Ignition Broker: Chapter 33 Unity

Chapter 33

Unity

“When going for a group to work with, the one that should always be first on your list is the one shown the least amount of attention. Like a dog, they will remember the first owner who showed them respect and made them feel safe and secure. That is why your it is always easier to infiltrate the weakest group and build them up, than join the strongest group and make them marginally stronger.” -Marcon on interpersonal relationships

“Hey check this out,” Officer Candidate Rayalta cried out excitedly.

Shimmer.

To Arla’s surprise, as she turned to look at the C-Ranked Energy Transference Candidate, she noted that the candidate’s hair now glowed a distinct shade of aqua blue. For a moment Arla wanted to comment, but found her words hanging up as she wondered exactly what the candidate was doing.

“That’s so cool, you look just like one of the fancy Cerusians,” C-Ranked Candidate Lisom exclaimed excitedly.

“I know right?” Rayalta declared, as she held up the still remaining glowing clip that would need to be turned in before the squad was allowed to leave the range for the night.

“What are you doing?” Candidate Patel asked, his voice nearly a hiss, seeing the spunky Rayalta smiling brightly. Then as if proving what she was doing, she held up the last clip that still was infused with Arla’s energy and began stripping away the residual energy.

“They said we had to turn in our gear as we got it, which means we needed to remove the energy Officer Candidate Proma applied,” Rayalta continued as she used her C-Rank ability to strip the energy from the clip, causing her hand to glow a bright vibrant blue. Then displaying the blue hand to everyone, she wiggled her fingers, causing blue flames of energy to delicately dance across her fingers.

Seeing the reaction, it was clear that the energy the Cadet pulled was burning as it encountered the air. As Arla watched, she realized this was good to know, from what Arla could see, the cadet could pull energy from an item at a one for one ratio, which would normally rate her at a B-Rank or higher. However, the problem with Rayalta’s ability came with the amount of energy she could hold between transfers. In a way her power acted as a better and worse version of Arla’s own power. While Arla couldn’t strip an item of power, she had worked out ways to expose excess threads of energy to the air, causing excess energy to bleed off. While Rayalta could flat out strip the energy from a device, making her process a lot faster. Then it seemed the power that she stripped she could then use to infuse into different objects, like her hair. An act she proved a second later, by taking her flaming blue hand and brushing her fingers through her hair, even going so far as to infuse the power into her hair, generating a brilliant glowing blue sheen to her hair.

“Oh, that is so cool,” Cadet Lisom exclaimed, apparently jealous of Rayalta’s amazing but ultimately useless power. At least, that is how the military would view such a power, especially a power that she herself couldn’t generate, and could only store in limited quantities, apparently. Still, seeing the power, Arla found her mind racing with possibilities as she thought of possibilities that could come from a union of her and such a unique talent.

“How long?” Arla asked.

Silence.

Everyone who had been casually conversing as if they were amongst their fellow C-Rankers suddenly stiffened, at the sudden interdiction of Arla’s comments to their jovial banter. Suddenly, months of indoctrination kicked in and seemed to war on their features as they all seemed to realize that an A-Ranker was here, worse she was in charge of them and they had let themselves get too wild with their actions.

“The hair?” Rayalta asked, following Arla’s gaze and staring at her glowing blue hair that was clearly out of regulations.  “I, I’ll change it immediately,” Rayalta stammered as she reached her hand up in an attempt to disrupt the glowing hair.

“Don’t,” Arla all but shouted, well for Arla it was the equivalent of a shout as she just raised her voice a few octaves, causing her voice to project more. Suddenly the squad that had been happy to have an A-Ranker that took them as serious cadets, all looked shocked as it was clear she was here to not only reprimand the fun, but would hold Candidate Rayalta here with glowing hair until she could be spotted by an instructor and receive a demerit. One that would be a near career killer for the young cadet.

Arla looked, seeing the way everyone’s faces suddenly dropped, and realized. “Wait, you think I’m chastising you all?”

With that, the squad looked confused, “isn’t that what you are going to do? Get Candidate Rayalta in trouble for having hair that is not in compliance?”

Seeing their concern, Arla chuckled, “out of compliance would mean that the proud Cerusians would need to dye their hair. No, this is perfect for our next phase of training. One, we can cause confusion by having Cerusians fire at friendly forces. Also, depending on how long Cadet Rayalta here can keep a charge in people’s hair, we might have a quick field method for resupplying energy empowered clips to the team.”

Hearing Arla’s comments, the team that had looked temporarily flustered suddenly sparked to life with renewed vigor. Still there was a bit of hesitation on their faces as they all had felt the heat from being burned one too many times, especially from a higher ranked officer candidate.

Yet, despite the clear trepidation, Rayalta seemed to be willing to answer.

“Like this?”

Arla just nodded at the question, her eyes already growing wide with a number of thoughts running through her mind. One of the most important being that with a squad of C-Rankers going around with flaming blue hair, her need to conceal her own hair, especially during a month long Field Training Exercise (FTX) that was scheduled to come up here shortly would not be an issue. In fact, if she played it correctly, she could have it so her blue hair would be a form of unit cohesion.

“With this amount of energy, I could get the charge to hold for about a month.”

“A month?” Arla repeated, making sure the assessment was clear.

“Yeah, well at least before the charge would start to dissipate. Hair is probably a perfect medium as it is made up of dead cells, while the scalp keeps the energy locked in place.” Rayalta stated knowingly.

