"You want to send him into a D territory so only one sniper can take a shot at the leader of a group of rogue Protectors?" Lucinda asks incredulously half an hour after discussing the bird and then finally bringing up my potential mission.
"You sent him to a portal you were fairly certain was an undead hot spot," Director Carlyle counters. "Regardless, he'll be completely safe. His equipment is all C grade and we'll personally supply rescue team with territory-grade munitions. Only their melee weapons would be an issue and, after his surgery, Malcolm is more than capable of the movement speed and reflexes to keep track of two targets. he's practically D grade right now and in the academy he could dodge and minimize impact from non-lethal bullets at F grade."
"Those are shot in a straight line every time by a machine, not a person," Lucinda argues. "His helmet already looks like somebody shot him in the face and I still haven't even met this bird. You want me to literally put him up for somebody's target practice? What the hell is this?!"
"The same thing it has always been," Director Carlyle says tiredly. "People who want to do bad things will do bad things no matter what, its a part of society and human nature. There's just so many people in those categories and not enough people in mine so we have to make use of all the assets we can get. If it was up to me, I would send some A or S rank to put the fear of God into them by making one or two examples but that somehow isn't the society we're a part of. The society we are in allows us to use soldiers and Protectors as bait so its slightly easier to take down one or two stronger people."
"The few for the many," Lucinda says in a similarly tired fashion. "I've been the bait before, so I can't make myself a hypocrite, but back then it was different. Now, don't we have special groups for this sort of thing?"
Glancing in my direction, Director Carlyle says, "There are groups for groups, these small timers are too under the radar for that treatment. Why do you think im using a C grade sniper instead of a team or someone in B grade? They're all occupied! However, Malcolm has something that at least ninety-five percent of the world's Enforcers don't, Si-Pon."
Looking up at the director a little irritably, Lucinda asks, "The elemental? Why not ask the bird to do it, then!"
"We cannot ask the bird to act on behalf of our country until a proper and functioning relationship has been established," he replies almost mechanically, reminding me somewhat of Eliza as if he had said the same line dozens of times already. "We can, however, place the bird in a situation with the potential to force it into taking action. It's basically nothing more than a last line of defense to protect Malcolm's life in this situation, but I believe Malcolm is fully capable of defending and evading long enough for the sniper to do their job."
All of this talk about having faith in me was almost enough to stir my feelings a bit, but I knew it was just whatever bullshit the director thought would be necessary to get me on the mission. After a few moments of silence, Lucinda finally says, "Fine, but I want in. You don't have to pay me, just give me a good rifle and I'll take care of my Malcolm."
Director Carlyle actually seemed surprised by this from the slight widening of his eyes, but then he just shrugs and says, "Malcolm is also an investment of mine, there's no reason why I would refuse to increase his already high chances of survival."
"Three killers and one sniper, his chances of surviving start at thirty percent," Lucinda says flatly. "With me there, the chance becomes thirty percent likelihood of dying from the start."
Nodding his head with a faint shrug, the director says, "I won't argue. The mission will be in a few days. Aside from taking care of his goblins, he's not to perform any strenuous activities until then so that his body can process its MP levels faster."
"Will he need help with bathing, again?" Lucinda asks suddenly as if something important had just occurred to her.
"No," I say flatly as the director looked at my guardian with a single incredulously arched brow. "Bathing is not strenuous, its relaxing. If I needed help with anything like that, I could afford to hire a nurse."
A few awkward minutes later I saw the director off at the door and then shut it to have a brief argument with Lucinda about how awkward she can make things. When that was over, I called a ride for Poniard and I to go over to the property. It was only just after noon so there was still plenty of time to train the goblins today since they had about two days of rest already.
When we arrived, both Kershaw and the director were at the property looking over the agility course that was made with universally sized obstacles and jungle gyms. The goblins were let out on the patio and were just watching training videos while practicing basic techniques at random. They did not have their weapons so some of it looked strange or sloppy, but I was pleased to see they were actually practicing.
Since the director and company were involved, I could not say too much, but I still took a six-second video of the goblins practicing and the hobs sweeping leaves and made a post on my business page about the 'free training' my trainees were doing in my absence.
Attracting the attention of my surprise guests while entering the property gate, I wave Poniard on ahead to the patio to gather up the goblins before waving hello to the director and Kershaw. "Glad you guys are here, you can watch my training program and tell me your thoughts. I have three different programs going on right now, but I believe the two of you can follow along well enough."
Once the goblins were let out, Poniard led them to one of several small equipment sheds under a large pavilion workout area. There, they obediently went into the shed and collected their personal training materials before reporting to their own training areas. Each area consisted of a treadmill, a circular sandy spot three times their body lengths in diameter for combat practice, and a small resting bench.
Left to their own devices, the hobs idled their way across the yard to a larger tool shed by the agility course that contained yard tools. There they found some rakes and set about idling around the recently unkempt lawn. The property had close to twenty trees and twelve of them had been incorporated into the agility course, meaning everywhere in these small two acres had a healthy scattering of leafy colors.
Joining me where I now stood between the exercise pavilion and the agility course, the director says, "If I knew you would be coming here we would have given you a ride."
"All is well," I reassure him distractedly while watching the goblins put on the last weights they had been given and take to their treadmills. The unmarked goblin was the only goblin that did not need to run at an incline most of the time but it was somehow the only one running at an incline. "Poniard, raise their treadmills twice and light punish," I decide quickly.
Poniard wordlessly walks forward to either goblin's treadmill and pushes the incline button twice- two times more than the preset- then walks back around 'lightly' smacking them in the back of their necks with the lengths of his fingers. "Well, aside from that, they really just get right it don't they?"
