My teammates and I stand across the expanse of the training field from Troy’s team, and Troy and I lock eyes. From across the battlefield, I see Troy’s mouth quirk up just a touch.

  On our side, Baylee looks almost bored. We’ve rolled over every team we’ve faced so far, and I can see everyone on our side expects to do so again here. I, however, am not too certain. Troy looks too confident, and I haven’t forgotten that his team hasn’t lost yet, either.

  The competitive spirit inside me, the part of me that makes me love archery and archery competitions, whispers that we will finally get a challenge worthy of our skill. Troy has always been the best at swordplay in school, and I suddenly find myself very worried about Akari and Claire going up against him. They might have an edge in real-world experience, but when it comes to one-on-one fighting, Troy has a massive advantage.

  “Same opening, everyone,” Baylee says, finally focusing on the fight.

  Gently, I put a hand on her arm. “We shouldn’t spread out this time… I think that will come back to bite us.”

  In our previous battles, my mist has proven a near overwhelming advantage. Even if enemy teams keep together, we can surround them and fire ranged attacks from dozens of different directions while Akari and Claire dart in and out of the mist to make lightning-quick strikes. This time, though, I think we should try a more standard approach.

  Baylee glances at me, her irises gleaming the iridescent pink color of her assault state. “We could fall back into the formation we used in the incursion zone, I suppose,” she says, her tone considering. It seems she’s finally started to see Team Firestorm as a threat.

  I nod, “No one has seen us use that formation yet. I just… I have a feeling that they have a plan for the mist. Troy looks too confident.”

  Baylee shrugs and turns to pass the new command to the others.

  As I wait for Prof to start the match, I look over Team Firestorm with a critical eye. The team has a number of members with the fire domain leading to their name. Troy, their arrogant prick of a leader, has proven in his other matches to be a formidable threat. His body can become coated in crimson flames that allow him to move with incredible speed and even infuse the flames into strikes with his weapons — although that aspect of the ability was banned by Prof.

  Absently, I think back to something Althia said in our meeting. She briefly mentioned that nine royal centurions were sent to Japan — not five. In light of everything else we discussed at the time, I didn’t think about that comment much. Now, however, I look across at Troy’s team and wonder — did one of those centurions end up as one of their familiars? Is that why they’re so strong? Or maybe they’re just a normal team of sentinels who just so happen to have immensely talented members, and the other four centurions were sent to Tokyo. I suppose only time will tell.

  “Team Picnic, are you ready?!” Prof calls from the balcony, where he’s been engaged in a heated discussion with someone standing out of sight. As I glance up, I’m surprised to find Kayne striding forward to stand beside Prof, waiting to watch the battle.

  “Ready!” Baylee calls back.

  Power starts to burn behind the eyes of my teammates as we look up and see Kayne. No one wants to disappoint him. We need to prove that we’re worth the effort he’s been putting into training us.

  “Team Firestorm, ready?” Prof asks, and all the other new sentinels start crowding close to the edge of the balcony to watch the fight. Who knows, maybe they’ll actually be able to see something this time.

  “Ready!” Troy yells, although his eyes remain fixed on me.

  Prof glances from Baylee to Troy and gives a slight smile. “Begin!”

  Everyone leaps into action, and as I’ve done at the start of every battle, I thrust my hands out to the sides. Dense blue-white mist instantly starts to form around me, and-

  I scream, falling to my knees and clutching my head. Suddenly, I can see every detail of the battlefield in crisp detail and hear everything: people chatting as they walk nearly a kilometer away, keyboards clacking in offices multiple levels above and below, and the deafening sound of sand shifting and grinding underfoot as people run. Melody’s ability to enhance my senses isn’t technically an attack, so it slides right past my assault state barrier.

  “Celeste!” I cry mentally, “Help!”

  [On it!] Celeste yells in my mind, and mist explodes out of her as she wields my powers herself.

  The second the mist is safely surrounding me, my senses snap back to normal in a sensation so nauseating I nearly wretch right there on the ground. Right… Melody’s abilities probably have to do with line of sight. If she can’t see me, she can’t affect me. Stars, though, that’s awful to deal with.

  Finally getting my bearings, I stand up and look around to see everything falling apart around me. Haruto fell the second I cloaked myself in mist, and now he lies curled in a ball as he clutches his head and attempts to cover his ears. That leaves Akari standing alone in front of Baylee and me, her sword brandished as four members of Team Firestorm blitz her.

