Chapter 23:
Throwing Down
After all of the interpersonal drama lately it was almost a relief for Nameless to get back to training with Kavanaugh that afternoon.
Though when Nina had caught up to them and casually filled them in on what she had been up to, sending Ophelia flying off with her medical bag, he had nearly blown it off to go to the Amazon’s side.
It had taken Volka’s calming aura to stop him, Milly and Erica from doing just that; Kavanaugh’s lessons were a supremely important facet of their training, so the warrior angel would not bend on them skipping it.
The cadets had been working with the bald instructor for a few weeks now and were making real progress in their ability to identify and counter the variety of lost-tech weapons they could potentially come up against in the field.
Their main method of combating them was actually more lost-tech, specifically a series of little canisters, each about the size of a plumb, with different coloured rings on them to identify what they were.
Every member of the Aegis was trained in the use of the three main types of grenades that modern mechanists were able to reverse engineer: red rings for light strobes, yellow for adhesive bombs, and green for stinger gas.
In his time in the wilds with Miranda Holt, Nameless had seen all three of them used at one time or another, but witnessing her handle them and handling them himself were two very different things.
Fortunately, though the monster girls in the academy didn’t attend the ‘lost-tech’ portion of Kavanaugh’s lessons, they did attend the ‘applications’ part, training with their bond-mates in simulated combat as they familiarized themselves with the non lethal tools in the Aegis arsenal.
The only exception to this was Ophelia, who would eventually be filling a non-combat roll once she completed her medic certification.
They were working in the largest of the training salles, under the close supervision of Kavanaugh and two other instructors.
The rectangular building had floors padded with brown leather throughout, with a high domed ceiling supported by numerous wooden beams and rafters.
The padding protected the occupants from the inevitable trips and tumbles, though it did little for wounded pride.
Baron’s glower would be intimidating if he wasn’t covered from his neck to his waist in goo from Ginger’s latest toss.
“Your timing’s still off.” Kavanaugh noted; “You missed him with the bulk of it, also if you’d thrown it a bit higher and you’d have suffocated him. The main concern is to catch up both of his arms, so at least you achieved that. Never forget that a perp with a free arm can still shoot someone. Now get the solvent, you have to help him out of it.”
“Do I though?” Ginger said while biting her lip.
“What?”
“Do I have to? He looks mad.”
“You think anyone you throw that shit at is going to be happy about it? He’ll get over it, now get him out cadet!” He barked.
Their focus today was on the adhesive grenades, colloquially known as goo bombs, so they weren’t practicing with the other two types of canisters.
The strobes emitted a flashing light that was disorienting and painfully blinding, while the aptly named stinger gas would easily fill the room and make breathing agony as it burned the eyes of anyone who wasn’t wearing a special mask and was also stupid enough not to seek out the nearest exit.
As Kavanaugh said, the cadets would get to experience both canisters as they neared the end of their training, in order to learn how to fight while under their effects.
The glint of amusement in his eye was telling, so none of the cadets were looking forwards to that lesson.
As for the goo bombs, with even a small application of the accompanying solvent the remarkable substance disappeared like magic, without even leaving behind any residue.
Privately, Nameless had to admit he still didn’t understand how the goo could go from a solid to a gas so readily, despite having listened intently to Kavanaugh’s description of the chemical process.
They were currently working on take downs through teamwork and everybody was participating.
Well… almost everyone.
One of the instructors was doing his level best to be patient while trying to persuade the one glaring exception.
“You think that shit is going to hold me?” Nina asked with a smirk as she spun Milly’s hat around one tiny fist; “Or are you going to try to teach me how to swing a hammer?”
“No, but...”
“You ever even been in a fight there little fella?”
The man placed his hands on his hips, tucking his clipboard under his arm and pinching the bridge of his nose as he mustered his patience against her condescending tone.
“The point of this exercise is to establish teamwork with-”
She turned towards Nameless as he worked with Erica and Milly to try to subdue Volka. The human was standing ready with a canister in hand while the two monster girls tried to corral the wily warrior long enough for him to use it.
For the purpose of the exercise she was forbidden from using her wings save for short hops, but the veteran warrior was easily putting the trio through their paces all the same.
Nina gestured towards them with the hat.
“That’s my team, we work fine. See the little guy with the big dick? He points, I squish. Simple.”
The instructor worked his mouth helplessly for a couple seconds, then threw up his hands in defeat and stalked away to yell at another group of startled trainees.
“Something I said?”
