Wake up - Morning classes

You wake up to the sound of birds chirping outside, and not your alarm clock as you usually did. Like an idiot you remember that you weren't in your room right now, you look to your left where Anna had been laying beside you last night and was now no where to be seen. You look at the clock nailed to the wall and take in the current time; It's 7:30 and classes start at 8:00 on a Tuesday. Your eyes widen as you realize you don't even have time to do your morning training, you pick up your dirty cloths and rush to your room, you can hear the shower running as you close the door behind you.

You throw last nights cloths into the hamper and dress yourself accordingly, first you start with your training bands, followed by your school pants, and school shoes, sniffing your armpits they definitely smelled, but thankfully you had come prepared. You pulled out two bottles from your backpack, some dry shampoo and shower gel that you rubbed liberally into your body and hair. Satisfied with your hygiene you clothed yourself with your school shirt and jumper and headed to the door. As you exited the door Cery was walking out of the shower and towards the exit.

"Morning Cery." You greeted her cheerfully, feeling like you were worth a million bucks. However she completely blanked you and left the flat without even so much as glance in your general direction. Wait, had Cery heard the two of you last night?! You had tried to be as quiet as you could be, I mean you could hardly hear your own alarm clock the room over this morning, did Cery really have such good hearing? You sigh to yourself, you never meant to hurt anyone.

You make yourself some toast and rush to your first class, the Advanced combat class with Max was the first class on Tuesday and lasted 3 hours up until lunchtime. As you ran down the hallway you were painfully aware that you were the only one not in class as you passed room after room in session, finally you made it to the right door and entered breathless, even though you had ran as fast as you could, you were still 2 minutes late. The rooms eyes were all on you as you panted at the doorway.

"Lance Strong, what time do you call this?!" Max bellowed from his podium at the center of the room, you cringed at the anger in his tone of voice and looked up to the clock.

"8:02AM, Sir!" You responded in the typical army fashion, respect and obedience to ones superior and allowing them to guide you from nothing into something is the mindset you had beat into you from an early age.

"Two minutes too late, that is unacceptable behavior in RotchDale military academy! And on your first day no less! Drop down and give me 20 for your insolence!" You drop to the floor and hear the class giggle and chuckle. Max shot the class a glare and pointed to the crowd, anger present across his face.

"Anyone found laughing at those being disciplined in my class will get double the punishment, do I make myself clear?!" Max shot glares at the classroom, since no one was brave enough to answer he just nodded his head slowly.

"Good. You're all worthless scraps of metal that I intend to forge into stainless steel, and until that day I demand your utmost respect while you're in my domain." Max motioned with his stretched out hands to point to either side of the room. Looking down at you, you had ten more pushups to go.

"Are those pushups too easy for you? Well how about this then." With that max sat on you, his bulky body added a considerable amount of extra weight causing your arms to wobble as you tried your best to give full pushups all the way to the floor. When you were done the grey haired tutor got up off of you and returned to his podium, ushering you to stand up and find a seat.

"Good stuff, Strong. Now don't let me catch you being late to my class again or I'll double the punishment again and again and again." You nodded as you rubbed your poor arms, taking a seat next to Cery, who didn't acknowledge you in the slightest. You sighed and looked straight towards the front of the class towards Max.

"We'll start you off slowly and boringly, I know some of you are absolutely itching to get your hands on a training weapon and go to town on a training dummy, but before you sharpen your sword you gotta sharpen your mind. After all, what is a good sword if it's being held by an irrational idiot that'd sooner swing at you than read the situation?" Max continued on for the rest of the class talking about squad formations and tactics, scenarios that could be traps, reading into an opponents hidden agenda and things to spot during combat that could give you a tactical advantage. All of if was fascinating stuff and had clearly come from his personal experiences and the books he'd read. A combat instructed with lived experiences was clearly an invaluable asset, and you were intent to soak up as much knowledge from him as you could.

