It was time to return. After spending a long time away from the main activities, Neptune strategically reinserted himself into the fray on the final day. As fresh as he could be thanks to the doctor’s orders (and the fresh rations), he possessed the advantage of walking into assessment day with a full energy tank. Upon rejoining Batch 123, he sensed his batchmates eyeing him suspiciously without saying a word. Even Bray who would usually partake in senseless banter when the opportunity presents itself, only acknowledged him with a light nod and a look that said the words “be careful” telepathically.

  A part of him felt that they weren’t in the mood after all that gruelling training and he quickly disregarded their behaviour as him merely overthinking it.

  The night sky seemed empty on a pitch-black night. It never occurred to the survivors of this realm why there weren’t any stars. Perhaps these humans were occupied with ideas fed to them by their controllers, or they were simply ignorant of the microcosmic roles they play in the history of time.

  The Smart Grid system the North built was beyond anything the world had ever seen, with its satellites fired toward the galaxies blocking humanity’s vision of the stars. His eyes were wide open as he reached out his left hand, trying to touch the lone star in the skies, the only star left unblocked by the satellites launched into space ages ago that turned the technocratic dream into a reality.

  “Is it selfish to dream?”

  He could not turn away from the vacuum of greatness he desired to fulfil. Apart from a handful of cicadas buzzing, the perfect silence created an optimal setting for him to express himself. Unobstructed by buildings, the cooling air in an exposed field made this night in the open more enjoyable. The grass tickling his body, stimulating his five senses made him feel at peace in this realm. He wished for this moment to last forever but unfortunately, that privilege has been stolen from him since day one. There was only one way to attain this peace he sought and he was well on his way toward achieving that goal.

  But one goalkeeper stood in his way. Someone he had a bullet-proof plan to deal with.

  As his mind drifted to the endless possibilities of his ascension to the throne, one of the Faceless next to him suddenly jerked to awakening–

  “What the heck!”

  Neptune didn’t realise he got carried away, accidentally slamming the groundsheet he shared with a fellow batchmate, waking him up from his deep slumber.

  “I’m sorry, Damian. Are you okay?”

  Before he could check on Damian, a flurry of voices joined this whirlwind of irrationality.

  “What happened?”

  “Someone attacked you?!”

  Within seconds, Batch 123 had all woken up from Damian’s scream. Neptune gave an irritated sigh, gesturing with his hands to calm everyone down. However, the roars persisted as though his batchmates had gained several brain cells during his absence. To his surprise, Batch 123, led by Bronston approached Neptune with hostile intent, deliberately disobeying his orders.

  “Bron, what’s up?”

  Instead of a friendly response, Bronston shot a look of vehement hostility, filled with untempered rage towards him, causing Neptune to stumble back in shock.

  “Wh–”

  “Don’t you dare ‘what’s up’ me!”

  Bronston grabbed Neptune by his collar, lifting him from the ground. The pent-up aggression he concealed was about to become unleashed.

  “You’re one sneaky bastard! How dare you show your fucking face again!”

  “I beg your pardon?” Neptune spoke confidently, changing his expression to convey indifference, an emotion he knew would tick the right boxes.

  “You snake!”

  Bronston lifted Neptune and effortlessly tossed him onto another patch of grass with a force only a wild beast could manage. That brutal manoeuver caught Neptune when he least expected, causing him to gasp in unadulterated horror as the air left his lungs. Bronston with the carnal rage swelling in his leg strength, swung it at Neptune in the abdominal area, sapping the betrayer of his vitality in one fell swoop.

  “Stop–”

  With Bronston’s almighty offensive, Neptune landed on his back onto the grass fields with a sickening thud, rolling from the impact until he was lying spread eagle. As his eyes caught on, the visage of a burly, vengeance-seeking beast shadowed him with malicious intent.

  What’s happening?!

  He couldn’t fathom the sudden change in his subject’s behaviour with his eyes fixated upon the perpetrator, frozen in shock. To think his pawns could have a change of heart this quickly was certainly not part of the plan.

  “I’m not done with you!”

  Bronston squatted down as he rained fists from the heavens onto Neptune’s shocked face, gradually increasing the force with each hit. The impact rattled Neptune to the core, his eyes unblinking, refusing to accept this reality.

  “You think we can’t see through your laziness, huh? You just want to avoid the tough part of military training! Motherfucker!”

  “I thought! We were. Going through. This together!” With each pause between his sentences, Bronston added more force behind his fists, smashing Neptune’s face in as Batch 123 looked on silently.

  “...G-guys, you are mistaken…”

  Neptune mustered the strength to speak and pleaded with his batchmates. His batchmates shook their heads in disbelief as though they could see through his theatrics.

