2 months later

“God’s damn it! What do we have to do to get into advanced training?” Dorian groused as we all entered the barracks at the end of the day. I could understand, hell we probably all could. Every day our classroom taught us new things, though they did warn us that we were getting close to discussing the traditional tactical formations. Those were important enough to spend at least a month on.

“Whassa matter Senator Boy?” Small Paul teased. “Marchin’ in a line not to your liking? I bet if you asked James, his pa would tell you that most of soldierin’ was marchin’ in a line.”

“Truth!” James piped up with a chuckled. “March in line for weeks, then spend a few days whacking people with a blade.”

Dorian sighed, flopping back onto his bed. “Not that, and you guys know it. I’m just sick of going over the same drills every week. I know we need repetition, but there’s only so much a guy can take. At least they should let us start doing some of the live drills against other companies.”

“Dorian has a point.” I said, rubbing my shoulder. I had slipped in a bit of mud and taken a rough blow, though I wasn’t the only one. “I think at this point, we could hold a shield wall in our sleep.”

“Oh gods, they’re agreeing with each other.” James said in horror, creeping back on his bed and giving us warding gestures. “Is it time for Yomi to devour the land?”

“We don’t always disagree!” Dorian and I said at the same time, giving each other horrified looks.

“Izanagi save us! We’ve done everything together for so long even these two are thinking alike!” Joffrey giggled, shaking his head. “The only thing we haven’t done together is all my punishments.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Virgil said from across the aisle. “I’m tired just doing the regular exercises. I don’t think I could do your punishments as well.”

Something triggered in the back of my head. “Wait a second.” I said, looking down as I tried to figure it out. “Instructor Daniels had said something when we started training.”

“You need to be a little more specific. He has said a lot of things.” Dorian chuckled, but for once his verbal barbs didn’t quite get to me.

“Something about working together. I think it was when I was attacked.” I said, trying to forcefully bring back the memory.

“We fight together, we die together, for we are Legion.” James said, and it all clicked.

“THAT’S IT!” I said, pointing at him. “That’s what we are missing! We do almost everything together, but we leave punishments out for whoever did something wrong. In the Legion, the group is responsible for the individual’s actions.”

“So, you’re saying we are supposed to take Joffrey’s punishments with him?” Virgil asked, a bit of despair in his voice.

“I guess so.” James said, but I looked across the way at Dorian.

“Hey Dorian, what would the Legion say if we looked at the punishment a different way?”

“What do you mean?” He asked.

“I mean this. What if we assume Joffrey’s punishment is instead a mission? We would be remiss in our duties if we didn’t help him complete it, wouldn’t we?” I asked, smiling. Gods bless him, but he was at least quick on the uptake.

“Yeah. But how are we supposed to help him complete a few laps?” Dorian asked.

“Well, let’s treat him like a mission. Form a box around him, shields out. We intercept Amelia and keep him from getting hit for five laps.” I said.

“That’ll work, but what about when they field a line against us?” Virgil asked.

That kicked off a major brainstorm operation between everyone in the group. We came up with formations, including how to shift between them. Dorian volunteered to hang outside of the group and call out formations.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The next day after breakfast was when we decided to put our plan into action. Joffrey was late by plan, jogging up as Instructor Daniels was shaking his head.

“Recruit Joffrey, you are late again. Care to give a reason?” He asked.

“Yessir!” He said, smiling. “I was hoping to challenge Sergeant Amelia to another of our lovely races.”

“Oh?” Daniels said, raising an eyebrow. “Bold. It won’t win you any points. AMELIA!” He bellowed, getting the entire yard to freeze. “Seems we got a recruit stupid enough to call you out. Go ahead and show him your best.”

“Oh, it’s the Mouth.” She said, jogging over. “You’re going to regret calling me out.” She said with a sadistic grin on her face.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure.” He said. While they were talking, the rest of us had headed toward the start line. Instructor Daniels was giving us the side eye, probably wondering why we all had our scutums out this early in the morning.

“You know the rules. Five laps. Go.” He ordered.

“SQUAD FORM UP!” Dorian shouted, and we immediately filled in around Joffrey, who hadn’t taken a step. “Forward, jogging speed!” With the order, we fell into a synchronized movement, leaving a stumped Amelia with no options.

“What the hell is this?” She shouted after her third approach. Every time she got close, a shield wall formed and blocked her attempts.

“Get ‘im Amelia!”

