Kurt listened attentively as Juna, Ash, and Musse all relayed the things they discovered in the vast cargo hold of the Kleist & Co. ship that Class VII was currently inspecting, taking the time to check their results on the invoice the company employee had thoughtfully provided when they began their inspection.
Checking the entire cargo bay of the ship would've taken the six students all day, so instead they – with Instructor Rean's blessing - were merely sampling assorted crates randomly to ensure everything checked out. Even still, the first large ship in their stint as port inspectors was proving to be an arduous if not especially difficult task.
"Is everything proceeding apace on your end?" Altina asked as the younger girl approached alongside Instructor Rean.
Kurt nodded, "Indeed. I believe we are just about finish with our inspections. Did you have any issues with the payment?"
"The payment was provided in full." The quiet girl glanced around curiously, "You are missing someone."
"Wait... we are?!" Was Juna truly so oblivious as to not have realized it immediately? "Fie! Where are you?"
"I'm over here!" Came the voice of their missing classmate from the other end of the cargo hold. "Almost finished!"
While her words themselves were nothing out of the ordinary, the suspicious banging sound that came alongside them was cause for concern. With a silent agreement between students and instructor the rest of Class VII made the short trek towards the location of their most mischievous classmate.
"What are you doing?" It was Instructor Rean who asked the question on all of their minds as they observed the girl in action. From what they could tell she was banging on the wall in random spots of the room...?
"You aren't gonna find any suspicious cargo just searching the boxes laid out in the open for any inspector to find." The girl replied even as she continued working, "Smugglers love to hollow out a wall panel or a floor board or something to hide their illegal stuff."
"I... hadn't considered that possibility." Their instructor replied, "I take it this is something you learned as a jaeger?"
Fie bobbed her head, "Uh huh. This kind of stuff is more for the escort fleets, but even normal jaegers like us had to know how to slip goods through inspections."
"C'mon, Fie. This isn't like one of those Calvardian movies. We aren't gonna find something illegal on a-"
Ding! Ding! Ding!
All conversation stopped as Fie rapped her hand on a slightly discolored section of the wall. It didn't take supernatural hearing to tell that the sound made just now was quite different from the others she had tried.
...Maybe she was right after all?
The former jaeger was quick to run her hands over the surface of the panel as she sought to pry it loose, "Someone give me a hand with this."
Instinctively Kurt took a step forward to help. As did Juna. And Ash. And even Instructor Rean.
In fact the only two people who didn't seem particularly invested in this unexpected turn were a blank-faced Altina and a giggling Musse.
It was their teacher who got there first and between the two of them they were able to pry the panel off with ease. Inside – just like in all the stories Kurt had read as a child – was a small hollowed out section in the wall. And as for what was in it...
"Hot damn! Girly mags!"
The Vander deflated instantly upon realizing that Ash was indeed correct. Instead of some illegal contraband or deadly weapon it was simply a large collection of magazines with scantily covered girls on the cover. The only member of Class VII who wasn't disappointed by this revelation was their newest male who immediately grabbed hold of one and began perusing its contents.
"Oh! It's Hot Shot! I love Hot Shot! And that looks like a really old edition, too! What a find! Hand one over, Ash!"
Correction. Not only was Ash excited over their degenerate discovery, but for some ungodly reason Juna was too.
"...Juna?" It was Altina who asked the question on all their minds as they stared at the pink-haired girl.
Who seemed to realize her error as she began to glow as scarlet as her hair, "I-It's not like that! It's just... Hot Shot is such a big deal in Crossbell, right? I haven't seen an issue since coming here and uhh..." She trailed off, seemingly realizing she was simply digging herself a deeper hole, "T-The articles are good, alright?"
"Wow." Fie deadpanned, "She's really trying to justify her porn addiction with the articles. That's so cliché it hurts."
Juna gaped like a fish for a few seconds before finally grasping that her best possible defense was silence. Kurt and his classmates all stared at the girl for a shamefully long moment before the swordsman gave a tired sigh.
