Author's Note: We're back on the normal schedule, cheers all around. Also in regards to a question asked on the last chapter: While yes Vale is currently neutral in this conflict (Ozpin is currently pursuing peace unsuccessfully.) Involving Ozpin is, to me, the only reasonable way that Gary could obtain working knowledge of magic.

More importantly to the theme of the story, Grayson is a side character in The Pantheon's story, despite being the protagonist of his own. There is a lot of plot going on involving main characters from the show that Grayson and Team SGGE simply are not involved with because they aren't important enough in the grand scheme of things.

Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or its associated characters. The characters in this writing so far are mostly original characters, but I make no claim over the existing characters.

Chapter 11

Training

Two Weeks After Gary Left Grayson on the Hospital Roof

I ducked low under Evelynn's swing, hearing the thrum of the hammer passing through the air over my head, then took a quick step backwards to avoid her following leg sweep. It was a good move, but I had been the one to teach it to her. As she pressed the attack I continued to backpedal away from her, avoiding or deflecting each strike of her hammer as it came in.

The servo motors of my powered armor whirred softly as I leapt into the air, sailing clear over her and landing a dozen feet beyond. With my strength augmented by both the belt and my new suit of modified Atlesian AEGIS armor I was finally on a more level playing field with the other huntsmen. Of course the armor's weight had initially slowed me down significantly, but with a few enchantments to replace much of the bulky armor plating with the lighter imbued panels from my old armor I was back to being nearly as quick as before. Doctor Polendina had also offered to help me work on the armor, but I suspected he was more interested in getting me into his laboratory so he could investigate my lack of soul more thoroughly, so I was hesitant to take him up on the offer.

With my newfound grasp of magic from the memories Gary had shared with me I had been able to scavenge a decent amount of magical material from my old suit of armor, which I had originally thought was standard issue. I had also implemented a few key upgrades that I was now testing.

Evelynn had turned around, this time deciding to go for a blast with the Dust Acceleration Cannon mounted in the head of her hammer, rather than attempt to continue chasing me down. I dived smoothly out of the way of the shot, allowing it to impact the wall behind me. The room shook with a resounding *BOOM* that tore chunks out of the concrete wall and left a sizable hole.

I tucked and rolled out of my dive, coming to my feet in a sprint. As I ran, I whispered 'The itsy bitsy spider' in English under my breath, activating the spider climb enchantment I had finished building the day before. I ran straight at one of the walls of the combat chamber we were fighting in, leaping up and landing feet first almost fifteen feet up the wall. My boots stuck firmly, but lifted when I moved them, allowing me to dash up the wall almost as quickly as I had run towards it so long as I hunched over slightly to keep my balance.

"Not fair!" Evelynn called out below me, "Come down and fight!"

"No thanks!" I called out to her, my voice transmitted through the speakers in my new fully enclosed helmet. I drew the weapon I had been working on, an assault rifle that fired magnetically accelerated projectiles. It was uncomfortably close to the design that Gary used, but it was what worked best for my mid-range fighting style.

I let loose a burst of rubber training bullets at the Captain, and she responded by calling the broken bits of concrete from the earlier blasts to form a shield around her. Each bullet I fired entered a special chamber I had built that imbued it with magical energy before it was fired. The end result was a faster and more accurate projectile with better penetrating power than a traditional bullet could provide. The infusement wore off within seconds, but the bullets themselves could travel nearly a mile before losing their enchantment, much farther than the rifle was rated to hit accurately.

I kicked off the wall, magic surging from softly glowing panels in the back of my suit as a featherfall spell slowed my descent. I continued firing to keep her distracted, gently landing on top of her half dome shield. The rifle's magazine ran dry, so I drew my new sidearm, a heavy five shot cylinder revolver, from its magnetic holster on my right leg, then jumped down to the open side of her shield.

I fired three blasts from the revolver, each one chambered in a miniature shotgun gauge, catching her off guard and knocking her into her own rubble shield. Her purple aura blocked the damage, but her rock shield fell apart as she lost focus. I swiftly reloaded my rifle as she recovered, then holstered my pistol and activated the rifle's transformation. Miniature motors within the weapon hummed to life as it snapped and unfolded into a hand and a half sword.

