Eric laughs loudly then. No words are said between Issy and Eric after that. Eric gets back to work and Issy stays curled into him as sleep pulls her eyes closed.

Training to be a captain was going well in Issy's opinion. She felt like she was picking things up quickly and she found it easier if she just thought of it like the patrols she led during their stay at Amity.

Sometime during the mock patrols, Red had shaken his head, saying that he couldn't call her Captain and she had understood why. Captain was and remains Clark's name. Whenever Issy sees Clark around the Pit, she always calls him Captain first before she remembers. They're all struggling with that change. When Hector called her Captain, Issy had turned around and looked for Clark before she realised that's not who he meant. BD had started calling her Cap'n or Cap instead and the rest of the squad just rolled with it.

It was a couple of weeks before what was supposed to be the end when Issy gets called over to the Leaders' table in the cafeteria towards the end of lunch. Issy walks over to the table, smiling as she hopes they've agreed to her proposal. When Issy stands at the end of the table, Harrison breaks from the conversation he was having with Clark and grins.

"Your training leave has been accepted Issy. You have one month before you're put back on the rota."

"Training leave?" Clark says. "Why on earth would you need a training leave? That squad's up to a good standard."

"Yeah." Issy looks around the room, noticing others on her squad getting up and walking towards her. "A good standard – your standard." Issy smiles softly, trying not to offend him. "But not mine." She falls back a step, nodding to her squaddies lining up to her side, ready for training before walking out with them following after.

During that month, Issy work herself and the squadron relentlessly. They went through several workouts and exercises; they went on runs throughout the city and Issy got permission from Harrison and Max to be able to run laps on certain areas of the wall. By the end of each one, they would all be cursing Issy to the depths of hell as they collapsed to the ground. Issy had a reason though to why she was working herself and the rest of the squad so hard. They started to slowly understand her reasoning when 226 was a part of the squadrons chosen to help unload the supplies from Erudite. What would have normally exhausted them, didn't even make them tired. For a time they stopped cursing at Issy…

… Until she set the patrol alarms off in the middle of the night.

Issy was standing in an almost deserted garage at three a.m. when nearly an hour later the rest of her squadron tumbled inside sleepily. While Issy nearly started laughing at the fact that Bulldozer had his jacket on back to front, she wasn't impressed. When they realise that actually there's nothing wrong and Issy did it for shits, members like Billy, Bulldozer and Rainbow glared at their captain.

Issy glared right back. "If you haven't realised by now, this was a test. Frankly I'm glad it was a test because it took nearly all of you an hour to get done here. If this was a real emergency then I have to tell you that I'd be disappointed." Their glares lessened and some even ducked their heads when Issy's golden glare settled on them. "You can go back to bed but I expect you in training room E at eight a.m. Dismissed."

When the morning rolled about, Issy had them running laps for an hour. After that, Issy set them off for the usual day. Over the next few weeks, Issy set the alarms off at random times during the day and night until she was happy with their time.

In fits of exhaustion and rage, they called her a control freak ad ruthless but a surprise had them apologising to her and taking what Issy threw at them in their stride. It was at around one a.m. when Issy's patrol alarm went off and she was up, changed and out of her flat as quickly as she could. She took to the stairs and ran towards the garage. Once in the garage, Issy noticed all of the Leaders standing together.

"Is there another ambush?" Issy had called out.

Several Leaders shared shocked and surprised expressions while Harrison checks his watch and Max smiles at her gently.

"No Issy," Max says. "Just stand over there and wait for everyone else."

She does as he says standing in parade rest. The door opens and its seconds before Issy feels warmth around her. Issy grins as she checks and all her squad stand around her, who are equally shocked to see that they're the first ones in the garage.

"Seems like her ruthlessness and control freak nature has pulled off." Rainbow mutters from somewhere behind her and Issy's grin widens.

Their wait lasts up to fifteen minutes before another squad joins them. It was larger than the average squadrons with at least thirty members. Its only when one of them nod to Eric, does Issy realise that's Eric's squadron.

Issy catches Eric's eye from where he stands and lifts her chin up in silent challenge. Is that all you got?

Eric simply shakes his head and hides his smile.

The wait begins again and oh so slowly each squad joins them in the garage. When everyone has joined them Max nods to Harrison and steps forward.

