My Take on the Guardian Story

by Me010

A (in my opinion) fresh take on the "guardian of the hunt" story. Give it a read if you feel like it. Hopefully it interests you

38. Chapter 38 - OTC Part 1

Chapter 38 - OTC

The Operator Training Course, or OTC, began 7 days later. Percy spent those 7 days sleeping blissfully and eating like a man possessed. He wasn't sure what anyone else did with their time, and he didn't particularly care.

There was a small ceremony a few days after the 4 surviving candidates had been told they were finished. It wasn't much, but there was a very special guest. Chaos herself, in all her glory, showed up and congratulated each of them personally. And she gave them all her second blessing back, which made everything about 100 times easier, and worked miracles on Percy and everyone else's wrecked bodies. Their numerous blisters patched themselves up, their sprains and fractures were corrected, the cuts and scrapes healed over, and their broken bones were knit together.

After Percy had woken up for OTC, he finally realized how much better he felt now. Selection had worn him down so slowly and deliberately, that he almost didn't notice how bad he felt. Like a frog boiling slowly, without realizing. But now that he remembered what normal felt like, he understood how beaten down he had been.

Despite being finished with Selection, Percy was just as nervous for OTC. It was new, and he had no idea what to expect from it. He knew nothing about where they would go, or what they would learn. What would the instructors be like? Would they treat them in the same apathetic way they'd regarded them during Selection? Would they be more critical, or friendlier? The anticipation was maddening. But he figured there was nothing he could do to prepare himself any more, and worrying about it wouldn't help anything, so he just resigned himself to do the best he could, and let the chips fall where they may. Sara's words of wisdom which had played on an endless loop in his head throughout Selection, applied to OTC as well.

OTC began with new orders on the bulleting board outside, to report to a classroom on the other side of the camp. Percy made his way there, and found he was last-but-one of the candidates. He took his seat, and they waited in silence. There was no discussion on what they might expect. During Selection, they had been strongly discouraged from helping - or even talking to - each other. Old habits died hard, it seemed.

A few minutes later, the last candidate arrived, and an instructor came in just a minute after that. Instantly, they all sat up straighter, and looked straight at the instructor, waiting to be told what to do. The first sentence from him, would tell them what they could expect from OTC, so they were eager to hear from him.

"Relax, all of you."

Percy almost breathed a sigh of relief. Ideally, this would all be far more casual. He'd grown so sick of the words, "sir", "ma'am", and "instructor". Hopefully, they could dispense with that soon.

"I know what you're all thinking," the instructor continued, "You're all thinking that you're the hottest shit that's ever set foot on this planet. 6394 candidates began, and 6390 failed. You four, finished. And you should be proud of that. There aren't many people in the universe who could accomplish what you have. But I need to make one thing very clear to you, right now. Everything you just did; that was just the first step. That was the easy part. Because let me tell you, it only gets harder. OTC, which we begin today, is harder than Selection. And then your missions will be harder still. Seeing brothers and sisters die in your arms, is even worse. So, take your pride, and put it in its place. And just a reminder; you can still be cut loose if you don't progress as you should. You've made it through Selection, so we'll be more patient with you where we can be, but if you start slacking off, or stop paying attention, then you're gone. Am I clear?"

He looked at them searchingly, and they all nodded as if they'd been scolded. They hadn't been, but it felt like they had.

They began OTC, with what they called DA training. DA stood for Direct Action. It included anything that involved directly combating an enemy force. But because they were in Chaos' Army, and in its elite branch nonetheless, they had to be taught to do it flawlessly. And in order to do that, they needed to see just how bad they currently were, and then be shown where they needed to get.

Percy and the three other candidates loaded up with body armor and guns loaded with "simunitions", which were basically de-powered bullets, loaded with paint that would show where their rounds struck.

They were told to attack an enemy compound and clear it of any threats. Percy and the others were a little confused. They had done the same exact thing during the 3rd Phase of Selection, and they had all been fairly good at it. They wouldn't still be there if they hadn't been. But none of them said anything. Clearly, OTC was more lax, but they weren't about to start taking liberties.

They loaded up and attacked the compound, each of them taking down plenty of simulated enemies. It was a textbook raid. It went off without a hitch.

Feeling pretty good about themselves, Percy and the others took their gear off and reported back to the instructors.

"How do you think that went?" an instructor asked.

"Pretty well, ma'am," one of the guys replied confidently.

"Come with me. I want to show you something."

The thing she wanted to show them, was security footage. More accurately, it was security footage of the raid they had just conducted, taken from cameras hidden throughout the building. Percy hadn't been looking for them, so this was the first time he was realising they were even there.

The instructor spent over an hour going over exactly how each of them had fucked up. They were stunned into silence. The level of detail was intense. One of the other candidates had reloaded at some point in the raid, and he didn't have an answer as to why he had chosen the specific magazine he had switched to. They told him that there was supposed to be a clear order for him to work through, so that he would know exactly how many rounds were left in each magazine. Percy, who hadn't reloaded at all during the raid, was flabbergasted.

Then, to show the recruits what they had to work towards, 4 instructors kitted up and gave a demonstration of their own. They conducted the same raid Percy and the other candidates had just gone through. Except they did it in less than a fifth of the time. Percy and the others were watching the whole thing live on the monitors. It was amazing. They flew through the compound faster than Percy would have thought possible. They were flawless. Each and every movement, every step, every bullet fired, every glance, was precise down to the millimeter. It was like watching ballet.

Then, Percy and the other candidates were asked to run through a classic CQB test; room clearing, with hostages mixed in with enemy targets. Again, Percy and the others had done plenty of that during 3rd Phase, but after the compound assault, they knew their skills were nowhere near the instructors'. They ran through it anyway, each of them feeling incredibly self-conscious about every tiny detail.

Predictably, after the room was cleared, they were dragged outside and subjected to another hour's worth of cross-examination on each of the decisions they made before, during, and after the drill. It was intense. And then the instructors ran through the same drill, but with one minor difference.

Percy and the other candidates were the hostages.

And one other minor difference.

This drill would be run with live fire. Real bullets.

That meant that they couldn't have other instructors playing the part of an enemy force, for obvious reasons. So, incredibly realistic dummies were brought it, their hands manipulated so they were holding weapons. The room was set, with Percy and the others in various spots, each of them with a target holding a gun on them.

Percy was sat on a couch in the middle of the room, with a dummy crouched behind him, holding a handgun to his temple. It would be an utter lie to say he wasn't nervous. He was scared shitless.

Suddenly, the door burst open and Percy caught a glimpse of one of the instructors in full combat gear. He was throwing something. It sailed high through the room, and Percy realized what it was. Flashbang. He tried not to look. He knew he was supposed to keep his eyes on the instructors, to see what they did. But he couldn't help himself. His eyes were drawn to it, as if by magnetics.

The flashbang went off, and Percy was blinded and deafened. Then there was a sharp breeze past his cheek. A second later, his hearing came back, and he could see again. The room was clear, and the instructors were gathered together in the middle, staring at them, arms crossed over slung submachine guns.

Percy gaped.

He looked over his shoulder at the dummy that had been there just a second before. It was on the ground, gun still in hand, with 3 bullet holes in its forehead so close together, they looked like one big wound.

He looked back at the instructors and saw that they looked pretty pleased with themselves.

"Raise your hand if you saw what we did just now."

Percy looked around the room and saw that not a single one of them had their hand up.

"And why not?"

Silence.

"The flashbang?" Percy asked timidly.

"Are you asking me, or telling me?"

Percy thought about it for a second.

"Telling you," he said more firmly.

"Well, you're right. The flashbang through the air draws the eye. It's virtually impossible to resist, even if you know it's coming. Unless you're under very specific circumstances, you can just about always throw a flashbang into a room that has hostages mixed in with targets. They don't do any permanent damage, and they give you a little extra time to make sure you've got your sights on the right person. Now, let's go review the footage."

The instructors led the dumbstruck candidates back to the room where they'd watched the instructors' compound raid, and watched the footage of the room clearing they had all just participated in. Percy couldn't help but stare at the instructor who had taken the shots that had killed the target right behind him. He had felt a slight breeze as the bullets went by, maybe an inch away from his face, and nothing more.

Just like with the compound raid, every detail was micro-analyzed. And just like with the compound raid, every detail had been meticulously thought out. Down to the slightest movement. This wasn't violence. This was art. It was like a big elaborate dance, that had been rehearsed off-stage thousands of times, and then performed live flawlessly.

That was it for Day 1. Apparently, the instructor at the beginning hadn't been speaking in generalities. The whole day was dedicated to showing them that they were not hot shit, and that they were going to perform, or get sent back to wherever they had come from. The real hard work was going to begin the next day.

