Alkalians (12 page)

“
Yes, of course you do,”
Serpanz sternly replies. “Even if you think you know all about the
basics, it wouldn’t hurt to rejog your memory on them. Or, if you
preferred, you could rejog the three laps you did for warm-up. Plus
seventeen more.”

While the other freshmen, including
Matt and Rose, act disgruntled at the thought of running some more,
Sean chirps up, “Heh, that’s fine with me! I’ll go ahead and run
those twenty laps, instead of sitting through this boring procedure
again.”

All the freshmen, and even
the intermediates, turn to him in surprise, and Serpanz remarks,
“Oh, really? You think my presentations are boring?” A moment goes
by with her staring at him in thought, unnerving the freshmen
around him, before she suggests with a smirk, “Well, Sean, how
would you like to, instead of watching this demonstration,
participate
in it? You
can do that, or it’s
fifty
laps around the arena. I’ll let you
decide.”

There are either gasps or snickers
from among the other students as Sean ponders what he had gotten
himself into before he says, “Well, since you asked so nicely, I
guess it would be a privilege to be in the demonstration!” He
stands up and walks over to Serpanz’s side, bearing a jolly old
grin.

Trying to ignore his display of good
humor, Serpanz addresses the freshmen and continues, “Now, the
first thing we’ll talk about are the most common abilities used in
close combat. The energy blades.” Motioning to one of the
intermediates, he steps up next to Sean as she explains, “A high
percentage of the Alkalian population have battle morphs that arm
themselves with sharp blades, whether made of energy or not. For
example, here…” As she gestures, the intermediate morphs into a
figure with green, chain-mail armor, and a broadsword made of green
energy sprouts from his right arm. “Is the typical Swordsman type,
armed with a single sword made of concentrated energy. The blade is
truly solid while the energy is focused, but it also has weight to
it. However, most battle morphs are automatically strong enough to
wield their weapons with ease. As long as the Swordsman keeps focus
on the energy, the sword remains solid and visible. If his focus is
broken, though, whether by a stunning blow or by having his hand
severed, the sword dissipates and is no longer in use. Any
questions so far?”

For a moment, none of the freshmen
respond, but then a girl raises her hand and asks, “Can the
Swordsman drop the energy blade, or even throw it at an
opponent?”

“
A good question, Sarah,
and no, for most morphs, they can’t. However, they can transfer the
focus of the energy to their other hand, which is useful for a
quick change in techniques, or they can hold it between both hands,
which increases the size and weight of the blade, a method reserved
for dealing stronger blows. So, while there are those morphs with
weapons made of energy…”

At her cue, the Swordsman demorphs and
steps back while another student steps forward and morphs into a
blue-armored warrior with a spear, its long pole held between both
his hands and tipped with a curved blade. Serpanz says, “There are
those morphs with weapons made of actual, solid substance, like the
Spearman. The advantage to the weapons being of real material is,
like Sarah asked earlier, they can be juggled between the wielder’s
hands for certain techniques, or even be thrown at opponents. In
this case, the Spearman could twirl, thrust, or block with his
lance in quick order. We shall now demonstrate how that works.”
Turning to Sean, she commands, “Morph, and engage in combat with
Simon here.”

Eyeing his appointed competition, Sean
shrugs and says, “Oh, goody, I get to be impaled!” before morphing.
After she steps back to the intermediates, Serpanz gives the okay
with a nod, and Simon begins the spar by thrusting his spear’s
blade at Sean, who barely dodges it by bending his torso back like
he was playing limbo. For the next several seconds, he quickly
side-steps and ducks the sweeps and stabs of the spear, angering
Simon and amusing the freshmen more and more until he asks,
“Professor Serpanz, may I point out something?”

“
If you must.”

“
Very well. I do believe
there is a distinct disadvantage to these real weapons, which,
simply put, is that the warrior’s opponent could…” Right after he
dodges another thrust, he suddenly reaches down, grabs the wooden
pole, and yanks it out of Simon’s grasp, whipping the spear point
back at him. “Do this!” Astonished by the fact his weapon is no
longer in his hands, but Sean’s, Simon looks with horror at him as
Sean says, “Now it’s my turn to play
poker
!” and starts jabbing the lance
at him.

