Hello, this is the Supreme Leader of the Great Beatrix Army, Beatrix 1c. Surrounding me to my left and right as well as backside are the elites of my army, Beatrix 12c, Beatrix 19c, and Beatrix 26c. Across from me, overlooking the ten gathered soldiers in the same way I and my elites are, is the second in command of the Great Beatrix Army, Beatrix 10c. And under us, lined up in five rows of two fish each, are the Brave soldiers that make up the Grand Beatrix Army, Beatrixes 9c, 11c, 14c, 15c, 20c, 21c, 24c, 27c, 28c, and 29c.

In total, these fourteen fish soldiers are the grand culmination of fifty six—that’s right fifty-six grueling days of experimentation and training.

And now, to showcase the level of fine control this army has achieved, a little show for you,,,

Ba-dum-dum bam-bam…

…

…….

Please imagine ten fish shaking their bodies and swimming in a very impressive and very mesmerizing fashion, all while accompanied by some wonderful music. Thank you.

Anyway, as you can see from the incredible performance that the Beatrice Army totally just put up, I’ve been spending nearly two months working on and refining my control over my clones.

That’s right, after spending two whole days sulking due to losing the original Beatrix army and the XP they carried, I decided to take the same advice a helpful stranger would give you in such a situation.

I got gud.

No, seriously, I ended up having to basically ‘git gud’ at being a fish and controlling my clones, since my powers don’t exactly come with very convenient numbers that I could raise to get stronger. Nor did training my fish body increase my strength in any way.

Trust me, I wasted a month training with no gains to show for all the effort.

Which meant the only thing I could improve was my skills and technique. So I did. And that’s how I ended up with the Grand Beatrix Army you see right now.

So let me tell you how I got to this point. See, after I had gotten bored of sulking and the sting of losing all that progress stopped hurting as much as it did, I started playing back the moment where everything went to shit. Trying to figure out what went wrong and what I could change.

At first, I…thought that the solution might be to ‘level up’ myself. See, my logic was that since I was reincarnated with powers, then I was basically like the main character or a story and should therefore be able to strengthen myself with some training, and become this really powerful fish that could shock the world with her might!

So I decided to train to become that strong. Or at least, I tried to.

After creating another clone, Beatrix 8c, with what remained of my energy, and using it to gather enough energy to create another three clones for a total of four, I decided to train what seemed like the most obvious thing for a fish to ‘power up’. Its speed. And I did so by lining up myself against my other clones and then giving them all the command to swim as fast as they could in a straight line as I did the same. And that was something that I repeated over, and over, and over again.

The reason why I chose this method was for two reasons. First, having the clones racing against me gave me something to compete against and therefore helped to push me further. And second, it allowed me to test out a few theories, such as if my clones can independently improve with training or if using them to train can somehow help the original me become stronger.

Sadly, the only thing I discovered after a month of doing that and other exercises was that there was no way for me to increase my physical ‘stats’ no matter how hard I tried. So I was forced to abandon my training regimen and accept that I would never be some overpowered fish who could slap a shark to death with a swipe of her fin.

But it wasn’t like the entire month was a waste. A month of constantly using my clones, which had grown by ten by the end, surprisingly, made me better at commanding and controlling them. Which is what led me to decide that if I couldn’t increase my physical abilities, then I might as well increase my skills.

And boy was that a productive endeavor compared to the previous.

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See, the wonderful thing about clones is that they’re all, well, me. And one of the really cool quirks that came with this was that I could improve my skills while moving my consciousness to another Beatrix and using that body to train, and whatever I improved during that period actually carried over with me.

Think about it like learning how to play an instrument. Even if I chose to learn how to play guitar while using one of my clones, that ability and the muscle memory I gained carried with me back into the original body and any clone I used. Which is how I was able to get ten fish to dance around in perfect coordination.

Now, as you could guess from the number of the remaining Beatrixes, I did end up losing quite a few of them to my training. And a big part of that was definitely my fault. I started getting careless when using a clone.

