Quinlan and Alina didn’t come by to visit Damien that day, which didn’t particularly surprise him. It had been years since Alina had gotten sealed in the crystal, and he imagined that she had a whole lot of things to catch up on.

Damien spent the rest of the day focusing on training his connection with the Void. He didn’t dare risk casting any spells after sparring with Kat and already drawing on its power. Instead, he switched the gray dimension on and off, trying to get more control over it.

Xil didn’t bother him and spent her time meditating. That suited Damien quite well, and the day passed quickly. When the following morning came, he headed over to the arena for Kat’s class once more.

Quinlan Venus, and Eren had beaten him there. Quinlan raised a hand in greeting as Damien approached.

“What was yesterday all about?” Quinlan asked. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen the Professor so excited.”

“We have a mutual friend,” Damien replied. “And I suppose we had fun sparring. That’s always a good way to make an impression.”

“Fun?” Eren asked doubtfully, his voice little more than a whisper. “I’m not sure it’s possible to have fun sparring the Professor. Surviving it might be a better word to use.”

“Maybe for you,” Venus said, turning her nose up. “I’ve had some fun sparring her as well, I’ll have you know.”

“Since when? I recall you complaining about nearly every sparring session we had whenever we knew they were coming,” Eren said, crossing his hands.

“I have no recollection of this,” Venus said. “Therefore, it never happened.

“Is the professor late again?”

They all turned as Blake strolled up to them, a large maul slung over his shoulder. He nodded in greeting.

“There are still a few minutes until she’s supposed to show up,” Eren said, glancing up at the still dark sky. “But yeah, she’s probably late.”

Tim arrived several minutes later, silently joining the group and starting to stretch instead of talking. The stars blinked in the sky above, but the moon had already shifted away from its apex, so very little light made its way into the arena. Even the stars were muted in their light, hidden behind a thin bed of clouds.

Nearly half an hour after class was supposed to start, Kat strolled through the gates of the arena. She was dragging a girl behind her, forcing her to jog to keep up with the Professor’s brisk pace. For whatever reason, the girl had a twine basket over her head, making it impossible to see her face.

“Sorry. I got lost,” Kat said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. “I also realized I had to shake up our lesson plan a little.”

“Why? Because of the transfer student?” Blake asked. “That’s a lot of extra effort for someone who’s only going to be here a little while. Why don’t we just do our normal plan and let him adjust instead?”

“Because I’m trying to get the most out of this for all of you,” Kat said, narrowing her eyes. “Opportunity lurks everywhere for those smart enough to take it, Blake. If you have issue with my methods, you’re welcome to start running.”

Blake cleared his throat. “Whatever you say is law, Professor.”

“That’s what I thought,” Kat said. “And so, we’ll be doing something different today. I just needed one more member. Now this is the time where you go ‘but why do we need another person, Professor?’. Go on. Say it.”

Blake dutifully repeated her words, while everyone else just stared at the professor, clearly used to her shenanigans.

“Very good, Blake,” Kat said. “Let’s count. Eren, Tim, Quinlan, Venus, Blake, Damien, Professor Kat. How many is that?”

“Seven,” Blake said, his face paling. He swallowed. “Professor, are we doing wargame training again?”

“There you go! Well done,” Kat said with a wide grin. “But with a little twist. Can you guess what that is?”

“Considering you counted yourself in our number… it’s you,” Tim said flatly. “Professor, why are you also participating?”

“Because it looks fun,” Kat snapped. “But, as you can tell, seven is not an even number to split teams into. I had to get one more person.”

“It’s not like any of us would be able to win against you even if you were on your own,” Venus said, crossing her arms. “Why do you need a partner? Also – are you taking partner applications? I volunteer.”

Kat snorted. “Because I won’t be going all out – that would probably take the fun out of things. I’ll limit myself to the strength of a Year Four student, but that means I’ll be doing everything that I feel a Year Four could do to win. Therefore, I need a partner.”

Quinlan glanced at Damien out of the corner of her eye. “What kind of Year Four?”

“A talented one,” Kat replied with a grin. “But a reasonably talented one. Around your strength, Quinlan.”

