The sound of metal violently clashing against each other echoed across a largely empty training room by father sparring against son, Headmaster Luther against his son Axel at dawn's first light. Their sparring was quite common, in fact it was quite regular, every two weeks on the dot. Well as long as duty didn't get in the way. Luther would say that these matches are to keep Axel sharp and on his toes, but in reality it is to make sure his skill isn't dull, after all his job is mostly paperwork anymore.

"You're getting better. You might beat me one of these days." Luther commented as his sword clashed with the blade of his son's arm. "Screw that! I'm beating you today!" Axel growled as he hopped backwards to better assess the situation. He leaped forward and began slashing at his father. Luther dodged, and blocking his attacks with his sword. When Axel next lunged forward Luther used his blade to redirect Axel, with the two metals scraping violently across each other. Axel fell forward, and Luther gave a swift blow to his back from his fist.

Axel stumbled forward, and fell to his knees. "You're holding back. I told you to knock that crap off!" Axel growled as he got back up, and faced his father. "Fine. No holding back." Luther stated in his usual cold demeanor. Luther rushed forward, and began slashing at Axel extremely quickly, almost too fast to track his movements. Despite his age he still moves like a man in the prime of his life. Axel used his arm to block his attacks, with each blow forcing him to take a step back.

"You're getting faster. But still sloppy, and predictable. Have you already forgotten everything I taught you?" Luther commented. "Perhaps that young lady from Talos Squad would hold better challenge?" Luther asked, knowing this would anger Axel. And Axel didn't disappoint. "I'll show you who's predictable!" He snarled. When his father went in for the next attack Axel let it slide across his arm, and bring Luther in closer to him. Once he was closer Axel brought up a powerful blow to his ribs from his left, cybernetic knee. This caused Luther to grab his side in pain, which gave Axel opportunity to give him a swift punch from his left hand to his face.

This forced Luther to stumble back. He rubbed his chin, and spat out some blood from a busted lip. "Well done. I'm glad my lessons didn't go unheard." Luther stated. "What? You givin up already?" Axel asked in a huff, with sweat dripping from his face. Luther only chuckled in response. While usually Luther must keep up a appearance of a intimidating warrior, it is nice to let his hair down, and actually smile once in awhile. Axel lunged forward toward his father at full speed, with his cybernetic arm pulled back, ready to strike.

When Axel became within arm's reach, he began extending his arm for an attack. Luther bent down, and used his sword to push Axel's arm off track, and above him. Luther grabbed Axel's sleeveless black shirt, and threw him over his head. As Axel fell to the ground things seemed to move in slow motion as Luther lifted up his right leg, and gave Axel a powerful kick to his chest as he was upside down in the air. Axel fell several feet from Luther on his back. The match was over, and as always Luther stood victorious.

Axel rolled over, and stood up on one knee. He slammed his cybernetic fist into the ground in frustration, leaving a large crack in the floor. "You did well, if your anger didn't get the better of you, you may have won." Luther said as he extended his hand to help him up. Axel brushed him off, and got up himself. "Whatever." Axel groaned as he went to several towels, his coat, and some different devices.

Axel took off his shirt, and wiped the sweat off his body with a towel. He grabbed one of the devices, and held it over various scratches on his body. A small beam shot out of the device, and began closing his wounds. Luther did the same. "Don't forget, today your squad, and Talos will be getting missions." Luther reminded him. "I swear if this is another dam building mission, I'm going to smack that mustache off your face!" Axel growled. "Don't worry, this'll be a real mission. You've got time before the briefing. Make sure Talos knows to meet in the war room when the time comes." Luther ordered. "Yeah, yeah." Axel replied.

Axel threw his shirt, and coat over his shoulder, and left the training room. He walked the halls of Atlas Academy, heading towards his teams designated dorm. Each squad has their own dorm. Dorm is the official term, as they are more like apartments, with a kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms, as well as one full bath. The squads are split up into the different rooms, one for the males of the team, and one for the females.

