Karen continued to complain under her breath as we made our way to the changing room. Honestly, I couldn’t truly blame her since I had mixed feelings about training under Sergeant Vale. On one hand, he was gruff, ruthless in his criticism, and he pushed us hard every session, as far as he could without causing one of us to snap.

On the other hand, though, I knew that he wasn’t being that way because he was an asshole or anything. He was just trying to prepare us for the realities of Incursions and fighting the Titans, what we would face while doing so. That point was clearly demonstrated while my team was involved in the last Incursion.
We wouldn’t have been anywhere near prepared for that (mentally or physically) if it hadn’t been for the brutal training sessions he had put us through, and things would have likely gone a lot worse than they had. We all still had a lot to learn as well, and that wasn’t even counting Naia, who hadn’t been through any kind of training before this morning. Vale was pushing us so hard because he wanted us to survive the real thing, and as much as I hated his training sims and criticism afterward, I had to admit

Once we made our way into the small changing room, I tried my best to explain to Naia what we were in for while we all got ready. Not that we were there to change clothes. No, that was as simple as just injecting a bit of mana into the chokers we were wearing.

Naia had no problems with that once we explained it to her. In fact, it seemed easier for her than it had been for my sister and Ainslee at first. Poppy and I hadn’t had much trouble with it at first, since we had to perfect mana control while training our elemental magic abilities, but Sprites practically live on mana and are naturally good at sensing and manipulating it. In Naia’s case, I wasn’t certain at first if she was just gifted or had some sort of magical training.

I wasn’t the only one thinking along those lines, as Ainslee pointed out, “You picked that up fast. A hell of a lot quicker than I did.”

“Yeah, well, I’m used to controlling how much mana I’m drawing in and using it properly. For Sirens, using mana comes instinctively, sort of like Lily and Poppy have said it is for Sprites. We have to actually be taught not to use our magic once we’ve become Altered because it’s natural for us to channel mana into our voices, which can be a big problem when we’re around other people,” the Siren replied with a shrug. “So, my sister and I learned to control mana at the hospital as soon as we could once our changes finished. It’s a requirement for Sirens before we’re allowed out with the general public. If we can’t control it, it’s like instant zombies throwing themselves at us.”

“Yeah, I could see that becoming a bloody problem if you didn’t,” Poppy quickly agreed. We both knew what it was like to undergo such vigorous training while in the hospital, though for us, learning to use our magic was only a small part of it. Most of it was rehab and getting used to our new bodies, but I definitely could sympathize with her.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to sit around talking and getting to know more about Naia just then. We didn’t have much time, and I had to try to get Naia mentally prepared for the Incursion simulations ahead of us. Naia, Karen, Kelly, and Ainslee also needed to check out their weapons and other gear for the afternoon’s training session from Sergeant Vale’s assistant for that afternoon.

The assistant in question was a young man from East Africa with strange, gold-colored eyes who introduced himself as Private Mwangi. Except for the eyes, he looked like a normal human at first glance, but he couldn’t fool Ainslee’s or Kelly’s noses. We discovered later, during one of our breaks between simulations, that he was actually a Bouda, a sort of were hyena.

Once I had finished explaining things to Naia as best I could, Private Mwangi drilled her on gun safety and the use of the weapons she would be armed with during the simulations. While my team’s newest member was occupied with that, I considered what I wanted to get out of today’s simulations. A lot of it would depend on what exactly Sergeant Vale planned to put us through, though. Since we had a new teammate, was he going to hit us with the no-win situations, like he did when we first started training as a team, or was he going to give us a chance to win, like in the later sessions?

One of my main priorities was definitely to work on getting Naia used to being on the team, taking orders, and getting her familiar with our tactics. Also, she might not have any major Incursion-related trauma, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t have fears. Incursions and seeing Titans and the destruction they cause close up and personal can be terrifying for anyone, even if they’re mentally prepared for it, and I doubted that Sergeant Vale was going to ease Naia into this.

I also wanted to test some things while riding Moonlight while she was ethereal, if I managed to get the chance. After having comms not work in that state during the Incursion in Rio, I wanted to see what kind of limitations we were dealing with and what we might be sacrificing for stealth. Honestly, I had a lot of important questions about that which needed answers.

Would my comm crown work at all while we were ethereal, or was it just the comm signals that were blocked? What about Naia’s telepathy? Could she contact us or maintain contact while in that state? What if she’s riding Moonlight while she’s ethereal? Would she still be able to mentally contact people in the physical world? Would it affect her range? So, yeah, I had a lot of concerns that I was hoping to address when we were finally informed that the first simulation of the afternoon was ready.