“Show those rookies how we do it!”

“Come on Amelia” The calls from the side grew in intensity the longer we managed to hold off the trainer. The longer we went, the bigger the distraction we became. At the end of two laps, all work at stopped. As we cleared the third lap, a group of trainers decided to intervene.

“If they can form a shield wall, so can we!” They called, forming a single line across the field, midway through a straightaway. I was starting to get nervous, but trusted Dorian to play his role to perfection.

“Form three!” He called out as we entered the straightaway, and we smoothly shifted. Despite it being our first time, Amelia wasn’t able to close the distance. We had dubbed this transformation our Trample form, and I was feeling bad for the instructors. We were now coming at them with the point of a diamond, Thomas being the tip of the spear so to speak. He was the biggest of us, and he was flanked by Clint and James, the next two size wise.

“Oh shit!” One of the instructors called out once they realized their predicament. We hadn’t slowed at all, and had instead been slowly building up to running speed.

“Right shift!” Thomas called, and at the very last second we all shifted a half step to the right. This was surprisingly added by Small Paul, and it worked to perfection. Instead of smashing shield to shield, Thomas barreled straight through the line, and with the tight wedge the instructors stood no chance. Despite her best effort, Amelia couldn’t make it through the press of bodies to get near Joffrey.

“Form 1” Dorian called, and we returned to the slower moving square, conserving our energy for what we all knew would be a titanic clash. As we finished our fourth lap, Instructor Daniels got into the fray.

“FIRST GROUP, SHIELD WALL THREE DEEP!” He bellowed in a battlefield voice that I was envious of. Immediately the enemy shield wall tripled in strength, though we made no changes until we came to the straightaway once again.

“Let’s see you get outta this one boys.” Amelia gloated, not suspecting we had planned for this as well.

“Form Four!” Dorian called, and we shocked the instructors by splitting our formation. Amelia had let Dorian drift near her, thinking he was only to call forms for us. He used this lack of awareness masterfully, knocking her off balance with a shield rush and buying the quickest among us the time we needed. By the time she had recovered, Amelia was held in a box by myself, Dorian, Small Paul, and Lawrence. We all had backup as well, ready to fill in any gap she managed to form or reinforce the initial box should she try and overpower us.

But the worst was saved for the instructor line. We called this formation Piercer, and that’s all it was designed to do. Thomas led the way, carrying two shields. He was flanked by our largest members, and they wasted no time in ramping up to full speed. I had to keep my back to the impact to ensure Amelia didn’t escape, but from the sound it was glorious. Metal smashing as people groaned at the impact, crying out when they fell down.

“Get him Amelia! He lost his guardians!” I heard an instructor call, but it was far too late. It only took a short while for Joffrey to cross the line.

“And that’s five laps without getting caught!” He called, and we relaxed our group around Amelia, though we kept our guard up.

“Recruits! Line up!” Daniels called, and we happily fell into formation. “Dorian. Since you got selected leader of this fiasco, you get to explain yourselves.”

“Sir. We are Legion.” Dorian said, saluting and saying nothing else.

“You are Legion?” Daniels asked quietly, getting in his face. “Explain.”

“We are Legion.” He said again, and I had to admire a bit of his bravado. “We train as one, we win as one, we get punished as one.”

Daniels straightened up, walking down the line and staring at everyone’s eyes for a few seconds. Eventually he smiled and said, “Not bad. Not bad at all. Looks like the lessons are finally sinking in. That doesn’t mean you get to do this again, do you understand Joffrey?”

“Yes sir!” He said, though the glint in his eye and the wink he gave me let me know that he wasn’t too serious.

“As for the rest of you. Tomorrow we start advanced training. I hope you are fast learners, because in one month we have cross training. You will be doing close range drills with the mage groups. Now, for the rest of the morning go ahead and to your rotating shield wall drills. We’ll have a special afternoon class, going over your tactics from today and where you can improve. Namely, how to get your entire group out with minimal losses. I will say this though. Nobody has ever thought to encase Amelia in a reversed shield square before. I’m sure she will be looking for ways to counter it in the future, so don’t expect the trick to work twice.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Your senses are getting sharper, but your aura is still blazing while you search.” Alphonse said calmly as I found him in a hidden nook of the third floor of the library. Our weekly cup of blood was sitting next to him, and he beckoned me toward it. “You’ve been acclimating to the drink rather swiftly. I’m impressed, and decided to press you a bit since we are under a time crunch. This will be your first time taking a full cup. Be prepared.”

