Chapter Sixteen
Master Miller had said that he'd wanted to run me through a training scenario with fully automatic weapons. What he hadn't said was that he was going to be the one with the big guns. Surprise.
Master Miller stood before me in what I could only hope and assume was his complete Reploid armor. On his right shoulder he still had the rail gun that could send a tungsten shell the size of a soda can at five times the speed of sound in almost any direction without him having to move. On his left shoulder he had a chain gun that looked like it belonged on a space ship given that the bullets were nearly half a foot long. Then for close range combat he had two highly customized sub machine guns. Each of them where shortened to the point of being less than a foot long with high capacity magazines and they both had interfaces that gave him targeting cross hairs on his heads up display.
It wasn't that any of my other training was safe but the fact that Master Miller didn't believe in using training rounds made the idea of him actually shooting at me one of the most frightening days of training so far. It wasn't that I couldn't block the chain gun, or the sub machine guns, with my shockhaven, but the rail gun was a different story. With the speed that the shell moved I would be lucky if I could react quick enough to even put up a haven barrier, but I didn't know if I could do more than redirect the shell at that speed and using spell binding to stop the round might drain my shockhaven well dry. Master Miller had told me once that he actually preferred energy based weapons but that they just weren't effective enough against shockhaven users. "Energy weapons are great, Unfortunately, they're too easy to send back at whoever shot 'em. I've got enough ammo that I don't care if you block the solid shells just so long as you don't send 'em back at me." He was right of course. The easiest way to block energy weapons is to make a reflective surface with your shockhaven and redirect the energy bolt. If you were to add another reflection and do the math to get the angles right you could send the energy bolts right back at whoever shot them with great accuracy. Of course if you weren't fighting a havenist energy weapons had a slew of benefits. Energy bolts penetrated conventional armor better than their solid shell counterparts. They didn't have actual ammunition but charge packs that were much lighter and in most cases could be converted to being charged with an individuals shockhaven. The weapons themselves were almost always lighter, given that they didn't have as many, if any, moving parts.
Master Miller and I were in an open room that was easily fifteen hundred feet long and across, and probably a hundred feet tall. I had no idea what the room was used for and it was completely empty save for Master Miller and myself. As I stood there, in the armor that I'd thought overly bulky the first time I'd worn it, I couldn't help but feel a little under prepared and over exposed in the face of such armament.
"Your task for the day is simple." Master Miller began. "I'll be playing the role of your enemy, and I'll be at that end of the room." he said, pointing to the far wall. "You'll be over there on the other side. When I yell go, you'll engage and eliminate your target. The whole point of this training is for you to learn what it's like to get shot at by automatic weapons. Plus I like the smell of gun powder." he said and smiled. I knew he was going to enjoy getting to use me as a live practice target for all of his guns far more than I was going to enjoy getting shot at but that didn't mean that I wanted to see him smiling about it. "You got any questions?"
This was probably one of the most simple training scenarios I'd ever had, so of course I didn't have any questions, but that didn't mean that I wanted to rush into getting shot at. "No sir." I said.
"Good." he said and nodded. "Get on over there and we'll get started." he added and with that he used the same boosters that I had in my boots to take off towards his side of the room. With as heavy and bulky as he looked with all of his weapons, he moved with a grace and speed that said that he was obviously use to the load of his armor.
Even though he wasn't slow, my armor was much lighter and I was much faster than Master Miller. I got to my position and turned around in time to see him still hovering towards his own. With his back to the wall the idea of getting behind him gone. I was going to have to come at him from the front and there was no getting around that. The sub machine gun was more of an annoyance than a real danger. The chain gun rounds I'd have to deflect from the top half of my body at a minimum, but if I could avoid getting beat up by the impacts at all I'd prefer it. The real problem was that damn rail gun. Even a glancing blow would be the end of training, so my best chance was to keep my movement up and trying not to get shot all together. Not much of a plan, but it was all I had and it'd have to do.
