(Staff Sgt Guile's POV)

The new squads have been determined based on skill and chosen roles and weapons for each individual so that each team is fairly balanced and can react to all sorts of situations. Personally, I think it's a vast improvement over the old "choose your own teams" system, that one had a rather high mortality rate due to the lack of flexibility most teams had. Right now I'm reading the dossiers of the members of each of the teams.

One team, in particular, has caught my attention: Squad 108-F. I'm still wondering why this group was put together. Its a fricken group of very skilled misfits! Every bloody one of them is a troublemaker! First off, there is Fane, a ball of rage incarnate. She's always angry about something, and quite often gets into fights. When she became a savior she chose to be a Drake, human-sized dragons quite well known for their temper and aggression. She's basically a berserker in combat, wielding some combination of spear, knives, and hand cannons she calls pistols. Custom 14mm magic ammo revolvers with 8-round cylinders, these massive "pistols" are her chosen guns, and honestly, I'm surprised she hasn't broken bones firing them one-handed.

Then there is the Split-Soul Kitsunes, Taiyo and Tsuki. They are master illusionists and pranksters. It's not that their illusions are better than other kitsunes that specialize the same way, no they are in fact slightly worse, but the creative ways in which they utilize them. I've seen them prank people by making walls look like corridors and vice versa. They are always paying attention, although they are rarely serious. Unfortunately, they are loners, despite their friendly and outgoing personalities. It's almost like they don't really understand people and are closing off their hearts to others. These two fulfill the role of a mid ranged fire-support and scout type. They prefer magic ammo assault rifles and arachne silk armor, allowing them to not have to carry much gear around. While physically weaker than most other saviors, they make up for it with their perfect teamwork and ability to create kill-zones with overlapping fields of fire.

The third member of the group is Vaughn, the solo combat tactical genius. He prefers combat experience over academic knowledge, although since he lost to me in the sim he has been quite studious. He use to be rather stuck up and always looked down on others, he's gotten better since the loss. He has a strange attachment to big and unwieldy weapons, like his 20mm magic ammo cannon that he uses as a sniper rifle. He always carries a claymore mine, a backup sidearm, and two combat knives. He specializes in long-range fire-support with an emphasis on firepower, combined with his Harbinger ability he is more than capable of obliterating foes, given enough time. He's probably the least troublesome of this team.

Then there is Vera, the lazy lamia. Judging by her sexual preference, I'm pretty damn certain she's going to be busy trying to get in the kitsunes' pants. She's a good kid, but far too lazy. I've personally been training her in the arts of stealth combat, she's exceptionally good at it. Within this group she would be the designated scout and assassin, striking without warning and without being noticed. I heard she ordered a bunch of razor blades. Since her tattoo allows her to fuse weapons with her body, that might be the reason for such an odd request. Her venom power also adds to the potential of a body covered in blades, I always said she was too smart for her own good. With all this at her disposal, she'd be more suited outflanking enemy units, hiding where they might try to sneak. I just hope her overwhelming laziness doesn't get in the way of her job.

(Vaughn’s POV)

I stride into the auditorium, taking in my surroundings. Everyone was given a location inside the auditorium to meet up with their team, so we can get organized and see for ourselves who we’ll be working with from now on. I make my way to the meeting place and I can see that I’m not the first one there. I see three faces I’ve seen before in various places around the campus during my time here. I don’t know many of the people on campus very well, or really anybody on the campus except Guile. This is because of how often I’m either in the simulation or at the shooting range, I’m not one for the whole R&R thing, so I’ve only seen them in passing really. On the right-hand side of the group are the pair of kitsunes that I’ve seen around the halls and in a few of my classes. They never really leave each other's side from what I’ve seen of them, and they use assault rifles mainly if memory serves. Past that, I don’t really know much about them other than the fact that they are pranksters, apparently. I’ve seen them screw with Guile and other students a number of times with the illusions kitsunes are able to use. Nothing major really, just some harmless fun. On the left-hand side of the group of three, I see a very familiar face though I haven’t actually spoken to her before. Fane, the drake girl who’s constantly getting into fights. There’s a reason Guile keeps a dart gun on him, and it’s pretty much exclusively for Fane. It seems like every day she blows up at someone and gets into a fight. The people she fights never looks good afterward. Great, a drake with anger problems, and a pair of pranksters, how could this get any more difficult to deal with? As I approach the group and get ready to introduce myself, I hear a shout from behind me.

“LUCKYYY!!!” Comes a voice I recognize, oh god no. Please, no why? It’s the resident lazy lamia, Vera. While, again, I haven’t personally spoken to her much, she’s VERY well known for the ability to slack off. While I can top the leaderboards of the sim, her powers to disappear for entire days at a time to avoid doing work outdoes everything I have learned in my entire time using the sim. I don’t know how she’s managed to avoid Guile’s wrath for as long as she has at any given time. Though he always finds her and has gotten better at finding her hiding places, it's still very impressive. Why, world, why me? Why did you have to stick me with a team of misfits such as these? I sigh and continue towards the group, let's get this over with shall we? The auditorium goes dark and a light shines on the stage. A decrepit old man stands at the podium.

