Like every morning, Officer Gwyra stood before the cadets to give them their morning briefing. Today, however, the officer looked even more pissed off than usual, which was anything but good news for the cadets, considering the First Lieutenant always looked angry.

“Starting today and until the end of this assignment, you will be split into 5 teams of ten cadets, each led by a single commanding officer. Each specific team has been created to accomplish five different tasks during the coming assignment, and you have been assigned to a specific team with that objective in mind. Now, you will receive a notification about your affectation through your implant in a few seconds.”

“Yes, ma’am!” The cadets answered as a unit.

Suddenly, Jake’s implant flared up again, and a notification appeared in front of him.

TEAM BETA

Noelle Owens

Jake Hawkins

Laura King

Isaac Evans

Shaun Evans

Luke Ryan

Zac Jenkins

Ismael Laurent

Isabelle Smith

Micheal Kirk

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

For some reason, it looked like the officers had chosen Team B to be this promotion’s elite team. After all, every single one of the cadets on this team had demonstrated combat strength and a talent for biotics that was amongst the top of this promotion, except for Jake whose lack of ability in terms of biotics was well known amongst the cadets.

Still, it was only a few seconds later that Jake and the other nine cadets selected as part of Team B were all standing in a small corner of the training hall, along with an unexpected guest, who’d just recently made his appearance inside the training hall.

“For those of you who don’t know me already, I am First Lieutenant Neilr and up until now, I was the officer in charge of the Academy’s hospital. Starting today, however, I will be this team’s commanding officer.” The Kreigen said, seemingly unbothered, before continuing.

Then, the officer took a few steps forward, stopping a few inches away from Jake. He looked at the cadet straight into his eyes, then continued.

“I’m sure that even a human would be able to tell that Team B has been elected as the elite strike team for this assignment, although you’d do best not to rejoice yourself too soon. After all, this means that among all the other cadets, you lot will be tasked with the most dangerous and most difficult jobs. I can already tell you that some of you won’t make it past the first week.” The Kreigen said with a chuckle, shooting a glance over at Jake that only he noticed, although he had no doubt it had been intentional.

“Yes, sir!” The cadets answered.

“Good. Now for the remaining week of basic training, I will be in charge of teaching all of you to fight as a unit. During the last two weeks, you’ve been taught how to swing, kick, hit and throw your opponents, and you’ve had the opportunity to test all of it in one-on-one duels. Now, let’s see how well you can do in a team battle.” The officer echoed with a small smile.

“Yes, sir!”

It was only a few minutes later that Jake and the rest of Team Beta were standing on one side of the mats, with Team Charlie standing on the opposing side. As they were waiting for the exercise to start, in front of them stood Officer Neilr, who looked just as menacing as usual. The Kreigen weren’t a species known for their exhilarating humour and cute looks, after all.

“I’ll be relaying orders from back here during the whole duration of the fight, and you are to follow them without any hesitation no matter what. Is that clear, cadets?

“Yes, sir!”

Suddenly, Jake’s implant flared up again and one of the mats started glowing to his right.

[Cadets, don’t just stand there and get in position!] The officer’s voice echoed inside Jake’s mind.

He immediately made his way toward the glowing area and could see his teammates each heading toward a specific zone.

In the end, Jake ended up somewhere around the middle of the formation, along with Isabelle Jenkins to his right. He didn’t know her very well yet, but he knew she was one of the few other cadets who naturally excelled in dexterity and cognition, just like he did. In front of him stood 4 more cadets, namely Ryan, the two Evans as well as another cadet named Micheal Kirk, which represented the brawn of their team. In the back stood Owens, King as well as Ismael Laurent and Zac Jenkins, who were all considered among the top biotic users in their promotion, and they would act as support for the brawlers in front.

[Match 1 — Team Beta vs Team Charlie. Start!] Ed’s voice echoed inside his mind, signalling the start of the game.

As soon as he heard the signal, Jake sent a trickle of energy running into his ring, which instantly transformed into a full-blown carbon-mesh armour, onto which ran thin glowing blue lines.

