Chapter 02: soldiers meeting

Chapter 02: Soldiers' Reunion

   AWA. The military organization's goals are to make patrols inside and outside Tecmetriun to ensure peace inside and outside the city. Inside, it acts as a proper police force, while outside the city it was a force that protected those within the borders from monsters and worse, such as the wizards.

   The wizards are a humanoid race like us, but with the ability to manipulate laws and the world itself using something called magic. Year zero in our calendar is marked as the year when the humans and wizards split into independent nations, and to this day there are no relations between the two races, other than one attacking the other.

   It is not known for sure how humans or wizards acquired their abilities to manipulate technology and magic, but it is known that this is one of the 3 miracles of this world. The other two are the fact that humanity has survived a near extinction and that somehow the planet has plenty of resources and conditions for life to exist, since it is not known for how long the years have stopped being counted.

   I remain sitting in a chair near the entrance to some sort of arena, with these thoughts in mind and the frustration of the exam administrator remembering who I am given that I have failed this exam for two years in a row. I never imagined that I would experience this kind of embarrassment, but I have more to worry about.

   The first phase was a battle in which I had to strike a fatal blow at the examiner. Of course this would not kill him, since the examiner is wearing a special suit with damage protection, the same goes for me. It is a vest, armbands, anklets, and a helmet made of light, short white materials with damage sensors. I would pass if none of the sensors were triggered for 10 minutes or if I triggered the examiner's sensor.

   -Keyner Blake, your exam starts in 5 minutes. Go to the practical exam room.

   A voice from the intercom in the waiting room I was in interrupted my thoughts, and in less than a minute I was in the first phase room.

   It was a room made of bractiun, a material normally used in places with the need for intermediate shielding. In the case of the room I was in, it was doubly reinforced.

   There was nothing special about it. Given the size of the room, I could assume that it was used for small units to conduct their training. It was an empty room, hexagonal in shape, with several windows and a roof that could be opened. Next to the entrance to the room there were windows for outside observation of what was going on inside the room.

   A minute after I enter the room, I see a person with the same clothes as Jack, except that he has two triangles within the circles of the symbol on his chest, indicating his rank of officer first class.

   He was a boy about my age. He had a triangular face, with curly black hair and an intimidating appearance, a result of his red eyes, his height of 1.85 and his well built body.

   -You are most welcome, Keyner.

   -Please, Caius, don't take it lightly. 

     Caius Fort, a good friend of mine. The day I met him was not so great. Five years ago, I had punched out some kids who had come to bother me early in the morning, just when I don't have much patience for anything, Naila had said she would not go to school, and Jack was injured and unable to walk. He came to ask why all this was happening, I explained everything to him, and we ended up skipping school together and became friends.

   It had been two years since he had joined the AWA, already an officer first class. Jack was an officer second class, having been there less than a year. Naila, on the other hand, was a captain, and it had been four years since she had joined. Given that we are all 17, she joined very early.

But it didn't matter now. If Jack knew he would be my examiner, then he should have told Caius not to hold back. They would both know that I would not be happy about it at all.

   -I like the hairdo.

   -Sometimes I forget that you rarely visit me or come to class.

   I usually keep my hair to the right side. But today I threw it back, so that it was subtly spiky, and parted both ways. A hair as black as mica. Three years ago, Naila, Jack and Caius bought my black coat with the intention of matching my hair.

   I immediately put my swords down and materialize my two pistols, but leave one at my waist. Caius materializes through technology manipulation two long swords, which were attached to elbow pads, covering his forearms and extending about 45 centimeters. I cannot hide my fascination, as it was the first time I had seen technology control coming from a military man.

   An alarm sounds, indicating the start of the examination.

   I immediately move to my left, taking a few shots, but they are easily intercepted. Taking advantage of Caius' vision being somewhat blocked thanks to the size of his weapon, I move up, placing the weapon that was in my hand at my waist and separating my two rectangular bladed swords, delivering an X-shaped blow.

   -Nothing bad!

   -Disposal!

   We exchanged smiles, until Caius' blades emitted a pixelated glow, and his blades divided into six daggers each, for a total of twelve. Then he stepped away, throwing eight daggers in my direction.

   I am a weaker human than most, and if I already felt pressure with Naila's attacks without her using manipulation, now the situation was more complicated. Blocking the first two daggers with both swords caused me to fall back, which naturally caused me to dodge another four. However, Caius had enough reaction to change the trajectory of the last two.

   I immediately let go of my swords and drew my pistols and fired off shots. Knowing that it was impossible for my shots to completely deflect the daggers' trajectory, since my pistols were of an older model, I rolled to the side. Next thing I knew, some blood was pouring out of my left shoulder.

