'Assessment'

01-Nov-2030, 1000U

Praefectus Castrorum Michael Kahale, Son of Venus

Legio XII Fulminata

Oakland, California, USA

Legio XII Fulminata (minus the auxiliaries) stood at attention in a massive formation in the Field of Mars on that cool morning. Cohortes I through V stood shoulder-to-shoulder facing VI through X, with the latter half also having the Equites Legionis with them, while miscellaneous extra personnel were dispersed within and between cohorts. Each line of troops was approximately twenty feet apart, with another twenty or so between cohorts—a perfect formation for inspection of the troops. At Jackson's orders, they'd shown up wearing "PT uniforms," which he defined as the long-sleeve polyester Camp Jupiter shirts, black sweatpants, and running shoes.

Myself, Legatus Legionis Reed, the tribuni, and approximately sixty veterans from Cohortis Auxiliaris I stood at the end, facing down the legion. Percy Jackson and I had gotten a large group of volunteers from the cohort to assist with his training of the legion—they'd nicknamed themselves "Percy's Minions" fairly quickly, but were steadfast in their resolve and commitment. Like myself and the consules, they knew that changes needed to be made. At Jackson's orders, two of the tribuni had acquired black baseball caps, sunglasses, notepads, Camelbaks, "glow belts," headlamps, and some other items for the entire "cadre"—why, I wasn't quite sure—while the rest of us acquired and set up equipment and routes for a series of tests.

Though how well Jackon's plan played out was yet to be seen. It sounded like it could be spectacular, disastrous, or somehow both. But as the aged, clean-shaved sailor stepped into the grass dividing the legion and activated the bullhorn slung on his back, which was connected to a microphone on his shirt, I knew that there was no going back.

"I am Evocatus Jackson, your senior instructor and cadre commander. From now on, you will speak only when spoken to, and the first and last words out of your filthy sewers will be 'sir.' Do you maggots understand that?!" he shouted as he began walking down the I-V line.

"Sir, yes sir!" the legion responded, sounding confused.

"Bullshit, I can't hear you! Sound off like you got a pair!"

"SIR, YES SIR!"

"If you ladies clear my wrath, if you survive this training, you will be a weapon! You will be a minister of death, praying for war! But until that day, you are pukes! You are the lowest form of life on Earth! You are not even human fucking being! You are nothing but unorganized, grab-asstic pieces of Roman-esque shit!"

Something about his rant sounds familiar... but I don't know why.

"Because I am hard, you will not like me! But the more you hate me, the more you will learn! I am hard, but I am fair! There is no racial bigotry here—you're no longer white, black, brown, yellow, red, or any other fuckin' color in the fuckin' rainbow. However special your mommy and daddy said you shitstains are is no longer applicable, because it was never applicable to begin with! Here you are all equally worthless! And my orders come from Consuls Zhang and Ramirez themselves to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to serve in my beloved legion! Do you maggots understand that?!" Jackson bellowed as he made a U-turn and began walking down the VI-cavalry line.

"Sir, yes sir!" the legion replied, this time sounding more robotic and—dare I say it—scared.

"Bullshit, I can't hear you!"

"SIR, YES SIR!"

Now, I have no idea why he stopped to face one of the legionaries in Cohortis X. If my eyes were correct, it was a moderately tall redheaded woman that I remembered to be on the shy side. Maybe she didn't keep her eyes facing front?

"What's your name, turd?" Jackson asked.

"SIR, LEGIONARY RYANS, SIR!" she screamed back, sounding very nervous in her reply.

"Bullshit! From now on, you're Legionary Carrot. Do you like that name, Legionary Carrot?"

"SIR, YES SIR!"

"Well, there's one thing you won't like, Legionary Carrot: from now on, you won't be getting corned beef and cabbage on a daily basis in my mess hall!"

"SIR, YES SIR!"

Is... is he going to nickname and mock every single member of the legion?

"Watch out, everyone. We got a badass over here," a male voice from the I-V said loudly.

