B3-33 - Mages (Patreon)

The wrecked skyline of Washington DC was lit up with firelight and screaming monsters. Emilia Morales flopped to the blood splattered ground as missiles screeched over her head. The tin helmet she was wearing was pelted with debris and the railgun in her hands was slick with sweat and blood. She took in deep breaths and tried to steady her hands as she swapped out the mana battery for a fresh one.

“Move it, recruit!” a voice screamed in her ear. “You’re lagging behind.”

“Oh, shit, oh, shit,” Emilia muttered as she slapped in the new battery and peeked over the small bit of cover she had. She saw the green glad body of another soldier stagger by, portable plasma cannon on her shoulder as she screamed while firing into the ruined apartment buildings around her. Emilia got to her feet, the IFF chiming in her HUD as the other soldier spotted her. They nodded in recognition of one another.

Recruit Sancha Gonzales, a six foot tall massive woman in her mid thirties. Burly, tough, and a superb shot with the plasma cannon.

“You’re team is being chewed up and you’re being flanked,” the voice said into her hear. Sancha heard the voice too and glowered.

Leo Finn was their squad leader and that idiot had rushed off into battle, dragging everyone behind him.

“They dead?” Sancha asked.

“You’ve got Mk. 1 eyeballs, use ‘em.” The voice responded.

Sergeant Lewis was one of the trainers hired to teach Maya Sullivan’s Mobile Infantry a bit about fighting and soldiering. Emilia let out an exhausted sigh. It had been nearly three weeks since they arrived to this place, although in actuality it wasn’t a real space. It was virtual reality. It didn’t feel like virtual reality, Emilia had played with some of the VR that was being produced and they were nothing like this.

The world here was real in every way possible, except the sergeants and officers could stop a ‘program’ or ‘senario’ when everyone got wiped out. Emilia didn’t know how many times she had died in the pretend fighting, but it was more than a dozen. It wasn’t just a fade to black with bold lettering saying “You Died”, instead it was painful and brutal. The officers, who were mostly those blue aliens, had a teaching method that could be summarized as pain is a wonderful teacher.

There was no outright abuse, Maya Sullivan had already decreed against that, but the pain settings were set to normal, therefore if you were injured in the sim, you felt every shattered bone, burning flesh, or jagged claw being shoved down your throat.

It was not fun.

Emilia pulled up the information on her HUD, a pretty impressive bit of computing and programing, and saw the winking lights of their squad blinking out. The reddish dots of the enemy were multiplying and they were heading in their direction. Emilia also noted the dozen bigger monsters that were moving on their right flank, in a few moments they would be through the screen of wrecked buildings and would hit them from behind.

“Fall back,” Emilia said.

Sancha and Emilia had formed a sort of friendship over the last three weeks. The stoic woman had been a volunteer fighter for Chicago before Maya arrived. She had been out fighting with the soldiers, but had run afoul with some of the gangs that had formed since Integration. With the ability to level up and gain skills, a lot of the low leveled monsters were being hunted by organized gangs and hunting areas were fiercely protected. Therefore Sancha hadn’t managed to level up beyond level 8 in the last month.

Although Sancha was willing to fight, she wasn’t willing to join the Army or work with Canton or the Mayor. She firmly believed they were assholes and would state that loudly if asked. But the chance to make good money, to learn Skills and Levels, while also being equipped with some of the best weapons and armor on Earth, along with helping humanity. Sancha wasn’t able to pass up on that offer.

Emilia was no tactical or strategic genius, her limited Foundation and levels she had put mostly into Mental stats in hope that would somehow make her smarter. Intelligence was always something she had loved and having a quantifiable metric on where she was at compared to others was amazing and humiliating.

Although Emilia did learn one thing in the weeks of fighting nearly non stop, she was a damn good aim with the railgun. It had never occurred to her before to ever use a weapon, not before Integration. She was supposed to be the nerdy kid who was going to go to Harvard and pull her family out of poverty. After Integration most of the weapons were confiscated to be used by the military and police and other defenders of Chicago. So there wasn’t much to go around for anyone else, although there were plenty of melee weapons to be had.

