Ah... Revenge Is Truly A Gentleman's Game
The three weeks went by in a flash. By that time, the armor was essentially in its first stage. There wasn't enough time to fully complete it, but it was good enough to take on Captain Titan. The main reason I couldn't beat Captain Titan without the armor was that he knew all of our martial arts styles. He could beat anyone in one-on-one combat since he'd trained most of them. It was an unfair teacher's advantage, but this closed the gap. An unknown power suit, something even the likes of him couldn't fathom.
With the inclusion of the helmet, nobody could even recognize me, and that was a big win because that meant that he couldn't anticipate what mistakes that I would inevitably make. It was also impervious to his heavy strikes. Normally, one of Captain Titan's strikes was enough to break a bone in my body, but now, he'd be the one getting hurt. I was going to toy with him. Humiliate him. Maybe... I was going to say everything I wanted to before delivering a nice and satisfying blow.
I think... I should bury him... alive. Yes...Cut off his oxygen supply, paralyze him, and then bury him.
I put on the suit, and it fit snugly in place. At the moment, the armor was a dark gray color. It wasn't made of metal, but rather a smooth armor plating that was made with stones that contained metal. In other words, it retained the metallic properties like hardness and magnetism without being as heavy. If I pressed the button twice, the armor would condense into this tight shirt, which was almost like a jacket. It even felt leathery too. Then, when I pressed it again, it would puff out. For now, I put it on the dummy, along with my shoulder plates and shin guards, then he turned it into a bracelet.
It was time for step number one. Access files. I pinged Michael on my watch, and we met up at the Builder's workshop. We both went straight into the castle and then headed downstairs to the data center. Unfortunately for us, there was a security bot that tracked which files you accessed. That meant... that I had to check A-G to throw it off. Luckily, my last name started with B, so I'd find the file that I wanted relatively quickly. Both Michael and I started looking through random files, and I eventually got to B.
Ah, here it was. Grand Duke Abeforth Blaise puts General Ivan in prison for treason. Who was General Ivan? Hold on... he looks like... the Leader! Wait... so the Leader... used to work for my family?! And my grandfather was a Grand Duke, which meant that... my parents were...royalty?! Oh my god! I had to keep reading. Suddenly, an alarm went off. My heart beat rose to 200 bpm. Had we been caught?! No... not yet... not when I was so close...
"Calm down," said Michael, sensing my distress," That just means that there's an hour left until promotion."
"That means that we have to do the thing! And quickly!"
"Ah! Yeah, you're right! Let's go."
I unfortunately couldn't finish what I was reading, but I learned a lot of surprising information. I was a prince? And the Leader used to serve my family?! There were a lot of explanations for the things that could've happened, but I decided not to judge until I heard the truth with my own eyes. I had learned from these two years that only knowing one part of the story often led to a bunch of misunderstandings and a whole bunch of needless chaos. I wanted to get this right the first time.
I decided that I had to plant the bomb on Ms. Damon's bot since even if I was caught, Michael could still free the Captain. I went into the general workshop to check on my bot. I pressed a button on my watch, and the little thing came rolling toward me. I made my robot quite fat mainly because I planned to outlast all the other contestants. Sometimes, agility wasn't always the best thing; once the batteries ran out, an agility-built bot could be crumpled like paper. I looked around. Crap! Ms. Damon was coming quickly. I set my bot on a frenzy, and it just gained two new wheels and started spinning around like crazy.
As soon as Ms. Damon saw it, she freaked out. Now, there was only a wall separating us. I pulled out my favorite firework bomb and set the trigger to go off when the CPU started to get warm. She had this entire routine she did with her robot. It was like choreography. But as she would do it, her entire performance would be overshadowed by this one prank. One final slap in the face!
I stuck it in, and then after that, I very carefully sprinkled some cookie crumbs and activated the jump carving, which was on my boots. Whoosh! I jumped up 20 feet into the air and onto the rafters. Ms. Damon finally came into the room. She looked around, and there was nobody there. She then looked back at the bot. Its smiling face unnerved her. Great! My work here was done! Now, all I had to do was wait for the ceremony.
A few hours later, the familiar bell rang throughout campus. Excitement welled up in my chest. Michael and I met outside of my dorm along with the Builder, and strode over to the field and under the big tree. There was a certain view that looked spectacular at night. There were thousands of plastic fold-out chairs and a huge metal screen so everyone could see you as you stepped up onto the podium. Michael and I weren't going to be seated, though; we had our own special positions. There was a huge black tent not too far away from the back of the big screen. There were close to a thousand other graduators as well. The crazy thing was that there were at least 5 other tents.