"Who said that?! WHO THE FUCK SAID THAT?!" Percy yelled as he spun around and began stomping over to the opposing line. "WHO'S THE GRUBBY COMMUNIST SHIT TWINKLE-TOED COCKSUCKER DOWN HERE WHO JUST SIGNED HIS OWN DEATH WARRANT?!"

But as he stood before the I-V line, all he received was silence.

"Nobody, huh?! The fairy fucking godmother said it! Out-fucking standing! I will PT you all until you fucking DIE! I'LL PT YOU UNTIL YOUR ASSHOLES ARE SUCKING BUTTERMILK AND YOU FUCKS ARE PRAYING FOR DEATH!" he raged as he walked up right to a legionary in Cohortis III and had a... what was it called, a "knife-hand?" "WAS IT YOU, YOU DISGUSTING FUCKWIT?!"

"SIR, NO SIR!" the legionary replied, his words shaky with fear.

"YOU LITTLE SHITBAG, YOU LOOK LIKE A GODDAMN WORM! I'LL BET IT WAS YOU!"

"SIR, NO SIR!"

"Sir, I said it, sir!" yelled the guilty man to his left—a young man in Cohortis V, barely 19, that I recognized to be Probatio Stuart Jones II, a descendant of Pietas and son of Decanus Stuart Jones, who I worked with many ago prior to his sudden passing from cancer. While the original Jones was a spectacular soldier and better husband and father (at least, for the few years he could be around), I could not say much about his son: he was a rowdy, rude, undisciplined little shit, to mildly oversimplify it—fatherless behavior, as it seemed.

"Well... no shit!" Jackson exclaimed as he walked up to Jones, slowly removing his sunglasses and sticking them in his pocket. "What do we have here? A fucking comedian: Probatio Joker! I admire your honesty, son. Hell, I like you. You can come over to my house and have dinner with my family!"

"Sir, thank you, sir!"

Damn it, Jones... you're just digging your own grave.

"YOU LITTLE FUCKIN' TURD!!" Jackson roared, stepping forward with enough force and anger to shock Jones into stumbling and falling backwards, taking the man behind him down too—and thanks to the bullhorn, everyone but the cadre seemed to shake at Jackson's intensity. "I'VE GOT YOUR NAME! I'VE GOT YOUR ASS! YOU WILL NOT LAUGH, YOU WILL NOT CRY, YOU WILL LEARN BY THE GODDAMN NUMBERS! NOW GET ON YOUR FUCKIN' FEET!!"

The fallen man behind Jones had quickly gotten to his feet, while Jones himself took a slightly longer amount of time. But Jackson wasn't done with him yet.

"Probatio Jones, you had best unfuck yourself before I unscrew your head AND SHIT DOWN YOUR NECK!"

"Sir, yes sir!" Jones shouted back with a tone of indignation.

"Probatio Jones, what the fuck are you doing in my legion?!"

"Sir, mandatory service, sir!"

"Mandatory service? That must mean you're angry! That must mean you're a killer! Show me your war face!"

Don't know how you came up with that, Jackson... what exactly are you trying to do?

"... sir?"

"You got a war face?! AAAAA!!" he shouted, baring his teeth. "That's a war face! Now let me see your war face!"

"Aaaaaaaa!" Jones shouted back, teeth bared in a similar fashion... but even from the side, it looked significantly less fierce than Jackson's. But I still couldn't figure out what it was he was trying to do... unless it was to convince the entire legion he had gone insane and was to be feared by all, because many of the legionaries looked unnerved and—dare I say—frightened.

"Bullshit! You didn't convince me! Let me see your real war face!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"YOU DON'T SCARE ME! WORK ON THAT SHIT!"

"SIR, YES SIR!" Jones replied, sounding incredibly pissed off and Percy walked away... only to stop in front of one Hispanic legionary in Cohortis II—Martin Raygoza, son of Sancus, if I remembered correctly.

"What's your excuse?!" Jackson asked the medium-sized man.

"Sir, excuse for what, sir?" Raygoza replied.

