Codename freedom drago.., p.6
Codename: Freedom - Dragonslayer, page 6
Victoria’s eyes returned to the conversation at hand, but I saw her apologetic frown.
I’d tickle the psionics out of her later. The reality was, she’d also adopted her mindset because of the world she’d grown up in. Assassination was a constant threat. Despite her ability to live for nearly a thousand years, it might have been statistically less likely for her to live longer than the average Earthling. I didn’t know for sure. I was just as capable of cynicism as the next guy.
As Handshake and Mara left, I bid them farewell. I was left in the microdrone bubble with Victoria and Peter.
Peter spoke first. “She will be missed, but it’s likely better for her to pull out now and focus on the baby. If she can create a home worth returning to, then HandshakeDeath’s performance ratings should improve.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He’s not looking down on Amelia,” Victoria reassured me. “Our positions require that we not ignore the statistical reality. Infidelity and divorce are much higher among military personnel than in the civilian population. On the other hand, married soldiers with families often perform higher than their single counterparts.”
“Exactly,” Peter replied. The lenses of his headset retracted upward so that I could better see his expression. Despite the microdrones doing their thing, he lowered his voice as he added, “It is not so among the Ekseliksi. The spouses of military personnel are held to a much higher standard socially and legally. Also, both parties involved in the crime, regardless of status, face severe penalties. It is exponentially less common because of that.”
“Arguably, the social stigma is more impactful than the legal consequences,” Victoria said thoughtfully. She motioned with a nod, “Do you plan on eating that whole thing by yourself?”
Holding up the tub of ice cream, I grinned. “I thought I might try to bribe an Ekseliksi elite into teaching me more of his secrets.”
“What on Earth gave you the idea that this would be a good tactic to take with Krato Aeneus Raptis?” Peter spat.
I grinned even wider. “If he gets angry enough, then he might accidentally reveal something as he pummels me. Besides, he’s let a few things slip. Like his love for chocolate ice cream. After he punishes me, he might be grateful enough to be more accommodating.”
“It’s your funeral.”
Victoria’s face was all scrunched as if she were battling her laughter, but she got control over herself quickly. There was a hint of worry in her voice as she said, “Are you doing this because we’ll be fighting directly with the other battalions in the next event?”
“Have you received confirmation that that’s the case?” I pried.
She nodded with finality. “The details will likely be revealed after the Gathering of Guilds when Prodos’s Right and Left Hand are on Mia’s Haven.”
My brow wrinkled. “Gathering of Guilds? Like we had in Freedom?”
“Think of it more like a convention where every battalion will attend. There will be opportunities for top talents to mingle, as well as those at every level.”
“Wait. You mean there will be millions of us in one place?”
“Yes, but that’s not all.” Her own lenses descended from her headset momentarily as she scanned something and made a few hand gestures. A small swarm of microdrones flew over, and a hologram appeared above the round platform that they formed between us.
Along the bottom, there were stone letters that read, Gathering of Guilds. It sounded better than Gathering of Battalions. The Gathering of Guilds had been a highly watched event in Freedom, so using the title was a given.
Above the base were statues of familiar figures. The Real Major was there, as was Brendon Black, and Ebrima Okoro. I was among them. It was the best of the best. What was commonly considered the top ten in Vanguard were standing atop a platform over the stone title. It was a little over the top for my liking.
She continued, “There will be special rooms only accessible by rank, so you’ll get to meet the best competitors from the other battalions without the distraction of a large physical audience. It’s to encourage friendly competition, while allowing you to start building relationships with some of the people we’ll be fighting with in the future.
“And Lucius, some of the Founders will be in attendance.”
Until her last statement, I’d been tracking. It made sense. But the Founders were the original group from Earth that unlocked psionics. There were many reasons why they might attend. I couldn’t be certain. Before I forgot to ask, I said, “I’m assuming the Devs wouldn’t bring us together unless they’ll have us competing in some way.”
“I’m assuming the same.”
“And the Founders?”
Peter stepped forward. “They will be there to answer questions, give advice, and take disciples.”
“Disciples?” I grinned as I was reminded of my time training under Achilles.
“Yes. Due to the circumstances, we want to push for Mel to join their discipleship program.” He said it as if he were trying to judge my response like I were an overly sensitive child.
So I took advantage of the situation and cast my eyes to the floor.
Peter began to explain, “Unless we reveal more to Mel, he will benefit from their training the most.”
“Just say it,” I lamented. “You think he’s more talented than me.”
As fatherly as the guy could be, he was also brutally honest. I saw him steel himself for what he was about to say when I burst out laughing.
Victoria rolled her eyes.
I cleared my throat and said, “Sorry. I’m messing with you, Peter. I know Mel is more talented than I am. He’d be my first choice as well.”
The man’s cold expression didn’t change as he replied, “I can’t wait until you try and bribe Aeneus Raptis with ice cream. Hope that you don’t mind me watching.”
I snickered.
“Get out of here already,” Victoria badgered.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, heading over toward the corner of the room with the simulation portal. The microdrones parted for me.
“Spill,” I said at a whisper. “You’ve been quiet. What are you thinking?”
