Rowan was still trying to square the two sides of her in his head as Hood and Bismarck approached.
They were bickering. Well... more accurately, Hood was bickering. Bismarck was answering in single, razor-edged syllables that somehow had the power to raise Hood's blood pressure by the second. Every clipped reply earned a deeper scowl, a sharper huff, another one of those scrunched-up, murderous little princess faces.
But Rowan barely noticed.
His eyes were fixed on the silver-haired Captain of the GNS Bismarck.
Could this really be the same girl who sat by his bedside like it mattered? Who danced in her dorm room, loose and laughing in her underwear? Who ruled over a stuffed animal battalion like she was half warlord, half lonely child?
Could that girl have put someone in the hospital?
Could she be that cold?
He didn't know.
And he didn't get the chance to keep wondering—because that's when the horn sounded.
All across the training yard, heads turned. Fifty students strong, scattered to formation across the field: Rowan, Bismarck, Hood, Wisconsin—all of them frozen for a heartbeat.
Then a door slammed open on the far side of the field, and...
BOOM!
Professor Piorun exploded out of her instructor's shack like a tiny blonde ICBM.
She looked like she'd walked off a recruiting poster for an adult film military parody or the world's sexiest naval recruitment ad.
Blonde hair whipped just past her jawline, sun-kissed and chaotic like it refused to obey regulation. Her naval cap sat tilted with the kind of confident slouch that said she'd earned the right to break dress code. Her jacket was coal black, double-breasted, lined with brass buttons and it hung open over a sports bra that read TAP OR CHOKE in unapologetic block letters.
And the way she stalked back and forth in front of their formation told Rowan, she meant the shirt as a warning label.
Her midriff was lean and carved, all combat-forged tension without an ounce of softness. Long legs braced like she was permanently ready to kick someone through a bulkhead. The whole look screamed "punch first, explain nothing," and her grin was wide, wolfish, and just this side of unhinged. That only made it worse.
Rowan's brain made a noise like a microwave trying to process algebra. And Lightning's thirst processors shot to battle stations.
Piorun wasn't just hot. She was built for violence. Like her existence had been classified until just this moment. Like if you opened the wrong locker at the Pentagon, she'd step out and suplex you.
Rowan had never met the woman, but he already knew one thing for sure:
He was absolutely, 100% not ready.
"I..." she screamed, voice cracking across the square like thunder wrapped in a French accent, "...am here to break you, ladies!"
Every head snapped toward her.
Professor Piorun paced front and center, fists on her hips, sapphire blue eyes blazing with madness or excitement. Rowan couldn't tell which. She was barely five feet tall, all muscle and menace, and somehow her voice projected like a speaker at a Megadeth concert.
"I will turn you from simpering high schoolers into battle maidens!" she bellowed. "Combat ready! Ten thousand percent!"
She marched across the training yard like a general about to storm Normandy, her heavy boots pounding the gravel.
"I will watch how you run. How you fight. How you breathe. You will then follow the schedule I give you. You will obey the diet I prescribe. You will become efficient machines of war!"
She finally stopped pacing and turned to face the formation.
"DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?"
"YES, PROFESSOR PIORUN!" they shouted back in one panicked voice.
"Good! Now left face and move!" She screamed.
She made them march, singing cadence like they were already part of some forgotten war movie.
She punished them with push-ups. Made girls cry with crunches. Jellied their legs with jumping jacks, never letting up, not for a second—not even when the sun started cooking them like they were ants under a microscope.
The coastal heat pressed down from above. Sweat soaked uniforms. Rowan's lungs burned. And then it got worse.
Somewhere in the chaos, upperclassmen had appeared. Perfectly fit, smiling, and far too enthusiastic. They joined in like summoned demons, each one moving in perfect sync with Piorun, barking orders at the younger Captains like it was their birthright.
Drill sergeants in naval miniskirts.
Rowan nearly passed out just from the visual whiplash.
For over an hour, Piorun ran them into the dirt. She didn't take names. She didn't take breaks. She took souls and if you fell she would dispatch one of her imps to harangue you back onto your feet with the most backhanded encouragements known to man or God.
And just when they were about to collapse, just when someone behind Rowan mumbled something about seeing the Virgin Mary...
"Break!" she barked. "Take three minutes, catch your breath. Get ready for sparring."
They had three minutes to remember how to be people. Then they were going to beat the crap out of each other.
Rowan collapsed backward into the sea oats, limbs shaking, lungs wheezing, and whispered to the sky, "I'm gonna die out here."
Lightning, hovering just above his head, nodded solemnly.
"Yeah, but at least you'll die at battle readiness."
"Oh, excellent epitaph. He died in fighting shape." Rowan wheezed. "Won't that look lovely on my gravestone?"
Rowan glanced over and saw that the other members of his class were faring better than he was. Of course they were. Girls trained all through highschool for this moment. Bismarck was breathing heavy but was still upright. Hood was sitting down and stretching. Yamato had entered what looked like some cross-legged meditative pose. Then he glanced over at Wisconsin... and felt his soul leave his body.
She was still bouncing on her toes. Bouncing!
After all that.
She shadowboxed the air like she'd just woken up from a power nap and couldn't wait to commit violence. Sweat rolled down her bronze skin in gleaming rivulets, catching the sun like she'd been sprayed down for a commercial.
The woman looked like an ad for a sports drink!
"Man, oh man!" she shouted, punching the air with a grin wide enough to unsettle the great Satan. "This Professor Piorun really understands a warm-up! I'd kill to have her as my personal trainer!"
Rowan stared at her, half dead in the grass, vision blurring. "How are you still moving?"
"Awww, c'mon, Red! Toughen up! Pain is just weakness leaving the body!" She looked like a goddess of cardio. A golden, muscle-bound predator who had somehow mistaken boot camp for recess.