Axel found the door marked Orion, and entered a code on the keypad to open the door. He walked in, and grabbed a purple, spiked fruit sitting in a bowl on the table. He plopped himself on the couch, and split the fruit in half with the blade in his arm. He took a big bite out of one half of the fruit, with green juices flowing down the corner of his mouth. He laid down his shirt, and coat on the couch.

Julian groaned tiredly and sat back in his desk chair, throwing his tools on the desk in front of him. He had been up since around five, tinkering with the damned Advanced Targeting Optics he had been working on for weeks. Something in the wires was malfunctioning, but since there were around three-hundred wires, he had a hard time finding what was actually wrong. He needed to get these optics into the team's Titans so that they could have better sight-lines and vision in general, but it was frustrating that it was taking so long. Besides, after this he had to make three more, since he had luckily completed most of the ATOs already, but the enhancements for this particular device were taking him nearly twice as long as the rest.

He stretched his stiff body, grunting as his back cracked, and then picked up his coffee cup, halfheartedly taking a sip. Jules almost immediately choked, he hadn't realized that while he had been working his coffee had turned grossly lukewarm and was now cold and undrinkable. He looked around at his room for a moment, as if suddenly realizing how messy and dark it was. He wiped his hand on his forehead, unknowingly leaving a dark grease mark there as he stood, knees cracking from the little to no movement that he had gotten that day except for to grab coffee way too early in the morning.

Julian stepped a few feet towards his window and opened the blinds, squinting painfully as bright light flooded the room. "Holy-" he winced and turned away, letting his eyes adjust and focus on the mess that was his room. He scrunched up his nose sullenly, Julian hated messy things. With another quick stretch he began throwing away trash and putting his clothes either into his wash pile or back in his small closet. He needed a vacuum. And a new coffee.

First he had to reorganize his desk, otherwise it would seriously stress him out. He sat down again and put his tools back into their drawers and other supplies into their respective shelves. He didn't keep too many supplies in his room, just enough to work on one or two small projects, most of his tools and larger products were kept in his engineering work-space that he shared with the Talos engineer. Since they were on the two best teams in the Academy, they got a state of the art lab and large space to work, but only slightly better than the other team's spaces. Besides, Julian often invited other engineers to use the space for collaboration and independent work, so there were rarely times when only one person was in the room. It didn't feel exclusive, and Jules liked working with others for building and new ideas.

When he was satisfied with the state of his desk, Julian decided that it was time to throw out the rest of his trash and grab a new cup of coffee. He threw his trash bag over his shoulder and carried his coffee cup before leaving his room and walking down the dorm hallway, dropping the bag down the trash chute for the dorm.

With a yawn he continued into the kitchen, deciding that he should finish his homework before bed tonight instead of stressing out about in until the next day. He dumped out the old pot of disgustingly cold coffee and made fresh new one, leaving it black like he always did and keeping the rest in the pot in case anyone else was looking for a cup. Jules then took a blueberry supplement since he hadn't had a meal that day and needed some nutrients and energy. He often skipped meals but lately it was getting rather out of hand. He decided that eating more was a priority.

He made his way out into the living room to see what was going on since he hadn't exited his room all day. Human interaction was good for his brain stimulation, and he often thought of solutions and new ideas when talking to people, so he keeps a small notebook and writing implement on him at all times just in case. Grease still unnoticed on his forehead, Julian immediately saw Axel splayed out coat-less and shirtless on the couch with fruit in hand looking unhappy.

"Why are you so chipper?" Jules said sarcastically with his eyebrow raised. He wondered what was making the Orion leader seem so down and out. With a worried look he then sat down on one of the chairs near the couch. "Seriously though, everything cool?"

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Carol sat at the table waiting her turn to the shooting range. Today seemed to be busy and she was surprised to see there were no open spots when she walked into the indoor shooting range. The outdoor practice area was worse. There had to be dozens of students lined up with assault rifles and SMGs as well as long range rifles. Of course Carol's appearance got some students talking.