And it did. For the next 2 weeks, Percy didn't hold a weapon. He and the others were classroom-bound. The instructors were showing them videos, and detailed diagrams on how they should move, shoot, look, and fucking breathe on a raid, or in CQB. Finally, once the class time was over, they loaded up and went through it slowly. A walkthrough, they called it. That took another 2 weeks. All day, every day, for 2 weeks, walking through a compound in full gear, focusing on where they would step, where they would look, and where they would shoot. Then they spent another week doing it a little faster. Then a little faster. A little faster again. And then they were allowed to go through it as fast as they could, facing off against instructors, loaded with simunitions.

Percy could actually feel the difference those few weeks had made. He felt more confident with every decision he made. He and the others still weren't nearly as fast as the instructors, but they were all a lot better. They ran it over and over again, until each of them could have done it blind.

Once they had gotten the hang of compound assaults and room clearing, they moved on to the next thing. And then the next thing. And then the thing after that. Each and every time, they were taught the same way. First, they'd be stuck in class learning the theory behind everything. That was when the instructors would take the time to explain exactly why each move was so important, and the reasoning behind it all. Then they'd spend a couple weeks doing walkthroughs. Then they'd up the speed until they were going all out, and rehearse it over and over again. Only once the given operation was ingrained in their muscle memory, would they move and and start learning some other type of operation from square 1.

Because of the wide variety of operations Chaos' Army - and Spec Ops especially - would regularly conduct, they spent nearly 3 years going over everything, in the same fashion. Chalk, walk, run, sprint. And they really did cover everything even tangentially related to Direct Action.

One of the more interesting aspects to the whole process, to Percy at least, was learning to operate in various environments. The universe was a pretty damn big place, to put it mildly, and the places where they might be asked to operate, were wide and varied. There were planets with poisonous atmospheres, temperatures that could rocket up to 300 degrees Celsius, and on it went. Naturally, they covered it all in simulated environments on Perstompa.

Once they were done with DA, they moved on to languages. Seemingly, when Chaos had designed the universe, she had wanted a universal (ha, see what I did there? xD) design for people, hence why everyone looked at least somewhat humanoid. But she hadn't bothered with any kind of universal language, which was, in Percy's educated opinion, pure laziness. The best she had done, was to include a kind of universal translator, but only for everyone in her Army. That way, even though they were speaking completely different languages, Percy could understand anyone in Chaos' Army, and they could understand him. But it only extended to whoever was in the Army, so they had to learn a lot of languages to be able to communicate with anyone they came across on their missions.

As such, there were thousands of languages and tens of thousands of dialects that each Chaos' Army Spec Ops Operator was expected to know as standard. When Percy found out about that, he nearly fainted. But, as ever, the instructors teaching them on the subject, were excellent at what they did. And their schedule was different now too. Whereas before when they were doing DA, they would dedicate virtually every waking hour to running through raids, or learning the theory behind them at least, now they were doing regular hours. It was a bit like school, so Percy hated it. They started at a certain time, and finished at a certain time, the rest of the day was theirs to do with as they pleased.

The classes were hard, and they had a dedicated teacher for each language, and a separate teacher for the customs and traditions of each of the nations and planets whose languages they were learning.

One hour they were learning the past, present, and future tense of the verb; Acklepunk, and then they were learning the proper way to greet a respected elder, on Prospero. They spent 8 hours in class every day, and the rest of their time was their own. Percy and the others each found their own routines. Even though they weren't doing anything physical anymore, they still wanted to keep their skills fresh for when they returned to them. But they also needed to study everything they went over in class. To make sure the candidates were paying attention, they had weekly tests on that week's material. If any candidate fell below the requirements more than twice, they would fail OTC.

Because of the tests and the need to keep their skills fresh, Percy settled into a routine where he'd spend a few hours after class practicing raids, or hostage rescue, or whatever else came to mind, and then the next day he'd study. He would just keep alternating, with a few exceptions here and there when he really needed to study.

It was seriously difficult work, and it lasted nearly a decade. 8 years and 8 months, to be exact. By the end, Percy could effortlessly speak thousands of languages at a moment's notice. And if he needed to, he could probably pick up another one in a matter of days. The thing about languages is, the more you know, the easier it is to learn more. There was something about the process of learning a language, that re-wired a person's brain and made it more receptive to learning more languages. It was a strange phenomenon, but Percy could clearly identify it. When they'd started learning, it took them nearly 4 months to learn another language fluently. By the end, they could pick up a new one every week.

After languages, they moved on to something more visceral. Unarmed Hand-to-Hand Combat. But the way they did it, was unlike anything Percy had ever seen in his life. The next few months were brutal. One day, a female instructor had taped something that looked a bit like an orange to her eye, and had the candidates gouge it out, to simulate gouging someone's eye out in the middle of combat.

They had all done it separately, so Percy hadn't known it would be coming.

He just heard, "Jackson, your turn."

And then the instructor had told him to grapple her to the ground and gouge out her fruit.

Slightly concerned, but eager to make a good impression, Percy did as he was asked. He tackled her, and they were so close together that he could feel her breath on his face, and smell her perfume, which was a surprisingly feminine scent. The contrast between the position, and what he was being asked to do, was incredible. The moment his thumb entered the fruit, she started screaming like he had just impaled her actual eye. Naturally, he stopped and stared at her in absolute terror. Her single eye glared up at him.

"What? You think it's going to be peaceful when you tear someone's eye out? Get back to it."

So, he did. He shoved his thumb back in there, curled it like a fishing hook, and pulled savagely. She screeched like nothing he had ever heard before, as he pulled the fruit's innards out, and then she suddenly stopped, immediately calm again.

"Alright, not bad. Next time, don't hesitate, or you'll get your own eye torn out."

Percy gulped, and nodded, "Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Now get off me."

He stood, offered her a hand, and then noticed she was already on her feet.

The rest of Unarmed H-t-H went similarly. The instructors weren't teaching them how to fight. They were teaching them how to kill. They were teaching them to kill, in the most brutally effective way imaginable. They explained that there was virtually no reason to get into a fight where the ultimate goal wasn't the death of your opponent. So, why beat around the bush? Gouge out some eyes, tear out some throats, and shatter some sternums.

That went on for a few years, and during those years, Percy learned more ways to kill a person than he ever imagined wanting to know. But there was no telling what could happen on a mission, or what might be required of him, so he put his head down and learned as much as he could.

After that, they moved on to the basics of assassination, beginning with long-distance shooting, which Percy was thankful for. Despite his comparatively young age, he was already a prodigious sniper. But the whole thing was less about shooting, and far more about getting into certain positions without being seen. They were taught to assemble ghillie suits out of surrounding foliage, and they were tasked with getting across wide-open fields without being seen by the instructors.

Once they had that down, they moved on to the actual shooting, which basically meant Percy had some time off. Because of his talent with sniping, he didn't have to put nearly as much effort into it as the others, and he still managed to do a lot better. That being said, he still learned a lot. With the proper hardware, he was able to confidently shoot out to 30 Kilometers

Once they'd covered that, they moved on to close-up work. The instructors showed them the various places a knife could be inserted into a body to cause instantaneous death. They also worked with hundreds of different poisons, and learned how to make an assassination look like an accident, by using the surrounding environment.

And then, just like that, they were on to tradecraft. That was, because there was no other way to put it, some serious James Bond - Jason Bourne - Court Gentry - Evan Smoak - type of shit. (If you get those last two, you're officially a gigachad)

They learned how to stalk a person, physically and digitally. They learned how to make their way through the world completely invisible to anyone who might be looking for them. They were also taught how to build a legend - an undercover identity - and how to back up that legend by forging or buying the necessary credentials. They learned how much detail they should add, to make it feel real, without it coming across as though they were trying to convince people that it was genuine.

And then there was standard tradecraft, but elevated to a higher level. Arranging meet-ups with sources, and scouting out locations. What kind of places to stay at, and how to blend into a crowd of random people.

It was extensive, and it took a long time to go over it all to the level where they were experts, but they did get the hang of it. It only took 7 years.

—-

Finally, after a total of 24 years in OTC, all 4 candidates graduated from phase 1.

Of course, they still had decades to go, but it still felt strangely momentous. Not nearly as impactful as passing Selection, but then again, Percy didn't figure there was anything imaginable that would be more impactful than passing Selection. Aside from when he killed Jack. That would still be #1.

The dropship came for them, and the 4 candidates boarded. The moment the doors sealed and they took off, the artificial gravity was activated, and Percy felt the strongest sensation of relief he'd ever experienced. After so long on Perstompa, he'd almost forgotten the intense gravity that made the planet the perfect place to hold Selection. But now, they were experiencing normal gravity again, for the first time in decades.

Percy would never be able to describe the feeling of returning to normal gravity. It made him so light-headed, he almost fainted on the spot. But it was like every cell in his body turned to mist, and he just melted into a puddle of goo. Suddenly, his feet didn't feel so clunky. Walking, didn't feel like he was clunking along as it had. Now, he was floating.

There was also some intense relief on his neck muscles. The intense gravity had been putting some serious stress on his entire spine, but nowhere more so than his neck, which was the spine's most brittle point.

It was better than sex.