“What are we doing, Einstein?” Sancha asked Emilia.

“Fall back, there’s a fairly intact building about a hundred feet behind us,” Emilia said. She glanced back at the HUD and then the pair raced toward the shattered building.

The screech of a mutated rat filled the air, a massive thing of fur and claws that had more in common with a bear than a rat. Sancha punted the creature out of their way while Emilia fired a shot into it, the railgun practically vaporized the creature.

Their time was up as the monsters that had wiped out their squad was barreling through the ruins of the surrounding buildings. Emilia gulped at the sight, even though she intellectually understood this was a VR program, her brain still took it as the real thing.

“That’s a lot of them,” Sancha stated, her voice almost bored sounding.

“See you on the respawn,” Emilia said and raised her rifle. The horde of monsters seemed to know exactly where they were, two hundred mutated creatures that seemed to be a cross between dogs and birds turned as one, aiming directly at the building they huddled within.

The ground rumbled and shuddered as the horde descending upon them. Sancha was yelling, firing bolts of plasma into the horde, Emilia followed suit, slicing through the bodies with the railgun. There were far too many for them, although their weapons torn apart bodies and sent the monsters flying. For every one they killed, two took its place.

The bird dog punched through the crumbling wall. Emilia shouted, pulling out her sidearm as Sancha cursed. The creature stabbed it’s long beak into Sancha’s shoulder, the low-grade armor deflecting the strike, but also shoving Sancha backward. She stumbled and dropped her cannon. Emilia raised her side arm and fired two shots into the head of the creature, the moment of elation was ruined as something slammed into her back. She managed to turn to see the beak of another bird dog raised above her.

It raised its head, readying to slam down with its beak.

Then there was darkness.

Emilia blinked her eyes. A momentary bout of confusion struck her, then she felt utterly sick. The world was spinning and her body felt as if it didn’t belong to her, as if she were wearing some kind of meat suit that belong to someone else. Her stomach clenched and everything she had ever eaten came spewing back out. She stumbled off the low bed and hit the hard and cold deck. Her stomach contents splashed onto the deck and onto the shipsuit she was wearing.

“This is normal,” a voice spoke.

The sounds of retching and moaning filled the room. The stench of her stomach contents hit her and she gagged once more, dry heaving as nothing came out.

“You are experiencing a momentary disorientation as you reconnect to your body,” the voice continued. “It will pass within the next ten minutes. You are not to try to walk, move, or freakout.”

Emilia groaned, pulling herself back onto the low bed she had been laying on. She wiped her mouth and looked around. Her eyes weren’t focusing very well, but she could still make out figures and shapes walking about. The uniformed people she had met before they plugged her into the Matrix were about, helping people back onto their beds and checking on the less responsive ones.

“In normal times, the use of VR would not be necessary,” the person continued. Their voice was calm and steadying, Emilia clung to it as her brain felt as if it were trying to start and failing miserably. “There is a disconnect between the mind and the body, where the mana channels that give you Skills and Abilities aren’t properly aligned. You’ll feel like crap for the time being, but it will pass.”

Emilia groaned. It was a terrible fifteen minutes before she could properly focus on things and the raging headache had subsided. She sat back up, feeling a little shaken and exhausted. She was back in the real world, the virtual battlefield she had been on was gone. She rubbed her uniformed arm and felt cold.

It didn’t feel any different. It didn’t feel as if she were back in her real body. The aches and pains were different, but overall she still felt as if she were in the simulation. The thought sent a shiver down her spine.

“You’re back in the real world, people,” the voice said as if reading Emilia’s thoughts. “You’re no longer in the simulation.”

“I thought we were supposed to be in there two months relative?” someone asked. “That was only three weeks. I think.”

“You are correct. Basic training was going to last two months, before you moved onto real world training. Things have taken nose dive since you were put under.”

A murmur of worry filled the room.

