Chapter 19-6 Practical Education

Chapter 19-6 Practical Education

Preparation is not enough!

I dont care if you were prepared, trainees! You need to succeed! You need to perform! You need to execute!

As we just saw in gray teams performance, they had full situational awareness, Deep-Nether control, time to shape their surroundings to their advantage, and two hundred more heavy assault drones to deploy.

And what was the result?

They still lost. Right. Can anyone tell me why?

No.

No.

None of you are paying any attention!

No. Wrong.

They lost because because they couldnt perform. Cadet Abernie was left to fend for herself against two separate threats while the rest of her team found themselves lured out of position by two unknown targetsone of them only a golem. And with gray teams Breaker pocketed and killed, the rival cadre gained numericaland firepowersuperiority, allowing further defeats conducted in detail.

Where! Were! You!

Where?

Answer me! Are you going to leave your comrades to die in the field? Are you going to be distracted by the first set of shiny keys Ori-Thaum might jingle in your face? Are you cats or people?

You had a plan. You had preparation. You had time. And you still lost. You need more training. You need more discipline. But most of all, you need to execute! Execute on your strategy! That means being adaptable enough to face changing situationslike one of your foes having an unanticipated Heaven. Or golem support. You need to determine the variables. Keep them fixed to your own favor instead of changing everything to suit your opponents!

This rule stands whether youre fighting as part of a team or operating as a singleton.

Do not shame your own efforts. Live up to them. Were running this exercise again. Exit the plane, gray team! Black team! Good work. Switch out!

Blue team! Red team! Youre both in. Do not make me repeat this lesson again. Red team! You have defenders initiative. Pick your terrain and environmental hazards. Set up your grounds. Combat begins in five.

-Instrument Santanado Starsinger Mondelles, Instructor at Axtraxis Academy

19-6

Practical Education

Quail blew a lungful of smoke into the air as she watched the embers rise from her burning hiflass. The pipe she used was marred by war, whittled and misshapen from shrapnel and gunfire both. But it still worked. Not so different from her. Not so different from any squire that made it past the tenth year. Last long enough and you eventually get better at making choices that keep you alive.

Someday, there wont be anything to chip away, but till then, she'd do her best to avoid an early grave.

This was part of the reason she was smoking just outside the set. She left the production booth and turned off her Incog after the mad bastards started their little death game. Her wards were top of the line; specially made courtesy of White-Rab. Still, she had no intention of trauma-testing them against Fourth and Fifth Sphere Godclads when things didnt call for it.

As a vault door sixty meters down began to hiss and open, Quail spotted the other reason for her temporary departure. Stepping out from her poorly lit set, Cala Marlowe stumbled into view. She moved like she was on Numbwhich meant she probably waseach step half-hearted, with barely enough energy to keep her going. A blank expression clung to her face and she was blinking fast, rubbing at her bloodshot eyes.

Hey, kid, Quail said, saluting her fellow substance addict with her hiflass. Look like shit today. Rough day at work?

It took Cala a moment to notice her, but when she did, a faint smirk crept up her face. Oh. Quail. Are you having a social night or using one of our sets to film a snuff-vic again?

That was one time, and for his boys mind only. Nah. Im here to see you.

Despite the condition she was in, Calas features were impeccable in their symmetry. Her face was devoid of wrinkles and even the darkness ringing her eyes was genetically adapted to be of a lighter shade. The fact she looked about to fall over suggested she probably hadnt slept for the better part of two weeks, and the thinness of her frame screamed of a fast that lasted just as long. The booze reeking from her was a clash of qualities. Some of her poison was sold only to Silvers, but the scent was blunted by the presence of cheaply distilled beer enjoyed by most FATELESS.

Her hair was fashioned in the shape of an inverted v. Fringes of auburn were tinged with platinum highlights stylized in the form of a rising wave. Armored plates sectioned her red leather aero-cyclers jumpsuit while holographic veins crawled down her arms and legs from behind, forming a replica of New Vultun along her back. Her skin glowed like incandescent ivory beneath the dim ambient lighting of the hallway, and as she drew close, the shadow of her nearly two-meter-tall form speared up Quails body.

So, Cala said, her eyes locked on the squires hiflass. Got another one for me, or are you going to be lame tonight too.

With her exoskeletons torso partially lifted, Quail reached into a hidden interior compartment producing another smoke for the younger woman. Gotta make do without the pipe.

Cala took the thin line of white and put it between her lips. Lifting her right hand, she flicked her thumb back as a streak of fire lit the narcotic. Thanks.

Sure, still owe you for helping me put the squeeze on Kasmet.

The thoughtcast host threw her head back and guffawed. Gods, hes such a half-strand. All it took were a couple of winks and there they were: nudes across the Nether without proper censors attached. How he managed to avoid the Paladins for so long, I dont know.