"It's the Talos captain!"

"I hear she's also one of the best snipers, both in her Titan and on her own."

Carol heard the gossiping more often then not. Most of the time they were compliments. But others were sometimes harsh. The captain didn't let either of the type of comments effect her.

"Captain Mak." A man came up to Carol. He seemed to be just a trainee and the nickname he addressed her as cause her to give the boy a fierce glare. He instantly remembered himself and coughed in his fist. "I-I meant Captain Maklakov." Carol's eyes softened and she relaxed her posture, slightly as she nodded for the trainee to go on. "We--me and a couple of comrades--were hoping you could help us. We would like you to demonstrate for us."

"Demonstrate what, exactly?" She asked, her harsh Russian accent fitting the stern look Carol often wore.

"Well, we know your really an accurate shot. We were hoping you could give us some pointers. We're kinda hopeless and we have a test on the range tomorrow." Carol looked at the line of people waiting to get their turn at the indoor shooting range. The boy noticed her line of sight and spoke up. "We already have a spot reserved on the out door shooting area." Carol looked at the boy and slowly stood while grabbing her case that held the parts for her rifle.

"Lead the way." The two exited the facility and quickly made their way to a field filled with students. It was even more packed than it was before. Luckily, as the two approached some students started waving, frantically, in their direction. The other two students were a boy and girl. Carol didn't recognize either of them but then again she didn't expect to. She rarely interacted with the other students. She was often too busy. This was one of the few times she actually didn't have something to tend to. "Okay, tell me what it is you want to know. I don't have much time." The students quickly grabbed a dragonov 7.62 mm sniper rifle.

"We need to know exactly how to effectively fire this from a crouching position. We can fire one accurately enough with a tripod but without that our aim goes off. We didn't learn the proper technique to shooting in other positions." The trainee explained and Carol nodded her head. She held out her hand and the girl quickly handed the sniper rifle over.

"Do you have anything to set the rifle on or are you in an open field."

"Open field, ma'am." The girl answered. Carol then lowered herself into a crouching position and aimed the weapon towards the targets far off in the distance.

"There are several ways to shoot from crouching. The most common is to use the arm supporting the weight of the rifle as a stand. Put that elbow on your knee. The knee that is raised is the same side of the arm that is supporting the weight of your weapon. Easy enough?" Carol looked back and noticed the three trainees were reenacting what she was doing. Upon her asking her question they all nodded.

"Is that the way you shoot as well?" The boy Carol hadn't heard from yet spoke up. Carol was silent for a moment before speaking.

"No. This position is often for someone that is on the move. And their targets not being too far away. I'm more of a stationary sniper. So my technique is slightly different."

"Can you show us? You're kind of a role model to us. We'd really like to see how you do things." Carol was silent for a brief moment again. She didn't expect to hear that and now that she did the captain almost felt like she was slightly responsible for them. Like they were under her command.

"Are the sights calibrated?"

"Yes ma'am." The three trainees answered in unison.

"Then hand me a magazine, please. I'll will give you a very brief demonstration." The young students scrambled to fetch the magazine for the sniper rifle and ear mufflers. They quickly returned and handed Carol the items. Some of the other students at the range were taking notice that the Talos captain was about to perform a demonstration and they started to crowd around so they could watch.

"My sniping position is similar to the one I showed you earlier. But this time I take a more comfortable position. I sit instead of crouching. My leg is still up but instead of holding up the end of the gun with my hand I rest my arm on the top of my knee and grab hold of my other wrist so that as little movement will happen as possible. So in this position the barrel of the rifle is resting on the my arm. I make whatever adjustments I need with the hand holding handle of my weapon. Once I have my target in sight I can be confidence I can make an accurate shot even without holding my breath." Carol pulled the trigger and the rifle jolted slightly and the bullet punctured a hole in the bulls-eye of the target downrange. The captain stood up and emptied the chamber of the gun and ejected the magazine as an applause erupted. She glanced at her watch and realized she had used up all the free time she had.

