The Scrap Tamer - Chapter 73

Chapter 73: Military Day 1: Assigning Teams.

Reid glanced at his issued watch and saw a notification flashing in red:

[Report to the training grounds. Sunset drills begin now.]

The watch displayed a map to the training grounds, for this drill, and from what Reid could see, the training grounds was the same field the bus dropped them earlier.

Since he was busy walking around, trying to clear his head he was pretty close to it. He sent his Rusty, Nyx and Beel back to the inventory, leaving only Axie on his head since it was the only one that hadn’t seen the outside world too much.

It took less than five minutes to get to the training grounds and commander Ajax was already standing there, waiting for their arrival.

He regarded Reid with a small glance before writing something on his notepad and then straightened up again.

For some reason, Reid didn’t feel the aura of a primal on him this time but he ignored it.

The other recruits started arriving in groups and lined up in front of the commander. With each arrival, he noted something down on his note pad before finally putting it in his pocket and looking at faces of the recruits.

Lisa, Damien and Dean had long arrived and they lined up close to Reid. Alex and the twins also arrived a short while after them.

Commander Ajax was silent for a few minutes before he started speaking.

“You’re all here. Good. That means none of you were stupid enough to miss a direct order.”

Axie looked at the sheer number of recruits gathered, its curious eyes moves everywhere as it continued staying on Reid’s head.

(From this point on, I’ll regard recruits as cadets since that was how their ranks are listed).

The cadets swallowed in fear, they didn’t want to find out what happened to people who missed or disobeyed a direct order.

“Now, since today’s your first day here, I’ll go easy on you” He continued.

The cadets almost cursed, he called making them run 5 kilometers the moment they arrived ‘going easy on them’?

Commander Ajax either didn’t notice their faces or didn’t care because he just continued speaking.

“I’ve assigned you to teams of five. These will be your squadmates for the foreseeable future. You will train together, fight together, and if you fail, you’ll suffer together.”

Murmurs rose among the cadets, most of them were strangers, but none dared to speak up under the commander’s watchful gaze.

The commander began reading off names.

“Team 1…”

“Team 2…”

Reid waited, he quietly noted the names being called, until finally—

“Team 7!” Ajax called out “Reid Fletcher, Lisa Blackwood, Clara Vaughn, Ethan Graves, Marcus Hale”.

Somehow, Reid and Lisa had ended up in the same same team and Damien and Dean were also in the same team.

The twins had been separated, with Tommy being the the same team as Alex and Timmy being part of Damien and Dean’s team.

Commander Ajax listed all 60 teams before putting his pad back down.

“Now that you all have been assigned teams, let’s move to the actual training ground” with that said, commander Ajax disappeared.

Reid now understood why he didn’t feel the aura from him. Commander Ajax was never there in the first place, that was an advanced hologram of him that addressed them.

The watches of all the cadets beeped and there was a red pin on the map, pointing towards the ‘actual’ training ground.

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They quickly arrived at the said training grounds. It was just another huge open field but this one was inside a building and had elevated seats just like a stadium.

Also, there were some white orb like objects that hung above the field. In the center of the field was commander Ajax.

He stood straight, with his hands behind his back as he waited for the cadets to arrive.

Reid instantly felt his skin crawl as soon as he walked into the training ground. The feeling confirmed that this time, they were facing Ajax and not an hologram.

“Your test this time is to face a siege of primals in a simulated environment. This test would gauge how well you can adapt to fighting alongside total strangers” The commander informed “you have five minutes to know your teammates before the test starts.”

The cadets started grouping up, introducing themselves and their abilities. Their watches had already shown the images of their teammates so there was no confusion.

Reid and Lisa walked to a corner as they waited for their teammates to approach and they didn’t have to wait long.

Three other cadets approached them, one was a girl with short grey hair and bright blue eyes, there was a small skip in her step everytime she walked.

The next was a boy with dark blue hair and eyes. He calmly walked by the girl and the last cadet who looked like a body builder.

The cadet had brown hair and eyes, which were mostly common features but his build and height was what drew attention to him.

As soon as they got close enough, the girl rushed forward, aiming for Reid with a serious expression on her face causing him to put up his guard.

But before he or anyone else could react, the girl squealed “that’s sooo cute, can I pet it”.

Her face was really close to Reid’s but her eyes were fixed on his head, or rather what was on it.

Lisa, like Reid ,vwas too surprised by the girl’s action that they forgot to react.

Axie looked at the weird girl with a curious expression. This was its first human interaction apart from with Reid, and this human was being really loud making it wonder why.

“Pleasee” Her voice came again as she started extending her hand, only for Reid to catch it.

“No” he denied. His forged-beasts were his family and he wasn’t going to let any random person touch them.

“Aww.” She pouted but eventually relented, taking a small step back. If she had cat ears, they would have drooped, a clear sign of her disappointment.

