//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: Marshals: The Next Generation // by GentlemanJ //------------------------------// Chapter 3 Darting from tree to tree, Firefox cast rapid glances in all directions as she made her way towards the top of the mountain. Be swift. Be silent. Don’t just note your surroundings, use them. Take advantage of every resource, utilize every opportunity. Such was the hallmark of a good soldier. Nobody had expected much from her when she’d first come to the Academy. Almost a porcelain doll in stature and appearance, she looked far too pretty to ever voluntarily enlist. In fact, most assumed her one of the local nobles attending the entrance exams on a lark. By the time she’d sent her third opponent to the medical ward, however, that sort of image was quickly discarded for another, one that came with as many colorful nicknames as feathers on a peacock. Mad Dog. Rabies. The Tawny-Eyed Terror. From that day forth, the Academy rang with hushed whispers of a demonic little warrior, but only when they thought her well out of hearing range. All according to her carefully laid plans. They say that a good chess player thinks five steps ahead. Firefox averaged around twenty. What few people realized was that everything Firefox did, from tear people apart in practice to snarling like a caged badger, was all the product of a devilishly cunning mind. Nothing came from the girl without a meticulous series of calm, rational calculations to justify the act. Enlisting? Best way for a girl without two bits to rub together to make her way in the world. Joining the marshals? A few years hard work for credentials she could bank all her life. It wasn’t anything special, it was just business. In the same way, Firefox had carefully mapped out her time at Academy from day one. She hadn’t really wanted to hurt the other applicants – she had nothing against them after all – but she knew that a strong reputation was a powerful weapon that could both demoralize opponents and deter potential adversaries in her quest for dominance. A few injuries here, some well-placed snarling there, a couple of wild-eyed looks over yonder, and before you knew it, most were too scared of her to even look at her cross-eyed. Thus freed from the typical jostle of classmate politics, Firefox could devote her time to developing her skills. With such an astute mind, her investments in tactical knowledge and technical skills soon produced bountiful returns. Not the strongest mage? Snipe them before they saw you. Not the strongest combatant? Change the playing field around them. Facing overwhelming odds? Take pot shots and run, stringing them along till they overextended. Then strike. Firefox understood resourcefulness like none other; to gain the high ground was the absolute law of the world. It didn’t matter if she was outmanned or outgunned, if she could find a way to change the rules in her favor, even armies wouldn’t stand a chance. That's probably why Firefox respected the marshals so much and distrusted them even more. Whenever people spoke of the fabled marshals, it was always with tones of reverence and awe. After all, who wouldn’t be impressed by soldiers with the strength of ten men, more magical power than a genie and who could fly like phoenixes without wings? Nobody obviously. And that’s what got Firefox to narrow her tawny eyes. There’s truth in every story, but whether in nuggets or grains, it was often hard to say. How much of the marshal’s abilities were really there and how much of it was smoke and mirrors? Who’s to say that the marshal’s weren’t just a band of pretty good soldiers who simply used the mystique of their title to wage psychological warfare before the battle even began? Especially Graves. Honestly, the Ghost of Thunder. Any more grandiosity in that name and he’d have to start addressing himself with the imperial we. Firefox didn’t doubt that the man was a good soldier, but really, a marksman who never missed? She personally practiced three hundred round every morning and even on her best days, she’d be off on at least one. Obviously, that was more hype than substance and mere puffery designed to give the grey-eyed marshal an edge. Well, she wasn’t falling for it, and after she took him down, all that hype would be hers, just one more tool to add to her kit. It was with this resolution that Firefox slowly approached the mountain summit and the rapidly thinning tree line. Dropping to her belly, the bronze-haired cadet began to crawl forward at a snail’s pace so as not to disturb even a single blade of grass. Following the natural contours of the slope, she advanced forward bit by bit, covering mere inches per minute till at last, she came to the edge of the woods. There, at the center of probably thirty paces of open ground all around, stood a small wooden tower at the very top of the summit. The vantage point used by officers to oversee training, the height and position of the tower made it the ultimate high ground unrivaled anywhere else on this mountain. From there, a good marksman could lay down fire on just about any point on those rugged slopes. For a great marksman like her, it would provide her unrivaled power. But only if she could make it, of course. Naturally, a sharpshooter like Graves would be well aware of the tactical advantages of taking the spot, and with the head start he’d gotten, Firefox would bet bits to barleycorns he could make it there first. Could. Perhaps he’d adopted a more aggressive strategy. She didn’t know, and that’s why she waited. Steadily, time ticked by as Firefox lay still, every muscle frozen in such motionless patience even stones would have been impressed. Carefully invest attention now to reap the rewards of assured victory later. Sharp eyes focused on the tower, the young soldier waited and waited and