Swordsman's adventure 29

With the Revolutionaries routed, albeit more banged up than Tanya wanted them to be in the process, the battle between her and “Uncle Guns”, as he referred to himself those years ago, had started to stretch on. 

Strictly speaking, Tanya didn’t need to actually win this fight. If she did, Raml threatened to kill his hostages, which was an issue that she wasn’t entirely clear how to resolve. She could simply lose, of course, which was an unappealing option, but it also didn’t really solve the problem. It was her best idea on how to proceed, though, as while it didn’t solve the underlying problem, it did handle the immediate issue of ‘Revolutionaries are about to get massacred’, due to them running for the hills. 

“You’re looking real tired, brat.” Nozdon said, taking deep breaths of his own. From working with Grandpa, she knew that while their actual strength does decline, the strengthening of haki over time tended to compensate for that. 

“Isn’t it about time for your nap, old man?” Tanya retorted back. No, the biggest difference between a warrior in their prime and in their old age was that the old warriors couldn’t fight for nearly as long as they used to, it’s their endurance that drops the most. “I’ve heard my brig’s quite comfortable.”

“Ol’ Guns still has some ammo, don’t you worry about that.” Nozdon said, puffing up his chest as he tested his range of motion. His arms were littered with hundreds of small cuts, “I could do this all day and still have the pep to play a round of ship tossing with the boys afterwards.”

“In that case…” Tanya said, taking on a stance Nozdon was sure to recognize. “I best step it up, shouldn’t I?”

The old pirate paled. “No… You’ve mastered it?” He shook his head to banish the thought. “You’re bluffing.” He accused, pointing at her rudely. 

“Am I?” Tanya asked rhetorically. “Haven’t you noticed that there’s nothing behind you? Now that my crew has returned to the battlements, there’s nothing holding me back from my strongest attack. The strongest attack.” It was a bit grandiose of a claim, but if you only counted sword techniques it was certainly competitive. Only Father’s Black Blade: Stellar Divider could possibly contest it, of the techniques she knew of. She hadn’t learned that one yet, but Father promised to teach the remainder of his sword techniques, his most powerful ones, after her journey, if she had grown in strength enough to handle them. 

Nozdon scowled at her intimidation. “Okay, maybe you can use it.” He allowed, “But you’re not strong enough to have mastered it.” He said that with conviction, which was convenient because he was correct. “You’d have used it already if you did.”

A double explosion rang out in the sky, so close together as to be difficult to discern. Wait, she knows that cadence. Tanya immediately looked to the skies above the bay where her ship was docked. A series of flares from Ace that exploded into the rough iconography that constituted HSL’s written form. “A moment, Uncle Guns.” She spoke softly, letting her haki convey the message. Louder, she shouted: “The moment you move, I’ll use it. You know it’s fast enough to hit you. The only hope you have is to wait until I commit and only then dodge.”

Nozdon gritted his teeth as he pretended she was correct. “How good is she at it?” He asked himself rhetorically, pretending to be torn. “I can dodge it before she swings, she’s right about that, but if I commit too early, she’ll correct…” 

The message from Ace was as thus: “Danger. Powerful Enemy Ahead. Have Enemy Treasure Treasure.” The repeated treasure indicated that there were exactly two treasures, which was how numbers up to five were handled. “Treasure Took from Fortified position.” What the hell did you do, Ace? “Enemy Do not Want. Fight for Treasure.” Nozdon was also looking in the direction of the flares, confused. “Treasure  Ours. Do not Fight.”

What does it… well, it could mean… but how would Ace know to try? Tanya glanced over at Raml, and focused her Observation on the man. Yes, that is consistent with someone who had just received catastrophically bad news and was desperately trying to hide it. “I believe that my men have staged a successful rescue mission.” Tanya said softly, conveying the words across the battlefield with her haki again. “Raml is terrified.”

Nozdon’s eyes widened in comprehension. “Prove your words!” He shouted, double meaning thick. “I’ll put it all on the line, right now! But know, by taking me down, you condemn two innocent women to death!” He grinned at Raml. “Isn’t that right, Master?” Nozdon may not have Conquerors, so he couldn’t pull the ‘convey words across a mile or more’ trick she used, but Armament could amplify one’s voice like any other physical action. 

