PLAN

Celina’s speech seemed to carry weight. Everyone was leaned forward in their seats, taken aback by the highly personal nature of how she spoke to them. There she was, a person of great status and wealth, speaking to them like this. Ran, Elais, and Sarah all seemed shocked that someone like her could even act in such a way. Kain too was somewhat surprised by her speech. She had renounced the ways that were taught in the Academy and ingrained in society, saying that they were false and untrue. Surely she would be defamed if someone heard such a thing. No, she could even be executed for these words. Yet she said them because she thought they needed to be said, she said them because she thought they were right. Kain could not help but respect her for this, and from what he noticed he could say the same for Elais and Sarah, too. Even the Nurse looked somewhat shocked at her words. The tired expression was replaced with one of intrigue, and she too leaned forward to listen in. It was almost like Celina had her own gravity, one that pulled in everyone. It was impossible for a person to not admire her. She was unapologetically who she was, and in Kain’s eyes that took bravery. To stand firm on your views even in the face of corruption and evil deserved admiration. “Now that we have greetings out of the way,” Celina moved over to the cot Kain sat down on, placing herself beside him. “Let us start with introductions, shall we?” Celina placed a hand to her chest. “My name is Celina. I come from one of the seven great Houses, House Kindness. Nice to meet you all!” Celina did a polite wave, then looked over at the Nurse. A few moments of silence went by until she pointed at herself, almost as if saying “Me?”. Celina nodded enthusiastically, and the Nurse sighed. “Oh alright. I’m not on y’all’s team, but I guess this room is going to be used in the future so I better put my name out there. I’m Lana, the Nurse at the Academy. Call me whatever you want, I really don’t care.” She closed her eyes and drew out a long and obnoxious sip from her cup of coffee. “Umm, I guess I’ll go next.” Ran waved her hand awkwardly, and gave a nervous smile. “Hello, my name is Ran. I come from Olympus Mons. Some things about me are that I draw from Temperance and Chastity Virtues, and I like the color red.” She looked around to see if her introduction was adequate. She seemed to calm down when no one seemed to make fun of her. “Alright, I’m up next.” Rika looked confidently at those in the circle. “My name is Rika, and I…” She looked at Celina, and understanding seemingly passed between the two. “I draw upon the Virtue of Kindness.” She leaned back, crossing her arms. She acted as though she did not want to continue her part of the introduction, closing herself off from further conversation. All eyes fell on Sarah, who was expected next to share. “My name is Sarah, and I come from an orphanage in the Garden. I practice the Virtue Diligence." She looked over at Elais, who went directly after her. “I’m Elais, and I came from the same orphanage as Sarah. That’s how we know each other, actually.” Kain looked at them, seeing through their cover story. He was told differently by Sarah herself, after all. It seems Celina and Rika didn’t buy it, either. Even the Nurse looked on in skepticism. “I use the Virtue Patience.” Finally, it was Kain’s turn. He thought for a moment. Everyone, excluding Celina, Rika, and the Nurse said where they are from. Where was he from? Sure, he was told the story from Sarah about the lab that she remembered, but he couldn’t have been born there. ‘Kain’ must have had a loving family, a hometown, a community. He could not remember any of this, though. It had already been long enough for the silence to grow awkward, the people in the room all looking at Kain expectantly. What was he supposed to say? “My name is…Kain.” He quickly thought of an answer to the next two questions. He was the champion to Celina, who practiced Kindness. He would say as Rika said, that he drew upon the power of Kindness. That would be plausible. “I use the Virtue Kindness.” Then came the problem of the final question. If both he and Rika didn’t say where they were from, wouldn’t that raise some suspicion? He knew that he didn’t have to worry about Celina, as she was the one who helped them in the first place. Elais and Sarah, he knew that they were safe, as they knew the truth about both Kain and Rika. Besides, they were also infiltrating the Academy as well. The Nurse he thought would pose no problem. She was Celina’s aunt, after all. But Ran…she might be an issue. While she was Rika’s friend, Ran was still a citizen of the capital and probably harbored their beliefs about those without the blessings of Virtue and Sinners. Kain thought she would definitely rat them out as soon as she found out. What should he do? After some contemplation, Kain just decided to do what Rika did and leave the whereabouts of his origins blank. Finally Kain ended the conversation with a “Nice meeting you all.” With the final introduction finished, Celina clapped her hands together. “Now that we have been introduced to one another, I think it appropriate to discuss how we plan to win this Tournament!” Ran cocked her head quizzically. “Plan? Don’t we just enter and fight the others?” Celina laughed and shook her head, Ran turning red with embarrassment. “If it were that easy, we wouldn’t be handing out one of the most honorary titles in Olympus Mons, now would we?” Celina began to