Johannes and the rest of his platoon went through many more tests and challenges throughout the next two days. This includes, but is not limited to, half-marathon length runs with and without gear, obstacle courses, strength endurance tests, and time trialed mobilization tests. Despite being chosen from the best performing recruits in basic training, not everyone was able to meet the Trooper’s standards. At the end of day four, a third of them had dropped out.
At the start of the fifth day, in formation once again in the field. The captain, who Johannes still didn’t know the name of, turned on his microphone and said, “Congratulations, you all made it passed the hardest part. From now there will less tests, and more instruction. If you made it this far you have mental and physical strength of a trooper, all you need now is the skill and training.”
Johannes starts to look around with his eyes only, paying less and less attention to the captain looking for Vanir, but settling on Erwin who was just in front of him. He, nor Erwin and Tahvo knew whether he made it through the last day. None of them had seen him since the first six-mile run.
“We are done here. You will retrieve your belongings, and march to camp Namel.” The captain suddenly turns off the microphone and starts walking away, flanked by two more officers. This signals the lead drill sergeant of each platoon to start yelling instructions at their platoons. Johannes’ platoon gets quickly marched back to the barracks where they had just awoken from.
They get funneled into their rooms, and quickly get to work packing their personal items as well as their issued equipment into the pack that had been placed at each of their bunks after they had left to go to formation at the field. Johannes picks up the bag, and notices that it has a weight in it. He sets it down, opening it. He finds the zipper in the inner compartment which holds the weight with his hand and starts to unzip it when a drill sergeant overseeing the recruits walks up to him yelling, “Leave it! Start packing!” Johannes re-zips the inner pouch, and carries the bag over to his locker. Johannes stuffs his already rolled and folded uniforms and other clothing items, his civilian clothes, and his personal items into his bag, then zips it up and throws it over his shoulder.
“Get going!” the same drill sergeant yells as the recruits finish packing and run out of the room, heading out of the building where a growing number of them started getting into formation.
“Two ranks! Keep going” the coyote drill sergeant yells, ushering the first few out to allow room for the rest of the platoon to form up behind them. Johannes falls in, not noticing that Erwin had run up beside him, and stood next to him in the formation. Johannes’ eyes were locked forward, but Erwin kept looking over to see if Johannes noticed him. Johannes keeps his eyes forward, and eventually Erwin gives up.
The Coyote brings out his tablet, and starts walking down the formation. Starting at the front, he visually checks the rank, before stepping to his right and looking back down at his tablet. Getting to Johannes and Erwin, he stops for a second, “you two again?” then he steps again to his right, not letting them answer. When he gets to the end of the formation, he walks back to the front and speaks to a taller wolf, "They're all yours” and gives him the tablet he was holding.
The Wolf drill sergeant, wearing just base uniform and carrying a satchel, stands out from Johannes’ platoon, who were wearing their combat uniforms and packs. He walks in front of the formation and yells, “Forward March!” not wasting any time. The platoon gets underway. At this point they lots of practice marching, so they all perfectly took one step with their left foot, and in unison turned when they reached the main street. Eventually the paved road turned into dirt, and the buildings became more sparse.
A few miles in and when the sun started to rise, the march became less and less synchronized, but still mostly so, and Johannes could hear fellow recruits both behind and in front of him start to talk. Erwin followed this trend by asking Johannes, “Aili or Kallie?”
“Huh?” Johannes says quickly, focusing on breathing and his pace.
“Aila is going to Mausir, studying nursing or something”, Erwin takes a few breaths “But Kallie is a looker.”
“Kailie” Johannes says quickly.
“Why?”
“She’s a Bonnkau.”
Erwin laughs, “Right, is she your cousin or what?”
“No” Johannes dismissingly retorts “I don’t know, maybe like second or third cousin.”
“I’d probably wouldn’t be up to your family’s standard anyways” Erwin says seeming like he had already chose the other option, and looking for an excuse.
“You’ll be a trooper, that should be enough.”
“Yeah?” Erwin asks looking over at Johannes, “Or do you just want me to be 3rd cousin-in-law?” Johannes scoffs and shakes his head.
Erwin is silent for a few moments, but then asks Johannes “You and Emilie, you guys did that vocal school together, like you two had similar interests. I only ever talked to them at school, and that graduation party.”
