Ever since the arrival of the foreign volunteers, the Mason army has been performing joint exercises. The drill field, which had once been Saunders' Sensha-do field, was now torn up more than the tanks ever could, the tread marks in the ground replaced by boot and hoof prints. The target range no longer saw giant metal machines firing down range, but instead found themselves occupied with long metallic tubes with wooden tires on each side.

When Jennifer's challenge was made public to the students of Saunders, Kay was one of the first students to volunteer. Eliza followed shortly after her and both girls were assigned to the 4th company of the 1st battalion of the 3rd regiment of the Saunders Highschool Militia. Company 314, to save time.

As the sun rose, signaling the start of their morning drills, the two girls found themselves fixing their uniforms in their assigned bunk room. Eliza was fixing her hair as Kay was busy fixing the buttons on her uniform.

"I'm starting to get tired of this," Kay sighed as she fiddled with a particularly stubborn button.

"I thought you liked your uniform," Eliza said as she looked in the mirror, examining her handy work.

"It's not that," Kay said as she finally got the button to cooperate. A winning smile spread across her face as she reached for her hat. "I'm getting bored."

"So be bored," Eliza said as she stood up from the desk and slipped her kepi cap on her head. "The drills are essential to being successful."

"I know, I know," Kay said. "But I still think we've been drilling for too long. What more can we learn from drilling that we can't learn in the field?"

"Discipline." Eliza replied as she checked Kay over one final time. "You missed the last button."

Kay looked down and quickly corrected the mistake Eliza had noticed. She then looked up at her and asked "What does discipline have to do with anything?"

"In war, discipline is everything," Eliza said. "Discipline is the difference between a devastating volley and a pitiful salvo. It's the difference between a desperate defense and a ruinous rout. It's the very difference between victory and defeat."

"Ever the poet, aren't you?" Kay sighed as she looked herself over again. "How do I look now?"

Eliza had Kay spin a few times before being satisfied. "You look good. Now come on, the bacon's going to be gone if we don't hurry up."

After breakfast, the army of Saunders separated into their different drills. One of the units, down by the firing range, was a Kuromorimine battery. Leading one of the gun crews was a young girl with brown hair. She was looking down the range with her binoculars. The shell that had just been fired from her gun smashed into the ground about a foot in front of their target, a collection of scarecrows. Maho sighed as she lowered the binoculars. "A little low," she commented as she walked towards the screw at the back of the gun. She lowered the screw, raising the elevation of the gun slightly before nodding.

As soon as she nodded, her crew got to work. The youngest member of their crew, a girl named Gretchen, ran towards the ammo crate in the back while the two girls standing in front of the cannon, the twin sisters Ostena and Brenda prepared the cannon for the next salvo. Ostena rammed her cleaning rod down the barrel first, and Brenda followed quickly behind her. While they prepped the barrel for cleaning, Maho called out the shell she wanted to fire. "Shell."

She looked over her shoulder. Gretchen was standing there with a small shell safely tucked away in a satchel. Maho looked down in there and sighed. "Gretchen, that's a canister." She said. The color drained away from the young girl's face as she muttered an apology and quickly hurried back to the ammo crate. Maho shook her head and concealed a smirk.

"That girl's going to cause problems."

"Erika, shut up." Maho snapped back, "She's trying."

Erika's job on the cannon was to hold the hole in the gun where the firing pin slid in. She also fired the piece, allowing Maho to use her binoculars to gauge the hits. Gretchen tugged her shoulder, causing Maho to look at her and then down into the satchel.

There were only two types of ammunition for the cannon. The shell fired an explosive round that, once it hit it's target, exploded and covered everything around the point of impact in paint. The canister, on the other hand, contained several paintballs at once. When this cylinder was fired, the cannon became a shotgun that could tear through an entire regiment.

Since Gretchen was smart enough to know the difference between a shell and a cylinder, she had grabbed a shell round.

"Great, now go load it into the cannon."

Gretchen nodded and surged forward. She ran to the front of the cannon and quickly slid the shell down the barrel. She moved out of the way and stood next to Maho as Brenda rammed the round home. Erika smiled as she slipped the firing pin into the cannon. Maho readied her binoculars and gave the order. "BRACE!" she commanded, taking a breath before giving the next order. "FIRE!"

The cannon erupted in a loud thunderclap. Maho watched as the smoke trails from the projectile sailed towards the target. Then, with a satisfying "KABOOM", their target was sprayed in a brilliant blue. She smiled to herself as she looked at her crew. "Good job everyone. This next one's going to be timed. I want this done in two minutes, tops, understand?"

"Yes ma'am!"

"Alright the,." Maho said as she pulled out her watch. She flipped it over to the 'stopwatch' setting and smiled at her crew. "Ready?"

"GO!"

The observers trail, which was used so that observers could travel from bunker to bunker quickly and safely during Sensha-do, was easy enough to turn into a cavalry course. At the entrance to the trail was Haig himself. He sat upon his horse, looking over a blonde girl before him. He raised an eyebrow at her and asked "Aren't you Earl Grey's aide?"

