Shaper of Metal Post-Apoc Progression LitRPG

Once everyone was refreshed and recuperated, the next simulation was booted up and physically configured in the chamber, as set up by Bo this time around. She didn't want a super complex scenario, but she wanted them on offense against equal numbers, and specifically powers-capable sims. So, it was a simple 'assassinate the leader' objective against a mildly fortified position.

Simulating the way most PACCs matches worked, they knew the basic capabilities of their foes and vice versa. So they went up against an iconic, strong trio — a Guardian, Blaster, and Medic. The Medic did not heal, however; instead, she could provide temporary telekinetic shields, which was as common as it got. Bo said she knew at least two currently up for PACCs that could do the same, and another that manipulated air invisibly for similar effects. Unlike Controllers, Medics didn't have versatile manipulation, but it was much better for its specialized purpose of protection without inhibiting.

The Metamorphic Guardian was a standard, coveted hard body type, likely impossible to kill unless isolated and concentrated on (Bo had trouble disrupting 'stable' metamorphic powers directly), and the last was a classic Energetic Blaster (Fireblast) that was very dangerous to Jack and Bo, and could dish some pain upon Highfive, though he had some improved capacity to absorb the damage, albeit ablatively with his kinetic sheath. At least the bastard didn't have flight like many Blasters somehow managed.

Despite having their work cut out for them from these details, the Blaster was the leader, meaning their most vulnerable member was the only one necessary to defeat for a scenario win.

They tried out stealth to get a chance at an advantageous start, trying to avoid the Guardian patroller hopping around with super strength. Sadly, Highfive accidentally kicked a rock at an inopportune time, causing the Guardian to charge and force engagement. Highfive kept him from the others, but the Blaster was able to engage from a distance, forcing a bad situation where Bo was tied down, countering him, and the Medic was making whoever got attacked very healthy and free of attrition.

They tried to pivot as a team after a favorable knock on the tank, and an ensuing covering charge by Highfive, but when Bo switched to disrupting shields on the Blaster to make an opening for Jack's offense, the bastard managed to dodge behind cover and block line-of-sight, inhibiting Jack's accuracy and resulting only in a minor wound as Jack detonated a cord before it got melted. The Guardian soon came roaring back into the mix, and then the match was ended by a deadly snipe blast on a distracted Bo, with a knocked and thus very distracted Jack unable to block.

That ugly buzzer noise; that horrible, red-hued everything.

They went for the best two out of three. The next match, taking advantage of the defender's inclination toward aggressive response, Jack had the idea of using Highfive like a decoy, and he made some metal dummies, complete with firing guns and tossing metal that he operated from afar.

When the fire-caster and the shielder came out, Jack and Bo rapidly moved behind them, desperately hoping to keep the farce up long enough to get an assassination angle…

They did, just as the tank was smashing a metal figure and yelling, "They're fakes!"

"What!?" exclaimed the fire guy right before a Fragile Spike dart fired at maximum intensity into the back of his skull, the shield around him fizzling out immediately before impact, by Bo's precise and timely manipulation. The helmet cracked just like his skull, and he fell 'dead' to the broken concrete.

A very satisfying victory fanfare sound like something out of a video game; a wonderful, blue-hued everything.

For the third battle, Jack decided to do one of the things he was made for: waste a tank's time. And the tank was doing a great job strutting around, making an easy target, after all. Kinda bold, wasn't it?

Trusting Highfive and Bo to get close enough to the others without screwing the plan up, Jack waited for the cue to solo-ambush the big ass Guardian. All went well. From behind, Jack slapped the tank with multiple metal cords at once, one at the neck, torso, shin, and forearm. The first attack's momentum also tripped and knocked him down into a favorable pit.

Choking was nothing more than a debuff against the hulking figure — as he'd previously discovered in the first match — but his immediate attempts to free himself were met with continual sudden jerks one way or another, and the tight cords had him flexing and straining to keep from digging in painfully. A jump attempt back to the 'base' ended in a disrupted flip and a faceplant into concrete rubble. The ripped-off cord just reformed into a band, effectively sticking back to him, as if magnetic.

If he got one thing free, the rest were still there, impairing him. And he had no clue where Jack was, hiding behind cover and only peeking up and down to keep a decent understanding of metal positioning. Basic operation, holding serve, was perfectly fine.