In the giant’s mind, her only role was to train Milly and to keep Nameless and her bond-sisters from getting killed while playing at being heroes.
She was a pragmatist after all.
Though as she watched the Valkyrie run circles around her master and bond-sisters she had to wonder who would prevail if she and the golden warrior ever threw down...
She pondered it for some time, watching Volka’s graceful movements, and especially watching how her shield repelled even the mightiest of Milly’s blows.
In the end she decided she didn’t want to know who would win in a fight.
Nina would die before admitting it, but Volka’s glowing sword of light unnerved her to no small degree. She could appreciate a weapon that was solid (or even one that was liquid in the case of the Undines), but one that was formed out of pure divine energy... well, she wasn’t sure how to quantify that, and for the Gigas, being unsure of anything was a deeply uncomfortable sensation.
Today though the angel was wielding a simple baton against her bond-mates instead of her magic sword.
As Nina was admired the golden blonde’s form, she saw that the practice bout was coming to a head, and she shook her head as she predicted who the winner would be.
She was wrong.
Volka knocked Erica onto her back with a twirl and a thrust from her baton, and without the Katje’s protection she easily toppled Nameless with a hard shove from her shield.
But Milly surprised her, and Nina for that matter, by ducking low when the angel turned on her and almost dancing across the floor on her knees in a circle, her padded spear sweeping out and taking Volka’s feet out from under her.
The angel tried to compensate with her wings to recover her balance, but the Minotaur pressed her advantage immediately.
Ignoring the Valkyrie’s shield entirely Milly dropped her spear and wrapped her in a bear hug.
With her arms pinned at her side and her baton lost in the scuffle Volka tried to counter by buffeting her with her wings, but the stalwart Minotaur ignored them and let her whole body go limp save for her arms.
In the end, the ancient warrior was bested not by strength of arms, but by weight of Minotaur, as she was unable to hold Milly up and ended up being dragged to the floor of the training salle.
With her so pinned, Nameless and Erica were able to recover and assist Milly in restraining their quarry so that inevitably Kavanaugh declared it was their victory.
Anyone that was looking at the Gigas when the Minotaur won the fight would have been deeply unsettled by her expression.
She was positively beaming with pride, the broad smile an uncommon sight on her face.
Meanwhile, Volka was... pouting.
“Best two out of three?” She asked hopefully, unhappy with the abrupt loss.
Erica stuck her tongue out at her.
“Sore loser!” She accused.
“Brat!” The Valkyrie threw back, likewise extending her tongue.
Nameless chuckled and Milly covered a smile.
But the instructor wasn’t through.
“That was good, you two. But she was still able to reach your tamer, if it had been a real fight with real weapons, Cadet Armstrong would likely be dead.”
It was as if he believed it was his job to take the fun out of everything.
Volka sighed as she flexed out her wings to adjust her ethereal feathers, which had gotten somewhat squashed by Milly.
“You are correct of course, Aegis. Milly, early on you were holding back far too much. Caution is good, but not if it causes you to miss a given opportunity. Erica, you have the opposite problem! You get too close, too often, if I wasn’t expecting our husband to protect your flank with those adhesive grenades, then I would have taken you out much earlier in the fight.”
Both monsters were attentive as she lectured them.
The instructor had an eyebrow raised; privately he felt a bit put-off that his job had been co-opted by the angel, but he also had to admit, again privately, that she was doing it better than he could.
Volka turned on Nameless then, a slight scowl on her face.
“And Husband, again and again, you hesitate! Not out of caution, as does Milly, but for some other reason I don’t fully understand. More than once you had me dead to rights, tied up as I was in dealing with Milly’s spear and Erica’s antics. Why did you not act?”
Nameless had a sour look on his face as she berated him.
“Don’t like the thought of hitting you with lost-tech.” He admitted sullenly after a moment.
There was a beat of silence as she mulled over what he had said, using her bond with him as well as her own empathic powers to suss out exactly why he felt that way.
She nodded slowly when she came to understand his reasoning.
“I can respect that you worry about me having to deal with the weaponry of humans again, but you must realize that the lost-tech you and the others use pales in comparison to what I have faced on the battlefield? The tools that you now wield are actually much the same as what the slavers of the Divine Republic would employ to subjugate their prey without unduly harming them.”
“That... doesn’t really make it any better.” He complained with a frown.
“But it does!” She insisted, causing his eyes to widen at the emphatic nature of her words; “To see something that was once used for evil purposes turned towards protecting the very creatures they were made to enslave is a good thing!”
