Citadel (Book 1): Training in Necessity (24 page)

"Even without that Richards made knife, Drew could drop all three of us in a second or two.  How come he hasn't?"

There was an immense crashing noise as great green hands, tipped with black claws, ripped through the bank's front wall.

"They're here!" Anna shouted, too late.  How had she not noticed they were that close?

"Something's wrong." Jenny said.

And then, ignoring Anna and Jason both, the long, wingless green dragon gave a cry and lunged for her.

Jason did not kill the dragon.  Instructor Bruce had given him a list of situations under which he could act against the other trainees without restraint.  Killing Keridwyn's dragon form was allowed.  For some reason, it did not feel like the appropriate action just now.

Instead, he attacked the nearest of the figures which had followed in the dragon's wake.  He trusted Jenny to handle Keridwyn.  She'd already beaten her once and, given what he knew of her power, should be capable of handling her again.

His target was a humanoid figure, made up of semi-translucent orange and gold blocks with a dark shape at its center.  Michael, he assumed.  Jason held a great many lives at the moment, so had little to fear.  However, the majority of them were plants.  His strength was little more than an ordinary man's.

Jason struck at Michael in the same manner he had practiced under Coach Achala's guidance.  He did not fully understand how the force field manipulator's power worked, but the blocky covering proved sufficient to keep his blows at the throat and joints from having any visible effect.  Luckily, his opponent seemed unusually clumsy.  Jason avoided his return attacks with ease.

"WHERE'S YOUR ARROW NOW, JENNY?" he heard the dragon bellow.  The question was followed by a series of impacts, presumably the dragon destroying chunks of wall or flooring as Jenny avoided its attacks.

Michael took advantage of his momentary distraction, punching him in the center of his chest.  Jason felt an instant's flash of pain over his sternum, before a life was expended to repair the damage.  Staggering back, Jason took a moment to study the fight.

Drew had attacked Anna, moving with such speed that Jason could not follow the pattern of his strikes.  She bled from several light cuts on her arm, but defended herself with remarkable skill.

Keridwyn's current body was approximately thirty feet long, low to the ground and coiling about like a serpent.  It had green scales and a clump of thick black hair at the tip of its tail, as well as a similar mane around its head.  There was no fire but she lashed out with quick swipes of her hand-like claws, interspersed with sudden lunges of her jaws.

"It's not Drew!" Anna shouted.

Jason turned to face her, just in time to see Drew cock his left arm at an odd angle.  He held it in place for a moment, then... Jason was not sure what happened next.

He heard a noise, like the cracking of a whip but much louder.  There was a sharp impact across his neck and the side of his face, hard enough to at least break his neck and possibly crush his skull.  That did not concern him, since it cost him only a single life to fix.  The countless tiny pin pricks that covered that same area were a different matter.

Each wound, tiny though they were, cost him the same resource as a broken neck.  He didn't have enough and he couldn't stop himself.  At a stroke, every life in his store was ripped away.

"No." he said, his voice slurring.

Jason heard a series of rapid gunshots from the street and the golden fields around Michael vanished.

He couldn't move. Why couldn't he move!?  His body contorted as he spasmed.

"What- what's happening?" he tried to say.

The obscuring force fields gone, a body collapsed to the floor.  No, not a body.  Though its arms and legs were obviously broken in multiple areas, Jason could tell it still lived.  He recognized it, Hector, not Michael.  Some sort of trick.  Beyond him, Drew's arms were stretched out and distorted, more like tentacles than human limbs.  Anna was on the grounding, twitching.  Drew's skin was chalk pale and his face melted into a featureless... Jason didn't know what.

Jason was frightened, almost as badly as under Duncan's influence.  At least this time he knew the reason, understood it.

He could hear a series of muffled explosions from the back of the bank and the dragon cried out again, loud and shrill.  Jason recognized the pain and fear in it.  What should he do?

