First Sergeant Aziz, formerly of the Ark City armed forces, floated in mid-air with an expression of utmost relish on his face. His right hand was holding a training-level Straight Shot, while his left was holding a pole. His gleaming eyes were fixated on a bunch of young men and women, all of which were wearing the same uniform and watching their new instructor nervously.

Like the sergeant, the small group was also floating in mid-air, but most of them were wobbling and drifting in one direction. They were also similarly equipped, but the fact that none of them had even bothered to aim the Straight Shots at the man in front of them made the sergeant somewhat amused. As for the rods in their own hands…the sergeant didn’t even want to think about it.

A wicked grin appeared on his face, and the sergeant flew right towards the small group, his rod ready to strike. The metal gleamed dangerously in the midday sun as it came down on the small squad.

The newly-formed flier squad, codename Thunderbolt, scattered messily. Some of them were unable to escape as a result of that unorganised dodge, and in that single moment of panic, Aziz had brought his rod to bear down on a particularly unfortunate teenager.

No skull-crushing crack came; every member of the Thunderbolt squad had been equipped with a Dynamo of their own that came with the Shell passive, but Aziz had brought the rod down hard enough that the defences around the boy cracked. His victim fell like a sack of potatoes, but before he could hit the ground, one of the fifteen harpies on duty swooped down and caught the unconscious teenage boy.

The harpy-type beastfolk were masters of the air. One on one, even Sergeant Aziz himself didn’t have the confidence to say that he would win in a hand-to-hand fight while flying, and he rated himself even lower when it came to exchanging shots in mid-air.

But letting the harpies instruct the Thunderbolt squad was something even the hardened First Sergeant Aziz couldn’t bear to do. Furthermore, there was little that the squad could learn from fighting the Harpies; they didn’t rely on the Dynamo to fly, after all. What Aziz could do and what a harpy could do when flying was quite different.

The instructor flung his body to the left, dodging the ten or so shots that were aimed at him. None of them would have done much damage to him, even if he took them head-on without dodging — those were training-grade Straight Shots, after all — but it would set a really bad example.

The sights of his own Straight Shot drifted across another hesitating member of the Thunderbolt squad, and Aziz pulled the trigger. Without waiting to see the results, he closed in on yet another teenage boy, his rod whipping out to strike the boy’s left this time.

At the same time, his right arm adjusted his Straight Shot, and it shook slightly as a shot blasted out from its barrel. A girl was about to fire on him, making use of his relative immobility when he entered melee combat, but Aziz’s own shot slammed into her Shell, throwing her own aim off.

She stopped moving immediately — Instructor Aziz had told them to exit the fight if they were shot, as part of his policy to encourage dodging attacks. It hadn’t worked out that well, since these fools were dodging individually, but better that than getting their defences broken through by a single overwhelming blow.

The rod, still enroute to his initial target, found purchase half a second later. Another harpy caught the falling boy, who was still reeling from the impact of talking a direct hit. The Shell ability of the Dynamos didn’t insulate their users from the force generated at the point of impact, after all.

With four people out of combat, the sergeant didn’t take long to wipe out the remaining two thirds of the small squad. The longest holdout had put up a good fight, but the sergeant’s rod proved too hard to follow with the naked eye.

“One against twelve, and we’re of the same cultivation level too. Blighted Night, we even had the same equipment. This is not an acceptable result by any stretch.” The sergeant’s voice was icy, and the small squad flinched. “I think you guys need more drills. You can be sure that Lieutenant Marie’s going to make tomorrow very fun.”

Thunderbolt squad shivered as a single collective, and the sergeant immediately felt that if they’d shown such cohesiveness earlier, they would definitely had done better.

Shaking his head, the sergeant walked towards the tent reserved for trainers only. A woman, her head a magnificent gold, looked up from a small pile of documents as he walked into the tent. “How’s the squad?”

“Very disorganized. I thought they were going to fare better too, after seeing their training yesterday,” replied Aziz.

Lieutenant Marie’s smile took on a dangerous slant, as she worked through his words rapidly. “Disorganised? The Thunderbolt squad didn’t act in cohesion? I see…some drills are really in order, aren’t they?”

“Indeed, they are.” Sergeant Aziz smiled back. After making a mental note to observe their training tomorrow, he changed the subject. “Anyway, what do you think of the…Council’s goals?”

The governing body of this refugee camp, which was called Napoleon, had a couple of rather fanciful ideas. These ideas were made rather explicit in the camp’s name of choice, according to Lieutenant Marie. Napoleon apparently was the name of a legendary military commander, from the world where the Cardinal Champions came from. In fact, Napoleon’s ability at strategy was only second to Champion Lunaris, according to the other Champions.

Yet, simply evoking his name wasn’t going to be enough to guarantee success in what the Council of Camp Napoleon planned to do. They planned to unify the other beastfolk refugee settlements all around the Southern Continent, to recreate a new beastfolk nation.

This was a radical notion, considering that the beastfolk cities before the Second Extermination were all independent entities. The Extermination, as it ran its course, eventually forced the cities of the beastfolk to unify their military and civilian command to resist the encroaching human forces. None, however, had expected such a change to last after the end of the human campaign for an entire multitude of reasons, like past animosities.

“I think it goes against our history and traditions. And yet, divided we fall,” said Lieutenant Marie, quoting a favourite phrase of the Champions. “We should have followed the human governments of the other Continents long ago, but the lesson came too late.”

“And yet, I cannot help but find the idea of marching on the South with a rebuilt army anything close to palatable,” said Sergeant Aziz. “It’s madness.”

“But it’s one of the easiest ways to gather the others under a banner,” the lieutenant replied with a sad smile. “Especially when the Southern Houses are so fractured and vulnerable now. They’re like the independent beastfolk cities of years ago now.”

“I see you’ve been reading the intelligence the Council gathered, Marie.”

The woman smiled, the little bun of hair on her head quivering the entire time. “I’m not the only one, am I?

Sergeant Aziz smiled, and in a companionable silence, began to look through some documents until the sun began to set.