The tank was more or less stuck in metal mud, effectively, Jack timing his sudden, intense jerks of significant force perfectly. His Anchors ability provided helpful, continual pressure at an awkward spot, whatever else he did. Jack had gotten a lot better than his native voyage attempt to arrange such annoyance, when he was trying to pin down Lindsay's virtual Bruiser at low-level, with one measly band. Unlike Lindsay, this one was rather realistically panicking, unused to hard counters.

As expected, the tank was roaring in frustration and calling for help, and his team was forced out to do so, knowing they couldn't just stay there and wait to get attacked. They were expecting the ambush that came, but their tank's attempt to meet them for some measure of coordination was stymied again, his sudden leap anticipated and countered.

Screened by Highfive, Bo couldn't be attacked, so the fire guy had to blast Highfive — but it was disrupted anyway. Highfive charged, and the Medic had little choice but to block as the assassination target attempted to flee. It turned out to be a doomed plan, as Bo took advantage, disrupting the protecting powers of the shield maker as Highfive overcame her and proceeded to mercilessly smash her like an overripe pumpkin.

The fire guy shot down toward the pit. As soon as he laid eyes on the tank, he began blasting him with a wide, continuous stream of fire, aiming to melt the metal, inflicting painful but temporary damage that the tank could take.

Unfortunately for him, there was a lot of random metal in the pit. Jack spotted the fire guy from cover and made a piece of rebar turn into a snake that wrapped around his target's neck from behind, quickly squeezing down hard and jerking simultaneously, aiming for a quick break and an end to the fight.

His body went limp like a rag doll.

Victory fanfare; a world of shiny blue winnage. A couple of teammates hooping and hollering in exhausted glee.

Afterward, in the breakroom, Jack got to see the angles he'd missed on the vidscreen, with Highfive pointing them out excitedly with a finger as he stood in front of it, with Jack and Bo collapsed on a couch. "Ooh! Did you see that, Jack?! Lemmie rewind it real quick, you gotta see it in slow-mo… haha! Look — boom! Her eyes were wider than teacups when her shields went down!"

Smiling and shaking his head, Jack watched, though he still felt a little weird about the new, graphic details the sim chamber used, and what they seemed to be doing to people. Unlike the dupes of Division, these didn't turn to smoke. Nonetheless, he was happy for the wins. "I see, Fiver. So, what happens with real combatants when, quote-unquote, 'killed'?"

"Oh, they just get locked in place, and if you talk, it gets drowned out in white noise. If nothing is happening near you, you'll get pulled over to the waiting area."

"And you're not supposed… to use any comms with the team," Bo added in between pants and swallows of her sports drink, "since you're… supposed to be dead."

Jack just nodded, leaning back and relaxing. He'd gotten just into Serious fatigue during the last fight, primarily due to very short breaks in between the matches. Bo was usually the most drained, but the second match had used her quite efficiently. The third had caught up with her a bit.

As he thought of something, Jack smirked and said, "Now, if Blondy would just stop kicking rocks randomly, we'd be okay."

"Hey, I'm sorry, man!" Highfive called. "It attacked my foot! I reacted to an apparent vicious enemy and destroyed it!"

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"So that's why the rock went sailing and exploded on a slab of concrete! You got spooked over nothing and punted it."

"I didn't get spooked! Seriously, it was an error in the sim or something. That rock jumped me like I owed it money."

"Riiiight…"

Silence persisted for a brief spell. Bo likely only didn't comment on Highfive's shortcomings purely due to still catching her breath. They were all watching the vidscreen, with Highfive flipping through various angles.

Hmm, we could switch the feed over to the rock incident and find out-

"Duuude," Highfive exclaimed as he watched the Guardian struggle and get nowhere on screen. The tank was getting constantly pulled to the ground and bogged down by Jack's cords. Highfive thrust his hands wide at the vidscreen when it was over. "Dude! I can't believe you can hold down a motherfragger like that! A full-on hard-body Guardian…" He barked an incredulous laugh.

"Those guys are really annoying," Bo said, "as seen in… the first fight… just…" — she waved a hand wildly — "in your face three seconds after you… get 'em out."

