November 18, 623

When the sun dipped over the horizon, the Snow Doves – recently returned, debriefed, and briefed yet again – went out on their Steeds back into the cold and darkening forest.

Already in the field, Pollux and his half of the Pathfinders were busy gathering information for us when we rendezvoused.

As for me? I would lead Squads Two and Four, as well as our three infiltrators, to finally kick off the insertion.

The three Chiefs, two knights and a warlock, had been taught exactly what I needed them to do and how to do it for every day that they were behind enemy lines. Analysis was unneeded. They just needed to log everything they saw in a somewhat organized way. Intelligence could crunch the numbers, but we needed the crucial raw data to even begin.

Both the fact they could somehow still not provide information properly and that I even had that thought at all irked me to no end, but we were beyond the point where I could shove myself into the infiltration team. It was too late to even complain out loud; my concerns only echoed in the confines of my mind.

I could only make sure things went as well as they could.

“You’re leaving at a bad time.”

Jasmine muttered beside me, face scrunched. My two squads of Pathfinders were packing what little remained to be packed. We would be deploying in less than 10 minutes.

“I’d prefer if we could receive word from base before you left. If the order to retreat from the Treehouse came down, we might not be able to ensure your safety.”

“We can make it work. I tripled our ration supplies. We could spend the next month out there and be completely fine.”

Jasmine still didn’t seem convinced.

“Just make sure you get out there safely. Err on the side of caution. If things are too risky, pull out and preserve lives.”

“If things at the entrance to the crossing are really that bad, then I can’t imagine how things are beyond it. We need this information. I’m going to get it one way or another if it means the generals will act on it.”

I thought about what might be happening with the newly discovered Scourge armies and Bombardos. While this was a matter of life or death for Treehouse and Stronghold Charlie, I had no idea what other, possibly worse, issues the Kingdom was facing at the moment.

I wasn’t expecting lightning fast strategic responses, but the Kingdom at least had instant communication. A decision had to be reached quickly, but whether that resulted in an equally rapid mobilization was up in the air.

The issue here was that the Scourge was sending an army that it shouldn’t have bothered to send. The reason Stronghold Charlie, and by extension, the Treehouse, was so understaffed was because the Scourge never bothered to send massive armies due to the complex terrain. It was too logistically difficult.

And yet, here they were, scrambling over the harsh terrain with heavy artillery and a hundred thousand monsters to boot.

The “how” was certainly important – I had a suspicion that would be how we might repel their incursion – but the “why” was equally important. Did they really have that many lives to throw away on the harsh terrain? Or did they have some form of superior logistical magitech? Whatever it was, we needed to know.

This mission would be the biggest step toward that end.

Once the Pathfinders were done loading, I walked over and grabbed onto a metal handle on the Steed.

“I’ll check in before we go dark.”

“Mm. Stay safe Cooper.”

I gave her a salute in response, which she returned before heading into headquarters.

I looked around at the four Steeds that comprised our convoy, all of them ready.

Then, I spoke into the Aerial.

“Green light, Pathfinders. Let’s roll.”

……

…

November 20, 623

Thankfully, the route I picked was just as clear as I hoped it would be. I had been worried ever since finding that Scourge army in the ravine, but since this one was on the other side of the map, Scourge presence was nearly nonexistent, as I figured it would be. I was happy to be right.

Unfortunately, I should’ve rethought which squads I gave to Pollux before he left. I hadn’t been worried before but now it was coming back to be a pain in my ass.

That irritating voice came through the general channel on my Aerial.

“Hey pipsqueak, can we stop for the night already?”

“Negative, First Sergeant. We’ve got a schedule to stay on.”

“You’re really forcing us to drive for 20 hours at a time?”

“Please keep this channel clear for any emergencies. Thank you.”

I kept my voice as professional as I could, despite how incredibly annoyed Eric’s voice made me. I found some solace in ignoring his subsequent comments and complaints. It wasn’t like I was comfortable either, but a knight like Eric had no right to bitch and complain. He was lucky that he was still a rank higher than me. Even though I had operational command, I couldn’t just shut him down.

