Chapter 76: Hold Position

"Good morning, Colonel. We are ready to go." Karl greeted her at the door, then winced as she patted him on the shoulder in greeting. Dana was awake but in a daze, not in any shape to be vocal, so Karl was doing the speaking for the both of them. Colonel Valerie seemed to recognize that, and she didn't push for more speech out of them as she led them to the car and back to the same training warehouse from a week ago. The teams all smiled as they saw the two bedraggled students stumble in, leaning on each other to remain upright. Karl because he could barely walk, and Dana because she was half asleep. "Well, they made it through hell week, but I'm not sure if they're in any shape to make it through one more day of training to make it to the day off." One of the mages laughed. Alice, the dark-haired mage who watched Karl's training every day, smirked at him and gestured toward the pair. "Try them; I think you will find that they're in better shape than they look." She suggested. The teams moved closer to begin an attack routine, and the two students responded in unison. Dana summoned a Golem, and Karl called Hawk out, letting the giant bird fly freely around the warehouse. Colonel Valerie gave a rueful chuckle, and the team members backed away with a smile. "Well, that might not be the ingrained response we were hoping for, but it works, I guess." One of the warriors agreed. "I can still fight, just not as energetically as usual, unless you've got some painkillers. I swear that my bruises have bruises right now." Karl replied. "Good thing that you can fight a ranged battle, then. Should we wake Dana up and get this started?" The man asked. Dana didn't open her eyes as she answered. "I'm awake. What's our first activity?" "This week is not as bad as last week. We want to see how the two of you work together to defend a spot in the middle of the warehouse against multiple attackers. But we will have to call Hawk back because there isn't enough terrain set up to sneak up with him hanging out in the rafters." One of the warriors explained as he began to equip a set of training armor. The helmet had a face shield and a neck protector, giving the attacking team full coverage as well as shielding from their mages, so they shouldn't get hurt no matter what Karl and Dana did to them, but in the eyes of the attacking team, there wasn't much they were likely to do in that state. This was an essential part of the first week's training: learning to function on limited sleep and while exhausted. It wasn't as severe as the military put the regular soldiers through, at least not in the physical sense, but the students were also younger, and the mental exhaustion was undoubtedly just as great. Alice led Karl and Dana to the center of the impromptu maze, while a group of the warriors scattered through the crates that made up an approximation of either narrow alleys or an office building's maze of walls. Karl wasn't sure which it was meant to be, as he hadn't personally seen either, but it was going to make it easy for them to get close before they were detected. Karl's eyes were much better than human, but his hearing hadn't changed much, nor had his other senses, but his eyes could only see for a few meters around them. "Set the Golem to guard this spot, and I will set up traps. Then you start spreading fog, but in random banks around us, it doesn't have to encompass our position." Karl whispered. The random fog banks might confuse the attackers, and Karl would set traps using Rend, as they had taught him last week. They didn't have much time, as the warehouse was not a huge place, but Karl worked quickly to get traps set up on most of the routes into the center by putting them just into his line of sight. There were a few routes behind him that he couldn't keep visible, so the Golem would guard those approaches, and that would have to be enough warning for them. The team approached silently, for the most part. The sound of someone bumping into a wall in the fog alerted Karl to their approach, but he couldn't be certain if it was an accident or a deliberate distraction. Then there was another from off to his left and a sharp intake of breath as the warrior stopped short just before he would have run into the trap. Karl carefully added one more trap, down by the ankles and a half step further than the first, which was at chest height in the fog. There was a full second of silence as the warrior checked the trap in the dense fog, and then a crash as he ducked under it and hit the second line, falling out into the open only a few steps from the central area Karl was guarding. Karl sent a Shred attack his way, and the warrior raised his hands as the attack slammed into his helmet. That should be the signal for 'out' because after that, he lay on the ground and played dead. There was another footstep and a soft chuckle from behind him as the next man in line assumed that Karl had gotten the drop on him, then a loud cuss as he stepped on the trap line and retreated around the corner. That made the others much more careful, and Karl nearly missed the next one until the Golem surged forward to attack down a corridor. It was going to pursue the target, but Dana called it back to them, waiting to see what the warriors would do and smart enough not to let the Golem out of her sight, where they could trick the simple reactions of the automaton. A few seconds later, they came all at once, making Karl and Dana both lash out with spells as fast as they could for the next few seconds as the warriors dodged and parried until they found blades at their necks, marking the end of the defense. "Not bad. We have one chased off by the golem, three downed by traps, and four more downed in the final rush. Now, grab an energy drink and something to eat. We're going to go over some more effective defensive measures using the skills that you both have." Colonel Valerie congratulated them with a nod of appreciation for their effort. That was the best praise that they had managed to get out of her yet, and Karl was sure that it was a good sign that she was warming up to them a little bit.