The tanned man startled at suddenly being addressed. “T-that’s right!” He shouted with bravado, his amplifier Den Den Mushi conveying his words across the battlefield. “His service buys two other criminals a stay from execution. If he was no longer fit to serve me, that criminal scum would have nothing else stopping them from losing their heads!”

Tanya tutted. “Trying to stop an agent of the World Government by taking a hostage? Another crime. What made you think that would work?” She turned to Nozdon. “How do you even know they still live? He could have offed them days ago for all you know.”

“Part of our agreement is that I can speak to one of them twice a day to confirm.” Nozdon said, “At times of my choosing. Even if I haven’t spoken to my daughter for the last week.”

“Well, they’re about to die, so I see no reason to not allow you some last words with them.” Tanya said magnanimously, relaxing her stance. “Go ahead, tell them about how you’re about to be defeated by Dracule D. Tanya, heir to the World’s Strongest Swordsman.”

“Now?” Raml shouted, “You’re in the middle of a battle! Attack her! Or better, go chase the Revolutionaries!”

“Get Takara’s voice on the Den Den Mushi right now or you die!” Nozdon roared. 

“The World Government prefers to not extrajudicially kill criminals when possible.” Tanya said sympathetically. “I’ll have to stop you.” Idly, she bowed down, grabbed a flare from Saifu’s waiting jaws (such a smart dog, knowing she wanted this one before she asked) and fired it into the air, whistling before popping twice. This one meant: “Message received.” Saifu scrambled off to hide from the battle. She had run out of pistols a while ago. 

Instead of continuing to bluff, however… Raml just started running. Nozdon roared, and leapt toward the city. 

“No you don’t!” Tanya shouted, still performing. This was the perfect opportunity. “Divine Departure!” She shouted, launching the attack. The ex-Roger pirate used full body Hardening to withstand it, and was launched towards the ocean at an even faster pace than before. She was better at the technique from when she used it on Oyabun, but she deliberately held back the full strength anyway, as while this was great practice in honing her intent, fighting without having significant emotional investment in destroying her opponent and using Conquerors-laced attacks anyway, she just couldn’t bring out the attack’s full potential without that killing intent. 

Saifu leapt onto her back as Tanya cursed loudly, and started jumping after the man. 

-------------------------

The next hour or two was chaotic, but proceeded mostly as planned: Raml was grabbed and conveyed to Rear Admiral Pomsky, who imprisoned him for the crime of enslaving someone without a pretext, as the World Government only cares about banning the practice because it was voted on in a Reverie, and they go along with it because the Celestial Dragons love flaunting their immunity from the law, so making things they already do illegal lets them do it even more, and that particular crime also represented a status symbol, so they hated those who commit it even more for the impudence. So the only crime he committed was not pretending his enslavement of the man was legitimate employment. Well, and the false imprisonment, but the idea that such a charge would stick was ludicrous. Even the actual charge of slavery wasn’t a guaranteed conviction: Raml was rich, after all. 

Officially, Nozdon landed in the ocean and was presumed dead, as is standard for people who land in the Grand Line’s waters and don’t turn up quickly. You don’t get bounty payouts without proof, though, so she stomped around angrily over that in front of Pomsky to sell the coverup. 

Unofficially… “My treasures!” Nozdon cried, tears running down his face as he embraced his wife and child on The Argent, sailing to their home back on Stella. “I’m so glad you’re safe!”

“What exactly did you two do, and am I going to see a bounty poster with your faces on it?” Tanya asked her two boneheads, who were hanging their heads in apology, if not shame. 

“Ten asked me for help.” Ace explained, “I couldn’t let a little girl-” His head exploded into flame. 

“I’m not a little girl!” Ten screeched, her arms still bound within the bear hug her father had put her in. How did she…

“You are a lot shorter than I expected, I’ll admit.” Tanya said to her old acquaintance. She didn’t look like she aged a day… Well, except for her dark blue hair. Hair that long took years to grow… “Aren’t you five years older than me?”

“She takes after her mother!” Nozdon laughed, snorting as he laughed through the snot that oozed out during his cry. 

“More like my mother.” Nozdon’s wife, Seagull Takara, said in fond amusement. While Ten was short and petite enough that she could be easily mistaken for a preteen, Takara was a little taller and thicker: if she dressed less like an Skypeian matron, used a fashionable haircut instead of a ponytail hung in front of her shoulder, and had some makeup to hide the subtle signs of age, she’d be able to get away with claiming to be fourteen. “My whole family’s pretty small, so it’s not that surprising.”

