Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Sabre Stories: Boot Camp
Sabre Stories: Boot Camp
#1
"Nene."

"Yeah, Sylia?" Nene responded, tabbing the comm line onto her main audio input as she thumbed through a variety of the data that had been coming
directly to her instead of via a turnback from Sylia since she'd met their 'mysterious contact'.

"You recall Irene expressed interest in operating in the field with us."

"Yeah...I thought she'd last a week or two and then go back to the intelligence thing. She struck me as sort of an egghead, really," Nene said,
catching a hint of a chuckle. She frowned. "Hey, you know what I mean. I was the same when you found me, and it took a serious riot act before I was
up..to..snuf...oh, Sylia, you aren't thinking what I think you are."

Sylia's amusement was plain in her tone. "You're right, Nene. If Irene is going to operate with us, she needs to know just how hard the job is.
Which is why we'll be inserting her in the next class of new Sabre trainees running through basic training. Not with full on pressure, given she's
intending to serve in a support role, but enough to rough her up a little bit. To see if she really wants to get into this feet first."

Nene frowned. Sylia'd hardly used kid gloves when inducting her, so why was she acting soft here? Nene certainly had been shocked when she'd discovered
that this Irene Chang was identical to the one Linna'd befriended and who GENOM'd eliminated for her proximity to their Super Buma project. She
suspected Sylia had known even before Nene'd begun her usual background check. But it didn't explain the seeming lenience with which she was treating
her.

"And you want me to talk to Priss and Linna to let them know about that."

"I'll trust you to handle it with your usual panache, Nene."

Nene giggled slightly before Sylia disconnected, then considered the situation. Technically, Sylia hadn't told her exactly what to do....

***

Irene blinked, the phone that she'd received via anonymous envelope a while ago buzzing silently. Looking at the latest brain sim results, she nodded over
to the assistant, waving the phone in the air and getting an amused shooing motion lest they immediately alert (or, more fools they, disrupt the concentration
of) one of the latest eggheads that'd been added since the security breach a week earlier. Irene chuckled to herself. Some of them might have been as big
of primadonnas as Paul, but none of them had his brilliance, so she'd been able to avoid any more direct and open disruptions of the design team.

Stepping into a bathroom, she picked up. "Yes?"

"Miss Wong, we'd like you to come in for a fitting at your earliest convenience. If you could bring another dress for comparison and measuring,
we'd appreciate it."

Irene felt, but did not actually allow, her eyes rolling. The spy games were necessary while she was in one of Crey's facilities, but she was beginning to
wonder how long it would take before the constant discussion of dresses within range of the various audio monitoring devices in here would start rumors among
the intelligence types. She'd have to actually buy one soon or go somewhere that'd justify getting a new dress...

Needless to say, the codewords were simple enough to decipher. It seemed they wanted to see the suit in action. And her, most likely. Well, she had to do so
eventually...

***

The red armored Sabre, Nene Romanova, was waiting for her when she arrived at the meeting coordinates.

"Hey there, Net. What can I do for you?"

The other girl was grinning behind her faceplate from her tone, Irene noted, as a map appeared on her HUD. "We're basically just giving you a
shakedown along with a few other new recruits. Just a simple evaluation setup, you know?"

Irene chuckled slightly behind her faceplate. "A little boot camp?"

"Just some simple exercises we put all the Sabres through. You might even make a few friends," she smiled.

"Uh huh. These the coordinates?"

"Yep!" Nene smiled. "Head there and Dance'll handle the rest."

Irene gave her a skeptical look for a moment longer, before nodding and boosting off.

Nene watched her leave, before smiling as she hooked up to the private server that she'd established early on to allow the initial four Sabres to
coordinate amongst themselves within Riot.

Uploading dossiers: Sacae, Gauche, Genki.

Do you wish to attach any additional notes?

Nene smiled as she sent the files on their way, completely unremarked...

***

"So, we got a group of newbies. What's Nene say about them?" Priss asked, slumped over Linna's couch as the dark haired woman looked through
the files.

