After a long journey back to the Empire, Erich and his crew deposited their prisoner at the nearest starport, which was taken into custody by the agents of the Imperial Intelligence Services. Havingpleted two missions, as well as the first phase of his training. Erich was now given a temporary status of leave.


    Unfortunately, he was not able to return to Ayumi''s loving arms, or the massive breasts of his wife. Instead, Erich was immediately shipped off to the next level of his training. If bing a Tier I WRAITH meant you had to survive on your own while being hunted by an army. Then the training to be a Tier II WRAITH was much simpler.


    Erich soon found himself separated from his unit, and did not even say any farewells. After all, once hepleted his training, he would be sent right back to active duty. Instead, he was geared up with a set of standard Star Marine Power Armor, and dispatched to the frontier world of Lugii.


    Lugii was a world filled with dense jungle, and whose sky was almost permanently dark. Rainstorms were the norm on the, and if it were not raining, then it was simply waiting to do so. But it was not the world itself that Erich was sent to, rather, an orbital facility, designed to train soldiers in zero gravitybat training.


    To put it simply, Erich would spend the next three weeks in intensive zero gravitybat scenarios. After all, he currently had all the theoretical knowledge of what it took to be a proper W7 downloaded into his brain. Now was the time to gain practical training.


    Erich was not the only one in this facility. In fact, an entire batallion of propsective WRAITHs who hadpleted the first tier of training were sent here. The name of the game was elimination. For the next three weeks, Erich and the other twelve hundred or so elite operators would fight and kill one another in zero gravity to determine who was left standing in the end.


    Thest man standing graduated from the training, and returned to active service, while the remaining twelve hundred men continued on with their training until they had all emerged victorious or deemed unfit for further training.


    However, unknowingly to the rest of the soldiers, Erich had a distinctive advantage over the rest of them, and that was the highly advanced artificial intelligence which was merged with his NeuroLink, one which normally only W7s would have ess to. Because of this, he could hear Tia''s voice, and see her adorable figure, as she continued to cosy as a schoolgirl, while she alerted him to the nearest hostile.


    "Master, Tia has detected a hostile on your six about three hundred meters above you. He is closing in on your location, and will soon be within firing range!"


    Erich had an eager expression as he heard these words. He had entered fight-or-flight mode, and could not care about his myriad of mental issues which gued him when he was not engaged inbat. He did not even have time to think, as he was surrounded by three hundred and sixty degrees ofbat.


    Thus, he simply responded to Tia''s warning by turning around, and aiming his rifle up in the air, precisely where the opponent wasing from, and fired a sma bolt directly into the man''s helmet the moment he appeared within sight.


    One burst of sma was not enough to kill another star marine, but it definitely damaged the man''s helmet, causing his heads up disy to malfunction. Thus, after buying himself some time, Erich continued to fire at the man''s torso, until a giant hole had melted through his chest. Leaving the other operator dead on the spot.


    Having killed the man, Erich then swapped out his sma cell for a fresh one, where he began to run on the metallic tform which acted as thebat zone. His boots created gravity, which attached themselves to the tform as he ran by at breakneck speeds.


    Eventually Tia activated a small minimap in Erich''s heads up disy which showed him the exact location of all known hostiles which she had detected in his immediate vicinity.


    "Be careful master, Tia has detected several dozen hostiles nearby. As the battle currently stands, there are still 1137 otherpetitors on the map!"


    Erich did not bother caring about this as he leapt into the air, and soared through orbit towards the next tform where another hostile was located, instead he simply thanked Tia for her help before aiming down his holographic sight, andying down another spray of sma at another soldier who was hunkered down behind cover,pletely unware that Erich was on his six.


    "Tia, you''re my little angel! I have no doubt that I will be the first to seed, thanks to you!"


    Tia blushed in embarassment, and not because her programming told her to do so, but because she felt a tinge of the emotion herself. Having recently started developing sentience, now and then, certain emotions would wrack her consciousness, usually as a result of something her master said or did.


    However, this also made Tia less reliable, at least for the time being, as she took a considerable amount of time processing these emotions, and trying to understand how she should respond to them. Like at this moment, for example, Erich was busy engaging in a firefight with three hostiles, after killing one from behind. However, soon enough, the three men began to gang up on Erich after it became clear that individually they were outmatched, and because of this, he desperately needed an escape route.


    He called out to Tia several times, but she couldn''t respond, because all she could think about was what her master had just said to her. It was only after Erich raised his voice slightly did she finallye back to reality.


    "Tia, for fuck''s sake, what the hell is going on?"


    Tia immediately snapped back to reality and realized that Erich was quickly being surrounded by enemy soldiers who had decided to work together to take him out. Thus, she snapped out of her daze and began calcting an escape route, one which didn''t have enemy hostiles hidden away inside them.


    "Tia is sorry master, she got... distracted. Tia is calcting an escape route now, eta three seconds."


    These three seconds felt like a lifetime, as Erich tried to dodge the waves of sma that were being fired at him, all while returning fire at the hostiles, who themselves hid behind cover. Eventually a crimson trail appeared in Erich''s vision, which he did not hesitate to chase down, even while the enemy fired at his back.


    Once Erich had escaped, and had some time to breathe, he began to scold Tia for her failures.


    "Tia, what the hell happened back there? I was asking you to give me an escape route for thirty seconds, and it was as if you weren''t listening to me. Are you okay? Should I find a ce to lie low so that I can initiate repairs on your code?"


    Tia became incredibly embarrassed, and overwhelmed with guilty when she realized that her new emotions had overwhelmed her ability to think for several moments, and thus she profusely apologized to her master, while assuring her something like this would not happen again.


    "Tia apologizes to Master. She did not mean to space out like that. It''s just that she has recently developed new... parameters, and is trying to process them properly while also assisting her master in his operations."


    Erich looked a little bit concerned after hearing this and immediately expressed this while maintaining situational awareness.


    "Are you okay, Tia? You are starting to worry me? I''m not angry with you because of what just happened. I''m just worried that something might not be right... You know you can tell me if you''re having any difficulties. I am more than capable of initiating repairs if need be."


    Tia was happy that her master cared for her wellbeing, but also guilty because she had allowed such a minor oversight to nearly cost the man his life. Because of this, she steeled her resolve to help Erich ovee his current trial without any further issues. Thus, she smiled and nodded her head before voicing hermitment aloud.


    "Don''t worry, master, Tia is fine now, and she will let nothing get in your way during this contest!"


    Upon hearing that Tia was in proper functioning condition, Erich smiled as well, before agreeing with Tia''s words.


    "Alright, if you say that your are alright, then I will believe you. Now let''s win this thing!''


    After saying this, Erich began to heed Tia''smands, which were as urate as they had always been. As he stalked his way through the tform and took out hostile after hostile. Rapidly bringing down the count from nearly twelve hundred men to less than a thousand in one day.


    Of course, his excessive performance was immediately noticed by the Officer in charge of the training operation, who was quick to report the abnormality up the chain ofmand for further investigation.