As soon as the fight started, the commanding officer’s voice started echoing inside Jake’s mind through his implant. It felt weird to be hearing someone else’s voice that wasn’t Ed’s inside his mind, but he tried his best to stay focused. On top of hearing the officers, multiple enemies, objects and locations seemed to be flaring up under his implant’s familiar GPS light, adding precision and clarity to the Officer’s orders.

Still stuck in a daze, Jake dashed toward the nearest fighter on his left, and by the time he reached the cadet, his opponent was already exchanging blows with Isaac Evans who looked to be having the upper hand. Jake sprinted past his teammate and circled behind the cadet from the opposing team, he was about to land a devastating sidekick into his opponent when his leg was caught by another cadet who’d come out of nowhere.

In front of him stood Jack Ward, one of the opposing team’s members, who immediately pulled on Jake’s leg and managed to wrestle him to the ground. After a few seconds of the both of them trying to gain an advantage on the ground, his opponent finally managed to grab hold of Jake’s neck, dangerously choking him. A few seconds passed, and the air inside his lungs was starting to get scarcer and scarcer as he struggled to escape his opponent’s grasp, when he finally managed to jolt his head free. He used the opportunity to bite into his opponent’s arm, who finally let go of his neck due to the intense pain, allowing Jake to get back up on his feet, panting.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

His opponent was holding his forearm with one hand, as a trickle of blood went down his arm, but Jake didn’t let his opponent recover as he charged the cadet and swung at him with a few compact hits. His opponent seemed to have a dexterity that was at least Jake’s equal as he weaved past the hits like a snake and then answered with a clean hook to Jake’s chin, and the latter was pushed backward under the impact.

But Jake didn’t get any time to compose himself before it was his turn to be charged with a barrage of strikes, which he dodged for the most part with very few hits making their way past his defence. The fight went on for almost a full minute before his opponent suddenly froze up out of the blue, and Jake hesitated for a moment.

[NOW, CADET!] The officer’s voice shot him out of his torpor as he delivered a swirling kick to the cadet’s temple, whose entire body was slammed to the ground due to the kick’s impact.

In front of him, Jake looked at the unmoving cadet, before the officer’s voice echoed through his implant again.

[DON’T STOP, CADET. KEEP MOVING!]

Jake looked up, and then instantly saw a glowing blue light to his left, showing him where to go, he followed the light as fast as he could until he arrived right next to Owens, who was currently fighting against three opposing cadets all on her own. This time, Jake didn’t hesitate as he ran at full speed and body-slammed the cadet that was the closest to him, sending them both tumbling to the ground. This time, however, Jake had the advantage and managed to land a series of blows to his opponent's stomach, and he didn’t even allow the cadet to get up before he lifted him off the ground and slammed him back down.

For a moment, he almost marvelled at the realization of just how much his strength had improved in the last weeks. He was now a lot stronger, faster and more resilient than he’d been during his first duel with Ryan. Moreover, his fighting techniques had been refined every day under the guidance of their training officers, and he could barely recognize himself as he once more charged at the other cadet, using the same technique his previous opponent had used on him earlier and choking the air out of him.

While Jake had been extremely lucky to jolt himself free at some point, his opponent only lasted for a few seconds before he gave three light taps on Jake’s arm, signalling he gave up the fight.

This time, Jake didn’t waste any time and immediately got up, then looked all around him to try and spot the glowing light of his implant. To his right, Owens was still fighting off one of the enemy cadets, but she looked completely exhausted and a line of blood was flowing out of the right side of her head. He dashed forward, moving as fast as his exhausted body allowed him, but he hadn’t even made it halfway that Ryan’s towering figure appeared next to Owens, along with King a little further, and both of the opposing cadets froze under her telekinesis skill as Ryan mowed through both unmoving cadets with a few swings.

[Winner: Team Beta.]

The fight had only lasted for two or three minutes, but as soon as the adrenaline came crashing down, Jake realized just how exhausted he was, and multiple areas of his body started to flare up in intense pain.

“Don’t just stand around like idiots, cadets!” Officer Neilr’s voice echoed inside Jake’s ear, as this time the voice hadn’t come from his implant, but from the very angry Kreigen currently shouting ragingly from outside of the mats.

The cadets all made their way back to the First Lieutenant, who looked nothing short of furious, even when compared to his usual appearance.

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT, CADETS?”