As fond as he had grown of Juna over these past three months there was no denying that she was just as weird as all his other classmates.
"Alright everyone." Instructor Rean was quickest to compose himself, "Ash, Juna, please return the... reading materials back where they came from so we can conclude our inspection of this ship."
At least Kurt could take solace in the fact they were finally finished with their first assignment in Ordis. Inspecting boats was not something he had ever expected to do, but outside of general Class VII weirdness things had gone smoothly.
...Or at least those were his thoughts until they exited the cargo ship only to see that an even larger boat had docked while they were occupied. At least he could share in his dismay with the rest of his classmates.
After the great disappointment that was their first request Fie was happy to get out onto the Auros Coastal Road so they could do their other missions. One task was to find some jade sea shells for the upcoming festival and the other was to kill a dangerous sea monster that happened to be at the beach as well.
How very convenient.
According to Musse they didn't need to go all that far so Rean ordered them to make the trek on foot. A bit of a letdown, but nothing they couldn't handle. As usual a few monsters deluded themselves into thinking that the students were an easy mark, but if the smaller and more inexperienced Class VII of two months prior could handle whatever local fauna came after them then the current Class VII was barely fazed.
It had been many years since Fie last laid eyes on a beach, but the one they soon arrived at was just like the one Zephyr had used to practice landing missions on. Smooth sand beneath her feet, the sounds of water cresting and ebbing up the ground with the tides, and a giant crustacean standing vigil at the far end of the place.
All in all not a bad place. Maybe one day she'd get the chance to visit a beach as a tourist and not as a soldier with a mission. A mission which Juna seemed to have already forgotten as the excitable girl rushed headlong into the water with a wide grin on her face.
But before she and the rest of Class VII could truly experience the sights and sounds they first needed to deal with the aforementioned giant crustacean. It was their primary reason for being here, after all. With Rean taking command the six students were quick to approach and engage their target in battle.
At first Fie feared this would prove to be yet another in a long line of super annoying fights against a heavily armored foe. It did possess a giant shell after all. And to make matters worse despite being a big dumb crab it was surprisingly dangerous with orbal arts, surprising the lot of them and forcing them to scatter initially.
Thankfully her fears ended up proving unfounded. Sure it had the massive shell that was way too thick for her gunswords to handle, but it also possessed something the Magic Knights and Cryptids they'd been fighting lacked: A massive weak spot.
Crabs wore shells because the rest of their body was soft and squishy. One just needed to get around that armor if they wanted to score a lethal blow.
And luckily for the former jaeger her class now possessed two new handy additions. For all of his bluster and loudness there was no denying that Ash was strong as hell, something which the blonde punk proved as he jammed his switchaxe underneath the side of the crab before lifting the massive monster with a roar. He wasn't strong enough to flip the monster, but his action left its soft underbelly exposed for all to see.
And the other addition to Class VII was extremely sharp, both with her mind and her ARCUS II. Seizing upon the opening Ash had created the mint-haired nuisance fired off a perfectly placed water art which had the side effect of freezing the vulnerable monster in place.
The ice wouldn't last long, but it didn't need to with Fie and the rest of Class VII eyeing that exposed vulnerability like Altina eyed a plate of fluffy pancakes whenever they stopped at the bakery.
Between Rean, Kurt, and herself the three blade-wielding speedsters sliced up the monster like a professional seafood chef. It was dead before Juna and Altina could bring their own attacks to bear, much to the chagrin of the two girls.
"Whew. Good job, everyone." Rean praised once they confirmed the monster was dead, "We could head back, but..."
"We have another request to handle in this area." Kurt replied blandly to their teacher's unnecessary prompting. "Finding a jade seashell, if I recall correctly?"
"That's right. I've already seen a few shells in the ground since we arrived, but our client requested a large one, preferably without cracks. I'll leave the searching to you."
Fie glanced at Juna and Ash as her competitive spirit began to burn bright, "Bet I'll find a better shell than the rest of you."
"As if!"
"Hell no!"
Musse let out a giggle, "Well, as the one who grew up at this beach I'm certain my advantage will be absolute."
