Chapter 23: Zek
Boss had us assemble that morning on the main deck of the ship, facing the full brunt of the late winter wind, chilling me quite literally to the bones. I could only be thankful for the fact that he still had us in full battle-ready attire or I'm rather sure I wouldn't have even made it this long just standing here waiting for the real practice to begin.
Earlier this morning, Gordez had been helping Boss pulley down a number of items from the armory, which had now been nicely arranged into a makeshift training center out here. When you left the superstructure, you could find all manners of arms and armor. On the right was the common sword sparring area, with a nice rack neatly arranged with multiple practice sword, and about 4 practice dummies arranged in a pentagon shape of sorts. Quaint. To the left we had an area I could only assume was delegated the "spear" practice area, with a just-as-nice rack, but sadly, no training dummies. I imagined we'd recycle the ones from the sword practice area to that end. And directly ahead, clearly the longest stretch of deck space, was a shoddily assembled archery range, where the racks, I imagined, mark the firing zones, and the barrels of hay ahead, our targets.
It was no Fire Nation academy, but it was, well, as insulting as it sounded, it was cute. It was a start, that was for sure, and a good means of not lagging too far behind. It was necessary, and it was a good start if there ever was one. Next to that, it was quite amusing seeing Boss having absolutely no idea how to train us. He knew how to lead us, but training us, well, that was something quite else. Then again, it was his first day at this. I couldn't give him too much shit, but, while he was still struggling, holding on with dear life, I was going to enjoy myself.
"Alright, alright!" He started, already making as much of an effort as possible to assert dominance. It wasn't something I was insulting, but I could tell he was trying. And when you can tell somebody is trying rather than having it come naturally to them, it's not the best for confidence. "Gather around!"
We gathered. I instinctually looked back around at the superstructure to see if Ka'lira had come out to watch. She hadn't. In one sense, it hurt. In the other, I considered it a relief. Truth be told, I had no idea just how much I remembered from my days in the academy, and I couldn't exactly say that the siege had prepared me for ground combat. I was a tanker. I spent my days driving a tank, clearing the path for the real fighters. It was nice to not have the pressure of this, today. I looked at the others around me next. Jadoh, he was confident, but nothing about his composure equalized to that. He was sloppy. Could barely hold his sword right. He had the proper grip, but he was too tight, holding his sword in a rigid position, great for defense and certain swings, but completely wrong for now. He would wear himself out before the training even began at this rate. Luke on the other hand, he seemed to be holding himself far better. Sword gripped nicely, switching it from hand to hand, limbering up. Smart. I could see Boss noticed too by the look he gave. All the same, he continued.
"We've been out of practice for quite a while! We're changing that. I want to see just how much you remember from the academy," he said, looking between both me and Luke, "and whether or not any of you have some natural talent," he continued, now shifting his gaze to Jadoh, who straightened his posture at the self-recognition. He believed in himself. A part of me wanted to see him fall flat on his ass at least 10 times before the day was done. Actually, all of me wanted to see him fall flat on his ass at least 10 times before the day was done.
I got my wish. And far far more. "We'll start with some sword practice!" Boss said, clearly still taking himself a tad bit too seriously. "The sword," he elaborated, "is the foundation of every soldier's weaponry." Oh boy. "Perfect for medium to short range encounters, the sword can be used in a number of ways from hacking an opponent's limb off, to delivering a well-timed and precise blow. He was sidetracking. Trying to hard. "To be a proper soldier, a proper warrior, one must know how to use a sword. I will be teaching you today how to properly yield one. Only then," Please stop. "Can you all be proper fighting machines."
It ended, and there was no reaction from us. He noticed, and tried as he could to hide it, he felt pretty humiliated. I wanted to think he wouldn't be making the same mistake. I was just praying once the training began, he'd be far more down-to-earth. Last thing we needed was a commander who felt as though he had to educate us as far back as first-year academics.
He cleared his throat. "Right," he said, trying to recover. "Grab a weapon!"
We went to the training rack, naturally forming a quaint single file line of 3, individually grabbing and testing the weight of different blades. Luke grabbed the first one I had considered, one I felt to be too light, but I imagined for him was better suited considering his smaller size, though not by too much. He was around that age already, growing quite significantly, to an even startling extent.
"Pick a dummy! I was to see what you know before I start anything!" He was cooling down now. Good. Noticed his earlier mistake. As entertaining as it was, it would be nice to leave that behind. We chose our individual targets of our abuse, going to town on them however we could. I stuck to heavier blows at the face and torso region, seeing what I could do to bring down the dummy. They were weighed down at the base with solid lead. Took quite the effort to bring them down. I relief on heavier attacks at the upper body. Meanwhile, Luke was shifting his attention towards the appendages, a smart move for his size, bringing the enemy down to his level, then finishing it. With the training dummies, however, he didn't have the same success as he would have with a living being, but the method was there, and quite solid at that. Jadoh on the other hand, was experiencing a harder time. Hell, on his first swing, not expecting the mass of the target, the sword went flying out of his hand. Needless to say, he had no method, but maintained his confidence, and when given the slightest pointer by Boss, would reply with "I know I know" or "I was doing that!"
