KINETIC

"I would prefer it if you stuck with 'Leo' when we're in private. That goes for all of you." Leo said, returning the smile.

"Your assistant said you wanted to see all of us, what do you need?" Clay asked.

"I've got a feeling you already know why." Leo replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Maybe, but I'd like it if you confirmed our suspicions." Clay replied with a shrug and a small smile.

~Sigh~ "As you probably already guessed, I'm going to appoint each of you to one of the open positions within my platoon."

Everyone had already assumed this would happen so they weren't surprised, except for Cain that is.

"Wait seriously!? Us? As like lieutenants and stuff!? Awesome." Cain was ecstatic.

"Did you seriously not realize this before we got here?" Clay let out a small chuckle at his friends sudden outburst.

"Come on, you know I was always the dumbest out of the four of us back home!" Cain replied with a smile. After a moment had passed and both Cains and Clay's smiles faded.

"Cain, we made a promise." Clay said with a serious tone.

"I know, I know. It was an accident, I wasn't thinking..." Cain replied with a tone of regret.

"What are you guys..." Leonard began saying but was quickly interrupted.

"We should probably continue with the platoon positions, right Leo?" Clay smiled and locked eyes with Leo.

"Uh... Yeah, sure." Leo awkwardly replied. ~Ahem~ "So I cant put you all in the same rank since there would be no point having 10 Colonels and no Lieutenants, so this is the best I can do."

Leo got up from behind his desk and walked around it so he was standing with his friends 'I should put some couches or something in here...' he thought as he noticed there was no place for people to sit besides his own chair.

"Clay and Nila, the two of you are being promoted to Colonel, while the rest of you are being promoted to Captain." Leo said.

"I thought we would get distributed a bit more, but the lowest rank among us is Captain." Clay said with a surprised tone.

"Yeah well, I actually wish we had one more person in our group. With all of you there are two Colonels and three Captains. I need one more person for a fourth Captain." Leo explained.

"Oh, well it shouldn't be too hard to find one. There's plenty of strong and intelligent people to choose from." Leonard pointed out enthusiastically.

"Yeah well, I had planned to have Heath join as the other Captain but he already joined the second Platoon as a Colonel. I didn't pay attention to anyone besides you guys while we were at the academy, so I don't have anyone else in mind." Leo let out a sigh.

"To be fair, we were only at the academy for a few weeks so I don't think anyone got to know each other too well in that time." Nila bluntly added.

"That's true. Then it's even more important that you pick the right person. It should be someone that's got some kind of reputation behind them. All of us were among the strongest in the academy so nobody will question our positions." Clay thought back to the day they had the ability test.

He tried to remember if anyone particularly stood out but he could only think of the people in the room with him or those that are associated with Snythe.

"Well I've organized a training session for the platoon tomorrow. I'd appreciate it if you all kept your eyes open for anyone promising. All of your uniforms have been taken to your rooms, Kelly will show you where they are. Only captains and above get their own rooms so you should all be pretty comfortable." Leo explained before sitting back in his chair.

The others all started to leave the room but before they could Leo stopped Rene and asked her to stay behind.

"The others will all be keeping an eye out tomorrow for someone they think could become our fourth Captain, but you will not be doing the same." Leo said.

"Why not? Is there something else you want me to do instead?" Rene asked, her tone showing her confusion.

"Yes. Your ability is one that supports others through healing. The other people with similar abilities are all going to be placed under your command. It's going to be your responsibility to distribute them into the other squads as evenly as you can."

"Tomorrow, you're going to focus on finding the best among the support abilities and take down their names. Then I want you to start creating a list of what you think is the best way to distribute them would be." Leo explained.

"Oh, yeah I can definitely do that." Rene said with smile.

"Thank you. Kelly should be back soon and then she can show you where your room is. I honestly don't know where it is, otherwise I would've taken you there myself, sorry." Leo said with an apologetic tone.

"It's alright, I'll see you tomorrow." She gave Leo a sweet smile before turning and leaving the room.

'They girl has the biggest crush on you.' Dreifus suddenly said.

'What!? No way...' Leo paused for a moment 'Do you really think so?'

'Yeah, it's pretty obvious.' Dreifus answered.

'Not to me it isn't.' Leo said, annoyed at his own ignorance.

'What do you think of her?'

Leo thought about it for a moment before replying 'I find her attractive but I don't really see her in a romantic way, if that makes sense.'

'Sure it does, well logically at least. I don't understand why you don't think of her that way but you probably don't know either so we can just leave it at that.' Dreifus 'shrugged' and stopped speaking.

Leo was grateful that Dreifus didn't press him for more information because Dreifus was right. He had no idea why he felt the way he did and truth be told he chose to ignore most of his feelings towards girls as of late.

'My life isn't exactly simple and it's probably just going to get more complicated as time goes by. Adding romance into that will just make things more difficult.'

Leo thought as he walked to his own room and turned in for the night.

***

The next morning came and just as Leo had finished getting dressed there was a knock on his door. Opening the door, he saw that his assistant, Kelly, was standing on the other side.

"Good morning, General."

"Good morning, Kelly." Leo replied, feeling slightly awkward at his title being used to greet him.

"They're currently serving breakfast in the cafeteria downstairs but I could bring food to your office for you if you would prefer." Kelly said as she stepped aside so Leo could walk through the doorway.

"I'd rather eat with my fr... The Colonels and Captains I appointed yesterday." Leo stopped himself from referring to them as his friends. He felt it would be better to try and keep things professional around the other Infernai.

After hearing his preference, Kelly lead Leo down to the cafeteria. There were no doors leading into this room and people were going in and out constantly.

While at the academy, the trainees were taught how to act around people with higher ranks than themselves and as a result most of them stepped to the side of the hallway and greeted Leo by saying 'General' as he passed them.

When he reached the cafeteria, and everyone inside noticed his presence, they all stood to their feet and stood at attention.

'Oh... I forgot they were supposed to do this if a General entered a room.' Leo thought.

"At ease." Leo said and everyone went back to their meals. 'Thankfully I managed to remember what a general is meant to say in this situation. It was only mentioned once.' Leo let out a sigh of relief.

Leo looked around the room and spotted his friends all sitting at a table together, Leonard was with them as well.

"Good morning." Leo said as he sat down at the table.

"Good morning." Everyone greeted back.

There was a silence for a moment before someone finally spoke. "It's so awkward getting greeted everytime I walk passed someone." Rene suddenly said.

"It really is." Clay agreed with a sigh.

"It's no different than when you're a noble so it doesn't bother me." Nila added before taking a bite of some bread.

"I kinda like it." Cain said and Leonard agreed.

"I'm just glad the whole room didn't stand up when we walked in." Clay said, causing the entire table to chuckle slightly, including Leo.

"Oh yeah, I wanted to ask you about this yesterday but I forgot when you mentioned our rooms and uniforms. What kind of training did you plan for everyone today?" Leonard asked as everyones laughing started to fade.

"I thought it would be best if we had some group mock battles. We'll split the Privates into different groups of four and have them fight each other with an objective. It should make it easy for them to show off their abilities." Leo explained.

"Objectives? What kind of objectives?" Clay asked with a curious tone.

"I was thinking capture the flag." Leo said with a shrug.