The dropship took them to the main ship, which took them to a planet called Kennegmagogia, where the 4 Spec Ops candidates would go through all the Soldier Branch's schools. Percy took the time to look read up on what to expect when he was there.

Sara had told him that there were a lot of sub-schools in the Soldier Branch School, and she wasn't kidding. It was intense. But Percy figured that was fair enough. She had told him that the Army Branch covered anything to do with conventional warfare, and that was a very wide umbrella. It would be absurd to expect every single soldier in Chaos' Army to know how to do everything, so they broke it up into a lot of sub-catergories, where everyone could focus on their own specialties. It made sense.

But Percy, as a Spec Ops candidate, would go through all of them. This was going to take a while.

They landed on Kennegmagogia, and were immediately confronted by a Soldier Branch Instructor.

"Hurry up! Get out here, now!"

Exchanging weirded out looks between themselves, Percy and the other 3 Spec Ops candidates hustled down the dropship ramp, and stood in front of the Instructor.

"Is that how you greet an Instructor? What the hell do you think this is; Basic? You stand at attention when you talk to me, and you call me sir! Is that understood?" the man thundered.

He was strangely pudgy-looking, which Percy hadn't seen before in Chaos' Army. All the Instructors they'd had, in Basic, Selection, and OTC Phase 1, had been extremely fit, without a shred of an ounce of fat on them. This guy looked soft. And as if in an effort to make up for that fact, his face looked severe and was marked by frown lines.

Percy instantly disliked the man. Even during Selection and OTC, the instructors had treated them all with some measure of respect. But this asshole, who probably had tried and failed to get into Spec Ops himself, was shouting and screaming like he was some ancient lord.

That was when Percy realized why he disliked him. He reminded Percy of Zeus.

"I know where you've all come from, and I just want you to know, I don't give a fuck! As long as you're here, you're under my command, you got that? You do exactly what I tell you, exactly when I tell you to do it! The consequences for failing to do so, will be severe. Understand?"

Percy was pretty sure he could beat the man to death without breaking a sweat. After so many years in the intense environment of Perstompa, he felt stronger than ever. And he'd been taught an awful lot in his years in OTC. The eye-gouging lessons were now coming back to him with great clarity. But he didn't feel himself getting angry. That was something else he'd learned on Perstompa. He fantasized, with a strange sense of detachment, about brutally killing the man, but there was no indignant rage or anything like that. He was barely even annoyed. Now, looking at the man, Percy simply felt nothing.

The Spec Ops candidates shared a look between themselves, and then said, as one, "Yes, sir."

They made sure to say it nice and slowly, just to make it clear that this blustering bullshit of his hadn't fazed them in the least. It would be important to establish that fact early on.

"Yeah, whatever," the Instructor muttered to himself disbelievingly, "You're starting out in Infantry School. It's on the other side of the planet. A shuttle will come and take you there in 10 minutes. Until then, you're here with me, and I'll tell you the rules and regulations. They will apply to you, without exception, every single moment you are on this planet. If you step out of line whatsoever, I will personally make sure you are failed. Do I make myself clear?"

Percy felt the other candidates clench their jaws, and they collectively counted to three in their heads before replying in the affirmative.

As he'd said, the pudgy instructor spent the next 10 minutes lecturing them on precisely what they weren't allowed to do. It was an exhaustive list. There would be no fraternizing with Instructors outside of classes. There would be no alcohol. There would be no practical jokes. And on it went. The pudgy Instructor went on for so long, Percy became vaguely worried - or hopeful - that the man might have a heart attack.

There was, however, one fact that Percy actually found worthy of learning. They were not allowed to tell anyone, that they were from Spec Ops. Apparently, even within Chaos' Army, Spec Ops Operators - and indeed, hopefuls - kept their identities a secret from everyone else, except fellow Operators. So, their story was that they had just passed out of Basic, and they had been chosen to join the Infantry of Soldier Branch.

Eventually, he finished up, and their ride showed up. Apparently, when the Instructor had said, shuttle, he'd meant train, because that's what they saw. It looked like a sleek, modern, bullet train, only shorter than Percy was used to seeing. There were only 4 compartments.

That was when Percy got the chance to really look around for a second. He hadn't even noticed his environment at all. The pudgy Instructor, credit where it was due, had monopolized their attention the moment they'd stepped off the dropship.

Kennegmagogia looked like a barren wasteland. At least Perstompa had been nice to look at, with plenty of natural forests and mountains, and fairly interesting landscapes. This place, looked like it was nothing but hot, dry, dirt being beaten down upon by a scorching sun.

Percy, the other candidates, and the pudgy Instructor were standing in what looked like a train station. Hence, presumably, why the shuttle was a train. The place reminded Percy, vaguely of an old gas station out in the middle of nowhere. Like at the end of Terminator. Alone and desolate, miles from anywhere.

Just then, the doors of the shuttle's first compartment slid open, and a tall, thin man with brown hair cropped short, stepped out. He was wearing a uniform which was pressed so thoroughly, that its creases could be used as a deadly weapon. He snapped to attention and fired off a salute to the pudgy Instructor. He held the position for a few seconds, until the pudgy Instructor saluted back, just as smartly.

"Sir! Lieutenant Lopek reporting for troop transport, sir!"

Percy and the other candidates just stared at the guy for a few seconds, and they were distinctly aware of the pudgy Instructor looking at them smugly. Like he was saying, 'See, this is how you should all behave'. Honestly, if he thought he was going to get Percy or any of the others to act like that, he had another thing coming. They weren't there to learn how to become mindless drones.

The pudgy Instructor indicated the 4 Spec Ops candidates to Lieutenant Lopek, and they were immediately shepherded onto the mini train. It took off almost immediately, with such immediate velocity, that Percy had to make an active effort not to lurch backward. A quick look around told him that the others had done the same thing, for the same reasons, and he allowed himself a brief, knowing smile at them.

"You're probably wondering why you all feel so heavy?" Lieutenant Lopek asked smugly.

Percy and the others looked at each other, totally confused by this. Were they supposed to be heavy? He couldn't say for sure about the others, but Percy himself felt as though he had never been more weightless.

"Well, I'll tell you. The planet we're on, Kennegmagogia, has a stronger gravitational force than the Universal normal. It's approximately 10 times what it typically would be. This is to make your training here even more difficult. You'd better learn to deal with it, because I for one, will not slow down or make allowances for you. You got that?"

Percy almost laughed. He really, truly, had to make an effort to restrain himself. He knew instinctively, that the others were making that same, gargantuan effort.

If they had been allowed to, Percy would have told the guy that he should go visit Perstompa, and then come back and tell them how hard it was there. But none of them was even supposed to know the name Perstompa, let alone how hard it was to be there.

"Yeah, 10 times the gravity, boy that's just soooo hard," the bigger of the two male candidates said sarcastically.

Percy and the other 2 instantly shot the guy a warning look. They were ignored.

"Oh? You think you're some kind of tough guy, do you? I swear to Chaos, we always get a few like you. You haven't even started training yet, and you already think you're such hot shit; why? Cause you made it through basic? Big deal, so did everyone else. You're not special."

"Yes, of course, sir," the lone female Spec Ops candidate said before her mouthy counterpart could respond, "We understand that. I'm sure our colleague here is just a bit moody, that's all."

She said the whole thing in a placating tone, like she was trying to play the mediator.

"Yeah," Percy said, trying to give her a hand, "It's been a very long flight, sir, I think some of us, just got a little tired. We won't give you any grief."

Lopek just glared at them all for a few seconds.

"Well, you just make damn sure you keep that attitude under control. I'm not here to take any shit from anyone, you hear me?"

"Yes, sir, we understand," the girl said before the first guy could say anything.

The air was tense for a while, and no one said a word. Percy, the girl, and the other guy glared hard at the guy who had talked shit, and Lopek just glared at them all.

Eventually, they collectively decided to go their separate ways, and sat down as far away from each other as they could. Percy was seething with rage. Who knew what would happen if they got rumbled as Spec Ops candidates? Would they all be scrubbed from the program, just because one asshole talked himself up too much?

He took a deep breath and cleared the thought from his mind. No point worrying about things he couldn't change. One thing was for sure though. Once they were alone, Percy was going to make damn sure this asshole knew how exactly he had fucked up.

But in the meantime, there was nothing he could do, but look out the window he was sitting next to. But there wasn't much to see. It seemed the entire planet was as sandy, dusty, and decrepit as the waystation had led him to believe. The most interesting thing he could find to look at, was some rock formations that broke up the endless monotony of desert. Their journey lasted around 5 hours, and the most exciting thing Percy saw, by far, was a single palm tree, which looked half-dead.

But finally, they did arrive. The infantry school looked… Not great. It was a large enough place, that was for sure. Percy saw around a dozen shooting ranges, several Kill Houses, which were buildings built specifically for teams to practice CQB, large sound-proofed buildings which Percy knew were for practicing demolitions, several obstacle courses, a mess hall that looked around the size of a football stadium, a motor pool containing thousands of different vehicles, a runway, and dozens of massive buildings which looked like apartment blocks. The whole school must have been the size of Texas.