Destiny’s response through my earpiece was rather ambiguous. “I’m just thinking about how Handshake and LadyHeadshot’s lives are going to change and the impact a baby has on human relationships. The sacrifices people make to have children…”
“Don’t get all broody on me now, dronehead.”
Stepping into the portal, I soon arrived in a hilly environment with high grass and sparse tree growth. The trees settled at the top or side of the low-lying hills that looked like layers of green waves surrounding us in all directions.
The square-jawed alien with purple-tinted skin noticed I was carrying something immediately. He demanded, “What is that?”
Facing him, I took a knee as was appropriate. My eyes were aimed at his feet. “Chocolate ice cream, Krato.”
“And why is it here?”
“I have a favor to ask.”
“You think you can bribe me?” The moment he said it, I felt the pressure from his psionic push bear down on me. He rose up on his platform twenty feet from my own until he was several yards above and glaring.
I was sure Peter and Victoria hadn’t taken what I said literally, but I’d been earnest. “I hoped this would anger you enough so that you might do as I ask.”
His eyes bore into me for the longest time. More than a minute later, Krato said, “Speak.”
As soon as he commanded, I glanced up, looking him in the eye. It was considered disrespectful. I would regret it later, but with what I was about to ask, I needed him to know how serious I was. “I want to fight you. To see you at your best, Krato. The other Vanguard participants are starting to unlock Rank D psionics, but I know it will be years, if not decades, before they even come close to true mastery. I need to see what rank D psionics are really capable of.”
“It is too soon. You must walk before you can run. You’ve improved, but you also have a long way to go.”
Today was not a day I’d take no for an answer. “Please. Your most common rebuke is that I don’t fully understand. Open my eyes.”
“It can be discouraging for one so young.”
He was not the type to give compliments, so the fact he’d even mention discouragement gave me pause—just not for long. “I don’t get discouraged.”
Krato’s gaze sharpened. “I’m a father of many sons, néos. You cannot fool me. Out of all the young men I’ve ever trained, you struggle the most.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth as I came to my feet. “Destiny,” I said, holding out the tub of ice cream. It disappeared from my hand a moment later.
“Let’s test your theory, Krato,” I challenged.
The man smirked. “You suffer with the same delusions as every other young Ekseliksi. You dream of what’s beyond your station, but you aim higher than most would dare. I’ve seen the way you look at the Daughter of the Epithumia. There is no limit to what you seek. And yet, unlike all the other young fools, you already know the truth, yet you seek it regardless.”
“Krato,” Peter’s voice filled the space. “Remember your place.”
Aeneus Raptis didn’t back down. “This is something he will hear or today his training ends.”
“Peter,” I called out. “It’s fine.”
Despite one last audible grumble that filled the space, I was left alone with Krato.
“You know what you seek is impossible,” the man continued. “Imitation of the Teleios is a Ekseliksi man’s greatest ambition, but you don’t seek to be as much like him as possible. You seek to usurp his throne. To take his very daughter as your wife and force the Ekseliksi to accept it through the force of will.”
Aeneus didn’t know the whole truth. That Victoria and I had already become one in secret. He had guessed my intentions. I don’t know how he knew. Perhaps it was exactly as he said. He was a father and had trained far too many sons not to discern what I was thinking.
Instead of denying what he said or apologizing, I straightened myself as if he were the very person I must face to make it so.
Looking to the sky, Krato put a fist over his heart, then raised his hand high. His elbow remained bent, and his palm was open as if he were showing that he’d already done what he must.
When his gaze drifted downward and landed on me, he nodded to himself. “Your arrogance must be rewarded as well as crushed. I’ll do as you ask so that you might learn arrogance isn’t a matter of will or desire. Arrogance must be earned.”
As he said it the environment started to change. Instead of rolling hills, grass, and trees, the world became bleak. The ground flattened and vegetation disappeared. The region was covered in rusty orange and brown.
Aeneus Raptis lifted his voice. “My psionic limitations are both weakness and strength. In certain environments, I’m at a disadvantage, but in the right environment, no Krato is my match.”
The world changed, and with it so did the pressure the Krato was giving off. With the change in environment, his psionic output lessened until he was hovering a few inches off the ground, and it was difficult for me to sense it.
“Prepare yourself,” he shouted.
Psionic energy pushed out of my feet, lifting me as I mimicked him. I could feel how easy it was compared to normal. The ground was even more responsive to a psionic push than concrete or asphalt.
I was distracted just long enough while I was testing the surface that I didn’t notice. He was there one moment and gone the next. My psionics spread out more than they already were, and I still didn’t feel him from any direction.
Glancing one way and then the other, I spun as I looked but didn’t find him. That left a single possibility. My gaze climbed rapidly. I found him at what had to be hundreds of feet in the air, except he was no longer ascending. He was falling on me from above. He came swiftly. Like a peregrine falcon, the fastest of the birds of prey, he dove. Except he was coming so quickly, I only had enough time to realize for an instant he wasn’t relying on gravity. He was accelerating right at me.