“Wait, you’re older than I am?” Kuina asked, shocked. She was only eighteen… “But-”

“I know!” Ten shouted, furious. “I’ve heard it all before! Get it through your skulls: I’m just small!”

“Anyway, we broke into that fortress castle thing to get Ten’s mom out of there. The guy they had there was pretty strong, so I had to figure out a new move to beat him.” Ace said, clearly proud of himself. 

“That’s a yes on the bounty then…” Tanya groaned. “Luckily, this is something I can play off. So I won’t kick you off the crew for your recklessness with the law.” Raml’s own criminal behavior meant that she could simply claim Warlord immunity: there were limits to that, but this shouldn’t be enough of a problem, with Pomsky’s possession of ‘someone to blame’. 

“Really?” Ace asked, surprised. “Awesome!”

“Well, you are family.” Tanya allowed. Nozdon’s head snapped up in confusion. “Speaking of which: Ace? This is my Uncle Guns. Uncle Guns? This is Ace. Your old Captain’s son.”

Ace was forcibly pulled into the hug, squishing Ten between the three people. Naturally, Ace’s logia intangibility failed in the face of the haki user’s emotions. “Come on, bring it in!” Nozdon said cheerfully. Sighing in resignation, Tanya stepped closer and was similarly squished to the old man’s flabby torso. There was an iron pillar of muscle beneath it, of course, but his gut was well-padded. 

“Can’t… breathe…” Ace complained. 

“Meh, I strangle myself worse than this every day.” Tanya said boredly. In comparison to her bindings, this was nothing. 

“I’m used to much thinner air, I’m fine.” Takara said brightly. 

“I’ve got breath to spare.” Ten said idly, visibly not breathing but not seeming to be bothered by that. 

“So we’re taking them with us?” Kuina asked, deciding to ignore the comedy show. 

“Oh no.” Tanya said, “The World Government gives me a lot of leeway due to Father’s Warlord status, but directly harboring a four hundred fifty million bounty is not within that.”

“I’ve got a skyship ready for emergencies, we’re just going to move back to a sky Island and hide out.” Nozdon said, still hugging everyone. Ace turned his mouth to fire and somehow parlayed that into breathing despite his chest getting crushed. 

“I don’t want to hide, Dad.” Ten said tiredly. “Can I go with Tanya instead?”

“Well that’s not up to me, sweetie.” Nozdon said indulgently. “But if Tanya allows it, you have my blessing. She can keep you safe.” He had still not let any of them go. 

“Do you have any special skills?” Tanya asked. As another descendent of a Roger pirate, she was a good candidate for her crew. She already knew that Ten had inherited her father’s brute strength, but has she refined that into being trained in combat? 

“I can cook.” Ten said immediately. Also, her father being a pirate meant she knew what skills were valuable to a ship. 

“She’s really good.” Ace said, his voice sounding strange when his vocal chords were turned into fire. “I had some of her cooking yesterday.”

“I taught her everything I know.” Takara said, rubbing her nose in her daughter’s hair affectionately. 

“She’s always loved helping in the kitchen.” Nozdon agreed, squeezing them one more time. He still didn’t let go, though. 

“Excellent.” Tanya said, “Welcome aboard, then. I’m sure you’ll find your employment contract acceptable.”

Boenkyo hooted from the crow’s nest. Glancing up to look at her signal, Tanya cleared her throat. “She said: I see the boat.” This was a translation, of course. 

Nozdon took two steps and glanced over in the direction of the island they were going around. “No, that’s not our fishing boat, that’s Pepper’s. They’re two miles down the coast from us.”

“I’m going to need my hands for this.” Tanya said. 

“I got it, Captain.” Deuce said, hooting for Boenkyo’s attention. “Wrong Ship. Continue Spying.” He signed, getting the tense of ‘Look’ wrong, accidentally including the modifier for ‘sneakily’ rather than the one that indicated that the verb would be done for an extended period. He did, however, properly indicate that it was an instruction. 

“...Close enough.” Tanya said, doing a hoot to draw attention and a set of clicks that roughly meant ‘Almost, think it through’, which was frequently used when she was teaching HSL. 

