The day came and went that marked Moe leaving the orphanage for hero school. It was a day where the usually reclusive with her emotions matron had even shed a tear because one of her chicks was leaving the nest. It also settled into my stomach that the timer was set, four years and it would be me walking out that door. And during which, Moe's own safety would be in no one's hands but her own and that school. I don't really trust the school not to have its own dangers but I couldn't imagine Moe backing out just because of a little risk.
I was between excitement and anxiety, she would be getting proper training I guess, but the distance made it so we would only see her every few weeks or so outside of calls. It felt too far for me to help if anything happened to her but I wasn't too worried, the place was probably more secure than most military bases because it's where the next batches of 'protectors' are molded. That and the teachers are all like, literal superheroes so it doesn't exactly take much thought for villains to wanna steer clear.
The matron had me spar her once a month to see how I've improved, each exchange going lengths to help my biggest issue; lasting in a fight. The actual meat and potatoes of the combat I had adapted too, managing the strain enough to where I could fight at close to a half hour with close to peak performance. I still had a ways to go though, the efficiency still wasn't where it needed to be.
So I stuffed my worry to the side, wished Moe the best, and got back to being productive. How well I could control each of my specific parts, mainly the ones I could equip to my hands and feet were the focus for today. I was tempted to start with the mono wire but I felt it relatively safer to begin with mantis blades. Didn't wanna accidentally lash my own arm off like some gonk.
The gorilla arms and projectile launcher I had been used to, their sharp counterparts not so much. I also wanted to know the upper limit to how many pieces I could rock at once with a full stomach, and how fast I could cycle between em.
The woods that had become familiar as hell to me were my same old training ground as my arms pulsed with green light, leaving behind a pair of grade two mantis blades to conserve energy. I was tempted to add some in my knees too like that guy in my old edge runner XBD but decided to at least get used to these first.
I started taking swings at the air to get comfortable with the range, a whole extra arms length of deadly reach. Then I switched to hacking away at the trees, slicing and skewering the people I was imaging in their place.
I hadn't been an edge runner for long but I definitely had enough experience to know what spots were lethal and which weren't when it came to bullets. Applying that logic to where the blade landed was surprisingly easy, punch about an inch below where you wanted to stab, while slashing required a motion akin to throwing a low hook or elbow.
Soon enough I had a competent enough feeling flow going. My old hand to hand was carrying how fast I was learning, all I had to do was alter the light boxing foundation I had from Dorio, bless her soul, and soon enough,
*SNAP, THUD*
The huge tree I had been treating like a punching bag crashed to the ground, a massive gash from the assault of cuts finally felling it after 3 minutes straight of punishment. Damn things were too dull and I kept having to refresh them. Good practice at doing it mid motion though
I was lightly panting, not enough to need to switch to my synth lungs to continue, only a minute of rest to reset. Let's see how another at the same size goes down with the sandy! Why hadn't I been using sharp things before? It felt awesome even if it was way more work than pulling a trigger.
Actually it probably wouldn't have helped my mental if I started seeing decapitating people as a win strat. But still, as mature as I am, it felt nova as hell playing street samurai.
It only took about a half hour before I felt confident to try and incorporate the knee blades into the flow I had going, my tank was still pretty full, about 70% I would imagine so I was going to keep this momentum going until I hit 50 and then switch to trying to cycle different parts as fast as possible.
The initial exit of the implant is an attack in and of itself, I positioned my knee upwards just like I remember the other borg doing as it shot up in a flash of metal, streaking up the middle of the tree and leaving a person long gash.
If that's tier two…
I didn't let the thought linger for long before a sleek much sharper blade materialized from my other knee as the first faded away. I held back the hair-trigger reaction and instead held it in a prone position to examine it.
The mechanism was much more controllable and responsive than its low grade counterpart, surprisingly fluid. This time I tried the kick a little differently, making the hinge extend downward past my shin, the blade hovering just above the flat of my foot. I flipped my hips and did a near form perfect high kick to the large tree in front of me.
*SHHWIP*
The wind tore.
*CRRRAACCCKK, THUD*
I had nearly bisected the tree, which my kiroshis told me was 15 feet in diameter, ten of which was split by my knee blade. Tier five is something else. The only reason it didn't go further was the range of the blade itself was only about 7 feet, the rest of the damage was cause I pushed deeper mid cut, extending the hinge fully.
Regardless, the rest of the tree couldn't hold itself and crashed to the forest floor. Damn blades are fun! Those tyger fucks were onto something. Not as fun as vaporizing a target with my arm cannon but the feelings pretty close.
I spent the rest of my time outside switching between different arm cyberware as fast possible, trying to get grasp on how fast I could cycle from mantis blades to projectile launchers, all while incorporating my knee blades and newly discovered shotgun soles soon enough. Damn Dorio had taste, these things are Nova!
Regardless the result was seamless transitions between bone breaking blows from gorilla arms, into blowing a tree ten feet away into smithereens and skewing the one in front of me right where the average head would be. All while my front kick let off the sharp retort of a 8 gauge shotgun into the space below, eviserating the imaginary chest and blowing a massive gauge in the very real tree.
This shit was too much fun, I'll go home later. I'd rather get lost in all the new combinations I have and do a little defores- gardening. A little gardening in our technically kinda sorta totally not publicly owned woods.
Who cares, the trees don't have lawyers, and I've never paid for property damage before I don't think lumber is gonna be who comes to take it from me.
I feel like a damn terminator lumberjack, super powers are so fucking NOVA!
————-
*GRRRRR*
"UAGGHHHH…"
*GRRRRRRRRRRMBLE*
" Holy shit, I'm gonna starve before I get to the table."
Yeah, so maybe a 6 hour training bender wasn't the smartest idea in the world.
*GROOOOOOOWLLL*
"Oh puta madře, is that the light again?"