"I'M ASKIN' THE FUCKIN' QUESTIONS HERE, LEGIONARY! YOU GOT THAT?!"

"Sir, yes sir!"

"WELL, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! CAN I BE IN CHARGE FOR A WHILE?!"

"Sir, yes sir!"

"ARE YOU SHOOK UP, ARE YOU NERVOUS?!"

"Sir, yes sir!"

"DO I MAKE YOU NERVOUS?"

"Sir..." Raygoza began, hesitating... for too long.

"'Sir?!' 'Sir,' WHAT?! WERE YOU ABOUT TO CALL ME AN ASSHOLE?!" Jackson screamed, knife-handing the ever-loving shit out of the poor legionary.

"SIR, NO SIR!"

"HOW FUCKIN' TALL ARE YOU?!"

"SIR, FIVE FOOT EIGHT, SIR!"

"FIVE FOOT EIGHT? I GUESS THAT'S THE HEIGHT OF STUPIDITY AND STACKING SHIT!"

"SIR, YES SIR!"

"Where in the hell you from anyway, Legionary?"

"Sir, San Francisco, sir!"

"Holy dogshit! San Francisco! Only turds and spent needles are found in San Francisco, Legionary Narco! And you look just like a turd that just injected itself with some of the strongest cocaine this side of the border! Are you in a cartel?"

"Sir, no sir!"

"Are you a gangbanger?"

"Sir, no sir!"

"I bet you're the kinda guy that'd take a person, smuggle drugs in their ass, and not even have the goddamn courtesy to give 'em a reach-around. I'll be watchin' you!" And with that, Jackson walked away from the poor trembling legionary, returning to the front, standing just before myself, the rest of the legion's core leadership, and the volunteer veterans. "NOW LISTEN HARD! The black hats behind me are the cadre, who will be assisting me in administering the appropriate corrections to this legion. You will obey them as though they are me—actually, no! You will obey them as if Consuls Zhang and Ramirez themselves were here! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!"

"SIR, YES SIR!" the legion replied.

"Out-fucking standing! Now I hope you ladies feel fresh and pretty, because we are about to go dancing! We are going to assess you with a series of tests just to have a decent understanding of how fucked this legion is!" Jackson declared, pulling out a notepad.

This is gonna be a long day...

The legion was split up, with a small team of Percy's Minions (ugh) taking each cohort (and the cavalry unit) and running the legionaries through a series of tests—apparently based on those of the Marine Corps. There were two elements to the whole thing: the Physical Fitness Test and the Combat Fitness Test. The PFT consisted of pull-ups (and pushups, in some cases), planking, running (including at an altitude), and rowing. The CFT consisted of "movement to contact" (including at an altitude), "ammo can lift," and "maneuvering under fire" (once again, including at an altitude).

I'm not sure where Jackson's really going with this... but orders are orders.

Not only did it take time to properly administer the tests themselves, but it took time just to move personnel between testing sites—with us having to move legionaries to and from the nearby mountains in order to complete the tests at an altitude. Upon completion of their tests, the testing teams would send runners to turn in the results while the remainder of the Minions would push the cohorts back to their barracks, preparing them for an all-out inspection tomorrow.

Meanwhile, any Minions that didn't have a unit to train were attached to the legion leadership team, who were in turn attached to Jackson. We were in charge of overall administration and logistics, specifically water, medical, and food supply distribution—this took several hours, after all, requiring a late lunch and dinner to be served while we were in the field. It was a chaotic mess, only held together by the ferocity of Jackson and his Minions, who'd done spectacularly at committing themselves to this drill instructor role. I was oddly proud.

What didn't please me, however, was the aftermath. While the Minions handled the legion, the legion leadership team and Jackson were analyzing the results... but a majority of it was some statistics bullshit that I couldn't comprehend at all. However, thanks to the Leobooks—old laptops reconfigured by Alexios (the goofball of a god that's somehow dating Consul Ramirez-Arrellano) to not emit monster-attracting signals—it was far easier to compile and visualize the data. At 9:30 at night, we finally had some numbers.