“Aila seemed to like you though.”
“Maybe, but it was just the one time” Erwin sighs deeply, “Plus who know when we’re getting back anyways.”
Johannes takes a second to think of a response that won’t hurt the situation, finally coming to “Well when we do get back, just wear your uniform, they’ll come to you.”
“Gods, Johannes” Erwin exclaims, “If Emilie wasn’t so into your awkwardness, you’d be worse off than me.”
“You’re just jealous the only girl you’ll be writing to is your mother” Johannes says proud of himself for coming up with that. A couple of the recruits around them, who were eavesdropping their conversation, laugh.
“Fuck you”! Erwin exclaims trying his best not to laugh along with them.
The recruit in front and to the left of Johannes turns around and says “You got a girl? You know they’re going to ship us off right after we’re finished with training, you aren’t going to see her for a long time. You should be worried she’ll feel lonely.”
“No, she won’t do that” Johannes says matter of factly.
“That’s what everyone says” the recruit says without looking back.
“We’re married” Johannes says back, still trying to make his case.
“That’s even worse” the recruit says looking back, “That means she knows you won’t question her.”
Johannes starts to argue back but Erwin nudges him, knowing Johannes won’t say anything worth his breath. The platoon returns to mostly silence, with it occasionally being interrupted by short conversation between recruits close to each other. As the march continued, the terrain turned wilder, trees grew denser with their canopies sometime covering the road. The dirt road narrowed, and the trees seemed to funnel them into a smaller and smaller route.
The first sign they were nearing the camp was the cracks of a blaster firing in the distance. There were both single shots, as well as long burst, but they could not tell in which direction they were being fired in. None of them flinched, and all continued marching as if they heard nothing.
Johannes then heard the engines of an AV, he looked to his right and could see it flying perpendicular and descending. As it reached nearly in front of him about another half mile or so, is stopped and started descending straight down. The Varlet had no visible doors, so he assumed it was some training or supply variant.
The road turns and snakes it way up a small hill, at the top of which sits a small number of buildings. Numbering less than a dozen, they each serve a clear purpose. One acts as a warehouse and a supply station, where teams were shuffling the newly arrived supplies from, and a small gathering of soldiers waiting at the other entrance some hauling new equipment out. Another building is clearly an administrative center, with the army’s motto “Victory will bring us glory and death” along with symbols of both the army and the Eckzahn Union. And another building for the landing pad the Varlet AV had just landed on.
What he didn’t see right away was barracks. At the base near the coast, there were plenty of barracks to house a whole division and more, but here there weren’t any. But as his platoon marched through the camp, Johanes started to make out tents in the forest surrounding the camp. They seemed empty for now but he could see them dotted with equipment and the same duffle bags he was carrying on him.
“Platoon, Halt!” The drill sergeant suddenly yells, catching most of them off guard. Now standing at attention, looking forward the drill sergeant walks to the end of the formation, then pauses before walking past the last rank to meet an officer.
“I’ve got you here” the officer points to his right, where a clearing in the forest where bare, well-traveled dirt spot is. “I’ve got my men coming with your equipment. You got here as just as the supplies did, it’s going to be a minute.” He then turns around and swiftly walks back to the camp.
Flustered, the drill sergeant angerly stomps back to the front of his platoon still standing at attention and stops. “At ease” he says, then immediately walks back down to the end of the formation. The platoon, anticipating their settling down in the clearing, drops their duffle bags and inspect the clearing from the road. Not wanting to subvert the drill sergeant, they kept near the road, practically still in formation and not talking.
Minutes later, a chain of soldiers carrying tent bags and metal boxes and cases walked down the road and past Johannes and his platoon. They watched as they walked into the woods to the clearing and systematically set whatever they were carrying into organized piles. As the last bit of supplies were being offloaded, the officer who walked to the drill sergeant earlier came back up to the wolf and said “That should be everything, the kickoff meeting’s happening in five. I don’t know if you should have them set up now, I’ll tell the captain to give you time after it’s done.”
The drill sergeant just grunts as the officer walks away, he shakes his head, frustrated with the lack of timeliness. “Drop your shit over there” he says pointing at the clearing. The platoon not getting his sense of urgency, meander to the clearing and tactfully drop their bags next to those who they want to stay next to. "Hurry the fuck up! We're not here to go camping!” the drill sergeant yells, prompting the platoon to drop their bags wherever they were standing and rush back to the road and get into formation.