At that point, Kavanaugh had given up on his job and wandered off to keep tabs on another training bout, so it was just the four of them in the corner, with Nina watching from her perch on her hammer against the wall.
Volka drew in a deep breath as a look of determination spread across her face.
“No weapon you wield in practice could ever concern me so much as the thought of you going out into the world unprepared.” As she spoke she walked away from them, mentally counting her paces until she reached ten; “Milly, Erica, take a moment to rest. I would train with our husband alone.”
“What do you-” Nameless began but was cut off as she let out a battle-cry, surprising a nearby group of combatants.
He now found himself facing the charge of an angry angel, and he really didn’t like it.
And unfortunately for him, he couldn’t figure out what to do about it before she slammed into him, knocking him onto his ass on the padded floor.
“A poor showing, my love. Stand up, we try again.”
The Valkyrie paced off for another go as he scrambled to his feet, more than a little sore now.
“Volka what-”
She charged once again, and again he wound up flat on his back, this time with the wind knocked from his lungs.
“Again!” She all but dragged him to his feet before walking back to the same spot as before; “Remember, I am your enemy now! If you do not stop me, innocent lives will be lost! So we go again!”
Most of the other training bouts had paused at the intense display, a lot of eyes were now watching, though neither of them noticed.
This time, Nameless had the sense to pull a goo bomb from his belt, but as she charged, he didn’t use it.
Instead he tried to roll to one side, much as he had seen Milly and Erica do to avoid similar attacks.
But they had practiced the move extensively in advance, he had not.
Stars burst into his head as Volka easily adjusted her charge to accommodate for his clumsy dodge.
To make matters worse he could feel her annoyance, and the annoyance of his other bond-mates, with his own powers.
Even Milly had no sympathy for him at this point.
Ultimately it was the Minotaur’s emotions that got him past his hesitation. So as Volka set up to charge him for the fifth time, he took up a canister in each hand, keeping his fists behind his hips as his Valkyrie once more let loose with her unsettling war-cry.
Have to time it right...
And indeed his timing was perfect, but Volka saw the throw coming and leapt over the grenade... only to hear it skitter harmlessly across the matted floor behind her, the device having never been armed.
She was mid-leap though, and had no time to ponder the implications as he threw the second one.
The impact with her stomach was negligible, she hardly felt it, but she smiled wide when she felt her mid-section and right side get enveloped in the sticky goo as the ingenious little device went off, much of its contents splattering harmlessly to the padded floor behind her.
He dove to the side again, but this time out of necessity as she tumbled down where he had been standing, no longer able to control her jump with her goo-covered wing.
It was not a graceful landing.
Though her helmet was knocked off of her head by the impact, the brunt of the impact was absorbed by the gunk as she hit the floor.
Her right side, wing and leg were covered from neck to ankles, it having already hardened to a rubbery consistency.
There was a yell and a whoop from one side, followed by enthusiastic applause from Ginger as the confrontation ended.
“Did you see that?!” She demanded of an unhappy looking Wolfen next to her; “That was a perfect toss! I mean, did you SEE that?! Caught her center mass, while she was in the air!!”
Despite the redhead’s overweening enthusiasm, Nameless wasn’t proud of the accomplishment; the second he had regained his feet he was kneeling by the restrained angel, helping her to roll onto her back.
“Volka! Are you alrig-”
Her hair was a mess and her cheek was red from rubbing against the floor, but the look of pride on her face, and the feeling of it that he could sense from her heartstone set in the center of her shield, caused his words to falter.
“I am fine Husband. Better than, actually. That was well done.”
“Indeed cadet, it was exemplary work.” Kavanaugh observed, but then he rounded on the other cadets and their monster girls; “But why are you all standing around and staring for?! I want ten laps around the salle from each of you, and don’t let me catch you using your wings Celeste!”
As the other cadets broke off to obey his instructions he turned back to face Nameless and his bond-mates.
“Armstrong! You can do yours once you free your bond-mate. Now get the solvent, double time!”
“Is it just me or is he really pissed about something?” Erica whispered to Milly.
Unfortunately she didn’t whisper as quietly as she thought, as became apparent when the irate instructor rounded on her.
“WHY AREN’T YOU RUNNING ALREADY WHISKERS?!”
She let out a startled yowl and her tail puffed up, but she did as she was told along with her bond-sister.
The fact was, the veteran Valkyrie had co-opted the lesson and Kavanaugh felt the need to jingle the chain of command a bit to remind the cadets who was in charge.