Chapter 62: 061 Shields

"You two seem to have become closer." The Captain approached Donovan after Diana left, he didn't want to interfere in the limited time they had alone. "Ready to go?"

Don took another look at Diana's back, wondering what real romance was like. "Yeah. What's in the bag?" Donovan was referencing a rugged looking leather bag at the Captain's feet.

"Your equipment." The Captain pulled a rounded leather and metal construct from the bag's interior. "We still need to get you fitted for armor, but the general purpose training equipment will do for now. We'll try on this helmet once we get to the training grounds."

"That's a helmet?" Nothing about it looked helmet-like, there wasn't even a strap.

"A general purpose helmet. Considering the variety in the skulls of the various races, they do tend to get a bit bulky. I have some cloths that can be used to fill out the empty space." The Captain returned the hulking mass to its space in the bag, tying it shut with a rope. "I won't tell you that you need to handle this stuff with care, but try not test its limits too much."

"Would that be because its training equipment?"

"Partly, its really more of a case of it being uncared for. Most people come with their own sets of equipment suitable for their race's anatomy, so sets of armor like these get left by the wayside to decay."

Don moved in to pick up this new baggage and followed the Captain to wherever Titanyana wished to train him at.

- - - - -

Donovan flinched at the sound of metal striking the gravel. His hand, numb, had lost its grip in the middle of a swing.

"How do swing your sword that fast?" They had been practicing for some time now, a few hours by his measure, and the repeated vibrations of sword on sword impacts had made it increasingly difficult to keep track of what was being taught. 

"Lack of armor." Her response was only a single sentence, not even elaborating on why her lack of armor was making her sword at least twice as fast as Donovan's. This was not an isolated incident, most of her comments were like this. Conversation was proving difficult to maintain.

"So then should I not wear armor? Is there something I need to be doing to compensate? Will I eventually catch up?" Don was resorting to asking the specific questions, guessing there might be some form of cultural element to this. Fortunately, he could tell it wasn't the case that she was unwilling to teach him what he needed to know.

"At the moment, I want you to keep going as you are. You are not yet at the level of physical strength you should have to be swinging a sword, but that will come in time. Armor will make this quicker." Very to the point, something he would normally appreciate, but the complete absence of flair and embellishment left her instruction bland. It didn't help his efforts to build a relationship either.

"If that's the case, why don't you wear armor?"

"It is part of my fighting style."

It almost sounded like she was going to continue.

"Could you please explain to me why?"

"Many reasons. My body is already fairly small and somewhat weak. It is far more effective for me to just parry and dodge attacks than rely on armor which would only slow me down, exhaust me, and reduce my attack power. Besides, armor isn't exactly effective at my level anyways." A rare instance of unprompted elaboration.

"Armor isn't effective? How so?" Donovan didn't understand these sorts of power dynamics. He understood the general tradeoffs between mobility, armor, and firepower, but that was only in the context of the advanced vehicles he was used to. Even those failed to encompass all aspects, other factors such as stealth, reliability, and range needed to be accounted for when designing and deploying such vehicles.

When it came to warfare based on melee engagements, completely absent of mechanical units, the factors that mattered when considering the operational deployment of units were beyond his current level of knowledge.

"Does it have anything to do with the fact that you and the Captain wouldn't let me use a shield?"

Titanyana pondered something for a moment, her face displaying a reaction of mild perplexion at his question. "Should I demonstrate?"

"If an explanation won't do, then by all means!"

"Pick up, hm, pick up that practice plate and put it on top of that chair." The 'practice plate' was a metal weight usually placed into a vest or bag of some wort to provide extra resistance during training. The one she had pointed to was one of the heavier ones in her own collection, one she probably didn't have much use for.

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Don determined that it wasn't unbearably heavy, perhaps only twenty or so kilograms, but it was certainly quite thick. Once he had it stable against the chair's backrest, he looked back to Titanyana only to see her wielding a different weapon than before. Longer than she was tall with a sharp yet flat blade at the end, this was no doubt a lance.

"I'm not confident in my abilities to use a polearm too well, but I should be proficient enough to hit a stable and immobile target." She performed a few practice thrusts and swings with it, getting a feel for its weight and volume. "What do you know about the lance?"

"Aside from the fact that they are the most popular and that they are best used for stabbing, not much."

She nodded, not entirely unsatisfied with his response. "The reason they are the most popular is more than just their ease of use, they are also best suited to combat on saddleback where it is often unwise to guide a steed into the path of an enemy's shorter weapons. You are almost entirely correct on the point of stabbing, you will find that there is some variance in the way they can be used depending on their form. This one has a bladed head," She whipped around her body in a long rotating motion, the bladed head passing a few feet from his face, "so it can also be used to slash."

