It was almost sunset, and if the people hunting me weren't elves, then it would have taken them quite a while to sniff me out. But then again it is going to take them quite a while to do so if at all seeing as I'm now just walking across their camp without anyone to stop me, which is understandable seeing as I was just a wolf.

I looked at where the other cadets of my cohort were strung up, Malkova was there, her dark hair was a little bloody and she had her arms tied above her head to a pole, but she had a rather smug smile on her face, especially when her sight fell on me. She raised an eyebrow at that, but what I did was turn around and saunter away towards the direction of the massive white tent I had first noticed when I came into the camp or rather when I was carried in.

I wanted to set them free but, I wanted to canvass the entire camp, I needed to know exactly what I was dealing with, so that we don't get caught off guard. Especially since they say there was a dungeon in the camp, or at least an entrance to one. The camp was decidedly bare with only about a dozen elves, a dozen low level elves and while a couple of low level elves had almost cost me and and Malkova our lives, that was when I was low leveled, besides with all of us united and cohesive we should be able to take them on.

While I was still a wolf I didn't move about with the idea that because I'm an animal there won't be suspicious gazes thrown my way. So I walked around the camp, chasing butterflies and hiding from other elves, whilst slowly sneaking towards the massive white tent. The camp had an armory that was right besides the massive tent, and it had everything that seems to have been Salvaged from the drop pods, with a new addition being played around with by the new elven recruits. My battle-Tool.

The elf that found traces of both Malkova and me was actually close to discovering us both. It was only by sheer luck I was able to get ahead of him, from the look of things he was literally minutes behind me when I went scouting the camp. If I had been any slower or taken any other route he would probably have caught me and all this would have been the tune to a different song. I looked at my battle-Tool with longing and a silent promise to slowly kill these elves if they damage it, my Uncle gave that to me.

There were two guards in front of the tent, they were engaged in a rather fervent discussion, but even if that may be, I wasn't so tiny that I could slip into the tent without them discovering me. I was a wolf cub not an ant, plus for some reason I felt that I should be bigger but I've been holding myself back. That would probably be because of all the system notifications I've been ignoring.

The system is magic in and out of itself, there's no telling whether the elves won't notice when I use it. I wanted to be careful, and the thing about this notifications was that the growth or advantages they had to give, won't be available until you've read them. I didn't know why that is, but there are a few working theories on it that I envision could describe this quirk of the system.

I put my nose to the ground and began to sniff, going to the side of the tent that bordered the smaller well hidden armory. I could still hear the other elves gushing over the 'human weapons' and 'technology'. Good for them, they'll be getting an up close and personal experience with them soon enough.

I moved until I was almost at the back of the tent, there was an outcropping made of a dark grey metal. It was rectangular and it looked as if it had grown out of the top of the hill, like some sort of horn. However to me this looked more like a hatch, or at the very least the side of it. The hatch should be within the tent.... It was weird.

I moved closer to the outcropping and sniffed, the scent of old maintenance oil, rusted iron and fuel assailed my senses. I don't know how the elves came to a conclusion that this was a dungeon, because to me this looked like a shaft of some ship or large vehicle that had crashed here for an inordinate amount of time and nature had grown around it.

"Samson! Samson!" That was Malkova's voice, I couldn't fathom what would make her start yelling like that, I know she was smarter than this to blow my cover. I turned away from the outcropping, whatever it was, we will find the answer to it soon enough. I ran out the side of the tent and noticed that quite a few of the guards and remaining elves had rushed to the location of their prisoners.

Malkova was fighting against her bonds whilst looking at the young man strung up besides her. Now that I had a closer look at him, that's her twin brother. His thought hadn't crossed my mind as opposed to his elder twin, he was as obscure and silent as the wind at least to me anyways. Andrej was a [Technomancer] a class that was extremely rare and could only be had by humans.

Everything we know about systems and magic we got when the earth was invaded by bloody fucking elves. We were just using their own tools against them, but the [Technomancer] class was all ours and quite powerful too. when powerful war-machines are placed on a battlefield, a [Technomancer] could amplify the effects of all technology, dismantle and reassemble technology in any environment as long as there was materials to be used, even wood. They were the most valuable of all of Earth's soldiers, and Andrej was one of the chosen of Zeus, his sister Malkova one of Hades, and they also have an elder sister that's a chosen of Poseidon. Their family was legendary, but now Andrej was dying, which explained why his sister had thrown all caution to the wind.

"Shut up human!"