"Thank you so much, Captain Maklakov."

"Good luck on your exam. I have run out of time." She removed the ear protection and made her way back to the main building. The only thing she knew was that her squad and Orian would be getting debriefed for their mission today. She didn't know specifics but if it was the chance to actually get out on the field then it was something the Talos captain was looking forward to.

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Morning person was not generally a term used to describe Lili Saville. She liked to stay up late and wake up late. After noon if she could have things her way. But of course, as a Titan pilot she was expected to be up early to train or eat breakfast or some such nonsense. Lili always had the best of intentions when she went to bed; she set her alarm for a semi-reasonable time - which is to say earlier than she wanted to wake up, but later than Axel or the others woke up - and tried to go to bed earlier than she wanted to so she would wake up the first time it went off. Inevitably, though, she always ended up hitting the snooze button over and over and over again.

Today was one such day.

An hour later than Lili had originally set her alarm for, she was sprawled out on her back, mouth open and drooling as she enjoyed the sweet ten minutes of sleep in between her snooze periods. The clock, which she had thrown on the floor after the last round of buzzing, went off again, scaring Lili so much that she fell off her bed alongside the shrieking technology. Now thoroughly awake and irritated, she slammed her hand down on the off button and stood up, tossing the clock back on her bed.

It wasn't the best way to wake up, but sadly it was an all too common occurence. She pulled on her trademark booty shorts and bra, tossing a tank top over it for now and pulled her hair into a ponytail for the day. At least it only took her a few minutes to get ready in the morning. Still, though, she was up far later than her captain and probably some of the others as well. Lili made sure to brush her teeth and double check her appearance in the mirror before she headed out of her dorm. As long as she didn't look completely homeless, she usually deemed herself acceptable.

Lili exited her room into the main living area for breakfast, unsurprised to see both Axel and Julian already there. "Morning," she greeted with a yawn as she approached the table set with fruit. She grabbed an apple at random and munched down on it before heading to the fridge and rifling through it. "You're both up early."

Aizen had woken up early as usual, perhaps an hour or so before dawn. He was used to sleeping short hours, and he did well enough on the hours he did get. He did his morning ritual of things any student would have done, gone to the bathroom, brushed his teeth and the rest of it including breakfast. He added maintaining his personal weapons to that, cleaning his sword and pistol. After this, he left the Talos's male dorm room that he shared with Kaito. He walked down the academy's hallways, towards the simulation room. He frequented this room fairly regularly, and always in the morning without fail. This was the closest he could get to training in a Titan regularly, without needing to go through the long starting checks. He signed in at the login terminal by the door to the room and was assigned to a pod.

He pushed open the door and inside was cooler than it was outside, being kept at a chilled 16 degrees Celsius to keep the machines cool. They were arranged in long rows, enough for five full squads to be in a simulation at the same time. The equipment was quite expensive, and the rules were clearly pasted to the side of each machine. No eating, no drinking, no tinkering, no running. What was usual with delicate, expensive equipment. Aizen stopped in front of his assigned pod, pressing a button on the side to open up the door. It popped open slightly, before the servos pulled the door away from its frame, letting Aizen step inside easily. He put his sword and pistol down onto the floor inside the pod, before settling into its gel-bed. The visor lowered over his head, and he felt the sensors sticking to his head and the bed contracting, tightening against his body. Then it went black, and he felt a rush as the colors and lights flashed in his mind as he fell into the virtual reality 'sleep' that users underwent.

