Aftermath

Tigra opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling, seeing the white of the medical bay. She looked around the room and noticed several injured soldiers in the bay. Almost all of them belonged to the invasion force against Thaymor.

The sound of light beeping entered her ears a few seconds later, causing her to lazily move her head towards the direction and found herself hooked up to a device with several numbers on its screen. She recognized blood pressure and oxygen intake but other than that, the numbers meant nothing to her.

She tried sitting up but felt a slight pinch against her skin and looked down. She wore some kind of medical garb that she could tell had nothing on her chest, yet she still had the gray pants she usually wore.

She found an opening and pressed her hand on the area that felt off and found bandages on her chest and gut that wrapped all the way around. She messed with it and found that it was lightly stuck to itself or other bandages.

She took a look at her sheet and came upon a new discovery.

Tigra Age: 17

Level 28 (1280/5500)

HP: 1200/1775* HPR: 120

MP: 590/590 MPR: 120

STM: 600/887.5* SMR: 120

STR: 16* (24) DEX: 66* (99)

CON: 60* (89) INT: 59

WIS: 60 CHA: 34

Status: Weakened [13:14:37:42]

*Your body may be strong and fast healing, but there are methods out there that can limit or detriment your body. While weakened, your stats are lowered based on how hurt and what affected the body.

…

"Great. While not a large hit to Strength, that really hurt my Dexterity." She muttered to herself before looking at the time going down every second. "To make matters worse, I'll be like this for the next 13 days."

She leaned forward completely this time before seeing a button next to her and recognized it as the call button. She's come here before when she's gotten injuries that her healing factor could take care of but would still rather get the opinion of someone who knew their shit, especially when she was younger.

As she grew, she had slowly stopped coming here when she had gotten hurt, seeing more and more proof the kind of injuries that her body could heal on its own.

She pressed the button before it glowed yellow, indicating that it had been pressed. The reason she had been told in the past is that the glow is to tell the patient that the signal had been sent and doesn't need to be pressed multiple times.

Doing so tends to make the staff believe that an emergency is happening and not someone just calling a nurse or doctor to ask a question.

A few minutes go by before a woman just taller than her walks in, her short crimson hair bouncing with her steps, her eyes trailing what must be her medical record as they slowly went in one direction before returning to where they started.

Her green eyes look up from the clipboard.

"Been awhile, Tigra. I started to think you became afraid of me."

"Anyone would be afraid of you Doc. If you aren't slightly afraid of the people who know how to break a bone to reset it, you don't have the right priorities." Tigra admitted. "Anyways, can I leave Rose?"

"Once I inform you of your injuries and give you the needed prescriptions, then you only need to sign out and you're good." Rose informed. "Desperate to get back out there or bored?"

"A mix of both. You no doubt know that I can't stand sitting in one place I don't want to for long. But I also have a duty now to be ready to be sent back out to fight as soon as I can be."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Great, you've been infected by Restless Soldier Syndrome already. You were already a pain enough without it. If you keep that mentality, you and I will be seeing each other much more often than we like."

"Nah." Tigra waved off. "That new princess was the cause of this."

Rose inhaled sharply. "The one that injured 100 soldiers without a scratch and could throw our combat drones with one hand with ease? The one that at least two dozen soldiers are dead due to her actions?"

"100 huh. More than likely though. 8 feet tall with long blonde hair?" She received a nod. "That's the one."

"You are aware just how close you were to entering the other category, right?"

"I know I was hurt. Why don't you give me my wounds analysis?"

"Well, you had a couple of fractured ribs, a thinly cracked sternum, and a couple of ruptured blood vessels." She read off. "When you arrived, I had been informed that the field medic patched you up as best they could, but you were still on Death's door when we got to you. You required some transfusions and a surgery to fix you up."

She looked at Tigra with some seriousness.

"We know that you have a strong healing factor, yet it seemed noticeably absent for the first hour after you arrived. Only once we had gotten you out of surgery did it seem to start kicking in. Can you think of any reason why that may have happened?"

"My opponent and the surgery." Tigra answered. "My opponent seems to have some kind of ability to halt my healing factor. I noticed it about 10, maybe 15 minutes after we retreated. By then, my surface wounds should have started to close, if not completely close. Yet, the wounds stayed the same. As for the surgery, it wouldn't make sense for it to try and heal what is being done if something or someone is already helping with fixing me."

In reality, the surgery likely counted as 'battle' since she would have been taking constant damage and healing from their methods. Thus, her healing factor would not have engaged at full potential while under surgery.

Rose started to write things down.

"But I feel fine now, with the exception of a little fatigue."