"It's part of the capture and training methods," I reply casually before telling them about how I had captured Poniard after fighting his ogre alone and then the slightly slower but smooth process of training him. Then I revealed how I used Poniard's seniority to train the other goblins as well as advance his own training by dealing with different kinds of fighters while sparring.
With weapons and tactics, Poniard who had at least a month more training and practice was far superior than the other goblins but it was still good experience for them. When they first started sparring their superior, the goblins started coming back day after day better than the last. They wanted to win against the guy that punished them.
However, beating my Poniard was far from an easy task even for older goblins in portals. After what I had seen in the last portal, I was ready to start letting him fight hobs and trollkin. With how much he had developed, as well, I would need to start getting some new equipment prepared for whenever he finally evolved.
"The Bureau has several divisions for training portal creatures and using them to bolster our forces in territories, but the training is different," the director admits after briefly looking around the property. "They breed so quickly that they're fairly expendable. We give them wooden weapons or armor and make them fight each other of the same and different species. After a month of this dueling, they get sent out into the field. No real technique, just basic survival training."
"These goblins are kind of individually ordered," I explain with a shrug. "The customer tells me what they want them trained in and with and how and I set them up with the basics and learn it myself in order to teach them. That one their that's running with the light body weights but holding a fifty-pound weight? He's going to be a tanker when he grows up so he's being designed to endure heavy burdens while dealing large amounts of damage in a few available openings."
"What kind of training did they want for that?" Kershaw asks curiously, probably having seen these guys practicing somewhat while in their rooms.
"Mostly sword and shield tactics with unarmed training and some cross-fit practices," I inform him with a shrug. "That's what their owners requested, so it's what im giving them. If it was up to me I would train them all to be agility fighters like Poniard but I would never actually let them be AS GOOD as him. There's no reason to create competition for myself unless he ever developed his own rivalry.
"This next goblin is a speed-dealer," I go on. "Whereas I focused Poniard's training on exploiting openings and taking advantage of the subtleties in actual techniques, this one is basically a berserker who wields two axes and practices Eskrima for both unarmed and dual wielding skills. The stage-one set provided by his buyer has several attacks of each variety and they are all both quick and ruthless.
"However, Poniard leads him like a cat chasing a laser because the only thing he's really learning from this is how to attack. Nothing else," I say almost a little sadly. "In the field, it will probably survive a few small test portals as they warm the goblin up to how things work but the pressure of their usual portals will kill it. Maybe not the first time, but it will inevitably find itself overwhelmed at the rate its going."
"You should charge extra for these custom services, not just because you have to deal with training fodder but because its death will affect your business," the director informs me seriously. "However, you never know, the other stages might be good for that. But im interested in this tanker! Ten minutes and his arms haven't lowered at all."
Smiling almost smugly, I say, "They won't lower til half an hour in but I dont take it away until an hour into the running. After the second hour I level out the bed. They CAN keep going in all three stages for longer, but im not being paid for that part. Im just being paid to reach this extent in this amount of time. The tanker, though, will fight with me about that fifty-pound weight."
Looking to his driver and field agent, Director Carlyle asks, "How quickly can you put together a team to hit infiltrate a C grade territory and abduct a village of goblin children?"
"At the longest, it would be done by thirty days," Kershaw replies with only a second or two to think about. "At the quickest, just less than two weeks. You want to use his methods to train a batch of proper goblin soldiers?"
"So you agree that they actually look like soldiers, right?" The director asks in answer to his question. "The one's I've seen all need cuffs when they get exercised, but these guys are free."
"Poniard needed cuffs at first, but I only used them to gauge the extent of his physical abilities. After he got comfortable with it, he no longer needed them," I explain a SLIGHT shame of Poniard's. "Since it sounds like you guys use up entire generations of goblins at once like idiots, there's no actual education or development of knowledge without the continuation of that knowledge. Without Poniard, those goblins would be in cuffs still."
"So, you're telling us we need to buy a goblin from you before we can have a successful training program?" Kershaw asks bluntly, lowering his sunglasses to look at me.
"Well you need a goblin that has learned and used the effective combat style you want in order to teach others in bulk the way the government would need to. Either that or a shit ton of human trainers with small groups at a time," I say with a sad shake of my head. "They're not dumb, but only a handful of them are smart and mine is becoming magical. But if you want it done best and quickest for a large number of goblins then it has to be done by goblins and then it will perpetuate and evolve."
Sighing in an exaggerated fashion, the director says, "We've been discussing this for a while, now. Kershaw says that if we brought you three groups of goblins to train in the three basic RPG styles then we could start training proper subhuman armies."
"Ranged, melee, and magic?" I ask dryly while looking to Kershaw. There was no way he could know that I actually had a method for making or increasing the odds of a magic goblin. It was also something that I needed to test out as well.
"Well, magic is chancy at best," Kershaw replies with a shrug. "My intent was ranged and two types of melee. I would not give goblins guns, those are our advantage over the other species, but Roman phalanx shield tactics, common two-handed swordplay, and archers who sidearm a large dagger. These would make up all the forces we need to minimize our own losses and reclaim more territory. For obvious reasons, they would remain largely expendable."
Thinking about it seriously, I shrug and say, "I'm not capable of handling C or maybe even D grade goblins unless Poniard is the same level. He is the expectations that they have to meet. If you wanted to you could just rent the goblins from private sectors who have survived for x amount of time. There's no reason it has to be me, these are time sensitive issues."
*