"Cleo," she declared her name as she climbed on top of Fred.

"Hector," he shot back.

"Awesome big boss Rover Fred master sir. That's how I prefer to be addressed."

"It's a joking Jinn," Cleo observed.

"Ouch. That one hurt my funny bone. Hector, you're in charge of jokes when I'm not around. Don't let Cleo get herself into trouble with her vestigial sense of humor."

Cleo plopped onto her back. "Did they toss all the odd cases together for this mission?"

"Pretty much," Fred responded.

"They did the same thing on my last trip to Aes. I had to work with an idiot and a chimp kin."

Hector couldn't help but laugh at the thought of an Alfar becoming a chimpanzee hybrid. Though certainly that wouldn't be as odd as becoming a dog kin. "Was the chimp kin even any good in a fight?"

"He was quite strong. Unfortunately for him, you can't rip the face off monsters and expect to walk away without miasma poisoning. He's dead now. Who else is in our squad?"

"Two Titans and another Savant," Hector answered.

Cleo smacked her forehead with her palm. "For the love of chocolate, am I stuck with the leaping idiot again?" She rolled onto her side to make eye contact with first Hector and then a protrusion on the Rover that Hector suddenly realized was an artificial eye. "This guy. His insight is leaping. Meaning he is really good at jumping. He's also barely competent to tie his own shoes. I don't know why they keep letting him sign up for deployments. He detracts from the mission because other people have to constantly keep an eye on him."

The difference between Savant and Sage became a little clearer to Hector in that instant. He couldn't imagine receiving an insight of leaping. What the hell use would that be? Maybe there were some very specific situations where it could shine. On the whole, though, it wasn't worth much. Especially not in the hands of an Arahant. A Xian could survive a fall that would kill most other kinds, but a Savant who jumped too high would not be protected from the consequences of gravity.

"How often does this guy hurt himself by jumping too high?"

Cleo shook her head. "Almost never. He knows how to leap safely as well as how to leap far. The problem with Leroy is that he doesn't understand what tactics are. If you are trying to draw out the weaker monsters in a group, he will jump into the middle of them and need rescued. He's an idiot."

Fred rejoined the conversation. "What is your insight, Cleo?"

"It's a sensory processing insight." Cleo stared up at the starry sky. "I'm the eyes and ears for our squad. I know you're squad leader, Fred, but my talents dictate my role. I'm the best monster detector you've ever met and shit in a fight. All you get to decide is if you want me stationed close or ranging further out as a scout."

"Our team strategy begins to make itself clear," Fred mused. "You ride up top and call out threats, Cleo. I lay suppressing fire from a distance. The two Titans and our Xian charge in for close combat. You can fight, can't you, Hector?"

"I'm pretty good with my domain," he said.

"Are you comfortable with close quarters combat?"

"I can handle it," Hector promised.

They quieted down for a few hours at that point, the silence interrupted only by the snores of Cleo. He increasingly needed less sleep, so Hector turned his attentions to the newest training practice to catch his attention. For the past several weeks, he had been training his mental senses with the 'mimic monkey' and 'twin touch' games Khana once taught Volithur.

He was terrible at them. Absolutely terrible. It sometimes seemed to Hector like he was an inverse image of Volithur, excelling at what his dream counterpart struggled with and struggling where Volithur excelled. To some extent his increased level of mental enhancement made up for his lack of talent. Also, the training brought significant benefits on its own.

While his starting position was undeniably poor, a major part of Hector's perceived incompetence was that the memories of Volithur were useless as a guide. Quite frankly, Volithur was too naturally gifted in the area of mental manipulations for his experiences to teach Hector anything. The things Volithur intuited were two or three layers of complexity above what Hector could handle. So Hector needed to build his skills from the ground up.

He spent some time investigating Cleo and Fred. They were level five and four respectively. Hector would have expected the leader of their squad to have the highest level, but he supposed central command would assign the position of most responsibility to the most loyal rather than the most powerful. This task force wasn't like the Coalition Army led by level ten souls who had to politic their way to mutually agreeable strategies on every decision. They were volunteers recruited from the population of Union Central.

Hector also studied the strange energies of his new teammates. The power of Cleo felt like it was well-named, given how ephemeral and artistic the illusory energy presented to him. So different from the straightforward and symmetrical cosmic energy he used. It gave the impression that it could do just about anything, though without the oomph a Xian could expect from their own, more narrowly scoped abilities.

Fred's legal energy was like Lego pieces that snapped together in very specific ways. It felt incredibly potent but also stiflingly restrictive. The Jinn power was not at all flexible. Indeed, their kind pursued technology so ardently because their abilities were most suited to reinforcing the rules of reality. That didn't translate into direct manipulations. They had to seek leverage for their abilities in the quintessential human fashion, by constructing tools of ever greater complexity.

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Hector finally gave his training a break and made the hand gesture to bring up his statistics.