The drill sergeant grumbles, waving the first rank of the formation along, and they start marching forward, back to the small group of buildings. There, they were met with the three other platoons who had gotten there some time earlier. Filling out the company’s square formation, they filed into several more ranks, finally separating Johannes from Erwin.
Johannes in the first rank of the formation, looked forwards as just like at the field a couple of days previous, a small number of officers more drill sergeants walked through the gaps between platoons, inspecting the recruits and talking quietly among themselves.
After everyone settled into formation, the new wolf drill sergeant in charge of Johannes’ platoon, quickly walked to on officer standing at the front of the formation. He talks briefly with him, obviously expressing his anger with the timing of his arrival. The officer waves him off, and the drill sergeant seem to relax a bit.
Another minute or two passed as the company of new recruits stood at attention, awaiting to be addressed by the captain. Finally, he reaches down and turns on the microphone attached to is Ismount and begins talking, “Welcome to Camp Namel, I’m Captain Lantz Adkynsohn.” He pauses for a second, then starts slowly walking into the formation. “In the next few days, you will learn and grow, there will be no more disqualifications. I will push you until you succeed. Whether it a few days, or a month, you will all leave here as a trooper. Starting today, you combat drills, patrolling principles, demolitions, and basic squad ambush and reconnaissance tactics. We’ll begin with closely instructed walkthroughs, but at the end of the week you’ll be doing simulated missions against other squads and platoons.”
The captain turns on his heels and starts slowly walking back, “However, first we will get the most fun part out of the way. Today, your drill sergeant will split each of your platoons off and instruct you on basic and advanced hand-to-hand combat techniques. This is not for your entertainment, and any lollygagging will not be tolerated.”
Reaching his original starting position, he stops and turns around to face the company, “That being said, do not mistake that for not being competitive, each platoon will have a tournament, the best privie in each platoon will face his peer from another platoon. The winner’s platoon will be rewarded.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The captain waited, expecting a rousing cheer or some other reaction, but received none. Nonetheless, he continued “Drill sergeants, Berdysohn especially you, take some time to familiarize your platoon to Namel. Dismissed.”
With the Captain’s speech done, the drill sergeants from each platoon start yelling instructions to their platoons, and soon they each separate from the formation and separately make their way back to their campsites.
“Platoon, halt!” the drill sergeant yells, as he stops and walks to the middle of the now stopped formation, “I hope y’all can be big boys and set up your own tents” the drill sergeant says with his hands on his hips. “There are enough tents for everyone, grab a tent and a partner. I better not see anyone fussing over who their partnering with or I'll put three of you in one, go” The recruits scatter out of the formation, some grabbing their duffle bags full of their personal things, and others heading for the tent bags.
Johannes goes for a tent, he grabs it out of the swiftly dwindling pile and scans the clearing, looking for Erwin. He finds him at the opposite side, and sees that Erwin had also grabbed his duffle bag. Johannes quickly walks over and sets the bag down in front of them, and without saying a word begins to unpack the tent and start setting it up. Working with Erwin, they make quick work of the tent, both of them leaning on the experience they got in summer camps they had both attended.
Johannes couldn’t help himself but to reminisce on how similar this was to that camp, at least the later years of it. Without thinking about what his hands were doing, he recalled that the four of them, Erwin, Vanir, Tahvo and himself, all were very involved and grew closer to each other through that experience. Johannes relaxes somewhat, knowing that they would no doubt make it through this without any problems. Especially Vanir, whom he had not seen since the start of the school.
Coming to, Johannes sees that the tent had been finished, and he was just staring at it while Erin was moving his stuff in, and setting up his sleeping bag. He turns to Johannes and says “you good?”
“Yeah” Johannes replies, and Erwin nods, and finishes setting up. Johannes follows him in and unrolls his bag by flapping it in the air. It spreads out and he flattens the edges. Erwin crouches out of the tent and stands up at the entrance, he looks around, seeing most of their fellow recruits had gotten their tents up, but some were struggling.
Seeing one pair in particular who were having trouble with connecting the poles, Erwin walked over and started to help them. He disconnected the poles they had already connected, “These are backwards”. He flips the pole around and bends it connecting it to the correct joint, then grabs the next pole and connects that one too.