"Well, then I need to get your prescriptions to help you recover if you plan to go back out there so soon." Rose informed before leaving.

She came back later with some pain relievers and some pills that provide extra nutrients needed to help repair any lasting bone damage and help increase blood reproduction to replace any loss of blood.

A few minutes and she was walking out of the hospital with her slightly damaged shirt, her armor not being enough to completely stop the powerful blow from whatever the hell Adora had turned into. She thought about heading back to her barracks until a soldier approached her.

"Senior Cadet Tigra?" He asked for clarification.

"I am her." She nodded.

"Lord Hordak wishes for you to report to his throne room for debriefing."

Tigra did nothing but blink from surprise.

"Huh. Alright, I'll make my way there."

The soldier nodded before leaving, likely to inform his superior that the message had been delivered and that she was on her way.

She changed directions to head to the throne room and had to pass a few younger soldiers and she began to hear strange things.

"That's her? Thought she'd be bigger."

"She was a blur. Practically unseen."

"Took a hit straight to the chest and walked it off like it was nothing for over ten minutes."

"Only one who seemed to deal actual damage."

At first, it was interesting but it quickly grew old on her 10 minute trip until she reached the throne room, which opened for her.

...

She walked into the throne room before kneeling in front of Horde Lord Hordak. His body was hidden by the shadows that stopped roughly 8 feet in front of her. His red eyes seemed to glow in the dark.

"Senior Cadet Tigra." He started. "I've heard many stories involving you from the past day. Inform me of what occurred on the mission of Thaymor yesterday from the moment you arrived to the moment you retreated."

"Yes, Lorde Hordak." She started.

If there is one singular person you don't get on the bad side of, it is the one running the kingdom that you are currently inhabiting.

"At 1700, we arrived at Thaymor. I informed my Force Captain that I could sneak into the town and provide reconnaissance of any potential guards and locations of importance potentially missed before we had arrived. While undercover in the city, I had discovered a princess hiding among the city folk. Princess Glimmer, the Princess of Brightmoon."

Lord Hordak's eyes narrowed at hearing the princess of the kingdom that had been a thorn in his side had been hiding among them since the beginning of the attack.

"Before I could radio it in, someone had ordered an attack on the opposite side of town, quickly drawing the princess's attention. Only by seeing her head in that direction, did I notice that she had a companion. An archer with different versions of trick arrows, not limited to adhesives, nets, and armor piercing arrows. After 10 minutes, the two of them teleported out of my sight. I was then ordered to return to my squadron. After I arrived, Senior Cadet Catra and several other soldiers we were assigned to were about to either capture the archer or eliminate him. Then…it happened.

"A blinding light occurred before a new foe appeared. An eight foot tall woman, muscular, and a blue bladed sword. She stabbed it into the ground before the ground seemed to implode underground and gave way under our troops. A few of our combat drones attacked, only for the woman to easily pick them up and throw them to the side. A couple of our troops rushed the woman but were easily swept to the side.

"Seeing as the normal soldier would only get injured or killed, I decided to intervene and provide some breathing room if possible. I used a spell to help bolster my speed and engaged. I managed a successful first hit against her, yet she seemed more surprised to be hit than from any pain I could have inflicted. I followed it up with a second attack with my claws, only for her sword to stop my claws. After a few seconds, I managed to sneak in another hit before she finally landed her own. She had swung her fist to the side with such strength that I practically flew away from her and rolled for about 3 or 5 seconds. That hit almost killed me. I struggled to my feet before a retreat had been called and returned to my Squadron and fell back with them."

After giving her report, she went silent. While she may not fear Hordak, he could get in her way much more than Weaver could. While Weaver had magic and experience under her belt, Hordak had Intelligence and technology on his side. This room could be trapped in ways she would never know and would only find out if used against her.

"Intriguing. This princess came from nowhere and easily out muscled everything thrown at her. From the video retrieved by our remaining bots, she took blaster fire that could knock over a tree in one shot with no scratch." He leaned forward. "Yet you managed to wound her. While it was nothing more than a light scratch that broke skin, you still did more than the artillery provided for the invasion."

"Tell me, Senior Cadet, are you aware of the casualties that occurred? Of the 200 soldiers sent to capture Thaymor, 89 are injured and 23 were killed. The Force Captain you served under for the attack was one of the fallen. We are a Force Captain short."

Hordak held out his hand and opened it, revealing a badge with a stray beam of light bouncing off of it, revealing it to have a green outer casing with yellow on the inside with green wings and a small diamond between the bottom of the wings.

"Will you continue to improve and prove your worth as a Force Captain?"

Tigra felt like she couldn't move. She had expected to give a report of the battle and be sent on her way to wait for the next mission she would be sent on. She never would have seriously guessed that Lord Hordak himself would potentially promote her.