Jason was badly injured.  He could feel the beads of blood on his skin, the tiny wounds that weren't healing.  There was some kind of poison in his bloodstream.  His allies were occupied, disabled or absent.  This was only a training exercise... but he couldn't remember the last time he'd been without the shield of at least a few stolen lives.

He could be hurt, maybe even killed.

Jason's ongoing contortions brought Hector into the center of his field of view.

Jenny was lost in the music.  Its grip was getting stronger all the time.

She leapt straight up, legs spread wide, and planted both hands on the top of Kerry's head.  She used the extra height that bought her to roll forward, twisting as she went.  Jenny was able to get a grip on one of the stubby spines that ran down the center of Kerry's back.

Even as she tried to figure out how she'd done that, she fished in one of the pouches on her belt.  The movements didn't seem to track.  She retrieved one of her slap charges.  It was roughly the size and shape of a sponge, one side red and the other blue.  Jenny released her grip and slapped the charge against Kerry's neck as she fell.  The red half contained a quick acting adhesive, enough to hold the device in place for a few seconds.

As she landed on her feet, knees flexing and arms outspread, Jenny heard the shaped charge go off.  Kerry screamed in pain.  Her flailing limbs and tail crashed into furniture and shattered the floor.  Jenny wanted to stop, run back into the vault and hide, but the music wouldn't let her.  Its tempo was building, pushing her forward.

She sprinted towards her fallen teammates, making no attempt to avoid Kerry's oncoming tail.  Instead of crushing her head, it vanished as the dragon died.  For a moment, she wanted to break down and whimper, then she was caught up in the music and everything was okay.

Sammy steadied her light weight rifle, taking a moment to line up her shot.  She liked the pistols better, but they weren't accurate past ninety two feet, close enough to let him see her.  Instructor Bruce said they had a lot of penetrating power but she didn't know if they'd be able to get through Michael's forcefields.  Luckily, as long as Michael didn't know she was there, Sammy wouldn't have to find out.  She squeezed the trigger on her rifle, dropping the gun as soon as she heard the shot.

The Jordan type's knee shattered and Sammy appeared, hovering above him.  She held two pistols, one pointed at each of his eyes.

"Bang, you're dead." she said, doing her best not to squeal with joy.

"Aaah!" he screamed, clutching at his leg.  "Motherfucker, that hurts!"

"You're dead Michael, drop the shields or I'll have to shoot the other one."  Wow, she sounded totally badass.

"They're down." he gasped out.

Satisfied, Sammy shot straight up, stopping near the top of the dome, and took a second to scan the area.  All the Hectors in sight were either taking cover or moving towards one of the dome's exits.  This thing really was huge. How did it stay up?  It didn't seem like stone should be strong enough to support a dome with a radius of thirteen thousand one hundred and ninety two feet.

"Woops," she muttered to herself, "can't get distracted like that, not anymore."

She didn't see Fred or Kerry, thank God, she really didn't wanna have to fight her.  Just flying had turned out to be more effective than she'd ever dreamed... but still,
dragon
.  Anna was down and so was Jason; she could see a Hector clone lying between them.  Jenny was running towards Kelly so-

"Wait, Kelly?  What the-?"

Not stopping to think, she pointed her left pistol, squeezed, then rushed forward as quickly as she could.

The tentacle whip worked perfectly, though Kelly was still having trouble getting her transformed arms to do anything else.  She switched back to her regular form, well, her regular form plus a few of the upgrades she'd been working on with Instructor Bruce.

The paralytic drug he'd had her store seemed to be working on Anna.  Good thing, too, Kelly had been shocked at how much of a fight the other girl had put up.  Everyone said she was only near the top of the rankings because of a fluke but... Wow, that had been really good for someone without physical powers.  She felt pretty bad about Jason though.  He seemed to be... kinda weak, like Sammy, but without all the scouting and stuff that flying would let her do.