“What about the rest of us?” Blake asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Venus is the only other Year Four. That means there are three Year Four equivalents – you, Quinlan, and Venus. There are a total of four teams of two – is the other person you brought the last Year Four?”

“No,” Kat replied with a grin. “That would be Damien.”

“You’re kidding. You got all that from just one sparring session with him?” Tim asked. “Rumors are one thing, but isn’t he just a Year Two?”

“He’s a special case. Why do you think he’s doing his transfer so early?” Kat asked, rolling her eyes. “Use your head, moron.”

“Right. Sorry,” Tim said. “So who’s the new person?”

“Someone I borrowed,” Kat said, plucking the basket from the girl’s head. Damien let out a sigh. He hadn’t made the connection because he really hadn’t spent much time looking at her, but the girl Kat had grabbed was Xil.

“Why?” Damien asked. “And did you raid my room to find her?”

“Maybe,” Kat replied. “Those are semantics. Don’t worry about it. Now, more importantly, you didn’t tell me you were hiding a student in your quarters.”

“She’s not a student,” Damien said. “Hawk kicked her out.”

“Really? That explains why her name wasn’t on the door,” Kat said, rubbing her chin. “Oh well. It’s free training. I can’t imagine anyone would say no to that, right?”

What do you think the chances are that Kat literally didn’t give her a choice in coming here?

“Fifty-fifty,” Henry replied with a snort. “But she seems to be fine with it. She did want training, after all. Can’t ask for better than the advanced class.”

True enough.

“So, let’s get to assigning teams,” Kat said. “Team One is Damien, Venus, Eren, and Xil. Team two will be me, Quinlan, Tim, and Blake.”

“Wait, what?” Blake asked. “Teams of four? I thought they were supposed to be teams of two.”

“You assumed that,” Kat replied. “I said nothing of the sort. Stop making stupid assumptions. You all know that the monsters are pushing on the frontlines harder than ever before, and a new threat called the Corruption has been attacking all over the continent. It’s very likely that you’ll be in larger groups in the near future, so you’ll need to work with them.”

“What exactly is this exercise?” Damien asked. “I’m assuming its some sort of team sparring?”

“Close. I call them wargames, but its really just jumped up capture the flag,” Kat said. “I’m surprised Delph hasn’t shown you them yet – but now that I think about it, he did typically do this in Year Three, after you’ve chosen your Major. Oh well. The gist of it is that we’ll spend three days in the forest. Both teams will put their flag up somewhere. Neither of us will know where the other team sets up. Then it’ll be a race to see who can get the other team’s flag and bring it back to their base.”

“That seems fun,” Henry said in Damien’s mind. “We get to smack these chumps right?”

“And I assume we’re allowed to treat this like a full on sparring match, just with no break?” Damien guessed.

“Exactly,” Kat said. “Not too hard to catch on, eh? There will be healers, but if you need one of them, you’re out of the game. No second chances.”

“When do they start?” Tim asked, inching toward the exit of the arena.

“Four hours,” Kat replied. “Be back here by then. If you’re late, you won’t participate, and your team will have to deal with being down a member.”

“Professor, chances are, you’re the one that’s going to be late,” Quinlan said. “Does that rule count against you too?”

“Of course it doesn’t. What kind of idiot would I be to make it count against myself? Rules are meant to be bent once you’re strong,” Kat scoffed. “Now go break away and prepare. I’m looking forward to having some fun, so I do hope you all make this interesting.”

Tim darted out of the arena and Blake strode after him. Quinlan waved to Damien, then followed after them. Kat watched them leave with an approving grin before turning to Damien.

“I handicapped your team. I expect you to limit your own strength to what is reasonable. None of that staff stuff – it was too dangerous.”

“Fine with me,” Damien replied. “We’ve already covered why I won’t be using it. Good luck, Professor.”

She snorted. “As if I’d need it.”

Kat vanished, leaving Xil alone with Damien and the remains of the advanced group. Venus slowly turned her eyes toward Damien.

“So… just how much of your power can you actually use?”

“Enough.”

“Can you match the professor?” Eren asked. “Because the only other time I’ve seen her participate in one of her own games, she just rampaged through the forest until she found the flag. Then she grabbed it and walked back to her camp. None of us could even hurt her.”