A Captain walked through the aisle, nodding at each of the soldiers.
He only said one thing, "Alright, Everyone! I usually never say this, but, Have Fun Today!"
I heard an intercom in the distance, and it was the Leader. Suddenly, a huge bell tolled. The tents flung open, and we all walked through; however, the captain stopped me and Michael. I started to sweat, but then I realized that others were getting stopped too. About 1 in every 100 people was stopped. In the tent, however, there was a TV that broadcast the event. Soldiers were lined up in long lines. They had serious looks on their faces, and they had a promotion badge on their right chest. The audience (which was full now) looked amazed. All of them seemed to be either graduates or freshmen. Even the teachers were there as well.
Then, 8 of us were called down. These would be the newly established Executive Officers. Instead of standing in rows like the rest of the normal soldiers, they stood in front of the stage. The Leader gave each of them a medal, a cape, a certificate, and a unique pistol/holder.
Finally, it was our turn. All of the Captains were called down. Michael and I walked confidently, with bright smiles on our faces. As we walked up the stairs onto the stage, confetti poppers exploded. The audience's faces were in absolute glee. Once we made it to the center, the stage lights were aimed at us. The Leader got onto the stairs and raised his microphone.
He said, "Class of Year 5473, I am pleased to announce that you have all passed. It was not easy balancing out your schooling and fighting. I am very proud. Some of us this year may want to stay another year. That's fine. Some of you are excited to go out to the battlefield or even become wandering patrols. That's fine too. This fortress will have prepared you for the fight to come, and while other battles are happening in other parts of the world, those soldiers would be overjoyed to know that their predecessors are much better than they were. They would be elated that the future is bright. And for those of you who went above and beyond, you have been rewarded. All of you who managed to make it to Executive Officer, Congratulations! But wait! You may think I've forgotten something! Not at all! I've just been saving the best for last. Those of you who have excelled in your classes, excelled in missions, and have been a great help overall these past two years, your time has been rewarded. You have done more than just go above and beyond. You are future leaders in the battles to come. You have continually shown a prowess beyond the others. I am pleased to award each and every one of you with some of the rare archaeological treasures that I found in my youth. Each contains some unexplained power."
He stepped forward to the front of the stage. He pulled out a rod from his back pocket. He infused some unknown power into it. The sky got dark, and the metal rod in his hand got bigger and wider. He slammed it into the ground, and a pink bolt of lightning struck the ground. His eyes turned bright magenta. A magic circle with runic letters turned and glowed. Suddenly, 20 weapons were summoned. They went into the air and flew around. I went on guard, and so did the others. One attacked somebody next to me.
He dodged and counterattacked. The sword fell and flew in front of him. He picked it up, and it glowed with runic letters. It was a bright red greatsword. One by one, each of them came flying, and they fell. They were all bright colors. Blood Orange, an enchanting color of magenta, a mystic green. Until it was my turn. My sword was especially trying to hurt me for some reason, almost as if it were angry. The sword blasted toward my head, and I barely managed to dodge it. The others looked at me as if I were some clown, as I was almost beheaded by a sword. Little did they know, if I were but a second later, my head would be on the ground. I concentrated and strained my vision. Whoosh! Thlang! A quiet hollow sound resounded as I barely managed to get a grip on the sword.
It was a dark purple sword, and its runic engraving was strange. It just said Hell Fire. Suddenly, cookie crumbs flew from my pocket and went into the sword, and a gigantic purple flame rose in a torrent. The others looked at their own weapons.
The person who received the greatsword had the same thing happen to them. Cookie crumbs came from them, and their greatsword glowed, but oddly enough, it was so heavy they couldn't hold it anymore. It pulled his hand down, and the blade struck the ground. Suddenly, there was a thunderstorm, and it started raining. The ground opened, and zombies started crawling out. Talk about being badass! He said cancel in runic letters, and it immediately went back to being sunny. The person holding the greatsword immediately paled and stumbled a bit. He looked awfully familiar, too.
Soon, the stage was pure chaos. The audience was in awe, and meanwhile, we were on the brink of losing our minds. This was so freaking cool, but this was definitely not a safe space to test out our swords. Finally, it all stopped. The Leader, who had been waiting patiently the entire time, then continued.
"I see our new Captains are already having fun with their new weapons. Now I shall bestow each of them with a medal and a cape. Please, kneel down."
We all got down on our right knees, and the Leader came behind each and every one of us and put a shiny platinum medal on our necks and a Post Executive Graduator to show that we graduated at the maximum level we could be at. Too bad for Captain Elaine. She probably would've gotten a 3rd medal. He placed a neatly folded cape in front of us, and after he stood to the side, we put it on and saluted by putting the side of our left fist to our chest. The audience cheered. I spotted the Builder and let slip the corner of my mouth in a slight grin. The other Executive Officers had also put on their capes by this time.
