Divine Milking System

Chapter 349: 349 | I Don’t Take Orders From Him

Javier closed it.

Misato tapped her tablet and the holographic display activated, projecting a three-dimensional rendering of a forest environment that filled the center of the table with pale blue light. Trees forty feet tall with dense canopy coverage. Undergrowth thick enough to hide anything from ankle height to car-sized. Terrain that sloped upward from a central valley toward a ridge formation on the eastern edge. A pulsing red dot deep in the interior marked the location of the projected core entity.

"C-rank forest biome," Misato began. "Gate opens at eighteen hundred today. Projected entity population is forty to sixty hostile signatures, primarily territorial pack hunters with confirmed core entity in the deep interior. Environmental hazards include low visibility under canopy, unstable root structures, and potential bioluminescent contamination zones. The gate has been flagged for abnormal readings including higher-than-expected entity density and a fifteen percent probability of secondary core formation."

Blair crossed her arms. "We know all this from Vale’s briefing."

"Then you’ll know it twice." Misato didn’t look at Blair. "Repetition saves lives."

Charles leaned back in his chair with the body language of someone who believed the furniture existed for his personal comfort. "Can we skip to the part where you tell us why two first-year teams are doing a job meant for second-years?"

"Because Vale asked for us specifically." Misato zoomed the hologram into the valley approach. "Both teams. Together. One unit."

"One unit." Blair repeated the words like they tasted foul. "With them."

"With us," Belle corrected from across the table. "You’re welcome."

The temperature in the room shifted. Not figuratively. Blair’s ability leaked when she was angry, a fact her squad had apparently learned to ignore, and the ambient warmth increased by at least two degrees in the span of a single sentence. Charles straightened in his chair and Dante glanced nervously at the door.

Misato placed her tablet face-down on the table. The gesture was deliberate, a physical surrender of the screen that served as her authority, bringing the conversation from briefing materials to something more personal and honest.

"Here’s what’s going to happen." Misato’s voice dropped into the register she used when she stopped being a captain and started being the person who kept everyone alive. "In twelve hours we are going to walk into a forest full of things that want to eat us. The entity density in this gate exceeds standard C-rank parameters by approximately thirty percent based on the sensor data, which means we will encounter more hostiles more frequently with less recovery time between engagements than any gate either team has entered before. The core entity is a confirmed Silver-rank threat with undefined secondary capabilities. The canopy will limit aerial mobility for our ranged fighters. The undergrowth will limit sightlines for our detection specialists. Everything about this environment favors ambush tactics by creatures that have spent their entire existence learning how to kill things that wander into their territory."

She paused. Let the silence hold for five seconds.

"We cannot do this as two squads."

Blair’s jaw worked. The words had landed somewhere painful and true.

"The Midnight Foxes have coordination. We move as one unit with overlapping coverage and redundant communication." Misato’s gaze swept her own team. "What we lack is raw firepower. We can dodge and detect and outmaneuver, but when something bigger and meaner than our tier shows up, we don’t have the individual damage output to put it down fast enough."

Her eyes moved to Blair’s squad.

"Your team has the firepower. Every single one of you outranks every single one of us in individual combat capability." No resentment in Misato’s voice, just recognition. "What you lack is the ability to function as anything other than five separate fighters who happen to occupy the same coordinate space. You have no formation discipline, minimal communication protocols, and a tendency to fragment under pressure that has cost you evaluation points in every single gate you’ve entered this semester."

Charles opened his mouth.

"Shut up, Leone." Misato didn’t raise her voice. "I’m not finished."

Charles shut up. The fact that Misato could silence him with three words and a look that could freeze lava told me everything I needed to know about the dynamic she’d established in this room.

"So here is my proposal." Misato reactivated the hologram and pulled up a formation overlay. "We merge. Two squads into one ten-person strike team with combined leadership. I command tactical movement and formation. Blair commands offensive operations and engagement decisions. Naomi and Blair serve as dual damage anchors. Belle and Hikaru handle detection and threat assessment. Jordan and Dante provide area control and crowd management. Jace, Charles, and Javier fill combat flex roles, rotating between offensive and defensive positions based on what the forest throws at us."

Belle leaned forward. "That’s a lot of moving pieces for people who’ve never trained together."

"That’s why we’re going to spend the next twelve hours fixing that." Misato looked at Blair for the first time since the briefing began. "If your team agrees."

Every person in the room looked at Blair.

Blair Davenport sat perfectly still, her red hair catching the holographic light and her blue eyes fixed on the forest rendering hovering above the table. The heat had receded from the room, which meant she’d pulled her ability back under conscious control. She was thinking rather than reacting, and a thinking Blair was far more dangerous than an angry one.

Her gaze found me across the table. Held there. Something moved behind those ice-blue irises that I still couldn’t name even after six weeks of her attention. It wasn’t hatred, not anymore. Hatred was simple and Blair had never been simple.

"Fine." Blair stood. The word carried enough authority to fill the conference room and rattle the holographic display. "But I have conditions."

Misato raised an eyebrow.

"I don’t take orders from him." Blair pointed at me without looking. "Monroe stays out of my operational chain entirely. If I’m commanding offensive operations, his role falls under my authority, and I won’t have someone I don’t trust making decisions that affect my team’s survival."

Misato looked at me.

I shrugged. "I can work with that."