Chương 16: Chapter 15 – The squad’s complete

The drive back to base took two hours. I spent most of it staring at the highway, thinking of Ophelia. The squad was already in the gym when I arrived.

"Look who finally showed up," Manuel called out. He dropped from the pull-up bar.

"Had a good night with the girlfriend?" I grunted something noncommittal and headed for the locker room to change. When I came back out in uniform, everyone had gathered near the training mats. Torres stood at the front, alongside Francesca and Luca, the two people I'd met briefly at the ceremony. The uniforms fit them well.

"Listen up," Torres said.

"Our new squad mates will need to get used to us. For whoever doesn't remember from yesterday, these are Luca Bianchi and Francesca Amoretti. They've been transferred here from the Italian branch." Nadia smiled at them.

"Why would you transfer from Italy to here?"

"Because Italy is well covered," Luca said.

"With the Vatican there, the country swarms with angels and the Church's agents. The KSF in the whole southern Europe is mostly a decoration. We joined the KSF to make a difference, not to cheer as someone else handles everything. We have come to help the faithful here across the ocean, as is our duty to God." Francesca looked like she mostly agreed. Something about her expression betrayed she had different reasons.

"What about you?" Kara asked, looking at Francesca. She caught it too. Francesca flashed a smile.

"I've got similar reasons. Though, I'll admit I'm also looking for a certain mage. Someone did something to my memories in the past. I don't remember whom, but I know he's not in Europe, and this was my opportunity to go to the States." I kept my face perfectly neutral. In the back of my mind, I could practically see fate giving me thumbs up with a vicious smirk. She was standing three meters away from the mage who sealed her memories, and she had no idea.

"The States are pretty large," Liam remarked.

"Also, what makes you think it's a he when you don't remember?" He sounded awfully interested.

"I have some hints. That doesn't really matter now, though. We have training to do." Good. Leave the topic, and bury it in the backyard. She looked over us, her gaze passing across everyone, including me. Not a flicker. It was strange, seeing her like this. After all the history we had, all of it lived only on my side, she was just a stranger.

"All right," Liam said.

"Since we've got two mages now, the sparring should be more interesting. We could—""On that note," Francesca interrupted him.

"Whatever drill you plan, Peter and I cannot spar together. Mages, in general, cannot ever spar with each other."

"Agreed," I said.

"It'd be like sparring with live weapons without any protection. One wrong move and someone dies." Everyone looked at me. Yes, it was the same with sparring with them, except that they couldn't threaten me enough for me to slip.

"Exactly," Francesca said.

"We should, however, know each other's capabilities." She took a few steps aside.

"I'm a small-scale combat specialist." She spread her arms. Spectral exoskeleton and blades appeared around her, somehow solid and ethereal at the same time.

"My effective range is melee, and I need space around myself when I fight." This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Everyone turned to me. My turn. I shrugged.

"I'm fast, tough, and strong. That's it." Francesca narrowed her eyes.

"At your level, there's no way that's all there is to your fighting." She was scanning me. I could feel it. And whatever she was getting back was making her suspicious.

"Do you know what Lucielle Legal's Interventions department is?"

"I do," she said carefully.

"I'm affiliated. So, I'm really fast, really tough, and really strong. That's it."

"Got it." Francesca threw an awkward smile at everyone.

"Please don't ask for context." Everyone stared at her now, which was great, because they finally weren't staring at me. Staff Sergeant Cross had arrived too, quietly observing. Francesca quickly started catching red, and awkwardly scratched the back of her neck.

"Anyway," Luca said.

"Let's actually do some training. Right, staff sergeant?" And training we did. Cross ran us through drill after drill. Close combat against holograms, team coordination, threat assessment. I put in enough effort to break a sweat, which still earned me begrudging glares while everyone else was falling over from exhaustion. I watched the newcomers carefully. Luca performed well. Fast, precise, clearly trained from childhood. He moved through the drills like he'd been born doing them. But he wasn't as good as Liam.

I wasn't sure how, but Liam had insane performance progression. He moved probably two and a half times faster than a week ago, and lasted considerably better. From how I understood the Crusader suits, they adapted to the person, and the rate of adaptation depended on the person's ability. A week ago, everyone performed similarly. Now, Liam stood out by a vast margin, Kara about matched Luca and Francesca, and the rest lagged behind, in spite of each of them individually showing heavy improvement.

Francesca held back, though. She did everything at about a bit above the middle of the pack level, but it wasn't anywhere close to how she'd moved in the timeline that didn't exist anymore. She was hiding what she could do, the favorite pastime of every mage. During one of the group drills, she moved to cover Luca's blind side. The motion was fluid, automatic, and about three times faster than anything she'd shown in the other exercises.

She caught herself immediately, dialed it back, and pretended it hadn't happened. But I saw it. And if I saw it, Liam might have too. He was watching everyone with attention that made good leaders and terrible roommates. By evening, everyone was exhausted. Everyone except me, which just made the resentment from the others worse. We were heading for the showers when Cross called us back.

"Everyone," she shouted.

"Pack your gear tonight. You're deploying to the forward base tomorrow morning." That got everyone's attention.

"Forward base?" Liam asked.

"Where?"

"Wharton State Forest. It's our staging area for Atlantic City operations." Cross's expression was grim.

"Kaiju activity has been increasing, so the command needs reinforcement on the line. Tomorrow morning, you will also need to select your squad leader."

"What kind of kaiju are we talking about?" Kara asked, her brain visibly running behind her eyes.

"That's beyond my jurisdiction. I will stay here at the barracks, and work on the next batch of recruits." Right. Somehow, that felt disappointing. I didn't mind her at all. She didn't seem to want to give away more, turned, and walked away. We all exchanged looks. The training was over.

"Well," Manuel said finally.

"Guess we should pack." We headed for the barracks. I had most of my things packed already. But I stopped at my bunk and looked at the case underneath it. I was going to fight kaiju tomorrow, and I had to decide whether I was taking the glaive. Manuel nervously packed on his bunk.

"You're annoyingly calm." I shrugged.

"You should be nervous. Every normal person would be. How aren't you?" I sat on my bunk, leaning against the wall.

"I signed up to fight monsters. Now, I'm going to go do that. I don't see what should make me nervous."

"Yeah, but still..." He trailed off, searching for words.

"Even if you've done real combat before, this should feel like something special."

"I've fought a lot in my life."

"When? You're like my age, if not younger than me."

"You can get a lot of fighting done in a year in my original profession. And, please don't ask about it."

"Yeah, I got that. So, that's why you're so fucked up?"

"Yeah."

"Will I… end up like that too?" No. He was going to be killing monsters to save mankind. He wasn't ever going to fight or kill normal people. I had.

"Most likely not. It runs in the family for me." That brought a smile to his face. He continued packing, and I pulled out my phone. About thirty messages from Ophelia. I opened the first one:'What looks better on me?' Followed by three different pictures, each with her wearing different panties, heels, and nothing else. The rest of the messages followed in suit. I closed the messages before Manuel could see them. Though I was going to examine them in great detail after he went to bed.

For now, I opened the Energies of Emptiness and went on to study the chapters about chaos. Somewhere inside the book, there had to be a hint or, ideally, a guide written for five-year-olds on how to use the instability clouds I was producing.