“It seems the president is running a bit late, so I will be-” He is cut off by a couple of tough-looking guys in suits. They pull him away and whisper into his ear.

“Are you sure?” the man says, the mic barely picking up his voice. He leans in toward the mic again.

“Well, it seems the president has just arrived.” He starts.

“So I may now introduce, our president, Gio Bowie!” From the darkness came the leader of Savior Central, the president for all intents and purposes, it’s complicated. This guy, he isn’t what you’d expect. He’s tall with a huge musculature and golden hair. Seriously this guy looks less like a president and more like a super soldier, and I hear he’s completely human.

“Hello cadets!” He yells confidently.

“We at Savior Central, strive to create the greatest warriors to face the fiend threat! All of you standing here have been chosen to become the best of the best at driving out this mysterious enemy.” His voice doesn’t waver, he’s truly confident in what he says.

“Moments ago you all received your squad numbers and the profiles of your teammates. The defense committee and I, GIO! Have personally picked your teams based on your skillsets!” Yup, that’s the president alright.

(Fane’s POV)

Well, this shit sucks. For one, I don’t see the reason I need to be part of a team, to begin with, and two, why’d it have to be these assholes? The only one here I can call acceptable is the headless because he’ll stay out of my way. The others, however, can just leave for all I care.

“Now calling squad 108-F to staging room 6.” The intercom calls out. Looking at my PDA I see I’m- I mean, we are squad 108-F. Me and the deadweights enter room 6, I’m very agitated now. A creepy, emotionless, stinky, OLD AS FUCK! A woman sits at a desk before us.

“Good evening, Squad 108-F,” She says in an annoyingly deadpan voice. Fuck this bitch, man!

“Nice to meet you.” The two puffballs say hello back and bow like a couple of kiss asses.

“Hellooooo.” The snake says lazily. She, by her very nature, pisses me off.

“I’m g-glad to be here…” Helmet head says, unsure of his team. FUCK YOU ASSHOLE I’M GREAT! Now it’s my turn I guess. Do I really have to greet this dried up bitch? Fine, I look her right in the eyes an say

“Fuck off.” She doesn’t even look surprised. That pisses me off. The hag fiddles with her PDA for a bit.

“I see you collectively have one hundred and sixty-eight credits for your base of operations.” She says looking at the screen.

“What would you like to add to the base? Here is a list of the-” I cut her off

“TURRETS!, tons of turrets.” The other four look at me with a stupid look in their eyes.

“Oh, come on it would be totally metal!” I say in my defense. The kitsunes start giggling.

“The fuck are you laughing at small fries?” I snarl.

“A bunch of turrets would LITERALLY be metal.” They say and start laughing loudly. Fuck my life.

“So, are you all in agreement over the turre-” The hag is cut off.

“NO!” Vaughn yells, geez, he didn’t need to be so loud, what an asshole.

“We need to look this over Fane! Think about this tactically.” He pleads with me. I roll my eyes.

“All we have to do is kill a bunch of fiends, right? They’re mindless drones, right? So why can’t we just mindlessly slaughter them all?” I state. Vaughn’s hand twitches, he wants to hit me, alright, let’s fucking go! As I’m about to ready myself.

“OI!” a voice calls out from the side of the room, Vera made her way on top of some lockers and is lying down.

“All this arguing is making me tired,” She says. Bitch! You just started talking.

“Why not just let Vaughn deal with the base stuff, just relax, Fane” I really want to punch her. But thinking about what Vaughn said, maybe it would be better to let a tactical genius deal with the base, not that I’ll ever say that aloud.

“Whatever, I don’t wanna deal with this bullshit anyway,” I say walking toward the back of the room.

“Hey, Vaughn can we have hoverbikes, please! Please! Pleeeeease!!!!” the kitsunes start hopping up and down next to Vaughn.

“No! We need a Helicopter, think about Vera!” He looks over at the now drowsing snake.

“THINK about her, don’t actually look…” They start to argue over what should be installed in our base. I sit down in a chair close to the wall.

“You look stressed, you need to relax a little” a voice hisses behind me as hands grab my shoulders and start messaging. I jump up and turn to see Vera had snuck up on me.

“What the hell are you doing?” I ask her suspiciously.

“I felt we should discuss our squad name.” she says innocently.

“I don’t really care what it is as long as it has FIRE in the name or FLAME or INFERNO!” I state proudly. At the same time, the kitsunes’ ears twitch toward our conversation.

“We wanna join in on the naming too!” They run over. I dread to think what kind of sissy ass name these two dust bunnies come up with.

“I’ll take my leave then,” Vera says slithering back toward the lockers.

“Where the hell are you going?” I ask.