Deuce knew that combination, though, so he repeated his signs to himself before realizing his mistake. “Keep Surveying.” He signed with confidence. 

“Acknowledged.” Boenkyo signed back. 

“Correct.” Tanya said, “Those two modifiers are pretty similar, so you have to be careful not to mix them up.”

“Aye aye, Captain.” Deuce said, smirking as he did nothing to help her predicament. 

“It has been a while since I’ve seen the humandrills.” Nozdon said with a bit of fondness. “We didn’t stay on Gloom Island long, but we did teach them how to dance.”

“I heard that story.” Tanya acknowledged. “Unfortunately, the memories of the humandrills are rather short, Grandpa was disappointed they didn’t remember it.” Tanya wished she knew how long it took them to forget skills previously, but hopefully the new language would help them develop institutional knowledge. If not… Well, she did always have doubts as to whether the monkeys could become an independent society long term, instead of just being particularly clever animal partners to a human one. It wasn’t the worst fate, dogs and cats did fine. 

“Pururururu.” Said the Den Den mushi. Deuce walked into her office, picked up the cat-sized snail with the phone attached to its shell, and presented the receiver to her. “Gacha.” The snail’s eyes intensified as its expressive face did its best ‘Dracule Mihawk’ impression, which was instantly recognizable. 

“Tanya here.” She said easily in greeting. “I’m a little tied up right now, but I can spare a few seconds.”

Father’s voice was faintly amused. “I just received an interesting call from Vice-Admiral Garp. Something about his idiot grandson getting himself in trouble in your vicinity? Would you happen to know anything about that?”

Ace gasped, a belch of flame coming out. “Gramps?” He said, panicked. 

“News traveled quickly.” Tanya commented. “Pomsky must have friends in high places. Yes, I happened to pick up Vice-Admiral Garp’s wayward grandson in the East Blue, and while on shore leave he went off and did a dashing rescue of a fair lady, without regard as to who was holding said lady. I wasn’t really involved.”

“I see.” Father replied, “They don’t have his name, just a picture. I also heard something about you failing to capture a bounty, do you have an explanation for that?” Even the secondhand gaze from the den den mushi’s impersonation was intense. 

“In my defense, his bounty was four hundred and fifty million.” Tanya said, “Also, I won that fight, he just got away.”

“I was going easy.” Nozdon insisted. 

“Haven’t seen him since.” Tanya repeated, giving the man a glare. She didn’t own a white den den mushi, her calls could be tapped! “So does Ace have a bounty now?” Tanya asked, curious. 

“They haven’t posted it officially yet.” Father said, “Garp doesn’t know what they’ll be settling on, but it’s probably in the ten to fifty million range. Logia devil fruits tend to inflate low bounties.”

“That makes sense, given how I earned mine.” Tanya replied. Her understanding was that using Conquerer’s haki in her escape, being a complete unknown capable of it, vastly inflated her bounty, so the flame flame fruit doing something similar made sense. “But if you’ll cover for him, I’d appreciate it. Try to extract a favor from Garp for doing so, though. The man may be a wild card, but it should be useful if we don’t push him too far with it.”

“Is there a particular reason you’re going out of your way for this boy?” Father asked, a hint of danger in his tone. “Tell me, boy, do you often go around shirtless?”

“All the time.” Ten said, drool escaping her lips. “It’s like a buffet…” Wasn’t that the tru-damn it! 

“Ten, you’re not helping.” Tanya deadpanned. 

The den den mushi looked more contemplative. “Ten? As in…” He trailed off. 

“Yes, that Ten. On an unrelated note, did Garp reveal which bounty I was chasing?” Tanya asked. 

“He did not.” Father said, “I think I understand what’s going on now, but there’s still the matter of-”

“Well, he’s related to Ten.” Tanya explained, indirectly. “Their fathers served on the same ship, you know how it is.”

“Oh?” Father’s voice was quiet, taking a moment to digest the implications of her words. “I’ll see it done, then.”

“Thank you, Father.” Tanya said sweetly. 

“Enjoy your trip. Gacha.” The den den mushi’s expression went flat, settling into a sleepy neutrality as the connection cut. 

Boenkyo announced seeing another fishing boat. Once Nozdon took a look, he finally let go of everyone, pointing at it and confirming that it was the right vessel. Ace gasped as his actual lungs took in air for the first time in twenty minutes. Everyone else managed to recover with more dignity than that. 

