"Beetle to the right flank! Just three shrubs over!" shouted one of the leafings from squad 2. The group had been walking for several hours without much activity, so although they ought to have been scared because of the threat, they were more excited at the prospect of using their training in a real-life situation.
"Emergency procedures!" ordered Lucius almost immediately. The sound of little footsteps filled the air as they got to work, moving as quickly and nimbly as they possibly could. Very few leaflings stumbled over each other, which was a good sign, however, they still didn't move out in single files which increased the overall time they took to hide.
~But it's good enough for now. I only trained them for one night after all,~ thought Lucius as he stealthily approached the area where the beetle was spotted.
"Alpha, with me," he whispered as peeked over to get a look at the beetle. It seemed eerily similar to the rhinoceros beetles back in the real world, with a long horn protruding from its head as it stood there frozen in place. Though one feature made it patently clear that this was no ordinary beetle; the shining glint that bounced off its seemingly metallic body.
~Maybe it's just the lighting~ Lucius thought to himself, but with all the strange things in this world, it wouldn't be too hard to believe that beetles had metal for exoskeletons.
"Do you know what that is?" asked Lucius as Alpha snuck up next to him.
"I've never seen anything like that before. Or not around our old camp at least," replied Alpha, taking a peek at it as well.
~Seems we've ventured far away from the leafling's natural habitats then.~
"Well, it doesn't seem to have noticed us despite all that screaming. Perhaps it deaf," whispered Alpha, still staring at the beetle in wonder.
"Or perhaps it's reluctant to come close. After all, we might be prey, or we might be predators. Tell the others to proceed silently, I'll keep watch until all of you leave," whispered Lucius, to which Alpha left to carry out his instructions.
After all the leaflings were a good distance away, Lucius joined them and they continued on their march. As they were walking he made a rather obvious discovery; Alpha had been wrong when he said that they didn't have any natural advantages against other creatures. They did, but perhaps it was not obvious to them because they weren't actively using it. The leafling's bodies made them nearly undetectable under certain lighting when they were in front of shrubs, or other green vegetation.
~As an ex-ghost-operative, I should've realized this sooner. This squad could make for the perfect ghost division, with proper training of course.~ However that was just a side thought, making a ghost division out of them wouldn't mean much as there would be no use for such a team right now. But it was still an intriguing thought, perhaps he would train a few of them in his spare time to act as scouts.
The day flew by and soon the rays of light that made their way through the forest canopy began to dim. Night was soon approaching and Lucius picked out a nice patch surrounded by shrubs to set up camp.
"Alpha, take over the training for this session. You, you, you and you, follow me," he said, using his feet to pick out four other leaflings.
~Alpha can use this to build trust between him and the other leaflings, and I can use this to pick out leaflings with potential for scouting,~ he thought to himself as he walked to another section of the camp.
"Listen up. The task is simple, you guys will hide somewhere close by and try to avoid being caught. Understood?" said Lucius, turning around to face the leaflings he had just picked out. They seemed confused by the exercise, the emergency procedure had obvious advantages, however this game was ambigious at best.
~If they can hide on instinct, then I can groom them into scouts. I can't train instinct from scratch, it will take too long,~ he thought to himself before giving them to command to hide.
~This is kind of fun.~
***
"Come on, this is too easy," Lucius sighed as he caught yet another leafling. He had gone through nearly all the leaflings now, and not one of them seemed to have any potential. Even Alpha, who seemed to have the most potential among them failed when it came to hiding.
~Though I can't blame them. Hiding from me is a bit... tricky~ he realized. After all, there was a gaping difference between trained and untrained men when it came to these sort of things.
"Next, you four, come with me," he said, pointing out four more leaflings.
"All you guys have to do is hide, make sure I don't catch you," he said, somewhat exhausted from all the running around he had been doing. This had become a sort of pass time for the injured leaflings, as they watched in awe as Lucius searched for the other leaflings like some kind of hunter.
"Okay, go!"
The four leaflings quickly dispersed in different directions, and after giving them a minute or two, Lucius began searching for them.
Where they hid said a lot about them, after doing this for nearly 2 hours he was beginning to see a pattern. Some leaflings were earnest in their hiding, choosing the further edges of the allowed perimeters. Those were the ones Lucius caught first as there was very little vegetation and so they couldn't blend in properly.
"Found you," shouted Lucius as he crept behind a leafling that was hidden behind a buttress root at the further edges.
Others were a little more ballsy and hid closer to the camp, perhaps thinking that it would be the last spot Lucius would think to look. But they weren't as smart as they thought.
"Found you."
~Two more.~
Very few, and perhaps these were the closest to having any semblance of potential, chose to hide underneath shrubs. Whether they were aware that their skin allowed them to blend in, or did it merely out of instinct was beyond him, however, it still wasn't enough.
"Found you," he said in a disappointed tone as he pointed out a leafling that was hiding underneath a nearby shrub.
~Just one left,~ he thought dejectedly.
~Hiding may seem simple at first, but it could be an art on its own. The art of being a ghost,~ he thought to himself as he stalked around the area.
