They started with stances, continued with stances, and damn-near finished with stances. It was only an hour before the morning class finished that they were even allowed to take their first steps. Cups had scathing feedback for all of them, and a whipping reed he liked to use far too much to help with his ‘education’.

  Even Tena had a hundred-and-one corrections made to her posture, the distance between her feet, the tenseness of her muscles, and the angle of her knees. Some of others actually fared a little better—mainly by watching how Cups was correcting Tena and making the changes themselves—like Det. Calisco, Eriba, and Sage all did worse than both of them. Surprisingly, it was Weiss who did the best and suffered the least modifications to his stance.

  The group’s Medic had gotten it right within minutes, and spent the rest of the morning session helping the others while Cups worked with the ones who needed it the most. From his days in kickboxing, Weiss only needed a few small changes to match what Cups was looking for. Even then, after some nerdy lingo, the pair had agreed Weiss’ original stance would better fit him, and Cups left it at that.

  To prove the point—mainly because of Calisco complaining—Weiss had stood there while Cups had attempted to push, pull, kick, and loosely grapple to try and steal the Medic’s balance. None of it had worked. Weiss has been a bloody rock with how much he’d moved. Even Calisco was given a chance to move Weiss… right up until she wound up to kick him in the damn nuts.

  She only stopped when Sage pointed out Weiss would probably never heal her again if she followed through. After that, Cups took her aside and really put her through her paces, while Weiss worked with the others.

  By the time they got to actual footwork, Det could feel the difference. He wasn’t as unmovable as Weiss was, but he was still head and shoulders above where he’d been a few hours before. His first forward-step only hammered the sensation home. He’d never felt more stable, like he was rooted to the ground beneath his feet.

  “Good,” Cups said as a bell rang out across the arena. “That is the end of our time today, but you all made progress that wasn’t horrible. We’ll continue with footwork next time, and move on to transferring this sense of stability to other common stances. Including how you would normally walk.”

  Cups vanished from where he was standing to suddenly appear where Calisco had been standing. Now, she was—for a third time—on her ass on the ground, five feet back.

  “As an attack can come at any time,” Cups said, lowering the hand he’d just used to shove Calisco to the ground.

  “Just you wait,” Calisco promised with an empty threat and a shake of her fist.

  “I won’t hold my breath,” Cups said.

  “When can we add weapons?” Tena said. “Not to swing, but for our balance. I’m a shield user, and while this all felt great, I know having a shield in one hand, and a spear in the other is going to change things up.”

  Cups tapped one of his wineskins as he considered the question. “That is actually a reasonable question. We shall incorporate it into our next lesson.”

  “Can we…?” Calisco started as she stood.

  “No,” Cups interrupted, not even giving her the chance to ask the question. “I shall see you all in an hour for your first alchemy class. Don’t be late.”

  With the words, the man vanished, only a swirl of sand where he’d been standing, and in a line to the exit of the arena, telling them where he’d gone.

  “I guess that means it’s lunch time!” Sage said, clapping his hands together.

  “That’s it?” Calisco said, standing up and swatting her butt to clear the sand off. “Nobody wants to bitch about what we just went through? Mind straight to your stomach?”

  “We can bitch over lunch,” Sage said, that easygoing smile at odds with the statement. “Kill two birds with one stone.”

  “Anybody know where the alchemy class is?” Tena said.

  “In the alchemy building,” Captain Simmons said from immediately behind Tena. The sudden appearance of the Bladestorm—and his words so close to her ear—had the Bulwark nearly jumping out of her skin. She must’ve gotten at least three feet of height, and five of distance, before her boots touched down again and she spun around, hand clenching like she was trying to form a crystal spear. Because of the siltsteel bracelets they were still all wearing, though, nothing happened.

  It took Tena’s surprised brain a solid three seconds to figure out why she didn’t have something to try and stab the captain with, before she forced her hand back to her side. From the way her eye twitched, she had plans for revenge on the man. Probably something involving scissors, a nighttime raid, and the perfect curl dangling in front of his eye.

  “Finally slumming it down here on the ground with the rest of us?” Det said to the captain.

  “How could I pass up seats like that?” Simmons said, thumbing over his shoulder to where he’d been floating all morning. “Could’ve used some snacks, though.”

  “Pretty sure I saw you eating popcorn,” Weiss said.