I’d be putting in for another promotion when I got back to the Stronghold, whenever that would be.

The first two days of the trip passed uneventfully. Nothing to fight, nothing to hide from. Boring was just the way I wanted it to be.

We had gone dark not long into the first day, and would stay that way for the duration of the mission. We had no connection to base; there wouldn’t be reinforcements if something went wrong.

I didn’t mind that either. I enjoyed this kind of independence. I frequently reminded myself that this was my mission. I wasn’t here to just follow along, I was leading… and needed to act like it.

Of course, I was acutely aware of my position as the ‘commanding officer’. I was the lowest ranking man here, and, like with Eric, I couldn’t pull rank on anybody, nor could I expect to be treated as if my position was a given.

Our position (Eric discounted) was one of equal exchange though. The Pathfinders tended to trust my plans; I had served well as Liaison and impromptu tactical advisor. If I didn’t act like a prick, lording my position over these soldiers, they too would trust my commands and think before acting. I didn’t have to wrangle them.

On the contrary, all I had to do for the duration of our travel was make sure we were on the right course and pick out good camping spots. Otherwise, I was spending most of my day working on my formations and projecting through my 5th Star in search of more weapons.

My primary focus was on my advancement formation, but I was also spending energy on developing the Mind Palace technique. I had made some headway, but it would be a drawn out process until I could run the idea by Maxwell, perhaps even enlisting him to help. That required me to get back to the Capital though.

I wondered if the military knew the concept of vacation days. There was no way they were holding soldiers in these bases for decades at a time. There had to be some opportunity to visit home.

Not that I had a home to visit. I just wanted to see Umara.

Either way, it wouldn’t be soon, so I focused on training instead. We had three more days until we arrived at our target area. Besides the ass-numbing drives, this was a nice break from the normal bustle of the bases. Peace in the middle of nowhere.

The calm before the storm.

……

Two more days passed, and we settled for the night.

Camp was set up, dinner was made, and it was almost time to retire.

I called out.

“Dennis and Smithson, you’re on night watch tonight.”

“Roger.”

“Mm.”

I received two unenthusiastic replies.

“Hey summoner, why don’t you take watch instead of making everyone else do it? Aren’t you the one with good eyes?”

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Plus one nuisance.

I sighed.

“Same reason I’m not making our drivers take watch, First Sergeant. We need our sleep. You all can sleep in the Steeds. I need to navigate.”

“Please, not like you don’t just sit on your ass all day doing whatever you want. You think you get full authority just because you’re the ops commander?”

“I get enough to ensure that we don’t stray from the mission objectives.”

I looked over at Eric, who was quickly getting on my nerves. He had a knack for pissing people off.

“Do you question Commander Pollux this much, First Sergeant?”

“No, bu-”

“Then I expect you to do what’s necessary in order to carry out this mission, especially listening to me. Contrary to what you might think, I’m not stupid. I only put together this whole mission and all. And we will not stray from the plan just because you don’t care for me giving out night watch duties, or because you don’t care to listen to a summoner.”

“I also don’t care to be interrupted, fucking smartass. Since you seem to know fucking everything, why couldn’t you guess that? And how about you pipe down when your superiors are talking, since now you do know!”

“...”

I stared at him blankly, hardly dumbfounded. I probably should’ve left him behind… or put him with Pollux. I guess I was stupid for not thinking of that. I’d take care not to make that mistake again.

The depths of his idiocy were infinite, and his penchant for making problems equally vast.

So it made perfect sense for him to mistake my silence for slack-jawed stupidity. Projection and all that.

“The fuck are you looking at, summoner?”

“... First Sergeant.”

I had opened my mouth to speak, but it wasn’t me who had called Eric. Chief Reginold, a scowl on his face, flanked by the two other Chiefs, had raised his cool gaze to Eric.

Eric turned around to Reginold.

“... Yes?”

“Come here. Now.”

“...”

Eric was silent as he stood and walked over, leaning on one foot once he stood in front of Chief Reginold.

“Yes si-”

“Salute your fucking superiors, and present yourself correctly.”

“...”

Eric stood there silently, stunned for a moment. He looked around, everyone else dead silent and watching him.

