We all leave the gun range, and begin following the line towards the next class. "You never told me about shooting with your family," says Ko-lee, matching pace with me as we walk. I give her a shrug. "Well, I don't think I've talked to you about my family all that much." She tilts her head, her gaze laser focused on me. "Why not?" she asks. I sigh. "I don't know. My family is complicated. My mom remarried a few times, so my family is a bit scattered. And we all moved to different places, so I don't think about them very much. We get together here and there for holidays, but other than that... they're just not really part of my life." There's a moment of confusion in her eyes. "You... don't live near them?" she asks, trying to piece something together in her mind. I shake my head. "No, we moved far away from each other. It's... a culture thing, I think. I think pretty much everyone here lives with their family for one reason or another, but where I was... I think I'd need to give a whole breakdown for it. Maybe later," I say, looking at the others.
Ko-lee nods her head, my unspoken words understood. Me and her fall silent for the rest of the walk, listening to the others for the few minutes it takes to get to our next class. As we walk in, my eyes wander the large open space. "God damn it, it's PE," I think, looking at the racks of equipment, and padded floors tapped off to denote various spaces. "RECRUITS!" yells a huge woman. "THIS IS PHYSICAL TRAINING. WE ARE GOING TO GET PHYSICAL HERE. IT MAY HURT. YOU WILL NOT COMPLAIN." We're all dead silent. "Good! You understand! It's time for warm up!" She points to the track that rings the room. "I want you all to run three times around the track!" We all look at each other for a second, before she startles us into action. "MOVE!"
We take off, and at first, Rease pulls way ahead of the rest of us. But it's not long before his lead begins to shrink. "All those muscles and no endurance," I think, making sure to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth. Ko-lee is keeping pace with me, likely out of habit, and eventually she starts to pull away from the group. I hazard a quick glance behind to see Caz-V and Ella right next to each other, but I can tell from how casual he is that Caz-V is doing it on purpose. "Well well well, how the turn tables. Looks like Dick van Douche actually has a heart of gold. Or he wants in Ella's pants. Truly a mystery for the ages." I'm unsure of how long the track is, but it takes about five minutes for us to make a full circuit on it, according to the clock in the headset.
"Def shorter than a mile then. I've never been that fast," I think. By the second lap, I'm getting winded, but so is Rease, and so we stay pretty much in lock step the whole time. Ko-lee, on the other hand, is nearly half way around the track from the rest of us. We keep pushing, and by the third lap, I'm really starting to feel the burn. I've stopped paying attention to everyone else, because at this point I just want to make sure I'm pacing myself. "There's more to come. She said warm up," I repeat over and over in my head. I'm so distracted, that I barely notice when I cross the finish line. It's only as Ko-lee waves at me from the sideline that I stumble slightly and come to a stop. Around 30 seconds later, Caz-V and Ella finish, Caz-V looking much fresher than his running companion. "Great, you all look warm. Time for stretches," says the teacher, who I'm suddenly realizing never gave us a name.
She leads us through excruciating stretches, and I feel muscles I didn't know I had getting pulled in ways I didn't know they could be pulled. "This is it. This is hell. Hell is yoga," I think, my arms shaking as I perform what the teacher was calling the "escalator" stretch. "Aahh, good. Now slowly rise back to a standing position, making sure to take in a breath as you do," says the teacher, as we all untangle ourselves. We stand there for a moment, and she glares at all of us, saying nothing. "To be fair, I don't know if she's glaring, or if her face just looks like that," I think, waiting for her to speak. She doesn't. The silence stretches on for so long, that I start formulating something to say when she finally opens her mouth.
"We are not warframes," she says, making sure to lock eyes with all of us, one at a time. "Again. We are not warframes. A warframe's goal is to slaughter a military compound. A warframe's goal is to sabotage a ship engine. A warframe's goal is eliminate highly protected targets. But to accomplish those goals, they need information, and it's up to us to make them as effective as possible. That is what we do as Tenno." She starts to pace in front of us as she talks, only occasionally giving glances. "When you're assigned to an operation, you may need to spy. You may need to infiltrate. And yes, you may need to kill. But you'll learn how to do those things in your other classes." She stops pacing, and turns to look at us. "Here, I'll be making sure your body is capable of doing those things you learn about. I'll teach you to navigate a Corpus duct system. How to climb a Martian ruin. How to take and throw a punch."
"My goal is to make sure that your body can cash the checks your mind is writing. And we'll start with combat. Now, I want to be entirely clear here. You won't be grappling a Grineer prosecutor, or suplexing an Infested charger. Again, we're not warframes. But you'll need resilience to perform as a Tenno, and this will help build that resilience." She claps her hands, once, loudly. "Right, so I want everyone to line up." We shuffle around for a moment, forming a line on the mat. As we do, she grabs some sort of device off a nearby table, and the moment we finish moving, she hands each one of us one of the devices. It's smooth and metallic, and has a teardrop shape to it, if a bit flat. "There's a spot near your waist that this should attach to. Bring it close to your TEPA, and you should feel a pull. It'll guide itself in," she says, as she finishes handing out the devices.