speak. “We have six people on this team, that’s pretty good. Now we just have to figure out the details on how we can train and use each other’s advantages to win. Create a battle plan, strict training regimens, things like that.” Celina gestured over to the Nurse, who was falling asleep in her chair. “Lana here will be in charge of the physical training stuff, as she is a Nurse after all.” The Nurse shot up in the chair at the mention of her name, looking dreary and fatigued. “Huh? Wha? What am I doing?” Celina pointed back to herself. “I can help those who need assistance in training their Virtues. Does this assignment agree with everyone?” Celina looked around at the group, some people nodding their heads and others just looking on at her. Celina began once more. “Now that that’s settled, we can talk about formations and how we are going to treat one another on the field.” Celina walked over to the Nurse’s desk and pulled out a small device in the shape of a half-moon. She sat it on the floor and pressed a blue button on the top of the device. It suddenly stood upright and broke in half, a blue beam ejecting from the middle. A screen that was tinted blue widened, stopping once it was big enough for everyone to see. Rika’s eyes widened at the technological spectacle. She looked at Kain and pointed toward the hologram, mouthing, “They have that here too!?” Kain was also surprised. Of course he had seen this device numerous times before, but it never seemed to get old. The Academy used these when teaching to the students during class. A professor could draw things on them, use their voice to create text on them, and many other things. The first time Kain had seen one of these, he nearly fell over on his chair. Rika rubbed her eyes, almost as if she were questioning reality. Now, they had grown familiar with the technology’s presence, but were always amazed by it every time it was used. Celina reached up, standing on her tip-toes, to draw a horizontal line on the top of the screen from edge to edge, and drew a line splitting the two into separate areas. “Everyone, raise your hand if you have combat-oriented Virtues.” Ran, Elais, and Sarah all raised their hands. Celina then drew their names into the right-most category. After that, she drew the remaining names in the left-most category. “These,” she pointed at the floating screen. “Are the separations between combatants and non-combatants. If you are on the right, you will be out on the battlefield doing the main fighting. Those on the left,” She moved her finger to the other category. “Will not be fighting out in the front lines. Their job is to heal and tend to any injuries of the combatants without sustaining any themselves. Non-combatants will only fight if absolutely necessary. Those two sectors, and their corresponding jobs, are the basis to our team.” Celina looked back at the others. “Any questions about this?” Ran tentatively raised her hand. “Umm…us combatants…is there a group or way that you want us to fight?” Celina listened intently to her question, then smiled and clapped her hands together. “Great question! That actually brings me to the next step of the plan.” Celina turned back to the floating board and erased everything that she had written. In it’s place, she drew a circle. Inside the circle, on the right side she drew a small simplistic version of Ran, Sarah, and Elais’ faces. “These are you, the combatants.” She motioned to the small drawings. “These,” she drew similar pictures behind the first three, this time of Kain, herself, and Rika. “Are the non-combatants. What I need you to do is move forward like this.” She drew an arrow leading from the small Ran face leading around the edge of the circle. “This circle represents the arena that we fight in. If you make your way around the side like this, Elais goes forward,” Celina drew an arrow going forward leading from the small Elais drawing. “And Sarah goes like this,” Celina drew the final arrow, this one mirroring Ran’s path except it was following the other end of the arena. “We should be able to close them off and force them into defence. This would make them extremely vulnerable, and we could attack from there. From the recordings of previous Tournaments that have passed, the first team that makes an aggressive move usually works. We should be able to pull this off, if we go fast that is.” Celina turned back once more to look at the rest of her team. “Now, any questions relating to this step of the plan?” This time it wasn’t Ran that raised a hand to ask a question, it was Elais. “What do we do if they immediately target our healers, not us?” It was a good question. If they were not going to be targeted first, then their plan would fail costing them their healing units. Celina closed her eyes in thought. She finally opened them, answering Elais’ question. “Well, that scenario would be very detrimental to the plan that we have come up with. If something like that ever does happen,” Celina erased the arrows leading from the front lines. She then drew arrows leading from the three non-combatants to the three combatants. After that, she then drew a circle around Kain, herself, and Rika. “This is the action that we should take. The circle represents protection, which means that the combatants should protect the healing units. Us healers should stay in tight formation and also fight back when necessary." She drew her focus back from the board to the group. “I think that outlines most of what to do when we are in