Reginold barked.

“Now, First Sergeant!”

“Sir! Yes sir!”

Eric snapped off a salute, back ramrod straight.

“Now what the fuck are you doing in front of me, First Sergeant?!”

“Sir, reporting as requested!”

“Alright then! Listen closely.”

Chief Reginold glanced at me before continuing.

“This mission that we’re currently conducting has been created with very careful planning, because even the smallest mistakes will mean that I, as well as the two Chiefs beside me, will face far greater danger within enemy territory once we insert. And the only person who’s taken consideration of our lives here is our Operational Commander.”

He fell silent for a moment. Eric let his jaw hang open, in the middle of aborting a remark better left unsaid, when Reginold finally raised his voice.

“I will NOT let some sniveling First Sergeant endanger our lives! You will listen to EVERY word and command your Operational Commander gives to you from now on, without question nor critique, because he knows more about what’s required of everyone here than you ever will. Is that understood?!”

“Yes sir!”

Eric continued saluting. He had no choice before the sheer might of an Authority 9 Chief, someone he could never hope to match up against.

However, despite being face to face with an Authority Nine warlock, he wasn’t sufficiently cowed. I could feel the sheer rage in his Aura, as if he were trying to kill Chief Reginold with his mind.

And if I could feel it, so too could they.

Chief Reginold stood, looking down at Eric. It seemed like Eric’s own anger had pissed Reginold off. I was sure that from Reginold’s perspective, Eric was acting defiant because he didn’t understand why he should fear, or respect, the power of a Chief.

“Are you sure, First Sergeant? Would you salute your Ops Commander in apology, then?”

“... No sir. We don’t salute our inferiors in the military.”

“Well then, today we’re going to step out of our comfort zone. I’d bet my life that Captain Cooper will rise to your rank equivalent and soon surpass it long before you could ever hope to rise to the rank of Commander. And since he has command of this operation, I want you to act like it. Go over there and salute him.”

“Sir-”

Eric was about to speak in protest when Reginold raised his hand with lightning speed, backed by the power of water and earth. He grabbed Eric’s neck and then brought him down, slamming his face into the dirt. I could feel the tremor under my feet.

I kept watching without a word, thinking about how this would both help and hinder me.

Reginold bellowed.

“I will not hear the slightest hint of protest from you, especially against me! You are nothing more than a liability to us! If you dare to threaten the integrity of this operation with your sheer retardation, then I will find a Scourge encampment and let them skin you alive! I would sooner kill you myself than risk my life by letting you step out of line! So do as I say, how I say it, and when I say it! Do you fucking understand?! Or do I need to engrave this in your skull?!”

“I understand, sir!”

Eric yelled his response, his face half uncovered by dirt.

Then, Reginold stood with him in hand and threw him to the ground at my feet.

“Then salute your fucking Ops Commander, and apologize!”

“...”

Eric crawled to his feet, looking at me with sheer hatred before saluting.

“Sir! I apologize for my actions!”

“Mm. Thank you for the apology, First Sergeant.”

I didn’t smile, but I did salute him back lazily. Another thing I did was transmit the amusement I was feeling in my Aura straight to Eric while withholding it from everyone else.

I wanted him to know just how happy I was to see him getting treated like this. I wanted him to know that I would revel in this. I wanted him to hate me with every fiber of his being.

‘You’re a fucking pussy.’

I muttered that in my mind, sending those words straight to his. Nobody but him could hear it, and it made him positively livid.

His hand moved in the direction of my neck, quickly, but not quick enough. I soon saw his body go flying toward a nearby boulder, hitting it so hard that he went through it and tumbled into another, cracking it.

I could see blood stream out of his mouth.

“Haah… Healer, don’t bother healing him. He’s a knight. He can tough it out.”

Chief Reginold let out a sigh and straightened his clothes out, cooling down his brief anger.

He nodded to me.

“Captain Cooper, please continue with what you were saying.”

“Yes sir.”

I gave him a quick salute as he went to go sit back down. Then, I continued with my orders for the night.