The audience stood up and clapped. My mouth couldn't hold back anymore, and I let out the biggest smile I had. Ever since my grandfather died, I hadn't let out a smile this big, an ear-to-ear grin. Finally, everyone walked down from the stage. The Leader snapped his fingers, and in a flash, all the stuff that had been prepared for the festival appeared. The food stalls, the small theaters, and even some dance shows. But the best part was the performances and the bot fight. The bot fight was happening first, and then the performances. Michael and I got a picture together, then a selfie with the Builder, then he disappeared to free Elaine.
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Michael was worried. He didn't know what happened on the mission, but he realized he'd made a fatal mistake by not making sure that she knew that her friend was the Executive of the 3rd squad of the 45th platoon, since he'd forgotten that she'd had an extreme prejudice against those who went to the Tagine Fortress. He'd thought she'd figure it out, though, since he pretty much described him without telling her his name. I mean, it was imperative for their escape that they didn't draw that connection, so he couldn't be too careful.
He headed down quickly for the holding block. Guards were blocking the entrance, but as they saw him, they stood aside, letting him pass. He nodded, and the door opened. Michael went to the Captain's office. Good, nobody was there for now. Only the warden.
In most prisons on a busy day, a Captain was also on duty instead of just the warden. He peered into the warden's office as well. Sleeping. Nice. He first checked the small locker behind his chair. There were names on them. Brack, Jane, Pastor, Elue, Elaine, and then... wait, Elaine! He quickly broke the lock and then saw all of her stuff. He opened his bracelet's subspace and put it in. He then checked the cameras in his office.
There was no Elaine in A-C, so that meant she would have to be in D or F. D block made more sense since that was for deserters, so maybe he would start there.
But would she know what to do if he just opened the door from the office? She might go up a different way, and he didn't want to expose himself by telling her where to go. Intercom might also alert the warden.
So... he came up with the next best idea. He changed his face a little, made himself a fake stomach, and hunched a little. Great! He looked like the warden. He went into the elevator and went all the way down to D block. He contorted his face to make his expression look angry, mixed with disgust.
Some prisoners gave him dirty looks while others just didn't seem to care. Finally, at the end, there was Elaine. Her eyes looked dead and puffy, like she couldn't sleep since she was haunted by the dead. She had kind of gone numb to most death, but she couldn't get used to the deaths of the people close to her, no matter how hard she tried. It was just a sign of being human, so it wasn't a bad thing. He slammed open the door. He then grabbed her by the collar and threw her outside. He had to make it convincing, but he would apologize to her profusely later.
"Stand up!" he commanded, and Elaine slowly got up and walked. He pushed her into the elevator and right out the door. The Warden was still sleeping. The guards outside looked skeptical. Michael shot one of the guards and knocked out the other. That way, when he woke up, it would be the Warden whom he warned everyone about. He checked for any cameras and then ripped off his mask and undid the stomach. But Elaine's eyes still looked dead. He slapped her 5 times across the cheeks.
"Hey. HEY! Are you awake?!" She turned to look at him, and when she recognized him, her eyes immediately lit up, and she hugged him.
"Michael! I'm so glad to see you! I missed you!"
"Hey, teach! Come quickly, we're in the process of escaping right now. Ah, that's right, I got your uniform right now. My friend and I have already packed up, and I went to your room and got your stuff as well." He decided not to reveal that his friend was actually Veris just yet, so she wouldn't oppose his plans.
"Are you sure... that we'll even be able to?" asked Elaine, unsure.
"Surely, you don't want to stay after being wrongly accused, right?"
"But... sigh, who else is coming besides your friend?"
"The Builder and this Lieutenant called Bucket."
"Ugh! A cradle kid? And also, how did you manage to get the Builder on our side?"
"You don't give enough credit to those guys. Sure, a lot of them are wimps, but the ones I know actually try their hardest to imitate us. In fact, it was actually my friend, who convinced the Builder to join us."
"Heh, yeah. Imitating is all they can do. Especially that stupid Executive. Don't make that expression! I acknowledge that your friend is talented, okay?"
"Yeeeahhhh, that's not why I made that expression... anyway, let's get going and meet up with the Builder."
"Aah, wait no! Mer! I forgot about Mer!
"Huh?"
"Shit!... Shit! Shit! Shit! I was carrying her... but then I got knocked out a-and then... she's still there! AAH!"
"Yo, chill! My friend and I brought her back. Made her a grave and everything!"
