Citadel (Book 1): Training in Necessity (40 page)

His strength wasn't a useful weapon, but it let him carry a ridiculous amount of equipment.  His flight might be slow and ungainly, especially with the extra weight, but George still had more battlefield mobility than most.  The scales, claws and flame breath were now useful back-ups to his new, custom made inch-thick steel armor and M nineteen automated grenade launcher.

George regained his confidence and soon found that while his new approach still left him ineffective in a one on one confrontation with most of his classmates, he was invaluable in the group exercises.  There are very few scenarios that don't get easier with the application of a few forty millimeter grenades.  It helps when the grenadier is highly mobile and too tough to be taken out easily.

All this goes to explain why George was the second lowest ranked combatant in the class.  His talents simply lay elsewhere.  He knew it and was comfortable with the fact.  This is also why he considered letting Jason win.  He didn't know the guy but George had seen him in action enough to realize he was the only trainee less suited to a straight fight than George himself.  Worse, he was completely lacking in useful, indirect combat skills.

That budding sympathy vanished when the fight started and Jason took off his sunglasses.

San Francisco Citadel Branch Office

Suzy Nguyen stumbled as she stepped out of the gate.  Its exit side was a few inches off the floor.  After regaining her balance, she turned to face the gate.  From here, it seemed like she could see right into the Tower's Gate Room.  She reached out to touch the gate's surface and her hand just stopped.  She could see her skin compress but there was no sensation of resistance, no feeling of contact. Incredible.

After a time, Suzy left the gate room.  She'd enjoyed examining the office's single arrival gate, but the outgoing...  That darkness was just creepy and she needed to call her office.  They'd be happy to know that she had more than enough footage for a feel good special.  It was a pity though, she'd been hoping for something more.  Not necessarily a scandal or anything like that.  Suzy just enjoyed knowing things.  The right info on the Citadel could've given her leverage, maybe even made her career... ah well.

At least she had that girl's impromptu speech.  It would make a good focus for the story, especially if she framed it right.

Sparring Fields

Death.

That was what George had seen.  If someone had asked him earlier, he'd have told them that that wouldn't be such a big deal.  With the kind of training the Citadel did... frankly, he'd thought he was going to die on more than one occasion.  Since he couldn't remember that one exercise, and with the way Retcon's power was supposed to work, it was likely that he actually had.  But when he'd looked into Jason's eyes...  He'd flat out known the other trainee could kill him.  Not thought, not feared or understood, he'd
known
it.  Of course he'd yielded.

The other trainees he spoke to didn't get it.  They watched the same thing happen a few times, spoke to Jason's opponents, and they decided it was a trick.  Obviously he'd been holding out, waiting till the last phase of training to show off part of his power set.  The popular theory was that he had a more specialized version of Warp's ability.  It wasn't until Jason's ninth fight of the day that someone tested it.

Benjamin Stone's terrakinesis was powerful, versatile and capable of affecting a wide area.  It was generally assumed that if he'd had any interest in the challenge rankings, he'd have wound up in the top ten.

His classmates watched as Jason beat him effortlessly.  Ben kept his eyes closed, relying on what he called his 'tremorsense' instead.  He pulled stone walls from the ground to slow his opponent's advance, formed the earth into spikes then launched them at Jason with incredible force and made a kind of rocky armor to protect himself and effectively magnify his own strength.

The spikes tore through Jason's body but he healed instantly.  The walls were taken down with a single, casual kick each.  The fight ended when Jason methodically tore the armor from his body and placed a hand on his neck.  He didn't squeeze, but no one doubted that if he had, Ben would've died.  After that, Jason gained three ranks without a fight.  His opponents forfeited rather than step into the dome.

Samantha Soar couldn't fight with her eyes closed and she refused to surrender.  She still regretted yielding to Kerry without even trying.  As soon as the match started, she drew two pistols and opened fire while flitting around the dome.  She must have gotten at least a brief glimpse of his eyes because she had tears streaming down her face and her whole body was trembling.  There was no indication that it affected her aim.

