Taking Rank

by Hana Steven

  “Oh, I’m so glad that fits,” Traecy says. “And the color certainly suits you, too; it goes well with your hair.”

  “Isn’t it a little small?” I ask, confused.

  “No,” Traecy replies. “Swimsuits are meant to fit snugly. If anything, she has a little room to grow.”

  “It feels kind of weird,” Gale speaks up, inspecting herself in the mirror. “But not in a bad way—just different.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Traecy assures. “And I guarantee you will be much more comfortable during practice wearing that rather than your normal clothes.” Turning to me, she says, “Okay, Sylphy, your turn.”

  I nod and start removing my clothes. Once I’ve shed them all, I pick up the swimsuit and look it over. “So I put my legs through here and then through the leg holes?” I ask, indicating the neck of the suit.

  “Yep,” Traecy confirms. “You might find it easier to sit down until you have your legs in.”

  Taking her advice, I sit on the bench and slip my legs in before standing up and pulling the suit up. Traecy helps me position it correctly and get my arms through the shoulder straps before turning me to look at the mirror.

  “Looks like you have some room to grow into it, but it shouldn’t cause you any trouble right now,” Traecy comments.

  “It looks good on you,” Gale adds.

  Examining myself in the mirror, I can’t help but agree. The color makes my hair stand out while the frills manage to make it look much less embarrassing than I was expecting.

  “Oh,” Gale says, catching my attention. “You’re going to get one too?”

  “Of course,” Traecy comments. “I would have one already except we don’t get many chances to swim here on base.”

  Looking back to the woman, I see her fastening the top half of a rather revealing two-piece; I believe Derek called it a bikini. It has a simple pattern on it that looks like a beach at sunset and only has strings holding it in place behind her back and neck.

  She swaps out her pants for the bikini bottom with practiced ease, then looks herself over in the mirror. “Nice, I still look great in a bikini.” Turning to us, she says, “Now for the best part. Let’s go show the guys.”

  Before we can argue, she has the door open and is ushering us back out of the changing room.

  “What do you three think?” she asks, pushing us in front of her.

  “Very cute,” Derek says, giving us a thumbs up.

  “Totally. And yours is amazing too,” Scott replies.

  “Looks good,” Erik says, face quickly turning red.

  Giggling, Traecy teases, “With a good-looking sister like yours, I wouldn’t think a couple cute girls in swimsuits would bother you.”

  Erik turns away, but not before I see his face go completely red.

  “Well, enough teasing,” Traecy goes on. “Let’s change back and pay for these. Then we can have some fun before we head back to your place.”

  The three of us return to the changing room and get dressed again before heading out. All six of us got suits, our new friends insisting on buying ours.

  Chapter 16

  Base Life

  “So, what do you kids want to do?” Derek asks as we leave the store.

  “Can we go to the firing range?” asks Gale. “I want to try archery.”

  “We can check,” Traecy says, “but the range master might not let you.”

  We make our way through the base to the firing range. As we enter I am surprised to see a lot more soldiers than there were this morning.

  “Wow,” Scott comments. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many people here when firearms aren’t allowed.”

  “Yeah,” Traecy agrees. “Let’s see what’s going on.”

  Leading us through the range, Traecy keeps looking around for the range master. After a few minutes, we spot him walking along ahead of us. We quickly close the distance before Traecy calls out.

  “Colonel Davis. What’s gotten into the soldiers here? I’ve never seen so many here at once on archery days.”

  “They were shown up by a first-time archer this morning,” he replies, turning toward us. “Well, if it isn’t my newest archer herself,” he comments upon seeing me. “Back for another round?”

  “Yes, please,” I agree. “My sister would like a try, as well,” I add, indicating Gale.

  “If you can keep these men motivated, you are always welcome here,” he replies. Turning to Gale, he adds, “And if you’re anything like your sister here, that goes for you and the boy, as well.”