The train stopped at a smaller version of the waystation where they had landed.

"Follow me," Lopek said. The first words spoken in nearly 5 hours.

The 4 candidates got up and followed Lopek. He led them to one of the apartment buildings and told them they were barracks. All 4 candidates would share a barracks room that consisted of 2 bunk beds and a bathroom. And apparently, they could think themselves lucky, too, because typically it was 6 to a room. Lopek told them that they would report to Basic Marksmanship in an hour, and then left them alone in the room.

Immediately, they rounded on the guy with the smart mouth.

"What the hell was that, 3?" the girl demanded.

During their CQB training in OTC Phase 1, they'd been assigned numbers for ease of reference. They still didn't know each others' names, so that was just how they referred to each other. The guy with the big mouth, was 3. The only girl, was 2. Percy was 1. The last guy, was 4.

"Oh, leave me alone, 2. Are you seriously telling me that that guy didn't annoy you? Calling us pussies after everything we've been through in Selection and OTC? Don't tell me you didn't want to beat the shit out of him!"

"Whether we did or we didn't, is irrelevant," Percy said, getting annoyed again, "If you blow our cover, who knows what'll happen to us? Maybe the OTC Instructors will decide that we need to redo Phase 1 before we can come back here and try again? Shit, maybe they'll just fail us!"

"Oh, will you relax, 1? They're not gonna fail an entire OTC class if one little Infantry Lieutenant gets a hunch about us."

"Oh, really?" 4 chimed in, "And you know this, how?"

"Oh, let's see, it's this little thing called common fucking sense, clearly you haven't heard of it."

"Don't you fucking get snippy with us," Percy almost hissed, "Let me make something nice and clear to you, 3. If I get screwed because you can't keep your mouth closed, I'll fucking shoot you. Understand?"

Percy was an intimidating man. He had been, back on Earth. The effect had been magnified a hundred-fold since he'd begun OTC. But 3 had been through it too. He stared back, almost bored.

"Please," he drawled, "I've had the same training you've had. I'm not worried."

"You might not be worried about him," 2 said, suddenly appearing at Percy's elbow, "But if we all come for you, you're done. No two ways about it. So, watch yourself."

4 was at Percy's other elbow, arms crossed threateningly. 4, Percy was more than willing to admit, was a scary dude. Physically speaking, he wasn't at all impressive. He actually looked quite meek. At around 5'8, and incredibly lean, he could walk into any bar on any planet, and half the guys in there would immediately assume they could beat the shit out of him if they so chose. But there was a look in his eyes, and a kind of confidence in the way that he carried himself, which showed anyone who knew how to look, that he was not to be trifled with. And indeed, he and Percy had sparred a few times in OTC Phase 1, and he could attest that 4 was not a man to be fucked with. And as if further evidence was needed, the fact he'd joined Selection on the back of an incredibly successful 100-year career in the Spy Branch, was the final nail in the coffin.

And indeed, 2, the only woman among them, was the same way. Physically unthreatening, at 5'6 and razor thin, Percy had seen her move with such grace and fluidity, that he had felt hopelessly clumsy and awkward by comparison. It helped that she had a certain savagery about her. Percy had never seen her in a real life-or-death hand-to-hand fight, but he knew for a fact that she would fight dirty, and brutally. He didn't know very much about where she had been before she applied for Selection, but he did know that she had been in Assassin Branch, and that she had been there long enough to have earned several promotions and commendations, as well as a slight reputation for killing her victims up close and personal. That was enough to make Percy automatically weary of her.

By comparison, Percy knew he was far less intimidating. And he felt strangely glad to have 2 and 4 backing him up. One thing was for sure. He didn't want to go picking a fight with 3 willy-nilly. He was incredibly dangerous. Percy didn't know much about him, just like the others, but he knew that he'd spent nearly 300 years in the Enforcer Branch, specializing in hunting serial killers and rapists, and dismantling organized crime networks. Seriously dangerous people. They were dead or in prison, and he was alive. That doesn't happen to someone by luck. Not for 300 years. This guy was good. And then he'd gone through OTC, just like all the rest of them.

And he certainly looked more threatening than the others. At around 6'4, and built like a weightlifter, he was the kind of guy people would cross the street to avoid walking past at night. As if to complete the look, there was a scar, clearly visible on his face. It began just above the middle of his right eyebrow and flowed almost directly downwards, bisecting the eyebrow, and along his eyelid. That part was only visible when he blinked, which wasn't very often. At nearly the exact center of his eye, the pale tissue hooked sharply to his left, flowed across the bridge of his nose, all the way across his left eye, and ended there. Percy had no idea how it had happened, and he had decided very early on, that he didn't want to know.

3 stared at Percy, 2, and 4, seemingly weighing up his options.

Finally, he raised his arms in mock defeat. Percy fought to keep his body from visibly relaxing. He hadn't even realized, but all his muscles had tensed up, ready for a fight. A quick look at 2 and 4, told him they were the same way.

"I'm gonna go find the mess hall in this dump," 3 said irritably.

He swept out of the room, and that was that.

"What are we gonna do about that?" 2 asked the moment the door to their sound-proofed room slammed shut.

4 shook his head, as though dealing with a petulant and exhausting child.

"As long as that was a one-time thing, then I don't think we have to do anything at all. As long as he keeps himself in line, there's no situation for us to worry about, right?" Percy said.

"Believe me, I sincerely doubt that was a one-time thing. I've seen plenty of people like him," 2 said before casually adding, "Usually, right before I slit their throats."

Percy and 4 glanced at each other, and 4 gave Percy a look of 'Well, I don't know what to do with that. You deal with it if you want to'. He was a man with a very expressive face.

"Are you saying he's going to keep making waves?" Percy asked.

"As long as he's being taught by people he sees as beneath him. As far as he's concerned, he made it through Selection and OTC Phase 1, and everyone else here either tried and failed, or were too scared to even try. But he made it through, so he's automatically better than everyone here. And why should he take orders from someone below him?"

Percy blinked at the on-the-spot character analysis.

4 must have too, because she looked at the two of them and shrugged.

"Part of being an Assassin is learning to think like your targets. I've had a lot of practice over the centuries."

One scary lady.

"Do you think we should try and get a message to our OTC Instructors?" 4 asked quietly.

No one said anything for a while. That was a serious step. If they did that, then 3 would undoubtedly be removed from OTC. But the others would be safe.

"If it comes to that, we will," Percy decided.

2 and 4 nodded somberly. It wasn't an eventuality that any of them wanted to think about.

---

The weeks went by in Infantry School, and truth be told, Percy was finding it a bit boring. They were learning good stuff, and it was certainly valuable knowledge, but the teaching styles of the Infantry School Instructors just seemed so wooden, and stilted compared to the OTC Instructors.

Not to mention the hand-holding. At first, Percy had assumed that the Instructors thought they were all idiots. But the more he watched the rest of the class, the more he realized that none of them seemed to feel the same way. In fact, they looked like they felt rather the opposite, and would have wanted more help.

It was truly bizarre.

And matters weren't helped by 3, who, true to 2's assessment, continued mouthing off to the Instructors. Any time he did something wrong and one of the Instructors corrected him so brusquely, he rolled his eyes and gave them shit. The only real punishment for the trainees at Infantry School, was to make the offending party do strenuous physical activities. But after Selection, none of it could truly bother 3, so there was no deterrent to running his mouth.

Until Percy and the others confronted him after a particularly tense screaming match with an Instructor.

"One more shit show like today, and we'll get you kicked out. You understand?" Percy had informed him once they were back in their room.

3 squared his shoulders, and looked at Percy with murderous intent.

"What? You gonna squeal to the Instructors?" he almost whispered.

"That's exactly what I'm going to do. Cause let me tell you, you're ruining all our chances here. I don't know about you, but I've worked damn hard to get here, and I'm not going to let your fragile ego ruin everything."

3 snapped and threw the glass he had been holding, across the room. Percy didn't break eye contact. He didn't even blink. He was ready. If 3 started throwing punches, things would get truly ugly. But only until 2 and 4 stepped in.

It was a very tense few seconds.

But then 3 snorted a joyless laugh through his nose, curled his upper lip and nose like he smelled something awful, stepped away from Percy, and left their barracks room.

Percy turned to 2.

"I'm going to have to start listening to you one of these days," he said idly.

She had, after all, been right on the money, in regards to 3.

She smiled, "You would, if you were smart. That's why my hopes aren't all that high."

Percy smirked at her and opened the small fridge in their room, taking an iced coffee from inside it before dropping onto his bunk.

"How did that asshole even pass the character tests in Selection," 4 asked them with a long-suffering sigh, clearly frustrated almost to the point of tears over the whole thing.

"I guess there will always be one or two that slip through the cracks. If you ask me, that's half the reason we're here right now. To see how we put up with the indignity of being bossed around by lesser beings," 2 said with the requisite air quotes as needed.