Hes probably got people, Quail said.

But thats not the only reason why youre waiting for me. Alone. Outside a set. Past midnight.

No.

->Canon: Fire for Flesh (IV)

Culturing Bioforms (100/ton)

Mixing Biologies

Draus first Heaven resembled that of a twenty-meter-long flechette with nine rings made up of countless firearms trailing behind it. At fifty meters, Avo could see that it was propelling itself by gunfire, each ring down a bit narrower than the last, with the heaviest guns at the very end. The ordinance unleashed was a constant stream, the rate of fire growing faster by the second.

Drawing on one of his newest canons, Chambers tore the heat from the Arsenalists barrels, but it accelerated onward unimpeded.

{Ah, thermodynamics,} Calvino sighed. {How I mourn for thee.}

Fire exploded out from the heart of the tumorous heart of the Bio-Igniter to swallow the Arsenalist. The Heaven of Guns vanished, but Draus was far from done. Reality fractured before Chambers. The world around them shattered into glass.

Where the Twice-Walker was a furtive creature with three massive eyes and wings made up of shifting shards, the Simulacra was an overwhelming juggernaut unafraid of open combat. The three eyes now occupied the place of a crystalline skull hovering above plates of reflective plating. Twelve blades jagged wings imbued with scintillating brilliance spread out from the Simulacras backside, while a mirror-polished shield and spear filled both its hands. But the manifestation wasnt done. The fractures expanded further, spatial reality collapsing as a bridge. Across twelve separate points in space, twins to the block-sized Heaven of Reflection suddenly slipped out from the ontological fissures.

With knowledge of how her canons worked, however, Avo knew better.

Simulacrae Resplendent wasnt multiplying. Instead, it was just a single entity occupying several points in spatial reality, with each fracture-duplication multiplying its speed and power.

Simulacra Resplendent, Legion of Self (Reflection/Space/Radiance/Glass/Strength)

The Arsenalist of Unceasing Ordinance (Guns/Matter/War/Geomtry)

The twelve Simulacrae slammed together, forming a shield wall even while a river of firepower spewed out from the Arsenalist. The rolling flames flowed through one Heaven of Reflection and spilled out the other, completely misdirected.

Chambers made to move, but wind, water, and space churned around him like a vortex, rooted him in place again.

[Wow, thats annoying,] Chambers muttered, launching a swarm of shrieking exploding bat-bird-spider-whatevers at the dome of Kae. [Wait shes shrinking?]

+Pressing us in,+ Avo responded.

A flick of a glass-made lance cut up. The Bio-Igniter came apart, the slice dividing space around it as well. Just ten, a klaxon sounded from Chambers Meta as he reconstituted himself, Rend spiking with the effort.

REND CAPACITY [BIO-IGNITER] - 97%

Avo frowned. They had barely been in combat for twenty seconds and already Chambers was at the limit for one Heaven.

[Hey, man, I perform good fast. Lastings for the guys that have to rely on endurance.]

{Source: a sample size of one,} Calvino quipped.

Avo grunted a faint note of amusement as he recorded this as well. Improvements needed to be made. If Chambers was going to pursue attritional canons, he needed more options for his Hell. Maybe tweaks to his canon for Rend efficiency as well. Regardless, he needed to be elevated to Fifth Sphere as soon as possible.

He saw enough so far. It was time for him to enter the fight himself. And see what he could glean of his own weaknesses from anothers eyes in the aftermath.

+Chambers,+ Avo said, +Use your other Heaven.+

[What? Fucktopia? Are you sure?]

+Yes. It will make Draus very upset. And that is funny.+

[I mean what if she kills me?]

+I will miss you?+

[...Shits touching, consang, but like I dont wanna die.]

+Good luck Chambers,+ Avo said, as he injected himself back across the session.

[Avooooo]

He left just enough of his Conflagration over to keep Chambers template active and fighting.

Awareness returning to his original sheath, Avo found himself hovering in place in a bio-magnetic cocoon. His Echoheads were floating in pieces around him, sporelings running in mercury-like streams through their discs. Dropping back to the ground, his tendrils snapped together with metallic clacks as he expanded his Heaven and reached beyond the bunker doors.

Forked veins streaked out across the face of reality like lightning bolts imbued with the characteristics of blood. It looked as if reality was granted its own circulatory system, an infection spreading far and wide across the set itself.

Mustering his primaryand most destructive HeavenAvo liquefied part of a block to spike himself past three thousand tons.

But this time, when the Woundmother came into shape, blood did not flow together to form a lone spire. No. Instead, a storm of sanguinity carved matter free from dissolving sections of the district, and hidden in the smoke, a second city began to bubble and rise.

Woundmother, Architectress of Sanguinity (Blood/Matter/Lightning/Biology/Luminosity/Protection/Fire)