“Thanks” one of them says quietly, seeming embarrassed that they couldn’t figure that out. Erwin says nothing as he returns to him and Johannes’ tent. Johannes meanwhile, is looking busy pushing on the already sunken in spokes.
Seeing that his platoon had finished setting up their tents, the wolf drill sergeant, walks to the center of the clearing and says “breakfast time” as he sets down the box of MREs he had been given by a passing enlisted man taken from the storage building.
The heavy box plumets down making a resounding thud. The recruits who had finished walk up to the box, the drill sergeant standing above it and each carefully take one out. Erwin walks up to the box grabs two.
“Hey, you only get one!” the drill sergeant yells. Erwin tosses one of the MREs to Johannes, who was still at the tent not very eager to get up, and says “Yes sir.” Satisfied, the drill sergeant doesn’t say anything, and continues to stand over the box.
Erwin walks over to the tent, ripping the plastic wrapper of the MRE, and starts to pull out its contents before even sitting down. Johannes, now sitting, opens his looking at Erwin as he starts to crouch down next to him. The two watched on as the last recruits finish setting up their tents and getting their own MRE breakfast.
“Reminds me of last summer” Erwin said, mouth still full with a dry cracker. This pulls Johannes out of another trance, and he says “yeah, I was just thinking of that” back to him.
“Who’s going to win the tournament?” Erwin asks just after taking another bite.
“Huh?”
Erwin swallows, “for the hand-to-hand combat training the captain was talking about.”
Johannes takes a second to think, “Depends” he takes a bite of the protein-paste smeared cracker, “Is it with one of those fake foam blasters or what?”
A recruit sitting next to them roughly five feet away butts in “It is, but I heard they’ll let you do antritten if you get close enough.”
“Where did you hear that?” Johannes asks.
“My brother was a trooper” the recruit responds.
“So is mine, our father trained us in antritten, but he told me that you can’t use it here.”
“Maybe it depends on who’s ref-ing.” the recruit proposes, backing off of his interjection.
Johannes doesn’t say anything, merely going back to eating his MRE. None of them had eaten since early yesterday, and were quite eager to get everything out of their MREs.
... Two hours later...
Johannes finds himself standing in the middle of a circle of recruits, holding a fake blaster shaped stick made of firm foam, and wearing protective headgear. Standing opposite of him, nearly 10 feet away was a skinner wolf, holding the same foam blaster, but not in as confident way. Johannes crouches down into an athletic stance and readies himself awaiting the signal to start.
When he hears the whistle, he carefully inches forward circling around the other wolf, looking for an opening. The two circle around for a few seconds before Johannes, seeing that the other wolf is not giving an opening, starts stepping closer. As he does, the other wolf meets him, stepping forward himself. The other wolf lunges with his blaster pointed at him, and instead of stepping out of the way, Johannes lunges forward himself and drops his foam blaster.
Johannes grabs hold of the other wolf’s right arm, his left hand grabbing his opponent's right wrist and pulls, using his opponent's momentum to force him forward. Johannes steps into him, putting his right foot behind his opponent’s left, then leaning into him with all his weight.
His opponent's balance fails and he falls onto his back with Johannes latched onto his chest, landing on his back the air rushes out of his lungs with Johanne’s weight helping the gas escape. Johannes reaches down for his opponent’s foam blaster snatches it easily out of his hands. With his leg locked in Johannes’ grip, Johannes turns his opponent's fake weapon on him and starts jabbing the barrel into his chest. Johannes could hear muffled yelling, not knowing if it was the crowd cheering him on or the drill sergeants telling him to stop.
The whistle takes him out of his focus and immediately releases the hold he had on his opponent's leg, standing up. Johannes reaches down and offers a hand to his opponent still on the ground catching his breath. Johannes pulls him up, as two drill sergeants came and fetched their equipment.
“Garonsohn, Dimkasohn” A drill sergeant walking to the center of the circle says into the microphone of his Ismount to ensure he was heard over recruits still excited over Johannes’ takedown. Two recruits walk out of the crowd and start putting on the headgear.
Johannes walks over to Erwin, and as he approaches, Erwin playfully punches him on the shoulder and then grabs him and shakes him, “That was fucking great man! He was not ready for that!”