"I…I will. I'll continue improving until I can confidently say that I will always end my fights." She declared.

"Then rise." He declared before his outline stepped closer to her before he dropped the badge into her hands. "Continue helping us liberate the kingdoms from the princesses, Force Captain Tigra."

"Of course, Lord Hordak."

"You will be briefed on more information in three days in a meeting that will be sent to your device. Dismissed."

Tigra walked out of his throne room while adjusting the badge to sit just above her left breast and looked at the new message.

[Quest [Moving up the Ranks] Completed!]

Rewards: 10000 EXP, Title: [Force Captain], 1x Trait Upgrade

Leveled up! (2x)

Tigra, Force Captain Age:17

Level 30 (80/5900)

Attr. Points: 20

Skill Points: 4

…

[Titles provide a passive effect with those who know of your position. However, titles can be lost from future actions.]

[Force Captain - This proves to those who know that you are no ordinary grunt of the Horde. With this title, those of the Horde gain 30 Rep with you automatically. However, the opposite is true for most of the Horde's enemies]

She narrowed her eyebrows in slight confusion at the extra reward given for being promoted within her first year of service. No later did a screen pop up.

A Trait Upgrade has been acquired. This semi-rare upgrade does exactly as it says. It improves a trait you already have and pushes it to evolve.

Choose a trait you have in possession to upgrade:

Night Vision → Night & Thermal Vision

Stealthy → Silent

Razor Claws → Obsidian Claws

Quick → Speedy

Primal Instincts → Primal Senses

…

[Razor Claws] has been selected to upgrade. [Razor Claws] has evolved to [Obsidian Claws].

[Obsidian Claws - When attacking an enemy with your claws, you do (2*DEX + STR/2) with the bonus of [H2H] included.]

…

She determined her claws since she would be using them most of the time and would therefore be noticed more times than not. She then got to allocating the Attr. Points she gained and put 2 skill points she just received into [H2H] , seeing as that has been getting slower to upgrade, and 2 into [Dash].

[H2H Leveled up (6x) - 70 →76]

[Dash Leveled up (6x) - 68→74]

Milestone [Hare] reached: 100 DEX. Increases movement speed by 25%.

Milestone [Iron Body] reached: 100 CON. Decreases damage taken by 25% after resistances.

HP: 1383/2075* HPR: 207.5

MP: 630 MPR: 120

STM: 692/1040* SMR: 208

STR: 25 DEX: 116

CON: 104 INT: 63

WIS: 60 CHA: 34

Movement Speed: (DEX/9)*1.25. 16 MPH

…

[Quest(s) Added!]

One Step Closer

Now that you have been promoted to Force Captain, there are only two more steps to becoming Horde Lorde. Force General and 2nd-In-Command.

Objective: Become a Force General

Bonus Objective: Become Force General in 2 years

Reward: 25,000 EXP, Title: [Force General], ???, ???

One Step Left

The last step before becoming Horde Lorde is to become the 2nd-in-Command. Through this position, you will learn nearly everything you will need to know to smoothly transfer into becoming the Horde Lorde in the future.

Objective: Become the Second in Command

Bonus Objective: Become the Second in Command in 3 years

Reward: 50,000 EXP, Title: [Second-in-Command], ???, ???

The New Ruler

The time has finally arrived or it is time to plan for the inevitable. One day, you plan to be a/the Horde Lorde, either alone or with Catra at your side.

Objective: Become a Horde Lorde

Bonus Objective: Become Horde Lorde in 5 years

Reward: 100,000 EXP, Title: [Horde Lorde], 3 trait points, 2 trait upgrades, ???, ???

…

Tigra looked down at her claws and noticed that they seemed to have grown slightly darker.

'I wanna fight Adora again.' She smirked with a hint of want.

Ever since the third year of the Academy, she hadn't been able to truly fight to her heart's content due to just how quick she started becoming. No one besides Catra could keep up with her speed and fewer wanted to fight when her claws could come out.

But that form that Adora took, she barely noticed her attacks yet she gained so much EXP for [H2H] against her, confirming that the skill gains EXP based on how much damage she's done with that skill.

'Combat skills are based on damage, most spells and non-combat skills seem to increase based on the amount of time working on them or the amount of MP used.' She determined, walking back to her quarters to rest for the night.

She passed a few soldiers and noticed a few stood straighter as she passed and it took her a second to remember that she is no longer Senior Cadet Tigra.

She is Force Captain Tigra.

The remembrance brought back her smirk all the way until she laid onto her bunk and closed her eyes, happy that the day went better than she expected after failing to take Thaymor.