Over the weeks in Infantry School, as 3's relationship with the rest of the group disintegrated, the bonds between Percy, 2, and 4, went in the complete opposite direction. They had actually become somewhat close. Percy found he quite liked spending time with them both.

3 was gone for several hours that night. None of the others knew where he went, nor did they particularly care to. They spent the time relaxing in their barracks room, comparing notes on the day's experiences.

They didn't see him again at all, until their demolitions class the next morning. He looked disheveled and bedraggled, which Percy knew was only going to earn him more attention from the tidiness-loving Instructors.

That ended up being the worst fight to date. When an Instructor spent a solid 5 minutes lecturing 3 on the importance of being presentable, 3 punched the guy in the face. Percy and the other Spec Ops candidates, having requested to work separately from 3 several weeks prior, had been on the other side of the room when he'd done it. Because of that, it took them a second to get to him. Two other Instructors got their hands on him first, and 3 dismantled them both in a flash.

Finally, Percy, who had been the quickest to react, got to 3. Just as he'd been rearing a fist back to hit another Instructor, Percy caught it. 3 spun to him so quickly, with such a beastly look in his eyes, that Percy almost took an involuntary step back. But he held firm and stared 3 down.

After their staring contest had gone on long enough, 3 snatched his arm out of Percy's grasp and glared at him furiously before storming out. Percy looked over his shoulder at 2 and 4, and they nodded at him before following 3.

Percy left too, but he didn't go with the rest. Instead, he went to the Administration Office and asked to speak to the Soldier Branch School Director, A.K.A. the pudgy Instructor.

20 minutes later, Percy was back in the barracks building, and he let himself into his room.

2,3, and 4 were already in there. 3 was shaking with rage, pacing across the room, parallel to the door. 2 and 4 were closer to the door, flanking it. Percy knew why, too.

"Where the hell have you been?" 3 asked in a voice that fluctuated between a scream and a hollow whisper.

"I told you what would happen," Percy said simply.

There were no weapons allowed in the barracks buildings, and Percy was immensely grateful for that fact just then. But the problem with rules, is that they apply with shockingly little efficacy to graduates of OTC Phase 1.

3 went flying at Percy, with a heretofore unnoticed knife clutched in his hand.

Had Percy been in the mood to be kind, he would have dodged away. But he was furious at 3 for causing so much trouble. So instead, he only raised a hand to block the blade, and allowed himself to be cut. The knife sliced his forearm open, in a nice deep cut. It was painful, of course, but that didn't matter very much. Percy could see the Spec Ops Instructors forgiving a lot for 3. But assaulting a fellow candidate, was just too far. And now Percy had proof. 3 was fucked. 2 and 4, from their positions on either side of the whole mess, each grabbed 3 by an arm and sent him flying backwards.

3 crashed against the wall with a thud, but immediately sprang back up again. He looked angrier than ever. He grabbed one of the nightstands, and hurled it across the room. It hit 2 square in the face, and she went stumbling back with a sharp grunt of pain.

That was enough.

Knowing instinctively what the other was doing, Percy and 4 flanked 3, and attacked him from both sides. 3 was outmatched. There was simply nothing he could do. Percy and 4 were too fast, and seeing 2 stumbling away, obviously in a fair amount of pain, had enraged them both. Percy broke 3's right arm, and 4 broke his left leg. Then Percy slammed him with a thunderous blow to the chest, which broke several ribs, without a doubt.

Percy and 4 picked 3 up and hauled him to one of the bunk beds, and 2, now somewhat recovered from her brief stun, handed them some spare sheets. Percy noticed her broken nose as she handed them over, and felt a fresh surge of anger course through him.

They tied 3 up, and sat down on the bed opposite him, just waiting for the OTC Instructors to show up. 2 offered to take a look at Percy's forearm, but he declined. In turn, he offered to take a look at her nose, and she just scoffed.

It took a little over 2 hours. They'd been lucky. An Instructor had been in the area on unrelated business when she'd gotten the call from HQ. Percy knew it was an OTC Instructor, when there was a knock at the door, and he hadn't sensed the person on the other side. He got up and opened the door, to reveal the unmistakable sight of an OTC Instructor. A slim, beautiful woman, who was neither tall nor short, with a look about her that said she could kill armies on a whim.

Immediately, he stood aside to let her in. She strolled through into the room, and seemed to take a moment to look around, with an almost nostalgic look. Then she brought herself back to the situation at hand, and looked down at the struggling Spec Ops candidate, writhing against his bed sheet restraints.

"Ohhhh, Sengari," she sighed, "Where did it all go wrong, eh?"

3, or Sengari, Percy supposed, grunted back at her. He was incapable of speech just then. 4 had gagged him 10 minutes after they'd first tied him down.

The OTC Instructor removed the gag.

"What the hell happened?" she asked in a cold, menacing voice that made Percy shiver even though he wasn't the one on the receiving end.

"I-I-I-I-I-I," seemed to be all Sengari was capable of saying.

'Not such a tough guy now, are you?' Percy thought vindictively.

"He was mouthing off to the Instructors here," Percy informed the OTC Instructor, "After it happened a few times, we warned him not to do it again, or we'd get you involved. Today, he punched one of the Infantry School Instructors. I made the decision to involve you, like I'd said I would. When I got back to the room, he asked where I'd been. I told him, and he attacked me."

The OTC Instructor looked over her shoulder sharply at Percy, eyebrow raised.

"He actually attacked you?" something dangerous in her voice.

"Yes, ma'am, he did," Percy said, showing her the long cut along his forearm, which was still bleeding.

Her eyes almost bugged out at the sight.

"He also threw a nightstand at 2," 4 added, "It broke her nose."

The Instructor turned to 2, and saw the broken nose in question.

She turned back to Sengari.

"I had such high hopes for you," she said in a clipped tone that made every word sound like its own sentence. A death sentence.

"Untie him," she commanded the rest of the candidates.

They did as they were told, and the OTC Instructor hauled Sengari to his feet. He actually took a swing at her. Percy and the others, including the Instructor herself, gaped at him in pure shock.

And then, faster than Percy would ever have imagined possible, the Instructor punched Sengari in the gut. The blow was so fast, Percy didn't even register it. There was just a slight blur of movement, and then Sengari was keeled over, vomiting horribly.

She grabbed Sengari by the collar and dragged him, still vomiting, out of the room.

Percy knew instinctively, he would never see him again.

—-

After the abrupt departure of Sengari, things actually started to improve. Without him drawing attention to them all at every opportunity, they found it far easier to blend in with the other students. Of course, they weren't exactly like the other students. They always seemed to pick things up just a little bit faster than everyone else. And they tended to perform to a higher standard than any other trainees overall. Thankfully, this led to the Instructors giving them a bit of leeway. Instead of watching them like hawks and commenting on each and every move, they just told them what to do, and stood back to let them. It was great.

One of the more interesting aspects of Infantry School, had been the Sniper Course. 12 weeks of shooting, assembling ghillie suits, and crossing long stretches of enemy terrain while remaining unseen. It was kind of fun.

The key to being a great sniper, Percy knew, was patience. A person's vision is directed towards movement. So, in order to remain stealthy, one would have to move incredibly slowly to get into position to take a shot, and then move slower still to leave. Sometimes they would take hours to get into position, even if they were only covering a few hundred yards.

At the end of their 12 weeks, they'd been given a test, just to see if they had all understood the material learned, and were ready to proceed to the next Course. They were given a starting point, a shooting position 300 yards ahead, a target around 9 Km away, a sniper rifle loaded with a single bullet, and the basic skeleton of a ghillie suit. They were told to take as long as they needed to get into position, take the shot, kill the target, and then return to the original starting point, while the distance between was being patrolled by enemy forces. And most importantly, they were not to be seen at all, no matter what.

Percy had spent nearly 5 hours constructing his ghillie suit, carefully and meticulously checking each and every leaf and blade of grass, to make it absolutely perfect. Then he spent 3 days crawling through the sparser-than-ideal foliage to the shooting position, took 20 minutes to line up his shot perfectly, and then spent 4 more days crawling back. He had done so well, that the Instructors legitimately hadn't been able to find him, even though one of them had stepped mere millimeters from his face, as he was crawling back.

Needless to say, he received top marks.

After a total of 18 months, Infantry School was finally over. Naturally, Percy and his fellow Spec Ops candidates graduated at the top of their class. That made the graduation ceremony slightly awkward though, as they chose not to attend, but rather to hang out in their barracks room and drink illegal beer together.

Over the 18 months, and especially after Segari left, they had all become even closer. Now, all of a sudden, Percy understood exactly what the soldiers on Earth had meant, when they spoke about the camaraderie in the Army. He had felt a version of the effect as a kid, with the demigods he fought and bled beside in two separate wars, but there was something a little special about this new relationship. Percy's personal little theory, was that the bond they shared was all the more intense, because they had all been through Selection together. Obviously, with 6000 other candidates, they had never spoken to - or even laid eyes upon - each other, but the knowledge that each of them had been through something impossibly difficult, and the other 2 had been through it as well, led to a kind of kinship that Percy would struggle to put into words.