I tried to move, pushing in one direction. Because of the environment, my Push worked exceptionally well. I felt the world’s resistance like never before. Just as hope swelled, he was already here. I didn’t even have time to react. The next thing I knew, I was in a room so empty that there wasn’t even any dust in its crevices. It was a place I knew well. It was the respawn loading space of the Prime Simulation. The place you went to after you died.
Chapter 7
“Was that really necessary?” Peter asked.
Aeneus Raptis had descended after removing the boy’s head from his body before returning to hover a few inches off the ground. The unopened tub of ice cream appeared in his hand. He began to undo the seal as he answered, “What could be more necessary? Are you afraid it might discourage him?”
“No.”
Flicking through a few screens with his finger, he found what he was looking for and summoned a spoon into the artificial world. As much as he despised technology, he carved out his first spoonful and then took a bite. He knew the food the Cube fed him was real. After swallowing and enjoying the cool sweetness, he asked, “Then what are you objecting to?”
“Could the same point not have been made in a different way? I don’t believe he’s in danger of becoming discouraged, but no one is unbreakable. Why push it?”
Aeneus took another bite and only answered after he finished it. “First, answer me this. Does the boy have a Vasileia bloodline?”
There was hesitation. So many questions remained unanswered, but eventually the man replied, “No.”
“No?” he let the confusion reach his face. “Then why the effort?”
“Victoria needs Kratos if she’s to stand a chance against other Ekseliksi.”
Stabbing his spoon into the ice cream, Aeneus objected, “The boy is talented enough that he would reach the level of Krato on his own without our help. Again, why so much effort on him? As talented as he is, his only truly exceptional trait is his desperation.
“I was speaking the truth when I said he struggles with discouragement more than anyone I’ve ever trained. He reeks of it. I don’t know whether to be depressed or inspired just being in his presence.
“You say you’re not worried about him being discouraged yet fear he might one day be broken? Are you lying to me, Petros? The boy is already broken. Like an old warrior, he’s fallen from the cliff, picked himself up, and found his way back to the top. Now he’s staring down at the chasm below as if challenging brokenness itself to an all-out war. No, he’s already at war with it every waking hour. You expect me to believe you didn’t do this to him? If not, then who?”
For a long moment, there was no answer, but then the migás appeared across from him in the simulated world. The man was small in stature with no physical enhancements to speak of. He wore a dull silver shirt and black pants. Despite his unimpressive stature, Aeneus knew who this man really was. The Epithumia’s assassin of assassins. He didn’t just break honorable combat’s every rule. The man invented ways of killing that would make even the most dishonorable men blush. His only truly redeeming quality was that he was as loyal as a dog.
But what was such a man doing here, worlds away from her Majesty’s side? Appearing before him to discuss the training of a young Ekseliksi recruit, no less?
Peter didn’t look at him. The man interacted with an invisible panel when the world around them started to change.
He commended, “I first saw Lucius on the first night of Freedom. I was more impressed with the man who partied with him than I was with him.”
They were suddenly surrounded by green monsters the size of children that were dressed up in ragged medieval armor. There were dozens of them mobbed together, swarming like beasts to get at the lesser armored humans lined up against them. Then Aeneus spotted the young man. He was running around the outskirts of the goblins with a dark-skinned man and knocking the monsters over as they went. Those that they could finish, they did.
“Lucius had a good head on his shoulders, even if he sorely lacked strength. But then he did something that surprised us all.”
The giant blue hobgoblin bound out of the forest. Lucius joined with Peter, Oliver, and Victoria.
She screamed, “Incoming.”
The young man knocked a goblin to the ground and thrust his spear through its chest with awkward precision. The moment he looked up, he saw the giant’s heading and placed himself between it and the girl, pushing her to the side. Meeting the monster’s mass, he was flung away.
Their group was knocked to the ground, but then people began to fly broken under the hobgoblin’s swing.
Then Lucius came to his feet. He scanned the injured and those who would soon join them. As if possessed, the young man ran at the giant, launching his spear. It was an ugly throw that only landed because of the creature’s size.
The hobgoblin turned.
He ducked under the monster’s tree-club but met its mace with his shield.
Despite having a broken arm, Lucius saw the opening and lunged. His downward slash was far more impressive than his spear throw. It bit deep.
Then the tree-club flew again, clobbering the young man in the back.
The rest of the group took advantage when the hobgoblin was down and finished it. That was when it really began.
They watched as the young man suffered. Peter let him see Victoria at his side. “It pained her deeply that she couldn’t heal him without giving away who she was.”
“Of course,” Aeneus Raptis said as if it were to be expected from the Daughter of the Epithumia.
“He consciously suffered six out of the eight and a half hours it took for his body to repair itself.”
Peter continued his commentary as the scene changed to Lucius charging through the defensive line of a much larger and better-armed version of the goblins before running at another one of the blue giants.
“If I’m honest, I’m not exactly sure what did this to him. I can’t take credit. His injury seemed to be the major event that propelled him down his current path, but I had my doubts then. We helped by giving him opportunities to develop, but… It never seemed necessary. As you said, I think whatever path he took was always going to lead him to Krato.
