Chương 137: Chapter 136 – Team Building

Despite his own words, Cole didn't go straight to the billet. He went to the armory, first. He had Field Strip charges ready to burn, after all, and something else for his mind to be on. He also had a class evolution, which he was reminded of when his fingers brushed the back of the LF analyzer in the underground lab of the armory. But this time, it didn't look like he was limited to two paths.

< Divergent Evolution Detected Current enhancement level: 19 Primary class: Meteoric Valkyrie (4) Secondary class: Arquebus Engineer (2) Aggregate enhancement metrics: Strength: 4. 8 Dexterity 5. 75 Acuity: 8. 6 Resilience: 3. 85 Speed: 6. 7 Intelligence: 5. 75 Alpha path: Adjust Meteoric functionality — Landing shockwave no longer disperses impact energy omnidirectionally. Landing shockwave now concentrates all impact energy in a small azimuth. Impact energy is increased against ephemeral barriers.

If an enemy is killed, up to half a charge is restored. Bravo path: Adjust Meteoric functionality — Once per Meteoric Leap, burn half an additional charge to change direction, resetting velocity. Velocity of Meteoric Leap increased. Charlie path: Adjust Accretion Wraps Functionality — Meteoric Leap no longer marks targets. Mark up to five targets in a narrow azimuth at will, usable again once target marks expire. Marked targets exude additional pull on projectiles and thrown weapons.

When marked targets die, restore a small amount of charge. Charges: 6> With everything that had happened in Hexighast, Cole had completely forgotten that his class evolution had already hit. His next mission would be with yet another change to his class. He stared at the options. All of them were good. All of them were different, as well. He had wondered if he would get the option to super-mark a target for his team, again, but it seemed like the branching evolutionary path wasn't about to let him re-tread ground."

Real life don't have an undo button, Colton," Cole muttered to himself. He'd heard that enough times that he didn't need the ghost of his old lieutenant to stand at the crossroads and bark at him. So, which path would he walk this time? An upgrade to his landing shockwave would make a lot of sense. It would be a great way to smash a tight group of enemies or one big enemy, and he would even get refunded charge for it.

That would let him bounce around the battlefield like a pinball, getting nine leaps out of six charges as long as each landing killed something. He paused. No, ten leaps, at least, as every two refunded leaps would refund another, leap. That was, of course, only if the leap killed whoever the shockwave hit. On the other hand, being able to turn a super-jump into a super double-jump sounded like something straight out of a videogame. Definitely not beating the Mario allegations.

His jump height was speed times ten, so he could already leap sixty-seven meters straight up into the air by default. But he could also lower his own fall speed, which reduced the pull of gravity against the leap itself so that was more like eighty or one-hundred meters with how the abilities interacted. And he could leap a lot further laterally than vertically. With a double Meteoric Leap and his dartwing wraps to glide even further, he might be able to clear a full kilometer in a single bound.

The charlie path was the only one that adjusted his manifestation instead of his leap. It moved the mark target over to an at-will ability, which meant that even without any charges at all he could sweep for ambushes. But it also meant that he could no longer use it for broad area detection. But it also had the on-kill effect of restoring charge, albeit less than the alpha path. Howie had said that on-hit and on-kill effects would be especially good with his kinetic redirection bullets from the previous evolution.

How many hits would he need to restore a full charge? Both the alpha and charlie path improved the amount he could use his abilities. The bravo path actually reduced it, but the extra power and mobility it provided more than made up for the cost. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Cole rubbed his hand on his chin. He wished Howie were down here with him so he could pick his brain.

Then, in a stroke of brilliance, or due to the low-level Lewis Field in the armory slightly enhancing his intelligence, he realized he didn't have to choose right away. And he didn't have to shop with just Howie, either. He wouldn't be the only one with a class evolution, and they were in no rush to train for the next mission. There was no time crunch forcing his immediate evolution. Pulling out his phone, Cole sent a message in the team chat. He smiled to himself as the replies started to come in.

It was time to talk team tactics, not just what was best for himself. * It had been a while since the whole team had come to Cole's farmhouse out in the sticks beyond the compound. The morning after his armory stint, he waited out front with Nona while one by one, the other Kickers arrived for the off-post strategy session. Besson was the last to pull up in his truck, and when he cut the engine and opened the back door of his cabin, three dogs jumped down, tails wagging and tongues lolling.

Nutmeg immediately ran up to Roxy for pets, along with a slightly smaller boxer. Alexa watched warily, apparently not nearly as comfortable around real dogs as she was with her clockwork familiar.

"Oh, how precious," said Roxy, rubbing the smaller dog's ears.

"What's your name, sweetie?"

"That's Clove," said Besson.