"And any glass-body like you can get creamed by them if you get hit. They're max defense, but a little bit of everything else, too. Knocks for openings are always dangerous, but worse against someone with a mobility extra, like that Guardian with his crazy jump. That was a simulated Secondary Mutation. Pretty common, too."

"I should've done that third fight bit in the first fight, too," Jack replied thoughtfully, "but things were way more chaotic and time-strained. What I did is honestly a lot easier from an ambush, which isn't always feasible."

"Still, man," Highfive said, shaking his head as he turned around to face them. "You're practically a blindside specialist against anyone that can't sense power use, because your attack origin is from anywhere. All it takes is a good distraction, and these guys usually think they're the biggest and baddest. Won't expect to get neutralized so quickly and easily. I want to see this happen for real."

"I don't disagree, in the right circumstances. A team that suddenly loses its tank can potentially panic or focus too much on freeing them, creating openings. Maybe we'd need another offensive member to really take advantage of me doing something like this."

They all nodded thoughtfully to this.

Highfive suddenly clapped his hands. "Welp! Rest up. Eat and drink. We've got more training to do!"

Bo groaned. "Haven't we done enough today?"

"Do you want Level 6, Bo?"

She sighed. "Yes. I need it."

"Then we keep going, oh Cupcake of Darkness!"

🌑 🌒 🌓 🌔 🌕

Highfive next took them through a sequence of duels, first in the same destroyed environment, and then reconfiguring to hilly grass terrain, with some forested sections. The goal was all about beating the other team entirely, and he staggered the difficulty to increase as they went, with a mix of fairly basic power-using foes. The mix would change regardless of winning or losing, but the difficulty only went up on a win. He stated beforehand that he primarily wanted to work on team coordination, execution, and timing in the middle of battle, as they'd more or less failed at it in the first of the prior 2-out-of-3 match.

They won their first two, lost the third, won one, lost one, and the final one…

All but the final match, they fought fairly straight up, though Highfive accepted that both Jack and Bo needed cover to at least start matches. The PACCs rarely just faced junior agents straight across from each other, so that stealth, perception, and engagement tactics were relevant, as they generally were in the field.

The final match just happened to stick them in the thick of the forest to start, more or less forcing cat-and-mouse play. They quickly convinced Highfive to go stealthy temporarily, despite that being without his big, obvious sheath made him rather nervous and twitchy. What was even worse? Jack had the bright idea to use him as bait. He definitely didn't like that, but he relented because he 'trusted his bro.'

They were fighting the dangerous combo of a Bruiser, a Blaster (Wind) with full flight, and a Stalker with biological-styled stealth and sharp, grown-out blades. They'd be wary of Bo, naturally, but she claimed she could barely detect his power use, enough that he might think she couldn't at all unless close. So they did their 'decoy' trick as if aiming to use Highfive, and waited for the seeming guarantee of a preliminary assassination job on him, specifically because he was separated from Bo and absent from his sheath initially, to keep stealth until the enemy came in range. On top of that, Highfive's class combination was probably known for not having anything sensory-based.

In addition to Bo's fairly basic tracking, Jack set up a particulate field in a wide radius around Highfive, knowing the Stalker would go for a melee coup de grace from behind.

It was an agonizing wait, as they were sure the Stalker had scouted them, and some kind of 'strategery' was simulated with his team. The bait inevitably was taken, however, and he moved in for the strike on an unprotected Highfive, as Jack felt him move through his field. Jack hit him with prepared binds at the limits of his range, Bo targeted and disrupted his 'bio-armor,' and Highfive turned around, already sheathing up, to quickly squish the skull of the held-fast target.

Splat.

The ensuing attack that came down on Jack and Bo almost cost them a Jack despite their 'genius plan,' as he was stuck fending off the Blaster, quickly taking a series of nasty wounds, while Bo was preoccupied with disrupting the Bruiser to stay alive. But she was able to conventionally dodge and avoid him at one point in the tree cover, freeing her to disrupt the Blaster long enough for Jack to just barely get a band on her neck. Highfive arrived to mop up, and they finished off the Bruiser for a fairly clean win against rather high-grade foes.

More glorious music and refreshing cool hues saturating reality. There was truly nothing better on Earth.