"I beg your fucking pardon?" Percy exclaimed at Chen's report.

"20% of all legionaries passed if we're going by the US Marine infantryman minimum PFT and CFT requirements, sir," the thin-striped tribune confirmed. "If you wanna break it down further, 23% of the men passed while 13% of the women passed, with men making up 70% of the legion while women make up 30%, so if we represented the legion as a hundred people—"

"Matt, enough of the math," Hernandez interrupted.. "how the fuck is only one fifth of the legion able to meet the physical requirements?"

"Evocatus, stop me if I'm on the wrong track, but this can't possibly be the only relevant metric, can it?" Potter—another thin-striped tribune—asked. "I mean, there has to be more to it: mental strength, discipline, literacy, technical skills, and the like, right?"

"You're not wrong, man—it's not like Marines and D-Boys are all PT studs or anything—but there's still a baseline in terms of physical fitness. Are there any clusters of unfit personnel anywhere?"

"Uh... no, not really," Chen replied after checking. "It's just kinda... spread out every-fucking-where."

"Yeah, it's kinda a general problem overall," Steele confirmed. "There are so many unfit personnel that every cohort is in bad shape, even Cohort I. The cavalrymen are about the only ones that are okay."

"Out-fucking-standing," Reed growled as he paced the conference room of the Principia. "So we can't meet a physical baseline, discipline is low, morale is lower... what a shitshow."

"There's also the question of sustainability, sir," Stern—the fifth thin-striped tribune and the sole female of the bunch—said. "As well as the fact that there are several people that shouldn't even be infantrymen in the first place."

"Whaddaya mean, Kayla?" Riggs asked. "I don't think I'm following you."

"Well... okay, you notice how female legionaries tend to drop out of service faster than their male counterparts? Why do you think that is?"

"Pregnancy and motherhood?" Steele guessed.

"Well, that's part of it, but that isn't the whole story. Now, everyone gets all kinds of injuries from training and other non-combat duties: stress fractures, muscle atrophy, and the like. But under the training we've got—even in our apparent softened state—these occur at a higher rate within the females than males. There's also the risk of infertility."

"Wait, what?" Chen exclaimed. "You're telling me that all the marching and drilling can... can cause infertility within women?"

"Yeah, unfortunately... now, it should be taken into consideration that there are several other factors in play here," Stern continued. "Thanks to godly blood, or whatever you want to call it, we do have increased physical strength, stamina, reactionary capabilities, and so on. Thus, the average demigoddess is going to be stronger than the average mortal female, as well as being closer to and sometimes on par with the average male. But the breakdown is still there... and we still break down faster than our demigod counterparts. Less bone density, muscle mass, smaller frames, and a crapload of other things—again, this is in terms of averages. The only reason why you don't really see it in the freakin' Huntresses of Diana is 'cause they're not carrying anything heavy... at all. How, I have no idea, but still."

"There's some magic mumbo-jumbo there," Jackson answered. "That's why they're not a buncha backpackers. Anyways, so that's the reason why I've never seen females in combat arms?"

"I have no idea what you're referring to, but sure?"

"I knew there was a reason, but I don't know jack shit about biology. I went to college for engineering, but I don't even remember a majority of that shit. That aside though, I've met plenty of women in combat support and combat service support—think intel, logistics, aviation, admin, medical, comms, and such—that were a credit to themselves and their units... they just weren't in the infantry, armor, artillery, or anything that required a great deal of rigorous physical activity. Didn't make 'em any less valuable, since they were still critical in supporting the team. Honestly, people seem to forget that every military is tooth and tail, not just tooth... motherfuckers out here acting like the contributions made in support ain't shit..."

"I'm surprised at the whole infertility thing," Chen muttered. "Like... damn."

"That's just men and women being built differently," Stern replied with a shrug. "You got more testosterone, I got more estrogen, you can handle grunt work better, I can multitask better in certain work, there's some psychological crap, blah blah blah. Nothing we can do about it, unless we wanna file a complaint to the Holy HR Department."

"Wait, all of that is true?" Hernandez asked.

