ShipCore

USD: 8 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

Location: Van Biesbroeck’s star, Meltisar, Fort Glisson, Company S, 1st Cadre

The hectic pace had run everyone to the point where there was not much thinking other than following the instructor’s orders. Alex had lost track of the litany of lessons, physical training, and new ideas she’d been subjected to over the last week. There had been very little time to get to know the other recruits, but that was slowly changing.

They were being given more free hours before lights out and more time to eat in the mess.

But while the few hours of free time they had increased, the complexity of things they were learning had gone up as well. And she had thought that close order drill was complicated. When Instructor Hills had displayed how to disassemble a firearm in mere seconds, she had been excited as she remembered the long-ago time when Elis had done that exact thing when they had fought on her awakening.

Despite the instruction, Alex struggled with even getting the thing taken apart, much less putting it back together. She was incredibly grateful when Rachel had taken the time in their free after hours to tutor her on it.

The other members of their quad were less talkative, and Alex had barely got to know more than their names: Jessica and Tia.

As Alex finished lunch, she got dressed for PT and then joined the other recruits in assembling in the main gym. A minute after the scheduled time, Instructor Hill showed up, and they went through roll call.

“Recruits! Rejoice. Your afternoon running has been canceled.” Instructor Hill started with.

Alex didn’t feel any relief whatsoever. A friendly statement like that usually meant something worse was in store for them.

“Instead, you will undergo round two of MMMA training. This time with a live sparring partner.”

They were marched out to the training field as a unit, which took about an hour as Instructor Hills handed them over to another DI and drilled them in close order march. When they finally arrived at the sparring area, a lot of the recruits were eager to do something else.

Hills was waiting for them when they arrived. “Listen up. You’ll all be split up into pre-determined groups based on your instructor’s observations from the first session. Listen for your name and you’ll get a color. You are not to spar with anyone with a different color unless instructed to by an instructor. Do you understand?”

Everyone answered without hesitation. “Yes, Drill Sergeant!”

Alex got the color red, along with all the other top-performing recruits in physical tests. But to her alarm, Rachel got called up and handed one as well.

Alarm bells screamed inside her head. Rachel was far from the worst recruit in their cadre, but she was not that strong and was still working hard on building her running endurance. They’d talked about it several times and she had been worried that she wouldn’t be ready to pass the fitness test by week three and be held back.

As the groups moved apart, Alex finally broke her indecision and approached Hills. “Drill Sergeant.”

All the recruits had quickly learned that this was a bad idea. You did not approach a Drill Sergeant.

Instructor Hills looked at her with cool, all-knowing eyes. “Recruit Myers. What is it?”

“I think there might have been a mistake, Drill Sergeant!”

“A mistake?”

“Recruit Rachel was placed in the red group! I’m afraid she might get hurt, Drill Sergeant!”

“You do, do you? Follow me.”

Alex felt a bit of relief as Hills led her toward Rachel and the red group, but it disintegrated when they reached the fighting pit and he pointed at the marked area.

“Get in there, Myers.” Hills ordered.

She scrambled to obey, not completely understanding at first.

Instructor Hill’s finger landed on Rachel next. “Mackey! Get in there. Your friend thinks you don’t belong here. If you don’t prove her wrong, you’re out.”

Alex’s stomach did flops, and Rachel quickly entered the area with her. Rachel’s eyes were set on Alex with an angry gleam that shouted ‘What the fuck did you do’ to everyone who could see.

Hills tossed two sets of padded gloves into the ring, and both Alex and Rachel put them on. Other than that, there were no reminders of what they had learned before, and Hills waved his hand, signaling for them to start.

Alex was still shocked. “Rachel—”

The other girl darted forward without hesitation and launched a jab toward Alex’s unprotected face. She raised a fist to block it, but somehow Rachel anticipated that and slammed it into her stomach instead.

“Point Mackey!”

The call didn’t mean stop, though, and a second combination came just as quickly and Alex’s blocks were uninspired, allowing Rachel to score another point.

“Do something, Myers, or you’ll be scrubbing toilets all night long!”

Alex hesitantly moved to punch back, but the other girl somehow flowed around the blow, to score two more hits, one to the side of her face and one to the kidney. The exchange continued without stopping and Alex became frustrated as everything she did, Rachel somehow predicted and countered before she was even moving.

None of Rachel’s blows did anything to her, but as Rachel scored her twelfth point to zero, Alex finally started taking things seriously.

Picking up her speed, Alex launched heavier blows faster, but Rachel somehow moved around those as well. The scoring finally slowed, then stopped, however, as Alex poured on the fire, until it was everything Rachel could do to weave between the blows.

Alex snatched Rachel’s wrist, holding her in place as a savage chop came in from the side. Despite the padded glove, there was the sound of a crack and Rachel was flung from the ring.

