Being called a coward was new to me. I'd been insulted before—called many things, most of them degrading—but coward had never been one of them. Even though, in some ways, it fit. The word rattled around in my head, shaking my thoughts apart just long enough for me to miss the incoming danger.
[Firefly, dodge!] Andromeda cried.
Snapping back to reality, I tried to move, but too late. The mechanical fist slammed into my right shoulder, sending me crashing into the dirt and grass.
"Who's this guy you've come gallivanting here for?" Commander Peter asked, planting the hulking metal arm into the ground as he exhaled, sweat rolling down his face. "Throwing your life away in a place like this—seems like a real dumb move, pipsqueak."
"Maybe," I groaned, pressing my hands into the earth as I forced myself back up. My shoulder throbbed, and I could still feel the weight of the impact lingering in my bones. What kind of hazing was this supposed to be, exactly? "Maybe it was cowardly, thinking I could just run here and find what I'm searching for. But it's the only way I can think of not to disgrace everything he taught me." I exhaled, brushing dirt from my face. "Even if he never knew how important his words were to me."
Peter watched me climb out of the mud, his expression unreadable before he scoffed. "Then you should've stayed by his side if you treasured him that much, you coward!"
He moved in again.
"He's like the stars. I couldn't."
I stepped to the side, dodging the giant metal arm as it crashed into the earth where I had stood. Peter paused, just long enough to listen.
"I was a coward, relying on him for everything. Because he gave me everything. But I can't blame him for my failures. That's why I need to find something—something to stop failing him, and myself."
"Damn obsessive," Peter grumbled.
He swung for my legs. I jumped, kicking off the arm mid-air to push myself backward, gaining some much-needed distance.
"Desperate," he added.
He came at me again, this time aiming a crushing strike for my head. I ducked at the last second.
"And annoyingly naïve."
"Well, I am only seven." I grinned.
Peter's eye twitched.
With a look of sheer exasperation, he grabbed the nearest tree, tore it straight from the ground, and hurled it—not at me, but at Evan, who had just finished climbing down from his earlier crash landing. "AHHHH!" The tree caught him mid-descent, launching him straight back into another one.
Peter exhaled heavily, visibly sweating now from the effort of swinging the oversized mechanical limb. "You're far too human for an AKP."
I wiped a smear of mud from my cheek. "So what kind of rebirth do you think I'm going to find here, Commander?"
He regarded me for a moment, then sighed. "I don't know, kid. But I already have a headache from you." The mechanical arm vanished with a hiss of disengaging energy as Peter rubbed his face. I tilted my head, still waiting. "You already figured out this was a test, didn't you?" he muttered.
I clasped my hands behind my back, the twin swords in my grip subtly hidden from view. "You wouldn't have talked to me so much if you actually wanted to kill or expel me," I said simply.
Peter clicked his tongue and turned toward the doorway. "Maya, you happy with this?"
"You're the boss," the red-haired woman replied, leaning against the broken frame of what used to be a door. "Dunno why you're asking me." She gave me a brief glance before adding, "By the way, I'm adding the door's repair fee to my paycheque this month."
"Sure, whatever," Peter grumbled. "Went a little overboard anyway. It's normally Monica who does the testing."
He turned back to me, his tired gaze lingering for a beat longer. "...You're too damn gentle for your own good. You know that?"
I shrugged. "Not really. Evan would say otherwise."
"She beat me up a lot just getting here!" Evan's distant voice called from the trees.
Peter sighed. "Fine. For now, you're an honorary member of the Rogue Ravens. You need approval from all three commanders before you're official, but Monica and Tony are out on business. It'll take a few days before they can test you themselves. Grab a room on the third floor and do what you want until then."
I opened my mouth to respond—but stopped.
Something was rushing through the trees. Something fast.
Peter and I both turned our heads toward the distant rustling. The direction... the same place Evan had parked his ship.
"...What kind of wild animals live around here?" I asked.
"The tasty kind," Peter answered matter-of-factly, already turning away. "The ones you actually need to be afraid of are the humans living in this compound." He rubbed his temples while walking. "Don't know why they're back so early."
"Compound?" I echoed, staring at the mismatched buildings. "...I thought it was a tower."
Before Peter could reply, a sudden voice pierced through the forest. "Is she here?! Is she here!?"
Bolting from the trees, a wild-eyed girl with fiery ginger hair locked onto me.
"Sis! Wait up! You know my stamina sucks!" A boy with a similar face and matching red hair stumbled out behind her, panting heavily. He clutched his knees, trying to catch his breath. "Haa... haa... Is that... her?"
"It is! It is! It is!" the girl shrieked, practically vibrating in place before suddenly lunging forward. "SISTER! LET ME KILL YOU!"
A dagger-sickle flashed from her back as she swung it toward me.
I met her attack head-on, slicing the sickle's blade clean off with one of my emerald swords. Before she could react, I drove my boot into her face, slamming her into the dirt and pinning her there.
"Uhhh...?" I blinked, staring down at her as she flailed underneath my foot. "...What?"
Before I could properly question her, another three figures burst out of the tree line.
"What kind of trouble did you stir up before coming here?" Peter muttered from the doorway, visibly unimpressed.
"Ehe..." I scratched the back of my head, grinning sheepishly. "Not sure how to explain it, exactly..."
"We have an intruder!" a tall boy bellowed, drawing his pistol. "Get them!"
He and another one of his group charged straight for me.
I turned to Peter. "Are you going to help, or...?"
Peter exhaled through his nose, already walking back inside. "Just try not to kill them."
Nodding, I unclipped Andromeda from my belt. "Flash protocol, please, Andy."