  Baylee fires a powerful bolt of magic from the weakened wand she was given from the fight, which hits one of Team Firestorm’s members, a man whose hands blaze with flame and wears a bright red assault state uniform. The bolt slams him straight in the chest, not taking him out of the match but sending him stumbling back a few steps.

  Troy takes the moment to move, lightning fast, to dart around Akari and come straight for me. Akari, her eyes blazing violet, reacts fast enough to swipe at him, but he expertly ducks under the attack and thrusts his straight-edged blade straight at my chest… it meets only empty air as I vanish into mist.

  I appear a moment later, standing atop a tall rock. My immediate reaction is to send an arrow flashing towards the red sentinel who’s already taken a hit from Baylee. Still off balance, his assault state shield flashes as red as his outfit, marking him as out of the fight when the arrow hits him.

  I’m about to start spreading my mist further, but I don’t get a second to breathe. Troy is on me again instantly, blade flashing at my throat! I teleport, but my mist doesn’t have the kind of spread I need to get any real distance!

  As I arrive in a small gravelly pit to one side of the arena, I notice that Troy is almost to me already! How is he so fast!?

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  Knowing that I can’t keep teleporting indefinitely — I’ll run out of mana — so I try to take a swipe at him with the edge of my bow, hoping to take him off-guard. Simulating my real bow, this training bow has fake-edged limbs, allowing it to score a cut much like Troy’s fake sword can.

  Troy, however, is the master at close-quarters combat, and my half-hearted swipe doesn’t even seem to surprise him. He darts past my bow’s edged limb and lands a cut on my extended arm that makes my barrier flash blue to block. I wince; one more strike like that, and I’ll be considered dead for this exercise.

  I teleport again, trying to make some distance. Celeste continued spreading my mist, making it easier for me to get further away from Troy. However, he seems to have learned my pattern and is once again nearly upon me as I appear. Desperately, I try to get an arrow nocked and drawn, but he’s just too fast. His blade finds my chest, and my barrier flashes red.

  With an infuriating wink, Troy rushes off to join his teammates in assaulting Team Picnic’s remaining members.

  Sighing, I let all of my mist dissipate off the field and slink to one far edge to join the red sentinel I eliminated before going down myself. Silently, we watch the remaining battle.

  Troy eliminating me was a massive blow to Team Picnic, but Claire makes up for it with an even greater one. At the start of the fight, she rushed across the field to assault Melody, who didn't go forward with her teammates. Now, Melody finds herself being harried by Claire, who doesn’t give her time to focus and use her dominion art.

  Instead of focusing her attention on Claire, Melody keeps attempting to keep up the distraction on Haruto, but that lack of focus on her immediate situation costs her. Claire manages to pen Melody in the corner of the arena and eliminate her with several strikes from her massive blade.

  With Melody out, the fight turns in my team’s favor for the first time since the start of the match. No one bothered eliminating Haruto while he was down, and he rejoins the fight with a vengeance — keeping enemies off of Baylee while she blasts away with her wand.

  The remaining fight was one of the most bloody so far. Troy and his teammates are monsters in close quarters, eventually managing to eliminate Akari and then Claire. However, they lose two more of their own in exchange as Baylee continues to tag them with her blasts.

  This leaves Troy as the last one standing for Team Firestorm, attempting time and again to breach the impenetrable wall that is Haruto to reach the vulnerable Baylee. Yet, Haruto is just too quick with his barriers; even as skilled as Troy is, he can’t manage to avoid Baylee’s blasts and Haruto’s hammer forever.

  Eventually, Troy goes down, and the match is called for Team Picnic. Yet, as we all gather at the side of the arena, no one seems sad or even disappointed. It was an incredibly close fight that really could have gone either way.

  We stand together on the field as we wait for the elevator to come down to bring us up to the balcony platform. Almost as soon as the match is over, we begin discussing it.

  “Melody, was it?” Haruto says, rubbing his head. “That dominion art of yours is incredible. You kept me out of the fight for the entire first half! Do you think that would work on a volcora?”

  Melody shrugs, “I’ve never got a chance to try. It does mention that it will be less effective when used against more powerful foes.”

  I shake my head, looking towards Troy and starting my own conversation. “How are you so fast? I was teleporting, and I felt like you were always right on me.”

  Troy shrugs, looking slightly dejected. “I’m a silver sentinel; we specialize in speed and general mobility. It took me too long to get you, though. How are you a healer with that kind of mobility?”

