September 9th, 2030, 11:36 pm

I pull the Imperial Guard t-shirt over my chest and extend my arms through the short sleeves. Fingering the metal chain of my dog tags, the plates emerge to lay over the black numbers 071. The eagle rests in a dull outline, exhausted after being aglow for so long.

"Okay, kid, here's the deal," MacTavish begins, shuffling through a large cardboard box. "I have only slept for three hours in the past two days. I want to be upstairs in bed right now, but it is both my Imperial Guard and moral obligation that I am here with you." The sleek sound of metal against metal rings out from the box, and I witness a sword clatter against the concrete basement floor. "And I bet you're tired, too, so how's this: you cooperate with me, don't try to fight me on my instruction, and we can go to bed before three or so." Another sword draws from the box and stays grasped in his hand. "Sound fair?"

I proceed to where he kneels over the blades. "That's okay, just as long as I learn something."

The Colonel's training grounds is the basement of his family's house. With the stone walls, shelves of various boxes and Imperial Guard paraphernalia, and an ominous light bulb hung from the ceiling that illuminates the whole room, it reminds me of the Manchester's cellar. The way he hides his swords away down here makes it seem like sword fighting is more illegal than dead; there's none in sight, only in certain cases in different spots within the dwelling.

As distressed and uninterested as he seems, at least I am able to interact with MacTavish. It's a step up from standing out in the rain for fifteen minutes begging to be let into the house before I catch a cold. Now that I'm in his presence, anything about sword fighting is beneficial to my overall mission. He's taking precious sleeping time to help me protect the Empire, so I owe him my attention.

But deep down, I find it kind of funny that he's complaining about not sleeping. I'm sure he's been through much, much worse.

"Okay," he groans, rising to a straight back. He stands level to me with a silver, polished sword in his right hand. "First order of business: which arm is your strongest?"

"Right."

Check again.

I do a double-take, rebounding between my arms and the Colonel. I am right handed, I always have been. In baseball, I threw with my right hand and batted right, too. Just because the black streaks are carved into my left arm doesn't mean I can levy the strength to that side. It would be wisest if I fought with my right.

Then again, it would also be wise to use Grayson's advice as a guide for everything I'm about to do in the coming days.

"Actually, my left," I admit, turning my attention to MacTavish. "Side with the mark, you know?"

He hands me the lustrous sword. "Sure." He reaches for the blade on the ground and holds it to his side. "How's that feel?"

It's a tragedy that I didn't bolster my left side as much growing up. I do not put much effort into raising the sword to shoulder-level, but lifting it at all requires some power on my part. The firm rubber grip provides enough cushion and comfort for my hand, so at least there's that. The silver reflection glints against the light from the bulb above me.

"Pretty good," I conclude, twirling it to inspect the thin edges. "It's a little heavy, though."

"Well, there's not much I can do about that. That's one of the lighter ones," he chuckles under his breath. "You should get used to holding it before we get started; make things go a lot quicker."

I back off from him and step into a wide open space. My arm rises and I aim the point of the sword straight in front of me. I swing the sword around the circumference of my head, my muscles close to strain.

"While you're doing this, keep mind of where the sword is. The last thing you want is to catch your-"

The blade halts on something as I maneuver it from my upper body. I toss the sword on the ground and it vibrates against the concrete. My right thumb and index finger sting with the air flooding to them. I bite down and suck in a chopped breath. My left hand shoots over to my right, clutching the back of my palm.

"-self." MacTavish trudges to my side with no urgency. "Come on, let's see it."

I lift my left hand, red coloring the profound ridges in my palm. From the inside of my thumb to the middle of my right hand, a pond of blood has begun to spring. The depth of the blood prevents me from discerning how far into my skin the slash went. If I know anything, it's that this shit burns deep.

I watch MacTavish peer into the red pool with glossy, blinking eyes. "I'm sorry."

He sighs. "It's okay, it happens." He pats my shoulder and advances past me. "Let me run upstairs so we can get it cleaned. Wait here and keep pressure on it."

His bare feet press on the weak floorboards for a creaky ascension. The walls around me muffle the crash of rain and thunder outside, creating a soft ambiance in the basement realm. Small tremors over my head scatter every other moment; the rhythm of footfalls.

I hold my bleeding thumb and take a great breath. Fuck, this hurts. How could I be so stupid to let myself get cut? Now my right hand really is useless to me.

I want to get out of this just as badly as the Colonel does. As long as I can learn something about using a sword, I'm good to go. Well, now that I know it's heavy and sharp, I can leave, right? The rest is kind of easy; you know, just stabbing and swinging, and I should be able to kill the beast. That's the whole jist of it, I think. Maybe I could just wing it for Friday. Improvise.

