Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School (34/?) WiP 1 (Patreon)

Hey everyone! Here's the Work in Progress for Chapter 34 I hope you guys enjoy! :D

Video games made using grappling guns look easy.

Recreational climbing made me feel like it was impossible.

Military training managed to temper my expectations, and combine the best and worst of both worlds into something actually doable.

My aunt, however, had some very strong opinions on their use.

“Grappling Hooks? In the modern military? What do you take me for, a fucking goober?” I could hear my aunt’s voice echoing loud and clear as the day my 15 year-old mil-sim-lite obsessed self dared to ask her that dreaded question.

“But Aunty Ran, surely there were instances where a grappling hook was useful in one of your deployments?” I’d ask back, excitedly as well, given how a certain award-winning game had a scene that displayed just that, and had more or less propelled the image of a grapple-launcher wielding TSEC into public consciousness.

“The Jovian Uprisings was a stint that lasted barely a year, and was more or less limited to station combat. Where the hell would I have found time to use a grappler?”

“When the station broke in half and you had to grapple onto the other side in order to save your squad? Come on, Auntie, they said that that scene was based on a real life war story! Yours!”

“Okay fine, I was the goober who rocked up two uses of a grappler out of the five logged in the entire deployment. But just so you know, I want to state for the record that they exaggerated that scene in that silly game of yours since they had artistic license, Emma. Now, what do you want to know about grapplers?”

“I wanna know if the game did it justice or not.”

“Okay, what did the game teach you?”

“Well, you target where you want the grapple to go.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Then you shoot the grapple.”

“Okay.”

“Then, you fling yourself off the edge, while shooting the next grapple, then unlocking the original one, and you just repeat the steps like you’re swinging across vines!”

My aunt’s deathly silence was challenged only by my puppy-dog-eyed perseverance, so she eventually did relent. “I guess that’s accurate enough, if you’re a fricking goober. Any other questions?”

“Erm, how do you get good at using them?”

“Simple. You don’t. You use it once, in your entire career, then forget it exists. Then you spend the next two decades of your life training for another instance that never comes, and you never really get over the vertigo either. The trick is, just don’t use it. And if you do, don’t use it in rapid succession like it’s some kind of a fucking superhero toy. It’s not for launching yourself between two points on a building. It’s for sticky situations where you need to hold onto something, or launch yourself between two spaces. But heck if I know how to get good at that silly game of yours, because real life is a heck of a lot different, even more different than training will ever have you believe.”

And she was right, real life was definitely a heck of a lot different.

But when you were out here in the field, when you actually looked down to see neither an END-SIMULATION pop-up, a physical safety net, or an instructor waving you on, things became fundamentally different.

Especially when what was straight down was nothing but a two-thousand foot drop into white-water rapids, courtesy of the Academy’s insane decision to build its campus atop of a raging fucking waterfall.

“Anchor-point secure. Target 1 reached. Locking onto the next target.” The EVI’s voice announced loud and clear, completely cutting through any and all anxiety-driven doubts I had, its overbearing assertiveness was remarkably useful in keeping me grounded and out of what my instructor liked to call the panic zone.

“Target locked.”

My eyes were now drawn to the HUD’s reticles, as it locked onto another one of the many large decorative outcroppings jutting out of the castle walls. This one looked like some sort of a large pot with exaggeratedly large flowers sticking out of it.

“Requesting operator status: Confirm readiness.”

I started shuffling in place, adjusting my orientation in mid-air, as I began reorienting the suit’s mounted grapple-launcher “Operator ready, fire right grapple.”

“Firing [R] Grapple in 3, 2, 1…”

THUOOMP!

The launch of the grapple was accompanied by a strangely satisfying sound that was a disturbingly similar sound to the one made by old-fashioned grenade launchers. Though to be fair, more seasoned specialists claimed that you could actually hear the electrostatic discharge from the magnetic launcher prior to the signature thuoomp.

I couldn’t make it out though.

But that was probably because all I could hear between the right grapple launching, and the clanking of metal against solid stone were the constant thump thump thumps of my heartbeat resonating deep within my eardrums.

There was no time for anything else, as the world more or less dulled out as my entire world in those few short tentative seconds had narrowed down to the span of a few feet. As my very life was now hedged on the manufacturing quality of the grapple, the math calculated by the EVI, and the proper positioning of my body as the triumvirate of engineering, science, and man were now being tested for their resolve.

To be honest though, I trusted the science and engineering aspects of this whole relationship more than the human factor that was me.

“Unlocking Anchor-point on Target 1 in 3… 2… 1, Forward-motion commencing.”

The world flew by me as I felt that gut-churning lurching of my whole body weight being flung on a single anchor point. Vertigo threatened to kick in hard, as training and discipline were the only two things keeping it from outright sending me into a panicked frenzy.

The swinging was mitigated though once my whole body had successfully transitioned forward by a whopping 20 feet, and up another 5 feet, as the stabilizers were doing their best to prevent the forward momentum from going too wild.

“Anchor-point secure. Target 2 reached. Locking onto the next target.”

The next target the HUD’s reticles had locked onto was an outcropping in the shape of a large lantern.

“Target locked.”

“Requesting operator status: Confirm readiness.”

I once again shuffled in place, now battling against the residual momentum that still swung me back and forth as a likelihood-of-success indicator at the top right hand of the target reticles flew back and forth between the green and the red, as if to reinforce the fact that death was just a single error away. “Operator ready, fire right grapple.”

“Firing [L] Grapple in 3, 2, 1…”

THUOOMP!

=====

The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts, Medical Wing Tower C, Room 705, 5 Feet Right of Room 705’s Balcony. Local Time: 1505 Hours.

I’d made it.

I felt like jello, I could feel bile rising up to my throat, and my breath struggled to remain just short of the panic zone, but I made it all the same.

It took over 50 grapples, and each one was just slightly different enough that it never got much better.

I totally understand now why my Aunt called this an exercise in goober-tactics.