As Max was finishing up the days lecture, the bell sounded letting all students know that it was lunch time. Before you could even look to your right to ask Cery if she'd want to go get something to eat she had packed up and rushed to the door, clearly she wasn't very happy with you. She'd definitely heard the two of you last night, you felt bad that you had hurt her but it was never what you'd intended to do! Maybe this was your fault, would things have been better if you'd kept your dick in your pants? Were you really to blame?

You were stuck so much in your thoughts that you almost didn't feel the bunched up ball of paper hit the back of your head. Turning to look at who threw it at you, your stomach dropped a little bit. It was the ring leader of the bullies back at your old school, Jack walked up to you and grabbed you by the scruff of your neck, clearly very angry at something.

"What's with your score, dweeb? You beg your old man to boost your score for you?" You clench your teeth and grab a hold of the wrist James had your scruffed at the neck by, seeing your response Jack grinned. "That's it, you wanted to look cool for once in your life so you begged daddy to bail you out. Not only once but twice! Wasn't it enough that he paid for you to be here, now you want to look like a big shot while you're at it?!" Jack had caused a crowd to grow around you, and by the looks of things they weren't disagreeing with him, it seems like he spoke for the rest of the class.

"Fuck off Jack, you don't know anything about me." You snarl at him, tightening your grip, causing him to grit his teeth and let go, snagging his hand back from your grasp.

"Oh yeah? Well I know that only two months ago you were getting beat up in class like a bitch. You think you can act all tough now and people will buy it? Not while I'm around, retard." Jack pushes you back, you clench a fist, it's now or never to prove to yourself that you're a changed man. Before you're able to do anything Max walks by and stops the fight before it even begins.

"Alright kids settle down, new fish like you two don't know our ways yet but if you have a dispute, you bring it to the Arena, you don't just brawl in school grounds like fucking animals." Max motions to the window where you see an arena like building made out of sandstone, warriors were etched out into the buildings stone.

"If you kids have a problem that can't be solved with words you bring it to the arena, got it?" Max looks to the both of you, Jack nods.

"Coach, I wanna show this piece of trash his place." Jack stared coldly into your eyes, you stare back accepting his challenge, you refused to run and cower anymore. Max looked at both of you and decided the feelings were mutual and sighed.

"Well there goes my lunch break... Come on ya damn whippersnappers, Lance in front of me and Jack behind, come along now no delaying things, I might still get a piece of that meat pie if I'm lucky." Max lead you and a crowd of onlookers who were intent on seeing the fight take place, as you walked into the arena you noticed the many different sighting zones within, you could stage multiple fights here at the same time with ease, Max lead you to the first designated zone and had you square off on either side of the fighting area.

"A two hander for Jack." Max threw a wooden two handed sword to Jack, which he caught in the air with one hand. "And a spear for Lance." with that max threw a wooden spear to you, which you also caught mid air. "The rules are simple, no ****, gauging or scratching, you stop when I say stop. After the victor is decided then the issue is dropped, I don't wanna hear about it again. We all clear?" You both nod, and with the sound of a whistle you both enter your combat stances.

Knowing Jack well, you knew he'd open by charging at you to take the aggressive imitative, Jack ran at you with the sword held above his left shoulder, but just as he was about to overhead swing, he twisted on his heels and redirected the sword to a sweeping upper swing from his lower right, anticipating the change in his momentum you blocked the swing with the body of your spear, the impact was strong enough to send vibrations up and down the spear as you reeled from the blow. Jack didn't let up on his **** however, holding his two hander flat against your spear he used it to bash again and again against your fingers, causing your grip to loosen.