While Simon frantically avoids Sean’s
frenzied attacks and is chased around the floor of the arena, many
of the freshmen are laughing at the spectacle, the intermediates
look disgusted, and Serpanz tries to keep the students’ attention
as she explains, “Yes, that is one disadvantage, and then there is
the possibility the weapon may be broken in two, as most of these
weapons are based on a wooden pole, which also leaves the warrior
disarmed. However, if the weapon is broken, most Alkalians can
simply focus some energy to make a fresh weapon to replace it. And
yet, what we are seeing isn’t such a case.”

By this point, Simon had enough of
hopping out of Sean’s reach and finally turns to run away. While
Sean puckers his lower lip in annoyance, one of the freshmen who
isn’t laughing notices something and says, “Excuse me, professor,
but why doesn’t Simon just demorph? Won’t that get rid of his
stolen weapon?”

“
I’m glad you asked that,
Jordan, but no, that wouldn’t be a good idea. Not only will he be
completely harmless against the morphed opponent, but his weapon
will also remain in existence. The only time the weapon disappears
is when it is in the hands of its original owner. It’s the same
phenomenon as how the personal belongings or clothes on the
Alkalian disappear when they morph.”

As she says this, Sean comes up with
an idea to take down the fleeing Spearman. Floating up into the
air, he propels after him, holding the spear with his left hand,
and quickly closes in on him. Sensing he is about to get struck
from behind, Simon turns just in time to see the lance’s point get
driven into his upper chest, knocking him down to the ground as
Sean lets go of it and slides to a stop as yellowish green wound
energy bursts out of him.

As all the freshmen whoop and cheer at
Sean’s performance, to which he gracefully bows, he, after Simon
does first, demorphs while Serpanz, trying to hide her annoyance,
speaks loudly and strictly over the freshmen’s cheers, “Moving on,
class! While we are on the subject of close combat with sharp
objects, another very common kind of battle morph are the Beasts.
These Alkalians transform into a kind of animal and use their
primal strength and speed to fight foes in savage fury. While there
are nearly as many kinds of Beasts as there are animal species, a
large percentage of them are…”

At her gesture, another of the
intermediates steps forward and morphs, changing into a large cat,
colored blue with black stripes, and flexes her claws and yawns to
expose her big fangs. The freshmen, by then paying attention, all
jump a little, except for Matt and Rose. Serpanz says, “Mammal
predator types, like this Tiger here. Otherwise, there are more
specific, rarer kinds of Beasts, which are usually found only
within family blood-lines. Are there any questions about Beasts?”
Waiting for a hand to go up, one does and she says, “Yes,
Roger?”

“
Yeah, um, I’ve heard
about Beasts that can use guns or magic to fight with, besides
tooth and claw. Is that true?”

“
To an extent, Roger, yes
it is. Most kinds of Beasts can only fight with their body’s
arsenal, but there are some, due to heritage or added effects by
special drugs, who can also use guns or magic spells as weapons.
Now, speaking of guns, that is the next basic ability of Alkalians
we shall discuss.”

When the Tiger demorphs and steps
back, another intermediate takes her place, and she morphs to have
leather-like, brown armor, and her right arm twists and
shape-shifts into a small rifle while Serpanz explains, “The
Alkalians who mainly use firearms, which are commonly called
Gunners, are divided into types designated by what kind of firearm
they can use. For example, here is a simple Rifle Gunner. But the
other types can be anything simple, like the Handgun or Shotgun, or
they can be immensely powerful, like the Turret, Grenadier, or
Sniper.

“
The way Gunners fight is
primarily by shooting bullets made of energy from their guns. They
can fire bullets from their guns for as long as the energy core,
the small chamber in the gun, produces the energy for the bullets
without overheating. Once the energy core overheats, or is harmed
by a foe’s attack, it is disabled and the Gunner cannot use the
gun. If it overheats, she can wait until the core cools down, but
if it is damaged, it is disabled for the rest of the time in her
battle morph. Now, we shall demonstrate how a Gunner fights.”
Turning back to Sean, who has just returned to her side, she tells
him, “Remorph and fight Stephanie here.”

