I watched the holographic image, which seemed to be an overview of some sort of beach resort town, my muscles growing more tense with each second that we waited. This was going to be rough, especially for Karen, given what I knew of her. I was practically shaking from nervousness and had to carefully control my breathing as we waited for something to happen.

Not that I was doing nothing. I had already mentally tagged all my teammates, including Moonlight, and I was ready to teleport in there as soon as I had a good idea of where I needed to teleport to. My eyes were also darting all over the holographic image in front of me as I scanned for where the Breach was going to appear.

Ainslee’s sharp eyes spotted it first, not surprising since she was the only one of us who had seen a Breach up close before. It looked like a growing circle of light on one of the busier streets with blue-white lightning arcing around it to hit anything metallic in the area. A couple of hover-jets had dropped out of the air and several older, land-based cars were stopped in the middle of the street from the massive amount of electromagnetic energy being thrown around. “There!” she said, pointing to the area.

“Wait for it to fully form before getting too close,” Private Callas warned. “You don’t want to be near a gate while it’s still forming if you value anything electronic like implants and comm rings.”

“Yeah, I know that from experience,” Ainslee muttered.

Meanwhile, the private continued to explain. “Usually, this is around the stage when the Vanguard satellite network detects the unique energy signature of electromagnetic disturbance and uses it to pinpoint the still manifesting Breach. It can take a few minutes to do that and scramble teams to the area, and usually by then the Breach is fully formed. So, whenever you’re sent in for first response, the Breach will usually be fully formed and spitting out Titans in a full-on Incursion by the time you get there, even if Cadet-Major Pierce can teleport like I was told.”

“And once that Breach is fully formed, we’ll have to try to make things difficult for them for forty-seven minutes until it closes, or until reinforcements arrive,” I said thoughtfully, with my voice projection just loud enough for everyone to hear as I stared at the forming Breach, or as close as the holo-projectors could come to making it look real. “Wouldn’t I usually be ferrying in other first response and strike teams though?”

“That’s the goal, as far as I know,” the private agreed, “but there is always a chance that you can’t for some reason and might need to engage the enemy instead. Oh, it looks like it’s fully formed now. Good luck, girls.”

As soon as those words left the mouth of Private Callas, I focused on the holographic projection, which had zoomed in to give an overhead view of the general area of the fake town where the Titans were beginning to emerge from the Breach. Turning my attention to an alley near the breach, but not within view of it, I willed myself and my teammates to appear there. I didn’t want us being attacked before everyone could get their bearings, nor did I want us to be stepped on by one of the massive mechs. Hardlight holograms or not, they were solid enough that it would be awkward and risk injuries.

As soon as we were in place, I started issuing orders. “Moonlight, stick close in case anyone needs healing, but keep hidden for now so you don’t become a target and keep an eye out for any civilians in danger.”

-Of course, my Maiden,- the Unicorn quickly agreed.

Turning to my girlfriend next, I told the Fire Sprite, “Poppy, you and I are the hardest to hit and the most mobile, so we’ll find out where the shelter is and start leading people there. If we have to, we’ll get in the Titan’s faces and cause a distraction with our elemental magic.”

“You’ve got it, Love. I’ve got your back.”

Then I turned from my girlfriend to the human-sized members of our team. “Ainslee, you and Karen try to take those big fuckers down, try to cut them down to size with your ability while Karen covers you and targets their weapons with her acid beam from a distance. Kelly, try to keep them and any civilians covered, if you can manage it. The priority is keeping the civilians safe until we can get them to a shelter.”

Once the three of them (Karen grudgingly) had accepted my plan, we poured out of the alley to face the Titans that were already causing panic and destruction. People dressed for warm weather and the beach were running for their lives through the streets and I caught sight of a few very familiar blasts of energy that caused a nearby building to collapse, causing tremors to shake the ground beneath my friends’ feet and knocking several civilians off theirs. Then I saw those giant alien mechs up close, which were now far bigger to me in terms of scale and a lot scarier as well.

Widthwise, they took up most of the two-lane street and they were as tall as the two-story buildings. Energy blasts shot hover-jets out of the air and one man, who was trying to cover his family’s retreat into an alley was cut in half by one of their lasers before he could do more than throw a couple of stones at one of the colossal mechs. I flashed back to seeing my father die the very same way, though at least he had a gun. They were coming for us, and they wouldn’t stop until…

-I know you are afraid, Lily, but you are not the same person as you were back then,- a familiar voice assured me as fear caused my heart to race and I could barely breathe. It was Moonlight, and she was right, I was literally a different person now, and I had magic that I could use to defend these people.