"Yeah... di-did none of you ever take a biology class?"

"I mean... I'm more of a welder, so..."

"I did math," Chen replied with a light laugh. "Complete and utter nerd. That's probably why I never got girls... the media fucking lied to me."

"Face it, Kayla, you're basically the only girl we actually talk to that isn't our mom or sister. Hence why us clowns don't know jack shit about the fairer sex," Steele joked with a shrug.

"Confusion between the sexes aside," I interrupted, wanting to bring us back on track. "So I'm understanding that there are female-specific medical concerns, a shitload of unfit legionaries in general, and some other crap. So where do we go from here?"

"Well, from now on, we have to make sure that anything and everything we do is related to combat effectiveness. Odd as it may sound, we can't expect the Senate to come in here and start spouting shit," Jackson replied. "In other words: we may just end up shaking the legion up so much, we'll become incredibly despised. So no PC bullshit or questions of whether we can or can't—just whether we should or shouldn't."

"Does this include, by any chance, the situation of female infantrymen? I mean, based on the issue of longevity and the gender-specific medical problems... I'm not saying we shouldn't train them for combat, but..." Potter trailed off.

"I hear what you're saying. It's not just a matter of fighting, but weighted marching too... which, come to think of it, we haven't done much of... nowhere near as much as the old days. We're also gonna have to do something about males that don't meet the requirements either," Reed muttered. "Dammit, we may just have to restructure the whole fucking legion... again."

"We could go by the way of the Caracal Battalion," Kayla suggested, the rest of us replying with blank stares of confusion. "Okay, so before my dad was a software engineer, he was in the Israel Defense Forces for eight years, mostly in the paratroopers as a radioman—something about being a fire support specialist."

"Your dad was a fister?" Jackson asked, eliciting snickers from most of the men.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Er, Fire Support Team member, or FiSTer... that's the nickname in the American military."

"Okaaaay... anyways, I was once interviewing him for a school project and learned about this infantry unit called the 33rd Caracal Battalion, which has a majority of female soldiers. My dad said that he worked with them a couple of times for some certain missions, and found that they were pretty good at their job. Granted, their mission is primarily defensive and heavy on policing the Israeli-Egyptian border—which apparently is a less conflicted area compared to other borders of Israel—but still. They've racked up successes in anti-smuggling, as well as some counterterrorism."

"It sounds like their role is a lot different from the infantry... infantry locks shit down, yeah, but their bread and butter is goin' into the enemy's backyard and breaking him and his shit... Caracal honestly sounds like a mix between an infantry and MP—er, military police—unit."

"That's actually how my dad described it. Side note: I remember reading about this all-female special forces unit from Norway... called the Jegertroppen, coincidentally translating to 'Hunter Troop.'"

"Kayla, are you fucking with us?" Steele asked with a light laugh. "C'mon, you're telling me there's a unit which is basically Elsa and Anna meet Delta Force and turn into a modern-day version of the fucking Huntresses of Diana?"

"Yes, Nathan, that is exactly what I am saying. I think their specialty was information gathering—something about working in populations where male soldiers couldn't interact with female civilians?"

"... holy shit."

"While I've never heard of this unit, I did see some of this shit in Afghanistan," Jackson remembered. "Think it was called the... Lioness, FET, CST, somethin' like that. They went out with infantrymen and SOF and had a significantly easier time talking to the women and children, 'cause in accordance with local custom, our men couldn't speak to the women because they weren't married or related. So it did help with intel collection and maybe a bit of that 'hearts and minds' shit... I dunno, that's more of an SF thing. 'Cause when I hear 'hearts and minds,' I'm thinkin' two to the chest, one to the head."

"So what, we just make a female-only cohort or something?" Hernandez asked. "Yeah, like that's not gonna backfire on us—with the flames being courtesy of the weirdos in the Senate."

"Nonono, this could actually work," Riggs said, the thick-striped tribune looking as though a bulb had lit up above his head. "Forget about the support personnel for a second, just focus on the females that did pass the standards. We could go that route: a Caracal-esque cohort with a Jegertroppen-or-whatever-the-hell-it's-called detachment. Their mission could be internal security, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance—of course, with combat training, of course, with a focus on defending themselves, repelling attacks or just holding the line until backup arrived."