The chamber that normally infused the ammunition now imbued the blade with an almost unnatural sharpness and toughness. The blade itself was just under four feet long and three inches wide. The shape of the sword was more awkward than a traditional sword, being abnormally thick in the center as it concealed the circuitry and mechanical parts of the rifle itself. Its weight was also enough that it would be difficult to use without the enhanced strength that LIWI and my armor lent me. I had an upgrade idea planned to replace a few key components with magically lightened materials, but I needed more time to refine the design before I could invest weeks into sourcing the raw materials I needed from ancient cities.

I snapped the blade up into a defensive position as Captain Stone rose from the rubble, she had a nasty gleam in her eye, clearly unhappy about being shot in the back. I grinned beneath my helmet, this was the first fight we had that I actually seemed to be winning with my own skill, not just luck. Evelynn raised her hammer to charge, then pointed it forwards, causing the rubble surrounding her to swarm me as she ran behind it for a follow through.

I dodged and weaved as much as I could, but a large piece caught me in the leg, sending me spinning as LIWI's protective spell waned. A few more pieces drove me to the ground, knocking the sword from my hands as I tumbled and spun. I intentionally allowed myself to roll away from Evelynn as she rushed me, hammer raised for a devastating hit.

As she charged I drew my heavy revolver again, firing a blast directly into her face. Her aura absorbed the hit, but it snapped her head back slightly and she was temporarily blinded as she instinctively blinked to protect her eyes. I barely dodged out of the way of her wild downwards swing as it shattered the concrete floor where I had been lying just a heartbeat before. I slid and skidded on my armor's rough metal edges as I rose to kneeling position mid slide, the grip of my boots not making contact with the ground yet. Then I held out my hand and whispered 'To me, my weapon' in English.

My sword, which was sitting discarded in a pile of rubble a dozen feet away, leapt to life. It flew through the air towards me as if drawn by an incredible magnet, orienting itself so it slid into my waiting hand hilt first. I leapt to my feet and charged towards Captain Stone, who brought her hammer around to meet my charge.

For a few seconds we traded blows. My magically sharpened sword sliced deeply into her aura, causing it to crack and wane, but she used her superior durability to bait me into overextending, catching me off guard and slamming her hammer into my chest at full force.

Ribs cracked and I flew backwards into the air, the incredible impact lifting me off my feet and driving the wind from me even through LIWI's spell and the magically enhanced plating of my armor. I hit hard, unable to properly catch myself as I smacked into one of the walls of the combat arena. The padding of the armor saved me from a concussion, but I still felt my teeth rattle in my skull from the impact.

Get up! She's coming! LIWI spoke into my mind. His repairs were going well, and he had now regained the ability to speak, though he still struggled with complex ideas.

I groaned and staggered to my feet as LIWI's healing forced my ribs to reassert themselves into their correct places and his shield flickered to life around me. "Ow'' I said, eyeing Captain Stone from across the room.

"Suck it up, buttercup" came her reply, swiftly followed by a rock the size of my head. I ducked under the rock, and it shattered on the wall behind me, becoming a rain of pebbles that she tugged into my back, knocking me forwards and off balance.

I needed to finish this fight, her aura was certainly low but she had the advantage right now. If that hit had been to my head I would have been out of the fight completely. I briefly considered my options, then reactivated my spider climb and strode quickly up the wall. I jogged sideways around the square room at about ten feet off the ground, snapping my sword back into its rifle form and firing off a few more shots.

I can help! We can do the bounce shot! LIWI called out, and I grunted my agreement. Stone held out her hammer and formed a small wall to hide behind, swiveling it to follow me as I ran, but still keeping a line of sight to avoid my earlier trick. I switched my rifle to single fire, allowing it to charge up the capacitors to a higher level than automatic fire for a single devastating shot.

I stopped running, dropping to the ground underneath yet another rock flung towards me from Captain Stone. I tucked and rolled, feeling a surge as LIWI enhanced my senses with a new spell. I could almost envision the path of my shot as I came out of the roll, bringing my rifle smoothly up to my shoulder. I estimated direction, elasticity, angles, and a dozen other factors in a heartbeat as I was given a magical insight into the flight path of the bullet.