Her gaze fell on Hector.  His duplicate?  Whatever.  Fred had come up with a really good plan but she wasn't... comfortable with it.  Especially the part where she'd pretended to be someone else.  It made sense, give the other guys the wrong idea about who they were up against, but she hated-

Hector's head exploded and she went blind.  She staggered forward, her hands on her face.  She was blind.  Her eyes were destroyed.   She tried to fix them but there was something stuck in them.  Kelly tried to absorb it but it didn’t work.  It felt like... slivers of bone?  Why couldn't she-

She heard a gunshot and felt an impact to the side of her head.

"What?"  Kelly said.

"Give up Kelly, I don't wanna hurt you." someone said.  Sammy?

She tried to smile.  "Hey it's fine, just training, right?"

Sammy opened fire.  Kelly could feel the bullets hit her chest and bounce.  Her ribs were fused into segmented plates and basically made of diamond now.  It'd take a lot more than bullets to stop her.  But... she'd heard the shots and had a rough idea where Sammy was hovering.

Kelly swung at her, changing her arm to the tentacle shape in mid-arc.  She felt some kind of impact in the middle of her back, not hard but just enough to put her off balance.  She stumbled and missed.  What was that?  It felt like there was something stuck to her back.  She reached back with the arm that still looked human but couldn't quite get to it.

Kelly couldn't see it, but Sammy winced as whatever it was that Jenny had just hit Kelly with exploded.  Bits of her friend were scattered everywhere.  It left enough of a ringing in her ears that it took her a moment to realize the tone had sounded.  The match was over.

Sparring Field

Hector was present for the post exercise discussion, despite not having been involved in the fight.  At least, he hadn't been one of the combatants, just a victim.  That was Operative Richards' punishment, the compromise that had let Hector stay at the Citadel.  He got to be a 'training assistant.' 
She stumbled and nearly fell.  Hector caught his mother, supporting her with his bodies.
  That meant he participated, in some fashion, with just about every training exercise or practice session that involved one of his classmates.  Usually he was a test subject, sometimes a stand in for innocent bystanders.  Bruce had wanted to make that last one a permanent assignment.  Good thing Director Melody had overruled him.

It was a short walk to the bathroom, but one she could rarely make on her own.  Oddly, she was less reluctant to use the bedpan on the good days.

"Overall, you did well.  I can see clear improvement in all of your fighting capabilities." Coach Achala addressed the day's 'operatives.'

Tomorrow, they'd swap roles and be the criminals.  Teams would be assigned at the last minute, supposedly at random.

"Michael was able to steal from the jewelry story while your group was occupied at the bank.  However, simple theft is far less important than loss of human life.  You were right to prioritize the bank and its greater chance for civilian deaths."  Coach Achala smiled, radiating warmth and approval.

He helped his mother get back into bed, trying not to notice the trembling in her limbs.  She lay down and he pulled the blankets up to her chest.

"That was Jenny's call." Samantha volunteered.  "She said we should hit them there, cause otherwise Kerry would try to help Michael and that would be, well, that'd go really bad."

Achala nodded.  "You're probably correct.  Well done Trainee Awesome."

She blushed and mumbled a thank you.  Hector thought it was sweet.  As effective a fighter as she was, as firm and decisive as she'd been on the battlefield, she was still humble and a little shy.  Jenny really was pretty Awe-

"That's it!"  He couldn't restrain the exclamation.

Coach Achala and the rest of the group turned to face him.

Hector watched her sleep.  She was so thin, always hurting and never truly happy.

"Sorry," he said, "couldn't help myself.  I just figured out Jenny's power and..."

He'd been speaking in stereo.  The other two hims, the ones made as part of the match, turned and headed back to the oversized dome.

Doctors couldn't do anything to counteract the effects of Chemo's power.  Healers couldn't fix her, couldn't even give her a moment of genuine respite.

"Y'know, I appreciate you getting all excited over it..." Jenny grinned, "But I told everyone my power on the first day."