  “You know her?” Scott asks, surprised.

  “Of course,” Colonel Davis confirms. “Major Jones brought them by this morning, although they didn’t have her sister with them at the time.”

  “Oh, I was here,” Gale says. “You probably just don’t recognize me.”

  The colonel gives her a disbelieving look then says, “You three are welcome to hop on in to any open slot.”

  “Thank you!” I say, hurrying over to a couple of open positions.

  “Hey,” Gale says, chasing after me. “Can you show me that spell?”

  Looking to her I nod. Digging the paper out of my pocket, I examine it myself before handing it to her.

  I step up into one of the positions and cast my bow spell. Foregoing the normal arrows, I feed my bow a little more mana and an arrow appears, knocked and ready to go.

  “You kids are rather amazing, you know,” comments Traecy.

  Over the next hour, Gale and I practice our archery, quickly getting to the point we can hit the bullseye most of the time with our default wind arrows. We then turn it into a game where one of us picks a spot to hit and we see who can get closest.

  “I realize you two are having fun,” Traecy interrupts, “but we probably ought to start heading to your house.”

  “Okay,” I agree, dropping the spells holding my bow and arrows together.

  “Aww,” Gale whines. “But I was just getting the hang of it.”

  “I think you long since passed that point,” Scott retorts. “You’re both shooting better than our best archers already.”

  “Magic bows or not, they aren’t going to take that lying down,” Colonel Davis agrees.

  We wait for Erik, who doesn’t have a fancy magic bow, to gather the arrows he fired and return the bow to its rack before heading off to our temporary home.

  When we arrive at our house, we find Poseidon and Dad in the back yard. Poseidon is preparing some food on the picnic table while Dad is doing something with the stone structure.

  “We’re back,” Gale calls out.

  Turning our way, Poseidon asks, “How’d the swimsuit shopping go?”

  “Quite fun,” Traecy replies. “It’s been a while since I just went out shopping, especially with other girls who aren’t in the military.”

  “You must have enjoyed yourselves, then,” Dad comments. “You were out for quite a while.”

  “We went to the firing range, too,” Gale admits. “Archery is fun.”

  “Good to hear,” Dad replies. “Once the grill here heats up we’ll get dinner ready. You lot can just take it easy.”

  “‘Kay,” Gale and I respond.

  “In that case,” Traecy begins, “I have an idea. You guys are teaching us magic, so why don’t we teach you a little karate?”

  “What’s karate?” I ask.

  “It’s a form of martial arts,” Derek replies. “It focuses on hand-to-hand combat and can be quite useful if you know what you’re doing.”

  “Why would I want to know it?” I ask, confused. “I hate getting into fights…not that I seem to be able to avoid them.”

  “Just because you learn how to fight,” Scott answers, “doesn’t mean that you have to. But should you get into a fight, it would be better to know how to defend yourself.”

  “It can also be rather relaxing and enlightening to practice,” adds Traecy. “If you really don’t like it, you don’t have to continue. What do you say
? Want to give it a go?”

  I share a look with Gale. What do you think?

  We do get in a lot of fights, she responds. Like Scott said, it can’t hurt to know how to defend ourselves. Besides, I get the feeling Traecy is honest about the relaxing bit.

  Turning my attention back to the now confused-looking trio, I reply, “We’ll give it a try.”

  “What was that just now?” Traecy asks. “It looked like you two were talking, but you clearly weren’t.”

  The guys nod in agreement.

  “We can talk to each other in our heads,” Gale explains.

  “Really?” Traecy says. “That’s neat. Can you teach us how to do that?”

  I shake my head, “It’s not a magic thing. It’s a familiar thing.”

  “Oh, well,” Traecy sighs. “Guess these two will just have to keep guessing.”

  After Erik decides to join us, the six of us move into the open part of the yard and begin our karate lessons. Traecy and the guys show us several of what they call basic stances—positions that are easy to attack or defend from—and have each of us copy them. They then start having us switch between different stances as they call them out, correcting our postures as we go.