“You have the Kitsunes to help you now, three brains are better than two I’d say.” she retorts. WHAT ABOUT FOUR BRAINS YOU NUMBSKULL!?!?!? I think, but let it go.

“We have the perfect name, and it includes fire!” The fuzzballs say excitedly. This catches my interest, no name with the word fire could possibly suck, right?

“What you got?” I ask.

“FIREFOXES!” They say cheerily. I regret everything!

“Wait, that doesn’t work, Vaughn is a guy.” They say defeated. I honestly don’t think Vaughn’s gender has anything to do with what’s wrong with that name.

“Listen fleabags, come up with something that makes sense or I’ll sear the fur right off your little tails,” I tell them sharply. They look at me thinking. They suddenly get an idea, but before they could say anything I remind them.

“And nothing involving foxes!” They smile.

“We got something better,” they say creepily in unison. What have I done?

(Vaughn’s POV)

I can hear the kitsunes, Vera, and Fane going back and forth while I try and make my decisions on what the base actually needs, God can they be more loud and annoying? Fane insists on yelling, which is aggravating the headache that she’s given me since I met her. Right now, they are trying to decide on the name, but at this point, my attention is drawn back to the choices, right, what do we need. First of all, a power generator, nothing's gonna work if we can’t power it, that’s what it all comes back to. An alarm system will be necessary, if we get caught by surprise, that’d be it, all it’d take is a few crawling chaos’s and we’d all be dead. Speaking of which, a light generator is going to be necessary, less because we need to see that much outside the base, after all, night vision exists, but a few fiends are weaker in the light, so it’s a good idea to make use of them. A neo medical bay will be necessary for attending to the teams wounds, a limb missing is no laughing matter, not everyone can get back up after that. A support drone will help for base maintenance, not only are actual personnel for that task too expensive, but they’d attract fiends like moths to a flame.

We’ll need a helicopter to get to our missions, since Vera requires extra effort in the transportation department. Now onto defenses, I can agree, turrets will be necessary. I’ll get two of those so we can have some semblance of a defense for the base, considering it’s an old abandoned fort, the lack of entrances should allow them to shred anything that comes to assault us. However, we can make it better. We have just enough points for something that caught my eye since the beginning, an AI. This should help us out immensely, the ability to gain such a tactical advantage as this is astounding. Not only will the AI be able to perform its normal duties and aid the turrets, with the Aimbot upgrade for the AI itself, we can turn it into a weapon truly fit to defend our base. This should do just fine, a base that we can call home, and can keep us safe when we are outside of missions. I nod, the list complete, now back to reality to find out what the others are screaming about now. I turn to see the kitsunes back to back in what can be only described as a ridiculous pose.

“Squad name!” They say dramatically.

“FIRE WITH FIRE!!!” They yell as a plume of flame explodes behind them, Fane, rises from the inferno screaming “URA” repeatedly like an idiot.

“That’s what you came up with? And what’s with the poses?” I ask confused.

“It’s a stand thing…” they state as if it’s obvious.

“A what?” I ask, not knowing what the hell is going on. They walk up to me, Fane still posing. They put their hands on my shoulders, reassuringly.

“We’re so sorry for you.” They say in unison. At this point, I really don’t care anymore.

“Have you all agreed on your name being Fire with Fire?” Mrs. Abernathy asks. I look at Vera who already has her thumb up in approval and I already know Fane and the kitsunes’ stance on it. I sigh.

“Yes. We are all in approval of-” I stop to really get a feel for this, uh, flattering name?

“Fire with… Fire.” I say with a droning tone. It’ll grow on me with time, I guess.

“Well if we’re all done here…” Mrs. Abernathy takes a deep breath.

“Get the hell out of my office.” She says coldly. As if without missing a beat I hear a thud behind me. I turn to see Vera constricting Fane who has been unsurprisingly triggered by what was just said to her. She starts up a storm, flames shooting out of her mouth.

“LET ME AT THAT BITCH!!! I’LL ROAST HER SAGGY ASS TITS INTO FUCKING ASHES NOT THAT I NEED TO, THEY'RE PROBABLY ALREADY DUST AS IT IS!!! THAT DRIED UP SLUT COULDN’T FIND HER HUSBAND IF SHE SEARCHED EVERY FUCKING CEMETARY IN THE STATE BECAUSE HE’S STILL TRAPPED IN HER RUBBERY AS FUCK CUNT!!! I’LL RIp her… fucking head off her… shoulders and… shit... down her… fucking... throooat...” Fane finally passes out from oxygen deprivation. You know what, I’ll give it to her for being dedicated enough to say all that with limited air, damn. I turn to see Mrs. Abernathy noticeably peeved. And that scares even me.

“W-We’ll be taking our leave now,” I assure her as I drag Vera out, Fane still unconscious in her coils. The kitsunes follow suit. Two kids, a lazy snake, a raging drake and me. These are the cards that I’ve been dealt, this is squad 108-F, also known as Fire with Fire.