As Cecilia and Henry approached, a loud whistle sounded through the gym. Soon everyone turned their attention to where the sound had come from.
A beautiful woman with long black hair dressed in a ceremonial military uniform who carried a saber in the sheath attached to her belt on the left side, four other soldiers dressed in the same uniform accompanied her.
She was facing the audience and then screamed:
"Attention, weaklings! I'm Captain Emily, the command thought we were taking it too easy on the recruits, so this year instead of sending only sergeants, they decided to send a Captain, so don't think this year will be like the others, If command sent me, then these two years for you will be preparation for hell... Worms as soon as I whistle you'll form four lines to deliver your forms. You'll have 30 seconds to line up in front of the sergeants, who in the end is not in the queue. I will personally send you on a tour to the military hospital."
As soon as she finished speaking a silence of a few seconds took over the room.
Everyone was frozen, processing what she had said, as she whistled everyone immediately ran to form the lines.
The reason they all really take this seriously is that in the army, since the reforms, you can only get an officer rank for people who have a high degree of Skill and are ranked high in combat among the military.
Someone with the rank of captain, is never below ten thousand in ranking, if you consider that due to the general mobilization laws, the current contingent except for the academy is two and a half million, this meant that it would be among the 0.4 % best fighters across the country.
So obviously no one would want to test whether she was serious or not.
After 30 seconds, all the lines were formed and soon the students started to hand in their forms.
"As expected of worms, you have at least some speed." – Emily said.
When everyone turned in the forms, she went back to explaining how this year's test would be and how the students would be organized.
"You will all form a platoon! Unlike what you think, you will not be recruits, you do not deserve this rank you worms! You received militia ranks while in training, you will form three combat groups and the weaker group will be designated as support group. Your group will be defined by your internal platoon combat ranking, the combat groups will be groups in one, two and three where the strongest will be housed in group one and so on until group three, each combat group will be formed by ten combatants, the rest will be in the support group. So to define that, this year we will only have two tests – the Skill Degree test and the combat test which will be done in two phases." – Emily said this last part raising her index finger.
"First – You will fight one of the sergeants who will give you a grade. That grade will go from zero to one hundred, the highest grades will decide your combat ranking in the platoon" – And then she held up her second finger.
"Second - After that each of you will have four chances. You can challenge someone or be challenged in combat. The challenged can only refuse a single challenge. When you win a challenge, you can choose to add points to your score, based on the ranking of your opponent, or stealing his ranking, of course this is only to define your initial ranking within the squad, during your training you can always challenge someone to an official duel, however you can only challenge someone three ranks above yours." She lowered her fingers and sat down on a chair placed for her on the spot.
Emily - "You have now received a bracelet, it will measure your skill level while you fight, I hope you worms show that you know how to do something besides crawling. After that you can go to the stands and wait for your name to be called"
As soon as she finished all the students joining their groups and going to the stands, Peter went with Elisa to the stands and soon they sat down, and then start to talking each other.
Elisa – "Dude, you have to stop being friendly with her, you guys broke up last year, because the hell do you still talk like you're best friends?"
Peter – "It's not like that, unlike other times we break up in a friendly way. It wasn't working anymore, but we promised that we wouldn't stop to being friends"
Elisa – "You can say that, but I know you still like her. I can't even tell if your current face is sad or worried. You can't lie, at least not to me. Let me tell you something, as long as you're friendly with her, she'll keep using you as a spare car tire"
Peter – "It's not like that this time, even if she wants to come back, I won't accept it, we're just friends now"
Elisa – "You can deny it, but you know in your heart that I'm right."
Peter – "You'll see that it's not like that."
Meanwhile not far from the two:
Henry – "I didn't know you were friends with the firefly, how did you two meet? You know, you hardly talk to each other at school"
'I think if I tell him we started secretly dating last year he won't like it very much, especially since we're still friends. There aren't many girls who end their relationship and maintain a friendship with their ex... but that's part of Peter's good heart, I think I'm only going to speak lightly about it.' – Cecilia thought, she didn't like the nickname they gave Peter, in fact it was due to his ability, despite being unique, Peter's Grade was low and the ability wasn't very useful either, that was one of his uncle's reasons. Having insisted so much on martial arts training.
Cecilia – "Hmm… we went to the same dojo for some time, although at school I was closer to the girls' group, he and I were always good friends. Especially after his brother died."
Henry – "I didn't know, that he fought Karate too."
Cecilia – "You know, he's raised by his uncle who is Colonel, so he does a lot of other martial arts, so they always had a good education"
Henry – "Eee you two know each other very well."
Cecilia – "Do you think? We're just dojo buddies"
Henry – "Now I got curious, I think I'll get him for a fight, he seems to be someone interesting to fight"
When Henry said this she had a cocky smile on her face.
'I hope everything goes well' – Cecilia thought.