  It’s an odd feeling practicing these stances; it’s tiring, but at the same time I somehow feel refreshed and relaxed. By the time Dad calls us over for dinner, I am slightly sore, sweaty, and relaxed, as if I just woke up and none of today’s stressful events even happened.

  We enjoy our dinner of hamburgers and roasted veggies before Dad pulls out a bag and a few sticks. “We stopped by the commissary on our way back. I was surprised to find marshmallows. Since we have a fire going, I figured we could roast some.”

  “Ooh,” Traecy says in excitement. “That sounds great.”

  “What’s a marshmallow?” I ask.

  “A little ball of gooey goodness that just begs to be toasted over a fire,” Derek answers unhelpfully.

  “Here,” Dad says, holding a stick out to myself and Gale. On the end of each stick is a small blob of white. “Just do what Traecy’s doing.”

  Looking back to the woman, I see her putting one of the white blobs on the end of another stick before holding that end out over the stone grill.

  I shrug and hold my stick out as well, Gale doing the same beside me.

  “Be careful not to get it too close to the fire,” Traecy warns. “They are best when toasted but they like to catch fire if you’re not careful.”

  Following Traecy’s lead, we soon each have gotten our formerly white blobs nice and golden brown. With a grin, Traecy pulls her stick back, blows on the blob a couple times, and then sticks it in her mouth before pulling the stick free.

  “Oh, so good,” she says. Looking over at Gale and me, she continues, “We don’t often treat ourselves to things like this, so this is really nice of you,”

  “Don’t mention it,” Dad responds. “I wanted some myself.”

  Following her example, I eat my own marshmallow. This tastes amazing!

  I just enjoy the flavor for a moment with my eyes closed. Once I open them I see Traecy holding out two more marshmallows before us.

  We take turns roasting marshmallows until the bag is empty. When our treat is gone, we sit around talking; Traecy and the guys are really curious about magic. After a while, Gale heads inside before returning in her fox form.

  “Oh, you have a dog?” Traecy asks when she sees her.

  “That’s Gale,” Dad answers.

  “Really? You did tell me she’s a Kitsune,” Traecy says. “But is that really her?”

  “Yep,” I answer as Gale hops up into my lap.

  I spend the next few minutes answering questions aimed at me while also relaying answers for Gale. Eventually, our three new friends head off to their own beds and we head inside for the night, as well.

  The next few days are fairly routine: we get around in the morning then head off to our first group of trainees.

  Our new swimsuits are much appreciated, as they really are much more comfortable than our normal clothes. Many soldiers began to show up wearing them, as well. While very few soldiers have had significant luck with casting magic, they have all begun to loosen up during our little water fights; several even manage to stay dry by the third day.

  We have lunch in the mess hall with a handful of soldiers usually sitting with us to ask about magic in one way or another. After lunch, we return to the practice field for the second round of training before usually hitting the firing range at Gale’s and my request.

  We quickly realize that arrows for each element have different properties. Wind arrows are faster and more accurate than normal arrows, while Earth arrows are a little slower but pack a heck of a punch; I thankfully missed the target, but there is now a fairly large crater in the ground behind it. Water arrows have us confused, as they just seem to make things wet, but Gaia arrows have an effect much like a Vine Snare. Fire arrows cause an explosion while Aegis arrows erect a vertical barrier at the point of impact. We decide we probably better not try out Portus or Void arrows, as we have already caused two craters thanks to the Fire and Earth arrows and would rather not have any more to fix up later.

  After returning to the house for dinner, Gale, Erik, and I meet up with Traecy and the guys in the main square for karate. It turns out there are several other people practicing karate and we even get to see a couple of matches. Rather than a fight like what I have been subjected to before, a match is more like a duel; there are rules and the idea is to practice with an opponent, not to outright beat them up.