No, I can't do that, no matter how much I want to.

My silver sword lies dead on the floor, gleaming in the bright basement light. The metal has a speck of red laying on one of the edges, mocking me and my foolishness. Blood and metal. Blood and-

The bat.

My breath spikes, scraping my lungs as if I were gasping. I twist away from the sword, grabbing my thumb tighter and squeezing. When more liquid fills the crevices between my fingers, I separate my hands and allow the blood to meet the damp air.

"Look at what you did to me," I seethe.

I was just doing what I was told to do.

"Well, you weren't very good at it, apparently."

The race in my mind must be stopped. If I keep talking to him, I'll rile myself up and do something I don't want to do. There must be something for me to do in the meantime that does not involve interacting with the voice in my head. My eyes dart around the room, searching for that something.

Much like the Captain, the Colonel houses boxes upon boxes of Imperial Guard junk. Perhaps I could pass the time and check out what MacTavish has to hide, if anything.

I approach the nearest shelf and start reading the black marker labels on the cardboard. They're divided by year, the earliest appearing to be 2007 and the soonest 2029. Some years are missing from the collection, here and there, but that helps to narrow down my boredom investigation.

I wonder what exciting things happened in his first year. I doubt they're any more fun than what happened to Manchester.

A job only for a dried left hand, of course. I wipe the blood from every inch of my hand onto my shorts, leaving a dark, sinister streak.

As I stand on the end of my toes to grab the 2007 box, something blinks at me from the corner of my eye. I collapse back onto my feet and skid to the small space between two shelves from where the light emerged. The crevice is just big enough to fit my free hand in and wiggle around to search.

I extract yet another sword, though it's much shorter than the ones the Colonel and I have been using. It could be mistaken for a novelty item for kids. The shine on it is a spectacle of itself; hardly tarnished in the slightest. This sword might not have been used in years, but considering it's this smooth and polished, it's cared for quite often.

But why conceal a beauty like this while updating its quality? What's the point? A blade like this should be commemorated on a wall, though at the same time I can't understand what's so important about it. It's a baby sword.

"Can't listen to simple directions, can you?"

I fumble the blade, dropping it at my feet. I swivel to the staircase where the Colonel stands with a white and red metal case. Him glaring at me is the most awake he has been all night. Also the most terrifying.

He approaches me, glueing his eyes on my face and not my wound. For every step in my direction, I retreat toward the far wall. "I leave you for one minute. One minute, and you cannot sit still. I've heard that this apparently isn't the first time you stuck your nose somewhere you weren't supposed to."

"I'm sorry, Colonel. I really am," I mutter, staggering backward. "I just wanted to see what was over here. I didn't mean to offend you, really, I-"

"What do you get out of going through people's stuff, anyway? We keep certain things away from others because it hurts to think about and we don't want to relive it. Yet you rummage through my stuff like it's nothing, with your bloody hand, no less."

"Please, Colonel, I'm sorry." My heels pound the wall and I stumble. I press my hands against the stone brick.

He stops his procession and holds the first-aid kit at his waist. "Look, if you want my help, you have to cooperate with me. I'm sure Brian told you the exact same thing. But doing this kind of shit isn't going to help us get anywhere. If you just keep your hands to yourself and out of my business, we're not going to have a problem, okay?" He laughs, glancing at the small box in his hands. "And you don't have to be scared of me. I was never going to hurt you."

I loosen my fingers' tension on the wall. "Okay. I'm sorry."

"I heard you apologize the first time, kid," he remarks. "You sure do worry a lot." The first-aid kit clicks open and he digs into its contents. "Here, take a seat. I'll fix that cut up for you."

I slide down the wall, bending my legs out in front of me. The blood from my thumb has trickled to the rest of my hand, dripping from the end of my fingernail. The gash stings as it encounters the air, but the pain doesn't run deep anymore. I pray that this is nothing more than a nick.

The Colonel removes a cloth from the case and a bottle of clear liquid. The label on the bottle faces away from me and my breath holds in my chest. If that's rubbing alcohol, then I would rather let myself bleed out; the stinging is already unpleasant. I close my eyes and swallow.

He pours the liquid to soak into the cloth. "Let me see your hand. This is going to burn a little, so-"

"Just do it," I demand, squeezing my eyelids against each other. "Get it over with."

The pressure from the cloth embraces my thumb, and for a second, that is all I can comprehend. A tingling bubbles within and seconds, and my thumb throbs under the hug of the cloth. I kick out one of my legs, scraping my shoe against the floor to mediate the pain.