Every member of Team Beta was currently looking at each other, exchanging confused glances. After all, they’d won, what could they possibly have done to infuriate their training officer to that extent?

“Let’s go over that shitshow for a moment. Every single one of you waited until the start of the fight to activate your armour, which made you lose some precious time. What is wrong with all of you?”

For a full two minutes, their new commanding officer accurately and mercilessly pointed out every single thing each cadet had done wrong during the fight, either individually or as a group. And then finally, it came to Jake’s turn for the review.

“Hawkins, why the actual fuck didn’t you use any of your skills during the fight? It might have been the edge you needed to get out of that chokehold earlier, but you instead bit his fucking arm off, you dipshit! Cognition is supposed to be your highest stat by far and the highest one in this promotion, yet you are the worst idiot among all of them.”

Then the First Lieutenant addressed the group as a whole.

“You all better be the fastest learners this Academy has seen in generations, otherwise you won’t make it through the first week of assignment. Now, go back to Officer Gwyra, we will redo this same exercise tomorrow morning.”

Disappointed, the cadets all made their way toward Officer Gwyra, their disappointment palpable, as their training officer exited the training all, mumbling grumpily as he went.

Jake, especially, was almost fuming at the thought of the officer’s reproach. He had worked harder than everyone else during the last three weeks, and he had reached the fifth level of his spec. He had yet to level a single one of his skills since he was actively pouring every spare biotic energy he had into improving his spec, but Ed had already assured him it was the optimal solution to overcome his limitations as soon as possible. In other words, there was nothing else he could do to progress any faster than he was now.

Jake took a deep breath and quickly calmed himself down. Beating himself up over today wouldn’t do him any good. Right now, he needed to train as hard as he could to grow stronger, just like he’d been doing for the past weeks. His growth would speak for itself more than any words he could say to the officer in the long run.

He was still mumbling under his breath when both Ryan and Owens appeared right next to him.

“That wasn’t terrifying at all. Anyone else wishes we’d ended up on First Lieutenant Breyr’s team?” Ryan asked the other two.

“I’m more worried about being with the crazy Kreigen. He wasn’t lying though, we’ll most likely be sent on a mission that is way more than we could possibly handle.” Owens responded, thoughtfully.

“How come?” Jake asked.

“Kreigen are generally both extremely talented as awakened and very prideful, they will usually only accept assignments that are extremely dangerous, which means there’s no doubt we’ve been placed on the riskiest squad, just like he said.” She answered.

“Well, at least it means we won’t get bored over there, that’s pretty good,” Ryan added.

The cadets all made their way back to the dining hall, after which they spent the whole afternoon going through conditioning and hand-to-hand combat techniques. This time, each of the four commanding officers was in charge of teaching their respective squad, with Team Echo and Team Alpha both being under Officer Gwyra’s command.

After the class had finally ended, Jake was about to head to the dining all along with his friends when Officer Neilr called out to him.

“Hawkins, get over here!” He shouted.

Jake quickly made his way toward the officer, after which he saluted him and spoke up.

“Yes, sir! Cadet Hawkins reporting for duty.”

“I hear you chose a weapon you can’t even use, how the hell do you expect to make it past your first day on duty, cadet?”

Jake looked somewhat embarrassed at the officer’s remark, but he still straightened up and answered the First Lieutenant. After all, he had only very recently started combat training with his sword during the last week, and he was still very far from being able to swing the 200-pound sword around fast enough for a fight.

“Yes, sir! For now, I am unable to fight with this weapon but I hope to change that soon. My implant has confirmed to me I will be able to wield it appropriately once my strength reaches around twenty units.”

“Let me put it clearly, cadet. If you are unable to fight with the sword once we reach our assignment’s location, which should be in two weeks if we take into account the time it takes to get there, I will have you removed from this assignment and discharged.”

Jake’s blood froze as the officer’s threat sunk in, and his mind was racing furiously in the search for an appropriate answer.

“I understand, sir. I will not disappoint you.” He simply let out, trying his best not to let his frustration show.

“No, you will not.” The officer mumbled back, and he was gone just like that.

Still shocked, Jake made his way back toward the exit, where Owens and Ryan were both waiting for him.

“Guys, I am so fucked.” He said to the both of them, as an answer to the puzzled looks they were giving him.