I hold the device to my stomach, and feel the device try to leave my hands in the direction a specific spot near my waist. I guide it over, and as it gets closer, the pull gets stronger, until finally, I let go and it gets sucked in. "Magnets, how do they work," I think, watching a blue light flash on the device. "This will help prevent you from getting seriously injured during training," says the teacher, watching us all attach the device. Her eyes scan us, and eventually they land on Rease. "Recruit Thomoni, come here." He takes a step out of line, closing the distance, and she looks him up and down for a moment. She's roughly my height, around 6'1" or 6'2", but Rease is still a couple inches taller, so she has to tilt to make eye contact with him. "Recruit, I'm going to beat the shit out of you for three minutes. I don't want you attacking back. Think you can do that?"
His mouth hangs open for a moment, but her expression doesn't change. Eventually, he closes his mouth and just gives her a short nod. "Great!" says the teacher, her expression lighting up for what seems like the first time since we've entered the class. She takes one step towards him, just enough to get him within arms range, then grabs him by the suit and fully lifts him off his feet, before slamming him down on the ground. "What the fuck was that!" I think in shock, as I watch Rease pick himself up from his prone position. "She threw him around like a bag of dirty laundry! Does she have like... enhancements or something?" She waits until he makes his way back to his feet before sending a jab right at his face.
He instinctively flinches, and she pulls her hand back right before making contact with him, tutting. "Recruits, that is what I want to break. Did you see how Recruit Thomoni closed his eyes? It is vital that you keep your eyes open in the field." She sighs for a moment, and Rease squints before fully opening his eyes, looking around confusedly. "You're going to get hurt in the field. It's going to happen. But when it happens, it'll likely be because you and your squadmates are in danger. But those moments of danger are when you need to be at your best. This pain?" She swings her other fist at Rease's face, and this time, it connects. As it does though, I can perceptibly notice the fist slow as it hits his face. "Still looks like it hurts though," I think. "I want you to know it. Feel it. Move past it," she says, striking Rease all the while. At the end of her phrase, her leg swings around and connects with his midsection, causing him to bend over, letting out a "Ooof."
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"Know it. Feel it. Move past it," she says, as Rease attempts to get air in his lungs. Eventually, he takes a deep breath, and straightens back up, his expression hard. The teacher smiles, although it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Good!" she says, before taking another swing at him. The beat down goes on for roughly another 90 seconds, before she suddenly stops. "That's three minutes. Well done Recruit Thomoni. Seriously. It takes guts to come up here first," she says to the bruise that was once referred to as Rease. "Go and sit down on the bench. Take a breather. You get 12 minutes as I work my way through the rest of your squad." Her gaze turns to me, and I feel a spike of adrenaline rush down my spine. "You ready Recruit?" she asks. I shake my head no. "Yes, sir," I say. She laughs, a much softer laugh than I was expecting. "You're funny, Recruit Nova." Then she swings.
Roughly 15 minutes later, and the entire squad is sitting on the bench, in various states of exhaustion. The teacher towers over us, looking down, ever so slightly bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Alright recruits. This was the heaviest setting for the kinetic dampeners. Over the next month, we'll be decreasing the sensitivity until it has no effect at all," she says. I'm too tired to worry. "I'll give you all a few more minutes, but then I want you to pair off. The rest of class you'll be hitting each other. Every ten minutes, I want you rotating through, and we keep going until everyone's had a chance to fight everyone else." Ella raises her hand, her arm wavering slightly. "Uhm... I'm sorry, sir, but... I don't actually know how to fight." The teacher nods her head. "I'm aware, and it's alright. Right now, this is just a chance to blow off some steam."
"So go ahead and do whatever you think will be effective. Swing, kick, smack, whatever. If I see something genuinely problematic, I'll step in. Eventually, we'll transition into something a little more structured, but this is an opportunity to get a little aggressive. And remember, you have the kinetic dampeners, so none of you will get seriously injured." I hear Caz-V scoff next to me, and the teacher's head slowly turns to lock eyes with him. "Do you have something you'd like to share with the class, Recruit?" I can see the fight in his head, but it seems like his frustration wins, because he bites out, "Yeah. We all have injuries. I don't think the dampeners work." A malicious grin grows on her face. "Do you have serious injuries, Recruit?" He stares at her for a moment, before losing his game of eye contact chicken. "No. Sir," he says, begrudgingly.
"Exactly," says the teacher, before looking at the rest of us. "Now I want everyone to pair off, except for Ella. Ella, you were the last one to fight, so you'll sit this round out." I look over to Ko-lee sitting a spot away from me at the same time as Rease does, and unfortunately, he's sitting right next to her, so I'm left with Caz-V. I look at him and give him a shrug, and he just rolls his eyes and makes his way to one corner of a mat, leaving me to make my way to the other. We both reach our corners, and the teacher says "Go!", but neither of us move. "Alright, Bateman, why don't you drop the act and put your damn hands up," I think, as he stands there motionless. "You know I'm going to swing on you here in a second, right?" I ask him, doing my best to keep the tone light.