"Three of them. First one's registered as Sacae Sabre. Public ID is Lyndis, commonly shortened to Lyn. Found in her armor with little memory of how
she'd escaped or where from. But her combat aptitude is considered top notch....analysis suggests that she's a third generation refinement. Design and
weapons skills are similar to Swift's, but she apparently was supposed to take hits instead of dodging them. Mix of rapid healing and durability of the
armor is similar to Riposte's. But the katana's pretty distinctive, and her body type's well....she could be my distant cousin," Linna said,
shrugging slightly. Priss made a disgusted noise. That the current Sabres could possibly be based off them was an unwelcome but unavoidable part of their
lives. But given the rather....disreputable situation they'd rescued Linna from initally, Priss still got a foul taste in her mouth when she thought of
possible other reasons the Scimitar Project might've thought to replicate her.

Linna tossed a pillow at her, knocking Priss out of her brooding, her friend tossing her an amused look. "Hey, if anyone's going to angst about that,
I've got dibs, hmm? So knock it off," she smiled, getting a chuckle from Priss as she acknowledged the hit.

"So, who's next?"

"Gauche Sabre, another blades specialist, though she prefers the theory that two is better than one. Public identity is Nanami Kiryu, still secret as
opposed to Lyn. Lives alone, one of the apartments Sylia's bankrolling. No real contact with anyone, aside from some operation alongside other heroes. No
social life, no...nothing, really. Sylia thinks there's something there but isn't going to press too hard this early. We just get to judge her combat
skills."

"And the third?" Priss asked.

"Genki Sabre, a ranged support specialist. She's a follow up, not one built by Crey, and apparently doesn't want too many people knowing her
identity. Sylia obviously knows, but it's not in her profile."

"People think this gig's just for fun and secret agent games, I swear," Priss grumbled.

"There are people that don't need to be hunted by evil corporations to want to help people," Linna pointed out with a smile.

"Yeah, yeah....well, don't expect me to go easy on her."

"I don't. After all, we don't go easy on anyone," she smiled. "That's why Sylia calls it boot camp."

***

It was not, Irene considered, the most amicable of waits. Her two companions were a pair of women she knew fairly well, but she could hardly act on that
without leading to awkward questions. Which left her sitting silently across from Gauche's pensive form, absently watching Sacae cycle through a variety of
soft kata. Gambler's cut to divine avalanche, rotating through and up along the golden dragongly, before swirling around in the lotus drops. She recognized
each of the steps even if she couldn't replicate them herself, from watching Kou and some of the other guards running through their paces. And, though
she'd always tried to be discrete, her older sister. Reika wasn't nearly as adept as Sacae obviously was, however, and Irene found herself watching the
elegant dance of blade and wielder to the exclusion of anything else until the sharp rap of a metal boot on wood caught all their attention.

Waiting in the center of the training room was an emerald armor that Irene had seen a dozen times, but any particular thoughts about who was behind the
facebowl went straight out of her head as she beckoned them forward, Irene falling in behind the other two women.

"You've demonstrated that you're hardly random civilians to be mugged by Hellions in Atlas, but that's hardly proof positive that you'll
meet up to what's being demanded of you. To do that, you've been sent here to have your limits tested and your weaknesses discovered so you can
overcome them," Dance Sabre said simply. "So, let's get started."

***

Irene watched from the sidelines, unsure what to expect out of the "test" about to begin between Dance and Sacae. Her uncertainty was mirrored in the
swordswoman, sitting at a defensive stance but waiting for an attack from Dance before commiting to a course of action. Dance, by contrast, was pacing back and
forth like a panther, no wasted motion as she watched Sacae, ready to spring. They remained at the impasse for a moment longer, until, at some signal that
Irene missed entirely, both moved forward with quicksilver swiftness, blade and armor flashing.

Dance was clearly faster by a significant degree, dodging slice after slash of Sacae's katana with lightning speed, ducking, weaving, never in one place
for longer than necessary. Sacae, however, parried blows from Dance's fists and feet with her blade, sparks rising from the armor from the friction between
it and the blunted edge of the training blade. However, she couldn't keep it up forever and Dance landed one blow, then another, then another, causing
Sacae to stagger as Dance wove through her spinning kick and pulled her fist back, Irene recognizing the wind up to a powerful cobra strike a second before
Dance's fist shot forward like lightning, hitting Sacae dead in her chest and knocking the woman back several steps as she managed to keep herself upright.
She staggered, Dance pressing the attack...before the next kick bounced off her blade as Sacae shook her head to clear it and dove into the fight with just as
much ferocity as before.