Bo was stuck with the dreaded 'need four hours of rest' kind of Fatigue Status, and they had to call it there. They all had various cuts, bruises, and less fun minor injuries from the vast array of powersets they'd faced. One in particular had eaten their lunch in the fifth fight: a degen specialist. Whatever it was Memorial tech used to simulate it was plenty awful, like being twisted on the inside. Worse, it had some kind of enhanced pain effect — a commonly added debuff. You could feel it in your 'soul,' effectively.

Degens evidently got a pass on the 'no internal injuries' clause because it was easy to prevent sudden lethality, and it didn't actually target this or that organ. Bo could disrupt it, but the problem was that the attack was less fatiguing than her counter, so there was a time limit to get to them, and even if they did, it was likely a one-for-one with a totally drained Bo. Bo couldn't soak it, either, not with the pain effect. Her ability needed a lot of focus.

Jack got a taste of fighting a less 'cooperative' tank type, too — one that was like a big mass of plastic. Jack's binds did jack shit, slipping out with ease. All he could really do was hammer him, scoring a stun here and there. Highfive was better against that particular enemy, smashing with wide-area power and scattering material, slowing the bastard down more and more each time, but always getting bogged down in the process. Jack pretty much determined the 'fluid' types were the most versatile tanks, constantly in the way and unable to be put away. They weren't the strongest, but could bind and stick to you, forcing you to deal with them, one way or another.

I need to practice fighting those fraggers. Maybe I can at least tie them down with the right tactics and learned reflexes to their weird movements.

They hung out in the breakroom after. Bo collapsed and slept on the couch, only briefly kept awake (and grouchily) by Highfive to hydrate, while the rest arranged to have food delivered. Everyone was down for noodles, so they ordered about a metric ton of them, between Jack and Highfive, especially.

Sore as hell, in between cramming spicy heaven in his mouth, Jack said, "I'm gonna do armor for you guys next time. Especially Bo. Quite a few times, I could've prevented or mitigated an injury. I'll keep it light."

Bo just grunted vaguely, eating while lying down in the laziest possible way, scooping food into her mouth from the plastic plate sitting in front of her face on the couch.

"I think that's a fine idea, Junior Agent," Ira offered, holding her noodles up twirled on a fork she'd commandeered from the kitchen. She was staring at them as if at a puzzle. "Especially as you gain additional speed and perception, you'll find such windows easier to fill over time." She reverently put the food in her mouth and chewed with her eyes closed. "How are these so simple, yet so good?"

Highfive grinned at her across from a table, food stuffed in his mouth. "Tul m'bout it, Ira!" A big swallow. "I could eat noodles all day. Seriously. If not on a cut, anyway."

"Do you even need to cut as a Non?" Jack asked with a curious frown.

Highfive was contemplative. After belching and pointing his tongs at Jack, he replied, "You know, it's been years, actually. I guess this sexy machine has reached perfection."

Bo made a disfavorable grunt. It sounded almost forlorn, as if a poor replacement for far more satisfying snark that she was incapable of presently.

Ira looked over at Highfive in contemplation. "You are proud of your physique as a warrior, muscle builder, and Player of Many Sports. You are of very rare height, size, and general physical performance. Very exceptional."

Highfive was all smiles. "You noticed, too? Another adoring fan is always welcome." His eyes flashed over to Jack, and he made a thumb his direction. "This guy's got potential, too. He's already looking prime, if you ask me. He's got the best training, too — that's gonna make him even harder. Rock hard, even."

Ira blinked, sensing context but unable to break it all down. She glanced at Jack and nodded with a note of hesitancy. "Naturally. And he has… great skin."

Highfive, chomping down on more noodles, slapped the table with a hand and pointed at her emphatically. "Exactly! It's the best. I could sing the praises of Jack's skin almost as much as I can eat noodles!" He took a big bite to accentuate the point.

Ira's composure broke a little bit at this, as she snorted and held back a smile, glancing uncertainly at Jack as she otherwise covered her reaction with her own hand.

"Alright, alright," Jack said, pretending — mostly — to shift uncomfortably. "Enough about my incredible skin." After a significant pause, he added saucily, "For now."

The others broke into brief, incredulous laughter as Jack smiled shamelessly.

Bo groaned again in misery, muffled by far too many noodles going into her mouth.