“L-let’s move it everyone!” I called out, my voice tremulous from the terror I was trying to push through as I pulled myself together and turned to check on my companions.

Hovering in the air nearby, Poppy looked like she had seen a ghost, but she was visibly trying to shake it off as she gathered flames from a nearby explosion to send them right at the eye sensor thing of the lead Titan with a scream of rage. Ainslee gritted her teeth and summoned a massive claymore of magical plasma as she rushed for the legs of the same Titan to try to cut it down to size. Karen and Kelly were both frozen in terror though.

Karen’s gaze was firmly locked on a woman who had been caught in an explosion who was badly burned and bleeding out from shrapnel until she closed her eyes to try to shut the scene out. Her breathing was ragged and panicked, and her whole body was tense as she clenched her fists at her sides. I could hear her murmuring to herself, something about her mother, but I couldn’t make it out clearly.

Kelly, on the other hand, was unable to move as the Titan reached for her, kicking Ainslee away before she could get close enough to use her manifested weapon and swatting at Poppy like she was an errant fly. Ainslee went flying into the side of a building and Poppy managed to avoid the blow meant for her but was having trouble righting herself and had completely lost control of her fire. The Titan’s other hand reached for my sister, ignoring my attempt to get its attention with a quick blast of water that I created with mana from my reserves, and once she was in its grip, my sister started to panic.

That was when the scene faded away as the hardlight holograms vanished, leaving us in a cavernous, empty room once again as my sister fell unceremoniously to the ground. Ainslee was slow getting to her feet and while her regeneration could probably handle any injuries that she had, especially if she was given time to feed on Karen, I felt it better to hold off on that. Tonight was supposed to be her first official feeding from the Dark Elf, but I didn’t want her to do it while Karen was obviously still shaken up since she hadn’t opened her eyes yet and was still mumbling to herself.

“Moonlight, could you please see to Ainslee’s injuries?” I asked my Unicorn companion mentally before turning to Karen and Kelly, who were both still in a bad state.

-Of course, Lily,- she replied, quickly making herself visible and solid once again and then trotting over to the injured Baobhan Sith.

It took me several minutes to snap Karen and Kelly out of their respective traumatized states and by that time, Ainslee was back on her feet and trying to comfort my sister as well so I could turn my attention fully to Karen. She was very shaken up still and honestly, I wasn’t sure how to help her with that. That was something for her to talk about with her psychiatrist, but for now, at least I had gotten her back to reality.

The sound of approaching footsteps caused us all to look glumly toward Sergeant Vale, who did not look impressed with our performance as he walked across the cavernous room toward us. Honestly, I couldn’t really blame him since we did terribly from my perspective as well. I managed to get everyone to attention by the time he was close enough to speak, but I held no hope that he would be saying anything good.

“One minute and eighteen seconds,” the Vampire opened with, the frown on his face and disappointment in his tone making me want to find somewhere to hide. “That’s how long you lasted after engaging the enemy. It’s one more minute than I would have expected and a whole lot less than I was hoping for.”

I found myself tensing in anger at that. It was no coincidence that there had been things in that simulation that were tailor-made to set the most traumatized of us off. The man who was cut in half while trying to protect his family, the woman bleeding out from shrapnel, and the Titan grabbing Kelly. All of those were bound to set us off, even Ainslee since she couldn’t move and I saw her staring in horror at the latter as she tried to get up in vain and couldn’t do anything to intervene.

The bastard had read our files, and he did everything he could to make us break there. “That’s not fair,” I hissed at him angrily. “You set us up to fail.”

The sergeant snorted dismissively. “Life isn’t fair, girl. If there is one lesson that any of you have learned from your respective Incursions, it should be that. Fairness is an illusion, in the war against the Titans there is only victory and defeat.”

“But…”

My protest was quickly cut off before I could finish it as Sergeant Vale gave me a look that could freeze molten lava. “Butts are for sitting on, and none of you have time for that. Once I’m done telling all of you the many ways in which you fucked up, we’ll be going through the simulation again. And we’ll keep going through it until the lot of you can function properly on the battlefield.”

The stoney expression on his face told me that arguing wasn’t going to get me anywhere. There was only one thing I could do right now, and that was to say, “Yes, Sergeant.”