"Nutmeg's pup. Been training her. The little one is Ginger." Howie gasped and covered his mouth.

"Nutmeg is a mom?!" Besson just rolled his eyes and withdrew a rope toy from his truck cabin, hauling back and flinging it as far as it could go. All three dogs took off after it at top speed.

"You know," said Roxy.

"All you need is cinnamon and you'll have a pumpkin spice latte."

"What's a pumpkin spice latte?" asked Nona. Roxy stared at her for a minute.

"Girl, sometimes I forget. I'll show you in about a month." Howie elbowed Cole.

"I love those things. Green Bean is the only thing that got me through my first deployment. You a pumpkin spice man or a chai man, Cole?" Cole had no idea. For once, he was in the same boat as Nona.

"I think my grandad would beat my ass if he ever caught me disrespecting coffee like that," he decided. It was Howie's turn to roll his eyes as they turned to head inside. Roxy and Cole grabbed a few soft drinks and snacks to carry down before heading into the general's old conference room. Since it had a table, a whiteboard, and no prying eyes, it was the perfect place to talk shop.

"Alright," said Cole.

"It's been almost half a year, and we've grown an immense amount, but we haven't communicated or coordinated as well as we should have. I don't even know what evolutions everyone took, and I barely understand Alexa's ability anyway. I want to close that gap and start strategizing. What do we have, what are we missing. Roxy, Besson, I know you just evolved on Hexighast, but who's got pending class evs?" Howie and Nona raised their hands, along with Cole himself.

Cole went up to the board and wrote down all their names and primary classes.

"Good. From now on, unless it's critical to a mission let's hold off on meditations until we can get input and coordinate with each other. If you want it," said Cole, nodding to Besson.

"At the end of the day, it's your class and your choice how to evolve it. But I'm assuming everyone is all in on this team, so we're all in on helping each other optimize our classes, too." Cole listed out his previous evolutions under his name, then his three potential upgrade paths.

"Howie, I know your first two evs were multi-charge munitions and mixed element munitions. What others am I missing?" Howie leaned forward.

"I get more evs than most classes since I'm a mage. I took one for proximity blasts, which is how I was able to set traps on Babel and Hexighast. I also took one that lets hot elements—that's lightning and fire—concentrate into tighter, higher damage areas. It did the opposite for cold elements, that's ice, earth, and air, so they spread out more." He counted off on his fingers.

"I've also got five ev options for this one—""Jesus," said Roxy.

"—But I've narrowed it down to two. One of them lets me basically make a shaped munition that's good against magic barriers and thick armor or scales. The other causes thermal shock if I hit something with both ice and either lightning or fire, which I can do with any multi-charge munition since I took mixed elements. That's also really good against large, tough opponents because it'll leave a massive weak spot." Cole scribbled out the details. Barrier piercing or anti-armor.

"Sounds like you're prioritizing a precision effect with this evolution. Don't mage bombards usually specialize in wide area saturation?" Howie nodded.

"Yes, but between my frost munitions and your ricochets, we're more than covered when it comes to crowd damage. I can sweep weak enemies while your ability is great for cutting huge chunks out of formations and shredding intermediate enemies like those arrowhead warriors in the tunnel. What it seems like our team has struggled with is sustained fights against a few, extremely hard targets like Beast Cult knights and mages."

"I've noticed that myself," said Cole, adding single strong enemies under the gaps label and target acquisition to strengths along with swarm enemies.

"Our scouting and ambush potential is great, but you and I run out of steam in drawn-out engagements." Cole looked at Roxy and Besson.

"Alright, how about our vanguard?" Historically, Besson had been a bit reluctant to share details of his class. But he sighed and scratched at his beard.

"My evs are geared towards my Steel Vanguard ability. The more damage I deal while it's up, the longer it lasts. The longer it lasts, the more damage my minions deal. Also took an ev to expand my minion count. It takes time to train new hounds but starting next mission I'll have both Nutmeg and Clove." Roxy leaned forward.

"You saw my last ev on Hexighast, that wide area shield whenever I use my ability. But only things that hit my actual shield are reflected. Hitting the spirit shield just dampens the attack energy. Before that, I took an ev that makes my spirit shells last longer and kills with them restore a little charge. It's been critical to my staying power in fights since the more times I get hit, the more times I can use my kinetic reflect or Malleable Mender."

"Good," said Cole. He scribbled frontline resilience in their strengths section.

"You two were already tough as nails, and it sounds like you're only getting even harder to kill." Roxy grinned.

"You know it, baby." Her grin faltered somewhat.

"But we're still spread pretty thin with just me, Besson, and the puppers. Cole added frontline coverage to their shortfalls and then turned to Alexa and Nona.

"Now, the two people I know basically fuck-all about how their classes work and what evolutions they've taken."