waited, looked for any sign, anything at all that might indicate a presence within its wooden wall. She saw nothing. Nearly an hour gone, and not a breath stirred. Time to make a calculated gamble. Undulating very softly, Firefox slowly worked the stiffness from her muscles and gathered her strength. When every fiber of her being was charged with kinetic potential, Firefox exploded, pouring the fiery ferocity she took to every fight into her legs as she dashed across the deadly open grounds. It was only thirty paces, but it was still thirty paces of pure, exposed vulnerability with made it seem more like thirty miles. Even so, not once in that harrowing race did she let her attention falter. Ears were strained for the first crackle of thunder. Eyes darted for the faintest of silver flashes. Nose twitched like a hunted jackrabbit’s just in case the breeze brought in the charged whiff of ozone. Though she was taking a risk, she did so with every ounce of focus sent out to make sure that risk was reduced to zero. And then it was over. She was across the clearing, up the rough-hewn ladder, and in the assuredly empty tower. The high ground was hers. Firefox allowed herself the briefest of satisfied smiles before she instantly got to work. Darting around the tower’s interior, the cadet cast her sharp eyes over every open surface and scanned for traps. Just because the marshal wasn’t here now, didn’t mean he’d never been there, and a single strategically placed spell tag or concealed tripwire could turn this advantage into one giant, combustible cage. But she found nothing. Even checking for loose floorboards and looking under the steps spiraling up the tower’s central support pillar revealed nothing. The tower was cleaner than the mess hall on mystery chowder day. Only once triple sure that she was safe did Firefox ascend the stairs to the viewing platform above. There in the open air atop the tower, the bronze-haired gunner took a deep breath of cold, crisp air as she panned her view over the entire mountain. From a crouch, of course. Standing up for all the world to see would not have been the most tactful of choices. After a quick but thorough inventory of the surrounding lands, Firefox braced her spell gun against one of the low crenels encircling the tower’s top and reached into her travel pack to retrieve a long range scope. A few minute adjustments, a quick snap to the top of her rifle, and one standard recruit’s weapon transformed into a dealer of death from afar. Satisfied with her weapon, Firefox got comfortable, taking a well-practiced shooting stance as she relaxed her body and let her gaze drift out of focus as it crossed over the mountain side. “Where are you?” she softly whispered to herself. “Where are you hiding?” Don’t try to find the target. You never would. Instead, take advantage of the eye’s attraction to motion. Look for disturbances, distortions in the pattern. It’s at these distortions that the enemy hides, and it’s at these disturbances where you should fire. Smoothly rotating from crenule to crenule, Firefox’s now foggy, unfocused eyes searched the trees, never looking, but always watching. Always watching… Firefox felt it almost before she saw it. Hairs standing on end, the tawny-eyed marksman caught the silver flash just out of the corner of her right eye. Snapping towards the sight, Firefox let loose with her own shot, a brilliant bolt of orange fire right for the lightning’s point of origin. The two arcane blasts passed in midair, streaking passed each other like hissing hornets before each found their mark. The cadet’s shot hit exactly as she intended, striking the spot from whence the lightning came and exploding into a searing bloom of mystic flame. It wasn’t likely that it’d taken the marshal down, but it’d probably shook him up a bit. And most importantly, it’d given away his position. Now, all she needed to do was focus her attentions in that direction, train down, and then… Firefox blinked. Hold on a second. They both had guns. They’d both shot. Yet only one, hers, had been on point. Why was that? Peering over the edge of the tower’s rim, Firefox saw that the lightning had not come for her as she’d expected, but had instead struck the tower dead center and burned a neat little hole through the enchanted wood. Why? There was no way that kind of shot would have done anything to disrupt a good marksman. Why hadn’t he aimed higher? That’s when she heard the hum. Looking down into the tower, Firefox saw the central support pillar, the one right in line with the freshly seared hole, beginning to glow with a hum of magical charge. A hum that sounded an awful lot like… Oh, buck. Leaping from the top of the tower, Firefox cried to high heaven as the tower exploded into a typhoon of blinding light and wooden shrapnel. Hasty as her departure was, the bronze-haired cadet barely managed to catch herself in an awkward, tumbling roll as her body came into hard contact with the grassy ground below. “… Ouch,” she winced, fiery splinters raining about her as she tried to collect herself. Tried to, being the key, as being tossed about unceremoniously like a sack of old potatoes has a decided way of making collecting oneself rather difficult. That’s why, prone on the ground she was, it was very easy for Firefox to catch the sound of approaching footsteps. “Decent,” a gravelly voice called. “But predictable.” Wincing as she sat up, the cadet spotted the broad, flat-brimmed hat first as the silver-eyed marshal crested the summit. “High ground’s an advantage,” Graves continued as he idly tapped the barrel of his rifle on one shoulder. “But if everyone knows it, owners will add insurance, no?” Of course. A fail-safe. One built into the very structure to keep it from falling into ill use. Of bucking bleeding course. With a snarl, Firefox launched herself at the