the middle of combat. Any last questions regarding the combat plan?” She looked expectantly at the group, who in turn just shook their heads and stayed quiet. “If that is the case, let us move onto our training regime.” Celina looked back over to the board and erased what displayed there, then started to write “Non-combatants” on the top of the board, a line underneath it. “I will start with the non-combatants. Since we are not going to be in the field, we should focus on staying out of the battle. If we can run and evade the bulk of the other team, that would be perfect. The only time that we should fight is if maybe one person from the opposite team separates to come fight us, or if the combatants are in major trouble. Due to the nature of our role in the Tournament, we should focus on exercises that boost our endurance and speed.” Celina wrote some things on the board relating to running and sprinting. “We are going to be doing mostly running exercises, and other things of that nature. It is very simple, really.” Celina then drew a line to separate the first plan from the second, then wrote the words “Combatants” on the top of the board. “The fighters' training routines, however, are going to be much more complex. I’ll leave Lana to do this one, as I do not know much about this subject.” She smiled and waved at the Nurse, who was surprised at the sudden job. She looked around for a couple of seconds, then sighed aggressively and walked to the right side of the board. “Alright kids,” The Nurse started to draw on the board. “For those of you who are sent to the front lines, this is your workout routine. Make sure you follow them well, as some of you sure don’t look the part of a fighter.” The comment was directed toward Ran, who was very skinny and petite. Ran was one of those people that looked like they could have been blown away by the wind. Ran scrunched up her face with anger, but did not say anything about it. “Focus on working muscles, speed, endurance, and above all the powers of your Virtues.” After writing down various exercises, she turned back to the group, a tired and bored look in her eyes. “Tell me how your Virtues work. While all abilities are the same, some people interpret and use them frequently. It would help the entire team if we knew that specific information.” The Nurse looked at the group, expecting a response. Elais spoke up first, signaling the first one to speak up. “As you know, I use Patience. Basically what it does is allows me to endure intense physical pain without actually feeling the effects of the pain. I won’t get injured for as long as I stay within my parameters of how much pain and damage I take in. It’s pretty simple, really.” After Elais was done, Sarah began to explain her power. “Dilligence increases the strength and speed of an individual, albeit minorly. The real power is the endless stamina that the user receives. I can keep the power on for quite a while, so we shouldn’t have to worry about that.” Finally, it was Ran’s turn. She took a deep breath before talking. “Well, I call upon the Virtues Temperance and Chastity. Well, I’m better with Temperance, but Chastity is basically a supplement, but…” The Nurse looked at Ran with a look that seemed to say, “Get on with it.”. “Oh…umm…alright, so what they do is Temperance can slow down objects within a certain amount of space. We learned in Virtue Studies that it’s actually time that it slows down…oh right, I’ll get on with it.” Ran looked embarrassed at her rambling. “Chastity is less of a combat Virtue. It can create highly durable fields of energy, force fields if you will.” The nurse nodded. “Well, that changes things, doesn’t it?” She rubbed her temples, then continued. “I need you to protect the non-combatants when necessary. Understand?” Ran nodded. “Now, back to planning out things. Now, here’s how things should go with you three. Ran, protect the others and yourself with what you have going on. Sarah, attack directly at them. Elais, act as a shield when necessary." Elais looked like he wanted to complain, but the Nurse just held up a finger to silence him. “If we do that, our strategy should be sound. We should suffer minor injuries, and stay relatively unharmed for most teams.” The Nurse looked over at the group, a serious look on her face. “However, there are some teams that might see through our plan, or even just power through it. Those are your smart people, your prodigies, and your children of the Houses. We’re lucky to have one on our team, but others are sure to be in other teams, or just form teams together. Those are the real ones that we have to watch out for.” The Nurse leaned back, crossing her arms. She then waved over the group. “They’ll dismantle us. Decimate us. We’re no match for them.” The group’s morale began to fade once she spoke those words. Celina frowned at the frankness of the Nurse, and looked like she was about to say something. However, she was cut off by the Nurse speaking instead. “There is a way that we can win, though.” Celina let out a sigh, probably knowing that she wouldn’t have to reprimand the Nurse for her sour attitude. “If we use near perfect teamwork and play a little dirty, winning is all but a cakewalk.” She smiled, not strained this time. “I truly think we have something here. Don’t let me down.” She turned around to hide her growing smile and walked to a chair in the corner. Noticing the Nurse’s departure, Celina took it as her cue to direct things again. “You heard what Lana said! We