Eight guards, all armed with one of them holding a 9.m caliber handgun. With golden highlights and dragon motifs on it, that gun probably belongs to Kaixuan. It was special, it's bullets came from an inscribed spatial formation, and they were blessed by [Taoist] Monks from China, another unique class of earth. He was the only one with a weapon capable of punching a hole through an elf's Mama shield. One of the other guards has my battle tool in his hand, he shaped it into an arrow and had it knocked on a bow and at the ready, he was the one who had told Malkova to shut up.

Thankfully both 'very dangerous gun guy' and the elf with my battled tool were besides each other. Which means I only have one shot at this. My aim is not to fight them all but to save Adrej's life. So get the gun and tool, free Malkova and an Irate looking Kaixuan who had one eye swollen shut but still glaring with all of his power at the elves with the one he has left. Or Tobias and Nguyen who were untouched but a little farther away. It didn't matter, Malkova and Kaixuan can keep the enemies off me long enough to get off a light Heal or two on Andrej. We needed him, out of all of us because of his class and miracle he could sweep through any battlefield with ease, and he was the unspoken leader of our entire cohort, he was also the best student after all.

I rushed forwards, bounding off the back of the elf with my battle too and making sure my claws more than lightly nicked his throat, causing a spurt of blood to rise into the air as I jumped towards the shocked elf with the Handgun.

[Lion Claw]

His throat wound was a lot more bloody than his comrade's who still had his hand to his neck in shock as his minds rushed to process the fact that he was about to die from having carotid nicked. I canceled the morph spell, my form instantly reappearing in a flash of light as I faced the rest of the very shocked group of elves.

[Charge Shot]

I felt a drain in my mana as the handgun glowes greenish-blue with a hint of gold at the edges. This was the color of my mana, and by the time it registered to the remaining six that I was about to kill someone else, it was already too late.

*Bang!*

The recoil dislocated my shoulder forcing me to let out a curse, but the glowing bullet ripped a hole through two Mana shields, taking heads off before removing the arm of another elf. The rest scrambled for cover, fear clouding their judgement as they rushed to get away from the naked human that brought death with his every move. Well it was better than what I expected, I wasn't after the rest of them, Kaixuan looks like he has a vendetta, but seeing as they were elves we all do.

I bent down, picked up my battle-Tool and shifted it into a longsword before driving it into the neck of the first elf I attacked. He was taking longer than normal to die and I was on the clock. A quick swipe had Malkova free of her bonds, and another; Kaixuan who quickly stretched his hand for his gun. The seven foot tall Asian didn't say anything, he was bigger and stronger than the rest of us, and I've taken more than my fair share of a beatdown from him, at time like this, I knew it was best to get the fuck out of his way.

"Malkova go get the others free..."

"But my brother!"

" Move your ass soldier! We need all the fucking help we can get when those fucking elves finally regroup, not to mention the larger force with 'high level elves would be back soon. Keep your head on straight, I'll save your fucking brother!"

Was I pissed off... Yeah I was. She made me move way ahead of schedule, it only took one glance at her brother for me to know that even if he was dying, that was still a little ways away. Just enough time for me to save him, Light Heal wasn't a spell that described the healing as light, in regards to weight, it was actually light in regards to the element. It was a lot stronger than the standard healing spell, from videos of higher leveled version of the spell I've seen, it would eventually be able to regrow lost limbs.

"Light Heal!"

*Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!*

Kaixuan was not holding anything back, I used another Light Heal on Andrej as Malkova set Tobias and Nguyen free, then Laurent, Amina, Salma, Ricardo and our bomb specialist Kimberly Jones. Of all 40 of our cohorts, just 11 of us are left. Perhaps some of the others are still out in the forest, but with how dangerous the bloody forest was... That was a thinking all to wishful for me.

[Light Heal]

"See that white tent over there, there's an armory there, go get geared up, and behind those red tents is a cafeteria, get supplies and don't fucking touch the garden. Meet back here in five minutes, no more no less, anybody that's not here by then will be fucking left behind! Light Heal!" I threw orders around as I focused my attention back on Andrej.

"Jeez Commander Samson! Would you like us to get you some clothes while we're at it?" Tobias asked, his thick British accent making it even more embarrassing for me that I was still very much naked. I coughed and turned to him, trying to keep my momentum going.

"Yes please I would very much like that. Light Heal!"

They chuckled and went to go carry their tasks out, Kaixuan was sitting on the chest of what was probably the last elf in the camp, and he was swinging the butt of his handgun in and out of her head. He was slow, methodical, he wanted to make it last and he wanted it to be painful. I shuddered in fear and revulsion, but even more so at myself... I didn't have it in myself to stop him.

[Light Heal]

My vision swam with blackness as I stumbled, the whole world tilting sideways as I felt an emptiness in the pit of my stomach. My entire body seemed frozen in ice for a few seconds as a powerful weakness seemed to come over me, Malkova was there to hold me and her brother, before I dragged him down with me. Andrej opened his eyes in that moment and asked me in a calm voice.