marshal with a flurry of ferocious strikes. Graves merely swatted them away, his hand seemingly predicting where the blows would be and beating them to the spot. The marshal had seen her previous behavior and would expect such a savage attack. What he wouldn’t expect was that the rain of blows merely provided cover as suddenly, Firefox opened her clenched fist and flung a fistful of carefully concealed grit straight for his gunmetal grey eyes– –only to have it bounce harmlessly off his hat’s broad brim as a quick nod completely shielded his face. Then, with an almost casual step forward, Graves pressed a palm to the cadet’s chest, thrust, and sent her small frame skipping across the grass like a stone on a pond. It took a good twenty feet before she at last skidded to a decidedly unpleasant halt. “Always have a trick up your sleeve, people will come to expect it,” the marshal rumbled as he stepped up and leveled his spell gun at the immobile girl. “Predictability is death, and now you’re dead.” Bang. ***** As Graves strolled down the mountain side, gravel crunching beneath his boot soles, he paused. “… I know you’re there.” “Of course you do,” a voice called out. “Nothing gets past you, huh?” Out from behind a gnarled oak came Comet, spell gun trained on the marshal in perfect shooting form and a confident grin on his handsome face. “Could’ve shot me, boy,” Graves idly remarked as he looked at the gun. “Why didn’t you?” “Because that’d just be playing into your hand?” Comet quipped. “You’ve been waiting for me to open fire ever since you left the summit. I’d just be walking into a trap.” An eyebrow arched in surprise. True, Graves had given off all the impressions of being oblivious, what with the spell gun braced up against his shoulder like a boy with his fishing pole. But really, mana had already gathered in his palm and a single twitch would have been enough for him to sling the rifle forward into blast of electric wrath. The fact that the boy had spotted it was more than Graves had expected. “I see,” he nodded as he continued to face the cadet. “So what now? Show down at high noon?” “Possibly,” Comet grinned. “But honestly, I’d still prefer to settle this like men.” Eyebrow arched over silver eye in curiosity, then shot to stratospheric heights as Graves saw the handsome cadet take his spell gun and readily toss it aside. The marshal gaped, literally unable to keep his jaw from falling open in surprise. The boy had actually thrown his weapon away? “It’s been said,” Comet continued as he began rolling up the sleeves of his uniform tunic, “that there are two ways to truly know a man. You spend a lifetime with him, or you can fight him. And since we’re on the clock, I figure number two’s the way to go.” “So… you want to fight me,” Graves blinked. “Hand to hand.” “No strings attached,” Comet nodded. “To be honest, I really respect you. You’re probably one of, if not the greatest marshal of all time, and if you think I don’t have what it takes, that’s got to mean something. But I don’t think you really know me, which is why I want to take this chance and show my worth to you in the best way I can.” Graves looked at the cadet. Though younger than him by a few years, he was already at the point where age meant little. The soldier was tall and strong, with weight well centered on the balls of his feet, his whole frame ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Even his smile, as sincere as Fluttershy in speaking of love for furry animals, revealed not a hint of weakness. His green eyes were clear and focused, confident without hubris, just like good soldier’s eyes should be. “Well?” Comet asked once more. “What do you say?” Graves said nothing. But he did reach up one hand to remove his hat. With a fierce smile, Comet prepared to fight. Lowering his weight with left arm extended forward and right fist held beside his face, the young man entered the fabled Archer stance. A fighting style that focused on overwhelming strength and speed, it was one many cadets sought to learn before realizing just how difficult it was to bring into actual combat. However, from the way Comet settled in, with weight perfectly centered and every muscle balanced on the knife’s edge between relaxed and ready, it was clear that he held no such qualms about its use. And even then he wasn’t done. Without a word, brilliant emerald flames erupted around his fists, flames that burned bright yet left his skin unmarked despite the close proximity to his face. A perfect display of contained battle magic, a highly advanced skillset that created destruction for only the enemy. Few enough soldiers could use it adeptly in the field, and here was a cadet who showed the numbers would increase by one. Perfect strength. Perfect skill. Even perfect planning. As the sun made its way down the horizon, it silhouetted Comet in a halo of light. Before the battle had even begun, he’d positioned himself to make use of the sun itself to blind his opponent. When the lad had said he was best, he hadn’t been bragging. Comet was certainly a man who had the makings of the perfect warrior. “Alright then,” Comet smiled. “Let’s–” Words cut off as he flew backwards, knocked off his feet by a blast of silver light from the marshal’s now extended gun. “Wh-what?” Comet gasped, sandy hair in disarray as electricity danced over his skin. “You… you shot me.” “That I did,” Graves nodded, hat back on head as he ambled over to the fallen cadet. “But… but you agreed. We had a deal.” “First off, I didn’t agree,” the marshal corrected. “And second… why the hell would you believe me even if I did?” Comet could only stare in mute disbelief as the marshal – looking as if he were in acute gastronomical distress – pointed his rifle at the fallen youngster. “You can’t be an idiot, alright? You just… you just can’t. Buck.” Bang. **********