can do it! All we have to do is believe in our teammates, and ourselves!” Kain caught Rika looking at him with a sarcastic face. “I belive we have gone over everything. Remember, keep training and working hard!” Celina smiled a warm and encouraging smile, one that could lift a person from despair. “I’ll send you all a copy of the training excersises soon. I think that concludes our very first meeting!” Celina scrunched her brows, as if remembering something important. “Oh, and don’t tell anyone about the Tournament. Students are not supposed to know about it yet, so just try and keep it a secret. I would get in a lot of trouble with the headmaster if he knew I leaked the information.” She smiled a nervous smile, eyes pleading with the group to comply. Once everyone was in agreement and sworn to secrecy, Celina dismissed the group, telling them to come back this time next week. The Nurse hurried them out of the room, saying that they have been there too long and needed to leave before the Headmaster caught them. Kain thought she just wanted them out of her room to relax, though. Sarah and Elais waved them goodbye. Sarah still made it a point to still have their training sessions every other day in the facility. She said it was important to learn how to use Wrath, as well as know combat techniques. It seemed the Tournament just made her all the more encouraged to have him learn. Rika also departed from them, saying that she had to walk Ran back to the dorm. Kain was annoyed at this, thinking he could talk more about what they had learned there with her. With the rest of the group gone and the Nurse shut in her room, Celina was the last one left. She sidled up beside Kain, matching his pace. “Do you mind if I walk with you?” She looked up at him with eager eyes, Kain not knowing if she made that expression on purpose or subconsciously did it. “Sure, I don’t mind.” Kain scratched the back of his neck and looked away to avoid seeing the happy expression on Celina’s face. “Thank you! I’ve been wanting to spend some time with you. We haven’t seen each other since I got back from my assignment, you know?” Celina kept looking at Kain, which forced him to look back. She wore a sad expression, her bright blue eyes seemingly magnifying each emotion she expressed. Kain did not know how to respond to Celina, who continued her conversation with him. “Actually, it has been quite the while since we have spent time together one on one like this. We haven’t done this since we were kids.” Celina chuckled a little, then realized her insensitiveness. “Oh, I am so sorry. I did not mean–” “It’s fine. Really.” Kain looked away from Celina, annoyed. For some reason, he did not like others who brought up things he couldn’t remember. It made him feel more empty, almost fake. Kain, however, grew curious. “Say, Celina…” She looked up from the ground to face Kain. “How...how good of friends were we?” Celina looked surprised, but then smiled sadly. “I would say that we were very close. However, we never got to play, run, and make mischief like the other kids our age. Me because of my status, and you because of…circumstances. It never bothered me, though. We talked and talked hours upon end every day, and only left each other’s side when they had to pull me away from you. So yes, I would say we were close.” Kain just stayed silent. The silence lasted a while, neither of them speaking. They just walked alongside each other, the only sound being their footsteps. “I…” Kain began to speak, the words catching in his throat. Why were they so hard to say? Celina looked expectantly at him, awaiting his dialogue. “I…would really like it if we could become like that again.” Kain did not know why, but being around Celina put him at peace. He did not notice it before, but ever since she got back from her trip it became apparent. Maybe she was not just a back of information, a way to recover who he once was. It was apparent to ‘Kain’, who seemingly spent all that time together with her. It was only now becoming noticeable to Kain. Celina looked shocked, then embarrassed. Her cheeks reddened, and she looked away from him. Noticing her reaction, Kain felt nervous. He looked around, seeing that they were in front of his dormitory building. “Oh, well, don’t mind it. Here’s my stop, I’ll be going now–” Kain turned to go, but was stopped from a hug from behind. Celina pressed herself against his back and squeezed him tightly, almost as though she would never let go. “Celina…” Kain heard her sniffle. Was she crying? “I would like that a lot. I would like that so very much!” After a moment more, she released him. He turned to see tears falling from her face, her hands wiping them. She was now even more flushed than before, although she was smiling now. Without a word, she turned to run off. Kain reached out for her, but it was too late. She had already gone too far. He tried to call out for her, but once again the words caught in his throat. He sighed and turned to walk into the dorm. Kain was hopeful, though. If he could once more become friends with Celina…maybe then would he become closer to the real ‘Kain’. Kain decided not that long ago that memories, while the major aspect, was not enough. He had to act like ‘Kain’. Surely that way would he become himself once more. Surely he would. Kain closed his eyes and looked at the setting of an artificial sun. He did not know what the future held, but he was ready. He was ready.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.