“Dennis and Smithson, you’re on watch tonight. Like the last few nights, if you see anything at all, especially indications of a scout, come get me. We’re getting close to Commander Pollux but I’d still like to remain concealed for a bit longer. As for sleeping tonight, we need to be up in nine hours. Be fully rested. Tomorrow, we’ll be getting close to a lot of Scourge activity. We need to be battle ready. That’s all. I’ll be in my tent if anyone needs me.”

I quickly wrapped up my orders for the night and walked off before anyone could formally respond. Everyone was on edge after Reginold made a First Sergeant grovel at my feet, and I didn’t want them to think that such treatment was for anyone else beyond Eric. While I wasn’t necessarily trying to make friends with everyone, I didn’t want people to avoid me either. Not for matters of socialization, but because I wasn’t some tyrant. I needed to know if anything was going on with my soldiers, or risk overlooking details that would jeopardize our mission – and our lives. If they feared even talking to me, it wouldn’t end well for any of us.

Still, this little display would definitely affect how people treated me, at least in these squads. Although I didn’t mind that Eric wanted me dead. If he really stepped out of line, I’d have every justification to put him down, whether that was by ejecting him from the Pathfinders altogether or actually riding him from life.

I wanted this flight risk gone. This situation could be twisted to my advantage.

As I walked back to my tent, brushing the heavy rainproof flaps out of the way, I sighed. Navigating the trails and projecting into my dimensions simultaneously was incredibly tiring, and I wanted at least eight hours of sleep. With all the analysis and planning work recently, the past week had been four or five hour sleeps a day with catnaps in between, interrupted by urgent reports of a Scout troop or Bombardo prints being spotted that left me, Jasmine, and Hendrix ragged.

That was all to say that I was out not long after I hit my pillow.

……

…

“C-Captain Cooper…”

“Hm?”

My eyes opened, someone just outside my tent and calling my name.

I looked at my Aerial. It had only been seven hours. It would have do.

“Captain Cooper?”

“What? What is it?”

I got up and considered throwing my flap open in irritation, but settled for plushing it a little more forcefully than necessary. Having to wake up just an hour before departure pissed me off, but the memories of last night were still vivid in my mind, not that they ever weren’t. I couldn’t take out my anger on people. Other than Eric.

Smithson, his hand resting uneasily on the pommel of his sword, was nervously glancing around outside. His gaze settled on me, and, although I felt a flicker of fear, there was more relief and assurance.

“I think you might want to see this. There’s movement on that cliff.”

“What kind of movement?”

“I’m not sure…”

I marched off with him to a Steed surrounding our camp, donning my mask and hood to keep out the bitter cold. He pointed off at some flickers of light on a clifftop silhouetted by trees.

My eyes widened.

There were four Cyclops Scouts, and a sizable escort of spiked wolves. Under normal circumstances, our Chiefs would’ve been able to wipe them out easily, but not before they exposed our position.

But these weren’t normal circumstances.

A large group of Flickers, ephemeral flashes of light among the dense tree trunks, were tearing the Scout troop apart, grappling with hesitantly backpedaling wolves and pouncing in packs on the larger Scouts.

Since they weren’t far though, I took a knee and brought out my Springfield, scope mounted and silencer threaded.

Even with empowerment, the silencer didn’t do too much to muffle the sound. But it would prevent the loudest of the noise from attracting anything in the surrounding area. It would be the best I could do.

I started picking off enemies, helping the Flickers best I could. A Scout, covered in vicious blurs of light, charging a beam attack. A wolf behind a tree trunk, ready to pounce on the creature tearing apart its comrade. The battle was over quickly and I only let off eight rounds, killing just as many, but it was something.

A few stragglers still struggled, but they were quickly dispatched by overwhelming force. The Flickers settled down, walking around the carnage they had so effortlessly wrought.

A few turned to look at us.

From 350 meters away, I stared at the graceful amalgamations that served as their bodies, and felt them looking right back at me, deeper than most ever had. I had a feeling their Auras could make do in place of their eyes.

The last Flicker to have turned to me let out a whistle of sorts, and the group turned and trotted off, pulling their dead, and leaving my line of sight.

I sent my gun away and rubbed my chin.