“Maya Sullivan will now address you.”

Emilia looked around, slightly embarrassed by her vomit stained ship suit and the puddle beneath her bed. She tried to rise to her feet, but dizziness kept her seated.

A window appeared before everyone, outlined in gold and with Maya Sullivan standing center in the frame. Emilia rubbed her eyes and focused on the woman, seeing the lines of stress, worry, and exhaustion lining the woman’s face. She seemed to look right at Emilia and gave a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Hey, y’all. We were gonna keep you under for two months, VR time, but times are a-changing topside so I gave the order to get you out of there.” Maya paced around, hands behind her back. She walked up to a large hologram of a twisted creature carrying some kind of weapon. “We’re at war now and we need all hands, feet, and tentacles on deck.” The image of the twisted creature rotated and then expanded. More of the monsters appeared, spreading and growing smaller. Emilia could see they all carried weapons and they formed an army thousands strong.

“These are some of the biological residents of the Rainbow Sky Hellscape, a dimensional space that ain’t in our own reality. They’re called the Tarvana. They’re not nice people. They are also marching an army on my base of operations, threatening me, my friends, and this very Cage we’re all chilling in. Diplomacy won’t work on these peeps, they’re hard headed, fanatical, and cannibals, so all the best traits rolled into one.”

“That leaves us with only one option. We gotta fight ‘em off. This isn’t the fighting you were all training for. These aren’t monsters, these are SIL, System Identified Lifeforms, as sentient and sapient as you and I.” The words hung in the air as Maya walked to another spot. “We are at a crossroads here, folks. If we lose this upcoming fight, the Cage and everything it provides will be lost. Earth will be on its own and all the gear and supplies will dry up. As a Tier 2 planet, Earth won’t last all that long without support. So, we have to win the up coming tussle. We have to kick these Tarvana’s ass back to the hellhole they came marching out of.”

Emilia looked around her. Most of the expressions of the recruits were either still sick or worried. Although they had been training to fight , they hadn’t realize they would have to do so, so soon. It had been barely two standard days since they had arrived.

“It ain’t fair to y’all. In a perfect world you would all have had training and your occupational paths set out. But the enemies are at the gates and everyone who can lift a rifle is needed. The fight is coming and I will stand beside you all. This is a fight I’m not sitting on the sidelines for. This is my home and my planet they’re fucking with and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let it go without a fight.”

Maya Sullivan stared at everyone one of them, her shoulders were heaving and she looked pissed. Emilia didn’t share the same emotion, instead she was worried and a little scared. She cast another look at the people around her, most were worried, but a few looked ready to kick some ass.

“You’re breaking up by simulation squads,” the voice said again. Emilia looked for the voice and saw a floating orb that acted as a mobile speaker. There were dozens of them, floating around the massive room, informing the hundreds of men and women on what to do.

Emilia Morales - Level 6

Report to Company M-Alpha

The golden framed message appeared before her. Emilia looked at it and then looked around. People were milling about, forming into groups and joining their squads.

A green line appeared before Emilia, snaking through the crowds and leading toward the far end of the great room. She was a bit startled by the lighted pathway, but then she remembered the cigarette pack sized computer they had been issued when they arrived. All information and data they had access to was being transmitted via that.

Emilia shook her head; iPhones had been the height of technology a month back, then came a month of living without technology, and now she was being bombarded with technology that far outstripped anything humans had ever created. It was a lot to take in.

She followed the path and realized it wasn’t leading to her squad. Finn, the idiot, wasn’t there. Neither was Sancha. Emilia looked around for the large woman, but there were far too many people around to effectively spot her.

Within the highlighted area were two dozen men and women. They all wore the cheap ship suit they had been issued before going into VR and a lot of them sported vomit on their clothing. Exhaustion, confusion, and a bit of fear was etched into the faces of the gathered people. They glanced to Emilia and then looked away, their attention caught by something more interesting.