"There is no raid or ambush or attack." Max says clearly. "This is merely a routine test to make sure that all of you can get here efficiently. For those of you that haven't been able to meet our preferred times –" In other words, the Leaders took bets on what times everyone would get there for. "– will be receiving extra training until they can. Those of you that will require extra training, the captain will be emailed in the morning. Dismissed."

"Beta!" Harrison calls as they begin to leave.

Issy turns, motioning to her squad to go on. "Yeah."

Harrison pauses for a moment before he grins. "I applaud you for making good use of your extra training. I can see how well its affecting you and your squad, as well as your squadron's performance."

"Thank you."

During her spare time, Issy had been drawing out the Sun's Pride patch with the title and squadron number above it and the nicknames of all of the squaddies underneath. Issy included Curly and Jem, members that died on patrol while Clark was captain. She had framed it and given it to Clark when they met up. He was so overwhelmed with emotion that he started crying, bless him.

Now, Issy is walking through the compound towards the control room. She have given her squad three days off as they only had those days before they were shoved right back into the rota. This was the perfect time to pull off a day of mischievousness. Issy hadn't done any pranks for what felt like months and she didn't like the feeling. Though, what happened the day after Manic had given her the perfect opportunity. Since Hugo and Jason's plan of glitter bombing Eric's office was out of the equation, Issy had gleefully taken the grenade-like device off of their hands. It's not like they were going to use it now…

Coming across premade glitter bombs was scarce as they were hard to make outside of places such as the labs in Erudite and the Weapon Specialist Department in Dauntless. Normally, when Issy has been given the rare chance to glitter bomb someone, she'd think hard on who her victim would be.

This time was a no brainer.

Before long, Issy was standing on Cody's left – with a perfect view of the whole room – feigning interest about whatever her friend was telling her. Cody wasn't fooled though; he'd seen that look of building mischief many times before back in Erudite. It wasn't long before Cody was in on the plan and giddy with anticipation.

As she wandered over to the water fountain, she smiled innocently at Four as he strode past her, curing Cody's name. Number boy barely noticed Issy standing there and she sent a grin to Cody, who had turned the monitor off and unplugged something unimportant to stop the computer from coming back on. Nothing that would harm the system. Cody had called Four over, claiming that for some reason the computer had just turned off…

After checking the coast was clear, Issy slipped into Four's office. It was neater than she had expected it to be – a stark contrast to Max's office. It was so OCD, it was bordering the perfect standard for the stereotype Erudite. Though, it helped her realise what the best placement would be. Issy hooked the pin of the device to a stapler on his desk, nudging it out of alignment, and placing the device behind a stack of papers out of view.

She slips out quickly and immediately goes over to the water fountain again and pours herself a drink into a plastic cup. Issy smirks as she takes a sip, watching as Four passes by. As soon as he begins to open his door, Issy is walking quickly away and towards the Pit where she said she'd meet Hugo and Jason.

xXx

Issy sits with Eric, Declan, Jason and Hugo in their usual bar when parts of the Pit begin to quieten down. Issy, Jason and Hugo grin widely to each other, having discussed what Issy was looking to do with the device before they handed it over. Eric and Dec shared confused looks, not having been included. When their table saw the reason, Declan gasped and Jason and Hugo started laughing. Eric turned to look at her with a brilliant grin on his face and Issy sunk deeper into his side.

Four was marching towards their table with rage burning in his eyes. He was absolutely covered head to toe in pink glitter. His hair was pink. His black uniform was pink. His face was pink too, but that was probably down to the humiliation of walking through the compound covered in pink glitter. When his eyes settled on Issy, Four snarled, pointing a finger at her.

"YOU!" Four shouted. "WHAT THE FUCK ISSY?"

"You know exactly why Number boy, don't pretend different."

Four cocked his head at her. She knew he was thinking about the jabs about taking her out in Manic and the smugness since then. "Are you fucking serious? That's the reason?" He scoffed. "Can't you take –" He paused.

"A joke?" Issy finished for him. She eyed the glitter clinging to him. "Clearly you can't so why should I?"

Four shakes his head. "I never thought you'd be one to be petty."

"Oh Number boy, you really don't know me at all do you?"

Knowing that he's not going to win the conversation, Four scoffs again and pushes his way out of the Pit.