So Boss, in time, had enough, and decided it was time for sparring. He knew that Luke and I had a grasp on what we needed and gave us leave to practice at our pleasure. Boss, however, spent his day with Jadoh, and, believe me, I counted, knocked him on his ass 57 times. It was a sight to behold. From that day, he took Jadoh under his metaphorical wing.
From that point, Luke and I would primarily practice together. Not necessarily with each other, but more or less with the same routines. The same practices, drills, forms, you name it. That first day, we spent all of morning working on swordplay. Turns out, my methodology didn't work out so well when it came to him, a far smaller, and definitely more agile figure. His faster, weaker, more precise blows brought me down a number of times. It was, not humiliating, but slightly emasculating. I was only glad Ka'lira wasn't around at the time. It went on like this until I realized what I did have on my side, sheer strength and brute force. I fought dirty. I grabbed him, pulled him to the ground, punched. These things he couldn't avoid just as easily, but he wasn't one, being a street kid, to ignore a dirty fight. And it got dirty. I know how it must have looked from an outsider perspective, but there was no anger when we fought. Hell. I think we were both quite enjoying it. I'd throw him to the ground, he'd knock me off my feet, and we'd essentially be wrestling. It went that way for quite a while until one of us either did something or said something that could've been observed as actual fighting, and Boss was forced to intervene, breaking us apart.
There was, however, no anger in our skirmish. After we had broken apart, we smiled at each other, brushing the dust off of ourselves. So he enjoyed it too. Good.
We ate that afternoon at around 1300. We all sat together; all save Gordez who took his meals below on a lunch-date with the rear turbine. Our meals consisted of more MREs. I wasn't one to complain. These had been my diet for the last 2 and a half years. I wasn't about to start complaining now. Jadoh on the other hand, did complain, much unlike Ka'lira, who seemed happy just to eat with company that didn't pose a risk of raping her any minute. Or at least, likely not. I trusted them, but I couldn't say whether or not she did quite yet. I wanted to believe she trusted me at this point. While there was no way to be sure, she did seem to either stick with nobody, or me. So perhaps she didn't quite trust me, but she distrusted me least, which is saying something, I guess.
After we ate, after watching Jadoh get his ass handed to him some more, Luke and I practiced our spear work, something I excelled at. He may have had me beat at sword work, but his practice with the spear was shoddy to say the least, yet still, I was concerned. He learned quick. By the end of that day, I maintained my edge over him, but damn did he make me work for it. That night, while the rest of us retired with a final meal, I didn't know what Luke was up to. But I could see the way the sky lit up from the barracks where I had chosen a nice corner bunk for myself. I knew he was tuning his real weapon and judging from the way the ship lit up when he did. I knew he was giving it his all. And something about that actually terrified me. He was our ally, but there was something disconcerting about the idea of having somebody with his ever-growing destructive potential so near.
On the fourth day, we kept at our usual schedules, except this time, we had a visitor—Ka'lira. Luke and I were still early on in our sword practice, which clearly, meant nothing good for me. "Hey, Luke," I said when I saw she had taken a seat outside and was observing. "Mind if we switch to spears for now?"
He gave me a look of confusion until he followed my gaze to where she sat. I was expecting some snide remark about me wanting to impress her as it was obvious, he picked up that much, but instead, he smiled and said "Sure. Let's go."
He even went easy on me. Not to say I wouldn't have won if he hadn't, but he allowed me some fanciful hits he could have easily blocked or dodged. He put up a fight enough to put himself to the test, but when it came down to it, he let me have the day. It went on that way for a while. Luke took it easy on me on the condition we ended earlier so he could practice on his own. He didn't ask for anything else. Something about that worried me, but I was likely being paranoid.
On the seventh day of training, her time as an observer was over. She joined in an unofficial capacity of sorts. I helped her as best as I could, but as time went by, I started to realize something. I was hardly getting anywhere on my own. Luke was taking it easy on me, but we no longer drilled together as I focused on helping Ka'lira, but I realized clearly enough, I needed somebody better than me. Luke was enough to challenge me, and that had been working, but it was clear who I needed. I needed Boss, but his work with Jadoh was far from over. And until I could get help from him, I was going nowhere. So as Jadoh was brought up to speed, I idled, helping Ka'lira as best as I could, not that there was much I could do. On the 9th day of training, we found land. The maps listed it as Jianghe, a series of islands off the coast of Hong Chen. It was there that we started to realize. We could no longer allow ourselves to be unprepared.
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