Then all those years in OTC Phase 1 had helped a lot. After training side-by-side with each other for so long, there was an almost empathic connection between them. Percy knew beyond any doubt, that if he was doing CQB with 2 and 4, they would be exactly where he knew they'd be, down to the millimeter, each and every time, like clockwork. It led to a kind of trust, that ran deeper than anything he had felt outside the members of the Prophecy of 7.

And to top it all off, they'd just spent 18 months keeping a secret together. That had definitely helped. There was something special about being the only 3 people to know something, amongst hundreds of others.

Their bond was helped greatly, by the fact that Percy genuinely liked 2 and 4, or Pricela and Moril, as they had finally introduced themselves. They were just nice people, and Percy found himself truly enjoying their company.

Pricela, far nicer and more, for lack of a better word, rambunctious, than her professional image might suggest, instantly won him over when he started to see the little slips of humor. And Moril, despite his quiet, soft-spoken nature, could laugh and joke with the best of them, under the right circumstances. His mild-mannered personality often led to him playing the mediator, when a few trainees tried to start shit with the undercover Spec Ops candidates. But interestingly enough, when things boiled over to the point of no return, he was always the first one to start slinging punches.

And there had been a few fights between them and the other trainees, which Percy had found kind of surprising. He'd really thought the Infantry trainees would be more mature than that. Apparently, he'd been wrong. Every now and then, when Percy, Pricela, and Mori did particularly well at whatever they were being taught, a few of the tough guys in the class would try and make themselves feel better, by taking them down a peg.

In one particular instance, after the rankings of their Sniper Course had been published, and showed Percy at the top of the class, Pricela comfortably in second, and Mori in third, with all 3 of them standing head and shoulders above anyone else in the class, a collection of assholes saw it fit to teach them a lesson.

"Listen, guys, it doesn't really matter, does it? I mean, it's not like it's going to make any difference at all, if you graduate top of the class, or dead last. It's just about passing or failing," Moril tried, diplomatically.

"Really? Then why'd they post the rankings?" the ringleader of assholes shot back.

"Well, shit, he's got you there, Mo," Percy drawled lazily.

Truth be told, he was kind of hoping for a fight. It had been a while since he'd last had a good one, and here were 8 assholes, volunteering.

Moril shot Percy a look over his shoulder, like a teacher scolding a naughty schoolchild, and then turned back to the collection before them.

"Alright, let me put it this way. Just go away, and we can all be happy. Cause let me tell you guys, I'm honestly not in the mood for a fight right now."

"I am," Pricela announced happily.

Percy grinned at her, and she grinned right back.

"Listen, shortcake, the adults are talking," the ringleader said, addressing Pricela.

That was one step too far.

Moril seemed to take a second to sigh disappointedly, and then proceeded to fling himself across the space between the two groups, and tackle the ringleader straight to the ground, as Percy and Pricela joined the fight on either side of him.

The whole thing was over in less than a minute, and none of the Spec Ops candidates came away with so much as a scratch. Percy had spent more mental energy focusing on the other two, and marveling at their skill, than he did actually fighting the guys on his side. As ever, Pricela made the dirty, brutal fighting look like ballet. She almost floated between opponents and barely even seemed to hit them, but they went flying away from her just the same. And Moril was, above all else, a practical fighter. He didn't move a muscle, unless it was necessary, and he tried to hit people the minimum possible amount of times.

That particular fight, had been nothing special, really. More fun, than anything serious. The most severe injury was to the ego of the losing party.

After Infantry School, they moved on to Cavalry School. Percy was exceptionally excited for Cavalry School, until Pricela informed him that 'Cavalry' meant tanks, not horseback. Then she had laughed herself silly, for almost 30 solid minutes.

Cavalry School was interesting enough, though Percy couldn't ever seen himself riding around in a tank. That just wasn't his thing. He was more of a scalpel, than a hammer. It lasted 16 months, and nothing of particular note happened. The highlights of Percy's day was always the time he got to spend with Pricela and Moril.

After Cavalry School, they moved on to Mobility School, in which they would learn about anything with wheels and an engine. They spent months in classrooms, learning the inner workings of all the cars, trucks, APCs, and even buggies that Chaos' Army regularly used, and plenty more that other planets commonly visited by Chaos' Army employed.

That one was less interesting to Percy, though Moril found it fascinating. Apparently, he was a bit of a gearhead, or whatever they called people who liked cars and engines and stuff. All throughout the 32-month course, he could be found pouring over their textbooks, caressing them as he would a lover. It led to plenty of laughs from Percy and Pricela.

But the second half, got really interesting. That was when they stopped learning about the vehicles, and actually got to drive them. There were obstacle courses, and race tracks galore, and the candidates spent their days pushing their chosen engines to their absolute limits. It was one long adrenaline shot, for 24 months straight.

After that, they moved on to Naval Warfare School, and Percy was too excited for words. For a little while, Pricela and Moril thought he was making a mistake, like he had with Cavalry School, but then he'd explained that he was the son of the sea god on Earth, and they understood.

Still, he was almost immediately disappointed. The majority of their time, was spent in some command center somewhere, looking at radar and crap like that. It was pretty boring, and Percy suffered his fair share of ridicule, at Pricela and Moril's hands for having been so excited.

But eventually, they got to the good stuff. Much like the US Navy, Chaos' Army's Naval Warfare had a group of elite soldiers who were mainly deployed to deal with water-based situations. In the US, they were the Navy SEALs. In Chaos' Army, they were simply the Naval Infantry. Apparently, Chaos couldn't have been bothered to come up with a cool acronym.

That was the section of training that all three of them enjoyed. It was miserable, in a sense, in that they were constantly cold, wet, and covered in sand. But they were still getting to do some cool shit. They learned all about underwater demolitions, beach assaults from the ocean, combat diving, and all the stuff the US SEALs put in their recruiting commercials.

Unfortunately, however, it wasn't exactly fair for Percy, for obvious reasons. When Pricella and Moril were freezing cold, he just heated the water clinging to his skin, and he felt much better. He was forbidden from doing the same thing for either of them though, since they would need to get used to it for real-life operations when he wasn't there with them. Likewise, when Percy didn't want to be wet, he just stopped being wet. When he was covered in sand, he washed it away. So, all in all, it was a far more comfortable experience for him than what they were enduring, which Percy saw as payback for them poking fun at him earlier.

After just 2 years, Naval Warfare School was over, and they were moving on to their last School, before they could move on to another branch, which they were excited about, since they'd graduated OTC Phase 1 several years prior, and were still on the first Branch's schools.

When Percy found out that the last School for the Soldier Branch, was Air Force School, he'd nearly shit a brick. Why, for the love of everything good, was he going to be forced to spend several months, flying?

He'd almost considered contacting Chaos and begging her to make an exception, but he restrained himself.

He didn't sleep the night before they were due to start, and he got out of bed feeling like he was going to throw up violently. Pricela and Moril, to whom he had explained his apprehension, almost had to drag him to the parade ground that morning, to get started. They were sympathetic, but there was no excuse to get them out of it, so they would just have to make sure he was there, and that he passed.

Thankfully for everyone involved, but none more so than the cleaner who would have had to clean up his vomit, Percy and the rest of the class spent the first 32 months of Air Force School in a classroom. Just as they had with Mobility School, they learned everything about anything with wings and an engine. Then helicopters, too. It was a lot of information, which Percy knew damn well he was going to force out of his brain the moment he graduated, but he resigned himself to learning it for the time being.

But then, as with Mobility School, came the practical phase. Hell on Earth.

The very first time Percy had flown his own jet, he had indeed thrown up all over the interior. He'd been screamed at for that one. Pricela and Moril had been remarkably kind, and sympathetic. Percy considered it a mark of their friendship, that they didn't laugh their asses off, as he knew they would have if someone else had done what he just had.

The second time Percy had flown his own jet, he had not thrown up. But he had come extremely close, and the effort to restrain himself, made him pass out in the cockpit, at 30,000 feet. The nearby instructors had used their shadow powers to stop him from dying, and then proceeded to tear him a new one. Once again, Pricela and Moril didn't laugh at him.

The third time Percy flew, it didn't go much better. He remained conscious, and the interior of his cockpit remained unsoiled, but it was hardly smooth. The fourth time went similarly. So did the fifth.

For the first month, Percy felt lower than he ever had. His spirits were not buoyed when Pricela reminded him that actually, he was higher than he had ever been. Though, a small smile broke out onto his face at the way she howled with laughter at her own pun.

It wasn't until month 2, that he started to become somewhat proficient at flying. He still hated it with a passion, and was incredibly uncomfortable in the air, but he wasn't in imminent danger of killing himself anymore, so he considered that a massive improvement.