She cracked her neck and grinned at Rowan. "I cannot wait until the sparring starts! This 3 minutes is taking forever!"
Rowan whimpered quietly.
Lightning hovered beside him, voice flat.
"You're gonna die. You are going to die. That woman is going to punch your soul out through your ribcage and then re-insert it backwards."
"Maybe I'll get lucky and won't get paired with her..." Rowan said half-heartedly as he got to his feet. "Maybe they could pair me with some nice sub captain who is willing to go easy on the new guy."
Lightning sighed, "Rowan, my darling dearest beloved." She looked into his eyes with a mischievous, pitying smirk. "You know damn well you are not that lucky."
Around them, Piorun's cronies began laying out chalk circles in the sand—twenty-five of them, evenly spaced, like ritual sites for some ancient combat cult.
Professor Piorun stalked from ring to ring, hands behind her back, barking names like a naval drill instructor crossed with Bruce Buffer.
"USS Samuel B. Roberts and USS Parche!"
Two girls peeled off from the crowd: one, a tall Black woman with glowing tribal ink coiled down her arms like circuitry; the other, a tiny pale girl who Rowan was pretty sure had ketchup on her cheek… or possibly blood.
They stepped into their circle without a word.
Piorun leaned in, muttered something sharp to them, and moved on.
She called more names as she walked—never pausing, never repeating, her voice cracking like a whip.
"USS Wichita and HMS Adelaide!"
"RNV Varyag and USS Missouri!"
"IJN Yamato and GNS Bismarck!"
That one made heads turn.
Both girls stiffened, then scrambled toward the same circle without waiting for further instruction.
"Go when the bell chimes," Piorun said as she passed them. "Three minutes. Don't be an asshole."
The pattern continued. Circles filled. Cadets squared off. Piorun kept naming names until...
Twenty-five rings.
Twenty-four pairs.
Rowan hadn't been called. Oh crap...
He blinked. Looked around and counted again, hoping he was wrong.
Nope. No such luck.
His stomach dropped like an anchor. He turned his head slowly and there she was.
USS Wisconsin.
Still grinning. Still bouncing on her toes like she hadn't even warmed up yet.
She cracked her neck again and stepped lightly into the final empty circle, and made a sexy little come hither gesture with her fingers. "Guess it's me and you, Red."
Rowan's mouth went dry.
Lightning whispered in his head.
"Okay. Okay. You've got this. Maybe she only looks like she bench-presses missiles for fun..." but there was absolutely no faith in that statement. "On second thought... Just do your best not to get brain damage. I can fix everything else. Just protect your head and your liver."
Rowan didn't move.
Wisconsin's grin widened.
"C'mon, Romeo. Don't leave me hangin'." she purred at him. Even from this distance he could tell she was vibrating with excitement. Rowan started to vibrate with fear.
He didn't hear when Piorun said their names. He was trying to work out a scheme or plan. He began to contemplate the penalty for arson when...
"Mon dieux, are you deaf, Takeda? Get in there!" Piorun barked, voice sharp enough to flay paint off metal.
Rowan flinched like he'd been struck. His legs moved before his brain did, carrying him forward on pure panic. He stepped into the circle, every limb shaking like he was a controller with a vibration setting.
Unlike the other matches, Piorun didn't walk away. She stayed to watch.
Hands on her hips. Eyes sharp and calculating. Her presence felt like a countdown to something explosive.
"Three minutes," she said. "Go when the bell sounds. Anything goes. Hardlight, fists weapons... just don't be a prick. Don't stop 'til it sounds again. And if either of you gets lazy on me…"
She leaned forward slightly, voice low and lethal.
"I'll have your guts for garters."
Rowan whimpered internally.
Lightning whimpered externally. "What the hell does that even mean? I don't want to be worn like socks!"
Then Piorun turned her head toward Wisconsin.
"And you," she said. "If I think you're holding back, you'll run 'til you puke."
Wisconsin's grin sharpened.
Her circuit seals flared to life, casting muzzle-flash orange light across her shoulders and chest. Those little comic book explosions and stars burned like gunfire.
She rolled one shoulder back, then the other, and cracked her knuckles slow.
"No way, Professor." Her voice was honey and heat. "I've been soooo looking forward to this!"
Rowan didn't have time to really contemplate his fate before the chime sounded.
And Wisconsin launched herself at him like a jet off a catapult.
Her fist lit up mid-air, wrapped in blazing red-orange hardlight that pulsed like a warning flare. Rowan barely had time to blink before she was on him.
The Superman punch hit his forearms like a battering ram. He managed to cover up just in time, but it didn't matter—her momentum drove him back, his heels carving trenches in the sand until he tripped and went down hard.
"Holy crap," he thought, blinking up at the sky as the breath left his lungs. "Her arms are pneumatic."
But she didn't stop.
Wisconsin dove on him, slamming her fist into his jaw and straddling his waist in one fluid motion. She then began raining blows down on his guard, each one heavier than the last. Rowan covered his face with his arms just to stop the brutality. Her fists came down like hammers, punishing his ribs, arms, shoulders. She was lighting him up like a heavy bag.
Rowan grunted, teeth clenched, arms shaking under the barrage.
Then she paused, and put her hands on her hips, looking into his eyes and rolling her crotch playfully against his torso with a feral little grin, still perched on top of him, sweat glistening, circuit seals burning like muzzle flare.
"Professor," she called sweetly, "you want to stand us up, or do I just keep pummeling him?"
Piorun didn't even hesitate. "Bell didn't go, did it?" She spat into the sand. "If I was you, Takeda, I'd fight back." Then she looked into Temper Temper's eyes. "USS Wisconsin, crush him."
Wisconsin grinned. "Aye aye, ma'am."