At this point the two boys had arrived so Reid turned his attention to them instead, ignoring the pouting girl.

The girl didn’t stay quiet for long. “Fine, I’ll just admire it from afar,” she said dramatically, folding her arms with a huff before suddenly breaking into a bright smile.

“Anyway! Since we’re teammates, we should introduce ourselves! I’m Clara Vaughn! Sharpshooter extraordinaire!” She posed as if holding an invisible rifle. “My forged-beast is a Flacon and it is capable of—scouting, long-range target marking, and perfect precision! Oh, and I promise I won’t shoot you guys by accident.”

Reid wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be reassuring or not.

The dark blue-haired boy gave a small nod. “Ethan Graves. Combat Engineer. My Forged-Beast is a Bio-Synth Lizard. I focus on battlefield control, healing, stamina boost and support.” His voice was calm and measured, a stark contrast to Clara’s energy.

The last cadet, the towering bodybuilder-type, cracked his knuckles before giving a confident grin. “Marcus Hale. Heavy-hitter. If something needs breaking, I’ll break it.” His voice was deep, but his tone was friendly. “Ironhide Rhino. Tanky and strong—nothing gets past me.”

Lisa smirked. “Lisa Blackwood. My forged beast is a lightning wyvern.”

Reid crossed his arms. “Reid Fletcher. All-rounder.” he introduced but before he could continue, Clara interrupted.

“Blackwood and Fletcher? As in two of the great families ?” She sounded like a fan girl and her blue eyes sparkled to match her excitement.

“Y-yes” Lisa stuttered out, she couldn’t keep up with Clara’s bubbly nature.

“That’s awesome” Clara suddenly gripp her hands and started rambling “the great families are basically heroes and I always had a dream of meeting one.”

“But I met two instead ” she looked at Reid before turning back to Lisa “can we be friends?”

“Sure?” The reply came out like a question than an actual answer but Clara seemed satisfied with that.

“Yay” she celebrated but they were soon cut off by Reid.

“You can establish friendships as much as you want later but we have less than two minutes to come up with a plan for the test” he said making Clara pout again and mumble “kill joy.”

Reid quickly assessed each according to their introduction and formed a basic plan in his head.

“We don’t know what type of primals we might face but since commander Ajax said it’ll be a siege then we should expect them to come in waves” He started “so here’s the plan”.

No one had a problem with him being the leader so he just assumed the role. He might not have much experience leading, or any at all but thanks to the beast memoir, he knew exactly how best to efficiently use their forged beasts.

He turned to Marcus first “you’re are frontliner. Use your ironhide rhino to hold the line and prevent any breakthroughs. If they push too hard, delay them long enough for us to strike.”

“None will get past me” Marcus said as he cracked his knuckles.

Reid turned to Lisa next “you’ll be our mobile attacker. Since you have a lightning wyvern, I’m assuming it has the speed to match too.”

Lisa nodded and waited for him to continue.

“Take the skies with your dragon and use that speed to disrupt their formations and if a primal looks to be preparing a big attack, hit it first”.

“No problem ” Lisa replied.

“And Ethan, you’ll be our support” Reid turned to Ethan “use your Bio-synth Lizard to buff us, prioritizing Marcus since he’ll take most of the damage.”

“If Lisa overextends hit her with a heal, and if the fight drags on, boost our stamina” he concluded and Ethan simply nodded.

He finally turned to Clara before asking “you said you’re a shooter right? What do you use?”

It was common knowledge that olden days human weaponry didn’t work on primals and Reid wasn’t sure there was someone that used guns in this age so their advancement had lagged behind.

Without saying anything else, she pulled out a sci-fi looking rifle from her inventory and showed it to Reid.

“Don’t guns not work on primals?” Lisa was the one who asked.

“Well, these ones do” she sounded smug while talking about her gun “my father is an upcoming weapon designer and since the market is already saturated with makers of swords, axes etc, he decided to focus on guns.”

“These are made from the remains of primals and each bullet is capable of going through silver tier and below primal like knife through butter, no matter the thickness of their hides” the more she spoke, the more her eyes sparkled but unfortunately Reid had to cut her off since they were running out of time.

“You’ll find a high ground and provide cover for us. You’re responsible for taking care of primals that gets past us or attack our blindside.” He paused for a while before continuing “your priority is to make sure Ethan is safe.”

“Aye aye boss” she saluted as Reid finished.

“I’ll be the flex. I’ll attack when need and defend when we’re about to get overwhelmed.” He finished the planning.

As if on que, commander Ajax’s voice boomed again “alright maggots, time’s up”.

“All of you, walk into the field together with your team and stand in wait, your test will start soon” He said.

“Remember, you team is considered to have failed when up to four members are eliminated since you can’t call a single person a team.” He said “and to enforce team work, you’re only allowed to use a single forged beast.”

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