Proving and Others

The trainer went down the line one by one to test the strengths of each individual until he made his way to my squad. I was the first person in line for him to test, and I was a little nervous to show the trainer what I could do.

"And what are you?" The man asked me politely.

"Trainer, I am an alchem-" As soon as I had half of the word alchemist out of my mouth, the bald man turned and went to the next person in line. I was shocked, he had tested every single other person in line, but he was going to skip over me? "Excuse me, Trainer, are you not going to test me?" I asked the man, and my words drew the Platoon Sergeant's attention.

"Soldier, you will talk when spoken to!" Laurec began, but Trainer held up one hand, quickly silencing him. The bald man turned back to me and spoke softly.

"I'm sorry young man, but I don't train alchemists. You'll more than likely be staying at the rear making potions to support the real fighters, and we will all thank you for that." He gave me a charming smile before turning once more to talk to Tim, who was the next person in line.

"With all due respect, Trainer, would you say that to the Poison Master?" Tim asked him once he had gained the man's attention. The Trainer looked at the Cleric dumbfounded.

"The Poison Master was a special exception to the rule; it's the militaries policy to not have alchemists in battle unless they can prove to be exceptional in the field. I know that you want to defend your squad leader, but we have to move on." The entire time he was speaking, the Trainer maintained his polite smile; Tim just nodded his head along with the speech for a moment before it was his turn to talk again.

"So how do you expect an alchemist to be able to prove that they are exceptional without getting tested? I think that you should show him the same courtesy that you showed the rest of our platoon and at least give him a try." The man gave a deep sigh; it was clear that this Cleric wasn't going to give up until the alchemist had a chance to prove his strength.

"Fine." He turned back to me once more. "Alchemist, are you ready?" I nodded, and we both stepped out in front of the platoon just as everyone else had before us. As I was walking out, I discretely dropped a few seeds on the way. The Trainer looked at me with a bored expression before telling me to begin. The moment the words came out of his mouth, I made my move. Vines with large thorns grew quickly towards the man looking to dig into him, but he wasn't there. The trainer was exceptionally fast, and he darted towards me straight through the center of my growing plants.

I had already expected this after watching him fighting with the others, I changed the direction of the vines growth to turn in and shoot towards the both of us, and as I did, I struck my ring against one of them, causing a flash of fire. In the split-second that the Trainer was distracted by that, I let my body fall to the ground rolling over to the side of him and grabbed his ankle. The man was a seasoned fighter, though, so before I had a chance to activate my electricity, he had turned and kicked me in the face.

This caused me to let go of him, but I wasn't through just yet. I sprang to my feet and activated Stone Skin. The kick had been enough to let me know that he was not going to pull his punches, and they would hurt. I swiftly grabbed my Meta Stone from my coat and wrapped my fingers around it tightly. Then I looked at Sarah. She understood immediately what I wanted from her, and before I could even say it, she shot three arrows into my tangle of vines.

The Trainer continued his barrage of attacks at me kicking and punching, but Master and I had spent a good long time sparring, so my reflexes were better than they used to be. I did catch a few hits to the face and stomach, but my Stone Skin kept me from feeling the damage. What the man didn't see was my use of Polarity moving the arrows through my vines. It was over in a few seconds after that, I had caused Sarah's arrows to find their marks one in the man's calf and two in his shoulders.

"Enough!" The man called out, grinning from ear to ear. I didn't expect him to look so happy about losing. He motioned for me to get back in line and quickly pulled the arrows from his body. I did as I was asked, pouring a potion on the ground as I went to make the plants die quickly. Once I was back in line, Trainer spoke to us once again.

"Now, can anyone tell me what this alchemist did wrong?" No one raised their hand. They'd never really seen what an alchemist looked like when they fought, and it was really unlike anything they'd ever seen before. "Well, I can tell you." He continued. "He's slow, and physically he's not very strong. If a battle were just about the strength, he would have been dead several times over, I'm sure." At his words, I couldn't help but think about all the times that I'd almost died, and I had to agree with him.

"But can anyone tell me what he did, right?" Trainer continued. I was sure that this was going to be a speech purely admonishing my battle prowess, so I was surprised when he said those words. A few hands were raised by my friends, and the trainer pointed to Grace, who had been the first to raise hers.

"He already had a plan in mind for how to face you before stepping out to be tested." The trainer nodded his head before pointing to Derek.

"He manipulated the battlefield to suit him before the fight started." He stated, and the Trainer nodded once more, then pointed to Tim.

"He was quick to adjust his fighting style once you got in too close." The trainer looked happy with everything that my friends were saying about me, but there were no more hands.

"That's all true, he did do that, but you're all missing the most important thing that he did right." There were some murmurs that went through the line of people. "You archer girl, step forward." He pointed to Sarah, and she did what she was told. It was clear in her face that she was afraid she was in trouble for interfering in the fight. "Surely you can tell me the best thing that he did in this situation?" She took a gulp before nervously answering.

"He uh, he had me back him up?" It was more of a question than a statement, but judging by the trainers' expression, she had hit the nail on the head.

"Exactly! You are not all just warriors on a battlefield alone. You are a team now. You'll live together, eat together, wash together, and fight together. What this alchemist demonstrated here today was a perfect example that you will not be fighting alone in this war. You must all learn how to communicate within seconds what you need from your teammates just like this alchemist did with his archer." He turned to look directly at me. "I'd still prefer to have you in the rear, making potions, but you have the minimum requirements to be considered effective on the battlefield. I'll make the recommendation."

I thanked him, but he quickly moved on to the next person in line, and the testing continued. The rest of the time with testing didn't take a lot of time. My friends did fairly well, but there were still some issues to work out, but the best thing to come from this is that I learned the names and jobs for the remaining three members of my squad. I was silently kicking myself for not learning their names and jobs before now, but at least now, I didn't have to let them know that I didn't know.

The two siblings were Akando and Altsoba. The boy Akando was another Assassin like Jack, and the girl was a Berzerker who used a battle ax. Assassins weren't extremely common, but they weren't as rare as Alchemists or Dark Knights, but Berzerkers were just as rare. People often steered away from picking that job because of how it sounds, and the fact that many people try to dissuade others from becoming them as it takes a lot of strength to use a heavy battle-ax effectively.

Akando did pretty well in his fight against the Trainer, he was quick-footed, and it was clear that he had experience working to flank his enemies. It was Altsoba that surprised me, though. She was exactly what you would expect from a Berzerker. She went in with wild abandon aiming to kill immediately. Her strikes were strong and unexpected as she did acrobatics over her weapon and using her body weight to slam her ax around as if she was practicing judo on it.

The last person in my group was the young boy who I had helped on the march. His name was Nate, and he turned out to be a Beastmaster. Out of all of the jobs that I had seen, this was the first time I'd seen a Beastmaster. His abilities allowed him to imprint onto animals and monsters and summon spirit versions of them to fight by his side. The weapon of a Beastmaster is a bullwhip. They don't use it on the summon like you'd expect but instead on their enemies fighting alongside the beasts.

Unfortunately, based on the fight between Nate and the Trainer, it was clear that he was very clumsy and had little to no battle experience. After the fight, the young boy got back in line, and it was clear on his face that he was disappointed in his performance. Every critique that the Trainer had for him made his shoulders sink even more until the point that I thought he was going to melt and turn into a puddle. Thankfully the day was ending, and I would have a chance to talk to him and maybe cheer him up some.

We were released back into Laurecs care and went about setting up the sleeping area for the night.