Still a little out of breath, Johannes breaths in then says “He was like forty pounds lighter than me, it wasn’t really fair.”
“Who cares?!” Erwin exclaims, as he hears a whistle and the two recruits who were getting ready to fight start, “The more fights you win the more the better it’ll look for placement. Plus, it’ll get you on the DSs good side”. Johannes brushes him off, turning his attention to the ongoing fight.
The two recruits were trading violent blows, both were giving and receiving swings with their elbows and foam blaster, much more like what was instructed of them. Eventually one grabbed the end of the other’s foam blaster and hit his opponent with the end of his on the top of his chest. This was enough to call the fight in favor of the one who struck the blow, and was declared the victor.
“Vaseksohn, Krekula” the drill sergeant with the microphone yells, tapping his Ismount to mark the winner of the previous match.
“Good luck” Johannes says to Erwin as he walks out into the middle. Erwin doesn’t say anything in return, but acknowledged Johannes by turning around and smiling. Across the circle a painted dog, the only in the platoon, also walks to the center. Each standing next to a drill sergeant on either side, they put on the protective headgear and strap it across their head.
Even from the opposite side of the circle, Johannes knew that Erwin would tower over the smaller dog. Making sure each was ready the drill sergeant in the middle looked at both, confirming they were both wearing their gear and were ready. He blew the whistle, and the painted dog rushed at a full sprint.
Erwin braced by stepping forward and lowering himself to the dog’s level. At the last second the painted dog got lower and attached himself to Erwin’s hips and legs. Attempting to use his smaller stature to throw Erwin off balance, he pushed with his legs and threw his weight into Erwin, but the wolf was too big.
Erwin freed his foam blaster from the painted dog’s grip, and reached it over his back. Turning it around his pushed it into the dog’s back in a stabbing motion. He looked over to the drill sergeant expecting him to separate them, but was met with the drill sergeant’s penetrating gaze.
The painted dog still trying to overthrow Erwin’s balance continued to drive into him, so Erwin grabbed the dog around the hips and pulled him off his feet. Now lacking the ground to push off of, the painted dog thrashed his legs in the air and attempted to get Erwin to release him by using his foam blaster to poke at Erwin’s legs. Erwin leaned back throwing the dog over his shoulder and slamming him down on the grown, and not a pleasing angle.
The drill sergeant blew his whistle and Erwin got off of the painted dog who was groaning in the dirt. Worried that he had hurt him Erwin put his face down to his level and asked “You, okay?”
The painted dog grabbed his back with one hand and undid his headgear with the other.
“Medic!” one of the drill sergeants yells as he kneels down to inspect the painted dog.
“I’m fine, I just need a second. Fuck man, you didn’t have to slam me that hard” the painted dog says sitting up.
Erwin takes off his protective headgear, “Sorry”
A medic with a white armband protruding from his shoulder strap breaks through the line of recruits, but when he sees the painted dog starting to stand up, he slows down his pace. He grabs the painted dog by his arm and starts escorting him back through the line of recruits and away from the circle, the painted dog protesting the whole way.
Erwin returns to the line, and reunites with Johannes. They watch the next fights together, cheering when someone wins, and scouting opponents who might be difficult challengers. Johannes and Erwin both win their next two fights, leaving just four recruits left including them.
Neither wanting to jinx what they could see coming, but as Johannes’ next fight came up, Erwin patted him on the back just after his name was called for this next match “You owe me a fight so don’t lose”
Johannes says nothing trying to focus, and he walks to the center of the circle to retrieve his gear. His opponent was another wolf, but this time they were roughly the same, perhaps he was a bit taller than Johannes.
When the drill sergeant blew the whistle, they started to inch closer to each other, neither making a move. Both were quite tired, having each fought three other opponents in the last hour. Johannes inched closer looking for an opening that his opponent was refusing to give him. When they were about five feet away, Johannes lunged forward, trying to control his opponent's foam blaster. As Johannes gets control of his opponent's blaster, his opponent goes low and attempts to grab behind his knees, forcing him to back off and give up his attempt to grab the blaster.
They separate, but only for a second Johannes’ opponent uses the butt of his foam blaster to swing at Johannes. He avoids the attack, and uses the opening to grab the leg of his opening while his weight was on the other foot. He wastes no time and topples his opponent, ensuring to control his opponent's blaster when he hits the ground.