“Thank you for the warning.” I said, though I didn’t really need it. I could almost feel the magic washing up against my aura. Knowing I would need all my concentration to control the wave of power I was about to imbue, I retracted my aura and took a deep breath before drinking a few swallows.

“Excellent work. You know you can’t absorb it all in one go, and so are pacing yourself. While you do that, we shall go back over the lecture on the differences between aura and magic, and why a true mage never shirks his lessons on either.”

Placing a bookmark in the tome he was reading, he carefully returned it to the shelf and started pacing the room, a mannerism I found almost as amusing as his tendency to talk with his hands about his favorite topics. I hid a smile behind drinking another swallow of the potent wine, feeling the surge of mana expanding throughout my body.

“As you know, magic is the binding of mana into specific forms to hopefully produce the desired outcomes. There are myriad approaches, each with their own drawbacks. Battlemagics tend to rely on well documented runes, and are usually the swiftest magics you can cast. They do this by limiting to three runes. The ever favorite fireball is ‘flame, seek, burst’ and can be cast within a second by an adept mage. This speed is gained by sacrificing targets, and many battlemagics can harm friends just as easily as foes. Healing on the other hand can take up to a hundred runes for the most complex spells, but will require a ritual and an immense amount of power to complete. The most impressive, in my opinion, though is the camp protective magic. At the center of each Legion camp you will find a projector tower. At the top lie three arrays of plates with radiating spokes of differing numbers. Depending on the area needed to protect, rods engraved with specific runes are placed in their designated grooves and attached to a mana crystal. This activates a barrier much like a city barrier. It is portable and variable, but the drawbacks are huge. Mana stones are expensive, which is why fortifications always have more permanent setups. And the runes on the rod are incredibly specific. Change the depth of a single stroke within a rune, and the entire thing will be drastically weakened.”

I nodded along, having already committed this information to memory. I was more interested in the aura, as it was much more flexible than spells. I was also trying to push my body to absorb the magic faster, wanting to work on as much control tonight as possible. It usually took about three hours of constant practice and control to fully master the increases to my body, and I was already at the point where a mistake could gravely injure one of my fellow recruits.

“Unlike mana, all humans have the capacity to increase and use their aura. Most do it instinctively, though some groups like the Hunters make it mandatory training. Auras can’t cause direct effects, but never underestimate them. The best officers make use of their aura to bolster their men in combat. Knowing their leader is behind them can be the difference between victory and defeat. Nobles have been known to use their aura to intimidate others, to make themselves seem more powerful. But the best control has to be the Hunters. While some can withdraw their aura to their body, making detecting them extremely difficult, the true elites manage to blend their aura with their surroundings. Eventually, I will have you at that level. Right now though, your aura is only good for two things. Name them.”

“I can detect others that aren’t trying to conceal themselves, and I can use it to detect magical traps.” I answered, then finished the glass. Shaking a bit at the end from the final surge, I rode the wave and sighed in satisfaction as the magic seemed to flood into all my cells, swelling them to near bursting.

“Excellent. Now, as you seem to prefer active measures on the days you drink the wine, I have set up an obstacle course for you in the second basement. Follow.” He flowed through the library, and I tried my best to copy his movements. My control leaked or a split second as we were headed down the stairs, letting my aura flare out. I caught my stumble, getting a raised eyebrow from Alphonse.

“Nothing to worry about. Just tried to do too many things at once.”

“And have you learned anything?” He asked with a smug smile.

“Your silent steps. They aren’t just foot placement. You are cloaking them in aura.” I accused.

“Indeed. Cushioning is one of the easiest forms to master, but hardest to perfect. We can start practicing it next week.”

“Sounds good.” I nodded, continuing to follow him and keeping my mouth shut about what else I had discovered. Why would he be using an illusion spell around me?

The thought plagued me for a while, until we reached the basement. There was a mostly empty area with colored tiles on the ground. Red, green and yellow. Randomly dispersed were armed training dummies. With a grand gesture, Alphonse introduced me. “This is my aura training ground. Randomly scattered among the tiles and training dummies are a series of traps. For the first few rounds, they will be alarm only and summon the nearest construct to do battle. Your objective is to follow the path I designate. Green and red tiles denote hallways and rooms. Whichever is glowing are the ones you are allowed to traverse. Step on the opposite color, and you lose. Yellow tiles denote barriers of some kind. You may have to find a key, or possibly disarm a specific trap. Or even defeat a construct. Like I said, it is variable. The constructs act as guards, and can see in front of them. For now, they will be stationary unless triggered. Work your way through, detecting and disarming traps. Alerting the guards will count against you, as will time. Questions?”