Survey Results

Type: Xian

Level: 5

Body: 5

Mind: 4.5

Aura: 3.6

Domain: 3.1

Energy Reserves: 99%

His numbers were looking good. He wanted to get everything up to peak five, but Hector suspected that fixating too much on near term goals would hamper the longer term ones. Instead, he resolved to bring mind to peak five, then get aura and domain each above four. Then it would be time to advance his overall level to six. He wanted to gain the increase in his cultivation rate and didn't see why temporarily being a bit of a hollow spear would be such a terrible thing.

Soon it became impossible for Cleo to sleep as the staging grounds became increasingly active in the predawn chill. All around there were squads assembling with boisterous introductions. Their Titans arrived, drawing every eye as they came. They were large even for their kind, eight feet high and commensurately wide. One carried a large steel digging bar slung over a shoulder and the other had a throwing sling woven from cables dangling from his belt.

"Look, we get a little Jinn to carry our bags," the one rumbled as he stabbed his steel bar into the soft mud.

Fred didn't respond to the instigation other than to introduce himself. "Hey, guys. I'm Squad Leader Fred. The Xian is Hector and the Arahant is Cleo."

The Titan with the sling on his belt raised a hand in greeting. "Hello everyone, I'm Ajax."

"And I'm his brother Nestor," the other Titan said before turning his gaze to Hector. "I'm surprised to see a Xian brave enough to fight the monsters. Your kind usually prefer to terrorize unempowered worlds, don't they?"

Ajax closed his eyes and groaned, obviously tired of his brother's antics.

"I'm a dreamer," Hector said to defuse some of the tension.

"So you only remember being a cowardly savage." The Titan crossed his immense arms as he looked down his nose – literally as well as figuratively – at Hector.

"In my dreams I remember trying to assassinate the Lord General."

Nestor scoffed at the words. "Yeah? How did that work out?"

"How do you think it worked out? The Lord General is still running around, isn't he?"

"Don't act like you're tough around me, Xian. You're half my size and I could fold you up like a travel towel if I wanted to."

Hector engaged his mental sense to gauge the potency of the two newest additions. They were both level six, which was a tad concerning if he had to worry about internal conflicts on top of facing monsters. Before Hector could think up a proper response, Fred interjected himself into the conversation.

"Wow, I never thought I would see someone break Billy B's record for quickest court martial. It took Billy three hours, but you really don't mess around."

Nestor sniffed. "I'm not going to pound this weakling. That would be like abusing a child."

A boom sounded as Ajax cleared his throat. "I'm happy to have a Xian on my team. I bet we kill a lot of monsters together."

"Enough with the ass polishing," Nestor said, "this guy ain't fighting fit."

After just a moment's hesitation, he stood to face the giant staring him down. "You never heard of the Stalwart Xian? That's me. I took out something a lot bigger than you, then walked a mile covered in guts as they turned to miasma."

Nestor squinted down at him. "One punch from me would end you."

"I could take your punch on my chin and not get a bruise." He was reasonably sure his aura could entirely deflect the damage from a single punch. Worst case he would be tossed back.

Nestor chuckled darkly. "You are a damn fool, Xian. Tell you what. Bloody knuckles. One punch, fist to fist. We see which of us backs down after that."

Hector tilted his head. "Let me get this straight. We slam our fists together?"

"Punch meets punch," Nestor confirmed.

He waited a moment to see if Fred would intervene. When it became obvious that he would not, Hector jumped down to the muddy field, feeling it squelch between his toes. Hector rolled his shoulders to loosen up and stared at the contrary Titan. "We doing this?"

Nestor bared his teeth. "On the count of three. Don't puss out, little Xian. One. Two. Three!"

Hector drove his punch straight forward, pumping cosmic energy into his muscles to supercharge the force generated and then flaring his aura around the forward face of his fist. The Titan's fist descended, looking more like a bear's paw than a human limb. Its passage stirred up the wind as it came in with ballistic might. At the last moment, Hector fired a small burst of energy along the bottoms of his feet to propel him forwards and upwards.

The two fists connected with a deep thud. Hector crashed back to stand on the ground. The immense man above remained rooted in placed. Each of them held an arm extended like they had frozen in an action pose.

After a moment, Hector adopted a more casual posture and brought his fist close to his face to scrutinize it. "Looks like I handled your punch just fine to me."

Nestor grunted and brought his arm back to his side. "I obviously went easy on you."

"Well, boys, I'm going to declare the dick measuring complete at this time," Fred announced. "Good job to both of you; everyone is suitably impressed with length and girth. Cleo might be pregnant just from witnessing such a manly display. I know I would be if I still had biology. Anyway… hope that got it out of your systems. No more fucking around. We're all on the same team."

Ajax pumped his fist in the air like a kid signaling for a trucker to blow the horn. "Hear hear, Squad Leader Fred. Let's save the aggression for the monsters."

Cleo, who had appeared thoroughly unimpressed throughout the competition, turned with exaggerated care to look into the distance. "Leaping idiot is on his way."

Everyone turned to squint at the form of a man bypassing the packed crowds of recruits by jumping into the air, running along human shoulders and heads, then springing forward to dash along the rare open patches of ground. Hector watched the display with the rest, curious about the final member of the team. He spared just enough attention to notice Nestor shaking out his hand when he thought no one watching.

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