Kurt merely sighed before beginning to gaze around the beach, but Altina wasn't quite ready to begin, "Instructor Rean, what should we-"
She trailed off unexpectedly. The rest of Class VII turned to see what had caught her attention. What they saw...
When Rean told them to handle it on their own they hadn't expected the supposed responsible teacher to walk over to the water before pulling out his fishing rod. Already the teacher was engaged in a fierce battle with what looked like a giant saltwater fish with a sword for a nose.
Juna shook her head in disappointment, "Sometimes I wonder about that guy..."
"You say that, but I have a funny feeling you wish you could be the one in his place fishing right now. I know I do." Musse teased, causing the Crossbellian to color.
"Shut up!"
"We should just... get on with it, I suppose." Kurt replied, "I'm sure our instructor won't be too long." He didn't sound very sure of himself.
Whatever. It wasn't like they needed their useless instructor anyways. It wasn't like she would've liked to try her hand against those massive ocean fish herself or anything.
The six members of Class VII split up to cover the entire beach as they searched for seashells. Quick eyes darted around her designated area as she looked for anything shiny that might be one of the jade shells they needed. Although she was confident in her background as a scout to help her in this task, beaches weren't exactly her forte so she was forced to rely on instincts and sheer dumb luck as she combed the area.
She found a few shells on her patrol, but they were all either tiny or cracked and were thus too lame for her to even consider. If she wanted to make the others look bad she needed a shell that was both massive and shiny.
...Something which she didn't think she'd find on the beach itself. After all people used to come here before the monsters overran the place, so someone would've snagged anything good before her.
Decision made the jaeger turned student made the dramatic decision to wade into the water. The others wouldn't think that far ahead so she'd definitely have the advantage. And her boots were mostly waterproof so it wasn't like she was screwing herself over in the process.
Kneeling down to peer into the shallow water Fie saw... dirt and rocks. With a gentle nudge of her foot she sifted through the ground revealing... Not much because all the dirt she kicked up was now blocking her vision.
Hmm. Perhaps this wasn't as easy as she thought.
Undiscouraged, the silver-haired girl simply moved away from the mess she had made. This time she was more careful as she searched the thigh-high water she found herself in, not wanting to cloud the waters up before she had a chance to look over her surroundings. And she had the perfect thing to pull that off.
Fie glanced around. Good. Nobody was looking in her direction.
After taking a deep breath she dunked her head straight into the water. Eyes open she took in everything she could in her immediate surroundings. Rock, sand, a fish... and something promising that shined not too far away from her position.
With eyes on the prize the hopeful girl surged forward excitedly, heedless of the water she was splashing up in the process. The aforementioned fish fled at her approach, but the shining object remained right where she spotted it. After wading a few more arge into the water she reached down and snagged the object with her hand. Pulling it out she revealed...
A massive seashell, almost as big as her hand. And the only blemish on it was a tiny little scratch that was barely noticeable.
Perfect. It was definitely the ultimate seashell. Nothing anyone else found could possibly compare.
Focusing her attention on her class she saw Musse chatting with Ash over at one end of the beach, while the others – alongside Rean – were together near where the monster had been. That was the destination she set for herself.
"Fie! Did you find-" Juna's cry drew attention towards her as she approached, "...Did you just go swimming or something?!"
"Uh...?" The girl in question blinked once before looking down at herself. She hadn't even noticed just how soaked she got in her excitement at finding the best shell. Whoops, "I... Check out this awesome shell?" She responded lamely.
Even though the response was weak it proved effective as the other students and teacher looked at the shell held firmly in her hand, "Wow. That is a remarkable shell. I'm quite impressed."
"Right?!" Fie preened at Kurt's praise, "Totally worth it!"
"...It's not that great." Juna muttered angrily.
"This coming from the girl who thought a piece of glass was a shell." Altina's words caused the Crossbellian to deflate. At Fie's gaze the smaller girl deflated, "...I only managed to find a hundred mira coin."