  “Mistaken about what, asshole?”

  “I was hurt!”

  “My ass! We saw you and that damned doctor having the time of your lives in the shed!”

  “It was not intentional–”

  “While we were eating trash with our dirty hands, you had forks and spoons!”

  Neptune had no response to the truth. He thought his batchmates were too preoccupied with training to bother with the welfare he received for being “injured”.

  “Fresh meals! Fuck! Look at you,” Bronston grabbed Neptune by his neat uniform with a speck of grass on it, “And look at us! We’re dirty as heck! Smelly as shit! What the heck! Liar, you still want to lie to us?!”

  The punishment just kept raining on like the storm the other night.

  “Guys…please–”

  From the group of Faceless casting their invisible visage down at him, Neptune could isolate a figure approaching forward, a face he could recognise, the only one from Batch 123 he acknowledged. With his body as a shield, that person stood defiantly against Bronston, locking eyes intensely without backing down.

  “Move away, Bray, or else.”

  “No.“

  “Don’t make me do what I did on that asshole to you, Bray!”

  “I think we should go through with Field Camp and call it quits from there. There is no point quarrelling or all that anymore.”

  “Huh?! He was not even present when we had to dig our graves!”

  “Bron, we won’t see each other anymore after we graduate in two weeks.”

  The end of GMT and the start of their official vocational training.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Bronston got into Bray’s face. As he recalled the pain he endured while smashing his spade into the earth’s unyielding matter under the noon’s heat, he wondered if the betrayer even cared about them one bit in his beautiful sheltered heaven.

  “Fucking hell! Bray, are you siding with him? After all the stupid shenanigans he pulled off?”

  “Carry on with the preparation for the situational test.”

  Neither man wanted to back down.

  “...Fine, let’s go.”

  Bronston leaned his head backwards, backing off from Bray’s insistent stance.

  “See you in abit, Bray,” Carmelo left without turning to face the wounded Neptune, gesturing to Batch 123 to leave the graveyard where they buried the betrayer.

  Batch 123 started to walk into the sunrise’s shadow, far away from where Bray and Neptune lay on the grass fields. As the chatter faded into the wondrous, soft sounds of the wild, Bray remained silent, knowing Neptune had trouble putting two and two together.

  “Bray!”

  With pent-up animosity, Bray heard a scream as haunting as a banshee’s wail.

  “What happened?! Three days? And they turned into this? This?!” Neptune had a crazed look, akin to a dictator whose ironclad rule appeared challenged.

  “What do you think they were going to do? Sing Kumbaya?”

  “I’m not in the mood for jokes!”

  “In your absence, many things have changed–”

  “What changed?!”

  “Let me explain–”

  “You stupid fool, hurry up with whatever you want to say!”

  “Have you not thought about who dug that shithole for you to shit in?”

  “Wh–”

  Bray’s words caught him completely off guard. Neptune widened his eyes as he remembered the massive earthly hole, the makeshift latrine, at the back of the medical shed where he urinated. It had never crossed his mind who dug up that pitiful hole. Let alone who shouldered the responsibility of cleaning it up daily. As the realisation set in, he lowered his head in shock.

  “Y-you can’t be joking.”

  “Now you know why the boys are pissed.”

  “...They were clearing up the shit daily?”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “...Oh god.”

  “You know, those paper napkins you used last night to wipe your sweat before sleeping?”

  Neptune regretted having Bray lay down the truth as he swallowed hard. Real hard.

  “...What about it?”

  “Guess what. None of us had that luxury.”

  Bray fished into his pockets, emptying a handful of leaves onto the grass fields. “We used these to clean our goddamn snot.”

  “...Impossible.”

  “Captain Troy Graves was there at every turn. Every struggle. Every moment that Batch 123 wanted to give up. He filled in the gap you left open,” Bray stood up, casting his shadow onto Neptune before turning around to join Batch 123 for breakfast, “You know, it seems we all have a role to play in this, don’t we?”

  “W-where are you going? Come back here!”

  Neptune tried to get up but fell on his back. The physical damage inflicted upon him had started to take its toll.

  “Don’t you dare walk away without me! Come back here, Bray Rotunda!”

  Bray paused in his tracks to speak. “You were the one who taught me the laws of the jungle and you seem to have forgotten about it.”

  Neptune widened his eyes in disbelief, caught with his hands in the cookie jar by a lesser being putting him in his place.

  “You’re not the quarterback of this operation!”

  “I’ll see you at the situational test then.”

  Bray disappeared into the shed as Neptune forced himself to sit up, trying to piece everything together that hurled at him like a hurricane. He did not want to come to terms with reality but with everything that transpired, he finally had to admit that man harboured a personal vendetta against him.

