“Do you guys really not know who the Hidden Dirk was? I was pretty famous, almost every battle I’ve been involved in has been won due to me! Do you know why I have a cane? It’s because I carried all of those battles, if it wasn’t for my task force the Dominion wouldn’t have gotten off so light!” Mr. Bancroft simply wouldn’t shut up when talking about his military achievements as everyone silently searched his nickname on their holo-watches, only to be stunned, he was actually real!

Noticing their astounded expressions, Mr. Bancroft gave a complacent smile, “I knew you guys would recognize greatness sooner or later, you are my students after all. Don’t worry, after this class, you’ll ace boot camp without a hitch. So any questions before we start with class?”

Olivia couldn’t help raising her hand, “Mr. Bancroft, you said there were a bunch of experts in this school, why is that the case? We’re one of the lowest ranking schools on the planet.”

“Of course we wouldn’t come to teach at a school like this, do you know how many prestigious schools have invited me to the capital of the Dominion in the past hour alone?!” Mr. Bancroft was obviously pretty upset about having to teach at a backwater, frontier planet like Zeklon, and one of the worst schools on it as well. “For some odd reason, a few days ago, a figure up top forced us to teach here, they couldn’t even let us ask why! When I figure out what politician had the balls to- ahem, anyways, they forced our hands, that’s why I’m not adamant about telling you all. What are they gonna do, silence me?

I’ll reveal the teachers you’ve already met, ‘Wayne Cayne’ is actually Wayne Armiger, a renowned physicist throughout the Dominion, the guy is a coward who’s never had a whiff of combat in his life, he was pronounced kidnapped and executed during the last Galactic War, obviously he quietly escaped. I’m guessing he’s probably giving as minimal effort teaching you guys as he could, those kinds of bastards are pretty damn greedy. Then it’s General Horus, The All-Seeing Eye, or Carter Melchor, a general who had also served in the previous Galactic War, though I didn’t expect him to kneel and obey such an outrageous command, he was believed to have died in a ship malfunction right as the Galactic War ended, but due to the lack of remains he was considered M.I.A. Finally you have me, the former Head Officer of the Task Force #1, Dirk Bancroft!”

Another hand was raised, it was Jasmine’s turn to question this supposed Head Officer, “Why are you the only one who’s kept their real name?”

Actually everyone was thinking about this question. The other two at least tried to play dead while this fool threw his name around with the weight attached to it, they now knew better than to tell this loudmouth anything too personal. It was fair to say that he would spread anything you tell him to anyone in a 20 mile radius.

“Eh, my name is pretty common, but my status isn’t. If you search up Dirk Bancroft, you’d find thousands of different people with the same name, especially on social media. Once you get famous enough, people are willing to name their kids after you.” Mr. Bancroft could only shrug his shoulders with a smirk plastered across his obnoxious face. “Keep in mind, though I recommend you not spread this information, some extremists could use you guys as hostages against me. Since I’m your teacher I am now directly liable to your safety while you’re in this crappy school, same with ‘Mr. Flanigan’. Alright let’s start class!”

Kezner’s mind was spinning as he thought of the possibility, “These coincidences are making a little too much sense…”

It appeared that his teacher, Rankev, was a retired official or commander, a man that commanded over and held responsibility for hundreds of billions of lives. A position that only answered to the Emperor, a position that was a blessing, a position that was a curse. Kezner didn’t know whether this would improve or diminish his life, but he did know that this was going to be one hell of a rollercoaster.

With a gentle hop, Mr. Bancroft got off his desk and stood up with his cane, “Let me truly start off this class by giving you some food for thought. We all know that war is, by definition, armed conflict between at least two nations, entities, or organizations. But what about the methods of combat? Through technological advancements the methods of war must have been revolutionized, after all, scientific advancements are exponential.”

The entire class muttered in agreement as the answer was pretty obvious. The more that the weapons changed, the more that the ways that people fought would change, it couldn’t get any simpler, or could it?

“Well… you’re all wrong! The methods of human combat have not only plateaued, they have started to move backwards. Let me ask you, in what way have guns changed in their usage and creation? There’s a variety of firearms, be it in the form of physical or energy firearms, sure, but why hasn’t the core form of guns changed after all of this time? Look at it like this, it took us hundreds of thousands of years to develop swords to slice each other with, to almost instantly switch to cannons and guns, so why have we stagnated at the advancement of the forms of weaponry?

Well to answer it simply, the technology hasn’t been stagnating, it’s just that the way we fight wars has been. We, as the human race, have exhausted all proper methods in looking for alternative routes to fight our wars in a more efficient and cost-effective fashion, so guns and artillery are still in use.

Now the question is why can’t we use any other form of battle? The answer is centered around where and how we fight rather than when we fight. Original and organized human warfare consisted of line and column fighting, with a centralized command and direct confrontation. This made the numbers games easier, be it for the best or worst, but made it harder to fight in clustered areas, all-in-all, a pretty atrocious form of fighting since it relies more on manpower than actual equipment and resourcefulness. This form of warfare is referred to as the first generation of warfare, it is completely outdated and ineffective in modern times.