Fie resisted the urge to give the girl a pat on the head. With her hands so wet she'd probably have her special privileges revoked. Still... "Can't go wrong with free mira."
"Oh my, what a lovely shell." Came the voice of Musse as she and Ash finally joined the group. The praise caused Fie's smile to grow wider as she basked in her victory- "It's almost as impressive as the one Ash found."
...Wait, what!?
"Heh heh! Check this out!" The shell that Ash held out with a smug grin was almost completely identical to the one Fie had. The only difference was that his shell lacked the barely visible scratch hers possessed. It was such a tiny little thing, but it meant... "How about that, Jaeger? How's that crow tasting, I wonder?"
It tasted awful. Absolutely terrible. She soaked herself for absolutely nothing!?
Still, knowing how to fight meant learning to roll with the punches, so she was quick to come up with a response to save face and help mask her shameful failure, "Meh. Works for me. We'll give your shell away for the request while I get to keep this bad boy for myself. I guess that makes me the real winner, doesn't it?" She paused and tilted her head thoughtfully, "...Altina wins too, I guess. She's the rich one now."
Said girl didn't seem to appreciate her praise as she pouted once again.
"Alright, everyone." Rean ended their conversation with a clap of his hands, "Great job, Ash, everyone. I think we've more than accomplished our mission so there's no need to waste any more time here-" He trailed off under six pairs of judgmental eyes, "...What?"
"Did you just tell us to stop wasting time? Do we need to remind you what you've been doing the entire time?"
Altina followed up Juna's accusation with one of her own, "...I believe you are carrying your body weight in fish, Instructor Rean."
And she was right. Their so-called teacher had caught at least six fish during their search, with half of them being absolutely gargantuan in size. And all of those fish were currently being held by the sheepish man, "Haha... I just thought it'd be a waste, you know? I'm sure we can get some nice prizes if I turn them in!"
The disappointed Class VII all turned and began to silently walk away.
"I wish I were one of those fishes being held in Instructor Rean's powerful yet tender arms..." All except Musse, that was. But the rest of the class simply tuned her out. Musse was Musse, after all.
The group had barely made it off the beach when Fie froze as she heard something in the distance. From this range she couldn't quite make out exactly what it was, but something about it was familiar to the former jaeger. And familiar to her naturally meant dangerous to all of them.
She shot a pointed look towards her teacher and was relieved to see he heard it too, "Quiet!" He whispered loudly.
"Get down!" Surprisingly that came from Ash. While the confused others reluctantly heeded that advice Fie was doing just the opposite as she scrambled up the beach and into a blind spot just behind a nearby tree. The spot was too visible for her to risk peeking her head out, but it gave her prime position to listen closely.
Footsteps. Multiple heavy footsteps. All running in a tight formation. And all were coming straight down the road Class VII was just a few arge away from.
Nobody in the unknown group spoke as they passed Fie's hiding spot, but the clanging of weapons and the fact they were moving in unison provided one very obvious answer – Jaegers. She had no idea who they were, but one thing she was certain of was that they weren't Zephyr.
That thought was both a relief and an annoyance.
It was only after the formation had passed down the road and nearly out of sight that she chanced peeking her head out. The jaegers were dressed in purple combat uniforms. Something about them was familiar to the Zephyr girl, but even from this distance she was surprised to not see any sort of insignia or flag on their clothes.
Those were a symbol of pride to every jaeger so the only reason they'd not be showing them is if they wanted to conceal their identities.
With the threat passed Class VII reconvened and Fie passed on the little info she was able to gleam. Rean pondered her words for a moment before nodding, "This is just what the brigadier general's advisory pointed us to. We need to get to the bottom of this. Can you all keep up?"
Naturally neither she nor any of her classmates were willing to back down, causing their teacher to nod in approval, "It should be around these hills... A side road off of the coastal road."
Considering Altina made a habit of studying maps of their deployment areas thanks to her database Fie was inclined to trust in her words. It didn't hurt that that sounded like the kind of place a jaeger squad would end up.