At first, he stood in his Titan, Hunter, in an empty black space before the machine formed the battlefield he had requested when he had signed in. It was his standard choice, and it would progress in three stages. It would begin in an abandoned city, where he would fight with three Scythe type Swarm warriors. Then it would progress to an open field, where he would engage two Acid type Swarm warriors in addition to three more Scythe type Swarm warriors. Then it would finally end in a duel between him and a King type Swarm warrior. Even as he stalked through the abandoned streets, he was on alert, looking for any sign of the three enemies he knew were around. A shadow caught his eye and he ducked just as the signature Scythe arm of his enemy swiped over his hunched Titan, passing through the air where his head would have been moments ago. He quickly countered by bringing Buster up, the nano carbide blades ripping into the insect's weapon arm, tearing a chunk out of the bug's arm before quickly backing off and the same behaviour happened with the Swarmling, clutching the damaged arm to its chest. It was still on guard, but that didn't matter as Aizen charged with blinding speed towards it. easily dodging its alarmed swipe with its other arm and brought Buster into its midrift, the teeth sawing through the thin armored carapace until it went all the way through, leaving the Swarmling in half. Aizen proceeded to look for its brothers.

It would be a mere ten minutes later when Aizen finished the course, where it might have taken less skilled pilots half an hour. The King type Swarmling had put up more resistance, but it fell quickly to Aizen's blows. He didn't deploy Buster into its plasma cannon form, as it was too easy for him to fight the Swarmlings if he had. It would only cause trouble when he had to deal with swarms of the insects (pun not intended) where the plasma cannon's long ten second charge would cause it to not kill enough of them to make much of a difference. Having more free time ahead of him, he decided to have a bit of fun with the simulation, and set it on survival.

After nearly an hour in the simulation and beating the scores of the majority of the academy who had done the mode, he left the simulation room and headed back to his dorm and it was only a few minutes when he encountered both Mackenzie and his Captain in the middle of a hallway. He stopped before greeting them

"Good morning, Captain. Ms Fink. What is this about our Captain helping trainees?"

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Carol didn't make it far before she ran into the Talos engineer, Mackinzie Fink. The young girl greeted the captain and offered the last of her breakfast food.

'Did ya eat taday Cap? I heard some a'the trainees talkin about gettin ya ta help em. Knowin you ya said yes.' She shook the slice a bit. 'Go on Cap. It ain't buttered or nothin.' Carol held up a hand to turn down the offer. Then she tried to make sense of Mackinzie's accent. It was hard enough to understand the nation's language as it was and that was people speaking fully proper. Anything other than that and it became a little difficult for Carol to comprehend what the person was saying. Mackinzie had been on the team for a year or two so Carol was at least able to understand most of what the engineer said. When the girl first joined, the captain would be lucky to get half of a sentence.

"That is quite alright, Mackinzie. You need the energy more than I do since your is a bit more physical." Before Carol could say anything more the Talos Second in Command walked up to the two.

"Good morning, Captain. Ms Fink. What is this about our Captain helping trainees?"

He must have overheard Mackinzie. Carol thought to herself. She forgot how fast word can spread for the engineer to have already known about the act. The academy was still a school for teenagers.

"A trio of trainees asked for some advice on the outdoor range with sniping. I taught them the basic stance as well as the one I use. I felt it is best to teach the younger students what we can. Our lives may very well be in their hands one day." Carol glanced at her watch again. Then she looked to the two teammates. "By any chance, have you two been informed where our briefing is? I just know of a time but I wasn't informed where. Maybe someone from the Orion squad may know. Care to join me in going to their dorm? Or do you have other matters to take care of first? So long as you keep in contact I can let you know where we will meet." Carol looked to her two Talos team members. Both were very proficient at their jobs and assets to the team. She couldn't imagine anyone else being in their place. Whenever Carol thought about her teammates she was reminded that it was Talos Squad that was superior to all the other squads at the academy, hands down. All she had to do was blatantly prove it to the headmaster by outperforming the Orion squad at every opportunity.

Axel glared daggers at Carter, especially after calling Lili sweetcheeks. He was tempted to reach over, and smack the guy with his robot arm. As Carter sat down next to him, Axel got up, and grabbed his sleeveless shirt. When Carter mentioned something about him, and Lili getting it on his cheeks turned red. "Shut it Carter or else I'm slapping that stupid goatee off your face!" He growled as he pulled his shirt over his head. "If you guy's must know I didn't beat him. I was so close too, but I got sloppy, and over confident." He explained as he finished putting on his shirt.

