The first training round struck the ground mere inches from Nicholas’ foot. In spite of the limited damage it would do to a human if it struck, it still sent small pieces of cement flying. Nicholas jerked back at once, and Jerik could imagine the cry of shock he gave, even if he couldn’t hear it from so far away. Nearly every member of the group scattered in a different direction. Good instinct, he thought. Nicholas, however, turned to face the direction the shot had come from, and quickly lifted his forearm, activating his shield.

“Fool,” Jerik muttered. He released the mag of training rounds, pulled a single live round from his satchel, and loaded it. “You need to stop relying on that shield.”

“Break it,” Benji suggested, from where she was standing, peering at the group through her binoculars. “That’ll teach him.”

“That’s the plan.”

Jerik aimed for the very edge of the shield and fired, smoothly pulling the bolt back and reloading the magazine of dummy rounds. He still didn’t want to accidentally kill Nicholas. The bullet slammed into the oval disc of light, which faded at once. Nicholas ducked instinctively, seemingly frozen by shock. Jerik clicked his tongue in disappointment at the total lack of reaction. “Move, idiot!”

He fired again, placing a round mere inches from the youth’s head. It was close enough that the sound of the bullet would have deafened him if it were live. Nicholas got the hint, and dove behind a nearby wall, vanishing from view completely. Jerik let out a long sigh, then lowered the rifle. “That’s better.”

“Where do you want them to move?” Benji asked. Even Morgan seemed more interested in the exercise now, stepping forward with a vaguely curious look.

“Good question,” Jerik said absent-mindedly. He was watching three figures peeking their heads over the walls, slowly rising higher until they were visible down to the shoulders. Definitely not worth shooting them in punishment, he thought. He wasn’t even sure he could make that shot with an untested rifle. Training rounds flew a little differently from their live counterparts. Besides, he was more concerned with their movements across open space and between cover.

“Send ‘em to the market,” Jerik said finally, sending a round whizzing over the three newbie’s heads. They ducked down out of sight at once, and he chambered a new round. “Market Tower is the safe zone. Any other building is off-limits.”

He heard the faint series of clicks as Benji sent the message. Then she laughed quietly to herself. “They got the message. Nicholas isn’t happy.”

“Of course, he isn’t.” Jerik scanned all along the road leading from the training compound they’d rented and saw one figure taking his sweet time. He remained in the road for at least five seconds, far too long for safe travel. Jerik gave him no chance to take that mistake back, placing a training round right in the center of his chest. The man stumbled under the impact, then glance down. Jerik saw him throw his hands up in disappointment before he switched his vision away.

-

Nicholas was in a low crouch, taking shelter behind a wall. He could hear the sniper rounds hitting all around him, marked by the grunts of surprise of his new comrades. It was alarming how little he heard rounds striking the ground, he thought. It was well-known that Jerik was a good sniper, but it was another thing to see his skill demonstrated live. Nicholas knew that being in the open more than a second or two would result in him getting hit.

He didn’t want to do cleaning detail for a week. More importantly, he didn’t want to keep disappointing his new leader. If he wanted to help rid Menora of monsters once and for all, he had to get stronger and faster. Only then could he prove useful. Sel-Kenna, his mentor’s sovereign commander, had said that Jerik seemed the likeliest to complete that goal for them. So Nicholas had decided to throw his lot in with the man. He just never knew how hard it would be.

He ducked out of cover as he heard another shot landing, and sprinted across the street in a low crouch. He’d examined Paragon, the rifle Jerik was using, for himself, and knew all about it. It was bolt-action, not semi-automatic. That meant that he had a solid two seconds between shots to move, where Jerik couldn’t do anything to him. Just in time, a round zipped past him as he dove for the next patch of cover, kicking up a small cloud of dust as it missed him.

“Damn!” He muttered. The other platoon members were in similar panicked states, either staying stuck behind cover or trying to run as fast as they could down the streets. It might be training rounds raining down on them, but it didn’t do anything for the instinctual rush of adrenaline that came with being shot at. Nicholas knew that his best chance was to remain calm and rational, but it was a difficult thing to do. It wasn’t as though this was his first fight, of course. He’d been in plenty of singles matches in the real world and had faced all his opponents without fear.

But of course, he thought, diving back out and sliding to a stop behind a parked Tek vehicle, that was the difference. For those matches, he’d had some time to prepare himself. He’d kept up with his training, and took some time to meditate before the fight, gathering his willpower. Preparing himself mentally. But Jerik had opened fire on them without warning, giving them no time to come up with a plan. Intentional, but a new challenge nonetheless. He couldn’t think of a way to safely reach Market Tower without getting hit at least once. He doubted that anyone could.

“We can’t go any further!” Someone said, coming at him from behind. It was one of the other new members, Jack or something. He too hit the ground in a long slide into cover, avoiding the practice round that dropped from the sky and struck the paved road. Once he was safely behind cover, he crawled forward on hands and feet to draw level with Nicholas. “There’s no worthwhile cover for nearly five hundred yards!”

Nicholas craned his neck to peek around the car. Jack was right, he saw. The road was a straight shot for a long distance, ringed on either side by tall buildings. There were a few tek vehicles along the path, of course, but they were too few and far between to provide any meaningful protection. Plus, the closer they got to Jerik’s position, the less useful the cars would be as cover. Their leader was aiming at a downward angle as he fired, which meant that he had a vertical advantage. Close enough, he could use the adjustable power of Paragon to lower the speed of his shots and drop them onto anyone hiding behind the vehicles.