  “The benefit of multiple powers,” I say with a shrug. “My healing skill didn’t do anything for me that fight. Honestly, I was fairly useless without my mist or any time to breathe.”

  Troy scoffs, “You talk like you’re the one who lost.”

  “Troy,” Baylee starts, laying a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “My team might have won today, but we should have beaten you without effort. With more sub-ranks, we have stronger barriers, greater physical acumen, and more abilities — not to mention real-world experience. In my eyes, if your team were really volcora, then we took a massive loss today. We lost all but two members.”

  Baylee and Troy share a nod of understanding, and I understand. To both of them, winning isn’t enough. Unless they are utterly dominant, they won’t be pleased.

  Finally, Troy forces a smile to his annoyingly handsome features. “I’m glad our teams can play off each other,” he says as the elevator finally dings open. “At least we can offer you all a challenge until you outrank us to the point where there’s no point fighting my team.”

  To my surprise, Kayne and Prof both stride out of the elevator — looking over both teams with an evaluating stare. Suddenly, my stomach does a little flip-flop. That’s the look Audrey gave me before she told me about the incursion zone.

  “Well,” Kayne says, meeting Troy’s eyes, “I guess we’ll just have to get your team some sub-ranks as well.”

  “Sir?” Troy asks brow scrunched with confusion — although his teammates look on with expressions of hope.

  “You think they’re ready?” Prof asks, looking to Kayne with an expression of deep concern.

  Kayne sighs and shakes his head, “Neither Team Picnic nor Team Firestorm is ready for fieldwork. Yet, this is the world we live in. In ancient days, a farmer would be given a spear and told to march on an opposing army; we do the same thing today, just with flashier weapons.”

  “I suppose I agree,” Prof says before looking over our two teams. “Team Picnic, Team Firestorm, it’s been decided that tomorrow you will be leaving on a joint mission.”

  My eyes widen, I guess I have no need to talk to Kayne to get Team Firestorm to help out. Perhaps both Kayne and Prof saw their desperation to be able to help and planned this on their own.

  Troy’s eyes widen with excitement. “Sir? We’re going into an incursion zone together?”

  Prof shakes his head, “No, you’re not. Not yet, at least. This mission is going to be a bit more experimental. Kayne, care to explain?”

  Kayne nods, “Of course. This mission isn’t about going to an incursion zone but instead to a small farming community near the edge of the northern front. It’s still early to harvest the yield they planted months ago, but volcora activity means that we need to abandon the position. Your teams will be assigned to guard the community while they harvest and transport the barley. I’m told this will take a minimum of a week up to twelve days. Neither Audrey nor I can leave Shinara for that amount of time, so your teams will be entirely on your own for the defense of the town.”

  I nod along at his explanation, smiling. Hopefully, this can at least help solve the food issue that Grandpa mentioned. I highly doubt the amount of barley we would be helping to protect will be enough to feed the millions of people who live in Shinara, but every small bit helps.

  Baylee frowns, “On our own? No soldiers either, then. Just our team.”

  Kayne nods, “The town has ten to twenty men and women willing to help fight the volcora, but most of them are also going to be working the fields. We are sending a huge investment of ten sentinels to this town to protect it; we spare soldiers as well, I’m afraid.”

  We all pause a moment to take that in. We will be alone, defending hundreds, maybe a thousand people for who knows how many volcora. This time, there won’t be any incursion zone. If we make a mistake or get overwhelmed, there is no option to run and hide. All of the civilians will die if we fail.

  “Baylee, as the leader of Team Picnic and the leader with the most real-world experience, you will be in charge of the operation,” Prof says. “Troy, you are second in command, but I want you to take your cues from Baylee.”

  “For this mission,” Kayne says. “There will be no reinforcements. If you deem the town unsalvageable, you are to prioritize your own lives and call in an evacuation — no amount of barley is worth the lives of ten sentinels or the towns folk who live there. Any questions?”

  We all stay silent; the reality of what fieldwork actually means seems to finally be dawning on Troy’s team, if not Troy himself, who still looks excited.

  For me, I can’t help but be slightly horrified by the mission. The GDF must truly be strained for resources, but I suppose it’s good that Kayne makes this point. If we can’t fortify the position, then the cost to do so would be higher than the GDF can pay, and we will have to pull out.

  “Okay,” Kayne says after no one speaks up. “You are all dismissed from the rest of training today. Take the time to get anything you need from the shops and prepare to be dispatched tomorrow morning.”