Out in the middle of a dirt field near Kingstead, 3 figures were busy training or more like 2 of them were while the third sat on top of one of them and shouted commands.

"Y-yes ma'am!"

"I told you to call me big sister~"

"Y-yes, sorry sis!"

"Good~ Then we take it from the top."

Sitting on top of Terra, Lux wore quite a smile as she continued to train her and Dax's disciple. Over the last few months, Alice and Terra had really made progress in their training, part of that was due to their bodies finally starting to accept the enhancements they had been subjected to, but most of it was due to their dedication. 

"And we're done for today, good work!"

As Lux called for the end of training way earlier than normal, both of her students visibly flinched.

"Ehm… B-big sister?"

"Yeah, what's up?"

"What's going on?"

Even as Lux had gotten considerably more cheerful on the outside after Alice's confession to Dax, both Terra and Alice (to a lesser degree) were keenly aware of how the second in command of the h.e.l.lwalkers was as a person. If they were cutting the training short there was a concrete reason for it, and a good chance that whatever it was would prove worse than the actual training.

"Oh, yeah I forgot to tell you two. In 30 minutes we're moving to deployment condition yellow, that's why we're cutting training short… ICI disable the grav field."

[DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED. POWERING DOWN LOCALIZED GRAVITATIONAL FIELD… COMPLETE, RETURN TO NORMAL VALUES CONFIRMED, GRAVITY WELL DISTORTION NOMINAL.]

"Okay, lead the way."

Feeling her spine decompress after being under the stain of 5 times her normal weight, Terra was kind of nonchalant about the entire situation as she boarded the CAS-7A Stinger after cracking her neck.

"I-is this really going to be okay?"

Meanwhile, Alice showed a bit more concern about the entire situation, as far as she had learned a deployment would mean a battle and possibly war.

"We're going to be fine. Condition yellow only means that there's a chance we'll have to deploy soonish, not that we're definitely going to. Besides, if we do deploy then there's a large chance we're just going to pick up Dax."

"O-okay then…"

Seeing Alice still looking quite worried Lux felt an impulse well up inside her, something she had until now only been dismissing as not real, it was the so called desire to protect.

(N-no, not now. I can't…)

Strongly resist the urge to hug Alice Lux kept up her cold and commanding exterior while she gave her student some more words of encouragement. 

"Don't worry, if we do deploy for battle, I'll make sure you'll be in the rear guard. Let's go."

Half dragging Alice behind her Lux also boarded the CAS-7A which immediately launched, but instead of heading towards Kingstead it flew away from the capital and towards a monster infested forest. Cruising at low alt.i.tude for a while the CAS-7A suddenly dropped alt.i.tude and disappeared into the forest, having moved through a wide angle cloaking field and siege barrier.

"That scared the s.h.i.+t out of me…"

"Sorry~"

Having watched the face of Terra the entire time as it looked like they were cras.h.i.+ng Lux had trouble wiping the large grin off her face.

"Welcome to site 3."

"... Holy s.h.i.+t."

As Terra overcame her initial surprise, she was struck with awe. What had looked like a dense forest from the outside was, in reality, a gigantic open pit which was serval kilometers deep. 

"I was also surprised when I saw this the first time."

Attempting to console Terra, Alice walked over to her friend and started patting her head.

"Yeah, you were surprised alright, if by 'surprise' you mean screaming your soul out while brawling then yeah."

"Lux! You promised not to tell anyone!"

"Yeah I did, I was also lying."

While Lux was barely able to contain her laughter she had a grand old time at her student's behalf, as the CAS-7A finally reached the bottom of the pit and entered the site 3 proper. Getting out of the s.h.i.+p Terra was surprised at how vast the underground s.p.a.ce was and how well guarded it was. At the bottom of the pit entrance 4 540 millimeter railguns aimed up the shaft, as well as multiple other weapon systems. Continuing further into the base Terra spotted multiple large magnetic gravity field drills that pulled red hot liquid metals up from the planet's lower mantle for the manufacturing of new hardware. Continuing to follow Lux, Terra and Alice made their way to a sort of briefing room where the other people were waiting for them.

