Citadel (Book 1): Training in Necessity (13 page)

He could feel the space between the grains, moved them closer to get rid of it.  When it was as tight as he could get it, he stopped.  He'd made a greyish black mound around his opponent, airtight.  He knew he'd have to let the man out soon, otherwise he'd suffocate.  The rules might have allowed it, but he didn't want to kill the guy.

Isaac started moving, slowly.  At first, Don thought he was struggling, trying to break through the surrounding mass.  Then he realized, Isaac was just walking.  He'd stuck the man in a tomb of dust, stronger than stone and feet thick, but the man was just walking out of it.  Isaac broke free, still walking towards Don, and he didn't even look bothered. 

Don raised his hands, lifting the dust he'd used to bury Isaac and collapsing it back into a powder.  He set it moving, swirling around the man, faster and faster.  Don forced it against him, and the floor.  At this speed, the dust could strip steel.  He could already feel it ripping up tiny chunks of the stone floor, gouging it deeper by the moment, and added that material to his cloud.

Cold sweat was building up on Don's face.  He pushed harder, trying to get his power to make more dust.  He was at his limit, so he used some of the swirling cloud to strip material off the walls as well as the floor.  This was as hard as he'd ever pushed himself.  The dust storm he was maintaining was strong enough to flip a truck, the grains of stone and dust were moving fast enough to eat through the side of a battleship. 

He'd have to be careful not to breach a wall at this rate, but Isaac was totally unaffected.  It was unreal.  He began compressing chunks of dust, making larger pieces.  He kept the cloud moving, used the larger pieces to strike at Isaac while he tried to rip off his skin with the smaller ones.

Isaac stopped walking when he was almost directly beneath Don.  His clothes weren't even damaged.  He said something.  Don could feel the movement in his face.  His dust was even more sensitive than his fingers were, but he couldn't tell what the man had said.  He thought he was finally having an effect on Isaac when the man bent over. 

He realized what was happening a moment later, when the rock, a piece of the floor that Isaac had scooped out as easily as a child made a snowball, came flying at him.  Don tried to put dust between him and it, but he couldn't harden it fast enough.  It hit him in his left hand.  He felt something give, screamed in pain, and half the dust in the room collapsed to the ground.

That included the dust that was supporting him.

Isaac caught him, cradling him in his arms like an infant.  Don tried to pull in more dust, sent it streaming at Isaac's face.  The bastard just adjusted his grip, ignoring Don's attempts to get free, until he was holding him up by both arms, squeezing them near the shoulders.  He could feel a red heat, spikes of agony coming from his hand every time he moved.  Isaac said something again, but Don still couldn't hear him.  He felt the man's grip tighten, then felt both his arms break.  He couldn't concentrate, let go of the dust, clenched his eyes shut against the pain.  Isaac set him down, gently.  It still hurt.  This time, he heard the looming figure speak.

"Say it."

Cold.  His voice was so cold.  Don couldn't think, didn't know what the man wanted.  Isaac's hands moved lower, squeezed again.  Don's eyes shot open as the pain got worse.  He looked away, terrified.  Isaac let go of his arms and Don was relieved, until he felt the hand on his throat.

"Please!" he begged, "Anything!  Just stop!"

"Apologize for wasting my time, boy."

"YES!" he screamed, desperate.  "I'm sorry!  I yield! I yield!"  He heard a noise and the hand let go.  He was crying but he didn't care, not as long as that man stopped hurting him.

Isaac let go of the kid's throat and stood up as soon as he heard the tone.  The match was over.  He turned and left through the same door he'd entered, without looking back at the other trainee.  He had to make an effort to keep his face cold and his stride even as he heard the healer working on the poor boy.  Isaac exited the dome, then paused to look around.  When he'd found his target, standing next to an unfamiliar man in an operative's uniform, he started walking again.

"Instructor Achala."

"Yes Trainee Isaac?"  The coach's voice didn't hold any of the hostility he'd feared.  Isaac didn't let his relief show.