-------------------------

With Nozdon and Takara safely back on their island and Ten’s luggage brought onto the ship, along with her employment contract drafted and signed, they still had a whole day before the log pose was due to reset, so they went and found an otherwise unoccupied island to do some training. 

After some rest after a long day, of course. And there was one matter more important than training: breakfast. Ten’s skills were not exaggerated, she whipped up some fluffy pancakes for breakfast, along with some fried fish and also some eggs from the literal chicken coop that was now on her ship: it wasn’t very large, but there were now two dozen chickens and a rooster eating bugs, fish guts, fish scales, fish bones, a bag of cheap grain, leftovers… pretty much just stuff they didn’t want to eat got turned into eggs, and if they ever find it difficult to feed them? Well, chicken dinner time. 

Apparently, Ten was quite good with animals, and developed the chicken flock on Nozdon’s homestead basically on her own, so she was loath to part with them. But the humandrills, Cookie in particular, took well to caring for the chickens, which wasn’t surprising: the birds raised on Grimm’s farms all had black feathers, the pigmentation of the plants staining the coloration of the birds in a way that chlorophyll didn’t, but they were still similar animals. Just… smaller, and without waterfowl. 

“Alright, as much fun as it’s been catching up, Ten,” Tanya began as they cleaned up breakfast. Cookie washed the massive dishes the humandrills ate off of, but Ace busied himself with washing the human scale ones, heating the water as he worked. After they were washed, Ten exhaled desert-dry air to quickly evaporate the lingering wetness and put them away. “I am going to need to test your level of strength before we leave. We have enough ammo for a bit of training.”

Ten paused, digesting that last statement. “...Why do we need ammo for training? Am I learning to use the cannons?” She didn’t seem particularly eager to learn the art of gunnery. Shame. 

Ace laughed. “You wish. Tanya loves her custom guns too much. Deuce is learning to use them, but you and I have our devil fruits for that.”

“Wait, devil fruit?” Kuina asked, “Since when does she have a devil fruit?”

“You didn’t notice her using it?” Tanya asked, “How disappointing.”

“You don’t know what it is either.” Ten accused. 

“I have a guess.” Tanya said, “It’s some kind of wind fruit, I’m pretty sure. Blow blow fruit?” One thing that she occasionally regretted not doing was going through the trouble of getting a robust Devil Fruit encyclopedia. Vegapunk had one, she should have asked for a copy… 

“Close.” Ten said, puffing up her chest. It inflated an unnaturally large amount, but only just barely so. “I ate the Breath Breath fruit, and became a breath-girl. I can inhale and exhale endless amounts of air. Also, I never get tired.” Honestly, that fruit sounded great. It does lock her out of… well, nevermind that. She has no plans to go there. 

Wait, was that the fruit that… Hm. Worth looking into, she’ll ask Lucy to ask around the historians with her next letter. “Nevertheless, we have a wide range of strength on this crew, so we just need to properly rank you. So first thing’s first: Fight me.”

“No way!” Ten said, panicking. “You fought my dad and didn’t lose, even if he was going easy that’s way stronger than me.”

“That was an order.” Tanya said dolly, grabbing the older girl’s dress and throwing her onto the rocky island. On a whim, she shucked her coat and rolled up her sleeves before jumping after the girl, skipping off the air to land harshly at the ground simultaneously with Ten, who managed to land on her feet. “I could use a bit of pugilism practice, I’ve gotten more of it recently but it’ll be easier to get a handle on your strength this way.”

One of the things that Skypeians had in great abundance in comparison to Blue Sea dwellers was Mantra, which was a form of Observation haki. Specifically, it was a way of training it more easily than the methods used in the lower world. However, it had one critical weakness: It was reliant on attaining and maintaining a meditative trance to keep it going; when they lost their mental balance, mantra ceased functioning and they had to rely on their natural senses and reflexes only, which are naturally atrophied from their usage of mantra. This could be overcome, of course, both in a practical sense by simply becoming better at assuming that trance and making it instinctual, like the more terrestrial people train to from the start. 

This has its advantages, in that it was a lot easier to train Mantra than proper Observation, but it also held its users back, it took more effort to learn mantra and then unlearn those bad habits than it is to simply learn good habits from the start. It also inhibited the ability to use some of the more esoteric uses of mantra. 