I fired at a fifteen degree angle to Captain Stone, sending the high powered bullet to ricochet off the wall behind her, clip the very edge of her stone shield, and nail her directly in the right side of her jaw. Her aura shattered with a purple explosion, the impact of the rubber bullet sending her rocking to the side. Her stone shield collapsed and she fell in a heap, breathing heavily.

The fight over, she rolled onto her back and looked up at me as I walked over to offer her a hand. She took the hand and I pulled her back to her feet.

"I'm impressed Grayson," She admitted. "That was a pretty good fight. Normally I just play whack-a-grimm with you until I eventually catch you, that weapon and your armor upgrades have really brought you up to speed." I rubbed at my sore chest.

"Yeah well you still broke a couple ribs I think. I'm definitely jealous of your aura's durability."

"Hmph" She remarked. "Your abilities definitely manifest pretty oddly, but hey at least you heal right?" She gave me a friendly punch on the arm and I smiled.

"That is true, it's definitely very helpful. Pretty sure I've saved the Atlesian medical system millions in bandages and casts by this point. Paralysis surgery notwithstanding."

You're welcome! LIWI called out cheerfully in my mind.

We reviewed the footage of our fight, trying to find places where both of us could improve our technique or strategy. I paused the video, pointing to a spot where I dodged several successive strikes with her hammer, each time I was able to dart in with my sword and score a hit.

"I think the hammer is slowing you down, you're plenty fast and strong, but when you're going up against huntsmen they can dodge you too easily. Against a Grimm or a building I'd say you're carrying the right equipment, but we've been fighting a lot of huntsmen lately." She nodded her agreement, considering her options.

"I'm pretty partial to Silver Forge," she said. "My old team leader helped me design it, it's the last part of her I have left.

"Well, we don't have to drop the hammer entirely" I said placatively, sensing that was a sore subject. "It's still an excellent weapon. But I carry a sidearm for redundancy, maybe we should get you something like that."

She shook her head.

"I'm not a big fan of traditional firearms, I just never really got a good feel for them."

"I couldn't see you with a pistol, that's for sure." I replied, trying to think of some different options. I turned back to the monitor, resuming the playback. "I'll sleep on it" I told her, "I've got some ideas but I need to see what I can come up with."

She shrugged.

"I'll do the same, now come on Sergeant, I want to watch Green and Rivers, they're starting soon."

-/-

Sergeant Green and Lieutenant Rivers' fight was interesting, but the result was mostly what I expected. The ability to see two seconds into the future, even with the limitation of needing to hold your breath to activate it, was infinitely more useful in a close quarters fight than the ability to eliminate sound. Green was also one of a very few huntsmen who were quick enough to block bullets while using his semblance, which completely negated Rivers' potential advantage at range.

What I was most interested in was how Green leveraged his enhanced strength and speed with his longsword. Future's Favor was the only primary weapon on the team that lacked a transformation entirely, but Green seemed unhindered by that fact. During longer engagements he resorted to a sidearm or his throwing knives, but I supposed that as a huntsman he had rarely encountered scenarios where his opponents outranged him by a significant margin.

What I took notes on however was his stance and maneuvering while fighting. Traditional doctrine against an armored, or in this case aura shielded, opponent dictated using your mass to throw them off balance and strike at weak points. Instead, the precognitive sergeant seemed to dance in and out of the fight, using his enhanced speed and strength to land full power hits without throwing his entire weight behind the strike. Instead of the medieval era brawling I expected, his ability to foresee his opponents moves combined with his natural alacrity produced something closer to an elaborate one sided fencing match, or perhaps a dance that only he knew the moves to.

-/-

Team SGGE ended the day at the base dining facility. Dinner was boiled chicken and fried rice, which seemed to be one of only a few meals they could cook consistently. I choked down enough food to keep my energy up, with a little bit extra to make up for the energy taken by LIWI's magical healing, but finished my meal in record time compared to the rest of SGGE.

"Not hungry Phoenix?" Sergeant Green asked in sign language from across the table as he slammed down an entire chicken breast, followed by a large serving of rice, in under a minute.