"I'd like to change my name." he said, instead.

"If you are no longer Strong, then who are you?" Achala asked, with a touch of ceremony.

"Isaac Dauntless."

The man nodded in acceptance or maybe approval. "A good name, wear it well."

Isaac thought there might have been compassion in Achala's eyes, but he didn't take the time to be sure.  Again, without looking back, he turned and left.

Private Residence

He'd seen Hector and Jason in the crowd of trainees, gathered to watch or participate in the day's fights, but he hadn't acknowledged them.  Breaking character then would've wasted the work he'd done.  Work: to create something of value.  He sighed, hoping that fit, that what he'd started would actually have value.  She... she wouldn't have liked it.  But what she wanted didn't matter anymore, not after what that arrogant bastard, that stupid, idiotic vigilante had done.  So, this was what he'd do, who he'd be.

Isaac heard a knocking at his door.  It didn't surprise him.  He knew Jason and Kelly were at the matches, they each had a fight scheduled, but saying that Hector was somewhere else was kind of silly.  The young man always seemed to have a few duplicates around.

"Yeah?"

"Isaac?  It's Hector, mind if I come in?"

Isaac didn't answer, just grunted, but apparently that was enough.  Moving slowly, Hector opened the door and slipped in.  Isaac was sprawled out on the bed, one arm near his head and the other stretched out.  Hector took his usual seat, the room's only chair.

"Did it work?" Isaac asked him.

"Depends," Hector met Isaac’s gaze, his face grim, "were you trying to scare the shit out of pretty much everyone else in the class?"

"That bad?" Isaac winced.  "Not how I would've put it, but yeah, that's pretty much what I was going for."

"Why?"

"This way, I keep my current spot without having to fight as much."

"I didn't think you were the type to care about the rankings." Hector said.

"I don't, not really." Isaac tried to explain.  "They've been pretty up front that the rankings don't mean anything, not in and of themselves.  Coach Achala called them a training opportunity, or something like that."  Hector nodded.  "I think... I think what they really are, are a chance to study us.  The fight training we've had so far, it isn't about teaching technique or anything like that.  Even the exercise, I mean, it makes people stronger... but there's something off.  It seems to me, they're both more about teaching an attitude.  Or maybe looking for it?  I wanted to show them, the instructors, what I'm capable of."

"You're right.  Or at least, I've been thinking pretty much the same way."  Hector agreed.

"Heroes-" Isaac felt the burning in his head and his vision took on a silver tint, just from saying the word.  "Sorry."  He took a moment to calm down.  "Vigilantes, the ones that call themselves heroes, they talk about inspiring people.  They dress up in bright colors, costumes and masks and all that.  The Citadel, operatives, they wear black and white.  They don't exactly wear uniforms, there's too many differences in the gear they carry to call them that, but it’s close.  They aren't about good and evil, just..."

"Necessity."  Hector interrupted.

"Exactly.  That's what the training, the lectures and the ranking stuff is all about.  That mind set."

"How do you mean?  I get the lectures, they're not exactly subtle.  But the rankings?"

"Take that poor Dust kid, Donny." Isaac started to explain.

"Don." Hector interrupted.  "He, uh, he hates being called Donny."

"Sorry.  Guess he reminded me of someone else." Isaac closed his eyes, just for a moment, before continuing.  "They both got in over their heads because they didn't bother to think about what they were doing.  I'm probably the worst possible match for that kid, and it should've been obvious to him."

"Yeah, the force field, right?"  Hector got it, probably had as soon as he saw what Don's power was.

"I don't know the details, but that kid made and controlled some kind of powder, right?"

"He calls it dust, obviously.  They're basically bucky balls, if you've ever heard the term.  He's also got a kind of telekinesis that only works on small particles and his dust." explained Hector.