Dance made a grunt of approval as Sacae pressed her attack, pushing the martial artist back a few steps, before she leaped to the side, rolling along her
shoulder into a three point spring backwards. Sacae followed the move visually, but couldn't quite keep up with Dance's speed, giving the green Sabre
the edge she needed to turn the tables. Whirling kicks spun out, battering Sacae's guard at her abdomen and head, Dance using her momentum to turn one
kick's recovery into the wind up of a second, pushing Sacae back step after step after step. Sacae attempted a counter attack with a diagonal upwards
slash, but Dance whirled to the side, her leg bending almost to a 145 degree angle to the other one before bringing itself down in a crushing heel drop kick,
smashing into Sacae's shoulder and throwing her weapon arm off at a crucial moment. Reika winced as Dance whirled around, launching into a punishing salvo
of blows. A trio of punches crashed against Sacae's abdomen, stunning her as a spinning kick took her legs out from under her. Dance continued through the
pseudo-pirouette before bringing another axe kick down with considerable force....only for it to stop an inch in front of Sacae's faceplate, the other
Sabre visibly tensing for the impact that didn't come.

Dance held her foot there for a moment longer, before rotating it back and bending down to help her up. "Good effort, though there's still room to
improve," she said, an approving note in her tone. "Not quite as fast as some, but you can take a hit. But a good start," she nodded, before
turning back to the other two. Gauche looked determined, as best her body language was discernable through full body armor, but Irene was looking at a dent in
the hard psuedo-wood floor of the dojo where one of Dance's missed blows had landed.

"Right. Genki, you're up next."

Irene suppressed a whimper.

***

Reika was waiting as Irene staggered into the estate's front entryway, wobbling a touch as she did. Her older sister stood up and threaded an arm around
under hers to support her. Irene made a pained noise, cueing Reika to shift her positioning slightly, careful of the likely location of painful bruises.
Leading her back into the residential area, Reika shifted the curtains aside before gently disrobing her sister and easing her into the warm bath that
she'd had the staff draw shortly after Irene's armor's internal GPS had indicated she was heading home. She glanced over the bruises that were no
less painful for how specifically placed they were. Reika's analysis suggested someone with a very acrobatic and fast paced fighting style, though
certainly Irene hadn't challenged her that much. The precision with which several bruises were overlaid suggested Irene hadn't dodged very well, and
the opponent had probably been toying with her, or perhaps pointing out several open holes in Irene's defenses that Reika knew were the result of her only
pursuing the family's personal school of martial arts to the degree necessary to protect herself from the average Paragon thug. Against a motivated and
highly trained martial artist, it was unsurprising she'd done poorly.

"I'd point out that you specifically wanted to go through with this," she noted with hint of wry humor.

Irene chuckled, before groaning as a hand slid to a particularly nasty bruise slightly to the left of her solar plexus. "Yeah... I did, didn't
I?"

They sat in silence for another long moment, Irene mostly soaking as the heat at least slightly alleviated the pain of her bruised body if not her bruised
pride. Reika, for her part, simply sat behind her, hands running over her shoulders with precision gained from long practice. As the current head of the Chang
family, she hardly had the option to slack off in her ability to defend herself, and knowing the precise locations of several major pressure points certainly
gave her a perspective on how to use them to relieve pain as well as cause it.

"...am I going about this wrong?" Irene asked after a long while. "I mean, she wasn't even going for the kill and she totally obliterated
me. Should I really be doing this?"

"Well, you are hardly like the rest of them, sister. You weren't engineered as a weapon. You'll take time and practice to reach that potential. If
you have the will to see it through," she said softly.

"But do I?" Irene asked her. "I'm not sure if you weren't thinking more of yourself when you thought up this plan than me. You've
always been the stronger one."

Reika smiled softly. "You only say that because a quirk of birth order forced me into this role instead of you. But I know you almost as well as I know
myself, Irene. The things you've done already show you to have the steel necessary. If my belief in you is enough encouragement, then you have it. As much
as we've disagreed over your choice of tactics, that was out of concern for your safety, not my belief you couldn't succeed. Just as I believe you can
succeed here. I've always believed that. You just need to believe it yourself."

Irene let out a small sigh as the worst of the soreness soaked away between the bath and the massage. "...I guess it's just that it seems so far
outside my field of expertise."

"Then make it your field of expertise. I trust you'll be able to," Reika smiled.

"....thanks, Reika."

"Of course, little sister."
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."
Reply
 
#2
And this folks, is what Linna's been up to. Teaching and hitting people Smile
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)