His muscle memory takes over and he puts his opponent in a leg-lock, before realizing his error a second later, and spins around, grabbing his own foam blaster on the ground and driving the barrel of it into the side of his opponent's chest.
The drill sergeant blows his whistle, and the two separates but both remain on the ground.
Johannes takes off the protective headgear and hands it to the drill sergeant standing next to him. He then returns to the line of recruits.
Erwin’s fight was next, he found his opponent much easier than Johannes did his. The fox he faced was quick, but as soon as Erwin grabbed his foam blaster, he was able to use his strength to overpower him.
The crowd of recruits' cheers and yells ramped up, as Johannes walked into the circle taking the gear from the fox and readying himself at the far end of the circle from Erwin.
The drill sergeant refereeing the matches walked over to Johannes and said to him “We’re going to wait for him to catch his breath, okay?”
“Yes, sir” Johannes said back, his eyes still focused on Erwin staring him down. Johannes knew how Erwin fought, and Erwin him. They had practiced together not only for trooper, but both of their father’s pit them up against each other when they were very young and trained in antritten and wrestling with each other. Both knew how each other fights, but no one else knew that.
A minute or two passed, and the drill sergeant walked over to Erwin, “You ready privie?”
“Yes, sir” Erwin replied still a little out of breath, but anxious to the fight started. The drill sergeant walked to the middle of the circle and looked over to Johannes, who was already in an athletic stance.
The drill sergeant blows his whistle, and like before the two inch closer to each other, circling around both looking for an opening.
Johannes knows they could dance around each other forever, and decided to surprise Erwin by making the first move. Erwin thinking that this would be just another rematch of the thousands of fights they had done together was not ready, and didn’t react to Johannes grabbing his foam blaster quick enough. Using his right arm, he attempts to rip it out of Erwin’s hands, but he holds on tight. This left himself open though, and Erwin use the fact the Johannes only had one hand on his weapon and closed the distance leveraging his body and weight to rip and pull Johannes' foam blaster out of his hand.
Johannes gives up, letting go of his weapon, and instead using Erwin’s height advantage against him and grabs Erwin’s leg pulling up and attempting to topple him. Erwin breaks free though, and Johannes soon finds himself without his foam blaster standing against Erwin with both. Erwin throws Johannes’ foam blaster away into the crows, and Johannes seizes the opportunity and rushes him. Johannes grabs Erwin’s weapon, and now they were both fighting for control of it.
Erwin put his leg inside and around Johannes left leg, and attempts to throw Johannes over his shoulder, but Johannes’ grip and balance was too strong and he only made them both spin around.
At this point the crowd of recruits were cheering much louder than they had before, the most even fight so far providing lots of entertainment. This excitement attracted drill sergeants and officers from the other platoons to wonder over and push through the crowd and watch.
Johannes seeing that them fighting over the foam blaster wasn’t going anywhere decides to switch up is strategy, and instead of grabbing his weapon, he grabs Erwin’s right arm. He pushes Erwin’s arm, still holding his weapon, away and he steps into Erwin pushing his shoulder into his side. Johannes grabs Erwin’s knees and pushes with his shoulder, and steps in between Erwin’s legs and then outside Erwin’s left leg. Erwin is thrown off balance, and Johannes is able to slam him onto the ground.
Johannes immediately got on top of him and started to wrestle for control of Erwin’s foam blaster again. However, with his new positional disadvantage, Erwin was not able to control it. Tried as he might, he kicked and threw his body weight around, but Johannes pinned him down and pushed the weapon out of his hand. Erwin was quick to grab Johannes’ newly acquired foam blaster, but still being pinned, his strength faltered and eventually Johannes was able to push the end of it onto Erwin’s chest, signaling the drill sergeant to whistle ending the fight.
Johannes sat onto of Erwin for a second catching his breath, before jumping up and holding out a hand for Erwin. Johannes pulled Erwin up and Erwin used that momentum to force Johannes into a hug. Johannes tolerated it for a second before letting go. Erwin laughed and let him out.
They both took off their headgear and gave it to the drill sergeants next to them. The drill sergeant refereeing the match beckoned Johannes over, and he stepped over. He grabbed Johannes' wrist and threw it in the air, signaling that he had won and was the platoon’s Champion set to face the other platoon’s winners.