After a long day of card games, obstacle courses and one very miserable and poorly planned mock search and rescue operation that ended in Irina physically dragging Will through the dirt, Norok sat with the rest of his squad around a small fire just outside the black tower. He snapped another twig and tossed it towards the center. Kell sat next to him, the two sharing his uniform jacket laid out on the ground. Daimona and Irina shared Will’s, who stood uncomfortably and stared into the crackling of the flames.

  “Do we feel closer as a team to you?” Kell leaned over and whispered.

  Norok covered his mouth, loudly replying “I don't know, but I sure feel tired. Maybe we should stop before we, you know, exhaust ourselves before the big day.”

  Kell rolled his eyes, elbowing Norok in the gut as Will sighed. “I get it,” he said defeatedly, running a weary hand through his blond hair. “I'm beat too. We can stop here.”

  “I'm just mad I didn't get a prize,” Daimona moaned. She fell onto her back, curling her arms under her head as she glanced up at the sky. “I killed it in the tug-of-war thing.”

  “For the last time, that wasn't a part of the exercise,” Will groaned. “You just weren't listening, again. Why do you think the rest of us were pulling from the other side?!”

  “To give me competition?”

  Irina snorted, stretching her arms up high and cracking her back with a satisfied grin. “As if anyone could give your strength competition.”

  Daimona rolled her head to the side and flashed Irina a wide fanged smile. “True!”

  For a moment, Norok thought Will might lecture them. He appeared to be on the precipice of another bitter speech about being seen by the sergeants and trouncing their opponents, his jaw set and his arms crossed tightly over one another. Will’s forehead was creased with frustration and sweat.

  Say something, the little voice inside Norok said. Throw the guy a bone, or a lifeline, or something. He clearly needs to hear it.

  “Hey, uh, Irina,” Norok started awkwardly. Irina shot him a disinterested, slightly disgusted look. “Were my warnings… Enough for you?”

  Her expression softened. She offered a curt nod, tipping her hand to the side to the motion of an indefinite maybe. “They were a start, Tadpole.”

  “And Kell,” Norok said, keeping his eyes on Will as he turned. “Did you feel like maybe you were more included in the uh, new positions we came up with in the search and rescue thing?”

  Kell blinked. He rubbed the back of his neck as he thought, then dutifully responded with, “I mean, actually, yeah. Kind of. Even though Daimona got confused and tried to take the flag from us... It was still good to actually feel her strength firsthand, though.”

  Daimona raised her head, furrowing her brows at him. “You didn't think I was strong?”

  “I did,” Kell chuckled, “But it's an entirely different thing feeling it. Before, only my mind knew I could rely on your power. Now I know it with my hands too.”

  Daimona sat back up with a perplexed look. She tucked her legs under her, sitting criss-cross on Will's jacket. “I guess that makes sense. I didn't really get how fast you were, Irina, until I ran right next to you! You're pretty amazing.”

  Irina nodded with a faint blush to her cheeks. Very quietly she hesitantly looked to Norok. “You are… Adequate with your castings. Sparkboy would have broken something if you had not lowered us outside the ice palace.”

  “Hey!!”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “And,” Irina added, closing her eyes. “he would have healed that break. Adequately.”

  “That's better,” Kell huffed.

  “It's kind of not, but okay,” Norok muttered. He cleared his throat, then said “I guess we all did get pretty close today, so. It wasn't just a total waste of time.”

  Will plopped to the ground, and Norok wondered if he had made the wrong call and embarrassed the difficult captain after all. But Will’s shoulders relaxed, a breathy, comfortable laugh leaving his mouth.

  They chatted with each other excitedly for hours after, talking over the day's packed events and recounting the bootcamp trials they had just come out from. When the fire was low, and the smoke was a twisting thread hanging in the air above it, Will pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and said quietly, “We need to talk about tomorrow.”

  “It's the last one, right?” Daimona asked.

  Will nodded. “Foreign Operations bootcamps all end the same way-- the capture the flag trial. We'll have to defend our flag while bringing back both the enemy team’s flag and one hidden in a secondary location between both starting points. It's the ultimate make-or-break trial.”

  “Bash probably already knows where all three flags are,” Kell replied grimly. “Her monsters are everywhere.”

  Norok shuddered, recalling the way Judith's projection burned with all of Bash’s hidden creatures. “That girl is seriously creepy.”

  “What is our plan?” Irina asked dryly.

  “I don't have one,” Will answered. The rest of the squad seemed to squirm in the solemn silence left by the statement. Will Saint, the insufferable control freak, the tightly-wound critic and clown, didn't have a plan. And to make matters more disconcerting, he didn't seem bothered about it in the slightest. He sat there calmly, watching the last handful of twigs and grass burn.

  “Any plan I come up with, Lotsvatinus will have a contingency. Any order I give, Lotsvatinus will hear. For all we know, she’s probably listening in right now,” Will said.

  “So you want to give up?!” Daimona shouted. Norok was startled by the serious and determined look in her eyes-- his sister was so rarely attentive to anything but food and her own personal entertainment. But now, Daimona looked like she might strangle Will with her bare hands if he didn't double back.

  “I'm giving up on planning against this enemy.” Will raised his right hand, eyeing it with a somber frown. “When we got here, Pultz said I haven't changed from last year, and that has kept me up every night since. Last year, I was so focused on winning that I never once took a look at the bigger moves Lotsvatinus was making.”

  “But,” Will continued, curling his fingers into an emphatic fist, “Watching you guys give it your all and seeing them still outmaneuver us time and time again has made me realize who I need to be, and what I need to do.”

  “And what is that,” Irina interjected, resting her cheek in her palm boredly. “Go in blind?”

  “Go in trusting you all to do what you do best,” Will replied confidently. “Tomorrow, we'll start on the defensive. We'll let them come to us on their terms. And once they're too close to run away, we'll destroy them by any means necessary.”

  Daimona's eyes glittered with enthusiasm, bouncing in her seat at the notion. Irina perked up at Will’s decisive words. Even Kell grinned from ear to ear.

  “We won't let you down, Captain,” Norok said softly. “We can do this.”

  “I know,” Will replied. “We wouldn't be here if we couldn't.”

  The next morning in the banquet hall, as they stood across from their opponents and Judith explained the rules, Norok felt a surge of determination coursing through his blood. Across from himself and Irina stood Rik and Leka, and seeing their smug, arrogant faces only made Norok chant Will’s words under his breath like a violent prayer. “By any means necessary… Any means necessary…”

  On the other side, Frode blew a kiss to Daimona, which she scowled at and shook her fist in return. Kell shyly avoided Zia’s blank-slate stare, and Will kept his rapt attention solely on Judith and Pultz. But Bash, Norok noticed, seemed to be in an entirely different world. Her normally messy and wild raven hair was pulled back into a sophisticated ponytail, with a bright yellow clip keeping her bangs neatly out of her eyes. Her uniform was no longer wrinkled and misbuttoned, but carefully crisp, almost as if it were completely new. She didn't appear timid whatsoever. Her eyes were lowered to the ground, deep in some silent, calculative thought. They snapped to meet Norok's after a moment, and he quickly averted his gaze.

  “That's the jist of it,” Pultz yawned. “Questions, comments, concerns?”

  Rik’s hand shot up.

  “Yes, Avsten?” Pultz said dully. Rik turned his whole body to Judith.

  “Sergeant Judith,” he began sweetly, “you still haven't told us where the trial is taking place.”

  Pultz muttered something vile under his breath as Judith stepped forward to speak. She smiled politely. “Why don't I show you instead?”