Following in the jaegers wake proved easy as most monsters had fled at the sight of such a large group, allowing Class VII to find the side road Altina mentioned with ease. This time they slowed down a bit, but Fie was confident that they weren't walking into an ambush. Even if one of them had been spotted there was little reason for a group of mercenaries to assume a bunch of students were a threat. Maybe if one of them had spotted Rean they'd recognize him as dangerous, but the stealthy girl was pretty sure he at least would've been able to keep out of sight of a bunch of jaegers on the move.
Quietly they crept along until the sound of gruff voices ahead stopped them cold. Taking this as her cue, the former Zephyr member once again took the initiative of scouting for her teammates. The sight she came across was about what she expected, with the group of jaegers chatting among themselves in a small clearing just ahead of where Class VII waited. Fie would've loved to get a little closer in order to hear what they were saying, but doing so would've needlessly jeopardized the mission.
Instead she reported her findings back to Rean, "Do as your training taught you. Cover the exits. Fie, Altina, Ash, think you can circle around?"
"Understood."
"Done and done."
"Ja."
Altina made sense as Claiomh Solais could both fly and utilize a feeble stealth field, but she was surprised at Rean's decision to include Ash. In hindsight she should've trusted her teacher more, as the blonde moved with surprising agility as he followed Fie up a sharp hill just out of sight of the jaegers. Once that was done it was a simple matter for the three students to circle around to the other side where they waited impatiently for Rean's signal.
"Don't move!"
Yep. There it was. With Rean and her other classmates drawing the attention of all the jaegers it was a simple thing for her, Altina, and Ash to come out the other side and complete the pincer. Were this Zephyr they would've taken the opportunity to strike immediately while their enemy was in disarray and question the survivors, but Fie knew their teacher would want to do it the other way, futile as it'd probably be.
Sure enough the unknown jaegers refused to answer any of Rean's questions, but the fact they seemed to know him on a personal level was interesting. She was pretty sure that clue was the last piece she'd need to figure out who these guys were, but at the moment they had a more immediate issue as the jaegers had taken the opening Rean provided them to reform their ranks into a crude but effective combat formation. Class VII still had the advantage in positioning, but now they'd need to fight for their win.
But personally, Fie was alright with a fight. Forming a combat link with Ash she darted towards the group of four jaegers that had turned to face the flanking threat. Her hopes of blitzing down the closest jaeger before they could respond were dashed as his neighbor moved to cover her target while a third began to train his rifle upon her, forcing her to evade to the side. That threat was negated by Ash barreling his way in and drawing their focus, but if nothing else it proved these unknown jaegers were pretty skilled with good coordination.
With Altina shifting Claiomh Solais in an effort to slice the fourth jaeger into ribbons Fie was free to focus her attention on the three that were now ganging up on her reckless classmate. While his switchaxe was good at warding them off for the moment, even she'd struggle evading against three well-trained opponents at once and already they were moving to catch Ash in a crossfire. As funny as it'd be to see the loud and annoying one be taken down a peg she knew better than to trust on the mercy of jaegers, so it was time to intervene.
She didn't even bother using her guns in an attempt to catch them off guard because the jaegers knew the moment she sprang into action. Instead she relied upon her speed to close the gap between her and the two rifle-wielding jaegers, forcing them into a disadvantageous position. Naturally they began backpedaling in different directions to force her to commit to one or the other, but she was confident that with her speed she'd be able to keep them both in melee until one slipped up and-
Thoughts of victory were put on hold as the fourth jaeger made himself known as he managed to slip away from Altina long enough to try giving Fie a haircut with his blade. With a scowl she backed off, successfully meeting up with an Altina who appeared rather miffed at letting her opponent slip away like that.
"I see the rumors that Sylphid had enrolled into a military academy were true." One of the jaegers remarked as the two sides stared each other down.
Huh. Interesting. Sure she knew that being Rutger Claussell's adoptive daughter had earned her quite a bit of notoriety in the jaeger world, but to have these guys recognize her was further credence to the idea that these unknown jaegers were a high tier corps. And one she had probably met before.