  “Yeah, but no footlongs or beer? What kind of establishment is this place? Shameful,” Simmons countered, completely guilt-free at eating popcorn while watching the six of them fight for their lives.

  “What did you see?” Det said, pushing past the captain’s usual nonsense. “How’d we do?”

  “Better than most,” Captain Simmons said. “The fact you six immediately started working together was what set you apart. Individually, well, that’s a different story. One-on-one, none of you could’ve brought down a birokk. And why you’ve got Cups assigned to you. He’ll get you in shape in no time.”

  “How did you do?” Eriba asked in her quiet voice. “The first time. Did you beat one of those?”

  In response to the woman’s question, the captain turned slightly to the side, put his hands on his hips—so the sun seemed to strike him just right—then blew a casual breath that set his curl to bobbing in front of his face. That was a victory pose if ever…

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Nope,” he said with supreme confidence. “Got my leg eaten. While it was still attached.”

  “Then why do you look so proud of yourself?” Tena said, her voice still a little higher than normal from the jump-scare.

  “Because I killed the second one I fought,” Simmons said. “After Baba fixed my leg, of course.” He slapped his left thigh for emphasis.

  “That’s no so special then,” Calisco said.

  “He’s one of only ten or so ReSouled to have ever done that,” Beast said, this time right behind Calisco’s ear. Now, it was her turn to squeal, jump, and spin. Luckily for Beast, Calisco was also still wearing the Siltsteel shackles, and despite how she wiggled her fingers, no explosions followed.

  “Hi, Beauty,” Eriba said, ignoring Beast and instead greeting the other instructor who’d also joined them. The only one who hadn’t startled anybody. By the momentary, disappointed look on his face where he stood behind Sage, that was only because Eriba had outed him.

  “Hello, Cadet Eriba,” Beauty grumbled, while Beast giggled out “Busted.”

  “Since we killed our first birokk,” Sage said at the same time he eyed Beauty over his shoulder. “That must be something special too, yes?”

  “It actually is,” Beauty said, stepping around Sage with a half-repressed sigh. “Yours is the first group to do that on their initial attempt. Ever.”

  “Ever ever?” Calisco said.

  “Yes, ever ever,” Beauty said.

  “Hah!” Calisco said, throwing up two one-fingered salutes to Captain Simmons. “Eat that!”

  “Yes, yes, you’re all very impressive,” Simmons said, not at all offended by Calisco’s antics.

  “It also adds merit to our idea of an accelerated program,” the headmaster said from behind Captain Simmons. The way the voice appeared before the person it belonged to did caused even the vaunted, A-Rank prodigy to startle and step forward.

  Much to the amusement of everybody present. Including the headmaster when he seemed to step out of thin air.

  Just what is his magic…?

  The headmaster had already put on grand displays of power. From lifting the cadets in their chairs, to raising the entire arena into the sky, or pinning boots to the ground. The versatility of what he could do was off the charts. And yet, it was this stepping out of nothing that had Det really wondering.

  But, not about the headmaster’s magic. No, not really. He was wondering about his own magic.

  If the headmaster could do all that, just how much more was Det capable of when he dug deeper? His magic was already incredibly flexible, and the more he saw, the more he felt he’d barely scratched the surface.

  His internal musings blocked out the discussion of the rest of the group, until he blinked and found Sage just inches from his face.

  “Det? Det? Anybody in there?” Sage asked, then waved his hand in front of Det’s eyes. “Earth to Det.”

  “Don’t you mean Elestar to Det?” Det countered.

  “And he’s back,” Sage said.

  “Too bad,” Calisco added.

  Det spared a quick second to glare at Calisco, but the look washed off her with zero effect. They’d been glaring at—or ignoring—each other most of their lives. This wasn’t anything new. What was new, though, was the absence of the headmaster. Now, it was just Captain Simmons and they regular two instructors standing around with them.

  “Was there something you wanted?” Det asked Sage.

  “Just your opinion on lunch,” Sage said. “We currently have two votes for sammiches, two for the world’s version of ramen…”

  “And yet somehow better,” Weiss said.

  “And one vote for a salad place near the building Beauty has told us we need to go to,” Sage continued.

  “I need greens,” Eriba said, a bit of pleading in her quiet voice. “Greeeeeeeeens.” The final word came out far too much like a haunting ghost—along with the way her bangs hung in front of her eyes—to let anybody escape without a shiver running down their backs.