“Yes.” I answered, impressed with the room. This was going to be awesome! “Are the constructs mages?”

“No. For now, all constructs only have physical skills. That will change as you grow stronger. Grab that practice gladius, and BEGIN!” He called, and I stepped onto the green path. As soon as I did, each red tile raised up a barrier preventing me from seeing through it, and to my aura it felt exactly like a wall would.

This was a lot harder than it looked. As I moved through the maze, trying to recall the exact layout, I was forced several times to bend my aura around a corner to search. The one good thing was that the constructs actually felt like living people, and I could tell from a slight peak in their aura which direction they were looking. Of course, they also reacted like people to my intense aura, immediately looking around for the source. When Alphonse first taught me to detect auras, it felt like someone was watching me.

Knowing this was training, I started trying to send out smaller bits of my aura, stretching it incredibly thin. That worked rather well, and I found that I could snake around a guard with it and tap it on the back, distracting it and allowing me to execute a sneak attack. The traps were easily detected, and mostly of either tripwire or pressure plate construction. I simply bypassed the latter if there were no guards nearby, but a lot of the tripwires I spent the time to disrupt. Most had a simple construction. If the line of mana connecting two Connect runes was disrupted, the runes would stop channeling mana and it would be diverted to an alarm rune. Obliterate the alarm rune worked, but you also had to then disable the power collector rune. Otherwise the spell would backfire and the caster would know about it.

So I practiced my disabling technique, and was easily working my way through the test. I was working on the last tripwire before the exit, and had just taken out the alarm rune when the alarm sounded and the trap I was working on discharged a small bolt of lightning into me. I was sent sprawling as the colors receded and Alphonse walked up smiling.

“Well done, very well done.” He said, offering me a hand up.

“What do you mean? I botched the last trap.” I said.

“Ah, but you were meant to.” He replied, motioning me over to a table. “See, one of the things that sneaky people enjoy doing, and vampires are extremely sneaky, is to lull you into a false sense of security. They will leave several of the same traps in a row, making you complacent. Then the last one will be a slight variation. You didn’t notice the slight variation on Connect, and the mana trail leading to the alarm rune. With the connection already primed with mana, once you destroyed the rune the spell triggered.”

“Ugh, damnit.” I groaned, finally seeing my mistake. “So how do you disarm this kind of trap?”

“You have to evenly disrupt the power collection runes. Connect coupled with Drain works best if you have the time, as it will slowly pull from both sides of the spell evenly. If you need to get down and dirty in a hurry, Null is the way to go.” He explained. “Now, I want you to always keep this in mind. The more elaborate the trap spell, the more expensive it is. The vast majority will use cheaper traps the farther you are away from the heart of what they are protecting. If you fall for the cheaper spells, then they don’t have to pay as much to replace them. Once you get into the upper echelons of vampires? Then all this goes out the window. Paranoia replaces the hunger for money, and so they will randomly intersperse traps of varying complexity.”

“Got it.” I nodded. “With most normal people, expect traps to increase in difficulty the closer you get. With vampires, expect the worst all the time.”

“Ha!” He chuckled, slapping me on the back. “Not a bad way to look at it. You ready for another run? I have ten variations at this level for you to work your way through, and until you perfectly clear all of them we won’t be increasing the difficulty.”

“Set it up.” I said with a grin, eager to try once again. It was pitiful how swiftly I failed some courses. Some traps were designed to set off an alarm if disarmed, a jumpy guard would turn at the wrong moment and see me, or a non-magical trap would get set off somehow. Each time Alphonse patiently explained what went wrong and how to get around it, and I would try again. By the end of our time, I was exhausted but felt I had grown quite a bit.

“Not bad for your first run. We’ll keep working on aura control this week, though I suggest you practice casting barrier as swiftly as possible. I hear cross training can be rather interesting.”

“How did you?” I started, then shook my head. “Never mind. I’m sure you have plenty of sources.” I shook my head and headed out, still somewhat surprised that he knew we started cross training in a month. Hell, we had only learned about it today!