"I'm good, thanks." I replied with a shake of my head. "I doubt I could eat any more right now." My sign language had improved drastically over the last few weeks due to a consistent need to communicate with and around Lieutenant Rivers. I was currently busing myself practicing drawing the Team SGGE logo on a napkin before I painted it on my armor. The logo was a large stylized hammer over a sage leaf, surrounded by a double rimmed circle with the letters 'S.G.G.E.' in bold font beneath it. The rest of the team still had their old 'S.A.G.E.' patches on their uniforms, even though I knew for a fact that the new ones had been delivered, seeing as I was currently wearing mine on the left shoulder of the heavy ballistic fiber undersuit for my armor. I'd have like to wear the same patch as them to fit in, but I didn't have an original patch, so I wore the new one as a compromise.

Captain Stone frowned at my comment, then awkwardly looked away from where I had drawn the hammer slightly askance to the sage leaf. Annoyingly, drawing seemed to be one of the skills that Gary lacked when he created me. That, and my irritatingly sloppy handwriting, were two things I wasn't glad to have inherited from him. Stone looked back at me after a second, taking a moment to finish chewing before she addressed me even though she spoke with her hands.

"Shouldn't you be starving?" She asked. "This is the prime time for you to be developing your aura enhanced physiology. Your caloric intake should be something like five times the average person, then settle down after a month or two to only double or triple."

I shrugged awkwardly.

"I ate earlier." I lied, trying to avoid questions about my aura, or lack thereof. I felt guilty about the lie, and part of me knew I would have to come clean about it eventually, but for now I didn't have a good answer for them. I was also worried that if the team figured out I had no aura they would not only pull me off the team, but also start investigating LIWI, and that I could not allow.

Fortunately Evelynn took my reply at face value, though she still seemed uncomfortable about something, like she was trying to force herself to something she was dreading. After a long moment of silent eating she reached up to her left shoulder, removing the 'S.A.G.E.' patch to replace it with the newer 'S.G.G.E' one from a pocket. The air would have been filled with the sounds of Velcro ripping if not for Eugene's Cone of Silence blocking it out. The action was still enough to draw attention however, and the other two occupants of the table looked at us guiltily for a moment before reaching hands into pockets and replacing their own patches.

Captain Stone placed her circular patch in the center of the table, and the others followed suit, stacking them atop each other. I stopped sketching, trying to avoid interrupting them as they collectively stared at the pile of patches. Finally, Evelynn scooped up the patches and put them into a different pocket. I watched as she forced the somber expression off her face with a smile, then turned to me.

"You better eat something anyways." She signed with forced cheerfulness, pretending that minute had not happened. "Or else Randall is going to get fat from eating all your food." Sergeant Green opened his mouth in mock offense, though he was clearly in excellent physical condition then surreptitiously snatched the last of the chicken with his fork.

"She's probably right." He admitted with a grin. "But even military chicken tastes good with enough barbecue sauce."

-/-

With our training finished for the day I returned to my quarters, putting up the makeshift privacy measures I had insisted on implementing before I began working on magical items. Huntsmen academies might use shared rooms to encourage team bonding, but the Atlesian military preferred individual officer quarters. Green and I were only non-commissioned officers, but we were effectively treated the same due to our positions on Team SGGE. I had justified the need for increased privacy to the team by continuing to claim that it was all incredibly classified work, and that nobody had clearances to see any of it. Thankfully I had earned enough trust that nobody had yet tried to call my bluff.

I sat down at my workstation in my room, just a simple workbench with a series of lockboxes that I stored various mundane tools and exotic materials in while I was out, and withdrew my magical tools from a compartment carefully built into my armor. Gary had a robust network of magical sensors to detect the presence of active magical items almost anywhere on Mistral, and that could very easily bite me in the ass if he figured out that I still had the tools. Fortunately LIWI had apparently been habitually casting a nondetection spell every day at midnight in accordance with his base programming, which had protected us from his monitoring even before I had begun repairs.