The Vampire nodded grimly, his attention still focused on me, and I guess that was better than seeing him ream out my friends. Not that I thought we could avoid that. “You had a decent plan going in, Cadet-Major,” he began, “for a beginner. Plans don’t mean shit if your troops can’t or won’t follow them though. You need to use the tools available to you in a battle, whether that’s your magic, your troops, or your gear. From the start, your sister and Cadet Smythe were the weak links there. You have control over Smythe’s tracking implant, why didn’t you give her a low-level shock to snap her out of it?”

“I couldn’t, I just…” I replied uncertainly, “I don’t want to use that unless it’s necessary.”

“Well, if she’s catatonic in the middle of a battle, I would say that it’s pretty fucking necessary,” he snapped back. “The alternative is that she dies from an attack because she’s frozen and not focusing on the battlefield, and that’ll probably get the rest of you killed too.”

I winced and was about to respond when Karen’s voice said. “Do it. If I freeze up like that again, shock me out of it. It’s not like we’re friends or anything anyway, so you don’t need to feel bad about it.” Turning to her in surprise, I saw a determined expression on her face.

That expression faded and she winced as the sergeant turned on her next. “Well, it seems you’re not as stupid as I feared. Freezing like that on the battlefield costs lives, sometimes yours, sometimes your comrades’, and sometimes the life of someone you could have saved if you weren’t frozen. You have no place in training to be a nurse or a combat medic if you can’t handle seeing people hurt or dying on a battlefield. It’s going to happen, there isn’t much we can do about that, but you can’t do shit for any of them if you freeze up when you see it. If you can’t handle it, then do us all a favor and take the prison sentence instead.”

Ouch. That was harsh, as harsh as he’d been with me, and I felt myself cringing by proxy. Karen cringed too, but then she straightened back up again and nodded as that determined look settled once again on her face. “I can handle it. Even if she has to fucking shock me a hundred times, I’ll get over this shit.”

The sergeant nodded, turning his attention to Kelly. “Do we need to get you a new implant too or are you going to be able to handle this without freezing up? You’re invulnerable for fuck’s sake! The Titans probably don’t have anything that can hurt you and they’re not going to grab you; they only grab regular ole humans. They’re gonna try to kill you and since they can’t do that, you’re the one who has the least to fear. Instead, be afraid that they’ll kill your comrades or civilians and use that power of yours to protect them. Another thing, you were given weapons for a reason, so use them!”

“That goes for you too!” he continued as he whirled on Ainslee. “You have a strong ability, but you need to be up close to use it. Or do you? Maybe you should try throwing weapons as well. If you don’t have the cover fire to get close or are too far away, use your damn weapon, the Punisher was designed to go against Titans and has good range. Don’t just rush in unless you know someone is providing cover fire to let you do that and stay mobile, hacking away at one spot without moving makes you a target. If you’re in close, hit and run.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” Ainslee said with a dejected expression, though I knew my best friend well enough to know that she was probably determined to learn from this and do better next time.

Then Sergeant Vale turned to Poppy. “Attacking the sensor eye was a good idea. Against a real Titan, you might have done enough damage to blind it with a prolonged attack. However, you can’t be solely focused on that, even at your size it makes you a big, fat target. You have mobility in the air so use it. You need to practice dodging and weaving while maintaining an attack and paying attention to the rest of the battlefield as well.”

Poppy looked as dejected as Ainslee, but she nodded. “I’ll work on that with my magic teacher, Sergeant, and I’ll try to do better next time.”

“Good,” he said with a nod before looking over us as a group and giving us an almost sympathetic look. “Cadet-Major Pierce was right, I set you up to fail this time, at least at being able to win this battle or last long enough for support to arrive.”

“I knew it,” I grumbled.

The sergeant just continued with his speech though. “This exercise was more about facing your fears than the objective I gave you. This isn’t going to be easy, and you are all going to face things in these simulations that will terrify you, but fear is a part of warfare, and you’re going to need to either get over your fears or not let them control you any more to be effective on the battlefield. Now, get back to the changing room, we’ll be going through this again and we’ll keep going through it until I’m satisfied with your progress.”

None of us were happy about that, but we all morosely made our way back to the changing room to wait for the next training session as ordered. I got the point of what he was doing, and I could even understand it to some degree, but this was going to be hard on us all, physically and mentally. Worse yet, I had the distinct feeling that Sergeant Vale was not an easy man to satisfy.