Chapter 4

After an hour in the air, they began to decent upon a large building. Andy looked out of the window in awe at its size.

When the helicopter landed in what seemed like an airport section of the base, Lukas opened the door and stepped out with Andy following him.

“Just follow me, and I’ll take you to get signed up. Stay close though, this place is big, and for a newcomer, it’s easy to get lost.”

They walk through what indeed seemed like a labyrinth of halls and rooms until they came into a room that looked very much like a doctor office.

He walked up to the desk and handed the woman at the desk an ID. “Lukas Kuhl, I’m here to get Andy signed up. I’ll be his Warlord.”

He turned to Andy and said, “A Warlord is someone who looks after new recruits and makes sure that they get the training that they need to become useful to the Order.”

He felt a stack of papers hit his hand and lifted his hand up and grabbed it. “Let’s go fill out some paperwork.”

They sat down and within twenty minutes were done. They walked backed up to the desk, and the same woman took the paperwork and put it into a machine to get it put into the system. She looked at Andy and said “You lucked out young man. You’re going to be taught by one of our best. Lukas here has the largest Warlord success rate at ninety percent, that’s more than any other in the Final Order.”

Lukas laughed at her and said “Ma’am that just means I turn them into something useful quicker than anyone else. It doesn’t really mean anything. Who you should look at is Mike Wire, he has the highest survival rate out of the Order. That means he makes people who aren’t just useful but war changing.”

He turned to Andy and said “I intend to turn you into someone like that. I watched some of the security info that we intercepted during the attack, as well as footage from your Tournament. You’ve got potential. Now then let’s get down the training room so I can see you in person. Just follow me, keep quiet, listen, and you’ll do fine. After today everything I say will make sense. The Order has been doing this for a long time and knows what they are doing.”

With that, they left the room, and he’d to the elevator and went down to the bottom floor.

The door opened to a room full of weapons. The first rack on the left was full of polearms, axes, and hammers. The first rack on the right was full of one-handed weapons: Swords of all varieties, maces, axes, daggers.

On the left rack in the back of the room was a large array of firearms ranging from pistols, assault rifles and shotguns to sniper rifles, grenade launchers, and explosives. The right-back rack had long distance weapons from ancient times. There was every type of bow imaginable, crossbows, javelins, and slings. It also shared a rack with body armor and helmets.

Lukas said “Welcome to the weapons room. Here we will select our weapons for sparring matches. If you’ll notice, there is a door on the other side of the hallway. That leads to a room with Mark Wood in it. Mark has the power to create dream worlds and put people into those dream worlds. We use those worlds as training areas. In them, we can fight to our fullest extent without having to fear damaging people in the real world.”

They walked through the hall and Lukas grabbed a sheathed longsword with a belt from the racks. “I watched you use one of these during the tournament. Unless I’m mistaken, this is what you’re most familiar with. This sword is made with what we call Gecroedian Steel. It’s a much stronger steel and the edge with never dull.” He tossed it to Andy who caught it. “We are going to get you the equipment you’ll be using at first. If you recall, there were some guys in armor at the airport. That’s where you’ll start since that’s where everyone starts at. However, the faster you learn your powers, the faster you’ll climb the ladders.”

Andy slipped the belt on and brought the sword to his hip and attached it.

Lukas nodded and walked further down the hall and grabbed an assault rifle and tossed it to Andy. It was black and made of a mix of metal and plastic. Lukas began to describe the gun “Its receiver is located behind the pistol grip, the thirty round magazine is loaded in a bullpup design, and the barrel is short but heavy to help with accuracy. All of this is to make a compact but precise weapon because our combat is often very up close and personal.”

He then reached over and grabbed a pistol and gave it to him he said “This is just a basic pistol. Obviously when you’re in combat, sometimes you don’t have time to reload. This is used to help keep the opponent at bay.”

He walked to the other side of the hallway and grabbed body armor and handed it to Andy. He said “This body armor with help protect you against things like the monsters you fought, creatures we call Ashfiends. It won’t absolutely protect you from them, but it’ll save you from a few swings and stabs.” He reached up and grabbed a helmet and continued “Same deal with the helmets. Through many centuries of research, we have found this makeup of armor to be the best for our troops. Any more armor and your maneuverability and visibility will be compromised. Any less and we started to lose troops too quickly.”

He waited for Andy to put on the armor and holster his pistol before he picked up his rifle. “There we go, you look like you’re ready for some vengeance. Now then I say we get in there and train you.”

They walked in, and Mark looked up from the packet of paper he was reading “Hey Lukas, long time no see.” He looked over at Andy “I see you’ve got a new student. I guess you’ll be giving him the usual session.”

Lukas smiled and said “Nope, I’m going to run him through the God Session. Oh, and if you could record it.”

Mark looked back at Lukas shocked “Putting a new soldier through the God Session? I normally don’t advise this but since I know that you know what you’re doing I’ll approve of it.” Looking back at Andy, he said, “Good luck kid, you’re going to need it.” He raised his hand, and there was a bright flash.

Andy looked at Lukas and said something for the first time in a while “What is a God Session?”

Lukas smiled and looked at him “I’ll explain it when we’re there.”

Everything went black for Andy.

Andy woke up standing in a broken forest. It looked as if there had been a fire long ago, and the forest was just starting to come back from it. It was nighttime, and the only light came from the bright full moon in the sky.

Suddenly he heard “Welcome to the dream world. God Session.”

Andy looked in the direction of the voice and saw Lukas sitting relaxed in a tree behind him.

Lukas continued, “In God Session, I am a god, and I can bring forth whatever enemy that I desire for you to fight. With me, I intend to make you fight until you die. Now then, let’s see how you fair against three Ashfiends.”