Looking at the rifle
serving as Stephanie’s right arm, Sean sighs and says, “Well, I
guess I’ll be
holey
after this. Get it?”

While a few of the freshmen giggle,
Serpanz states, “Yes, I get it. Morph and fight.” She then steps
back with the intermediates, and Stephanie levels her rifle towards
Sean and aims the barrel at his chest. Sighing again, Sean
remorphs, and in instant reaction Stephanie begins shooting at him,
the first three bullets hitting him square in the chest before he
dashes out of the way. She runs after him, steadily firing more
shots at him, but his swift agility on air balance allows him to
avoid the bullets as he leads her away from the group of
students.

After about ten seconds pass by with
her chasing him towards the wall of the arena, Stephanie’s gun
finally stops shooting as the core inside it overheats. Hearing the
firing end behind him, Sean makes his move as he propels toward the
wall, plants his feet on it, and kicks back off it towards her in a
burst of speed.

Not being prepared for the quick
counterattack, Stephanie is about to try another round of shots
when he crashes into her, sending them both into a mid-air roll
where he grapples onto her gun arm and viciously tugs on it,
breaking it with a distinct crack. After disabling her gun, Sean
releases her so that she tumbles across the ground while he
smoothly lands.

With more cheers from the freshmen in
the background, Sean walks over to Stephanie, who has rolled over
onto her left side and cringes at her crippled right arm, which
glows a dark orange. Once he stands over her, he says, “It was a
good try, but without your gun, you have no way to fight me. It
just wouldn’t be nice of me if I had to beat you into
demorphing.”

When he finishes the
polite suggestion, Stephanie rolls to be face-up at him with her
left arm then a rifle instead, and fires more bullets into Sean,
who exclaims, “Spirits, why!?” as he falls over. As the freshmen
gasp, she jumps back onto her feet, plants her right foot in Sean’s
yellow chest wounds, and aims the barrel of her gun at his face,
giving him a look saying
he
should go ahead and demorph.

Serpanz smirks and turns to the
freshmen to explain, “It seems Sean didn’t listen completely to
this presentation last time, or else he would have known that
Gunners can usually turn either of their arms into guns. The reason
why they don’t simply have both arms as guns is because they are
more accurate with one gun and they would have to worry about two
gun cores instead of one. So, are there any more questions about
Gunners before we move on?”

When no hands go up, and after Sean
and Stephanie demorph, she continues, “Very well. The next basic
form of combat we’ll talk about for today is magic. The usual kinds
of battle morphs that can use magic are simply called Magicians,
but there are the rare examples of other kinds, like the Beasts
mentioned earlier, who can also cast spells. To do so, the Alkalian
has a specialized, vein-like system in its body that charges the
energy for the magic, focuses it into the point it will be cast
from, and then releases it into existence. Most spells that are
cast are mass-destructive, therefore giving magic users a high
advantage in any battle situation, and there are some spells that
can be used for defensive purposes or are unique to the Alkalian’s
specific type.

“
However, Magicians and
the like have a few obstacles to worry about. The first is they not
only have to charge enough energy for a spell, but they also have
to charge it in a certain pulse, hence the system of veins in their
morphs, or the spell will not stabilize and it will be just a waste
of energy. The second problem is if the vein system within the body
is obstructed enough by wounds, the magic pulse system will be
disrupted and some spells will be unusable. And the third problem,
which mainly applies to Magicians, is they are not as armored as
most battle morphs and therefore are easier to greatly wound. Now,
we shall see an example of a spell caster in action.”

At her cue, the last of
the intermediates steps forward as Sean and Stephanie return to the
group, and out of his morphing flash he is adorn in yellow robes.
He turns to Sean intently, who glances at Serpanz’s cold stare and
mumbles, “Ach, here comes round three. You know, those fifty laps
are starting to look good right about now.” As soon as he morphs,
the Magician raises his right palm toward him, cries out,
“
Wavequence
!” and
launches waves of energy towards him, flipping him up, blowing him
over, and dragging him across the ground away from the group of
students.