“That was two years ago, to be fair,” Venus said, crossing her arms. “We’re a lot stronger now.”

“Depends on the new girl,” Eren said. “What can you do?”

“You can start by asking her name,” Venus said. “That’s the polite way to introduce yourself.”

Eren stared at her. Then he flicked his gaze to Xil and cocked an eyebrow.

“Xil. I – I’m not sure how much help I’ll actually be,” Xil muttered, rubbing her palms together. “I’m pretty sure you’re all a lot stronger than I am.”

“You know Damien, right?” Eren asked. “What’s your strength in comparison to him? I at least know a little about how he fights, since we all saw him go up against the Professor.”

“When we first met, he stabbed me and broke a bunch of my ribs. I don’t think he even broke a sweat.”

Damien cleared his throat. “No need to dwell on the past. We’ve got a few hours to get ready. Eren, you said that Kat just charged the other team’s flag?”

Eren studied Xil as if he were trying to tell if she was joking or not. When it became apparent that she was serious, he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Yes, she just ran at it. I can tell you’re in Mountain Hall, Xil. What year are you?”

“One, technically. I got kicked out.”

Eren stared at her. “That wasn’t a joke?”

“No. It was not.”

“How are we supposed to win if one of our members is barely even a mage?” Eren asked, throwing his hands into the air. “Just like the Professor to cripple the other team so we have no real chance to win.”

“You’re doing a lot of talking when we don’t even know how strong you are in comparison with the rest of us,” Damien said. “And if your team is weaker, you should just get stronger to make up for it.”

“What would you know about that?” Venus asked. “You’re unfairly strong already. I doubt you’ve had to do much catching up.”

Damien let out a snort of laughter. “I arrived at Blackmist with zero training and no experience in any sort of combat. I wanted to be a researcher. My roommate was the strongest mage in our year, and several of my friends were the runners-up. I’ve been training constantly this entire time just to keep up with her.”

“Holy shit, what kind of monsters is Blackmist creating?” Venus asked. “She’s stronger than you?”

“Well, we haven’t really gone all out against each other recently,” Damien admitted. “I don’t know anymore. But that isn’t the point. What does matter is that I know what it feels like to feel like you’re behind. So what does it matter if our team is weaker? That’s the point of training. If everything was easy, I don’t think we’d learn much.”

Eren pressed his lips together and let out a sharp sigh. “Fine. Whatever. I really don’t care. Since you’re so eager, I assume you’ll be directing us?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Damien asked.

“Well, we’ll need some sort of strategy,” Venus said. “Otherwise Kat really will just walk up and take our flag.”

“Ah. I’ll be honest, I’m not really a strategy person. That would be my girlfriend,” Damien said with a frown. “I was just going to make a lot of noise and draw as many of them to me as possible.”

“You’re hopeless,” Venus groaned. “Okay, I’m taking the lead.”

“Fine with me.”

“Me as well,” Eren added. Xil just nodded.

“In that case, we’ll go over what we can do,” Venus said. “Eren uses Sound magic. I use Ice magic. Damien… what do you even use?”

“Space, mostly,” Damien replied. “And a little bit of a few other schools, although I really don’t use them as much as I should. I’ve been focusing on Space.”

“And Xil?”

“I, uh, I’m also ice,” Xil muttered.

“That could be useful,” Venus mused. She started to pace in a circle around them. “How much do you know? If you’ve got any fortification spells, we could combine them and make a pretty good defense–”

“I only know two. One that gives me ice armor, and another that lets me launch an ice blade really quickly,” Xil said, staring at the ground and flushing.

“An ice knife?” Venus asked. “That doesn’t sound like what I learned in Year One. You should have been taught Ice Barrier, shouldn’t you?”

“I didn’t get taught much of anything,” Xil replied. Her voice was tinged with malice. “I didn’t get the privilege of teachers that actually cared.”

“That’s it,” Eren said, snapping his fingers. “You were one of the kids that attacked the transfer student when he showed up and got the shit beat out of you, aren’t you?”

“That isn’t relevant to the conversation,” Damien said. “Considering the resources she’s had, I think Xil has done more than well enough. It doesn’t matter either way. The past can’t change. All that matters right now is figuring out how we’re supposed to win this thing.”