"Heh. Your friends recognize you. Ain't you happy?"
Even as she rolled her eyes at Ash's stupid remark her focus was entirely upon the four jaegers who had reformed their ranks to oppose the three students. Though their coordination was enough to ward off Class VII's initial assault Fie was certain they had the skill advantage and in time victory would be theirs, but this might not be all of them and they really didn't need reinforcements arriving on them...
They needed to break the stalemate quickly and she had a good idea how to do it. It was really fortunate the only other member of Class VII willing to fight dirty was on her side of the battlefield.
One great advantage of the ARCUS series of orbments was the ability to communicate intent through a link. This meant she was able to think her plan through to Ash, who merely gave a simple laugh in understanding. Breaking the link with him to form one with Altina merely earned a stoic nod from the rabbit.
There were two jaegers standing in front of Fie, facing her down. The one to her left instinctively dodge to his right when Ash's detached blade flew past her and nearly took off his head. The one to her right had to evade to his left when a powerful beam courtesy of Claiomh Solais blasted through where he had been standing. All told neither attack did any damage and already both jaegers were beginning to regroup-
But with their evasive actions they had inadvertently created a gap in their formation.
And Sylphid was already moving to exploit it.
Charging straight into the middle of a large group of jaegers was a hazardous proposition, even for her, but somehow she'd grown to trust those fighting alongside her to keep her covered. Even Ash – despite being new to the class and an annoying brat at the best of times – was someone she felt she could rely upon to cover her six at that moment.
After passing through the line of warriors and their haphazard attempts at stopping her, Fie unleashed her signature attack. Sylphid Dance had plenty of flaws, something she'd learned painfully during the past few months, but right now with hostile jaegers all around her there was no better situation to use it. Even still, the ones who had watched her pass were quick to defend themselves and took almost no damage from her attack.
But they hadn't been her primary targets.
Her real target were the enemies facing Rean and the others. Even with quality jaeger armor mitigating the damage dealt with her rapid fire shooting, being shot in the back repeatedly was enough to hurt and distract any warrior. And any distraction could prove decisive on a battlefield. While Rean and her classmates might not be the type to fight dirty they weren't above exploiting the advantages gained by her actions.
The sounds of blades slicing through rifles and gunfire from Musse and Juna earning cries of pain let her know her distraction had proven very successful. The remaining jaegers hesitated briefly upon realizing what had just happened which allowed her time to fall back to where Ash and Altina were standing.
The battle was won. All that was left was to clean up and withdraw before-
She stiffened as the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps was heard. "Dammit! More are coming! Get back to Rean! And cover up!" She wasn't sure if Ash and Altina had responded to her quick commands as she was already in the business of priming and throwing one of her flash-bang grenades in the direction of the reinforcements. She doubted it'd accomplish much against seasoned mercenaries, but they only needed a few seconds to get them back to the relative safety of their classmates.
To her relief her teacher hadn't been idle either, having used her brief distraction to pull the others back away from the enemies they had been fighting. This prevented Class VII from being completely encircled when nearly a dozen more jaegers and military monsters entered the clearing. Instead Class VII found themselves on one side of the clearing facing down a now very numerically superior foe.
It wasn't an unwinnable battle, but the tables had definitely been turned against them, especially as a few of their original opponents were still combat effective.
It didn't help that their instructor was still holding onto all the fish he had caught earlier. Had he seriously done that entire fight with a handicap?
...And that was the moment when all chaos broke loose as a pair of newcomers arrived on the scene. Despite the dangerous situation Fie couldn't help but stare at the scene with a flat look on her face.
Swordsman riding in atop a white stallion to catch their enemies unaware?
That little gremlin Millium at his side?
That relieved and fond look on Rean's face?
Yep. Another member of the original Class VII had just appeared to bail them out of a tight spot, hadn't he?
She made a mental note to get with her classmates and practice making dramatic entrances. One day it'd be their turn to swoop in and save the day, preferably rescuing their teacher and his classmates from a sticky spot.