Emilia did her usual thing when it came to crowds. She tried to turn invisible among the people, drifting out of their sphere of attention and fading into the darker patches of shadow. Maybe the computer she had been given was faulty. This wasn’t her squad, but then again it had led her here. She supposed she could tell whomever the squad leader about the mix up.

More people gathered and they seemed equally confused by their inclusion. No one said anything, either too tired, too sick, or too scared to speak up. They milled around as other squads began to form around uniformed men and women and were led out of the massive room.

“What the heck is going on?” a woman asked, clearly annoyed and miserable in her stained ship suit. “I need a shower and something real to eat. Not standing around here like a bunch of idiots.”

“You’re here for a reason,” a voice said. Everyone flinched and Emilia was surprised to see many had reached for the sidearm or railgun they carried in the simulation. Emilia was even more surprised she had been grasping for her own sidearm.

A man appeared before them, he was tall, lean, and dark skinned. He smiled at them with slightly crooked teeth and bright eyes.

“I am Ezra Adenekan, Chosen Representative of the Mage Settlement of Ibadan University,” the man spoke. Emilia realized it was the voice she had been hearing, the soothing tone that explained what they were going through. “You have spent what felt like three weeks within the VR simulation. Apparently, this is not how soldiers are trained in the Integrated Multiverse. It screws up with your mana channels and all that stuff, but you all are needed.”

“Why are we here?” someone asked. “My squad has already left.”

“While in VR,” Adenekan continued as if the person hadn’t spoken, “you do not gain levels or experience from what you are doing. If you underwent the same training and combat, then you would have all gained levels and occupational abilities.”

“That’s some bullshit,” a woman said. “Three week we spent fighting those fucking monsters, day in and day out, without a god damn break? All spent for nothing?”

“You gained the greatest gift of all,” Adenekan said. “Knowledge.”

Emilia was surprised no one punched the man. She had known they would gain no levels, but the reality of it was finally hitting her. She had died an unknown amount of times in the simulation, all of them had been nearly unwindable situations, but she could still feel the memory of her deaths. To have suffered through all of that and gain nothing from it was a blow.

“Knowledge, combined with actually doing a thing, that is how abilities are gained. You have spent three weeks learning weapons, how to coordinate, how to move with others, and the basics of everything from fixing system tech equipment to channeling mana into Skills. The training wasn’t for naught. Instead it has laid the groundwork for the next evolution of your training.”

Adenekan raised his arms. “You all are the first Mage Company within the Infantry.”

“There’s only about thirty of us,” a man said. “Not much of a company.”

“Mage?” someone else asked.

“Yes, battle mages to be precise,” Adenekan said. “I obtained an ability to teach, which is odd because I was never a teacher. So now I will bestow upon you all, the Skills and abilities I know.”

“We’re gonna be mages?” someone asked.

“Yes.”

“Fuck yeah!”

“Why us?” someone else asked.

“You all have high Fortitude which will help you in your occupational path.”

Emilia felt nervous. She had been willing to fight, but now she was being pushed into what was feeling like an experimental company. In a world of magic and monsters, Emilia hadn’t heard of many mages. They were about, but it seemed to be a occupational path that was difficult one to obtain. From what she understood, those that were deemed mages were awarded those titles and skills from extreme stress and pressure.

She glanced at Adenekan and wondered how he had become a mage.

“We’re going to have to do this rough and dirty,” Adenekan said. He straightened up and figures began trotting into the room.

Emilia and the others backed up as they saw the tall and lean people. They were blue skinned and strange featured. Aliens.

“These are the Asoltolia Mercenary Company combat mages,” Adenekan said. “They will teach you how to obtain a battle mage ability and skills.” Adenekan paused and looked uncomfortable. “It’s going to hurt.”

Emilia barely registered the words before one of the figures stepped forward. They were a narrow faced woman with an evil glint in her eye. She raised her hand, which began glowing, and then everyone in the group was blasted away.

“You’ve got two days to learn,” the woman shouted. “The fear of death and pain is the fastest way to level!”

The others, nearly three dozen mages, all began glowing with power too.