He just shrugs once more. "And I'll swing back," he says, with an unconcerned tone. "Alright, can't say that I didn't try." I raise my hands in a boxer's pose, and he doesn't move his at all, although he does widen his stance slightly. "Am I just supposed to... walk towards him?" I wonder, feeling incredibly awkward. I've never been in a real fight before, just some scraps here and there. As well, I've had bits of training over my entire life, but it's all mixed together to form a congealed mass of unusable knowledge. I half skip, half walk towards him, and the moment I'm within arm's reach, I throw a jab towards his face. Much faster than expected, he dips to the left of my swing, then grabs both hands onto my outstretched arm, swinging me around. I reactively try to take a step to keep balance, but his foot is planted in the way, and I immediately trip over it. I rotate midair to avoid smashing down on my face, and some remnant of muscle memory kicks in so that I don't just fall flat on my back.
Instead, I hit the ground and roll, throwing my feet up over my head, maintaining the momentum from the fall, so that I instead end up in a crouch a few feet away from him. He gives me a smirk. "You look like an idiot," he says, and for the first time in a while, I can't come up with anything to say. "He let go of my arm on purpose. He probably just stood there while I rolled. I didn't get away, he probably just let me. Fuck," I think, slowly standing up. My eyes are glued on him, on his feet, but he doesn't make any move to approach. "He for sure has some sort of training. I can't just go at him, because then he'll counter me, and he moves a lot faster than I do. But I can't wait for him to come at me, because he never will." His smirk falls off his face, and he rolls his eyes at me. "So, are you planning on glaring me to death, or were you going to try to hit me at some point today?" Caz-V asks with a bored tone.
"I'm working on it," I say. He just sighs, and crosses his arms, looking as unprepared for an attack as possible. "He's fucking with me. He has training, and I have scattered fragments of training. He probably has a counter for most common shit under the sun," I think, staring at my opponent. "Although... what if I just do something really stupid? Is his training formal? What I just... go at him like it's a bar fight, instead of, like, a boxer?" I take a step towards him, and I see his muscles tense, his eyes scanning my form. I raise my hands in a similar manner as before, but then instead of approaching to take a punch, I just book it towards him, throwing my arms forward to grab him in a bear hug. He's quick enough to see it coming, and he knocks my arms to the side, doing his best to step out of the grab, but I throw my considerable weight against his smaller frame like a battering ram, knocking him to the ground.
I see his eyes widen as we collapse into a pile of limbs, but I'm marginally on top, and I quickly start slamming any part of my body capable of doing so into his. "What-" I hear him exclaim, right before my skull comes down on his nose. A swing with my fist is stopped by his hand, and my foot flails ineffectively, but his position is compromised, and my general flailing is making it hard for him to throw my weight off. Eventually I manage to get into an actual position on top of him to start swinging more effectively. The second I straddle him though, he knees me in the back, bucking his hips simultaneously. I tip over, my hands reactively falling in front of me to catch myself before I faceplant on the mat. The instant my hands touch the ground above his head, he place both of his near my right elbow, shifting one of his legs to the outside of mine.
"Woops," is the only thought that manages to cross my mind, before he bucks once more, this time rolling with the motion, causing me to be on my back, with him on top. My position isn't nearly as bad as his was, since he's not fully straddling me, but he starts raining down punches, and I'm too busy trying to protect my face with my arms to use them to pull myself free. I try to use my legs to push him off and away from me, but he plants his legs in the ground to prevent me from doing so, and we're locked like this for what feels like either five seconds or five hours before I feel him go flying. I take a peek from between my arms to see that he's just standing above me, breathing heavily, looking at the teacher.
"Oh, he just got up. We're probably done," I think, as I slowly bring myself to my feet. "You took Associate Safety," the teacher says, and I'm briefly confused until I realize that she's not talking to me. She gives Caz-V an indecipherable look, but he doesn't do anything other than nod, and eventually she turns to me. "Not bad Recruit. You had him for a moment, after you made a choice to drop whatever it was you were trying to do the first time," she says, looking ever so minorly impressed. "Not that you knew what to do once you had him there." I just shake my head. "I don't know that I ever had him, sir. I think he was just unprepared for me to come at him like a wild animal. The second I did something he recognized, he put me on my back. Literally." She nods.
"True, but your willingness to try something new when you realize your old strategy isn't working... it's a good mindset to have. If you keep slamming your head against a brick wall, your skull will break, not the stone. With a bit more training and experience, you might be a half decent Agent," she says, before turning away from me, and to the rest of the class. "Alright, new partners! Caz-V, you're out, Ella, you're in!" I see Ella turn slightly pale, as Rease approaches her, but my attention is pulled away as Ko-lee steps next to me, with a malicious glint in her eye. "You did pretty well in weapon's training," says Ko-lee. "Better than me, even." I give her a cheeky grin. "Yea, lots of video games," I say. She makes her way to the opposite corner of the mat from me, and bounces slightly from foot to foot. "Well, let's see if they can help you here," she says, and the second the teacher says "Go!", Ko-lee closes the distance.
