44 Act of war (2)
In the Empire's central colosseum normally meant for gladiators to entertain the masses, or fighting tournaments of varying professionalism a group of young knight initiates were gathered for special training. The Empire knight core was a semi elite gathering of soldiers meant to command regular forces and were therefore mostly made up of young nobles and skilled youths.
"What the fuck is that?..."
"Looks to be our new temporary instructor."
"No, I mean what the fuck is that behind him?"
"Yeah what the fuck is that?"
I looked like some sort of foreign armoured knight, on steroids, Its limbs larger than any normal human or even a beastkin. With its irregular and strange armour plating, it stood a bit over 3 meters high and the armour was completely black with a dull shine that completely enclosed the wearer, if there was any. With its only armament being a large dull silver metal case with reinforcing.
REX Heavy Industries MK V Heavy variable frame type exoskeleton
The mark 5 frame was originally developed for exploration and heavy industry as it was one of the first fully sealed full body exoskeletons. After a small retrofit, it seamlessly integrated with ICI type weapon systems, with the earliest proof of concept being a stripped down frame with a heavy machine gun wielded to one of the arms. With minimal modifications a combat type frame was ready and immediately used for orbital insertion of special forces were hostiles were crushed in a massacre so extreme it could only be described as giants running rampant on a playground filled with toddlers.
Their new instructor looked to be a large demonkin male, his black guild tag clearly hang by his neck and displayed his authority. Between him and the strange suit of armour was a young woman about the age of the knightlings, she wore light black clothing like the demonkin and looked just as bored.
"Okay gather up on me, I'm your new temporary instructor."
The demonkin lazily sat down in the dirt as he called on the knightlings to gather around as his companions backed off. Most of the 50-ish knightlings ignored him, however and only a single knightling came before him. She was about 20 years old and wore light clothing meant for training with her light blue eyes showing slight nervousness as she twirled her shoulder length pure black hair.
"Just 1 huh… What's your name miss knightling?"
"It's Paige."
"Okay let's start training then."
"Huh!? What about the others?"
"They can join us if they feel like it, for now, get a practise weapon"
"O-okay.."
"Please tell me what the fuck I'm doing here"
While the knightling was getting a practice weapon from a rack at the edge of the area Terra took no time to start complaining.
"Have patience my young grasshopper."
"I'm leaving"
"Wait a second, if you stay I'll make you a meal in the evening~"
"Personally?"
"Yep, I'll even throw in some of my special made smoked bacon."
"Really?"
"If you help me out with this yeah."
Even though Terra hated her teacher like none other she could hardly deny that he had spent most of his free time over the last 800 years of his life perfecting his culinary skills, and the food he made was amazing.
"I'm ready now… What is happening here?"
As Paige returned with a wooden spear she came upon her new teacher grinning full face at a drooling woman he brought along.
"Perfect. Paige met Terra, she's a former ranger from Black Hollow. Terra, can you tell her about monster combat?"
"..."
"While we wait for your reward."
"..."
"I'll cook your meals for 3 days."
"5 days"
"3 days, with 3 meals a day."
".."
"Take it or leave it."
"Fiiinne. Your name was Paige, right? Let's start at the basics, what do you know about monsters?"
"Umm, monsters are animals that have been-"
"Monsters are a treat, no more or less than that. Now there are two primary types of monsters, those that want to eat you and those that want to kill you."
"But that seems to kind of the same?"
"There is a slight difference. But that I'll get into in a bit, for now, we'll go over the types of monsters that will be a likely problem for you in the future and how to deal with them. First is the-"
Going into full instructor mode as she had returned to her ranger days, Terra slowly drew the other knightlings and within a few minutes, she had their full and undivided attention.
"Why would you piss a troll off?"
"For the basic satisfaction, and a pissed off troll is a stupid troll that bleeds out faster."
"I see.."
"Hey Terra poke me when you get to combat training, I'll be gone for a bit."
"Now that is not the same with a cyclops- I'll be sure to kick you in the face. Where was I? Ah yeah cyclops'. They are more-"
As Terra continued her anti monster lecture Dax started meditating.
(ICI connect me to the spectre network.)