"Yes, sir," the girl replied. "I'm the girl that runs her dispatches."

"Ah, so you're a messenger," John smirked to himself before continuing. "What's your name?"

"Darjeeling, sir."

"Darjeeling?" John asked. The girl nodded, causing John to shrug. "Alright Darjeeling. Buller should be done in there by now. Give it a shot."

"Ready Scott?" Darjeeling whispered into the ear of the horse. The horse neighed, which was all the information Darjeeling needed to know. She spurred Scott forward and the grey horse took off like a bullet through the trail. Darjeeling swiftly drew her sword and revolver, the first target was coming up swiftly on her left. Darjeeling raised her sword and swung at the target. The dummy received a thick red line across his chest as Darjeeling rode on, switching her swing up to hit another dummy that was on the opposite side.

The path banked left and so did Scott. Darjeeling raised her pistol and fired into the first target she saw. She slashed at a second one and popped a third one as she headed through the trail. At the end of the trail, John was waiting there with a pocket watch. He looked up at Darjeeling and nodded. "Impressive. Four minutes. Buller, how many she hit?"

"She missed two revolver kills that popped up behind her." A voice called from the forest.

John turned back to Darjeeling and smirked. "Well, good job nonetheless. Just remember, anything can ride up behind you."

Just as he said that, a hand crept up her back. Darjeeling leaped up from the saddle with the grace of a duck who had just been shot with a shotgun and fell to the ground in a similar fashion. Scott, her loyal and trusty steed, bolted away from the newcomer sitting atop a pure white mare and laughed at her. Darjeeling's eyes widened. She sprung to her feet and stood at attention. "Lady Grey," Darjeeling said. "I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting you."

Earl Grey chuckled at Darjeeling before replying. "It's quite alright Darjeeling." She said before offering her hand towards her. "Come on, let's go grab your horse."

A polite cough brought both of their attention to John, who was standing in his saddle. "Earl, weren't you training the foot regiments?"

"Oh, right," Earl Grey said with a slight blush.

"Was there something you wanted to say?" John asked as Darjeeling climbed onto Earl Grey's horse.

"Uh…" Earl Grey replied then shook her head. "Nope, nothing at all."

Darjeeling smirked slightly as Earl Grey snapped her reins, putting her horse into motion. "Oh… ok," John said. "See you later then, I guess…"

Darjeeling looked back over her shoulder, then towards Earl Grey. Sensing the comment, Earl Grey raised a finger.

"Not one word, Darjeeling. Not a single word."

Anna watched over the fields where the Dixon army practiced. Unlike Saunders, where they at least had something to convert from, Anna's training regime quickly found space to be an issue. The cavalry couldn't practice running through the woods so they instead held, for lack of any other term, jousting matches with each other. The artillery, instead of firing at the scarecrows the militia used for training, was forced to make do with hurling their payloads into the ocean.

In fact, the easiest thing to drill was the infantry. As Anna watched the sun go down, she closed her eyes in silent thought.

"You ok sis?"

Anna was slightly stunned by the sudden arrival of Jackie. She looked towards her sister and nodded before answering "Just a bit nervous, is all."

"I don't believe it," Jackie chuckled. "Anna Lee, Queen of the Shermans, Lady of the Easy Eights, Priestess of the Pershing, nervous about some dumb foreigner devils threatening our way of life."

Anna bit her tongue on the immediate response. "Titles are nothing but words, my dear sister," Anna replied.

"But they aren't just handed out freely either. You've earned them," Jackie said, giving her sister a slight punch to the shoulder.

"Yeah. I guess…" Anna sighed. "It's just…"

"Just what?" Jackie said. "What, don't tell me you're having second thoughts now Sis."

"I… this is wrong," Anna said, turning to Jackie, "You see it too, don't you? Banning a bunch of kids from a school for no other reason than that they weren't born here?"

Jackie met her sister's gaze for a while, then turned her head away from her before replying. "I have no love in my heart for any foreigner. They can all crawl into a hole and die for all I care." She said as she looked down to the field, then back at Anna. "Maybe it is wrong to expel them all. But what Abigail did can't be ignored either. There is plenty of evidence proving that she cheated. And when Jennifer stood up to her, what did she do? She sent a hit squad with the most deplorable student in this school." Jackie turned towards her sister. "Now, Jennifer may be a liar, but at least she has the dignity to tell Abigail that her days are numbered. And if Abigail's last days coincide with the eradication of this plague upon our great school then, well, so be it."

Anna opened her mouth, but then bit back the comment about the evidence. The 'evidence' was merely a fact pointing out that there were more votes than students that were enrolled permanently in Saunders. Of course it didn't account for the foreign students that were here on a FEST agreement, who by every right should be involved with an election that concerned them.

"May God set us straight," Anna said at last, "and guide us to walk the right path."