Now it wasn’t like that at first, when I first started training by having fish purposefully chase after me, I really was doing my best to make sure that that clone didn’t end up becoming fish food. But after a few failures, and then knowing that at the last second I was always able to switch back to my original body, I sort of started getting desensitized to getting one of my clones killed.

I mean, they were me, right? And I was the one controlling them while I let myself get chased around to improve my swimming and dodging abilities, so if an accident happened, it wasn’t like anyone was but me was suffering. So I wasn’t becoming a bad person, right?

Right?

Please say so.

So yeah, I kind of got a little reckless with my training during that second month. But the benefits from constantly finding myself in life or death chases were simply too incredible to pass up. No wonder they constantly use that in stories as a method of training. Although I guess most people don’t have the luxury of having a back up, or two to play around with.

Or thirty.

Point is, I was able to get away with some very risky, but effective, training. And while I was doing that I learned one more thing, that the more time I spent using one of the clones, the better my control of it was when I went back to my original body. Meaning that when I wanted to take control over the whole group, those fish that I’d spent time personally controlling responded better and faster to my commands. Which is how I ended up picking my elites and the second in command. As you can probably guess, I spent quite a lot of time as Beatrix 10c.

And that takes me to the last part of the training. Controlling all the Beatrixes and creating proper fish tactics to fight against other fishes. As for this part, I won’t tell you. Instead, I’ll show you what I’ve mastered over the last month.

So let’s get this started.. First, Beatrix army, move to your hiding places! As for me and my elites, we’ll stay up here where we can overlook the battlefield. Can’t have a repeat of the chaos of last time after all.

And as for my safety, even if something decides to hunt me while this is going on, I know I can count on my elites to buy me the time and create the opportunities that i’ll need to escape to safety.

Now for the last part of this set up, I’ll be switching my consciousness over to Beatrix 10c and using it as bait to garner the attention of the same fish that defeated me last time.

That’s right, this is going to be a replay of my last attack. But don’t worry, I know the saying that insanity is trying the same thing and expecting a different result. But the thing is, I won’t be trying the same thing. This time I’m certain in my victory, just watch.

After a bit of swimming, I was once more able to catch the attention of one of the fish I wanted. And just like last time, it was soon on my tail as it chased after me. But unlike last time, despite the fact that I wasn’t any faster than before, my increased proficiency in swimming and in dodging allowed the first part of the plan to go off much smoother than before, and the fish was much closer to the seafloor than before. Which meant that all that was left was to make a straight line towards the ambush point.

And just like last time, I was once more only a few feet away from the ambush point, and then 3, 2, 1…

Go Beatrix Army! Ram into the enemy!

Unlike last time where the plan was just to bite into the fish, this time I sent all ten Beatrix soldiers to ram against the fish. With five of them attacking from the front while four attacked from sides and one from under.

This time around, even with the fish’s fast reaction, which led to the incapacitation of three Beatrixes, it was unable to dodge the blows and therefore was left immobilized for a short moment.

But that moment was all I needed.

Taking the advantage of the opportunity, I sent the signal for my three elites to dive and ram into the fish’s head at full speed. Which they did and succeeded in knocking the fish out. And just like that, the battle was over.

This wasn’t like last time, when my plan had been to just steal a bite of the fish. No, this time around, I wanted my revenge. To defeat the fish and show that I had what it took to one day conquer these seas, and then the world.

Triumphant, I personally swam down towards the fish.

If I wanted to be careful, I could have left my original body back home and Beatrix 10c as my ‘command fish’ for the operation. But I decided against it. For one, I was pretty confident in my ability to escape trouble, especially with my elites around.

And two…

I bit into the fish, feeling a familiar energy course through me as the Beatrix clones disappeared and fused into me. And when this was over, a jingle that had been sorely missed for more than two months resounded through my head.

How would I have left my house after becoming so big?