(CONFIRMED, BIOSIGNATURE LOGIN APPROVED. CONNECTING TO 150 TIMES GUARDIAN SPECTOR, 5 TIMES REX VULTURE, 1 TIMES GUARDIAN ELECTRONIC WARFARE DRONE TYPE 144 'ALBATROSS'…. CONNECTION ESTABLISHED, RAW DATA FEED AT 30 MS RELAY DELAY)
(Okay then… Request data replay from Albatross and show me the last hour of footage centred around me in a 2 click radius.)
(ORDER CONFIRMED, DOWNLOADING COMPRESSED DATA PACKAGE…. COMPLETE, REPLAYING FOOTAGE.)
Immediately as Dax's artificial eye lit up, his scenery changed to a birds eye view of the city Kingsted.
(Okay let's start with the obvious suspects, any blacklisted contacts within range?)
(NONE DETECTED.)
(Hmmm…. Are we sure they're tracking us at the moment?)
(AFFIRMATIVE. MOVEMENT IN THE SUSPECTED CHAIN OF COMMAND DETECTED, 4 CURRIERS ACTIVE IN GRID.)
(Then it must be some sort of magic… Replay mana particle irregularities detected by the Vultures and overlay it on the tac map.)
(SWITCHING SIMULATION TO TACTICAL INTERFACE, STANDBY..)
As ICI once more worked its magic Dax's scenery changed once more. First, all the colours and structures disappeared from view, until only white lines appeared in a grid formation on a void background. Then came the details, grey lines traced the architecture of Kingsted and after a few seconds, a city of grey lines had appeared.
(NOW OVERLAYING MANA PARTICLE DATAFLOW FORM VULTURE CUSTOM SENSOR PODS.)
Then colour returned, a cloud of purple and red dust suddenly spread throughout the city with intense movement.
(Filter out ambient mana and up the resolution in a 2 click area around me.)
(LOADING PRECISE DATA FROM GUARDIAN ALBATROSS..)
Suddenly most of the dust disappeared from the map, leaving human-like figures of the dust of all kinds of different colours.
(Now we're getting somewhere.. Filter out confirmed civilian contacts.)
(AFFIRMATIVE.)
(Let's see… Huh?)
Against Dax's expectations, the map turned completely colourless once more.
(Is this the highest resolution data?)
(AFFIRMATIVE.)
(Well shit. Give me a frame of reference, plot me on the map and start the replay from when we left the church's area of influence.)
In response to his new command, Dax's view tightened in on a single blue dot and a few blocks around it.
(Start the replay.)
Then the dot started moving, or more like the simulated buildings around it did, watching the replay for about 5 minutes Dax was about to give up when he saw it.
(No luck huh... WAIT! Stop the replay and bring up quadrant at relative grid R3-5-2-9!)
Responding to his command the simulation momentarily disappeared, and then a new render was build focusing on an allyway that had an extremely faint purple glow.
(Show me footage of it now!)
(AFFIRMATIVE.)
As that area of the simulation turned back to archived footage Dax was momentarily disappointed as it only showed an empty alleyway.
(Cloaking magic huh... Isolate that mana sig)
(ISOLATING MANA SIGNATURE FOR TRACE…. COMPLETE.)
(Wait a second... ICI resume the simulation and focus on that shadow right there.)
Dax didn't even hear ICI's response as the simulation resumed as he deeply focused on a single shadow that covers half the of the alleyway in question. For the first minute nothing happened, then for a split second, the shadow shifted unnaturally, making the meditating Dax grin widely.
(I see you fucker! ICI Isolate that event and use it along with the mana sig as a baseline and map my current surrounding area!)
(AFFIRMATIVE. TASKING ALL SURVEILLANCE DRONES FOR OMEGA PRIORITY REQUEST, TARGET: PRELIMINARY ID 'fucker' STANDBY… 6 MATCHES FOUND.)
(6?... Jackpot~ Notify me the second one of them moves, oh and new id is 'shadow', affirmative?)
(ROGER….. PROXIMITY ALERT!)
As Dax opened his eye and extended his senses after ICI warning he heard the air moving behind him.
"Naive!"
Rolling forward Dax kicked the area behind him and felt it connect.
