The Warrior Mechanic

Cael decided to just have breakfast in one of the restaurants outside before returning to his hotel room with 30 minutes on the clock.

The spaceport slowly descended into the planet’s atmosphere, arriving at the colony’s airport in the early hours of the evening. The planet’s star was nearing the horizon, leaving a thin orange gleam across such horizon in its descent.

Upon exiting the spacecraft, the group regrouped and were suddenly hit with the intense warmth. Carlo City did get warm at times, but this was more of a tropical, humid warmth.

They could even smell that the air had changed drastically and wasn’t what they were used to. It smelt more natural. It was akin to the smell of a rainforest, or some other natural area.

“Follow me, cadets. We’ll be staying in the institute for the time being and they kindly gave you guys some of the ensuites on offer there in the central dormitories.”

The group followed behind Arlo, who was the man conducting all of the security measures and co-ordination to get them where they needed to go.

Making it through the unbearably complex procedures of security at these spaceports, the students were finally nearing the entire building’s exit.

Arriving at the exit, the main road that was situated there wasn’t as large as the one that Cael had viewed in Oseron. This was a given; Zarcona wasn't the capital of the Lapra Colony, and was on a faraway planet of the empire.

Nonetheless, they were still stood before a 6-lane road, with numerous taxis waiting patiently for their soon-to-arrive travellers.

As for Arlo and the cadets of Carlo City, there was an airbus that slowed to a stop just ahead of him. It resembled a minibus from it’s size, only being able to house 10 to 15 people inside it.

At the door was an official with a white star on his hat; a colonial officer. Another muscular soldier then stepped out as well, this time wearing a camouflage uniform just like Arlo.

“Greetings Sir Arlo of Carlo City. It’ll be a pleasure to have your students with us.” The colonial officer called out, reaching out his hand to try and shake it.

“Of course. We can’t wait to begin this co-operation between our institutes.” The soldier added, with Arlo shaking his hand after.

The students then followed Arlo as they entered this minibus, finding a seat to stay cosy in for their upcoming journey. None of the warriors sat beside each other except for Keagan and Blaine.

They seemed to be rather close to each other, but the three others were just focused on showcasing their strength in this institute. Vanessa was the best example of this sentiment, and she spent her time watching several videos made by soldiers explaining combat styles and different tips to use in battle.

Cael just decided to act somewhat productive himself, watching videos of mechanics and some of the newest inventions in the market. Cael did this from time to time after he spent so much time in the field.

Upon searching through some videos, he soon felt startled by one video that wasn’t near the top of the video lists. However, it had already received hundreds of thousands of views in just a few hours.

[NEW VIRTUAL SWARM DRONE DOMINATES IN THE VAULT!!!]

Cael sat up in his seat upon seeing this, and a smile cracked across his face.

The drone swarm; his own creation. It was being utilised and lauded by somebody right here for him to witness.

Almost unable to resist, he clicked on the video to see what it was all about.

[Hey everyone! Today is going to be a banger because, after some searching on the ExoTech Marketplace for a new weapon style to test out for you guys, I found a gem hidden away. Made by an artist called WarriorMechanic7914. From what I’ve seen, he’s an upcoming independent mechanic and boy, he’s got some good stuff!]

The video continued on, and the guy in the video showcased his virtual avatar within the lobby of the vault. Following up from this, he entered a large game mode with other fighters similar to himself and showed off the technology.

What was striking about the swarm was its ability to remain active, even when under direct fire. The roles of each drone were able to be swiftly switched between them in case of one of the drones being gravely damaged. Along with that, it gave the users a lot of information pertaining to the battle at hand.

This helped them with co-ordinating themselves and proved to be very useful in terms of larger modes of battle with more than 10 fighters per side.

Cael was at a loss for words as he continued to watch this video, his eyes failing to lose contact with the hologram floating ahead of him. The praise that he received was incessant, and did wonders to boost his self-confidence.

Constantly creating products and releasing them, he’d never really been able to contact those that were very enthusiastic about his creations in recent times. The only person that he could really think of was Lazarro, and it was just by chance that he was able to find him in the Fighter-Mechanic event.

If he never saw him or acknowledged his presence there, he would’ve never really known any of his frequent customers. To receive such nice words on his own creations gave him a warm feeling in his stomach and caused him to smile lightly.

After passing the time with some over videos shortly after, his periphery was soon occupied by the towering buildings of the Zarcona B-Grade Institute. Similar to the layout of Cael’s own institute, there were several central towers, with other neo-modern buildings surrounding it.

Alongside that, there were block-like traditional buildings, that resembled some of the ancient architectures from Earth.

“We don’t expect your students to do any form of training today. I’m sure it was quite a flight to get from Carlo City all the way here so you can all just rest for today.” The soldier announced.

Several officers stood guard at the institute’s entrance permitted the vehicle to enter after the colonial officer permitted their entry. The guards at this institute were mainly colonial officers, who stood almost totally still as they were on patrol.

It was slightly creepy to any spectators, since their stance seemed so unnatural.

Arriving at the entrance to the institute, they were escorted out and toward their rooms. The colonial officer directed the students, while Arlo followed the soldier that brought him to the instructor’s wing.

This was a smaller neo-futuristic building that resembled a dome from its exterior. This was the dormitory and almost the base of operations for the teachers.

Here was the residence of the headmaster, along with the more significant officials of the institution.

The colonial officer arrived at the centre of 5 skyscraper-like buildings, which had the logo of a star, with a crown situated above it.

This was one of the logos of the nation’s defence forces.

Arriving at the floor of the room, the five students stood powerfully and confidently as the other students witnessed their arrival. Here, there was a specific boy that was broad-shouldered and looked to be 6’4 to 6'5 from his size even when sitting down.

He had large muscles and was in between the muscular size of Blaine and Keagan. Cael was now rather comparable to Blaine’s size in terms of musculature and was the same weight as him.

However, this guy certainly had more than 30 pounds over him.

He had pure, white hair and piercing blue eyes, along with a sharp jawline and masculine-looking face.

Blaine and this boy had a fearsome stare-down, with Blaine disengaging as they walked past.

Cael didn’t pay these people much attention; he saw no need for such antics. His power would speak once they entered arenas.

After such a long journey and quite terrible jetlag, he just wanted to rest.

Jetlag was almost totally dependent on how long the flight was. If a flight arrived in a similar time zone to the starting planet, jetlag wasn’t as significant.

However, they were offset by more than 8 hours across this flight. Therefore, their bodies felt like it was the early hours of the morning but instead, it was the evening.

“Here are your rooms. You can choose between you five for who gets which room but here are the keys for them. Enjoy your stay.” The colonial officer said, before giving the keys to Cael and exiting

Blaine was the first to take his choice, snatching the key for the furthest room from them. Keagan followed up and everybody took their own keys without discussion.

This left Cael with a single key to the last room on offer.

“Well, then.”