The second generation of warfare is quite similar to the first, but it included the reliance of updated technology, with better guns and a reliance on artillery. This allowed for faster advancements and more scattered casualties. Though than advancement, in this day and age, we not only focus on land and air, but space, so we can’t just throw men at incoming fire and expect to win the entire battle. But that’s not to say that we don’t use some of the tactics. Look at trench warfare, when defending our home turf and awaiting reinforcements, it’s one of the go-to strategies as our technological improvements have improved it. Trenches dug in what seems to be an instant along with some added wiggle room.

A lot of modern fighting currently centers around the philosophies of the third generation of warfare, a generation of speed and piercing. Usually spearheading through the weak point of the enemy’s frontline, to then encircle and finish them off. This is seen as the slow ungrasping of centralized warfare, where the power of command inflated to the bottom of the chain, allowing the small units more liberation in their decisions. Albeit they still need to follow the chain of command, and the failure to do so is met with martial law. For the most part, we have been predominantly stuck in the third generation since Earth’s second global war, it’s simply the most efficient way of fighting there is.

As for the final generation of warfare, let’s just say that if it comes down to it, the Dominion is probably in some real deep shit. But the takeaway is that we still take from the past into our modern fighting, as things that couldn’t even be imagined before are possible to create in mere seconds. Now, any questions?”

As everybody tried to process the information and copy it down on their holo-watches, a student raised their hand, it was an earth user named Aidan, “All of the generations of warfare you mentioned, aren’t they only applicable to land warfare? What about space warfare?”

“Good question, but I don’t think it would be necessary to teach that. You’re all almost guaranteed to be thrown as land troops. Space combat is more of a specialized force, anyone can fire a gun in their hands and hit a target, but only a few could fire a gun attached to a moving ship in orbit, and hit a target moving about 20,000 miles per hour. At best, you guys would barely be qualified to clean the ship’s cafeteria. Any other questions?”

---

The final bell of the day rang, signifying the end of this… abnormal day. The worst part was they had to deal with it almost everyday, but they could only see where the wind blew them.

As everyone was out of the door, Mr. Bancroft held Kezner back to speak with him. Though everyone wanted to listen in, they knew they couldn’t escape the eye of this teacher. Grabbing Kezner’s shoulder with his young looking hand, along with the amiable smile on his face, albeit a little frigid, “Ah, excuse me, the principal would like a word with you, if you would follow me…”

“What now…”

Mr. Bancroft led Kezner down the hallway, the opposite direction of the staircase, towards the Principal’s Office. Though the other 14 curious students wanted in on what was happening now, they knew that Kezner had some ties with a high-ranking official, be it good or bad, they didn’t dare interfere.

Arlean was still trying to completely piece things together, so she decided to contact her father when she got “home”.

---

“You little bastard, tell us what’s going!” Mr. Bancroft threw Kezner onto the floor, causing him to hit his back against the wall. Kezner was now surrounded by three familiar figures, his teachers! The principal was slowly making his way out of the door behind them, and as soon as he got out, he locked the door.

“Wha- What’s going on?” Kezner asked in a confused and surprised manner, as everything went down almost instantly.

Pointing his cane in front of Kezner’s face, Mr. Bancroft’s expression was amused yet enraged to say the least, “Listen up, don’t think we don’t understand what’s going on. The bastard that sent us here is the same figure that you taught you that forging crap, it’s obviously not purposely covered up. We’re most likely sent here to personally teach you or something, so we just want to know, who the hell are you?!”

Mr. Flanigan and Mr. Cayne looked at him with their stern expressions, they were awaiting a proper response. If they weren’t satisfied, it was safe to assume that they would make his life a living hell.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! My master literally just left me the other day, all he taught me was forging! As for me, you’ve all most likely read up on me a little while ago!” Kezner felt wronged, though he held immense secrets, they were going after him for the only thing he didn’t know. It was like getting away with a robbery only to then get falsely sentenced for a murder.

Mr. Flanigan gave a neutral stare into Kezner’s eyes as he ordered, “Use your ability.”

Kezner could only reluctantly respond by having his gray flames appear balled up in his right hand. In a defiant tone, “What are you trying to do?”

“I said use your ability, I gave you an order, so you can only listen like the dog you are!”, Mr. Flanigan barked as he kicked him in his side, ragdolling the already sitting Kezner to the other side of the room. Kezner wasn’t going to split blood or anything generic like that, but holy hell did it hurt. It took a little while of coughing and gasping for the pain to barely evaporate. Giving Mr. Flanigan a spiteful stare, Kezner summoned his flames once more, and this time they were black.

“Why does this seem so familiar... Oh yeah, I did some reading and there happened to be an incident that happened in this city a few years back, right? Now what was it called… ah yes, the Black Flame incident, does that ring a bell?” Mr. Bancroft made his way to the gasping Kezner and pointed his cane towards him once more. “You know there’s a few reasons they call me the Hidden Dirk. Some of them think it’s just a flashy nickname pertaining to my name, others think it’s my style of assassinations. They aren’t necessarily wrong, those are two of the reasons. Only a few know of the third reason; only a few are let in on the secret of the third reason. That’s because only a few have survived it.”

As the final words spewed out of his mouth, a blade poked out of the end of his cane, puncturing through Kezner’s clothes and poking at his skin. If even the slightest force was added, the blade would pierce through his lung, bad news. Kezner could only gasp, recovering from the pain of the earlier kick, and await his fate.

“And today, you’re one of the few.”