  And the question was why?

  *

  “Everyone, attention! Get into your assigned groups!”

  The Overall In-Charge commander of the Situational Test, Captain Troy Graves, spoke into the loudspeaker. Upon giving his command, the recruits scrambled to find their respective groupmates.

  “Look here. Look here! Group 1!”

  “Yes, Group 2 here!”

  “Group 13!”

  Some soldiers raised their hands, showing the number assigned to them minutes ago.

  “Hey, which group are you in?”

  “Where you–”

  “Hey!”

  “Stop interrupting–”

  A handful ran around, like headless chickens, asking whether they shared the same grouping, unknowingly raising the noise levels and disturbing the other lifeforms they shared a commonplace with.

  “Soldiers, always respect the jungle! That’s the number one rule of field training! Don’t ever forget it!”

  “My apologies, sir!”

  “Sorry, sir!”

  Several soldiers turned around, saluting him before they returned to normalcy.

  “It’s been ages…”

  This lively scene before him reminded him of the day he first joined the Swan Contingent, back when he was a “lower lifeform”, a term often used in the military for soldiers of a lower rank. As an inexperienced teenage volunteer, his combat prowess wasn’t the finest, stamina average, but he had a sheer indomitable will to last longer than his peers. While his peers would complain about everything under the sun, partially due to noble or political birth, Troy would soldier on, committing to training to the best of his abilities. Eventually, he became the mentee to a commander who, like him, didn’t come from a famous lineage from the South’s industrial elite or the first Atlantean bloodline.

  Troy’s mentor exemplified a craft beyond the limits of human potential and a generous will to teach others. He had a kind soul that was a far cry compared to the other veterans in the Swans, who never bothered to get to know the volunteers beneath them in seniority.

  “...Interesting development.”

  He watched as the last recruit got into his group, finding it odd that his recruit appeared legitimately injured as he limped over to join his group. How coincidental for a coward who feigned injury to end up like this. Poetic justice they say.

  If that boy ever finds out about it…

  Troy rationalised his decision on the floating island, knowing his fallen comrades would understand.

  For as long as I honour the agreement, I should be fine.

  If the Federation had a trump card against the Empire, the son of Judas could fill that role, but Troy had trouble accepting the President’s decision. There was a side to the Rogue Scientist’s son he couldn’t comprehend–and put to words. This recruit had an aura that felt sinister, a dark side to him that he had heard from Batch 123 with his manipulative, sociopathic tendencies. The goosebumps forming on his right hand were a testament to that.

  “Sir, the recruits are ready. Shall we report to our respective groups and begin the situational test?”

  A group of junior officers approached him, seeking permission to commence the situational test. For some would-be future officers of the UAFAF, this was the time for them to prove their worth. For others, it served as a formality in their graduation certificate. Troy swiftly turned around, nodding to give his approval.

  “Carry on with the situational test. Don’t forget the scenarios and locations where the groups are to assemble. We will comms all of you to begin once everyone is ready.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The junior officers took their nominal roll and mission brief clipboard before dispersing to their respective groups.

  Troy sensed a group of junior officers remaining where they stood; one was Lieutenant Brenda Reynolds, the junior officer under his charge.

  “Sir!” Brenda saluted her OC, carrying a clipboard in her other hand.

  “Ah, Lieutenant Reynolds. Why are you still here? Something wrong?”

  “My accompanying officers aren’t here yet.”

  “Tardiness is something I do not condone, Lieutenant Reynolds. Let me make a call–”

  Before Troy could finish his sentence, the latecomer interrupted him like they were having a casual conversation.

  “Captain Troy Graves!”

  “Drop ten right now, Dr Pavlov. Knock it down.”

  “Not me, sir! I’m the genius doctor!”

  “How ironic you mentioned it. Where are your standards? And why are you late?”

  “Sir, I had to pick up the other officer because you didn’t approve the clearance.”

  “You are absolutely right.”

  …Because of the past few days in the wild, he had forgotten how to function like an administrative officer.

  “Maybe I’m not cut out for admin roles, huh?” Troy muttered.

  “Sorry, sir, what did you say?”

  “Keep quiet.”

  “It’s been a long time.”

  Ivan removed his hands from the pocket and removed his lab coat, which didn’t suit the stuffy and hot environment he found himself in.

  “My apologies. I believe you are ready to watch your mentee in action?” Troy placed his hand on his old comrade’s shoulders.

  “Oh yeah, I heard stories about how much of a genius the young Smith was from Boris.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Genius or not, I’ll be the judge.”

  “That’s the attitude you need to carry out your assessment duties without prejudice.”

  “Alright, then. I’ll proceed with the assessment as professionally as I can.”