Soter shot up straight in his cot as cold water slapped him in the face, dragging him back to consciousness. The cold sensation penetrated his skin like needles, and he gasped as he tried to fill his lungs with air.
"Wake your lazy ass up, Soter," a gruff voice hollered at him. "I'm tired of you sleeping in! What do you think this is? Your own personal penthouse in the Upper Meridian?"
"Eughh, shut it, old man, I'm tired of your nagging." Soter groaned back, spitting out water as he pushed his now drenched hair off his face. "Now my shirt is soaked thanks to you."
"That's no way to talk to your colonel, you lazy son-of-a-bitch." Colonel Grey retorted as he threw a rag at him to wipe off his face. "At least you're soaked in water this time and not blood. Water doesn't look suspicious to the enforcers when you stumble around the city covered in it."
"Hey, well, most of that wasn't mine anyway." Soter shot back as he swung his legs off the edge of the bed and rose to his feet. He reached down and grabbed his boots out from under the rickety metal cot and slipped them on, swiftly tying the laces.
"Well, be that as it may, that doesn't make the Conclave's enforcers any less suspicious when they see a boy running around with his shirt ripped up and covered in blood," the colonel said as he started walking back down the row of beds.
"That was one time!" Soter protested as he jogged to catch up to the colonel's retreating back.
"Well, one time is enough to ruin the whole operation. It's miraculous that we didn't get busted." The colonel said without sparing Soter so much as a glance over his shoulder.
"I already apologized a million times, old man. What else do you want?" Soter grumbled.
"I want you to be more responsible." Grey snapped as he turned to him. "I don't want to keep cleaning up after your messes."
Soter stopped in his tracks and glared at the back of the captain, letting him walk further away from him until he finally shouted, just as the captain walked through the doorway at the very end of the bunks, "Well, even if I make messes, you still need me! I'm the best fighter you've got!" Grey didn't respond. Soter huffed in frustration.
Stupid old man. He knows that they need me and my squad; otherwise, we would have suffered far more casualties on the last mission. Soter exited the bunks and headed towards the mess hall for breakfast.
He walked down the labyrinth of pathways that the Lower Meridian's "Army of Freedom" had created over the span of more than 100 years. Far longer than anyone in the lower meridian had been alive, only the undying monsters of the upper meridian could have been walking the earth when the tunnels were first being built. Soter continued down grey concrete tunnels, as if he was on autopilot, the route engraved in his brain from the years growing up in the base. He finally turned the last corner and entered the mess hall. A wave of sound accosted his ears as the noise of a few thousand hungry men, women, and children washed over him. He walked to where the rest of the main fighting force was seated and plopped down on a bench with the rest of his squad.
"Sleeping Beauty decided to wake up, huh?" Soter's lieutenant, Quintin, laughed as he poked Soter in the ribs.
"Yeah, yeah…" Soter replied, "I slept in, but that's only because I've been too overworked keeping your asses safe on the field."
"Ohhh, my glorious captainnn, how can I serve you?" Jet said as she sat down opposite Soter, a large tray of food in her hands.
"I don't want to hear it from you, Plane," Soter said, shooting her a glare that would have made most other soldiers in the hall run away. "That's no way to talk to your captain now, is it?"
"Ohhh noooo, I've offended our great leader," she replied mockingly, pretending to bow. "And stop calling me Plane! You know it pisses me off."
Soter rolled his eyes and proceeded to lean over the table, grabbing a muffin off her tray.
"Hey! That was mine!" she protested.
"Well, you insulted your captain, so now I'm taking my compensation," Soter responded as he undid the wrapper.
"Uggghh, you're such a pain in the ass!" Jet said as she pulled her tray out of his reach.
"Haha, that's certainly a kind way to put it," Quintin snorted into the cup of synthetic juice in his hand.
"The only pain in the ass that you have, Quintin, is the one you got from falling flat on its last mission," Soter replied, raising an eyebrow at his lieutenant. Quintin looked around with a slight flush in his cheeks. "You promised you wouldn't bring that up!" he hissed at Soter. Soter just shrugged, a mischievous look on his face, and took a bite of his stolen muffin.
Luther, the defense specialist of Soter's squad and a giant of a man, laughed around a mouthful of his large plate of protein pancakes. "Look at little Jet getting all mad about stealing something that doesn't belong to you!"
Jet scowled at Luther and rolled her eyes at the giant. "Hey, I thought you, of all people, would be sympathetic to someone whose food was stolen, seeing as you eat enough of it that losing anything should be a huge deal!" She retorted.
Ciel smiled gently at the two bickering and whispered something under her breath that nobody heard. Tyr tilted his head at the two of them in a questioning manner, as if unsure of what exactly was going on. Those two are always a little odd, I suppose. Soter thought to himself as he watched his squad bicker, and he smiled as they finished their breakfast.
Then, loudly over the loudspeaker, the voice of Colonel Grey broke through the din of the mess hall.
"Squad S, report to the General's office immediately."
Oh hell. Soter inwardly groaned as he looked up at the low, cracked concrete ceiling, then down at the half-eaten muffin in his hands. Before shoving himself to his feet, "Let's go then," he said to Jet and Quintin.