"You ready down there?" Master Miller yelled, as he set down at his wall.
There was really nothing I could say that might change the outcome of this and he knew it. He was just taking the time to set up and get a good aim. "Yes sir." I yelled back still hovering ready to move.
"Go!" he yelled. His yell was drowned out by the sound of the chain gun.
I went right and spoke to my shockhaven. "Deflect rounds from my face, until ordered to stop." It was a vague binding, but I wasn't planning on using the spell as my primary defense At the same time that I spoke to my shockhaven I put up a traditional sphere barrier over my head. The rounded angle of the sphere would help to deflect the rounds instead of trying to completely stop them outright, and I hoped that it would help take less shockhaven energy that way.
The rounds impacted in the wall where I'd been standing moments before. Master Miller's aim was dead on. The first few rounds were at chest height and then they started disperse more as he tried to follow me. I pumped more shockhaven to the ports in my boots and took flight up, forward and to my right, Master Millers left. The rounds were still whizzing past my left side, about a foot away and were getting closer. Then right before they got on target they stopped and I felt the rail gun charging up in my haven awareness. I Kicked out my right leg to the side and sent more power than I ever had to the port in that boot. As a result I went flying across the room faster than I'd thought possible. The rail gun fired but I was no where near where Master Miller was aiming and struggled to regain control as the round impacted into the wall behind me.
Dodging that shot had given me an idea. I'd never tried to see how fast I could move using the boosters in my boots. So far in my training I'd only used them to skate on the air to help me move just a little faster. However, I could use them like rocket boots and fly parallel to the ground, giving Master Miller a smaller target and getting me to him much faster.
As I made the choice and leaned forward while sending more shockhaven to the ports, Master Miller's chain gun began sending rounds a little to far to the right. I shot up, forward and fought to gain control of my flight. It was difficult to fly without any type of wing or fin stabilizer system and it was going to take more time to get adjusted to this type of movement than I had to spare. even though I was going much faster, I was going in a straight line and it didn't take Master Miller long to zero in on me and open up with his chain gun, hammering my right flank. The only way I had to steer was by tilting my feet to change the direction of the ports on the bottom of my boots. So I angled my boots so that I cut down and to the right. I dipped farther down than I expected and almost hit the floor, but not only was I starting to get the hang of this kind of flying, I was closing in on Master Miller as well. I brought my feet under me and stopped sending as much shockhaven to the ports in my boots, so that I was more or less standing upright, while still moving forward with the momentum from my burst forward.
At the same time Master Miller raised both his sub machine guns and opened fire. The bullets may have been small but he emptied the two 75 round clips in less than three seconds. Alone the impact from one round would have been barely noticeable, but together they hit me like a wall of lead. Then the rail gun powered up and I realized that the machine guns had done exactly what they were meant to do. Each of the rounds had chipped away at my forward mome
ntum and now I was hovering at standstill maybe thirty feet from Master Miller. I pumped more shockhaven into my boots and shot straight up. I pointed both of my arm cannons down at Master Miller and fired. My cannons couldn't hope to fire faster than his machine guns but they carried more than enough power to blast through whatever he shot from his machine guns and hopefully could cause knock one of the rail guns rounds of course enough to miss. Not only that, but I hoped that they might inspire Master Miller to move so that I could avoid finding out in case I was wrong.
Master Miller dodged to the left and moved out to the center of the room trying to get a better angle. Now that he was away from that wall and moving I needed to keep him that way and use my speed to my advantage. I pulled the right arm cannon back so that I could use my hand, as I circled above Master Miller and summoned my sword. The rush of power that I felt when I connect to the sword with my shockhaven reassured my plan. I came in low from his left side, the side that the chain gun was on, and almost immediately the chain-gun opened fire. Given that I was only a hundred feet or so away Master miller was on target and the rounds bounced off of my barrier bubble. I could feel the barrier pulling more and more shockhaven energy with each impact, but the drain wasn't much and since I was accelerating instead of coasting the impacts did nothing to slow me down.