I unbuckled LIWI, and focused my vision to manifest the arcane symbols that dictated the abilities of my magical creations. Every individual panel of my armor was lined with reinforcement and reflective runes, designed to protect against all manner of physical and energy based attacks. I also saw the runes on a frost beam I had begun work on, the half finished project taunting me from one of my lockboxes. I couldn't figure out some issue with the directing of energy, and wasn't keen on taking a weapon into battle that I couldn't aim properly. Besides, I didn't have enough raw material to make it strong enough to be usable in a fight.

LIWI himself was still the most impressive out of all of the magic in the room. He was covered in runes so tiny that I literally needed a microscope to make some of them out. Tens of thousands of individual runes dictated his logic, emotions, memories, and abilities. When he had been damaged a significant chunk of both his logic and his abilities had been lost, and I had to recreate them based on foggy memories from Gary and my own intuition. Unfortunately I couldn't remember everything, and so some parts of him would be different when I was finished.

I withdrew one of my fine point engravers and my rapidly dwindling supply of infused silver, then laid LIWI down across my workbench underneath a large magnifying glass, and set to work. The last two weeks I had mostly focused on repairing his logic and his sense of self, allowing him to form sentences and hold short but useful conversations.

Silver was the most magically conductive material I had access to without going scavenging in the Grimmlands or somewhere else with abundant ruins, and I was using it to fill in the hole left in him by the gunshot. We chatted as I worked, discussing mundane topics as a measure of gauging his cognitive functionality. He was relearning mathematics, so I quizzed him on multiplication tables and fractions.

Surprisingly for an artificial life form he wasn't any better at math than a well educated human. He still made mistakes that a computer would never have encountered. From what I could tell his intelligence was modeled after a human brain, impressively dense, but still prone to mistakes and neuron misfires the same as anybody else.

I began work on a section that functioned as a sort of 'library' of abilities for him to activate. He had partial access to it from what I could tell, including healing, destructive magics, and enhancements. The way he manifested them was actually quite interesting. As far as I could tell he only actually had one spell, but was able to manifest it in a large number of different ways. In order to make the spell accomplish something he needed to understand what spell he wanted to replicate with its abilities.

It was an inefficient system, and a Maiden who knew dozens of spells would outperform him on any given one, but it gave him an impressive amount of flexibility. As the conversation moved to team SGGE I worked on restoring the connections between his casting and a spell that would allow him to manipulate inorganic and organic objects.

There was a significant chunk of 'comment' runes around the spell, canceled out by nullification runes. Unfortunately much of the information had been corrupted by the damage, and the only thing I could really gather was that it didn't work on objects other than 'self.'

So who is your favorite member of team SGGE? LIWI asked me.

"Hmm, good question." I replied. "All three of them are reliable, and hard workers." I was distracted by trying to piece together the specific intentions of the spell. Very carefully, I carved a small rune to connect the symbols for 'inorganic' and 'magical' to 'organic.'

"I don't know if I would want to rank them, that feels impolite. They all bring something different to the table."

I guess that makes sense. I like Captain Stone, she's very passionate, and also really good at hitting bad guys.

"You can say that last part again." I replied, now connecting 'organic' to 'human' with another series of complex runes.

-/-

About an hour later I finished reviewing the repairs I had made, and was ready for LIWI to test them out. I was basing my corrections to the spell on one that Gary had discovered while delving into the depths of his research into ancient magic. Originally the spell had been intended to turn a living person into a bird, and back again, though we both had agreed at the time that turning into a bird was a severe underutilization of that type of magic.

With a flash the belt in front of me disappeared, and in its place sat a young man, looking to be about sixteen years old, with bright white hair and almost aggressively blue eyes. His face was similar to mine, though much younger. He wore a green jacket and brown cargo pants, and had an excited look on his face. He sat on the desk where the belt had been just a moment ago, feet dangling off the edge of the desk and kicking idly.

"Oh wow!" he said excitedly. "This is awesome! Is this what you guys are like all the time?"

I frowned at his question.

"Don't you remember?" I asked. From what I understood, this used to be a common ability for him.

"I mean, kind of," He replied with a thoughtful expression. "But it's all fuzzy you know? Like I understand that I could do this, but until right now I didn't really think about it at all. It's super cool though! I can move around by myself!" He demonstrated his new found mobility by hopping off the desk and moving around the living area within my quarters in a series of large jumps.

"You know" I said admonishingly, "Normally people just walk." He jumped again, this time side to side.