Between the shots, it took Jason almost two minutes to pull out the magnesium flare and set it off.  Sammy screamed, dropped the guns and collided with a wall.  By the time she recovered, Jason had his hand on her.

Michael's forcefields barely slowed Jason down.  Fred Ghost couldn't phase his entire body at once and he still needed to breathe.  Jason just set off a tear gas canister and waited, ignoring the other boy's repeated, though successful, attempts to rip out several of his internal organs.  As soon as the fight started, Kelly just collapsed to the ground and didn't move again for several minutes.

That was how it went for a time.  Most opponents Jason faced either yielded without a fight or were beaten through sheer, overwhelming power.  The handful with abilities that should have given them a chance were all neutralized by some kind of trick from one of Hectors' bags.  Somewhere along the line, people just stopped trying.  It wasn't that they yielded, just that their fighting was... half-hearted.

That changed when he hit the top ranks.

In the first second of their fight, Drew left Jason covered with dozens of stab wounds.  They disappeared and reappeared so quickly that he seemed to be a fountain of red.  Jason was able to set off a smoke bomb and the wounds stopped appearing.  For some reason, Drew was unwilling to enter the slowly spreading cloud of gas.  Instead, he elected to use a pistol.  Simultaneously, at least thirty bullets struck Jason in the head, essentially decapitating him.  This was a traditional method of neutralizing high end regenerators but it did no more lasting harm to Jason than the knife had.  Drew yielded when Jason prepared to supplement the smoke bomb with a pair of grenades.

Duncan was not present.  No one had seen him since some time during the week.

Isaac's fight completely terrified the watchers.  His aura was silver-white and brighter than anyone but Hector had ever seen.  There were no clever tricks or stratagems to this encounter.  The two simply walked up and hit each other, once.  The image displayed on the dome's side cut out immediately.

Their Healer stopped the fight to find the dome's interior riddled with cracks, some reached halfway through the wall.  Anna Insight reported that there wasn't so much as a single square inch of the inner surface that was undamaged.  When the Healer entered, the two were standing in the center of the dome, casually speaking to each other.  Isaac calmly conceded the match.  If he was bothered by Jason's gaze or the blood leaking from his own ears and nose, he gave no sign of it.

Gregory Warp came the closest to winning.  Jason fell to the ground as soon as the match started, completely limp.  Warp approached cautiously and reached down to cover Jason's mouth and nose with his hand.  No one had tried suffocation yet.  It might have worked if that had not been the moment when the flash bang in Jason's hand went off.

The disorientation it caused was enough to free Jason from the grip of Warp's power.  By the time the other boy recovered, Jason had a hand on his shin and...

Saying that a limb or a bone is broken implies a whole object with ends that have been fully or partially separated by the damage.  After Jason squeezed, Greg's leg was not a whole object, damaged or otherwise.  It was a badly leaking container of red mush.

Greg yielded.

Anna's fight was odd, though not if one were familiar with their first encounter.  Before the Healer had given his speech, Jason asked her a question.

"Can you tell how many?"

"Four hundred thirty two thousand nine hundred and twelve." she answered, followed by, "I yield."

Keridwyn Dragon's fight was odd in a different way.  Before approaching the Healer, Jason put his dark glasses back on.  More accurately, he put on a replacement pair.  Two of Hector's five bags had proven to contain replacement uniforms and accessories.  Jason's ability instantly eliminated any damage to his body but it did nothing to protect his wardrobe.

It caused an expression on Keridwyn's face that he judged to be 'curiosity.'  When she confirmed this by asking him a question, he was quite pleased.

"Why the glasses?"

"Your previous reaction was somewhat... excessive." he told her.

"My what?  When did I...?"

He was momentarily puzzled but soon realized the source of confusion.  "It occurred during the full class training session, roughly two weeks ago."

