A crushing silence enveloped Turtle Army's barracks room that evening; most of the soldiers studied privately in their bunks while others simply sat there gloomily. Their defeat had been utterly humiliating - they, ranked 14th, had lost to the pathetically weak Bigfoot Army, ranked 22nd. Rather than the easy victory they had been expecting, they had fallen to 20th while Bigfoot rose to 16th, and the other armies in Battle School didn't hesitate to demean them for this disgrace. The sting of defeat hurt enough on its own, but the mocking laughter they had faced in the lunch room that afternoon only served to put them down even further. No one had seen Neil since the battle's end, no doubt holed up in his cabin in either discouragement or anger, but Timmy knew it was only a matter of time before he returned and they all became really sorry. Especially him.

"Rank 20," Neil's voice called out in an irate growl as the door to the barracks slid open and he stepped inside, drawing the army's attention. With his hands behind his back, he stepped slowly forward, and everyone stumbled out of their bunks in order to stand at attention. He began to pace through the lane between the rows of bunks while glaring each soldier in the eye one by one. "Rank 20. How utterly repulsing."

There was a long pause, as Neil passed by a few frightened alpha troops before finally continuing. "Lieutenant Commander Amadei! Please explain to me the primary reason behind our defeat."

"The enemy's main forces eliminated Delta Toon, and then merged with their reserve. Our response was not organized enough to deal with the combined force," Amadei stated without hesitation.

"And how should we have responded?"

Amadei paused for a moment in thought, before answering. "When Delta Toon lost, the remaining toons should have immediately moved in on the main force and prevented them from rejoining their reserve, rather than holding our ground."

"Or?"

Timmy could just barely make out a dejected sigh escape Amadei's lips before he answered. "Or, Beta Toon and my own unit should have charged the enemy the moment it became clear that they were targeting Delta. Prevent them from succeeding, and let Gamma and Delta mop up what remained."

"That is correct," Neil replied, passing by him haughtily. "Even if those strategies could not have ensured our victory, they could have, at the very least, turned defeat into a draw. The enemy had one soldier with exceptional skill, while we had nearly a dozen. So why is it that this one soldier made such fools of you!?"

"Maybe if you'd been down there fighting with us..." some troop behind Neil muttered, and he spun around with a furious glare, looking for the speaker. Few of them were willing to admit it, but most agreed with the statement. While they had been fighting with the enemy, he had separated himself to watch the battle from a distance.

Unable to find the commenter, Neil scowled and returned to his pacing. "Against an army in the Tainted Twenties, my participation should not have been necessary. In the future I will be careful not to repeat that assumption, but the fault here does not lie entirely with me."

The last part of his statement was spoken pointedly, as the commander came to a stop directly before Timmy and glared coldly into his eyes. "Name, soldier?"

"Timothy Lane," he replied, as professionally as he could though he only barely hid his unease. "Sir."

"Towards the end of the battle, what - exactly - did I instruct you?"

A shiver went down Timmy's spine, and he felt an unpleasant lump in his throat. "To take position in the location you pointed me to, to fire at whoever you fired at, and to not leave the position no matter what."

"And what did you do?"

"... I left it."

There was no point in defending himself at this point; even Timmy had known that he was deeply in the wrong. There was a chance, however slim, that they could have changed the outcome of the battle had he held his position and continued under Neil's command. He held his salute firmly and professionally on the outside, but on the inside he was trembling in anguish. At the time he had been so certain that he could take out the ace and become a hero amongst his army, but his failure only made him realize his own idiocy. A future star? No, he was only an insubordinate fool. 'And I thought I could become a commander... impossible.'

After staring him down for a tediously long thirty seconds, Neil shook his head. "How disappointing," he said simply before moving on while Timmy's own head hung dejectedly.

Those two words hurt more than any raised voice or physical violence ever could have, and indeed he partly wished that the commander had struck or screamed him down instead. Pain and embarrassment he could deal with, but this pierced straight through his pride.

He barely registered as Neil continued. "In any case, it has become clear to me that our army is in desperate need of discipline. From this point on, we will be doubling our efforts in the Battle Room. Expect overhauls and individual evaluations to occur soon. And in the meanwhile, don't you dare slack off in your studies, am I clear?"

