Chapter 13: Ch. 13 Breathing, you say?
Over at the camp Julius goes over to see what Clem is yelling about as he thinks to himself if Mac is going to play matchmaker she should be very interesting so he played along with his obvious honey trap. When he gets to Clem, She along with several others are gathered around the well. Before he got there, he could hear the low raspy hissing of a walker, and they are lowering a rope down the well. Julius had a good idea what was going on before anyone notices him walking up.
"Jules! Hurry up come here!" Clem yells, motioning for him to hurry. The others look up to see him coming.
"How did this happen?" Julius asks as he approaches the well.
"Hell if we know. What matters now is how are we going to get it out?" Andrea says not looking up from the well.
"And what is it you're trying? Fishing?" Julius says looking down at the lumpy corpse who was totally ignoring the bait, a whole canned ham. "This isn't a very good plan."
"No shit it's not a great plan, but it's all we've got right now." Shane who is manning the rope that would pull the walker up should it allow itself to be lassoed, barks back. He was long since fed up with Julius, almost everything about the boy was starting to piss him off. He nearly dropped the rope down the well in exasperation, but Glenn caught it.
"Easy Shane, let's take a deep breath man." Glenn says in a calming tone. "I know these last few days have been tense to say the least, but you gotta keep your cool."
"Yeah whatever…" Shane says taking a step back to calm down. "That boy better keep his goddamned mouth shut, he's just trying to piss me off…"
"You've gotta stop picking fights Julius." Clem says reprimanding her brother. "We don't need to cause any more problems than there already are." Looking at Julius' unbothered expression it was clear he didn't really care about anyone being angry. Who could make him do anything? "Please Jules, for me?" She pleads in a softer tone.
"I wasn't being rude, just stating a fact." He says nonchalantly. It was no secret he wasn't fond of Shane, but Shane wasn't going to make it easy for him. Shane's clearly devolving state of mind would surely cause problems down the line, and he wasn't the only one who saw it. It wouldn't bother Julius in the slightest to have to kill him, but looking around at the faces there they were still trying to make the most of their situation. He wouldn't be the villain here. "Alright, since my dear little sister asked me, I'll behave." He answers jokingly throwing up his hands in defeat.
"Thanks Jules," Clem says.
"I'll excuse myself now, wouldn't want to hurt any feelings with my honesty." Julius says strolling away. "Have fun fishing."
They all didn't want to hear the smartass' mouth right now, but he probably is walking away with a simple solution(by Julius standards anyway). They'd be at this all day waiting on a miracle, someone was going to have to be lowered down there to rope the walker by hand at this point. "Wait Julius!" Dale calls out. "You got any ideas on how we can go about this situation?"
"Me? You want my help?" Julius turns with a fake surprised expression.
"Yeah what should we do?" T-Dawg asks ignoring the sarcasm in his voice.
"Ask me nicely," Julius says smugly. "And I'll take care of it."
"Please just get the damned thing out of the well Julius." Maggie asks through gritted teeth. He was just being antagonistic now.
"What was that? I can't-"
"Jules come on!" Clem snaps.
"Alright, I was just messing around. I like clean water too," He says walking towards the well. "You all should take a few steps back." Everyone followed his instructions and stepped back, then he jumped in.
"Shit! Julius!"
"Hey!"
"What the hell!"
"Whoa!"
Everyone was surprised that he just dove in without any type of security, but before any of them could even reach the edge to peer inside a large blur flew up passed them and the walker landed on it's back a few meters away. Before it could get up Julius flew out too and landed with his sword planting into the walker's skull. "Done and done," He stands up and sheathes his sword. "You guys can handle the rest…That ham made me kinda hungry." He walks off without another word to anyone.
"What kind of steroids is that boy on?" Andrea asks scratching her head watching him walk off.
"Beats me, but I wouldn't mind trying some myself." Glenn answers.
"Man no kidding…" was all T-dawg could say." "That's some real deal ninja shit."
"Stop gawking, he's just some kind of freak of' nature. No point in dwelling on it." Shane says dismissively.
"It's called training. If you guys would ever just listen to him, you'd know that." Clem corrects him before going after Julius.
"H-hey wait up, what kind of training!" T-Dawg calls after her.
"Tch, damn know it all kids." Shane spits before going over to the body. "Someone help me burn this Walker!"
.........….
Later Julius and Clem make lunch for themselves at their personal campsite among the trees at the opposite edge of the farm. They eat a breakfast of rice, eggs and sausage quickly and in silence. A habit Julius had picked up during his time in the field. Anything could happen then you'd be fighting while hungry. Halfway through their meal they look up to the sound of multiple footsteps. A perfect example to drive the idea home.
"Can I help you guys?" Julius says dropping his chopsticks into the empty bowl. They only came over once, to interrupt his training. This was a fairly sized group too he saw Sophia, her mother Carol, Glenn, T-Dawg, Andrea, and Dale. He was curious to see what they wanted now.
"Hey, how's it going?" Glenn starts with an awkward smile. "Well umm…"
"What is it?" Julius answers blankly, his quizzical stare only made them more nervous.
"We want to be superheroes! Like you two!" Sophia exclaims, breaking the awkward tension.
"Huh?" Julius always found it surprising when people claimed to want to be more like him. He was generally more used to the part where people called him a freak or pointed out all the ways he stood out. Now there was a whole group of 'normal' people wanting to follow his lead.
"All that crazy stuff you two can do, you said it can be learned right?" T-Dawg continues where Glenn left off. "We want to learn it too, if you're willing to teach us."
As Julius thinks about it, Andrea adds a little more to help plead their case "Let's be honest, it would increase all of our chances of survival going forward if we were more capable in certain situations. That fre-"she stops herself from using the F word, "incredible strength of yours has helped us something major on multiple occasions since you got here."
"Andrea's right," Glenn says. "Plus, it's really damn cool."
"Damn straight," T-Dawg cosigns.
"They're just trying to butter him up…"
Clementine thinks to herself as she finishes her own food.
"Oh really?" Julius says looking extremely skeptical.
"Yes," Carol answers. "Truth is, we owe you a big apology. You've already done so much for us and we haven't exactly been all that fair to you in return. It feels wrong to ask for anything more, but it's something that will help everyone a lot. Hopefully we can work on patching things up between us, and work together more equally from there." Julius sat there for a moment thinking in silence, the rest of them look pensively for his answer.
"And they've got him…" Clementine thinks.
Sure enough, it worked. That apology was all he really wanted, and the acknowledgment of how great he is was icing on the cake.
"Alright, alright no need to twist my arm," he says as his demeanor had already become much more goofy and cheerful in the time it took for him to stand up. He loved to teach, so he never really planned to turn them down anyways. "Lets get to it then! While just about anyone can do it, learning a breathing technique is no easy feat, so we'll have to hit the ground running."
"Breathing?" Andrea asks with visible surprise. It was already starting to sound ridiculous, but she was here to learn. Not her but everyone there decided it would be best to have an open mind here, this is Julius.
"Of course. Every technique I use, starts with the way I breathe. Once we find out what you guys have an aptitude for, we can base your training from there. Breathing has many versions, and plenty of people adapt what they learn to suit their own abilities." Julius explains. "However, before any of that we do my favorite part. Conditioning!" Everyone groaned in their hearts, instead of some mystical mumbo jumbo they were going to be exercising, just exercising. The only requirements to start were an able body and an absurd amount of effort. So, they put their game faces on and got ready to give their all. It was just another thing else that had to be done.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
The_11th_Division
The_11th_Division Have some idea about my story? Comment it and let me know.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone