape wasn’t much different from the Ranger’s one, except there were a few rocky protrusions from the ground going all the way up to the ceiling. The Scout didn’t bother to look at the scenery, however. Just as the first demons started appearing, he leapt up onto the wall behind him, and using his Jumpack, boosted himself through the air towards the nearest flying fiend.
The demons didn’t appreciate the Vamp charging towards him and, like in the Swordsman’s test, launched a wave of purple motes of fire at him. The Scout didn’t try to block the firebolts. Instead, he boosted himself again, sailing above the projectiles, before manoeuvring himself mid-air to slice the demon completely in half. Just as the mutilated body of the was falling to the ground, the Scout overtook its descent and ground slammed into a clump of nearby demons, badly damaging them, before using the built momentum to leap high in the air and do it again.
“Clover… Are all Scouts like this?” Even Ayesha was amazed at the performance in front of them.
Clover opened his mouth, before closing it again. Eventually, he spoke. “If they were, I don’t see how a Vamp would want to be any other class.”
The Scout reached wave 12 with no problem. When the Greater demon appeared, the Scout grappled it, before shotgunning it as soon as it got into close range. While it was still recovering from the blow, the Scout reeled himself in at neck-breaking speeds before slicing the demon’s head off cleanly.
“Was that an AOT reference?” Nox was shocked.
“...What?”
“Nothing.”
Ms Nel spoke for the last time. “As you can see, Scouts are the fastest class out of them all. They are allowed to bring all types of weapons into combat, but most of the time they don’t engage in combat… Well, not like this, at least. Please know that fighting like this in actual combat is highly unrecommended.” She looked at the time. “Well, it looks like our class is over.” A few groans were heard from the class. “We’ll continue our class tomorrow. Until then, goodbye.” The combat room elevator opened.
[Well, that was a bit sudden. Wait, aren’t there eight minutes left? What’s she yapping about?]
Nox took one last look at the madman that was the Scout, and walked away.