"Walking is boring! Why do that when you can jump?" He asked cheerfully. I sighed, not really wanting to get into a conversation about knee and lower back pain. I didn't want to ruin his excitement about being able to turn into a human with all the downsides.

For the next few minutes I sat back and watched as he ran and jumped around, examining every little thing he could find. It was good to get to know LIWI again properly. I hadn't received any dreams of Gary's actions in the last two weeks since I had seen him, so I assumed he had decided to stop sharing his memories with me now that we were on opposite sides. It made sense, I certainly wasn't sharing any information with him. That also meant that I hadn't had any dreams at all since that night on the hospital roof, which might have been a symptom of my lack of soul, or could mean nothing. I pushed dark thoughts about my reality aside for a moment, and instead considered what I knew about LIWI.

He was an interesting case. Because his human form was entirely produced by magic; it could theoretically take whatever form he chose, which meant that he had specifically chosen to appear this way for a reason. His apparent age matched roughly with his level of maturity, though perhaps his mental development was still more along the lines of a thirteen year old than a sixteen year old. Maybe he manifested at this age because he felt like he was more mature, rather than actually having reached this level of development. He also appeared differently than how Gary remembered him. Previously it seemed he had appeared similar to a younger version of us, with brown hair and eyes, but now his physical characteristics were more of a blend of the members of Team SGGE. Perhaps he drew inspiration for his form from people he knew and trusted, or perhaps he was just working differently due to my inability to fully repair him.

Whatever the case, he was relentlessly optimistic. Negative concepts seemed to flow past him without particularly impacting him. When we spoke about Gary or the other Earth-born he would become sad and quiet, but a moment later when the subject changed he would be immediately back to his normal happy self. He walked into the cooking area of the living quarters and started fiddling with the stove, adjusting knobs and dials and activating the electric stove. I smiled watching him attempt to put together a meal. He withdrew a bowl from a cabinet, filling it with cereal, but then placed the bowl in a pan.

"Having a bit of trouble?" I asked from the workbench.

"Nope!" he replied cheerfully. "Just trying to remember what comes next, I usually don't pay attention when you're doing stuff like this."

I sat up, paying closer attention.

"Alright" I responded. "Tell you what, you tell me what the end goal is and I'll try to give you some hints."

He picked up the box of cereal and shook it.

"I'm making soup!" He exclaimed.

I shook my head.

"That's cereal LIWI, not soup."

He looked at the bowl, then back at the box.

"What's the difference?"

I struggled for a moment as I figured out how to phrase it correctly.

"Well," I began. "Cereal is supposed to be eaten cold, with milk. Soup is a lot of different stuff, and while I guess you could eat it cold, it's usually warm and has a lot of ingredients." I hoped desperately that he didn't know what gazpacho was, or else I was going to get no end of push back on that definition.

"But they're both bowls filled with food and liquid right?" He asked, not really getting it.

"Yes, but if you put milk on the stove and let it boil you probably won't like what it ends up tasting like."

He nodded slowly.

"Ah, okay I get it." He replied thoughtfully, then picked the bowl up out of the pan and placed it back on the counter. He went to put the pan away, but grabbed the bare metal with his hand instead of reaching for the handle. I heard a sizzle as the hot pan burned him and he dropped it on the floor. I jumped up to help him, but he just stood looking at his palm as it turned red, a first degree burn forming on the skin. He held up the hand to show me the burn.

"You usually say 'ow' when stuff like this happens right?" He asked innocently. I nodded.

"OW!" he shouted, "That really hurt!" I came over to the kitchen area, placing the pan back on the stove gingerly and turning the stove off. Satisfied he was safe I turned on the sink to run cool water over his palm.

"It's not too bad" I told him, "it just looks like it will hurt for a few days." LIWI didn't answer at first, focusing on his palm as a little bit of magic fluttered and failed.

"What was that?" I asked.

"I wanted to heal it like I normally do for you, but it didn't work." He stood for a moment thinking. "Maybe I can't heal myself because I'm still made of magic and the healing is only for real humans?"