"So, will you tell us exactly what we're doing here?"

Not even a second had pa.s.sed before Lilly took the chance at getting an explanation, she seemed to really not like being this far underground for any reason, let alone the vague explanation she got from Lux earlier. While Solaris who also already had arrived early seemed to share Lilly's opinion, she was too occupied with the remote opportunity that she was going to meet Dax at some point soon.

"We're here right now because of the high chance that two distinct scenarios that would necessitate a deployment might happen within the next 24 hours. The first and most likely of which is the suppression of a mana disaster which has gone unnoticed within the Empire, in the case of that operation we will be deployed to save the population of a small city state while also denying any and all Empire forces from obtaining any meaningful intelligence."

"I a.s.sume there's a good reason as to why we're cleaning up the Empire's own mess… And the other mission would be rescuing Dax, no?"

"That would be the exact reason yeah, as for the specifics I'll go over those right now…"

---

After a few hours of explanation Lux those to give the other's some free time and went to inspect the equipment, meanwhile, Alice took some time to catch up with Solaris which had been away from Kingstead of some time.

"How are you doing?"

"I'm doing good, although I'm a bit sad that I was forced to put my training on hold. Hemera said that I've almost reached the threshold."

Looking quite disappointed it seemed like Solaris really wanted to surprise Dax with a brand new set of extra wings, just like Alice wanted to show how far she had come.

"But m-more importantly what do you think?"

But just as Alice started to think that Solaris was some grand a superior being, the angel drew attention to her hair which she had braided in a new way, the obvious subtext being 'do you thing Dax will like this?'.

(She might even be purer than me, this must really be the first time she's fallen in love…)

Seeing the heavily blus.h.i.+ng angel that had trouble keeping a straight face Alice couldn't help but give her a hug, much to Terra's annoyance.

(I'm going to be sick…)

Feeling like she was about to start puking rainbows, Terra hurriedly left the briefing room to go and find something else to pa.s.s the time.

"Honestly… I get that they're happy and in love and all that, but do they need to do that sort of stuff all the time? At least Lilly is a bit more reserved, at least when she's sober…"

Remembering the last time Terra went out to drink with the little elver, she felt the headache she was trying to avoid starting to return. Deciding to pa.s.s the time by looking at all the strange technology that was around her, Terra toured the factories, watching with awe how drones multiple times taller than herself were being a.s.sembled inside gravity neutralized fields, finding Lux among a sea of drones which stood by ready for deployment.

"What's up?... Is it the girls?"

Seeing Terra's tired expression Lux quickly gathered what was going on, showing an understanding smile. 

"Yeah… They're being all giggly."

"I see. That can be tiring, want to join me on my inspection?"

"Sure."

Following Lux and asking questions about the equipment whenever she had some, Terra felt like she learned even more about the world she was getting involved with. Adaptability was key, just like her own training the various drones and systems Lux inspected could all operate in radically different ways depending on the situation.

"A rifle isn't just a rifle, take the REX-Alpha 357 for example. In total, the complete system has 49 different sensors that help it deliver the right payload on target, but that's not all. By integrating it with a master ICI architecture, the different rifle's source target data from each other while constantly improving and self optimizing their collective performance and that's not even scratching the surface…"

In the middle of one of her self prompted lectures Lux suddenly fell quiet as her entire aura changed. 

"So we're doing a two p.r.o.nged operation?"

[That's the idea yeah. I'll be permanently shutting down the faction which was responsible for that entire demon incident at the academy, meanwhile, your group will secure new allies.]

"Understood. When do you want to start all this?"

[Give me 3 hours to get into position, I also need to pick up something I forgot.]

With orders having come down from the top, Lux followed protocol like she had so many times before.

"We're deploying, in response to a scenario 1. Get loadout 4A, we're leaving in 3 minutes!"