However as he was about to slam his sword into your spear again, you tilted your spear to cause him to slip off balance with his thrust, you used that disorientation to your advantage and twist on a dime, jabbing the pommel end of your spear into his sides with as much **** as you could muster, causing him to grunt out in pain. However as you turned to face him once again you saw the pommel end of his sword approach your face. You can't dodge it, you close your eye and brace yourself, the sound of the wood colliding with your face echoes across the field. The blow lands at your cheek bone, nothing was broken but you can feel yourself bleeding from the scraped layers of skin the wood had shaved off, you can barely keep your balance and fall to one knee, as he loomed over you ready to continue his **** you hear Max bellow out, his commanding presence stopping Jack in his tracks.

"STOP! Jack, in that corner over there." Jack walks back over to the lines in the sand where he'd started the bout from. Max looks at you for a second and then shakes his head. "You're really not going to take them off, even now? That boy just knocked you something fierce, you still think you can win that those on? Show a little respect for your fellow combatant and go all out." Not sure what he's talking about you can only look up at him - confusion plastered across your face.

"The fucking training bands boy! Did that blow knock your brain out too?!" With that a couple students gasped, others were still confused as to what their teacher meant by that. Rolling up your shirt and leg sleeves you took off the training bands one by one, when all eight were on the floor some of the students looked at you like you were insane, others were just as, if not even more confused than before. It was clear that the teacher and some students knew the training bands purpose, however you and the rest of the class were just as confused as to what the big deal was. They were just sweat bands right, to soak up the moisture while training, right?

"What the hell is he doing wearing gravity enhancing training weights outside of exercise?!" A guy from your class asks incredulously.

"And eight of them, does he seriously wear them all the time?!" A girl from your class is struck beyond belief.

"That's not human... He even had them on this morning when coach gave him pushups." And other such murmurings came from the crowd as the situation became apparent, you had no idea what you were wearing actually did, you were just told under pain of severe lashings that you should never take them off. Thinking back long and hard into your subconscious, you remember when you were 6 years old and you were **** to wear one on each limb that it felt unbearably heavy, over time you must have just gotten used to it, so much so that you didn't even feel the difference when you didn't have them on.

"Alright get back to the fight, no pulling punches now, I intend for you both to see this thing until the end, like men." Max picked you up and set you on your feet, you returned to your starting position and stared down your bully. The fire in his eyes wasn't there anymore, that cocky little smile he was pulling when he was just about to slam your head down into the sand wasn't there anymore. Instead now you noticed a thin sheen of sweat had covered his forehead, his eyes were cautious and betrayed the worry and anxiety within. After the whistle blew, Jack stayed in place, in an uncharacteristic defensive stance, well if he wasn't going to bring the fight to you, then you merely needed to bring the fight to him.

Dashing forward you were shocked at your speed, it took you no time at all to reach him, causing both yours and Jacks eyes to widen, lunching your spearhead forward you aimed for his chest. Even through your newly found superhuman speed, Jack managed to hold up his two handed swords body to block the blow like a shield, however the **** from the blow was so violent that it caused Jack to be propelled several dozen feet backwards, causing him to backwards roll multiple times before coming to a stop, clutching at his stomach in pain.

The class was shocked into silence, even Max who had been rather vocal had been humbled a little bit at the sheer display of power behind that thrust. Finally, Max broke the silence.

"I was right to score you as high as I did, but you could still use some combat training. Your power is insane for your age, but your technique is lacking, and you clearly don't know how to control your body without those weights on." Max scratched his chin, looking at your hands and then to your training bands you felt like an alien who was unfamiliar with his own body, was this really all your own strength? Were you really this strong all along thanks to those training bands?

You were once again brought out of your musings by the sound of the bell, indicating lunch period was over.

"Well fuck, I guess me and that meat pie just weren't meant to be, god damn kids and their schoolyard fights." Max mumbled off as he returned back to class to teach a new period, you looked to Jack who was still hunched over himself, you thought about going to offer him a hand and to maybe clear the air between the two of you, but you knew if the roles were reversed he would have never offered you such kindness, why should you? You picked up all your stuff and hurried to the next class, you weren't too eager to see what the next classes punishment for being late was.