"Sir yes sir!" the forty boys shouted in unison, and Neil grunted lowly before turning to leave.

"That is all for tonight. As you were."

…

Everyone stood still for a moment after the door had slid shut before slowly recollecting themselves and crawling back to their beds. Timmy was the last to move, his gaze vacant and despondent as he turned around and collapsed into his lower bunk. He hadn't finished his two hours yet, but he didn't think he could focus on studying anyways at the moment. If only he could turn back time, and put a stop to his own idiocy.

"You've been awfully quiet," Klas' voice rang dully into his ears. He turned his gaze to the side to see his bunkmate, a black boy a few months his senior with a cleanly shaved scalp and a half-hearted smile, looking down at him from the far corner of his bed. Klas seemed worried at the sight of Timmy's expression and took a seat at the foot. "Hey, don't let that piff get you down. Commander Tokar's words ain't worth shit to anyone anymore . He smart maybe, but his mouth belongs in da toilet. Everybody thinks so, even LC."

He let out a soft chuckle, turning over to face away from him. "If you'd told me that yesterday I might've agreed." That kind of insubordinate thinking was exactly what got him into this situation, though. Now he wasn't sure what he thought.

Klas was silent for a moment, gulping down a mouthful of saliva before abruptly breaking the silence as he threw in a suggestion that had been baking in his mind for several hours now. "Let's get outta here."

Timmy fell still for an equal amount of time. "Out of here?" he asked, though he had already had a suspicion.

"You know, outta the army," Klas replied, speaking in an urgent voice but low enough so as not to broadcast it to those around them. "We can request a double transfer; get a commander that actually has his head on straight. The veterans are already doing it in droves. To hell with all this academic crap – I'm sick of studying!"

Another chuckle escaped his lips. "A fresh start, eh? Can't say I haven't considered something like that before." He sighed, burrowing his face deeper into his pillow. But it wouldn't exactly make his screw ups disappear. His new superiors might not know, but he always would. Why couldn't Neil have just hit him instead?

"That's right! Between the two of us, we can probably make something of ourselves in no time. No one wants to be a slow-ass turtle anymore."

"Heh, that's some loyalty you have there, soldier," a voice interjected, cutting Timmy's reply short before it could fully form in his throat. Klas turned, wide-eyed, to see a boy resting on the bunk opposite theirs – his torso hanging upside down off the end so that his scraggly blonde hair dangled beneath his head as he stared at them with a mocking smirk. "Jumping ship as soon as things start to get tough. That'll serve you well when you're older."

"L…Ligh," Klas stuttered in embarrassment as the eavesdropper pulled his torso upwards and then kicked off the bed, performing a back flip in mid-air which landed him right in front of the two, "Lighting Bolt Rolf… sir! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Shaddap," Rolf growled and Klas instantly fell silent. The officer raised his eyebrows at Timmy, who got the message and hesitantly stood up from his bed to approach him. "You're Timmy, right? In Alpha under LC?"

Timmy nodded, and Rolf revealed a cool-headed smile – and then suddenly slugged him in the cheek a moment later so hard that he fell onto his buttocks. "That's for letting me get hit when you were supposed to have my back in the battle today," Rolf grunted in an oppressive voice. Then, he stepped forward while swinging his foot into Timmy's gut. He fell backwards, moaning slightly from the pain. "And that's for disobeying orders."

Klas stood there, watching the exchange in dismay. Gamma Toon Leader - a skilled soldier, whose talent in the Battle Room had earned him a reputation as Turtle Army's greatest weapon and ace, possessing speed and nimbleness practically unrivaled amongst the turtles; often drawing comparisons with a flash of lightning from their rivals. Before him, Klas did not dare to react in his friend's defense. Get in bad with someone as skilled with him and your career in battle school was as good as ruined; it was all he could manage not to shake in his boots. Timmy began to stand, but was floored once more by another punch. "And that last one was cause I felt like it," Rolf muttered, rubbing his knuckles where his fist had connected.