  “And I think I’m going to change my vote,” Tena said, eyes darting in Eriba’s direction, only for the other woman to somehow scurry up beside the Bulwark. “Salad… salad sounds good. Too much greasy food recently.”

  “We were supposed to be ramen-buddies,” Weiss said wistfully, something in the tone of his voice like his heart was breaking.

  “We can do ramen tomorrow?” Tena offered, eyes still darting to make sure Eriba wasn’t up to anything. The way she was kind of hunched forward, with her hair hanging down, and her hands coming up like she wanted to either pat, hug, or maybe claw at Tena was a little concerning

  “Besssssst ssssssalad friendsssssss,” Eriba hissed out.

  “Det,” Sage said. “I guess the fate of our lunch is in your hands.”

  No sooner had the words left the man’s mouth, than Eriba shuffled over to Det. Not that shuffle was really the best way to describe it, with it somehow looking like still-images of her approaching him until she was right in front of him. Wide, dark eyes peered through the breaks in her blood-matted-bangs, and her head tilted drastically to the side as she looked up at him, until it was almost completely horizontal.

  “Salad crew?” she whispered, the dried blood from the birokks still on her face taking the whole scene to the next level.

  Something about the tone of her voice—no, the whole thing—made Det very nervous about replying in the negative.

  “I think we could all use a good salad,” Det said, coward that he was. “A light lunch before learning about alchemy makes a lot of sense.”

  “Good… friend…” Eriba practically purred in her quiet voice. No less creepy. Not at all.

  “I mean… sure,” Det said. “Salad friends. Good salad friends.”

  “Salad crew.” Eriba lifted her hand up, letting it hang there until Det gave her a gentle fist bump.

  “Salad crew… forever,” Det said. “Yay.”

  Eriba’s head turned like one of the Wordless marionettes—like her neck was a hinge—for her eyes to fall on Tena. Unblinking. Demanding.

  Tena pointed at herself, and Erida’s eyes flicked to where her fist met Det’s “Salad crew.” The words came out like a dying gasp on the wind.

  “Ah right!” Tena quick-stepped over and added her fist-bump to complete the triangle. “Go, go, salad crew.”

  “Glad we got that all sorted out,” Sage said. “And don’t pout Calisco, I’m sure they’ll have something good. Worst case scenario, we can just stop by Zedic’s shop and pick up some take-out.”

  “We can do that anyway,” Weiss said. “Leftovers for later.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Sage said. “Shall we?”

  “One thing,” Det said, then looked over at the three senior ReSouled. “Are you all coming?”

  “As tempting as it would be,” Captain Simmons said. “I am in demand elsewhere. Procrastinating by talking to you while you’re here in the arena won’t get me in trouble. Doing it over a delicious salad halfway across the city, well, that might earn me a stern talking to.”

  “Was there something you came to talk to us about?” Weiss asked.

  “Nope!” Captain Simmons said cheerfully. “Or, maybe good job, but do better next time?”

  “Is there a next time?” Calisco said. “More birokks?”

  “Did you miss the part where they woke up before they vanished?” Det said. “We’re definitely not done with them.”

  “No, you aren’t,” Beauty said. “They will be an excellent measure for you to determine how far—and how quickly—you grow.”

  “So, we’ll be fighting them again,” Tena said.

  “Multiple times,” Captain Simmons said. “And, careful, once they get a taste for leg, they keep trying to come back to the well.”

  “I don’t think that analogy really works…” Det said quietly, but shook his head before the captain’s silliness could lodge itself in his head. He turned his attention to Beauty instead. “Are you coming with us?”

  “Unfortunately,” Beauty said. “Both Beast and I have previous engagements we need to get to.”

  “Too bad for your asses,” Beast said.

  “Is there a reason you were asking, Cadet Det?” Beauty said, ignoring his partner like he usually did.

  “I need a training room after the afternoon classes,” Det said. “Can you arrange something for me? I think you said last time, to…”

  “Go through me,” Beauty finished the sentence. “Yes, I shall have something reserved for you. Just go to the same building as last time, and they shall guide you to an available room.”

  “Perfect, thanks,” Det said.

  “Something in mind?” Sage asked as the three instructors took their leave.

  “We got some stuff on our last field trip that I haven’t had a chance to dig into enough,” Det said. “Time to really figure out what my new gear does.”

  “After class,” Sage said.

  “After salad,” Eriba clarified, and nobody argued with or corrected her.