“This will be your final simulation of the day,” Sergeant Vale announced shortly before seventeen hundred hours, causing my entire team to sag in relief.

Today’s training simulations had been brutal at the start, just as I had feared, to get Naia used to exactly what we would be facing while in the field. We got creamed over and over again until roughly an hour ago, when he finally started giving us a chance to win, or at least complete our mission goals. After an entire afternoon of hell, following our training that morning, we were all exhausted and ready to call it a day, and it was showing in our performance over the past couple of simulations.

Even with the rest and refueling breaks (mostly for me and Poppy to drink nectar and have something to eat to fuel our crazy metabolism), our movements were getting sluggish, and we were starting to make mistakes we normally wouldn’t. None of us was used to this kind of intense training, and poor Naia looked ready to pass out. I honestly couldn’t blame her since, unlike the rest of us, she hadn’t even been through the simulations before, and I couldn’t remember myself feeling this exhausted even during rehab after I first Sprouted.

The only good thing I could think of to come from the parade of grueling Incursion simulations we had gone through was that I had managed to test those things that I wanted to. In regards to my comm crown, the results were disappointing, but pretty much what I expected. While Moonlight was keeping me ethereal along with her, I could use local apps, but communications and anything that required connecting to the internet wouldn’t work at all.

The tests with Naia were a lot more reassuring, possibly because telepathy was how Moonlight and I communicated. For one thing, she seemed to have no trouble contacting me while Moonlight and I were ethereal. Also, while riding Moonlight and ethereal herself, Naia had no trouble contacting other people telepathically and maintaining contact. It didn’t seem to affect her range either, though with her range, we’d probably need to do far more comprehensive tests than what we’d been able to do during the simulations. I would have to talk to Vice-Commander Carpenter about setting something up for that.

Now, though, we just had one more simulation to go, and we could go eat something and collapse in our beds. “Oh, thank fuck,” Karen muttered tiredly as we all waited for Sergeant Vale to finish setting up the new simulation and inform us of what our mission would be this time.

As the holographic setting materialized around us, Sergeant Vale’s voice, far too cheerfully offered, “I promised you girls a treat today, and I’m a man of my word. So, for this last simulation, we’ll be doing something a bit different.”

“I don’t like this,” my sister grumbled, her tails swishing back and forth in anxiety. “He sounds like he’s smiling, and I guarantee that’s not a good thing for us.”

The Sergeant continued as if Kelly hadn’t said a thing, and I had to agree with her assessment. If he was happy, that meant he was probably going to throw a wrench at us with this sim. “The scenario this time is simple. Your team has been sent to a city to deal with a rogue Altered who has been using his powers to commit several high-profile thefts. Your job is to stop him. Capture is preferable, but killing is acceptable if he becomes a danger to citizens. Try to limit any property damage and avoid civilian casualties.”

That wasn’t nearly enough to go on; we needed more details like that. So I quickly asked, “What intel do we have on this wannabe supervillain?”

“Security and eyewitness footage showed the perpetrator to be a male Fae of some sort with dark hair and pale skin, dressed in dark clothing, who attacks in broad daylight and escapes by retreating through the wall, so we assume his special ability allows him to become intangible. There is a pattern to his attacks, and I am sending the location of his next projected target to your comm code,” he informed us in reply. That was more information than before, but I wondered if he would have given it to us if I hadn’t thought to ask.

I stared up at the control room, trying to figure out what his game was. I knew, of course, that the Vanguard not only deals with Incursions but also polices Altered worldwide. I had heard of the occasional Altered trying to make careers as modern-day supervillains or heroes. Those villains were often stopped by Vanguard teams sent to bring them in, and sometimes the heroes, too, if they went rogue or vigilante.

Maybe he was trying to get us used to the idea that Titans might not be the only thing we have to fight, that someday we might have to fight other Altered or humans. It wouldn’t be my first time fighting other Altered, or Ainslee’s and Karen’s, but hurting or potentially having to kill another person, someone who wasn’t an attacking alien using a remotely piloted mech, could be psychologically difficult for all of us.

Still, he was up to something. Just dealing with some wannabe supervillain seemed a bit too simple. There had to be something that he wasn’t telling us. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to think about it further before the Sergeant said, “The simulation is active, good luck, girls.”