"R-Really?
"Yeah, you should come see it."
Within moments, we were at the graveyard. Her eyes teared up once more; she closed her eyes, and she prayed to Mer. Michael didn't know what she was thinking, but he was happy that he was able to get that off her chest.
"Do you remember what her last words were?" asked Michael, and to that, Elaine quickly recounted the scene. She slowly stood up afterward.
"Ok! I think I'm finally ready to leave!" said Elaine, wiping off her tears.
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Some of the guys from my platoon and I all lined up around the ring. Our bots went into the center, and we each pulled out our controllers from our subspace. As we got ready, they pulled out the gong. 3...2...1... Bang! The gong went off, bots immediately went at each other. Some of them were these tiny, but high-speed bikes. They would be going so fast that they ended up cutting through some of the bots. 15 left. My bot moved forward. It was big, but to make it a harder target, I retracted the face downwards, into the body. The tires flipped and went inside my bot, and in between where the tires were, spinning saw blades erupted. Bots went down left and right. Only 11 remaining. Some bots had ball shooters. Fwoop! Fwoop! Fwoop! The balls were shot right inside some of the gaps of the regular robots, and they jammed up and exploded. Only 5 remaining. The biggest and heaviest bot had a hammer, and it brought it down. Boom! Finally, all the regular robots were dead.
Now, it was finally time for their fight. The bots all got together to get rid of their common enemy, the hammer bot. It crushed 1 while the others started to use their wheels to penetrate the armor. I shot tiny spinning saws at its cameras, and after getting essentially jumped by all of us, it finally went down. The person controlling the bot smashed his controller in a fit of anger and then left.
The rest of the bots went at each other, slicing away. I stayed mostly out of it, trading a few blows but not going too hard lest they turn on me too. Kind of to become one with the battle. Most of them tired each other out, and then it was just me vs. one other guy. I unfolded my box-like structure and revealed that I had snuck in 2 ball shooters! My ultimate weapon!
The other bot wasn't tiny either. He was medium, but he had gone with more of a car-like build than a rover, which is what I had gone for. He had 4 ball shooters. He shot some balls. Fwoop! Fwoop! Fwoop! And one managed to get stuck in my wheel and jam it. I shot small spinning saws at his weapons, and it hit 2 of his shooters, disabling them. However, I was still in a bad place. I could only spin my rover, and I couldn't drive anywhere else. Just stuck hopping around in circles.
The game felt like it was at a standstill, so he made the executive decision to ram right into me with his front sawblades out. However, I had mine out as well, so in the end, we both collided and our engines both exploded. So in the end, it was a tie. The audience cheered. It was an intense match. Had our circumstances been any different, it could've been anyone's game. I fist-bumped the guy whom I just played with and left to finally finish my business.
I had this planned out for a very long time. The plan was, I would break into Captain Titan's office while he was updating some of the Executive permissions. Then, as I'm escaping, Damon's bot will explode and catch fire, burning up the wooden stage. (We had a wooden stage for night celebration performances since that felt nostalgic.) Finally, I would explode parts of the campus where I had hidden explosives. I activated my armor as I approached the main office building. Nobody could see who I was. Scientists were running around. They didn't even pay attention to me, and some of them even stepped on my legs while running around. I was starting to get fed up with them. I looked around. They were experimenting with various animals like mice, a snake, a dog, and then... wait, a dog?! HOW DARE THEY!
I changed my mind. I wasn't going to abduct them; I was going to straight-up kill them. I pulled out my gun and I shot all of them there. I couldn't use my Hellfire sword yet since that would probably alert the entire building that I was here. I used my normal sword to disable all the alarm systems, and I destroyed the emergency button too. I then rode the elevator. Before I fought Captain Titan, though, I decided to rename my sword. Hellfire was much too edgy.
I held my sword and said, "Hellfire, you are now... RICE COOKER!"
A blinding light glowed inside the elevator, almost burning off my eyeballs. The runes rearranged themselves to match. A small chime played when I reached the top floor. Dazed, I stepped out. Note to self, never activate a magic sword in an elevator. I saw the door to Captain Titan's office, with his name written on a golden nameplate.
There were also people waiting outside his door. They looked shocked by my presence. After all, I looked rather strange in their eyes, especially after the light. I pulled out my gun immediately and shot them all. The Bodyguards that were standing right outside the office moved to attack me, but in this form, I was much faster. In one swift move, I knocked both of them out. I open the door cautiously.
Captain Titan was completely focused on what he was doing. As I approached him, without looking up, he said, "To whom do I owe the pleasure of speaking to?"
