The following afternoon was a nightmare for the pilots, as their new Commanders drilled new combat techniques into their brains.

"You know, I used to think I was decent at that until I met those two." Paul sighs, as he settles into a seat next to Vincente in the mess hall.

"No kidding, I feel like I had never held a combat knife before today." Vincente agrees, while Ari just shrugs, already having known it was a weak point on her part.

"I think we might actually learn pretty quickly with those two though. Don't they say that you can learn more in a day with a Master than in a lifetime with a layman?" Ari asks.

"You're assuming that this month of training isn't actually going to take our lives. You were training with Commander Max, you don't know. I'm pretty sure that Major Nico was just kicking my ass for sport. She's so small it's impossible to hit her, and she's stronger than I am." Paul points out.

"She's faster too, and more agile. In fact, I think she might actually have the edge on the Commander when it comes to pure physical skills. I heard she has all mechanic field skills though, so we might get our own back when it comes to the Crusader Class courses." Ari smiles in anticipation, while Max, who is listening from across the room smirks at their naive optimism.

Forget overcoming the fusillade of fire from Stalwart, even against Tarith's Rage they would struggle to land a hit. Her evasion patterns are all nonstandard, so the Crusader Class Mecha's predictive targeting is nearly useless. Even his own System Skills struggle to actually connect with her in simulations.

The next morning Max has prepared a physical training course for them and invited a number of members of Bravo and Charlie Companies to come train with them. Keeping in shape to pass the time is becoming more popular as the days pass and the soldiers decide that being in peak form when they arrive home is more likely to impress the ladies than a month of lazing around and getting soft.

Add to that the fact that most of them don't intend to fully retire, taking up new careers when they get home, and the extra combat training that Max is offering is a very tempting deal for them. Most haven't had a ton of advanced training, despite the more elite status of their companies, and Max is planning to teach control and restraint techniques for the next few days.

For the Special Tactics force, taking prisoners is often the objective, so his troops will need to know it, and for the retirees who want to get into jobs like law enforcement and private security jobs, it will be even more important. Once they get home there will be no more killing annoying targets, they will need to be restrained with minimal injuries and escorted from the building, or to the prison as the case may be.

The training room has been split into two groups to begin the day, one that will be learning unarmed fighting and one that will be learning control and restraint techniques. Then after lunch, they will switch. Max will be teaching the control and restraint class, while Nico goes over the introduction to advanced unarmed combat.

The class goes more smoothly than usual, without all the usual clutter of troopers who don't actually want to be there, and the men are catching on fast to the grappling techniques that Max has come up with as the essentials. On the other side of the room, Nico is teaching her students a particularly brutal combat technique that has all the soldiers staring at her in awe.

By the time they break for lunch, her group is sparring like they are all Cygnus Special Forces. They had a solid base, to begin with, and while the new techniques are still clumsy in use, they are clearly more competent than yesterday. Ari in particular is catching on very fast to the new techniques, being limber enough to properly duplicate the maneuvers that Nico is showing them.

When they switch, the soldiers come to Max's side of the training hall with a palpable sense of relief, as the grappling training is not nearly as violent and draining as the sparring on the other side. Not that it's easy, but the recovery after someone is pinned takes a few seconds, giving them a bit of a breather.

Max grabs dinner in the usual mess hall near his quarters, finding the three new officers chatting with the officers of Bravo company. One of the Lieutenants has a huge bruise on his face that Max recognizes as a boot print, and he wonders how it happened. Neither of them was practicing a technique that involved kicks today.

Paul waves him over to join them, and Max settles in, giving the bruised soldier a questioning glance.

The soldier gives him a sheepish grin and points at his cheek. "This? No biggie, I just misunderstood a technique you see."

Paul nods his agreement. "Exactly. You thought strength was more important than flexibility, and you missed the landing when Ari tossed you."

It seems that the man thought that he could simply brute force stop himself from being thrown to the ground by the smaller officer, and ended up pulling her forward, causing her to step on his face. Max thought he had made it pretty clear that strength wasn't everything, but even without his warning, Ari has a Beta Rank System Compatibility, and she is stronger than he is.

The real news of the day though was Captain Catan sparring with Nico. She had sent him some training techniques after Belmont, and he had been working hard to get better at them, so they went a round to see how his skills had been coming along.

Max knows that he just hit 200 points of total bonus, and his System is currently upgrading his body, a process that usually takes between two days and a week if it's not only giving you a System Skill. Nico should be close to the same, with a split Primary in Dexterity and Speed, so the fight should have been pretty epic.

"I'm telling you, it was insane. They used the entire arena like a 3D pool table, jumping between beams and railing like gravity just wasn't a thing. And the speed, I have never seen a human move that fast, it's just not natural." One of the troopers is insisting.

Captain Catan himself comes in a few minutes later with Nico, both fresh from the shower and laughing about the match, sporting rapidly healing bruises on almost every visible bit of skin.

"Did you learn a little about what a proper fight looks like?" Captain Catan jokes to one of the troopers replaying a video of the match for his friends who weren't at training today.

"I learned that a flying elbow drop from the Mezzanine balcony doesn't only happen in staged wrestling matches." The Corporal confirms, so Max looks in on the Captain's memories to see what happened.

The two of them had been grappling, and he threw them both off the mezzanine but lost his grip on the limber Major, who managed to land on him elbow first, knocking the wind out of him and ending the match.

The match looks surreal, like a fight scene from a movie, reminding Max that human limitations as he understands them don't really apply anymore. He could have done exactly the same thing, and the four-meter fall most likely wouldn't have caused him much damage, at least not until that elbow hit him.

Advancing so fast has left Max's brain playing catch up. Barely a year ago, he was just awakening his System, as a totally average boy entering puberty. Now he could easily throw a grown man the length of a catch ball arena. Maybe a few weeks of taking it slow might do him a lot of good, letting his mind catch up with everything that has changed around him.

The notion of relaxing is put to an end the next morning though. Not only have the trainee numbers doubled, but he also received a new message from Central Command.

[Major Keres Max,

In regards to the nonstandard modifications made to the Crusader Class Mecha known as Stalwart:

The following modifications have been approved for long-term use as standard equipment.

[1] Shoulder Pauldron Customization

[2] Cygnus Pattern Plasma Shotgun X2

[3] High output Thorium Reactor

The following modifications have been ordered removed as nonoptimal equipment:

[1] Modified Battle Cannon Barrel

Please confirm changes with your Transport's mecha maintenance crew and prepare a unit paint scheme before arrival at Kepler 111.

Regards,

Central Command]

Max doesn't recall asking for his reactor to be changed out, but more power is never a bad thing. The real challenge will be finding a unique unit color scheme that will be easily adapted to camouflage in various situations, as well as serve as a distinct marker separating them from the standard squads.