  After karate practice, we head back to our house where we play some games Dad found in a closet, or read for a while before finally crawling into bed.

  We’re leaving the firing range with Traecy and the guys one afternoon when I notice something is off. Soldiers are hurrying around, some headed into the base but most heading in the direction of the gate.

  I am clearly not the only one to notice, as Traecy soon calls out in a commanding voice, “Soldier, what’s going on?”

  The soldier glances in our direction before coming to a stop and saluting. “There are intruders at the gate, Lieutenant,” he states briefly.

  “Intruders?” Traecy asks, more to herself than to us. “Do we know who they are?”

  “No, Lieutenant,” the soldier replies. “But Corporal Arnold Wilson is with them.”

  “That stupid…” Derek begins before falling silent at a glance from Traecy.

  As Derek falters, I feel a sudden burst of magic coming from the direction of the gate.

  “That’s not good,” Poseidon comments.

  “No, it’s not,” Traecy agrees. “That fool just got himself court marshaled.”

  “That’s not what she was talking about,” Dad corrects. “There’s magic being used at the gate—more than what the soldiers can use.”

  Traecy glances at Dad and Poseidon before turning back to the soldier. “Go directly to the general. Use my name to get there and tell him to marshal the magic trainees to the gate.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” the soldier salutes again before running off faster than before.

  “Let’s get to the gate,” Scott suggests. Turning to Dad, he adds, “I think our best bet is if you two help us out.”

  “Agreed,” Dad responds.

  With that decided, we turn toward the gate and start off at a run.

  Chapter 17

  A Fight on Another Level

  I quickly cast my Kitsune spell, the boost it grants allowing me to keep up with the rest of the group. A couple of minutes later, we arrive at Gate Square, the large open space just inside the gate. Standing near the middle of the space, surrounded by numerous unconscious, bleeding, and otherwise hurt soldiers, are three figures in cloaks with the hoods covering their faces as well as the man who tried to grab me a few days ago during practice.

  More soldiers move to attack the intruders, but are casually thrown aside by a spell from one of the cloaked figu
res.

  “I told you the base wouldn’t offer any resistance,” the soldier among them says.

  Isn’t that the guy that grabbed you? Gale asks.

  Yes. And now he seems to be helping the bad guys, I respond.

  I know you hate fighting. So do I, but should we stop them? she asks. They’re hurting a lot of people.

  I nod. Together?

  Together, she replies.

  Stepping forward, we both cast a Wind Blast at the intruders. The two spells mingle in the short distance to our targets and create an explosion of wind on impact, sending two of the cloaked figures and the soldier flying; the third figure just stands there before he turns his attention to us.

  “That was rather impressive for ones as young as yourselves,” a male voice calls out from under the hood. “Why don’t you come and join us? I can promise you proper training for that power of yours.”

  “No way,” I call out, slipping my staff off of my back. Aiming it at the last man, I pour all the power I can into another Wind Blast and send it rocketing at him.

  To my dismay, the man holds up a hand and my spell disperses like a breeze hitting a wall.

  “That’s not good,” I comment, backing up toward Dad.

  “He didn’t even flinch at that,” Gale stammers in disbelief.

  “I think we better handle this one,” Poseidon says flatly.

  “Agreed,” Dad says. “Erik, do you know how to share mana?”

  “Huh? Oh, yes,” Erik answers.

  “Good. Girls, put up the strongest barrier you can around that man, Poseidon, and me. Erik, give them whatever support you can.”

  All three of us share a look. I’ve never heard Dad give instructions like that, not even to the soldiers we’re training.

  As Dad and Poseidon walk forward, I notice the soldiers have begun moving the injured out of the way. At least I don’t have to worry about that, I think to myself.

  I hold my staff out toward Gale, who grasps it with me, and we turn it toward the three figures now alone in the square. Using our unique bond, Gale and I construct a single, powerful barrier spell and channel our mana to it through my staff.