"Hm" I responded. "I've got an idea then." I retrieved my tools from the bench, then focused my arcane sight as I viewed his palm. I could see little tiny runes in between the lines of his palm. In the area of the burn several runes had been altered, turning an angry red and refusing to link correctly to the runes beside them. I gently scraped away the offending runes, then redrew them. As I worked, the red sections of his palm faded and returned to normal. After a few minutes there was no sign he had been injured at all.

"Wow!" He said, "That's super cool! I can heal you and you can fix me! We're going to be unstoppable!"

-/-

The next morning I attended strategy meetings with Team SGGE for most of the day. LIWI checked out pretty quickly, making an audible snoring noise in my mind, even though I was mostly sure he didn't need to sleep. Major Isaac Fin of team FRIL was explaining to both teams how the enemy forces had been taking ground in the areas outside of the city. He demonstrated areas to the east and west of Argus where the Wings of Freedom armored divisions had been leveling trees and flattening terrain to make paths and prepare fortifications. It was evident they intended to dig in and fight for each inch of land when the next wave of Altesian forces arrived by airship.

Atlas' professional army easily outnumbered the relatively slap dash Mistrali forces, the problem as I saw it was one of logistics. While we could theoretically deploy and maintain a force twice as large as theirs in Argus, we simply didn't have the supply chain or mobility to enact such a strategy without the use of the Atlesian Airship Fleet. Unfortunately, the fleet had been ordered to pull back to a safe distance beyond the horizon after one of them had been hijacked and forced to self-destruct. The enemy huntsmen were extremely proficient in infiltration missions, and Hephaestus, also known as Logan Portman to me, was able to control any forms of sufficiently advanced technology within his range.

The Pantheon had infiltrated the first warship sent to reinforce Argus and taken control of many of the weapons systems. The captain had been forced to self destruct the engines to prevent the total loss of the ground forces from aerial bombardment. After that, the fleet had stayed well back and closely monitored for any approaching aircraft.

Theoretically Athena, or Yaslin Moreno, could use her telekinesis to fly herself, Gary, and a few other invisible huntsmen several miles before running out of aura, so the navy had maintained a minimum safe distance of fifteen miles at all times. If we could eliminate those three targets then we could create an opening for the navy to send in the fleet at extreme altitude to provide troop support and bombardment capabilities. At the moment our troops were working with a dwindling supply of heavy equipment as anything that came to Argus needed to be small enough to be carried by a transport aircraft and brought in during low visibility conditions to avoid being brought down by Hephaestus.

Major Fin had presented a strategy to Atlas high command, and they had approved it. Teams FRIL and SGGE would return to Argus without filing a flight plan with Altas control to avoid revealing our movement. We would conduct a high altitude jump into the heart of enemy territory and begin a search for any of the three high value targets, with orders to capture, or kill if necessary.

There were four major camps that Atlas intelligence suspected could be harboring high ranking members of the Wings of Freedom, our plan would be to infiltrate them one at a time, capturing supplies and equipment on the ground to supply ourselves over the long term. After we had found and captured one of the key air defense members of the Pantheon we would exfiltrate back to Atlas to secure them for long term internment and interrogation.

-/-

Later that evening, Team SGGE was busy loading our equipment and twenty four hour packs onto our bullhead. I finished loading my equipment up and took the opportunity to chat with Sergeant Green. He and I hadn't had many interactions outside of physical training and strategy briefings, and I felt that I hadn't gotten to know him in the same way I had with the others. As I passed him I offered him a fist bump.

"Sergeant" I greeted him. He returned the fist bump.

"Sergeant" he replied, acknowledging my still new rank.

I turned to point to the Bullhead we were loading.

"Have you ever done one of these high altitude jumps before?" I asked him.

"Not since paratrooper training, back when I was still regular infantry." He shook his head ruefully. "We used emergency parachutes in case you couldn't control your fall, but with the amount of AA fire Intel reports over the drop zone I can't say I recommend taking the slow way down."

I nodded my agreement, checking that I had enough spare power packs for my armor to last the expected duration of the mission, plus an extra twelve hour pack just in case. My armor wasn't painted the usual Atlesian white, instead both teams had opted to dress in dark gray and blue, to better conceal ourselves during the upcoming night operation. I had emblazoned the 'S.G.G.E' patch in dark green on the left shoulder of the armor.