"The one no one remembers?"  Her voice was less forceful than usual.

"It is a side effect of Senior Operative Retcon's power." he reminded her.  "Anyone she revives is returned to the same state they were in at the time of initial exposure, both physically and mentally."

"You're... you're saying I died.  Someone... managed to..."

"Yes.  The majority of the class was killed in the course of the exercise."

Jason was accustomed to thinking of the petite redhead as quite pale.  However, in the wake of his statement, she grew even more so.  He was mildly surprised that she did not ask how he was able to remember the event.  Even those who had not fallen during the exercise had been 'Retconned' after Keridwyn's... adverse reaction.

The fight itself was quite short.  Keridwyn summoned her dragon to take her place and it vanished immediately.  This happened three times as Jason strode from one end of the dome to the other.  When he reached her, she was still unusually pale.  Her eyes were wide.  She was making a series of small trembling motions.

Jason placed his hand on her shoulder.  He did not exert any pressure.  By now it should have been clear that touching his opponent was tantamount to a victory.

"That's not your real power, is it?  The strength, I mean."  Keridwyn's voice came slower and more quietly than her norm.  He simply gave the smile that Hector had once called creepy.

Obviously, his final match was against Jenny Awesome.  They met in front of their Healer.  Jenny spoke first.

"You could take them off again, if you wanted."

Momentarily puzzled, Jason soon realized what she wanted and removed his sunglasses.  He also smiled at her.  The expression was not meant to communicate anything in particular.  Jason did not smile to elicit a response from Jenny.  He simply... smiled at her.  It felt nice.

Jenny's return expression was far more than just a smile.  Although she did also smile, just a little.  Her eyes were not open quite as wide as they were a moment before.  She stopped standing perfectly straight, lowering her shoulders and resting her weight on the flat of her feet rather than mostly on the balls.  The near constant, minor motions disappeared entirely.  In short, Jenny went from a near perfect picture of vibrant energy to happy, or perhaps content.

"Why do you do that?" he asked, genuinely curious.  "I know what people see when they look into my eyes.  Why do you respond so differently?"

"Hm?"  She sounded distracted.

Jason repeated himself.

"It's personal." she said.

"Oh."  Jason had not expected the rebuff.  "You do not need to..."

She giggled.  "No.  I mean... it really is personal.  You could kill me.  Every time I look... it's a reminder that
you
could kill
me
.  Any time you wanted to."

Jason blinked.  "I fail to see why that gives you such pleasure."

"No?"  She was still smiling.  "Jason, if you decided to do it, then I'd just die.  There's nothing my power could do to save me.  And it really would be your decision.  It can't influence you or...  I don't know.  It makes sense to me."  She looked down, losing some of that contentment.

"Maybe it's that dying like that, it's a guarantee that I'd be free of its control?  And... and if there's one thing it can't control, there must be others.  I guess... when I look into your eyes, I feel like things could work out okay for me."

He thought about it for a moment.

"I am not certain that I follow your logic, but I suppose that is not necessary.  If my power... my gaze, can help you..."  He thought about it for a moment, decided he had the right word.  "...then I am happy."

The two stood there, quietly smiling.  Eventually, like all good things, it came to an end.

"Um, I'm sorry to interrupt you, Trainee Grim, Trainee Awesome, but the match..."  The Healer's posture was slightly hunched, his voice low and hesitant, but he was correct.

"I am sorry Jenny, but it is time to start.  I believe I will be free tomorrow, if you wish to spend more time together."

"I'd like that." she said, nodding.  "We can start, I guess.  There's... there's just one thing I wanna do first."  She turned to face the nearby crowd of trainees and shouted.  "Hey!  Hey guys!"  Shortly, all eyes were on her.  "Um... look, this is kind of hard to explain, but... I need you all to do something for me.  It's gonna sound a little weird but I think we're all friends by now so I hope you'll just trust me on this."