By the end of month 5, Percy would actually consider himself a decent flyer. He was, by no means, comfortable with flying, but he was pretty good at it. He could get from A to B without crashing and burning, and the trip was fairly smooth for anyone in the plane with him. He got to enjoy the wonderful feeling of not sucking, for another month. That was when they left planes and jets, and moved on to helicopters.

Helicopters, were an entirely different animal. Or at least, they were at first. Once he got used to the controls, and the many differences between them and the jets he'd become somewhat accustomed to, he started to figure it out.

Percy decided he preferred helicopters. But only for one, singular reason. He was able to go a lot slower. The stall speed of a jet, A.K.A the slowest a jet could go while not crashing to the ground, was still several hundred miles per hour. It was truly sickening. But he could go as slowly as he wished, in a helicopter. Hell, he could stop entirely, and just hover for a minute, if he truly needed to.

Finally, they graduated Air Force School. Naturally, Percy was dead last in the class. But he had graduated, and that was all that mattered. Though, he did get an award for his performance. It was the 'Most Improved Recruit' award. It may have sounded like a good thing, but Percy knew how to read between the lines on that one. The 'Most Improved Recruit' award, was actually the, 'Holy shit, you were absolutely awful when you came here, it's amazing you didn't get yourself killed, but you're ok now' award, but that didn't exactly fit on the certificate. But that was ok. Now, as far as he was concerned, he was never getting behind the controls of another aircraft again, for as long as he lived.

When he caught up with Pricela and Moril after the graduation ceremony, during which they had been on opposite sides of the parade ground, they greeted him with fake gasps of amazement.

"Wow! You seeing this, Moril? It's the Most Improved Recruit! I can't believe it! I never thought I'd ever get to meet him, Moril! Do you think he'll sign my forehead?"

In response, Percy flicked Pricela on the forehead, right between the eyes. The move surprised her so much, she seemed completely incapable of any reaction for several seconds.

"Did you… Did you just flick me?" she asked, shock dripping from every word.

"Flick you? Good heavens, no! That's just how I sign autographs for people. You said you wanted it on the forehead, right?"

There was pure silence for a few moments as she stared at him. That silence was broken, as if by a spell, when Moril finally lost the battle he was waging against his own laughter, and he broke down, tears streaming down his face.

Pricela launched herself at Percy, who immediately shadow traveled a few feet away. She launched herself at him again, and he shadow traveled again. Their little game of whack-a-mole continued for several minutes, Moril standing in the middle of things, like a parent who had given up on his two boisterous kids.

The fun finally came to an end, when Percy miscalculated slightly, and Pricela caught him, tackling him to the ground. She immediately started flicking his forehead in rapid fire, and he couldn't help but laugh, as she brute-forced her way through the measly defense he put up.

She stopped after a few seconds, when someone to the side of them, cleared their throat politely.

Looking like a kid who just got caught with her hand in the cookie jar, Pricela turned slowly to her right, eyes wide, and froze. Percy followed her gaze, and broke out into a massive grin.

"Sara!"

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything?" Sara asked with a teasing smile on her face.

"O- Of course not, ma'am," Pricela said, stuttering slightly, and climbing off Percy at double speed.

Percy was confused. Why was Pricela acting like Chaos herself had just told her to get lost?

"I was hoping for a moment alone with Percy."

Pricela and Moril nodded quickly, and scattered.

Suddenly Sara was standing over him, arms crossed, the same teasing smile gracing her face.

"You want a hand?"

"If that's all you have time for, I'll take it, but I was hoping for a little more after all these years," Percy said with a wink.

Sara laughed and then arranged a scandalized look on her face.

"What a devious little goblin you've become," she said, but the smile she couldn't quite wipe off her face ruined any intended effect.

"I am what you made me," he said dramatically.

She laughed, and hauled him up onto his feet.

Looking down at her, Percy felt happier than he had in years. It had been so long since he'd even laid eyes on her. She hugged him, and he couldn't help but lose himself in the scent of her hair. He would never know how long they stayed like that, but after what didn't feel like nearly long enough, she pulled back and looked up at him.

"Are you ok? I hear you're just finishing Air Force School, and I know how much you hate being in the air."

She sounded worried about him.

"You came down here just to see if I was ok?" he asked, feeling incredibly touched.

"Well, yeah," she said, as though that was obvious.

He hugged her again, a little tighter this time.

"Honestly, it really sucked for the first few months, but then I got the hang of it. And I only passed out once, so I've got that going for me."

"You passed out?" she questioned sharply.

"Well, only once," he said sheepishly.

She just shook her head in exasperation.

"But it wasn't all that bad, you know. I got the 'Most Improved Recruit' award!" he said, faking pride in the backhanded award.

Sara giggled at that.

"Well, consider me impressed."

"I always do," he said with an easy grin.

She laughed again.

"You want to go to a bar somewhere? Catch up a little?"

"Yeah, sounds great."

She smiled, put a hand on his shoulder, and shadow traveled them both. Percy opened his eyes, opposite a bar he had never seen before. He shot her a questioning glance.

"From my own OTC days. Have you not found it yet? It's like the only bar on Kennegmagogia. All the Instructors come here after work to bitch and complain about their trainees and blow off steam."

"Huh. Well, we just stayed in our barracks room after training and shot the shit. Sometimes Moril would sneak in some beer. It never occurred to me, to ask where he got it from."

"Well, I'm not surprised. Given the things I've heard about his career in Spy Branch, sneaking a few beers is nothing."

"Yeah, he's good. Pricela too."

Sara nodded, "I've heard good things about her too. She's got an interesting reputation."

They took a seat at a table in the corner of the large, open space of the bar, and Sara ordered a couple beers.

"So," she started as soon as they were alone again, "How was Selection?"

She asked the question with a grin that told him she already knew the answer.

"I think you know damn well, what it was like."

She chuckled, "I've been keeping an eye on you. Your Instructors were pretty impressed. Especially with the 300-hour."

"They told you about that?" he asked, shocked.

"Yeah, I asked them. They said you made it nearly 3000 miles, I was impressed. Of course, I did better, but that's still excellent," she told him with a grin.

He huffed a laugh, "Yeah, I'm sure you did."

"No, seriously! It's all easier for you youngsters nowadays. I mean, back in my day, things were a lot harder. You know the test at the end of Walking Week? 800 miles in 120 hours? Well, we had to do it in 100 hours flat, or we failed."

The smirk on her face told him exactly how much truth there was to that.

"Oh, that's right, I forgot. You're an old lady."

Her eyes went wide, and she knocked the top of his freshly opened beer bottle with the top of her own, making it foam up and shoot up like a rocket, but Percy just aimed the bottle at Sara, who shrieked in excited terror, and used some shadows to form a shield between her and the beer geyser.

They were laughing together, when some guy walked over to them, frowning deeply.

"Keep it down over here, or you're gonna have to leave," he growled.

Sara didn't even look at him, "Yeah, whatever."

The guy, who Percy realized was humungous, even bigger than Percy himself, raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

"You know what? Just go ahead and leave now."

"I'm catching up with an old friend. Leave us alone," Sara said, still without meeting the giant's gaze.

"Listen, bitch, don't-"

But that was as far as he got. He stopped talking abruptly when Sara finally turned to look at him. As if she'd hit him, he went stumbling away from her, terror evident on his face.

"Oh, I- I - I'm so sorry, ma'am. I'll just leave you be," and he backfooted so quickly, Percy thought he'd trip.

As if nothing had happened, Sara turned back to Percy and smiled patiently.

Percy was quite sure she hadn't actually laid a finger on him. She hadn't said anything to him. There was absolutely no action she had taken, which could, in any way, be perceived as a threat. But that guy had retreated like she'd aimed a bazooka at his entire family.

She seemed to realize what he was thinking.

"They know not to mess with Spec Ops," she said, casually.

"How do they know you're Spec Ops?"

She smiled and sipped her beer.

"So, what did you think of OTC?" she asked, changing the subject completely.

Percy thought for a moment, and then decided to let her keep the answer to his question, whatever it was, to herself. He didn't need to know. It certainly wasn't worth ruining the good mood over.

"Interesting, so far. Language School was awful. But the DA stuff before, was pretty cool, and I loved basic tradecraft."

"Basic?" she echoed with a small smile.

"That's what they called it," Percy told her, confused.

"Percy, the stuff you did in OTC is more advanced than most people will ever know. Just like everything else you did in OTC. Basic doesn't enter into the equation.

Percy frowned, "It didn't seem all that hard when they were teaching us."

She laughed, "Yeah, that's because the Instructors are great at what they do. The mark of a good teacher, is making difficult things, easy."

"I guess so," Percy said, but he wasn't entirely convinced.

"Wait 'till you get to Spy School. You'll be bored stiff," Sara said knowingly.

"Then what's the point of going?"

She gave him another knowing look, "You can figure it out."

Percy thought for a second, then remembered the theory he, Pricela, and Moril had kicked around during the whole shit show with Sengari.

"To see how we react to it all?"