"Also, keep in mind, we're giving all the senators, praetors, and any other administrators current and present a big ole 'fuck you' at the moment," Jackson threw in. "So if they try to interfere, the legate and tribunes can handle them... and we'll bring in the consuls if need be."

"There's also the issue of general support," I added. "The legion is missing several support elements that would complete it—at the moment, we seem to just be drawing shit together on an ad hoc basis, rather than utilizing dedicated sub-units."

"Whaddaya mean, Kahale?"

"Well, thanks to the Freyna Reforms—"

"You actually call them that?"

"Some idiot did, and it subsequently got stuck in my head. Anyways, we have ten cohorts and a cavalry unit thanks to this. However, while we do have one scorpio per century and one ballista per cohort, we lack a dedicated unit for legion-level assets such as the onagers and rams, nor do we have any dedicated fabri—who make up, at minimum, a ten-man engineering team. We could also flesh out the medical staff—at least one doctor and two nurses, assistants, or whatever the fuck they're called per cohort—and scribe team, since those aren't really a thing."

"Don't we kinda have that already?" Steele asked.

"All of it's vague..." Stern mused. "And we don't really have a dedicated logistics train, either."

"Got it!" Jackson exclaimed with a comical snap of his fingers. "ASVAB!"

"Ass-what?" several of us replied simultaneously.

"ASVAB! Stands for... er, something or the other. Too many fuckin' acronyms in the military, and the last time I saw it was twenty years ago!"

"Er... you mean the 'Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery?'" Chen asked after making a quick search on his Leobook.

"That sounds right! Basically, it assesses your capability in a shitload of categories: math, English, science, trade skills, and some other shit. I think it took me three or so hours to do it, so we'll just administer it tomorrow," Jackson explained. "With that, the PT scores, and any other shit you think is necessary, we can properly restructure this legion. Now's the perfect time to experiment, since the legion isn't at war and people aren't at risk of getting killed... especially where this new female cohort idea is concerned."

"What's the plan, Evocatus?" Stern asked.

"Chen, you're gonna be in charge of administering the ASVAB and Riggs is gonna be your muscle. Stern, I'm putting you in charge of handling this female cohort business, along with the reassignment of manpower as needed. Steele and Potter, assemble the medical, clerical, and logistical sections. Hernandez, you're gonna put together that engineering and artillery section. Reed, as the legate, you're gonna be my PAO—er, public affairs officer—and keep us in everyone else's good books, as well as acquiring all the shit we need and providing support wherever you can. And Kahale, buddy, you're the single most experienced man in the whole goddamn legion, so I need you with me to keep the training going..."

As Jackson continued to lay out his plan—with every member of the leadership team listening intently, I considered the outcome of these six weeks. It could either go spectacularly or horribly, depending on the reaction of the troops. It was a far cry from the legion I knew twenty years ago, and was definitely going to be a bit different... providing that the changes stuck, of course. I'll give Jackson this: audacious as he is, he still knew that he could fail, and the legion would be forced to revert back to its former state.

But as it were, I was ready to follow his lead and advise as necessary. Those were my orders... and good soldiers follow orders.

Did you catch all the references?

Also, remember what Diana said about how strange it was to see female legionaries? That wasn't a jackass keyboard warrior of an author talking, that was a goddess who hasn't seen much since the fall of Rome. Keep in mind that the legionaries and Huntresses fight in two very different manners: the former form a large, heavy, and slow force—a sledgehammer—while the latter form a small, light, and fast force—a scalpel, or dare I say, a needle. So the restructuring I'm making the Romans do is going to sound batshit insane, but bear with me.

Comment if you know why the cadre members are wearing black hats!

And here are some memes (starting off by libeling myself):

As always, thanks for reading. Make sure to stay safe and hydrated, and I'll see you in the next one!

Until then,

- ADF-2