"Lord Mustache made sure to remind me that we've got a mission today. Evidently it's a real mission, and not that patter crap we've been getting. Might get to see some real action!" He said with some excitement. "I'm supposed to make sure Talos knows." He said as he grabbed his coat, and threw it on. He went over to a row of lockers that is for his teams weapons, and entered a code on a holographic key pad to open up his. He grabbed his pistol. and attached his holster to his hip. "And now I have to deal with the Russian." He sighed as he peered down the sights of his pistol. He did a show-off cowboy-style spin of the gun before holstering it.

"I'll be back. Make sure you guy's get your breakfast ate, and all that good stuff." He ordered as he started out towards the door. "And eat something other then fruit. I think we've got some meat in the fridge. You need some meat on your bones!" He said as he playfully messed with Lili's hair before leaving. He's not quite sure how he's supposed to deal with his feelings for her. He values his friendship with her above all else, but he'd be lying if he said he's never thought about her in ways other then his best friend. But he's always been worried about messing things up, and ruining his friendship with her.

He walked the halls of the academy looking for the Talos team. If he didn't find them out in the halls he'd just go straight to their room. But it was his lucky day, and he found three of them. "Hey Mak!" He greeted. "Headmaster Mustache wanted me to make sure you guys remember the missions today. Hate for you guys to get showed up by us without even trying."

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Carol's eyebrow twitched at the sound of hearing the nickname she despised. Axel was only too fond of giving nicknames to others and she truly hated hers.

"Headmaster Mustache wanted me to make sure you guys remember the missions today. Hate for you guys to get showed up by us without even trying."

Carol allowed an amused smirk to appear on her face.

"You think you can outdo Talos Squad? It's not my place to get on others for being optimistic but at least make realistic goals. My team is made up of the elite. I've seen your squad prance and joke around. On our next mission I suggest you sit back and watch. I don't want you getting in my squad's way or distracting us." Carol leaned forward a bit so that her eye level was on the same as Axel's.

"You got that...runt?" Carol let out a breath as she stood straight again. "Where is the briefing taking place anyway? I believe the Headmaster has informed you where it will be, yes? We haven't received such information yet."

Jules nodded his head at Lili as she entered the room tiredly and snorted as she commented on their earliness. Carter swaggered in, looking tired as well but still mischievous. Jules tuned the man out, thinking about his project's problems, until he heard his name.

"Oh yeah, and Jules smile for me will ya'? I love it when you smile."

Julian rarely fully smiled, but Carter always knew how to make him laugh. At this moment he gave a sort of half smile, which was still an accomplishment for Carter.

"It's because I'm so beautiful isn't it," he chuckled softly and took a sip of his coffee contentedly. This was the kind of thing he loved, listening to the other's banter and feeling safe and happy.

As Carter made a comment about the state of Lili and Axel's relationship Jules looked on in amusement. Everyone knew that the two had a thing for each other, but we're too nervous to figure out that they both liked each other. Jules thought about his love interest for a moment but then shook it off. Why did all the people he liked have to be straight? He shook his head and tuned back into the conversation again, because Axel seed to be saying something important. He had his serious face on.

"Lord Mustache made sure to remind me that we've got a mission today. Evidently it's a real mission, and not that patter crap we've been getting. Might get to see some real action!" He said with some excitement. "I'm supposed to make sure Talos knows."

Jules perked up at this, a real mission with Talos was exciting, he just had to figure out the ATOs on time. With that, Axel left, commenting on how they should eat more, but Jules went and sat down on the couch instead, content with his coffee and supplement. He wondered what the mission was, hopefully not too dangerous, because then it would be a good opportunity to test out some new add-ons and equipment.

"I suppose we should all shower or put on presentable clothes at least," he said to the two still left in the room, old habits of presentation kicking in. This briefing seemed like something that they should halfway try and look nice for, especially if they wanted to outshine Talos, which Jules didn't particularly care about, but he knew the others did.