The Elite

Fourteen

Julian

"Toxin," Min said angrily as she stormed into the sim room. "What were you thinking?"

"Ma'am?" Toxin asked, a look of confusion on her face.

"Why did you suddenly burst in and start attacking?" Min questioned. "You killed Katrina and disoriented Gabriel, resulting in letting Ground-digger get away."

I was glad I wasn't the only one pissed by Toxin's actions. It made me hope that we wouldn't be judged as failures because Toxin destroyed my well-crafted plan.

"I was trying to help," Toxin defended. "They needed it."

"They had it all under control!" Min fumed.

Toxin sent me a glance that suggested she highly doubted we had the situation 'under control', making me see she doubted our capabilities as much as Windslayer did. To her, it must have seemed impossible we'd ever manage to do anything right.

"How could they have control of the situation?" Toxin asked. "They're weak and not very coordinated."

"Julian came up with a brilliant strategy," Min explained. "He had Diamond focus on him so Nadia could sneak up and attack her when she wasn't paying attention. He purposefully trapped Gabriel and Katrina in the back room with Bugs and Ground-digger so Katrina could use her telekinesis to squash the bugs and Gabriel could prevent Ground-digger from going anywhere. Then Nadia could sneak in with an attack. It was great until you ruined it."

To my shock, Toxin actually looked guilty at messing everything up. Somehow, I'd thought she'd try to convince Min that we were bound to screw up, not take responsibility for her mistake. That was what I knew Doomsday would do.

"Sorry, ma'am," she apologized. "I guess I just assumed that Squad 16 was still... less than great at doing their jobs."

"That is no excuse," Min said harshly — although distinctly less harsh than I'd come to suspect Okeke would. "For such a mishap, my judgment is that your shoulder stripes should remain red, rather than be upgraded to crimson."

Personally, I felt that such a punishment wasn't a huge deal. There weren't many Elite who rose to having red shoulder stripes — the second highest rank — so it wasn't like there were many people who'd now have to do what Toxin said upon becoming crimson. It may have been the top, but it wasn't much beyond red.

I, however, deserved a promotion. Having gone on my first mission qualified me to finally have a better rank than being "in training", so I deserved a better shoulder stripe color than yellow.

"Doomsday," Min said, rounding on Squad 2's leader. "You should have listened to Julian's advice. Clearly, he is an excellent strategist, so if you ever do an exercise with him again, make sure to let him give you advice."

Doomsday was very obviously not as willing to take criticism as Toxin, for he started objecting straight away. Even though he was a jerk, I understood why he was feeling the way he was.

He thought — and the Elite no doubt encouraged — that he was all-powerful, and therefore he should be in charge. That sort of constant praise stoked his ego to sky-high levels, making him think he could do no wrong, which led to him thinking he was always right and didn't need anyone else's input. Stupid, really.

"Take his advice?" Doomsday sneered. "He's a nobody with practically no experience. Why should I listen to his bad judgment that will likely get us all killed?"

"Just because I haven't been with the Elite very long doesn't mean I don't have 'experience'," I told Doomsday. "When I was forcibly trained by Master Jobi, he often took me along to battles to 'learn the strategy'. I'm not as stupid as you think."