I closed the distance to less than thirty-five feet and Master miller began to turn while raising both his sub machine guns. I pumped even more shockhaven to the ports in my boots, so much so that I heard a loud pop that I later realized was me breaking the sound barrier. At the same time I tilted my boots so that I started to corkscrew. I flew past him under his arms looking up at him and slashed with my sword. I was going so fast that I couldn't actually see much more than a blur, but I felt four points of resistance, but my sword went through all four with relative ease. I cut off the shockhaven to my boots, flipped 180 so that my momentum was carrying me feet first, and then used my boosters to come to a stop.
"Should I continue?" I asked, looking back at him to see what all I had cut.
Master Miller looked at the four tips of his weapons that were on the ground, then back at me. "You know, I could just summon another weapon." he said. It was a fare point given that I was a good twenty-five feet away from him.
I was still holding my sword and wondering if I could close the distance between us before he could summon another weapon and take aim with it. "You could. Then again I could take disarming you to a more literal level the next time." I said, pausing before respectfully adding. "Sir."
We were at a stand still and it was completely up to Master Miller if he wanted to continue or not. "You could." he began as he dropped the two useless halves of what were his sub machine guns to the floor. He shrugged his shoulders, one, then the other and what was left of both of his shoulder weapons fell to the floor as well. "What do you know about rockets and grenade launchers?" he asked.
I looked at him for a moment wondering if he might try to summon one to teach me more about them. It would've been a mistake. I wouldn't try to kill one of the Masters or even seriously hurt them, but I wasn't above cutting off one or more of his prosthetic limbs. "Other than they're the worst possible weapon to use against a havenist I don't know much sir." I said still griping my sword.
"And why is that?" Master Miller asked.
"Well they detonate when they hit a solid object so it would stand to reason that a smart havenist would blow them up with a barrier in the shooter's face." I said.
"I suppose you would, wouldn't you?" he asked and I nodded in agreement. "Then I suppose we can call it quits. There's no point in letting you ruin any more of my guns." he said and I sent away my sword.
"How dense would you say that your weapons are?" I asked.
He looked down at the small pile of ruined guns. "In comparison to what?" he asked.
"To reploid armor." I said. "Compared to reploid armor, how strong are the weapons I just cut through?" I asked.
"Ah." He smiled and nodded. "With as cleanly as you cut through these, you could get through two plates of standard reploid armor. However, the shockhaven shielding and the shockhaven that flows through the armor it self, would've absorbed a lot of power from the strike." he said and I nodded. "But to answer your question they're about half as dense and a third as thick.
It was no easy slash and although I hadn't put much shockhaven or strength behind it, I was moving at the speed of sound. Still the fact remained that I could slash through the strongest parts of a Reploids armor without even using my full power. It reminded me that even though I felt invincible in my armor I wasn't, and if I could do it without even using my full power, then it was more than possible that someone else could as well.
Master Miller sent the broken pieces of his weapons off and then brought the conversation back to the original objective of the day's training. "So you did a good job of taking action while under automatic heavy fire. Even knowing that you can block the rounds, it still takes guts to rush into oncoming fire and not even flinch, and you did just that. You handled yourself like a pro just like I knew you would. Other wise I wouldn't have used live rounds."
"Thank you for your confidence sir." I said with a bow.
"You've come a long way in a short time. You're more comfortable and capable in your armor then most Reploids who have lived in theirs for their whole lives. You still have a lot to learn and given enough time I'm sure you'll master it all. For now though I think you're ready for flight training." he said.
"Flight training sir?" I asked.
"Well before you can accomplish your mission, whatever it may be, you have to be able to get there. So after tomorrow morning you'll be able add pilot to your list of skills." he said with a smile. "So go get some rest, cause tomorrow we're starting early and we'll keep going till you get it down."
With a bow I left and as I did I had a feeling that I didn't fully understand what all was going to happen the next day.