Chapter 131 Capture The Flag (Part 1)

There were two seperate training grounds inside the fortress, one for each Platoon. The entire fortress was shaped similarly to a rectangle, with the buildings going across the width at the center.

The training grounds were flat pieces of land that were on opposite sides of the buildings and took up the entirety of the space between the buildings and the walls.

Leo had instructed his Platoon to meet on the training grounds after breakfast had been concluded.

Leo and the rest of the high ranking Infernai were all standing atop a makeshift platform that was set up over the last day.

All the Infernai of Platoon one were standing in front of the platform in rows as they waited to be addressed.

Using a voice amplifier, Leo spoke " As you all know, I am General Rune. Those currently standing on this platform with me are those who have been promoted." He gestured to his friends behind him.

"I will only introduce them all once so do you best to remember their names. We'll start on the left..." Leo went on to introduce all of his friends and their respective ranks.

"Some of you might be disappointed that you didn't recieve a promotion to one of these ranks. Some of you might think you never even got the chance to prove your worth. Well, that's what today is for."

After introducing everyone, Leo could tell that many of his Platoon members seemed disheartened, but they seemed to have regained some hope now.

" As you may have noticed I only have three Captains, but I need a fourth. One of you will be chosen to fill that position. There are also several open positions for the rank of Lieutenant, so as you can see, there is still a chance for you to show us why you should recieve those positions."

There was a visible boost in morale as Leo mentioned the open positions, especially that of the 4th Captain.

" You're all going to be split into groups of 4. We will do our best to position you all so that each team is balanced with the same number of ranged, support and close quarter ability users."

"The goal is to hold onto the opposing teams flag for thirty seconds without let go of it. You will have to defend and attack as best you can, good luck." Leo finished his speech and went to go and sit down on the seats that were prepared for him and the others.

They were sitting inside what could almost be a watchtower, but it was completely open on 3 of the 4 sides, with the close side being behind them. It was about two stories tall, allowing them to see the entire training grounds.

The groups were being assigned by the non combat officers that were sent from the military. It was easy to split them up since all their abilities had been recorded on the day they had their test at the academy.

After waiting for about an hour for the groups to be properly split up and giving everyone time to formulate a simple strategy, the first match was about to begin.

One team was given blue bands to wear around their arms while the other team wore red bands. Leo's assistant, Kelly, climbed up to the tower he was sitting in and held onto a clipboard.

Her only duty during this event was to mark the name of anyone who Leo and the others regarded as a possible candidate for promotion.

The flags had been placed in the ground about 100 meters apart from each other. Each team had to remain near their flag until the battle began.

One of the Officers stood between the two teams and off to the side "Begin!".

The blue team was comprised of three men and one woman. One of the men stayed near the flag while the rest of the team charged forwards. The red team was comprised of two men and two woman. One of the women from the red team had stayed near their flag.

As the teams got closer to each other, each team had one of their members fall behind the other two. The blue team had one of the men fall behind, while the red team had the remaining woman slow down.

The man who slowed down on the blue team was suddenly surrounded by an orange colored Energy. The Energy then leapt to the two in front of him and surrounded their bodies.

The woman from the red team had done something similar, but the Energy she created had only enveloped her team members legs.

Finally the two teams launched attacks at each other as they neared a 15 meter distance from each other. The man from the blue team fired a bolt of energy at the red team but it was canceled out by a similar bolt from the red team.

The two of them started firing off several different types of attacks at each other while the other defended, shaping their energy into different things as they did.

Meanwhile, their teammates had also collided and had begun their fight. The man from the red team was moving at incredible speeds and running in literal circles around his opponent. He would charge in and punch the woman whenever the chance came but he didn't appear to be doing too much damage.

The woman from the blue team was using these whip like tendrils made of Energy that extended from her hands. She would try and attack the man running at superspeed but she was unable to hit him.

The fight continued in a stalemate for a while as the speed user couldn't deal enough damage to win the fight and the whip user couldn't land a hit. The other two fighters were using an almost identical ability and seemed to cancel each other out perfectly.

Seeing the stalemate, the member from the red team that had fallen back turned to the person that had remained at the flag and called out to her while extending their hand.

There was a dull flash of Energy as the woman's legs were covered in Energy and she ran from the flag to the center of the battle field with speed.

She was no where near as fast as her teammate was, but she was quicker than most.as she passed her teammate that was standing between the fight and the flag she spoke "Thanks for the speed boost, sis."

,m When she got closer to the fight she jumped into the air and then slammed into the ground with her legs.

The ground warped and a wave of rocks spread out from her and across the field in every direction. The speed user used this opportunity and instead of attack the whip user, he instead took out her legs by attacking her behind the knees with a leg sweep.

The whip user from the blue team fell to the ground and was almost instantly hit with the wave of rocks. Her body was thrown across the field and rolled several times before coming to a stop.

The two members of the red team waited a moment but saw that the whip user wasn't getting back up. They ran to the two that had been firing Energy bolts at each other and assisted their teammate with his opponent quite easily.

The remaining two from the blue team tried their best to defend their flag but due to their numbers being lower they couldn't hold on for more than a minute and lost the battle.

"That was a pretty good fight!" Cain said excitedly.

"Not really." Clay replied with a dissapointed tone. "It's obvious that both sides had left someone to defend their flags while the rest went to fight. They then had their supporter stay back so they could assist from a distance and the remaining two would clash with the other team."

"The defender and supporter from the red team abandoned their plan almost immediately. Yes, it worked this time but if it hadn't then they would have instantly lost the fight."

"The guy with the Energy bolts from the blue team was so focused on his opponent that he wasn't watching the rest of the battlefield. If he was paying attention then he would have seen his teammate get defeated and he would have pulled back to his flag to fight with his defender."

"One team abandoned their strategy while the other did nothing to adapt to their circumstances." Clay sounded both disappointed and annoyed.

"You make it sound so simple." Leonard said. "It's harder to adjust when you can't see the battle from above like we can right now. We can see everything from a different perspective and without the concern of battle."

"Its just common sense to behave this way during combat, you don't need to see it from an outside perspective to think while fighting." Clay said with a glare in Leonard's direction.

"Alright, that's enough guys. You're both right. Let's just hope the rest of the fights don't go the same way." Leo said with hopeful tone.