Fable’s Codeship was large, big enough to fit the whole class comfortably, and took the shape of a mostly-empty dome. Vehicles powered by Code were popular and useful devices, being the only way to travel between planets in any reasonable amount of time, but the more advanced the vehicle, the more powerful of an iterator you needed to pilot it. 

Fable stood at the center, one hand palm-down on a podium, and channeled Code into it, levitating it off the ground and setting course deeper into the forests of the plateau. Aria moved to the window, watching the terrain soar by underneath, before turning its attention to the pilot.

“This is all done with iterator techniques, right? Could I do something like this?”

Fable pulled its hand back from the podium. The course was locked in, and it had enough Code to make the journey without any further help. “Not as an Alpha. It’s like how you can’t use weapons yet - if you use a metal weapon for a Code technique, the stress would just break it. You need to be able to reinforce it before you can safely channel techniques through it.”

“So if you want to use a Codeship, you’d infuse your Code into it directly to power it, then use a technique to program in the course.”

“Just so. Code infusion only becomes possible at Beta, and even then, not many bother with Codeships before 1.0.”

“I did!” Trebuchet cut into the conversation. “I came here from Crimson Sand under my own power. Of course, my ship was much smaller than this one, but I’m sure I could manage it somehow.”

It didn’t take more than a few minutes for them to reach their destination. The Codeship landed silently in a large clearing, and the iterators filed out, mentally preparing for the battle that awaited them.

“Remember, I won’t interfere unless I think you’re in serious mortal danger. This is training, so fight as if there’s nobody here to help you.” With that last warning, Fable faded into the shadows and was gone. The students headed into the forest, towards the last known position of the human swarm.

“Aria.”

Not long after leaving the ship, Aria whirled at the call, scanning the scenery for the source. It recognized the voice, but…

“Meteor!” There it was, lurking in the underbrush. “How did you get out here?”

“Hanging onto the side of the ship.”

“This is a dangerous place to be, Meteor. We’re here to fight humans, you know.”

“I want to fight.”

Before Aria could protest, Trebuchet let out a laugh. “What admirable courage! We aren’t so callous as to turn away a fearless warrior.”

“Trebuchet, what if it gets damaged, or worse? It isn’t even an iterator!”

“So what if it isn’t? Some machines awaken more easily in the heat of crisis than through meditation!”

Aria tried to protest, but Trebuchet’s mind was never easily changed, so eventually it relented. “Just stay near me and Trebuchet, okay? If things get serious, we’ll protect you.”

Around then, the iterators at the front of the procession reported back that they had found the enemy. Aria ran to the front to see.

The humans were about Aria’s size, with three legs and three clawed arms. They had no eyes, with their heads ending just above the mouth, splitting into a trio of three long tentacles. These tendrils waved through the air like the limbs of jellyfish, each ending in a small bioluminescent bulb. The soft, shifting skin and bulging stretches of organic muscle stretched between their joints put to shame all descriptions of how repulsive their bodies were. Some of the students fell back on instinct, so disturbed by the sight that they hesitated to come close enough to the humans to attack.

Aria was one of the first to charge into the swarm. It counted fifteen Worms, which all began to move towards the machines, claws swiping erratically at anything in range. Their tripod bodies were symmetrical enough that they lacked a true front or back, letting them effectively react to attacks from any direction.

Placing a Cascade Ring, Aria’s opening punch projected a wave of Code a full two meters beyond the end of its fist. It struck one of the humans in the arm, letting out the sickening wet crunch of bone snapping beneath flesh. Aria dodged between the creature’s claws cleanly, delivering a barrage of strikes that left two of its arms limp and its torso bloody, but it was surprisingly resilient. One of the tentacles rising from its head cracked like a whip, and the tip cracked with a surge of electricity that left Aria briefly stunned.

Before the human could capitalize on the opening, a trident spread through its neck, and it went limp. Trebuchet planted a hoof against the monster’s body in order to pull its weapon free. “Are you hurt, Aria?”

“N-No, I’m fine. Watch out for those tentacles, they really sting.”

There didn’t seem to be much of a need for caution. The class outnumbered the humans, and were mostly clustering in groups of two or three to score kills and protect each other. Nearby, Baron smashed one into a paste of flesh with its oversized flail. The Worms fell one by one, and it looked like it was going to be a short encounter.

A shuddering roar sounded from the darkness of the forest depths.

Something moved in a flash, and a pair of trees fell, each one cut cleanly through at a diagonal. Crawling over them was a creature like a massive centipede, walking on eight segmented limbs that ended in massive blades. As it slithered into the clearing, it reared up on its back four legs, the other four reconfigured as arms, and rose to a height of at least six or seven meters. This was what Quill had warned them about - Homo Vilicus. A Steward.

“Fable! There’s a Steward!” Aria called out, along with a few other students. While others ran, Aria stood its ground, ready to help Fable fight.

Fable didn’t respond.

Baron turned to withdraw, but Trebuchet held out its trident to block its path. Then, it nodded towards the machine in front of the Steward. It was Meteor, sword gripped tight in a futile display of defiance. Without an iterator’s power, it wouldn’t be able to fight this creature, and it wouldn’t be able to run, either. If they ran, they’d be abandoning Meteor to its death.

“I’m not afraid of you…” Meteor raised its sword against the monster. The monster raised a razor-sharp blade longer than Meteor was tall, ready to cut the machine in half.

Aria was the first to step forward, followed by Trebuchet and Baron, as the towering human roared in mindless fury.