Hearing her speak so eloquently of her own power and its capabilities, Arla couldn’t help but find herself being impressed.

Hearing that Arla went silent for a moment as her mind began calculating different scenarios out, while she couldn’t continue to access the same power that Mr. Fortuna had bestowed upon her, she could still understand a few functions of the power. The most basic function being that by identifying key variables, and limiting additional stimuli, one could begin to predict within certain variances the degree of separation that one action might have upon a given timeline. Translation, by focusing on what variable she herself could control, she could begin to understand the direct impact that such actions would have on the world around her. This was why, Arla understood the importance of this moment, both in terms of her bonding with her new squad that she had been assigned as the leader, and in terms of this squad’s dynamics going forward.

It was clear that this squad had already formed a strong cohesive bond, their level of banter and shared tension spoke volumes about how they felt about each other. Most of this cohesion was likely due to their having to band together to avoid scrutiny from higher ranked Officer Candidates.  To Arla that made this group even more important to win over, as they were already a forged weapon, just waiting to be wielded. In her mind she knew a lot of the higher ups already realized this distinction, that these Officer Candidates would likely form a silent backbone of the military that would be unbreakable, now it was up to Arla to make her part of that silent mafia. These are the soldiers behind the scenes that are both crucial and easily overlooked. The cooks, the supply clerks, the ordinance maintainers, and so on. People who individually have jobs that while important are not as important as frontline fighters, or strategists directly, their jobs running efficiently are the ones that the strategists and frontline fighters rely on to be able to react swiftly and decisively.

These were also the people that when they teamed up, they could take out one major thorn in their side, a few altered shipping manifests, a few altered delivery addresses, and even a few foods that would cause indigestion for gentle palettes can all cause minor problems to spiral out of control.

Seeing that this group had already formed such intricate bonds, made it clear to Arla that all she had to do was prove herself as not just a competent leader, but also a member of the outsiders’ squad.

“That is remarkable, and it is completely safe? As in putting on a hat or helmet will not discharge the energy, or cause an explosion?” Arla already knew the answer, as that was not how this type of energy worked. But she still asked to make it so the group heard the answer, making it so her next suggestion would be more readily accepted.

“Yes, my power doesn’t work that way. I thought you would know…” Rayalta trailed off.

Hearing that, Arla just waved her hand dismissively, “I thought as much, just wanted to confirm before I asked my next crazy question.”

At that all eyes of her fellow platoon members were on her, as she could feel their full and undivided attention almost piercing into her soul. One she was certain had a form of soul sight, or a way to tell lies, at least that was what her current impulses were telling her. If this was the case, she turned to look towards the sensation and saw that Lisom was staring at her very intently. Catching his gaze she nodded appreciatively.

“What type of question?”

“Right now, it seems that we have a major problem, there is only of me, while other teams have multiple A-Rank and higher cadets that we will have to continue to compete against,” Arla stated, laying out what the squad already knew would be happening with future operations. Sure if Arla proved to be completely incompetent, the squad could vote her out of the position she was now in, at which point other A-Rankers would have first chance at taking over her spot. Then if no other A-Rankers accepted the task, it would fall to B-Rankers wishing to make a name, which given the squad’s recent success this might very well be the case. Meaning that it would be next to impossible for these C-Rankers to be left in control of themselves, which they all seemed to reluctantly understand.

“Okay?” They all mostly responded at once.

“Well, what if we started dividing our team in two, Rayalta with your power, you can basically mimic my own power,” Arla began. For a moment it looked like the group would try to say something, but all quickly stopped themselves as the intent of her words soon became clearer. “What I am suggesting we do, is we prepare like we are already going out into the field. We all let Officer Candidate Rayalta here infuse one extra burst of energy in our hair. That way, when we go out to the field, we can split up, half with me, half with Rayalta. Then when we run out of infused ammo, you can either come to me, or to her, letting her use the energy infused in your hair to provide a few extra rounds.”

“I’m not that good, I could only do about half a clip,” Rayalta replied reluctantly, indicating that there would be a lot of wasted energy.

“That’s still better than nothing,” Candidate Driver replied, clearly buying into the task. Seeing her response, Arla realized her acceptance was likely equal parts her wanting to split the team and be away from her, the A-Ranker, and wanting to have additional energy sources available.

“You saw how effective these rounds were against that monster’s shields,” Cadet Patel added clearly wanting to continue using the rounds.

Hearing even more members of the team come to the acceptance of this as a way to go, Rayalta just asked two words, “you sure?”

“Hell Yeah! Blue hair, sticking it to the Cerusians, while having an extra source of power ready to go at a moment’s notice, what is not to like?” Lisom shouted.

Rayalta looked at the other member of the C-Rank squad, each of which just nodded in approval. Then the same glowing blue hair that had started as a joke and a party favor soon turned into a mandatory part of the C-Ranker’s uniform, whether going around campus, or into the field of combat.

Arla made sure to both send up the noted uniform change command up the chain of command, making all future problems and infractions up for her to bear for the squad, while giving herself seven other humans that would all proudly display glowing blue hair while walking around campus.

Of course, Arla was the one who infused her own hair with energy.

“I won’t be able to take the charge out of your hair, but if you come to me during missions, I can always do a resupply before we break off into smaller teams,” Arla noted.

And like that, the Blue Devil platoon began.