What was meant to be a brief, silent pause was soon broken as Rolf felt a fist smash into his ribs. "Get lost, doll back!" Lynn roared as the toon leader reeled, pivoting in to throw another punch aimed at his gut. "Pick on someone your own size!"

After taking another strike, Rolf let out a soft 'tchh' sound before stepping back while Lynn rapidly thrust her fists forward. Holding his arms at his side nonchalantly – so that his hands would have likely been in his pockets if their jumpsuits had any – he stepped inwards again while weaving his body through Lynn's onslaught of punches with dumbfounding ease. His attunement to battle and skill in close quarters combat obviously leagues above hers, the ten-year-old showed no expression as he closed the distance and raised his leg to smack his foot into Lynn's forehead – sending her flipping backwards to the floor. "Maybe you should follow your own advice, launchie," he said, half chuckling as she rolled while holding her head in pain.

Straightening his posture, he turned back to Timmy and smiled. "Anyways, a couple of my squad members just requested transfers, so I have empty slots to fill." He turned and started to walk away, back to his own squad's bunks at the very front of the barracks. "Congrats, you've been drafted. Welcome to Gamma Toon; let's get along."

As he left, Timmy, barely holding himself up in a crouched position, groaned and fell backwards with his arms outstretched on either side of him. He took it back – getting hit was no better.

A day had passed since Turtle and Bigfoot Army's battle, and their spirits had hardly risen. Today's training had been more brutal than even the oldest of the army's veteran's could ever remember; half of them didn't bother with showering afterwards in favor of heading straight to bed and getting what little extra rest they could. Quite a few didn't even show any interest in practicing their formations, no doubt because they had already requested transfers and didn't expect to be around much longer. The five worst armies in Battle School, or the Tainted Twenties as they had been humiliatingly dubbed, which Turtle Army now counted themselves a part of was nothing to take pride in and few could hide their displeasure at the prospect. But Commander Tokar gave them no slack regardless, only serving to further cement their decisions.

And thus, the shower room was emptier than usual today. Shower time was already halfway through, and barely half the army had shown up. Not all the troops had retired early, however, as made clear when a troop entered the showers late after having been called to the commander's cabin immediately after training; smiling cunningly as he walked through the rows of stalls. Noting a familiar face, the Japanese boy stepped into the shower beside him and turned the nozzle while throwing his towel aside.

"Ho Yao," the boy in the adjacent shower said, turning his gaze towards him.

"Hei Luke," Hayao replied, looking back at him. "How about today's practice? Brutal, Īe? I sure worked up a sweat."

The greasy-looking boy, Luke, glared back at him briefly, and the two Gamma toon troops fell silent for a bit before he spoke up. "What happened yesterday? What would you of done if one of the officers saw?" He looked as if he had been holding this in for awhile now, waiting for an opportunity where the two of them could be alone. "Why would you freeze our own army members? Twice even?"

Hayao gave him a slight smirk, looking as if he might snicker deviously but remained calm and professional. "I simply acted in our best interest. What the officers don't know won't hurt them. I thought that's what we agreed on?"

Luke seemed to sink backwards a little, searching for a response. "But look what happened…! If you hadn't frozen that Alpha towards the end, we could've actually won it! Have you seen how far we've sunken in the rankings!?"

"Your priorities are mixed up," Hayao replied, turning the shower nozzle to heat up the water spraying down on him. "What matters right now isn't the army's ranking as a whole, but our individual standings. Your line of thinking is too narrow-minded – there's no point in getting into the top ten if some alpha trash is showing us up."

"B… bu-" Luke mumbled in bewilderment, barely processing what his squad mate had said. "If Rolf finds out about this, we're both screwed. He might've missed it once or twice, but he's got a good eye, and you can't expect to get away with it for long. No matter how good you are, you're still his subordinate, and at his mercy."

"Not anymore," Hayao replied simply, holding his palms out in front of him with a professional, yet menacing manner as he allowed the hot water to pour onto his body, steam flowing off his silk-white skin into the vents overhead. "I just had a conversation with Commander Tokar. It's Beta Toon Leader now."

…

"And I need a Second. Or do you want to rat me out."

…

Luke's uneasy expression slowly turned into one of amazement. "I'm in," he finally said with a delighted smirk. "All f**king in."