Without saying a word, I grabbed his thick neck and I held him in the air as he struggled. Getting out of a grip like mine shouldn't be too difficult, right? WRONG! He'd overestimated himself. I threw his body out the window and jumped down myself. He was surprised, sure, but he wasn't weak. He quickly backflipped and reset himself. He got into a combative stance. I knew that if I made a mistake here, it would be over. But luckily, Bucket was waiting for me in the forest. I just had to drive Titan over there.
I got into a stance myself and prepared. I knew how he fought, and he didn't know who I was. I had the advantage. Instead of engaging with physical attacks immediately, I brought out my gun. I aimed at his vitals, but he expertly dodged and weaved right through them. But then, I suddenly lunged forward, but I didn't do a physical attack. I shot him, and then I grappled him while he was in the air. He tried to free himself, but realized he couldn't. I took that opportunity to release one powerful punch into his gut. He flew backwards into the forest.
He got up faster than I was expecting and changed his stance. This time, he had one hand as an uppercut and one hand as a block. As I approached, he used my trick. He suddenly pulled out his gun and started shooting at me. Then he kicked a tree toward me. I jumped over the tree, but then I got hit by a bullet. It ended up bouncing off, but I realized that if I didn't have this armor, I'd probably be dead by now.
The helmet showed me dangers that were in front of it, but with the tree taking up most of my vision, that was all I could see. I had totally missed his attack. Seeing as bullets didn't work, he threw away his gun. This time, we both engaged in a close-up battle. I had a schedule to keep. By my calculations, I only had 12 minutes until the "fireworks" went off.
He was a lot more violent in person, towering over me, and seemingly impenetrable. With that kind of arsenal in his possession, it made sense that he could send fear into the hearts of the soldiers just by speaking. We each traded blows, but it was starting to wear him down. My armor was tanking all of his hits like a champ and didn't even show any signs of breaking. As our fists clashed, shockwaves spread out in all directions. A thick sound reverberated each time our knuckles made contact. There was a certain tension in the air, further reminding me of how much this battle mattered. The dark blue sky and the grayish clouds made it further sinister. Fires from miles away turned the moon red.
He didn't back down. In fact, he started getting into a rhythm and was able to predict some of my moves. I thought I had the upper hand at first, but my knuckles got more sore with each collision. We were equally matched in terms of firepower, but he had superior stamina. If I didn't do something drastic, I would lose.
He started aiming for the critical points of my armor, and it started to dent a bit. I started going defensive and started playing a little dirty. I used the small lighter on one of the knuckles and lit his beard aflame. As uncomfortable as it was, he had no choice but to keep fighting.
Instead, what he did was he used magic to channel that into his fists, setting them aflame. I couldn't hold out any longer and brought out my secret weapon, which was Rice Cooker. I channeled my anger into it, and cookie dust left me. Upon doing so, unfortunately, I left my calling card in the surrounding area. A blue torrent of fire engulfed him. But he still wasn't dead. He was barely walking, but it seemed he still had some fight left in him. He tried to get rid of the fire, but he couldn't since Rice Cooker's flames couldn't be extinguished, so he resorted to cutting off the limbs that were still on fire, which kind of worked. I removed my helmet, and the eyes in his burnt face widened. I smirked.
"Y-you! Kalerin!"
He slightly faltered in his movements and temporarily let his guard down.
"Remember, Grandpa? This is for him. And by the way, it's not Kalerin, it's Blaise. I won't bother telling you my first name, though. You don't deserve that."
"S-so they actually managed to have a child... that's good to know," he chuckled to himself nervously.
"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue? I have to say. I am rather disappointed. I expected more. Though this side of you is amusing as well."
"D-Don't come any closer!" he scootched back, one hand out.
"Well... Isn't this familiar? Ah, I believe the line you said was, 'Let's just say it's a favor to the Leader. To be honest, I came here for him... but you... You're an unexpected piece of gold.
"I'm warning you!"
"Nice last words... gramps."
"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! How did you enjoy my show?!" he cackled, maniacally.
He pulled out a red gem from his pocket and was about to eat it when suddenly, Bucket came crashing down from the treetop and hit him on the head with a shovel. Captain Titan instantly died. Well... that was Anticlimactic.
The gem rolled down from his hands. It looked interesting, so I picked it up. With a smirk on my face, I dug a quick hole and shoved his body inside. Bucket and I then spat on his grave. I looked at my watch. 5 minutes remaining. Quickly, I set up a camera that would look upon the stage and swiftly made it to the helicopter, where the guys were waiting for me. The Builder took off quickly. Finally! We were home free. I took off my helmet.
"YOU!" screamed a certain someone. And of course, by that certain someone, I meant Elaine.