Sara gave him a glowing smile, "Exactly. If you react like your former colleague, and get all arrogant and big-headed when people you know better than, try to boss you around, then you're not going to make a very good Operator. If you can keep your head down, and get your work done quietly, without drawing much attention to yourself, then you have what we need."

Percy looked down at his drink and thought for a second.

"I don't think that's what I just did with Air Force School. I certainly drew attention to myself. Shit, that's putting it lightly."

Sara shook her head, "Not on purpose. I'll admit, it was looking a bit hairy at the start there, but you pulled yourself together. Nowadays, you could pass for a professional pilot and no one would question it. That's the whole point."

Percy caught on to what she had said. It seemed Sara had been paying very close attention to him. The way she spoke, it sounded like she was quite familiar with the details of his tutelage.

"That means a lot. Thank you," he said softly.

She reached across the table, and squeezed his hand.

"You're shipping out to the Enforcer Branch School in 4 hours. Why don't you go back to your barracks room and get some sleep, ok?"

He stared at her.

"You're leaving?"

She nodded sadly, "This was only a quick visit. I'm kinda busy at the moment, and I could only get away for a little while. I just wanted to make sure you were ok. An Instructor will be with you in 4 hours, and tell you what you need to know."

"Alright. Well, it was great seeing you."

They got up and hugged again. Percy couldn't help but inhale deeply into her hair. She smelled so damn good. He was going to miss her. He swore he spent more time missing her, than actually with her.

She pulled her face out of his chest and looked up at him. Then she stretched up on her toes, and kissed him so softly, he might have imagined it.

Then, with another whispered 'bye' she was gone.

—-

Percy finished up his beer and then walked back to the barracks room he shared with Pricela and Moril. As it turned out, they were waiting for him

"How the hell do you know Sara?" Pricela demanded the moment he walked in.

Percy furrowed his brow, "You know Sara?"

"Know Sara? Know Sara? Fucking shit, Moril, explain."

Percy turned to Moril, eyebrows raised in question.

Moril, quiet soul he was, didn't say anything for a few moments, as he seemed to consider his response.

"Percy… we know of Sara. But we don't know Sara. Certainly not like you seem to."

"What do you mean, you know of Sara?"

"She… well, she has a reputation in Chaos' Army. She's kind of a living legend."

Percy blinked.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. She's known as one of the greatest Operators in the Army. How do you know her?"

Well, that explained the guy in the bar. If he knew her by reputation, he may well have recognized her on-sight. That was why he had gone flying away from their table.

"Uh," he cleared his throat, "She kinda caught me staring at her back in Basic. She came over to talk to me, and we became… close."

"Close?" Pricela echoed derisively.

"Uh. Yeah. Close."

"Exactly, how close are we talking?"

"Well, we… kinda… dated… for a little while."

This entire conversation was remarkably uncomfortable.

"You dated Sara?"

"I mean, kinda? It was always really tricky, 'cause of the rules about dating when you're in training. But Chaos said we could date freely as soon as I finish training."

"CHAOS?"

"Ah, fuck," Percy muttered.

It took 3-and-a-half hours for Percy to explain the entire situation to Pricela and Moril. In the end, they stood staring at him, jaws agape, eyes wide with wonder at the intricacies of his relationships with the creator of the Universe and one of the best Operators in the entirety of Chaos' Army. And he'd thought it had been tough explaining to them that he was the son of a God.

"Oh shit!" he said suddenly.

"What? Is there someone else, you've failed to mention you know? Perhaps a king?" Pricela asked tiredly.

"No no no, Sara told me there would be an Instructor coming to take us to Enforcer Branch School in 4 hours, and that was," he checked his watch, "3 hours and 36 minutes ago."

They stared some more.

"Are you kidding me?" Moril demanded.

Percy scratched his neck, feeling a little embarrassed, "Sorry."

"Oh, Moril, you can't be too hard on him," Pricela said wearily, "He was catching up with his long-lost love, it's only natural that things would slip his mind."

Percy glared at her. But she was right. They were exhausted, they'd had no sleep, and they were unlikely to get some any time soon.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

They softened immediately.

"Nah, it's fine. This stuff happens," Moril said, "I suggest we pass out for 20 minutes, so at least we get something, and then we can get ready."

There were no objections to that. Without another word, the 3 Spec Ops candidates dropped onto their respective bunks, closed their eyes, and were asleep instantly. If there was one thing Selection was good for, it was teaching successful candidates how to fall asleep at a moment's notice.

—-

Precisely 20 minutes later, all three of them woke up. None of the group felt particularly well-rested. But they got out of their beds without complaints, and started hurriedly packing their limited possessions into a single duffel bag each.

All that any of them had to bring with them from School to School, were the various sets of uniforms they'd wear during training. Aside from that, there was underwear, socks, and toiletries. They traveled light.

With around 10 seconds to spare, they finished their packing and sat down on their perfectly made beds, and waited. And precisely 10 seconds later, there was a knock on their barracks door, the perpetrator of which, none of them had sensed. A Spec Ops Instructor.

Pricela, as the closest to the door, got up and opened it. It was a short guy, who looked stick-thin, with short blonde hair arranged neatly, absolutely no facial hair, and a perfectly clean uniform.

Percy might have mistaken the guy for an Army Branch Instructor. The ones from Spec Ops always looked rougher than that. Like they truly didn't give a damn what they looked like, and no one else cared either, as long as they got the job done. But aside from the clothes, the hair, and the ramrod-straight posture, Percy knew that this guy was Spec Ops. He had the same look he saw in Sara's eyes in the rare moments when she toughened up in front of him. The same look that the female Instructor who had removed Sengari from OTC, had had in her eyes. The look that said they could massacre entire armies, if they were just given the word.

He figured this guy was getting into character, since he would have to run incognito amongst all the proper Instructors native to Kennegmagogia.

The Instructor looked over them all before his eyes settled on Percy.

"Son, you just made history, you know that?"

Percy blinked at the guy, utterly non-plussed.

"You're the first ever Spec Ops trainee to receive the 'Most Improved Recruit' Award at any Branch School."

Percy stared for a few seconds. Then another few seconds. Then the Instructor broke out in a huge smile, and Pricela and Moril laughed. Percy fought it for a few seconds, and then laughed too.

"Ah, shit, alright. Come with me, guys," the Instructor said, still smiling.

He led the small group to an open-roofed truck that was waiting outside the barracks building. To everyone's surprise, the Instructor slid into the passenger seat.

"What?" he asked, when they all stared at him in confusion, "You've all just passed Mobility School, right? Show me what you learned."

Percy, Moril, and Pricela quickly turned to each other and played a remarkably fast game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, which Percy had taught the other two over the years, specifically for situations like that. Moril lost, and with an annoyed grumble, got into the driver's seat and started driving, as the Instructor gave him directions.

Before long, they arrived at what looked like a small train station. They got out, and followed the Instructor to a platform, where a train arrived the exact moment they did. They all boarded, and settled themselves in for a long journey. This was good news for the 3 Spec Ops candidates. They hadn't had much sleep, due to Percy's temporary forgetfulness, so a nice long journey with nothing to do, was the perfect excuse for an hour, or maybe even two, of uninterrupted sleep.

By the end of their 5-hour journey back to the waystation where they had first been dropped off on Kennegmagogia, all 3 recruits were feeling restless again. They'd had their sleep, and their rest, but now they needed to do something. None more so than Percy, whose ADHD was flaring up big time.

Interestingly enough, the Instructor seemed perfectly at ease. As though he was accustomed to waiting. Percy got the feeling the guy was a sniper, and as such, had plenty of practice with waiting around for something to finally happen.

After a painfully long wait, the train arrived at the waystation, just as a dropship descended from the heavens, and opened its ramp for them.

A/N: Well, that's that one. Now, originally this chapter was supposed to cover all of OTC, and the next one would be the start of missions and all that stuff. I was so damn confident. So confident, in fact, that when someone DM'd me (more on that in a sec), I told that person that I would try to have the chapter out on New Year's day, as a (hopefully) nice New Year treat for y'all. But this is now almost 15.5K words, and I'm less than halfway through OTC, so yeah. Gonna be split into 2 parts.

Now, as for the DM I received. The reason behind it, was because there seemed to be a strange discrepancy with the story, in that some people weren't able to read Chapter 38, even though they could see that other people have posted reviews on Chapter 38. It apparently just ceased to be. If you're one of the people, then the following is addressed specifically to you. There was never a Chapter 38. What happened, was that my story had a Chapter 0 at the beginning, and this technically counted as Chapter 1, for the story. So, when I released Chapter 1, that was counted as Chapter 2, and so on and so forth. It's an issue that's been frustrating me for a long time. Only recently did it occur to me, that I could go back and merge Chapters 1 and 2 together. This has fixed that discrepancy, and now all the chapters are properly aligned. So, all the reviews that were made on Chapter 38, were actually written about Chapter 37; Selection. Hopefully this clears things up.

Anyways, have a good one. Stay safe.