"What happened, are you okay Samson? If you can't go on I should be fine enough to hobble through until you're up for it." I rolled my eyes.

" Of course you're already awake, didn't think it would have been nice to give me a little hint or warning did you?" I asked him with a little too much venom in my tone.

"Hey!don't talk to him like that, he probably just woke up!" Malkova rushed to defend her brother, I angrily pulled my arm away from her and stumbled, but this time it was Andrej and a bloody Kaixuan who held me up.

"I'm sorry, I was awake after the second heal but still too weak to speak. I thought it better to let you focus on your task. Please what's wrong with you? Are you okay?" Andrej asked, but it was Kaixuan who answered for me.

"He needs rest, and some clothes. He is out of mana, I heard all morph skills and spells are sustained, you need to keep a stable stream of mana to keep it active, he ran out and almost overfrafted his soul and body. We need to let him rest." Kaixuan said using a tone that implied there wouldn't be room for argument.

That was weird, Kaixuan hated my guts the most out of everyone, I didn't have a miracle yet here I was in a school of officers, rubbing shoulders with my betters. Now he was being all nice, I didn't trust that, but still I couldn't do what he said.

"We can't do that Kaixuan, we have to move before the elves get back. There's a dungeon... Or rather the elves think it's a dungeon, but I think it's either a ship or a base. Bottom line is it's made of technology, and if it's a dungeon; conquering it will give us control. It's a long shot, but I think that's the only way we can survive and hold out, at least until help comes from the Apollo." I finished just as the rest of them came back, Laurent holding elven armor in one hand and my ruined battle-suit in the other.

"Fuck! Those damn elves." I cursed as I took elven leather armor, complete with a hooded cloak, sheathes for their short swords and bandoleers for throwing knives. They all stood by and watched me dress while I tried not to get swallowed up be embarrassment.

"What do we do now then?" Amina asked, her hijab streaked with dirt, but her green eyes still blazing with righteous fury.

"We should bury our dead." Salma said, but I shook my head and spoke up before Andrej could.

"No time for that Salma, we'll give them a burial that as soldiers they would want. Andrej, Kimberly... I know the drop pods have elven sensors, alarms that go off when elves get close. Can you both modify the pods so that they're rigged to explode when the other elves return to camp, the explosion and flames should be enough of a funeral pyre for our friends, but anything else would put us and the mission in jeopardy."

" And what is the mission Samson?" Tobias asked, his girlfriend Nguyen nodding as both their gazes were levied on me. In fact all their gazes were on me, and I felt a sort of pressure on my shoulder, but I have their answer.

"The mission has been and will always be; at least for us Soldiers, to survive and fuck shit up the only way human beings know how too." They all broke out into smiles, why wouldn't they, those were the words of a man who has taught us all quite well for the last three years... My uncle.

"Alright you heard the man, let's get to it, and you go sit your ass down fearless leader, Kaixuan keep an eye on him would you? And maybe feed him something." Andrej ordered as he and the others started cutting down the dead cadets and moving the drop pods to different corners of the camp before modifying them.

There was a small cart at the front of the white tent where our weapons and some supplies from the elves were pulled. I palmed my battle-tool then dropped it on my lap as I sat down cross legged and started eating a barbecued leg meat from god knows what creature that seemed to have just been pulled from a fire.

"So are you like my bodyguard now? Or my baby sitter?" I asked Kaixuan as he stood behind me at attention.

"Something like that small man" he replied with a smile on his face before pulling the meat from my hand, taking a massive bite and then giving it back.

"First of all I'm almost, well not nearly but still quite as tall as you are. You're the only person taller than me in our entire cohort, well you and Ramos.... But Ramos is gone, so I guess that just leaves us both. Nevertheless with you being all nice, does that mean we're friends now?" I asked him as I took a swig from a wine skin before passing it on to him.

"At least for today small man, at least for today." I shrugged as we sat in silence for another ten minutes, and then everyone converged in our location.

"I think we should leave them a message." Ricardo said, running his hand over his non-existent hair.

"What sort of message?" Nguyen asked, brushing soot from the face of her boyfriend, a relationship that was kept secret from our teachers but all too obvious to the rest of us.

"Tell them to ask the trojans. I believe they study our cultures and histories, I've heard rumors that the elves are particularly fond of that piece of history." Laurent said, his French accent giving his voice a silky smooth quality, the fact that he was the most attractive out of all of us made it even more annoying. But I couldn't help but agree more.

"Yeah.... They should ask the Trojans."