The Colonel continues to wipe down the rest of my hand, cleaning the wound and mopping up the blood that drowns it. "There, worst part is over. I'll just bandage it up and we can hopefully get right back to it."

My brave little warrior. I'll be sure to give you a lollipop for being such a good patient.

As MacTavish burrows into the first-aid kit for the roll of bandages, Grayson's voice hatches a question. "Can I ask you something? I promise it's not related to your stuff. It's about Sergeant Lee."

"Brayden?" He inquires, glancing from the case for a moment. "What about him?"

"Well, he hates me."

"State the obvious."

My eyebrows scrunch together. "So you know he doesn't like me?"

"Brian told me." He withdraws a new white roll of gauze and grins.

"Is there anything he hasn't told you? What do you guys do, gossip like a bunch of girls all day? No wonder you guys get nothing done!"

"Hush!" He nudges my shoulder, peeling the bandage off its roll. "We gossip because there's plenty to talk about and it kills time. You ought to try it sometime." He takes my hand and constricts it in the white dressing. "On that same note, Sergeant Lee. He doesn't like you. Go on."

I knock my head against the stone wall. My throat is exposed to the open air, and if I was twirling a sword nearby, I'd be dead by now. "He wants me dead. Well, not exactly, but he might as well. He still blames me for the kid I killed the night I was arrested, when I was being controlled the whole time. If I had any authority over what I was doing, I wouldn't have even hurt the guy. But the Medo made me do it, and because of that, Lee hates my guts.

"I mean, don't get me wrong, I feel really bad about it. Even if I didn't do it. But I know the person who did shows no remorse at all. It just blows my mind that he hates me when there is someone out there who liked killing his friend." I pivot my head to the Colonel who concentrates on my wound below. "Anyway, the reason I'm bringing this up is because I need help. I'm not asking you to set him straight or whatever, but what can I do to get him on my side? You know him better than anyone else."

MacTavish lets out a drained breath. "For the record, I'm on your side for this. But have you considered what he's thinking right now? The person who he believed killed his best friend is asking for his help." He continues cranking the bandage around my hand and thumb. "Imagine if Roarke had killed Brian at the ceremony and then asked you a month later to help him with this beast problem. Would you be willing to side with him? You would be kind of reluctant, too, right?"

"Yeah, but I would be able to put the blame on Roarke. This is different; I didn't do it. My body was there, not my mind. But Lee refuses to believe me, while everyone else in the Imperial Guard is willing to help with this. Like, shit, even Major Talbot realized that I didn't kill his wife. I don't know what's so hard to understand."

He compresses the last loop of the white covering onto the previous dressing and leans against the wall beside me. "Not everyone is the same, Slater. You and Sergeant Lee aren't going to cope with loss the same way, and you can't hold that against him. If he doesn't want to help you, and I guess the rest of the Imperial Guard, for that matter, he won't."

"I thought you said you were on my side for this."

"I am," he says. He peers at me while turning his head. "Look, if you're going to be a leader, you have to understand that not everyone is going to be on the same wavelength as you. And you cannot let that drag you down."

I grind my teeth and inspect my bandages. The blood has already started to darken the gauze. "I'm not a leader."

"I know it seems daunting now, but you're not alone. Sergeant Lee is one kid out of thousands of Imperial Guard officers all over the Empire. You cannot be hung up on someone who doesn't want to be your ally. We had a meeting this morning with officers from the other regions, and they all have your back. Even fucking Arthur Jameson," he laughs, shaking his head at the ceiling. "The General, Talbot, myself, the Captain, Lieutenant Hill, we are here for you if you need us. You can count on us."

I never thought of it that way. This whole time I was so worried about everyone liking me that I forgot to consider that I can have enemies. I had adversaries before I got here, and now isn't any different. I will deal with them the same way I always have: being the bigger person and ignoring their attitude.

Who cares if I don't have Brayden Lee on my side? Sure, he's a fantastic marksman, but that's nothing compared to the rest of the Imperial Guard who is willing to stand with me in this venture. I would rather have the quantity of the Imperial Guard over the talent of one infernal Sergeant. I have been hoping that he would realize the bigger picture of the situation when it was me that needed to open up my worldview.

The fate of the Empire is more important than trying to please everyone.

"Okay," he chimes, slapping my knee and rising to his feet, "I've decided that it's time to get moving. We're behind. A minor bump in the road, but we keep going." He offers his hand to me, the corner of his mouth curling to his cheek. "We've been up for this long, and I'm not going to let you give up. Not yet. Are you still in?"

I reach up to him, clasping my right hand in his. "I'm in."