Saturday, best day of the week, had come again. Thalia had signed up to lead a TacSim team, and then signed up ten people who didn't exist to make up the rest of the team. It wasn't because she thought she'd win, she just liked the challenge of fighting a full team on her own. Katie had volunteered to help, and if the administration ever caught on to what she was doing then she would probably accept the offer. Although they both knew that half the reason Katie wanted to join was because it was a good extracurricular and looked good on resumes. The other half Thalia chose to ignore. Not that they hadn't had fun at the time, but she was fairly confident that she didn't 'roll that way'.
Her Opponents today would be a team of 'Good' students. 'Good' of course being fundamentally meaningless term assigned to students more likely to destroy a planet in an attempt to free the universe than for personal gain or entertainment. Thalia had never really bought into the system; she saw no reason why this idea that they had to play at heroes and save the universe made them any more good than someone who wanted to bring order and peace to the universe through strong leadership and a focus on the fine arts. They were both equally dismissive of the ability of the common man to chose his own path. Neither one would ever bring real justice to anything, and more likely than not more people would die as a result of their competition than would if they both just shut up and stayed out of the way. And assigning titles like 'good' and 'evil' only reinforced the divisions between the depressed losers with martyr complexes and the depressed losers with god complexes.
Needless to say, since she'd thought this through she'd been assigned the label 'evil'. It was silly actually; if they'd actually inspected her goals the way they were supposed to they'd have realized that she was actually more 'good'. Not that her means didn't justify their judgement, blackmail and extortion were very 'evil' things to do.
Anyways...'Good' team. Eleven kids with preexisting social ties, at least one established couple(The guy was cheating on her, she was trying to look the other way but Katie reported that she cried in the lavatory often), four guys who liked to be called 'the hammer brothers'(One was in the closet, the other three teased him relentlessly while verbally abusing their girlfriends. She hated those guys), one of Katie's ex's(nice girl, daddy issues she kept bottled up. No dirt, when she inevitably left the team[lashing out at one of the hammer brothers] she'd get an invite to join Thalia's team), two of the hammer brothers girlfriends(useless, pretty, and according to the school nurse 'would be knocked up before they graduated, even if they were careful'), and a the team's muscles (Stan. No need for dirt, he got into school because his parents were patrons, little to no magical ability, and even he knew it. She actually felt bad for him; he really did try his best, but his parents expected too much and it was crushing him). The team captain was an upperclassmen who'd been cut from his old team to make room for his old team captain's new girlfriend. Not that it was common knowledge, but his replacement actually was better than he was, and really did deserve the spot, regardless of the reason she'd gotten it.
She went ahead and wrote on the front page of the dossier, 'Prediction: No Contest'
Eleven hundred men to an army; divided up among the players however the captain chose to. Her suspicions were confirmed as she watched them divide their troops; only two of the girls got troops at all (the captain's brother's girlfriend, and Katie's ex) the rest were just their for 'moral support'. Fine, it was an officially recognized strategy; totally bollocks of course, but officially recognized. That was how she got away with ten non-combatants anyways. The Hammers took up the center, girls and the captain's brother headed for the mountain on her left flank, the captain and Stan went for the forest on her right. Standard tactics, nothing unexpected, and leaving her surprisingly at an advantage. The Hammers commanded somewhat more than half their army, with almost a quarter left to each flank. She could easily crush their captain using her investment in forestry training for her troops, or she could demolish the Hammer line. The mountain would take too long and she wouldn't be able to use her numbers effectively enough to avoid being surrounded herself. She detached two hundred men to clear the forest, and then booted up to lead the rest of her army in a direct assault.
Four men, six hundred soldiers, and she faced them with a mere times and a half their numbers, superior training and equipment, and a lifetime of hydromancy training; to say nothing of her necromancy. If they knew who she was, they'd have charged. Sadly they didn't, and she'd have to hunt them down on the field.
She stepped in front of her army, waving off the storm of arrows that flew towards her.
"Ahem. And now, for your entertainment, Thalia Immersfeld presents 'A Taunt'." She unfurled a scroll and began to read the carefully metered words, making light of the behaviors of the so called 'hammered man'. It had the desired effect, and two of them glanced across the lines at each other before howling and charging across the field at her. She flipped the scroll closed and slid it into a pouch held by one of her soldiers. Then she spun to face them and slid her foot forward along the hillock. A burst of ice shot forth from the ground and tripped them both, and as she drew up her hands it softened and arced over them, then hardened again securing them on the ground. She waved across the field and her armies leapt into action, hurling darts and javelins as they crashed upon the enemy line. She watched for the spellburst of an embattled mage, and as she spotted the third hammer she rent space and pulled herself across the void to his position.
"Hi, I'm Thalia and I'll be your destroyer today. Would you like a frequent die-ers card so you can earn a bonus death for every ten times I kill you?"
"Uhhh, wait what?"
One of her men ran him through as he wavered in shock. She stepped up and caught him as he collapsed. "There's nothing wrong with what you are. Be confident in yourself, and your true friends will accept you for who you are." She slipped him a small card with one punch. "Those who have nothing to hide need not fear that which is in the dark, for it holds nothing against them." She looked up as she saw him release from the simulation, the card vanishing with him. A burst of flame from the opposing side of the battle indicated her next target, and she walked across the void to meet him. As she returned to digital reality he unleashed a burst of crimson heat upon her. She scarcely had time to block, and as her hurried mind raced to pull the right spell from her memory another took its place. She traced a swift spiral before herself and the flames were dispersed by a torrent of her own. She thrust an icy spear through his chest before pausing. She'd never wielded fire before, her father had always raised her to wield the frost and tide as he did. It had never occurred to her that she might also have the gift of pyromancy as her mother did. This was a fact that she would reveal to her father with no haste.
She raised her hand over the field and watched bones reanimate before her. The troops she had sent to the forest returned triumphant as she did, and she faced the mountain with armies scarcely weaker than those she had begun the battle with. She took a second scroll from her squire and opened it in full view of the mountaintop commanders. "Behold the ruin of your allies! Such shall be your fate should you stand against my armies. Surrender and I will let you leave in peace. Fight, and not one of your men will walk from this field. But still further, I will lay bare your secrets in the presence of all those gathered about us. What you have done in darkness will be revealed by light of day. You have ten minutes."
She motioned for her men to take up defensive positions around the mountain, and then began tracing patterns into the earth. It would take more than men to defeat them if they chose to fight. And so she prepared a battery of catapults, transmuting wood and beaten steel into engines of destruction. There was no shortage of ammunition, and she had no need for supplies, skeletons were as strong as soldiers in TacSim and she wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice her men should the food run short. They were only programs after all. She tarred the chosen rounds and lit torches as the ten minutes drew short. Then at last she heard their reply.
"Thalia, I can see that if we fight we will lose. Even if my comrades will not see reason, I surrender myself into your custody." It was Katie's ex, Nella. Apparently she'd decided that it was better to give up than to drag out the battle. Even if she hadn't been able to surrender her men, removing herself from the field left the enemy with only two mages, and after Thalia was done speaking neither of them would be any threat. She ordered her men to escort Nella to her position, then drew another scroll.
"A pity you have chosen to fight, but fight you shall. And it is nothing personal that drives me to say this, but missy, he's a dog and you deserve better." And as she heard the crying and denials and general row begin, she ordered her catapults to open fire.
The day had been hers before it had even begun.
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