Hope you're all staying safe with this virus going around. The UK has recently been put on lockdown and with nothing else to do, expect more frequent updates of this story!

Alec's outtake should be published soon without much delay but until then enjoy!

All the while Alec leads her up to the first level, his stays firmly pressed against her, reassuring her that he's there and ready to protect her. Issy frowns, wishing that Eric would read her as well as Alec does. Space is great and all, but having comfort and support is better. Alec has no problems comforting her, but it makes Issy wonder what problems Eric has with her, if he has any problems with her as it is… Alec squeezes her shoulder when he notices the frown on her face and smiles. Issy smiles back even as a small titbit of doubt picks at her thoughts.

Issy pushed the whole training program faster than any of them would have liked due to the minority of time for the second stage. This stage consisted of five days compared to the two weeks the trainees had before, it would have been six days but that upcoming Saturday, every squadron had to be present for an update with Harrison. With Issy having Monday off, she felt pressed for time to train and rank the trainees fairly. The trainees, knowing their restricted time, offered to stay for another couple hours after dinner to carry on training. With Issy's approval, the new schedule had the added slots of an hour for dinner and then an hour and a half for extra training.

On the flip side of the extra training time, it lead to the squadron not having enough hours in the day to score the trainees at night. Often, they would be bent over tablets and score papers very early in the morning. Each pairing seemed to be getting along well, some becoming thick as thieves, and each of her colleagues were getting attached to their partner but at the end of the program only one to be a part of the squad.

In the few hours of free time during training, Issy spent some time with her family. Mostly she sat with her brother and tried to stop flinching every time someone touched her suddenly. Issy stopped jumping when Dec or Hugo touched her, and Declan's mood quickly bounced back. While she didn't see a lot of those from her initiation class, Alec had invited everyone out into the city on Saturday after the update from Harrison. The nights, Issy was on her own more often than not. Eric and his squadron had been spent out repeatedly on orders of Max to try to find any lead on where the missing children had gone and who had taken them. When she did see Eric, he's still distant with her, only touching her briefly before leaving again.

When Friday, the last day of the second stage came about, everyone was working hard to get shit done. The morning run had carried a fast pace throughout, though none of the trainees seemed to struggle with it and even taunted for a quicker pace. After breakfast, Issy changed the schedule slightly and had the trainees doing group work before and after lunch. As it was the last day of stage two, Issy offered to end the day at dinner time, but the trainees pushed for extra training. Now, some time after dinner, Issy sparred with Milo in the O.R, standing on a levitated ledge high up from the ground to test his fighting techniques in limited spaces, Bulldozer was throwing weighted padded balls at Lani while she stood on something that BD found in the storage cupboards. It had half a plastic ball attached to a flat surface. He called it a bosu ball, but Issy wasn't holding him to that… Lani had to try and keep her balance on this thing that Issy was still sceptical about, while BD pelted shit at her. If Lani lost her balance, then BD would make her do several drills. The others were somewhere around the compound, possibly in one of the training rooms or at the gun range.

While Issy thought about when her squadron would have time to rank the trainees before twelve on Sunday, Milo took advantage of her distraction and kicked her in the chest. Issy gasped, sharp bolts of pain flew threw her body from her almost healed ribs and she fell off the ledge and onto the net surrounding it.

"Beta!" Milo shouted, running to the edge to peer down. "Are you okay?"

There were sounds of scuffling as BD jogged closer. While the creams Marlene hadn't given her certainly sped up the healing process, Issy's injuries still sometimes hurt like a bitch whenever she was jostled too roughly. The net was pulled down at one of the sides and BD's head popped up. "You alright there boss?"

Issy groaned from where she layed and slowly lifted her arm up and threw a thumbs up at Milo. "Points for ruthless creativity soldier." Milo and BD huffed out a laugh at her response. "Kicking someone off a high structure will definitely make you win the fight. Though, if you don't mind, I think we'll end the day here."

Milo nodded his head and climbed down the ladder to the ground floor. Before leaving, he and Lani joined BD at the edge of the net and stared at Issy.

"You sure you're okay Beta?" Lani asked, pushing up on her tiptoes to peer over the net.

"Fine, just need to lay still for a bit."

"C'mon Beta," BD huffed, pushing the net down with his weight and Issy groaned when she started rolling towards the edge. "You need to stand up at some point and there no time like today."

Issy glared at him. "I hate you."

Bulldozer laughed as he and Milo reached to pull her off the net. "No you don't."

"Whatever." Issy stretched out once her feet hit the ground before looking over to the siblings. "You're both dismissed. We'll see you on Sunday for the rankings."

"Thanks Beta." Milo said as he pulled his sister from the room.

"Later Beta!" Lani called, leaving her and BD in the room.

BD crossed his arms over his chest, grinning slightly. "I'm gonna miss this training period. It's been nice."

Issy turned on BD, punching his shoulder lightly. "That's funny coming from the guy that complained about training more kids."

"Yeah, well, this group hasn't been so bad." BD scowled. "Apart from fuck face, of course. I'm gonna miss them when they all go off in their separate directions."

Issy sighed, turning her head to look at the doors like she could still see Milo and Lani through the tick metal doors. She sighs. "Me too."

xXx

At twelve o'clock the next day, Issy stood with her squadron in formation as other squadrons piled into the room, standing in parade rest with their colleagues. Issy had walked to the garage with Uriah and most of her squad after telling Alec she'd message him after it's over. Uri stood with his squadron to her immediate left. Uriah kept make faces at those around him while they waited for all the squadrons – minus those that work on the front lines – to get to the garage, along with Harrison himself. Issy tried to hide her smirk as she rolled her eyes at Uri, and he winked back in response.

When all of the squads stood in the garage, Harrison stood in front of them. "I assume you're all aware of the events these past few week. Some of the front-line squadrons have been posted to each faction and the school, while the rest of them patrol the rest of the routes of high activity sectors. Due to the minority of front-line squadrons, some of you will have changes to the routes you cover. The changes will extend the duration of your shifts and the routes will cover the sectors with low activity, leaving those squadrons with combat training more shorter shifts with more patrols ongoing at once." As murmurs fluttered across the soldiers, Issy wasn't overly surprised by the changes. She felt bad for those out in the front lines pulling close to six hour back to back shifts with under twenty squadrons to cover nearly a quarter of the city. "These changes have been made with great thought from myself, Max and Eric. If anybody has any inquiries about these changes, please come talk to me and I will try to answer your questions as best as I can. Dismissed."