In the conference room Bea was waiting for everyone to arrive. She was thinking through the plan she made.
'If I am correct we will be able to rescue Sera, but it will have a high cost. The enemy still outnumbers us 3 to 1 and have way more Evolved. That's the issue, we don't have enough people that could fight them.'
While thinking the door opened, Hellfire and Faith walked in.
'They seem to be in a good mood. The mission was a success.'
"The water treatment plant is under our control again." Said Hellfire.
"Good, lets wait for the others."
In half an hour all of them came back with similar news. With the first part done, time for the next step.
"Gather everyone into the big room, I'm going to make a speech."
They were quite surprised, but none disagreed. In an hour the news spread and everyone gathered for her speech.
She stood on the same podium Sera was before the attack. Bea quickly dismissed her emotions, it's not the time nor the place for such thinking.
"2 months ago we completed a mission. We rescued the slaves from Nightmare's clutches, but not without a cost."
Bea took a second for dramatic effect, then continued.
"We lost 257 of our brothers and sisters in arms, 258 if we count our leader. But Queen Seraphine would be ashamed of you! She gave her life for you to live and you dare to try and cause upheaval! I say enough!"
She took a deep breath and continued.
"No one is keeping you here! If you want to try your luck outside, Leave! But if you decide to stay you will obey My Rules! Is that understood!"
Everyone either nodded or looked away ashamed. More than 1500 people and none dare to look her in the eye.
"Now, lets get to the point, in this Bunker under my rule, there won't be any free living. If you can work you will work, if you can fight you will fight! We're not planning to stay here forever, after we killed Nightmare and all his man we march towards Castleburg."
The people were confused, a lot of them only hearing that for the first time. The veterans on the other hand all shouted "YES!"
"There is a chance, that our Queen still lives and we won't leave her behind! We will gather our strength and destroy all of them!"
"Bea! Why didn't you sent me with Faith and Lucy! I can be a really good scout as well!" He was shouting but Bea didn't take it to the heart. After losing his parents he changed and became very temperamental.
"First things first, you are fucking huge, that makes you a shitty scout. Second, I didn't send you because I need you here. We need to train an army if you didn't notice and after me you are our best fighter!"
Hellfire took a couple of deep breaths and finally calmed down.
"I'm sorry... So what's next then?"
Bea smiled and began walking. "We will go and meet our army, then lead hunting parties to get food and find out how many Evolved we actually have."
She took a couple of steps before continuing. "After we find every Evolved, they will be trained and their souls will be saturated, not fully of course. One of them might get a funny idea and become an Ascended. It would only complicate things."
Hellfire nodded with understanding and they moved on in silence. Bea's mind wasn't silent though.
'We currently have around 50 Evolved, while the enemy has hundreds of them. We have 1500 regulars, while our enemy has probably 5000 or so. This won't going to be easy, but it will have to be enough. One thing I learned from the last mission is that the enemy's souls aren't saturated enough. They are weak.'
They arrived at the training hall, it was full of people and Moe was really struggling to put everyone into some form of order.
'I really need a better leader structure, it was fine for a couple hundred, but we are working with more than a thousand people here.'
As they entered the room silence spread and everyone turned in their direction. Bea just smiled at them and said. "Carry on!"
Slowly people began to continue what they were doing, but soon got distracted again. Bea and Hellfire moved onto one of the fighting mats. They both had training weapons and changed into gym clothes.
Bea's clothes were as accentuating as ever, but many people were watching Hellfire's muscles move.
They began fighting, nothing serious it was just something to increase the soldiers morale. Everyone liked to watch a good fight.
Bea ducked under Hellfire's halberd and moved to hit his dominant leg. Using the momentum of his attack he turned in time to evade it and push Bea away. She didn't give ground and instead moved into close quarters and delivered a punch into his abdomin.
Hellfire coughed once, then blocked three of Bea's attacks, but got hit on the arm by the fourth one. He nearly dropped the halberd and that was enough for Bea to shove her sword at his throat.
"Congratulations!" Said Hellfire with a smile.
Bea just nodded and put the sword back on the rack. Then she looked around and shouted.
"I said, Carry on!" Non dared disobey her after that power display, which was exactly their plan.
They spent the next week doing nothing but training, going on hunting trips and waiting for Faith and Lucy.