"Okay, I can understand that much, what does that have to do with making shields useless?"

"They aren't entirely useless, but they aren't at all effective against the opponents you will be facing at the academy. Almost every single one is a noble capable of using split." Perpendicular to his direction, she performed a flurry of stabbing attacks at a pace Donovan couldn't keep track of. They were 'landing' in different spots, but he couldn't tell if that was because she was losing control or if she was striking at a multitude of different points on an imagined enemy. "They can easily increase the force of their blows enough to penetrate wooden shields and those with only a thin layer of metal. If they really focus on it, only a really thick layer of metal will be enough to defeat most people here, and even then they can probably dent it."

"Then what about you?"

Titanyana didn't answer him with words, instead taking a stance with her lance akin to a predator preparing to leap at a target. In an instant, she practically disappeared from where she was. Donovan could only barely make out a shadow heading towards the target before a sound akin to metal being torn apart reached his ears.

She was still in a stance emblematic of the end of a lunge, her lance lodged in the plate. On second thought, Donovan determined that the state of the plate and lance did not qualify as it being stuck. There was very clearly a large hole in the middle which the spear would have ample space to move around in even around the thicker blade. Donovan was confident he would be able to stick his head through, not that he would ever try.

"You would need either an unwieldy amount of metal or an unreasonably strong shield in order to stop me. I can piece more with my sword, so you know, I just didn't want to overdo it." She flicked the lance after removing it from the plate, as if to fling off any blood that might be on the blade. "Split can also be used to defend against this sort of attack, but the shape and size of a shield make it both incredibly difficult and doubly inefficient to do so. The shield also gets in the way of both movement and vision while not offering an equivalent amount of protection to offset the detriment. The only people you are likely to see using shields here are the incredibly strong, those capable of lifting and maneuvering the weight required."

"Is that one of the reasons those 'at your level' don't wear armor? The weight?"

Titanyana shook her head. "Most can use split to augment their strength to such a degree that the weight of armor can realistically be ignored. For some, the fact is that they can protect themselves to a better degree through the sole use of split than with the assistance of armor. Metal dents and deforms, which can be a handicap. The prevailing idea at this tier is more about reducing your profile as much as possible. Even the lightest armor is thicker than silk clothing, and its attachment to your body means it can enact force on your limbs if something catches on it."

As an example she put her finger in her sleeve and started pulling her arm around with it.

"When fighting at a level where an extremely exact level of precision is required to land a hit without risking being hit in turn, having control of your body be wrested from you even slightly can prove fatal. Some go so far as to forgo most clothing, only wearing the bare minimum during combat. Thankfully that faction is quite small, and they often suffer from their actions as a result, it can get pretty cold on the battlefield after all." This was one of the few times Donovan had seen her smile.

Aside from that, she was actively talking! What had changed? Was it something he said? Or was it that this was a subject she fancied. Donovan decided to test it.

"So how strong do you think you are in relation to everyone else in the academy?"

"How strong do I think I am? I don't know."

"Just give me a guess, you know, based on what you've seen so far." Don was incredibly curious about this. More than just wanting to know how good she was, he wanted to get an idea of how prideful she felt about her status. He could tell she was a humble person, likely owing to her status, but this was one point where societal convention did not seem to apply.

"Hmm. Of those who are attending for their first year, only one in one hundred out of those who I could tell took their martial training seriously are at around my level or better. It's hard to tell without actually fighting them of course." She shrugged at this, a clear indication that she thought there was nothing she could do about it. "As for the seniors, I honestly can't say. I have no idea if they get better over their stay here or stagnate, and I haven't even had the opportunity of fighting one yet. Assuming they do get better as time goes on, I'm stronger than maybe nineteen out of every group of twenty that is actually dedicated to their training."

She seemed to be thinking hard about this.

"Got it. How many do you think handle their training seriously?"

"One in five." Her answer was immediate. "Most are either aspiring strategists, those looking for experiences with battle, or are only here for the prestige of attending school in the Sanctum. A disturbing number are part of that last party." That last comment was borderline acidic. "In that regard, I think you are extremely admirable. When I asked what your ambitions in the academy were, it was to make sure I wasn't going to be working for someone only interested in the prestige of having been here. I have my goals here as well, and there is no way I will be able to achieve them while tied to someone lacking initiative."

His ploy to draw her into a conversation was working.

"Speaking of goals, do you think it would be a good idea to share what we wish to accomplish by the end of our stay here? Even if only to get an expectation of what we're after?"

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