"If you had to pick, which target would you rather take on?" I asked him, trying to keep the conversation going. He thought for a moment.

"I guess Hyperion, we've fought him before, and with two teams I think we could overwhelm him pretty quickly. I wouldn't want to fight Athena, telekinetics are always a wild card because you never know when the terrain you're hiding behind is about to become a weapon pointed at you." He mused for a moment, stroking his chin. "Hephaestus seems like a tough fight as well, that tech control semblance of his could be very nasty if he manages to get ahold of our weapons." He opened a weapons case to show me a sword concealed within it, as far as I could tell it was just a simple short sword, severely outdated by modern weapons standards.

"I picked up this bad boy earlier in case we run into Hephaestus out there, no technology at all, but still extremely well made. The blade is a steel-titanium alloy infused with earth dust. It's a bit heavier than a traditional short sword, but it's got a razor edge, and it won't be stopped by his semblance."

I whistled my admiration, appreciating the craftsmanship that had gone into it.

"Impressive," I admitted. "I was just planning to shoot him from far away, but this is absolutely gorgeous."

He held up a finger to indicate his point.

"I find that academy trained huntsmen sometimes over complicate things. Never underestimate the simple solutions, blades, bullets, and bombs. Everything else can and will fail on you in a pinch."

-/-

That night Teams FRIL and SGGE slept in hammocks set up in the back bay of the bullhead as it flew south east towards Argus. We would be landing on one of the Carrier Airships and waiting for ideal weather conditions for our drop. In the meantime the two teams either had quiet conversations or tried to stay out of each other's way. I got to know one of the younger members of Team FRIL, Lieutenant Luis Lord. Sergeant Green called him 'Triple L' while we were packing like it meant something, which got me curious, so I asked him about his name.

"Well," He said with a friendly smile, like he was telling a favorite story. "My parents always like alliterations. So they gave me the name Luis Lorenzo Lord. Technically, by becoming a Lieutenant I really should be up to quadruple L, but your team seems pretty content to stick with 'Triple L' for some reason."

Sergeant Green made a face like he wanted to comment, but remained quiet.

"Lt," I asked quiet enough that Green was unlikely to overhear. "If you don't mind me asking, what's up with Major Fin and Captain Stone?" He made a face like he had sucked on a lemon, but replied in a similarly quiet tone.

"I don't really know the details, but I think it's something to do with what happened to team SAGE back at Atlas Academy a few years ago. Back when they were still team PEAR." I nodded, I had been looking into personnel files on team SGGE to try and get a better understanding of my new team, but I hadn't been able to access anything useful and I wasn't quite ready to hack into their private files just to satisfy my curiosity.

"So what happened?" I asked. He sighed, running a hand through his hair, then motioned for me to sit down.

"I only graduated from Atlas Academy earlier this year, so I'm pretty new to FRIL." He began by way of explanation. "But the rumor goes that Major Fin and Captain Stone were both at the academy at the same time, he was in the graduating class when she and the rest of Team PEAR entered. Apparently they were sent on a training mission against a group of Grimm. From what I've been told, Major Fin overestimated Team PEAR's abilities, which resulted in the unfortunate demise of Christine Petal and one of Team FRIL's original members." He paused for a moment before continuing.

"After that, Captain Stone was promoted to team leader, and when they graduated Sergeant Green was assigned to fill the gap in their team. I guess they must still blame each other for what happened."

Sergeant Green wasn't an academy graduate, in fact he was relatively unique in that he had apparently unlocked his aura in combat. It was common practice for the military to attach recently awakened soldiers to operative teams, so it made sense that he was assigned to fill a gap on a graduating team. I supposed that now I was also in a similar situation, a 'recent unlock' who was assigned to fill a gap due to wartime casualties. Though I knew that I didn't really have an aura.

Lieutenant Lord was called away to discuss something with the rest of his team, and so I sat back in my seat to discuss our new circumstances with LIWI.

"Well?" I whispered softly. "What do you think?"

I think that he's nice, but I don't like his boss. I nodded.

"He might not know the full story with Team PEAR anyways, we should keep digging to see what we can find out."