"Thought so.  You've been watching him, all of us.  You're smart.  He isn't."  Isaac shook his head.  "I saw what he did to the walls and the floor.  That kid's power is destructive as anything you can name.  But my field, there's no friction there.  It only registers impact, and it pushes back against each one, individually.  The only shot he used against me, the only one that might've worked, was the first one.  But it wasn't strong enough, not enough force behind it.  Against a basic Strong type, maybe even one on the same scale as me, he'd have peeled them down to the bone."

"So what does that say about this attitude you were talking about?" Hector asked.

"The exercise.  With that Aid guy there, you literally couldn't fail.  All you had to do was keep trying.  With the lectures, they've been emphasizing making a hard call in a no win situation.  Fight training was the same thing, on a more personal scale.  Get us, those of us that need it, used to hurting someone.  Used to being hurt, too. 

“The first time's the hardest, same as most things.  It gets easier to deal with.  Every single time, it's easier.  The rankings... that's a little different.  My take on it is that it's about planning, fitting strength against weakness.  It's like Instructor Verres said, no one's so strong they can beat all comers."

Hector hesitated, before answering.  "I'm... not so sure about that last part.  But I think you're right about the rest.  Everything they've done so far, it isn't about training the body.  They're trying to shape our mindsets.  And I'm wondering... just how honest they've been about it."

"What do you mean?"  Isaac sat up, suddenly concerned.

"You remember that guest speaker, the one from Monday?"

"Sights or something.  What about him?" Isaac asked.

"He was wrong." Hector said.

The Sparring Fields

Kelly examined her opponent from across the room.  Jim Feral was a little under average height, with light brown hair and a build that wasn't quite heavy enough to be called stocky.  She'd picked him for a couple of reasons.  Kerry had fought him during the initial rankings and had been willing to share what she knew about his abilities. 

He had the basic physical enhancements: strength, durability and reflex speed, but they weren't enough to stand out here.  Coupled with fairly high end regeneration and natural blades, he was the perfect opponent for her to test out her new form.  He could do enough damage to get through anything but the really outstanding defenses and she didn't have to worry about hurting him too bad, if her form worked better than she expected.  Of course, the most important reason was that she hadn’t seen him in a while, wanted to reconnect.

"I hate fighting people like you." he called, strolling forward.  Her first reaction was a mixture of betrayed hurt and anger.  She almost attacked right then, but that sort of thing didn't really fit him.  He’d never had a problem with her… ‘oddity’ before.

"What do you mean?" she asked instead.  He stopped around thirty feet away, close enough that they didn't need to yell but far enough to let him react if she tried to sucker punch him.  It was smart, smarter than she'd have expected from him.

"The tiny little girls with ridiculous powers." he explained.  "If I win, I get crap for beating up a little girl.  Losing is even worse.  No one gives you sympathy for getting torn apart by a fucking dragon if they think of it as a cute little red head."  His tone was bitter but he was smirking as he said it, amused.  "It's a lose-lose situation."  Kelly shifted to her basic male form.

"Better?"

"Thanks, I appreciate it."  Jim lunged forward, faster than Kelly expected.  A bone spike slid out of the palm of his hand as he came.

Kelly turned aside and stumbled back, barely avoiding the attack.  He looked down, saw a cut in his training uniform that showed a bloody patch beneath it.  That spike was needle sharp and more of them were sliding out as he watched.  Jim was staring at him, crouching just a little with his arms spread to the sides, as they slid into place at his knees and elbows as well as his other hand.  Kelly needed to buy time to get into his new fighting shape.  He shifted to the climbing form instead and leaped for the nearest wall, just above the door he'd come in through.

Kelly's fingers had wide, sharp claws that bit into the stone surface of the wall.  He knew his skin had a weird, pebbly look to it but that was just the side effect of the tiny sucker like extrusions that covered most of his body now.  They were modeled on a gecko's setae and let him cling to surfaces, even vertical or upside down.  It wouldn't have worked without the hollowed out bones or the super light, thin frame that he'd gotten by removing most of his internal organs.  A custom designed body could do things that Mother Nature never dreamed of.  Kelly crawled, as quickly as he could, up the curved wall of the dome and out of Jim Feral's reach.