After a couple of weeks, maybe a month, we had settled into a routine, killing the really really terrible soldiers in Deepground to reduce our Average Environmental Horribleness, bribing our poor, deprived comrades with Nightmare Cuisine™, and figuring out just how far each Restrictor could be pushed. The nicest was North, by the way. He usually dealt with the poor sods who had been turned into mindless attack dogs—I'm being literal here, the Mongrels were people who had gone through enhancements which overpowered rational thought with instinct—so maybe having the opportunity to actually talk to people who understood what he was saying put him in a good mood.

He was still a Restrictor though.

"Sir." Felicia saluted sharply as he came into the training room we were using to drill 15-1 and her subordinates on the finer points of Fireball Formations.

"You two, follow me. 15, clean up after you finish." North waited for us to catch up, then led us off at a brisk walk, which was almost a jog for us when we were more than a head shorter than him.

"Sir, our assignment?" I asked, pretty confident that he, unlike West, wouldn't mind a bit of polite curiosity.

"You have been chosen for a great honor." He said.

Yeah, I bet.

But that tone meant that we shouldn't push further. To my Materia-sense, Felicia's Odin glowed brighter—she was on guard too.

We took the lift downwards, then the train-transport for two stops. We were going towards one of the Arenas, and...

Behind North's back, I flashed a pair of military hand signals at Felicia. 23 enhanced.

She gave me a sharp nod. Got it.

The entrance was before us now.

North stepped aside to let us enter. As we passed him, he said, "Do Shinra proud."

The Restrictor of the East loomed above us on a viewing balcony.

"You have all shown yourselves to have potential." He intoned, "And from the worthy among you a new rank shall be formed. Prove yourselves, and earn the title Tsviet."

We were among the smallest. Most of the rest of the people in the arena were bulky, hulking men, armed with swords thicker than my thigh, but on the other side of the arena were three kids, one white-haired, one red-haired, and the last black-haired, standing out among the earthy colors and bulk of the rest. Weiss, Rosso, and Nero. In the future they'd given Vincent Valentine a run for his money.

The terrain was painfully basic as well, just a few piles of sandbags scattered around for cover on a beaten-earth floor. There was no room for Felicia's tactical genius there, and she said as much, then asked me for my read of the situation.

"Avoid the ones who look our age." I muttered to Felicia, "They're dangerous, especially the black-haired one, I think he can pull off AOE attacks."

"Got it." She whispered back, "Start with the group on our ten?"

"Yeah." I agreed, "The taller guy doesn't have Materia equipped. Watch out for the one with a scar—he has Fire and Lightning."

"In your range?"

"Yeah, but I don't want to show my cards too fast."

"Alright, I'm not transforming until I get a better idea of the circumstances either. You have your backup knife?"

"Yep."

"Begin." The Restrictor ordered overhead.

And it was a blur of blood and fire and ice and steel and arcing electricity. Felicia grew into the armored and horned form of Odin to deal with anyone who came close, while I hijacked all Materia except those ones in the vicinity to kill their owners and everyone around them. I was probably not even a teenager yet, but death came easily to me now. I didn't feel anything about that. Or about not feeling anything about that. Or about that. Or about—well, you get the idea. No feelings about killing or the results of killing. Zip. Nil. Nada.

In the end, we were five, all the rest dead of fire and bullets and sharp and pointy things, the two boys mirroring me and Felicia while the girl stood apart. We sized each other up across a field of corpses, none of us willing to make the first move—

"Adequate." Came that evil voice from behind me. "At attention, SOLDIERS."

Even Felicia didn't dare defy him. Weapons came down and heels clicked together. The Restrictor surveyed us, pleased, then ordered, "Down."

I dropped to one knee, hearing the crunch and swish of the others doing the same. The Restrictor drew his gunblade. I tensed, memories of that weapon cutting flesh and breaking bones in my mind—but I couldn't muster the courage to move—disobey.

"You were once called Felicia." The Restrictor said to Felicia, probably since she was the closest to him, doing something that I couldn't see. But my senses were sharp enough to tell that he was moving his arms, doing something and he probably wouldn't be able to stop me if I launched a surprise attack—"I award you your name again, and dub thee Felicia the Gold. Rise, and take your place as a Colored Tsviet."

I sensed Felicia's clenched jaw, but she ducked her head and complied.

I felt the weight of the gunblade on my shoulder, "You were once called Verde." The Restrictor told me, "I award you your name again, and dub thee Verde the Emerald. Rise, and take your place as a Colored Tsviet."

I went to stand by Felicia's side.

"You were once called Rosso. I award you your name again, and dub thee Rosso the Crimson. Rise, and take your place as a Colored Tsviet."

"You were once called Nero. I award you your name again, and dub thee Nero the Sable. Rise, and take your place as a Colored Tsviet."

"You were once called Weiss. I award you your name again, and dub thee Weiss the Immaculate White Emperor. Rise, and take your place as the first among the Colored Tsviets, greatest of Deepground's SOLDIERs."

I watched the Deepground-born trio out of the corner of my eye. Nero stuck to Weiss's side, while Rosso was openly examining us two Topsiders, attention upon our injuries and our gear and our weak points.

Yeah, well she was bleeding heavily from her right leg and looked like she had a couple of crushed ribs plus a concussion. We could take her.

I glared back, trying to communicate my knowledge with my eyes.

"You will no longer drill or be bunked with the general forces, but rather receive training of higher quality. Enter, Argento."

A Wutai woman in a crown and eyepatch and long trench coat came in from the door the Restrictor had used. In one hand, she held a large broadsword.

"She will be your instructor from hence onwards." The Restrictor informed us. "Do your new rank honor."

We were given a whole hallway, with individual rooms with doors on each side. The privacy was a reward, but I had grown used to sleeping with Felicia—not like that, get your minds out of the gutter—and it was comforting to be reminded that touch didn't just bring pain. We hadn't been informed of any bunking regulations though, so Felicia and I chose a pair of adjacent rooms and moved the bed in one to the other.

Weiss and Nero's eyes gleamed at that, and then they copied us. Rosso had to room alone. Argento supervised, sword planted on the ground in front of her.

Finally, accommodations settled, we sized each other up. I could probably hit them all with status effects, given that there was a Time and a Bind in my range (which had grown to thirty meters). But I didn't know how Nero's shadows worked, precisely, and so there was that danger, and it wasn't as if my casting was instant. They might be able to react. Felicia, on the other hand, would probably be at least temporarily immune to whatever they could throw at her for however long I could shore up her reserves with my own dregs, and odds were that her Limit Break could get rid of at least one of the three. That would leave us open to counterattack, however. Plus, we shouldn't make undue enemies.

At my shoulder, Felicia had arrived at the same conclusion that we should not initiate hostilities.

"You fight well." I offered the trio.

"And you are fight strangely." Weiss returned, moving his hands away from his holsters in a similar gesture of nonviolence, "A mage and a—you are not a Mongrel...Felicia. What are you?"

Felicia straightened, the conversation making her more comfortable, "I'm from Aboveground. A doctor planted a Summon in me to save my life instead of the Mongrel organs—I can take the Summon's form in battle."

"How interesting." Rosso noted from where she was leaning on the doorframe of her room (we had doors!), "A Researcher who saves instead of destroys."

"And yet she sent you here." Argento cut in, surprising me with her low alto.

"I don't think she did." Felicia disagreed, "But even if she did, if she's not as good as she seemed, there's a reason why Deepground is beneath the ground. People wouldn't let it exist if they knew it existed, even if they are scientists."

"An intriguing preposition." Nero acknowledged, surprisingly polite, "Perhaps we could discuss further."