Chapter 8 - What Makes a Ranger

The sail system is a technology that the Coalition has been working on since before its very foundation. Fueled by Arima, it allows for objects to ride along the rifts in space left behind by massive bodies like planets or stars. 

Although these rifts, known more commonly as currents since the Earth became a member planet of the Coalition, are very faint, the sail system takes the warping in space-time to the extreme, allowing even large vessels to travel at hundreds of thousands of times faster than the speed of light.

Once an object reaches maximum speed on a current, no further fuel is required to maintain it provided that it stays on course.

**

Quin left his hand on the handle for a while, wondering if he should try to go back in, before finally deciding to pull his hand back from the door. 

He understood that he probably couldn’t face Vaichehen directly. 

He sat down in front of the door, leaned back into it, and closed his eyes. He was fully comfortable with sleeping just about anywhere. 

In his own head, this was Quin’s way of accepting Vaichehen’s challenge.

Not even an hour had passed, Quin hadn’t even reached a deep sleep, when suddenly, the door swung open. Quin fell backwards into the room.

“What are you doing down there?” asked Vaichehen, “Get inside.”

Quin stared blankly for a second, then picked himself off the ground. 

The lights in the room were turned on, and the pigsty that it once was no longer existed. The clothes were picked up and neatly put away, and the trash was gathered into bags. 

A slight smirk came across Quin’s face when he understood why Vaichehen tried to scare him away at first.

“Vaichehen…” said Quin, “Are you easily embarrassed?”

“Tch,” Vaichehen furled his brow in annoyance, “You sleep on the bottom bunk. I don’t want to hear you shifting around above me.”

“Whatever.”

Quin decided that it was best not to ask him what Vaichehen did to get him out of the room in the first place.

He sorted through his bags, and put his clothes into the dresser. It was one of the dressers that automatically sanitized, freshened, and sorted clothes as they were put in. A standard appliance in many homes around the galaxy.

After he was done with that, he laid himself down in the bottom bunk, and then it was lights out. 

Feeling free of the angst that had been eating at him, it was the best rest that Quin had gotten in a while.

**

Quin opened his eyes and sat up. Vaichehen was sitting at the desk in the room, writing something under a dim lamp-light. 

“Good morning, Quin,” Vaichehen said, not ever actually looking in Quin’s direction.

Quin checked his modular communications device, or mod for short. He had the clock on it set to UTC time on Earth.

[0400]

That meant that Quin had been sleeping for a little over seven hours.

“Teek is waiting for you downstairs.”

“What for?” asked Quin.

“Why ask me?” he replied.

“Tch.”

Quin got out of bed and got dressed. He headed out of the room and climbed down the ladder. 

“Oh, hey, Quin,” said Fenres. 

He was sitting in a chair out in the hall, throwing glass marbles into a basket of sorts on the other side of the room. He was playing some sort of game that Quin didn’t quite understand. He pointed to the empty room.

“Teek is waiting for you in there,” he said.

“Sounds good, yeah,” Quin responded

Quin walked into the empty room and saw Teek sitting on the floor, waiting for him.

“So I heard you wanted to see-”

Suddenly, Teek hurled a small object at Quin. 

Quin’s eyes widened, and he snatched the object out of the air. He heard a cracking sound coming from inside his palm.

He opened his hand, and discovered that it was one of the marbles that Fenres was playing with, or at least it once was. It was now shattered beyond repair.

“You didn’t mean to crush it like that, did you?” asked Teek.

“I guess not,” replied Quin.

“I also heard that you passed out after your ‘fight’ with Lek.”

“Yeah, I did, what are you getting at?”

“You lack control. I can feel Arima radiation seeping out of you every time you move. You might not notice it, but it's not an effective way to live.”

“Arima radiation? That’s coming out of me right now?” asked Quin.

“Yeah. I’m sure you know this by now, but Arima isn’t just a power source for technology. It’s name is derived from the neutral language’s word for ‘will.’ It can give strength to Savants and deepen a Savant’s connection to the world. Given the right conditions, it can self-propagate, and on rare occasions it can give birth to life directly. There have been debates on whether or not Arima can be considered alive.”

“That sounds absolutely unbelievable, but somehow I don’t think that you’re lying to me.”

“Right? I didn’t get it at first either…” Teek put his hand to his face, in deep thought, “On second thought, I still don’t. I just told you what the captain told me about it. Well, anyways, you’re leaking that Arima radiation, that little glow that comes out of activated Arima, all over the place.”

“I think I follow… maybe not,” Quin replied as he bobbed his head up and down in thought, “So how do I fix this?”

“You gotta get used to your own body,” said Teek, who was pulling out a blindfold.

“What, are you gonna use that blindfold to help me sense the radiation that you told me about?”

“No, it’s for me,” Teek wrapped the blindfold around his own eyes as he stood up, “It helps offset my vertigo. It’s fine, I can still feel where you are, I won’t trip or anything.”

“So how do I ‘get used to my own body’ like you said?”

“How do you think?” asked Teek, winding up his arm.

“Looks like it’s starting,” said Fenres, who walked up to the room and closed the door. The door locked from the outside.

“You just gotta use it a lot,” said Teek.

Teek clenched his hand into a fist, and he raised it into the air, preparing to throw his fist with full strength.

“Woah, hey-” 

Quin crossed his forearms in front of him, attempting to absorb the impact. Teek’s fist connected with Quin’s arms with a thud. Quin’s feet skidded across the floor about a meter.

“That hurt, jackass!” yelled Quin, grabbing onto his left forearm. “You gotta warn me before you-”

“Five minutes,” said Teek, “If you can last five minutes without passing out, then we’ll move onto the next part of the training.”