"Gha!"
"You're 500 years too early to try and sneak up on me my naive disciple~"
Responding to Terra that laid in the dirt behind him desperately trying to regain her breath after Dax had kicked her in the gut, he did a slight bow the spectator knightlings.
"What the…"
"What happened!?"
As Alice in the exoskeleton helped Terra on her feet Dax looked around and noticed the knightlings had all equipped their shiny plate armour.
"That your idea Terra?"
"Y-yeah the- AK! Fcuk, give me a second."
"Take your time~ Also I expect a written report starting at least 3 of the reasons your surprise attack failed delivered tomorrow at noon."
"Fucking demon!"
Finally able to catch her breath Terra took no time to curse her demonic teacher.
"Did I say 3? I meant 10~"
"..."
If looks could kill even the almost immortal Dax might have died to Terra's stare.
"So what are we doing? I assumed you tried to kick me in the head because it's time for some sort of combat training?"
"..."
"I can kick you again if that helps~"
"I wanted the to get used to formation combat in full gear, figured that you would have no problem playing with them for a while."
"Oooh! Good idea~"
Turning to the knightlings Dax gave them a large smile.
"Okay split into groups, one group gets 5 minutes to try and hit me while I just doge. If a group lands a hit I'll give each of them a large gold-"
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE DAX!"
"Oh hello, Marcus~ Fancy meeting you here."
As Dax was about to start training the knightlings the royal knight Marcus appeared at the opposite side of the dirt area inside the colosseum.
"You have not been allowed into this city! Leave now or die!"
As Marcus stated his ultimatum he channelled mana into his glove that produced a 2 meter long sword made of a golden glowing crystal.
"Why don't you calm down and put down... whatever that is."
When he got no response and Marcus only walked closer.
"Okay everyone, please get behind me, he's acting strange."
"What is happening!?"
"Why is a royal knight doing here?"
"I knew something was wrong with that demonkin!"
As Dax himself went into combat mode the knightlings reacted strongly to him going to fight a royal knight that stands at the very top of the kingdom authority, and as he walked towards Marcus a single knightling blocked his path.
"P-please just turn y-yourself in!"
"Paige I know you're a bright kid so please just step aside."
"N-no!"
Responding to Dax's attempt of pacifying Paige she pointed her spear at him.
"Are you gonna try to kill me with a practice weapon?"
"Just s-stop moving!"
"Nope~"
Faster than Paige could react Dax closed the distance and disarmed her and spun her around so they both looked at the closing royal knight.
"L-let me go now!"
"Nope~ Instead of that look at Marcus for a moment."
"HELP ME!.... Huh!?"
It was when she shouted for help Paige and the other knightlings noticed it, Marcus was acting extremely strange. His eyes were bloodshot, not only that but he seemed to not even have noticed Dax grabbing Paige and he appeared to be hyperventilating.
"I told you he's not alright, now get behind me."
"O-okay.."
As Paige got behind Dax he turned all his attention to Marcus.
"Now what the fuck is wrong with you?"
"DIE!"
"Too slow!"
In a split second Dax closed in on Marcus and dogged his wild swing before punching him in the face and knocked him out cold.
"So some sort of mind controlling magic spell that uses aggression to manipulate the target… That's so pathetic.. Alice, get me my weapon and prepare for contact."
["Yes sir~"]
As Alice in the exoskeleton threw the weapons case at Dax 4 shadows appeared in the area. They stood about 2 meters tall, with a strange non human mist of shadowy goo pouring from them, in effect making them impossible to identify.
"What the fuck are those!?"
"Your reward Terra~ I give you the very organization responsible for blinding you."
"!!! YOU MEAN THOSE ARE THE FUCKKERS THAT-"
"Used a demonkin as a tool with a slavery collar. Now there are two more than those right here, hunt them down, neutralize and drag them to the church for 'questioning'. Any questions!?"
"NO SIR!"
["ROGER!"]
"ICI Bring up the net! And move operation Bluelight to phase 2!"
[CONFIRMED. OPERATION BLUELIGHT IN EFFECT, TASKING ALL REAPERS FOR AREA SUPPRESSION AND CONTAINMENT. GODSPEED.]
