"Find a sparring partner, find and circle and spar the best you can. Loser fights me," Celeste commanded and the army did so.

As Celeste finished speaking, sage moved to escape the circle of kids and leave them with Xander, moving over to Celeste. "You did good," he murmured, knowing shed be fighting once the solarians finished. But they had a few minutes until that happened. "If they can adapt to vampire fighting, we might have a shot at this," he added watching them spar. They weren't bad, just.... different.

Celeste nodded with a faint smile. She loved him, and she loved that he was here for her, but she did have to pay attention to the sparring.

Sage knew she needed to pay attention, so he didn't distract her anymore, but he did wrap an arm around her side as she watched the solarians spar, realizing her and stepping back once they'd finished, knowing she had work to do.

Celeste directed the army. "Winners, you are to spar amongst yourselves. Find a partner, and spar again," she directed, then turning to the losers. "Losers come make a line in front of me,"

Sage let her do her thing, sort of just standing off to the side. He didn't want to jump in yet...he'd let the solarians rank themselves like this first.

"Everyone is to come at me all at once. Make sure you are observing the moves I make to take down yourself and your fellow warriors," she commanded, signalling them to come at her. She defeated all of them, around 350 of them.

Sage just perched against a tree and watched her, watching her moves off course but mostly just proud of her. She really was perfect.

Celeste had finished, sending them off to spar against Cassian. She ordered the next batch of losers to fight her, the winners again, sparring amongst themselves until only one remained.

Sage sort of mulled around until that whole process had stopped, then he wandered back over to Celeste with a sigh. "It could be worse," he mused quietly, observing the now resting army