Tossing the beetle into the air, my two emerald swords dissolved into its wings just before a blinding flash of light engulfed the area.
Five minutes later, the five new arrivals—varying in age, some younger than me, some older—were kneeling on the floor of the compound's lobby. I sat at the bar, glaring down at them, the suffocating silence pressing into the room. Some of them were already shifting uncomfortably.
"So," I started, my voice even. "Why exactly did you all attack me?"
"In my defence, it was Valerie, Jason, and Tom who attacked you," the red-haired boy—the one with terrible stamina—spoke up quickly. "I did absolutely nothing, so if you don't mind, I'll just—"
I flicked my wrist, and an emerald sword impaled itself in the wooden floor just behind him.
He stiffened. "...Actually, now that I think about it, this floor is quite comfortable. Great for stretching the knee joints, y'know?" he added hastily.
Andromeda returned to my hand, its wings reshaping into my sword once more as I waited for an actual answer.
"She's really quite gangsterous," Maya muttered under her breath, placing a glass of apple juice next to my elbow on the bar.
"You'd never guess she was the same nervous, smiling fool from earlier," Peter remarked, sipping his strawberry milk as he watched the scene unfold.
Coming down the stairs with an ice pack pressed against his head, Evan groaned, "Seriously, why did you guys attack her the second you saw her? She was standing right next to Peter, and he wasn't doing anything to her!" He paused, reconsidering. "Well... nothing at that point, actually."
"I arrived just in time to see her stepping on Valerie's face," a well-spoken boy—Jason, I assumed—raised his hand. "Given the aftermath of a fight in the front yard, I reacted accordingly. I misread the commander's intentions."
"Alright, Jason's off the hook." Evan moved to the youngest of the group. "Tom?"
"Just following sergeant Osthez's orders," the boy pouted, then squinted up at Evan. "Why are you more beat up than us, anyway, Captain?"
Evan promptly ignored the question, unwilling to further embarrass himself. "...Valerie. You're the last one. Explain yourself."
'He's really just dodging the question like that?' I thought to myself.
Valerie grinned, entirely unrepentant. "She smelled strong. And I was right! I thought I could last a couple of minutes, but she downed me in seconds!" Her voice hummed with excitement. "I really want to fight her again, hehe~."
A dagger glinted in her hand, slipping from beneath her skirt in a second attempt, but her twin brother snatched her wrist before she could lunge. At the same time, my grip on my sword tightened, prepared to drive the blade through her wrist if necessary.
Evan, pacing back and forth, exhaled sharply. "Dan, Nicole. Why didn't either of you stop them?"
"My sister forced me to run after her, and I was too exhausted to talk," Dan—the boy with the terrible stamina—answered flatly.
Nicole, the only one who hadn't immediately attacked me, shrugged. "She KO'd Valerie easily. No way Jason or Tom were going to take on a high-ranker with their pleb skills and win."
I didn't really understand what she meant, but she sounded unimpressed.
Evan threw his arms up, clearly at a loss. "Fine. We'll deal with punishments later. First—why is your squad back so early? What happened to the mission to take down the insurgent outpost on Klendatwo?"
"...We blew it up," Jason admitted, looking away, "and it fell into an underground ravine."
"You what?" Peter blinked.
"We were returning to base as usual," Jason continued, still avoiding eye contact, "but then we heard something on the news that made Valerie want to rush back."
"What kind of news?" I asked, vanishing the sword from my hand.
Jason gave me a look, as if expecting me to already know. "It's all over the media. As the subject of the matter, I assumed you were aware."
I tilted my head, waiting.
Sighing, Jason elaborated. "According to the news, the hero who liberated Helios Station from insurgents ran away from her punishment for the destruction caused inside the station—alongside a Rogue Raven captain."
"Oh. That." I sipped my apple juice, feigning indifference while guilt churned in my stomach.
"You could at least look a little surprised," Evan groaned.
I ignored him slurping my drink.
"Well, it's not completely wrong," he admitted. "Firefly tore up the floors when the Knights attacked her and then wrecked the hangar intersection fighting the enemy Constellation Knight they had."
"You're that Knight pilot?!" Tom gasped in awe.
"A Constellation Knight's pilot is the best of the best!" Valerie's eyes practically burned into my back. "No wonder you smelled strong!"
"Ahhh! Now Whistling Claw is just going to bully us even more!" Dan groaned, clutching his head. "Can't we ever just have a normal squad mate?!"
Placing my half-empty apple juice on the counter, I turned on my stool and stood, bowing toward the five of them. "My name is Pilot Firefly, currently an honorary member of the Rogue Ravens. I apologize for the rough greeting, everyone."
"Oh, it's no trouble," Tom mumbled, his face turning pink, as if he had just met his idol.
"I'll just have to make you try harder next time," Valerie stated, seeping out her clear desire for another fight.
"...If that's all, I'm going to my room," Jason muttered, standing and heading toward the stairs.
Watching him ascend, Nicole muttered, "Damn emo."
"I'm not an emo, Nicole!" Jason yelled back before disappearing.
"Whatever you say, dark mage," she retorted, already pulling out her phone as she flopped onto a couch in the lobby.
Peter, still seated at the bar, finally spoke. "Rest of you, go relax. Tom, show the newbie around the compound."
Tom perked up. "Really?!"
Peter waved him off. "Take her to the engineering bay last so Maya has time to set up."
"Yes, sir!" Saluting, Tom stuck his tongue out behind Peter's back—only to go rigid when Peter nearly turned to catch him. "This way, new girl! I'll help you find a room first!" He bolted up the stairs.
I followed without a word—though the sensation of being followed myself lingered. Glancing back, I saw Valerie trailing unnervingly close.