   Caius throws the remaining daggers and gives a command for the ones that had passed me to come back. I throw my pistols up in a parabola so that they will fall next to Caius in a few moments, then I unite my swords again by the handle and use spinning blows as I advance.

   Caius gives up trying to stab me from behind and returns more quickly than before his daggers, joining them now as a shield, blocking my attack with my double sword. However, the instant my attack was blocked, I separate my swords, where one stays nailed to the ground and the other I keep in my left hand, while with my right I draw one of the pistols that was in the air.

   I fire a shot into the ground, gaining momentum in the air, using special bullets that provoke pressure against my body, and I kick Caius in the head with my heel, but it is blocked by a mini-shield formed by 3 daggers that separate from the main shield. With another 3, he forms a normal sword and strikes a hooked blow.

   With another snap shot, I gain some height and avoid the last attack. I manage to reach for the other pistol I had thrown earlier and start firing several times, but all intercepted by those pesky daggers.

   Caius leaps, and catches up to me in the air, forging the shield again, but adding 2 extra daggers, checking a vertex on the end, which he used to hit my stomach.

   I am thrown to the ground with incredible breathlessness, and use one of my swords to get up. Caius wastes no time and hurls all 12 daggers in his arsenal in my direction.

Forced into it, I use my last round of momentum, being thrown to the side but receiving the last dagger in my left arm. I don't have much time to react to the pain, as Caius arrives in front of me with two kicks that throw me backwards.

   I use my gloves that control my weapons to grab my pistol that remained in the place it was thrown, but two daggers that Caius apparently planted in the place I stopped when thrown appeared and damaged my gloves. Lucky for me my hands came out unscathed, but I had to remove the gloves afterwards.

   He uses another four daggers, two to stab both gloves into the ground and another two to stab my pistol. Apparently he knows that even in combat I could fix them. Disadvantages of having a friend checking you out is that he knows all the tactics you would use to get along.

   Or almost all.

   I pull out of my pocket a sphere and squeeze it hard. Caius sees where I am, and using the last 6 daggers, he creates two swords, which makes this fight from now on a two-blade fencing fight.

   I throw the sphere I had in my hands at Caius, who quickly aims one of the swords at the sphere still in the air, separating a dagger and piercing the sphere. Exactly what I wanted.

   A black smoke covers about a quarter of the entire testing arena.

   -Since when do you use sneak attacks, Keyner?

   Caius asked, but I ended up answering while laughing:

   -Since you started attending classes last year.

   -But I never did.

   -That's right, just as I've never been a stealth fighter. 

   And it wasn't just a joke, because he really didn't attend classes at the regular school anymore since he became an officer in the AWA, only Jack and Naila, since military teenagers choose where to attend classes. But I also don't like to attack by stealth, I just use smoke bombs to get into position or to grab one of my weapons.

   Caius knew this, blocking the frontal attack I made on him. After that, we started exchanging lunges and blocks. I knew that he could very well dematerialize his sword into daggers at the moment of the first block and slice me, but he was as excited about the fight as I was. Two idiots.

   About a minute later, my strength was already draining, until I get a cut on my knee, the result of Caius separating a dagger from one of the swords to hit me in another way. I immediately fall, but keep my swords in an X shape, blocking Caius' swords, which are now in a contest of strength, with me trying to get rid of them, and him trying to stick at me.

   -Don't you have anything to say at this point?

   I understood what he meant. He wanted me to surrender.

   -You're hurt. You have no strength, and your body is weaker than that of a normal person. Besides, you don't have your pistols. Are you sure you don't have anything to say about this situation?

   All the odds at this point were against me. It was really plausible that I would surrender now.

   But only if everything he had said was correct.

   -Actually, I do.

   -...

   -I'm not without my pistols.

   -But what the-

BANG.

   -Attention, exam completed. The contestant Keyner Blake has passed.

   Caius is at a loss to understand what is going on, only that somehow I made a shot that hit his helmet at close range, being marked by the system as a mortal blow.

   -What do you mean? I was careful to damage your gloves and your pistol.

   -You did well, but you would have done better if you hadn't forgotten that I had two pistols.

   He was still perplexed, and became even more so when he looked at my hands, more precisely at one of my swords.

   The handguard on my sword, the little horizontal bar that separates the handle from the blade of every sword, was different.

It was bigger and thicker. In addition, there was a small ellipse of the same material as my pistol with a kind of lever on it. Not only that, but on the side there was a hole from which smoke was coming out.

   It took a few seconds to put the pieces together, in several ways, since that was done in the smoke screen I used.