Quin gave it some thought, then his usual nervous half-grin creeped up on his face.

“Training? Sounds good to me. I’ve always wanted to fight a proper Ranger,” he said.

“Oh it won’t be a fight, but you can try, little Human,” Teek rolled up his sleeves, revealing his excellently tempered muscles, “Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you.”

Teek wound up another punch and swung his fist at Quin’s torso, but Quin sidestepped it with no difficulty and launched his palm straight into Teek’s face.

There was a thud when the fist connected, but there was no reaction from Teek. 

“Your technique is good,” said Teek, “but that’s only in your physical body.”

Quin wasn’t sure how that punch did nothing at all. The only response he could think of was simply to just keep hitting him. 

One in the stomach, one in the face, one in the shoulder; each and every one of Quin’s blows were absorbed by Teek as though they were nothing. 

“I’m telling you, that’s not gonna work,” said Teek.

One more blow was thrown, and for some reason, this one left a small mark on Teek’s thick skin.

Teek took a step back, “You gotta be kidding me. Already?”

Quin seemed to have understood something in that moment.

If my problem is that my energy is moving wherever it wants, then all I have to do is condense my focus. This should work.

Quin shifted his stance and concentrated the best he could on his left leg. When he felt that powerful feeling welling up inside of it, he unleashed a forward kick pointed directly at Teek’s head.

Teek thrusted an arm out and caught Quin’s foot before it could connect, gripping it tightly. He released his grip, and shook his hand off.

“You blocked,” said Quin, proudly. His eyelids were drooping.

“15 seconds,” said Teek, “Not bad, for your first attempt.”

Quin closed his eyes and ragdolled onto the floor.

**

He opened his eyes some time later. He was still in the same, empty room.

“How long have I been out for?” he asked with no hesitation.

“Only about ten minutes,” Teek responded, “Don’t feel bad about not lasting that long, that was really pretty good. Was that last kick something that you think you could replicate or were you just feeling it in the heat of the moment?”

“I think it was a mix of both,” replied Quin, “I think I might’ve gotten somewhere there.”

Quin sat up and stared at his fist.

“That’s good, that’s good,” said Teek as he put his blindfold back on and stood up, “So you ready for round two?”

“Wait, before that, I have some questions.”

“Hm?”

“When I was trying to settle into Vaichehen’s, rather, my room, we got into an argument of sorts.”

“And?” asked Teek.

“At some point, he kicked me out, only…” Quin pondered his words and wondered if he was going to sound crazy, but continued anyways, “I have no recollection of the event. One moment, I was in the room, and the next I was standing outside the entrance.”

Teek sighed, sat back down on the floor, and took his blindfold off once again.

“I suppose no ones ever given you a proper rundown before.”

“Rundown?”

“I’ll tell you about what really separates a Savant from others. Let’s see… where do I start… I guess I’ll tell you about the first three stages of a Ranger.”

Quin perked his head up, “I’m listening.”

“For starters, you’re currently at the first stage, it’s called the ‘first Epiphany,’ also known as ‘Awakening.’ It’s when the Arima enters a Savant's body and improves their physical capabilities; their recovery, their strength, their durability, and even their lifespan, depending on how deeply connected to the Arima they are.”

“I think I’m following? What about the second stage?” asked Quin.

“The second stage, also known as ‘Manifestation’ is when a Ranger obtains his ‘Manifest,’ a weapon or tool made from Maelsteel that we can store within our own bodies. It can technically happen in any order, and we only call it the second stage because it's what the Ranger Corps believes to be the way to do it.”

“Maelsteel? Isn’t that what Mass is backed by?”

“Yeah, the same Maelsteel that our currency is based off of. There’s a reason why it’s so valuable. It’s tough, scarce, conducts well, but more importantly, it resonates unbelievably well with Arima, to the point that Savants can have specialized equipment made from it, fine tuned to their own energy.”

“So when will I get my own?” asked Quin.

“That’s one of the thing’s we’ll be doing on Talis. Wait, are you not in the groupchat yet? We’ve been talking about the agenda through there this whole time.”

“No, should I have been?”

“You’ll have to give me your mod link later. That’s a problem.”

Teek raised his hand, and a spade of sorts appeared in his palm. He gripped it tightly.

“This is my Manifest, for reference. It isn’t the best for combat, but I work well with it. Lek was at stage two, as far as we’re aware, if that gives you a better idea.”

“So the reason that Lek was able to sneak that pistol in was because of that. I get it now…” Quin cocked his head, “but what’s any of this got to do with what Vaichehen did?”

“That brings us to the third stage. The first sign that someone is a Savant is that they see the world a little differently from others, but what is really special about them is their ability to force their worldview onto their surroundings. We call the worldview that they inherently understand a ‘Study,’ and when one can make their Study into a reality, they have reached the third stage. This is why we call the third stage ‘Coercion.’”

“So… what’s Veichehen’s ‘Study,’ then?”

“He prefers not to disclose that to anyone he doesn’t know very well,” said Teek, “I’ll tell you mine, though. It’s Erosion. You’ll see it plenty of times as we work together.”

“I see… this is a lot of information here. I figure I’ll probably learn more about it as I go on.”

“Exactly,” said Teek as he put his blindfold back on, “With that in mind…” he stood up, “It’ll be two weeks before we get to Talis. That means we have only two weeks to get you up to snuff.”

Quin smirked.

“I guess you won’t be giving me much time to rest.”

Quin stood up and excitedly got into a stance.