So when Tanya’s inexpert and thus slow Bloom was ducked under, Ten not even opening her eyes, it was not a surprise. Tanya spun on her boot heel and lashed out with her leg again, falling back to the limited but sufficiently ingrained lessons Grandma gave about traditional Kuja unarmed combat. She wasn’t properly equipped to use most of the momentum manipulation parts of the style well: short hair, tied down breasts, and no high heels, but Grandma didn’t expect her aesthetic choices when teaching it so that was fair. It was still pretty effective even without those parts of the techniques. 

While Ten claimed to be bad at Mantra, as she ducked and weaved around Tanya’s blows she proved to be competent, if allowed to focus enough to engage it. Even switching to Father’s No Sword Style didn’t trip her up much, she was able to discern the shift in style before Tanya was done adjusting her stance. 

That wasn’t to say that Ten was being exclusively defensive, either: she frequently attempted to grab one of Tanya’s limbs to go into a grapple, where she’d have the advantage, but Tanya was able to keep her attack angles unusual enough that she couldn’t both mitigate damage and catch the attacking limb, and she respected Tanya’s strength enough to not risk a full power blow. 

Deciding to turn things up, Tanya whistled loudly, and Saifu bolted onto the battlefield from where she was watching on the ship. Tanya switched back into the Kuja’s dance-like combat style, and used Saifu as a replacement for the traditional Yuba Snake, the small dog darting in and out to keep Ten off balance and set up Tanya’s attacks more than to actually inflict damage. Saifu yipped happily at getting to play with the new crew member. 

As was a common problem for neophyte Observation users, Mantra users especially, the additional combatant threw Ten’s focus off dramatically, and she quickly made a mistake that Tanya exploited, sending the girl flying to crash into a boulder. The stone crumpled in the face of Ten’s body impacting it, and the girl groaned as she got back up. “Bokken.” Tanya commanded, and the dog-pack stood on her hind legs and opened her jaws upwards, a wooden sword’s hilt popping out. Tanya drew the weapon and switched to a more comfortable combat stance. “Ready for your second assessment?” Tanya asked. 

Ten assumed another combat stance. “Are you going to explain what I’m being tested on this time?” She asked sarcastically. 

“I believe in full transparency in education.” Tanya lied, “The first test had no particular goal, but I found your deficiencies in using Mantra. You’re monofocusing on one opponent, which will be addressed in your training. I’ll now be testing your Mantra further, as I cannot overcome your haki with my limited skill in unarmed combat.”

“...This is worse.” Ten concluded as Tanya bolted forward, the girl’s Mantra trance fully functioning. However, unlike before, the speed of the bokken meant that despite sensing the moves in advance, she couldn’t dodge them. She did, however, smoothly transition into minimizing the impacts and avoiding getting struck on vital points, which spoke well to Nozdon’s training methods. 

Soon enough, it was time to test her offensive prowess. Ten was tasked to combat the humandrills, and she handily wrestled each of them into submission despite her tiny limbs. Kuina in particular goggled at the feat; seeing someone other than Tanya be so much stronger than she looked was good for her. 

After six distinct tests, Tanya had her answer. “Uncle Guns trained you well, if not as obsessively as my Father did for me.” She began, which the girl beamed at. “If you were so inclined, you could easily join a notorious pirate crew and make a name for yourself.” Really, Tanya’d put her at about Ace’s level: She was stronger and a better fighter without her fruit, but the Flame Flame fruit made up the difference. Well, actually the Breath Breath fruit could probably hard counter him by inhaling his attacks, but if she was to assess them impartially, they were about as strong as each other. How fortuitous. “I believe I have constructed an adequate training plan to get you up to standard on your Mantra, and to otherwise increase your strength.”

Ten seemed a bit confused. “Are we going to be getting into a lot of fights? I thought haki could only be trained in battle?”

“Nonsense.” Tanya insisted, “I have an excellent training plan for unlocking and refining Observation haki. Let’s have some lunch, then we’ll do some exercises, and we’ll end things with some sparring. Trust in the process.” Ace, Deuce, and Kuina all simultaneously shuddered. 

“...What is this process?” Ten asked, looking at her new crewmates. “Is it safe?”

“Just go prepare lunch.” Tanya said, smiling widely. She loved training people, it was her favorite part of her military career. “I have to prepare the munitions for the artillery.”