10
Outside became more noisy day after day as more and more of the tents where filled with people. At first having his own tent had been incredible to Ace, but the more people that came the louder it would be, and Ace was missing his peaceful hunting area in the wilderness.
Heavy footsteps came right outside Ace's tent and a deep booming voice woke him up, with a startle in the middle of the night.
"Attention trainees! The ninth day has arrived, and we will be leaving immediately! take your things and gather at the entrance to the training grounds, if anyone takes too long, they will be left behind and punished to the harshest extent"
In a panicked and disorientated state came Ace tumbling out from the tent, he had put on his new garments, a pair of pants and a shirt that was the brownish green color of the bear lord. The clothes made him look like a tiny bear with a little boy's head on top, it did not make him look particularly dangerous…
The other trainees from the nearby tents came out as well all with different reactions, some looked as confused as Ace with half their clothes on and the rest in hand. Others had unfazed or even uninterested reactions as they casually strolled towards the entrance, but all had one thing in common when they saw Ace in his new "armor" they all thought he looked like a fool.
In his haste he stumbled over a person on their way out of a tent. "ouch! Hey, watch where you're going you colossal ass!"
Someone screamed at Ace while he got to his feet and continued on, he yelled back "sorry" as the entrance got closer and the one who summoned them all came into view.
A behemoth of a man stood in the midst of twenty or so children, and the number grew fast as more and more trainees joined the group. At first Ace thought an undead beast had entered camp when he saw the man at over two meters tall with muscular arms thicker than Ace was wide.
He too had adorned a pelt of some undead beast like Ace, but he instead looked almost too big for the fur coat. He nodded to a soldier standing right next to him and said something Ace couldn't hear from all the noise, before his voice once again exploded out.
"move it the lot of you! Necron is going to be expecting us soon and I can't be late for the meeting point, not again…"
The big man looked worried and stared down in the ground, but the soldier next to him patted the big man on the back.
"cheer up commander Grail! We have plenty of time to reach the meeting point this time"
Grail looked over at his second in command Joshua and only sighed in surrender.
"you don't get it Joshua, I'm cursed! Every time I have had to transport the trainees something have always gone wrong! Last time seemed perfectly fine until some freaking boar king decided to rampage through our group, thankfully most of the trainees survived, but the amount of wounded made us late for the meeting. Sky has been holding it over me for the last six months! That stupid woman and her perfect record, I hate her!"
Grail was gasping for air when he finished his rant, Joshua seemed very used to his fits, and was busy picking something out of his teeth with a stick. Grail finally tore a rock up from the ground and threw it into the jungle at full strength while he yelled in anger, the trainees around him all looked perplexed at the enormous man throwing stones around while roaring, but no one dared to ask why.
The trip to Necron was long and very difficult, much of the pathway was either undead beasts' territory or rivaling tribes. Whenever Grail would meet another tribe on their way to Necron as well it would end in a fight, it always ended with the opposing tribe fleeing, and sometimes they wouldn't even try to fight before they would run away.
The Cloud weaving tribe that Ace was a part of, was infamous amongst the other tribes for a reason, they were strong.
It was dark, and the group had currently been vey lucky with Undead beast encounters. Only six of the fifty-five trainees had either died or been crippled, and they would soon be out of the wilderness, Grail couldn't be happier.
When they finally left wilderness and entered the borders of Necron everything would be safe, it was one of the biggest adjustments many of the tribes had to do when crossing the border, since Necron took great pride in upholding its laws, and one of the most important ones where no murder.
Joshua was busy ordering his group of warriors into different posts, whenever they made camp he would make sure no one could sneak up on them in an ambush.
Meanwhile Grail had been trying to figure out what direction the wind blew at that moment and he was very puzzled.
The wind was supposed to blow from the east he was sure, but he kept feeling a slight breeze from north as well and it worried him, as to what could cause the wind to change. Something wasn't right, and Grail was beginning to get very bad feeling in his stomach.
"Joshua call your men back, have them unite towards north. I don't think were alone right now"'
Joshua made a sharp whistle and the warriors quickly lined up in a formation of five, the solders stood perfectly in line, but they were missing a person and Joshua was furious when he realized it.
From the camp came hurried footsteps, and a gasping Jix came rushing in and filled up the gap in the formation.
"what's your name soldier!"
Joshua said with anger in his voice, he looked at Jix with an icy stare and Jix felt very worried as he stammered out.
"s-sir its Jix Sir!"
Joshua looked out towards the north of the camp and then back at Grail, the small camp of confused Trainees behind them might be full of potential soldiers, but if the kids had to fight real warriors, it would end in a slaughter, and they had to make sure that wouldn't happen.
"I will deal with you later Jix, Trainees prepare for combat!"
Joshua screamed the last part like a war cry, and it made Ace's blood boil along with the rest of the camp, a unified roar from all the trainees was the response to Joshua, and they all jumped to their feet and hurried over next to the warriors, weapons in hand.