Gearing Up

While Cassius left to return to the labs. Nora led Katelyn and Wynter to a storehouse in the basement. It was two floors below the basement Katelyn had found and been storing their food and water in. The room was larger than most aircraft hangars. It still had the white walls and flooring that seemed standard in the building, in the left corner of the room, had several dozen standing displays with three different sets of armor on the displays. In the middle were several strange rigs that both Wynter and Katelyn couldn't determine the use of. To the right, there was a large firing range and weapon racks with strange firearms. There was also an obstacle course on the far side of the room. Nora led Katelyn and Wynter to the left corner with the armors.

"These are the Warsoul Armor and Secondlight Suit. The Warsoul was developed solely by my brother and me, they are the best offensive combat suits. The Secondlight suits were developed by Dawnlight Labs as an improvement over their Firstlight Suits. It is invasive, impractical, unfit for combat, a complete waste of time that should never have been sold. Alas, here it is if you want to be the best punching bag on the battlefield by all means please choose it."

"Why are there two of them, what's the difference, they look the same, you guys lack creativity," Katelyn barely held in a chuckle hearing Wynter's word, while Nora seemed a few seconds from exploding her pale face now red.

Unexpectedly Nora didn't explode as Katelyn and Wynter expected. Instead, she urged Katelyn to pick and wear a suit. Katelyn picked up the Secondlight suit and quickly stripped down on the spot and wore the armor. Wynter in her usual childishness covered her eyes and was even blushing, while Nora on the other hand was speechless.

"I've lived in less than okay conditions for a year do you think we've always had the time to pull our pants up before fighting the next monster and we're all women here what do I really care?" Katelyn brushed of the embarrassed and exasperated looks of the two and continued, "Now do I turn this on, or is wearing it just fine?"

"Tap the chest plate, it will compress itself. It's going to be painful though like I said the Secondlight suits are invasive. I'll explain more when you're done."

Katelyn tapped the chest plate as she was told to and the suit immediately clung to her like her own skin. It became a sleek form-fitting bodysuit, the chest plate expanded and covered her torso, back, and abdomen. Another thin plate came out of the forearm and thigh areas covering both in a short time. Although the process was only a few seconds long she screamed, howled, and whimpered like a wounded yet still ferocious animal. Before she could recover from that Nora quickly put a helmet on her head. The helmet was small and fit the sleek design of the suit. It morphed itself and made room for her loose hair.

Nora explained to Katelyn who remained unmoving, "Those needles you felt is how the armor was meant to turn on. In truth, I didn't think it would turn on. When Dawnlight designed these suits one of their... Hmm, 'fringe' scientist wanted to forego any kind of battery so he opted for the biological energy in the human body as he put it. Their test showed that the energy that needed to be produced to run the armor was inhuman."

"So you used me as a guinea pig," Katelyn said through gritted teeth.

"Not really like I said, I didn't think it would turn on you would've just had to endure the needles. Anyway, head to the rigs, you should crawl. You'll need to learn how to walk again."

Katelyn took a step forward and rocketed across the hanger crashing into one of the rings. Despite the speed and force of impact, the ring didn't budge. Katelyn wasn't as lucky she bounced off the ring and slammed into the floor. Without a word, she crawled to the rigs to the annoying tune of Wynter's laughter. Nora strapped her into a Harness on the rig and turned it on. The Visor on Katelyn's helmet lit up and displayed so much information she quickly became dizzy. It displayed muscle fatigue, injuries, speed, battle scenarios, movement within sixty meters of her on all sides, and a bunch of other information.

"You should be seeing the HUD now. It's going to show you a bunch of stuff you can discover all of that later. For now, just ask for 'Physical Assessment' it'll wipe away all the unnecessary bits."

Katelyn did as she was told and the motion detectors, battle scenarios, and anything else not related to her physique disappeared from the HUD. The HUD displayed the words Physical Assessment and showed her a variety of movements that she was to follow. Katelyn went through the movements. From the side, Wynter and Nora were watching Katelyn go through a set of rather vigorous workouts and stretches.

"Do you mind if I try out one of those rigs?"

"Grab a suit and go ahead, though I suggest not activating it until your on the rig."

"I don't need one I have my own," the silver armor on Wynter flashed for a brief moment revealing itself to Nora.

Nora quickly settled Wynter into the rig and personally ran the test on her. She was intrigued by the armor Wynter wore, she was certain that Cassius was involved and she now had the chance to privately study his work. If she could adapt the technology perhaps her K.H.A.O.S armor would be even better than the original designs.

Wynter wasn't in a Secondlight Suit or Warsoul armor she didn't have the same bells and whistles. She couldn't run a physical assessment like Katelyn and it wasn't showing her who was around her or how tired she was on a screen. Still, she watched Katelyn and soon started to mimic her movements, a task that became easier for her over time. Though she couldn't see it her movements became more minimal and the rig Katelyn was using started to use Wynter's movements as the baseline, making it harder on Katelyn. Soon enough the Physical Assessment ended, and Katelyn finally got to take a break. She called up the Muscle Fatigue Display and was shocked to see that she was physically in even better shape than when she first got in the rig.

Before she could ask the question Nora explained, "The Secondlight Suit has a... how do I explain. Hmm, it can adjust your physique, it stimulates and accelerates muscle development, strengthens bone, removes toxins in the body. Basically, it encourages healthy living, the physical assessment helps it adjust to you and you to it. Every armor development company still around use the Firstlight and Secondlight suits as the base for our products."

"So this one can do all of that, what does your armor do differently?" Katelyn asked.

"The Secondlight Suit was a technological marvel when Dawnlight introduced it and it's the base for everything after. But they built the Athena System into it, the system is too passive. It interferes with offensive commands in favor of a purely defensive style. My company's Warsoul Armor is the opposite extreme it excels in offensive combat. The Adrenal Conductor in our armor can suppress pain and allow the operator to forcefully surpass their physical limits for a time."

Unnoticed by the two Wynter was still undergoing the physical assessment in a trance. Even if they had noticed her she wouldn't have noticed them. She was learning things about her armor that would leave even Cassius dumbfounded. Without Katelyn, Nora, or even Wynter herself noticing, she arrived at the obstacle course.