   -Gunblade. My masters made me think outside the box a bit, but suggested that it was interesting to hide this at first to leave my examiner unprepared. Weren't those two idiots right?

   Caius could not control himself and burst out laughing. Me, soon after.

   It didn't take long for the AWA doctors to arrive and heal what injuries we had. In this case, me. Caius just rubbed some ointment over the scratches I had made on him.

   -It was impressive. How are you feeling?

   -I feel like killing you. You damaged my pistols. But I know you'll pay for the repairs. They're a rather old model, so they'll cost a bit more, you can imagine.

   -Of course, the repair. Hahaha.

   I look at Caius with a contemptuous look.

   -Don't tell me you damaged my weaponry without thinking about repairing it afterwards?

   Caius turns his face away, giving a not-so-subtle hiss and turning away from me.

   -FUCK!

   I start running after him, opening the wound I have on my leg, just to make the doctors wonder what kind of problems they will have to deal with in the future.

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 I leave the military base with my wounds healed. The only things that needed to be healed were my gloves and my stomach. I should have followed Jack's advice and eaten something besides sweet bread and soup for breakfast.

   Walking through the residential area, I spot a person leaning against the wall. He was a grown man who appeared to be in his mid-sixties, with red hair that fell down to his cheeks, relatively pale skin, and eyes flattened horizontally, which were highlighted by the golden yellow color of his irises.

   -I hear you've been approved, brat.

   -Master Cless.

   Cless Xion, he was a friend of my parents, and the guy who taught me how to fight with pistols.

   -I told you to stop with this "master" stuff. You can call me uncle.

 He says this while squeezing my neck with one of his arms, and only lets go when I slap his arm and surrender.

   -Did you get to use your signature gun?

   -Yes, it was really a surprise for the examiner.

   -I told you, didn't I?

   He says this with a big smile and bounces his elbow on my arm. As we walked towards my house, I told him how the fight had gone.

   -Mest... I mean, uncle.

   -Speak up, brat.

   I looked at him with a straight face, which at first surprised him. He was even more surprised when I bowed my head.

   -I, Keyner Blake, thank you for every second that you have guided and supported me. Every cell in my body is in your debt.

   He gives me a smile, and then a light slap on my still lowered head,

   -Idiot. This was all an accomplishment of yours, all credit to you.

   I quickly nod my head, and as if he already knew what I was going to say, he continues speaking:

   -You were a person who thought you were dead weight wherever you went. You wanted a place in the world to claim yours and tell everyone "I am useful". I know you have no interest in becoming a patrolman, but you went down a path that wasn't bringing you regrets, because you knew that you would be sorry if you did nothing.

   He was right. There was nothing holding me back in that world. I couldn't do anything, I couldn't help anyone, I couldn't protect anyone. In the end, my life was going to end with my existence lost in oblivion.

It was not something that was going to take long to happen. Humanity has evolved. It has a much greater strength than the humans of many years ago. Even the life expectancy was longer: a healthy human being would live to be 150 years old.

   My case was different, even though nothing diagnosed my body as sick, I did not have the same attributes as a normal human. An example of this is my life expectancy, which was only up to 75.

   But I had people who didn't let go and gave me reasons to become someone who had the ability to take a place in the world for themselves.

   Jack, Naila, Caius and Cless. My parents too. My older brother would also help me, but I haven't seen him since I was 8 years old, which is when he left home and never came back. There came a time when my parents didn't want to talk about him anymore.

   -Don't forget the only thing that I really taught you, brat: real monsters are not those who can hurt you, but those who really do. And the worst ones are those who take what's important from you.

   I end up not being able to hold on and hug Cless, while I start to cry.

   -I... did it *snif*

   -Yes... you did it.

   Cless says goodbye to me saying that my parents will be back tomorrow afternoon, at a time that I will probably have already taken the exam with code core. He still asks if I don't want to drink with him, but I tell him that my parents would probably kill him if I drank on his account.

   It doesn't take long before I get home. To my surprise, Jack and Caius are waiting for me at the door.

   -Look at this.

   -Welcome back.

   I can't hold back a tear that was begging to come down from my eye, even though I had already cried on Cless' chest.

   Just then Caius points back, I turn around and see Naila, with a smile on her face, coming towards us. 

   -Captain Ketley!

   The two of them get into a standing position in front of the girl. Which was quite funny, because she was eating a chocolate bar and for some reason didn't expect this treatment.

   If I didn't know her, I would have no idea what happened, but when I saw the two idiots on the floor complaining about some chest pain, and Naila dematerializing her swords, I had understood that she hit them with the handle of her swords.

   -I already said that off duty, I'm just a friend. Besides...

   She turns to me and casts a proud look:

   -...let's start our first meeting.