“What if we got inside one of the buildings, and crossed over to a different street?” Jack said, turning away from the direction of Jerik’s fire to look back. “We’d have a lot more cover since it’s not the main street, and we could even use the building to protect us as we advanced.”

Nicholas was shaking his head before Jack finished. “Wouldn’t work. He’d have nearly twice the time to shoot at us if we moved towards one of those buildings. Besides, he said other buildings were off limits.”

“He wouldn’t have to see us go into the building,” Jack said. “We could wait until he’s firing at another group and-”

“He’d see,” Nicholas interrupted, his voice firm. He was certain of that fact. “No, we need to make it across that space somehow.”

“But there’s too much open ground!” Jack said. “Even if we threw a smoke grenade, there’s no way.”

“What about a screen?” Nicholas asked, a sudden idea occurring to him. “You’re a Magik sniper, right? Do you have any screens or domes?”

“Of course I do,” Jack said, looking almost affronted at the question. “But the best I have is Rare-Class, and his rifle’s Legendary-Class!”

“But he’s shooting training rounds,” Nicholas pointed out.

Jack snorted. “Don’t be stupid. He just has to load a single live round and break it, then we’re in the open with no cover.”

Nicholas shook his head, a grin spreading across his face. “Sure, he could do that. In fact, I’m sure he will.”

“Then-”

He raised one hand to silence Jack, who scowled. “Think about it. Loading a magazine isn’t an instant thing. It takes a second or two, even for the fastest sniper.”

“True,” Jack said slowly, his anger fading quickly. “Pull the chamber, release the magazine, load a new round, slide the bolt forward.”

“How long?” Nicholas asked, noticing that Jack had mimicked the actions as he described them. “Four seconds?”

“Five, since he’s standing,” Jack corrected. “But we’d only be able to do it once. It’s only enough to get across to the next patch of cover.”

“We’re not going to hide,” Nicholas said firmly. “Do you have any smoke rounds?”

Smoke rounds were a type of magical ammunition that could be fired from powerful guns such as shotguns, rocket launchers, and sniper rifles. They detonated at a set distance away from their point of origin and released a thick cloud of dark smoke that completely cut visibility. Jack frowned thoughtfully as he thought about that, starting to nod as he saw what his comrade had planned.

“It’s possible,” Jack said after a few seconds. “Let me load it to get rid of some of the prep time.”

He pulled his own rifle from around his back where it had been slung, and yanked the bolt back, opening the chamber. Nicholas watched eagerly as he retrieved a bright gold bullet carved with intricate runes and slid it into the rifle, slamming the bolt home. They shared one long, silent look of understanding, and Jack dropped to his stomach, wriggling to the side to get a better visual. Before he settled, he threw a small black sphere at Nicholas.

“Don’t lose that,” he said shortly. “I can’t afford to replace it.”

“I won’t,” he promised, hefting the sphere in his sword hand. He lifted his shield gauntlet with the other and made a fist. The shield was weaker than he’d expected, but it was well on the road to recovery. Another half hour or so, and it’d be back to full charge. “Tell me when.”

To his surprise, Jack heaved his body up onto one side, holding the rifle clear off the ground. He looked bizarre laying there on his side, his face strained. “Go!”

Nicholas heard a shout from far to the right, meaning someone had just been shot. One second. He dove out of cover at once, racing down the street as fast as his feet could carry him, veering slightly away from the side of the car Jack was going to shoot from. He counted one full second in his head but kept going. Two seconds. He slammed his thumb down on the button protruding from the black sphere, and a magik screen flared into life around him, stretching for nearly ten feet in every direction to form a protective dome. Not a second later, he saw a red circle appear on the edge of it, evidence of the training round that had just been fired.

He gulped nervously as he saw that, based on the trajectory, it would have hit him directly, even with the speed at which he’d been running. One second. Two seconds. He kept his left hand steady, ready to protect himself one more time if need be. Three seconds. Four. A live round slammed into the screen at an angle, shattering it completely. He ran forward again, expecting any moment to find another round arcing down at him.

Just then, he heard a shout of surprise from the far right position, where someone had just been hit. Glancing up at the top of Market Tower, he could see a large cloud of thick black smoke. It was flowing across the entire top of the structure, completely obscuring the vision of anyone that was there, including Jerik. He let out a shout of exultation and called a congratulatory word back to Jack, who was already on his feet, grinning broadly.

“Let’s go!” He shouted, gesturing towards Market Tower. “That smoke cloud gives us a whole minute!”

Jerik looked down the scope of his rifle at the figures running up the street toward Market Tower and chuckled quietly. “Never would have expected them to shoot back.”

Morgan had taken him and Benji to the tower of a building on the other end of Market Street as soon as the smoke round had detonated. She matched his laugh. “Going to shoot them now?”

“No need,” he said. “They already impressed me.”

He watched Nicholas’ form as it reached the front doors of Market Tower. He touched the handle, then raised one hand in a triumphant gesture. It was a small moment for him, but Jerik had the sense that he would see more small moments of genius like that. Nicholas had that sense about him, that he was worth more than the average soldier. With a bit of training, he could be an important asset.