“Match! Ring out! Score 12, Mackey. One, Myers. Match to Myers!” an instructor called out, but all Alex felt was alarm. The clear crack of something breaking had snapped her out of the fight and she ran over to Mackey in alarm.

“Are you alright?” Alex asked.

Rachel reached up, and Alex helped her stand. The other girl winced in pain and held her side. Instructor Hills came over as well.

“I think I cracked a rib.”

“Can you make it to medbay, recruit?”

“I think so.”

Hills called over another instructor and had them take her to see a medic. He didn’t look at or say anything else to Alex, preferring to let her figure things out on her own.

The next match was between Tasha, the large, dark-skinned girl in the group, and Hikari, the redhead who was the smallest one.

Alex watched the match carefully as they both moved rapidly towards one another. Hikari ducked under a power blow from Tasha and scored a point with a passing punch to the other girl’s wrist.

The smaller girl continued to score while dodging for a bit until Tasha did a move that mimicked Alex’s by grabbing the other girl’s fist. A flurry of heavy blows rained down on the small girl before she swung herself up and around Tasha’s arm to land on her shoulders.

That was almost a fatal mistake as Tasha reached up to grab Hikari by the sides, but the smaller girl got her legs pinned around Tasha’s neck and squeezed.

Alex was shocked at the skill displayed. They hadn’t trained for anything like that so far in basic training. None of the moves on display had been taught in basic training. Glancing at the other groups who were busy practicing in their own sparing moves, they were doing exactly what they had been shown and taught earlier.

But not group red.

Despite the grip around the big girl’s neck, Hikari was thrown up into the air, arcing up over ten meters up while flying across the field before landing in a roll.

“Match! Ring out! Score 44, Homura. Five, Brackson. Match to Brackson!”

Several more matches went by quickly, some in the same high score to single one hit wins; others to massively inflated scores as two recruits who couldn’t hurt each other essentially pounded each other in rapid flurries.

Two recruits ended up injured, although not as bad as Rachel, and were sent to the Medbay.

There was only one recruit who hadn’t fought when Alex heard her named called again.

“Myers! Get out there! Tia! You’re up!”

As Alex reached her spot, she noticed the other girl glaring at her with a sneer.

Tia spoke in a lone voice so the DIs couldn’t hear her. “If you try to make me look stupid like you did Mackey, I’m going to break more than your ribs.”

Alex blinked in confusion, but she had no time to think as Hills signaled the start of the bout.

Tia darted forward aggressively, but Alex didn’t hesitate like with Rachel. She let loose a powerful forward kick that should have sent the other girl flying, but Tia slid around the blow and clamped her arm down on Alex’s leg.

Alex tried to pull it free, but the other girl was stronger. Holding on to Alex’s leg, Tia brought an elbow down on her shin. The blow sent a jolt of pain and surprise through Alex before a second blow to her calf muscle had her jumping backwards, pulling Tia with her.

Alex rolled to the side to dodge an elbow that was meant for her face and then regained her feet in time to throw a jab at Tia’s face. The blow was light, but Alex put more power behind it than she had meant to as it snapped into Tia’s nose.

Alex felt a surge of panic; that kind of blow was meant for hitting Elis in power armor and probably would have killed an unarmored person. The temporary panic froze her long enough that Tia connected a punch of her own and it sent Alex flying off her feet halfway to the edge of the ring.

Tia slammed into her just as Alex regained her feet to tackle her out of the arena, but Alex grappled back. The two girls strained against each other mightily, and Alex slid backward toward the edge.

Urgency propelled her, and Alex swung her forehead at Tia making contact with the other girl’s nose a second time. This time blood went flying and Tia’s grip loosened enough for Alex to knee her in the stomach, sending the silver-haired girl skidding backwards.

Alex expected the other girl to stop with a broken nose, but a quick wipe of the blood from Tia showed it had already stopped bleeding and she wasn’t that bothered.

That sent Alex surging forward to not lose her gained ground. She let off a flurry of jabs and punches that were matched by the other girl. Neither one of them bothered trying to dodge any longer, and the pounding match led to an echo of thumps and snarls spreading across the field.

Alex had expected her superior strength and endurance to carry her through, but she found herself dazed by several blows to the head. The other girl was just a bit faster and stronger. Not enough to completely overpower Alex, but the different was apparent in the fight.

More of Tia’s blows made it past Alex’s guard and the gap between their skills showed through the exchange, but Alex’s determination kept her standing.

Until a sudden kick at her ankle caught her off-guard and Alex found herself slammed into the ground and on her back with Tia straddling her and pinning her. Both girls were panting heavily, and Alex had a flashback to a time when Elis had been sparring with her and they had ended up in the same position.

Her sister had also taught her what to do in the event it ever happened again.

Alex twisted and freed a leg to hook around Tia’s neck. The contortion was so fast and sudden it caught the other girl off-guard, and the newfound leverage allowed Alex to pry her way on top of Tia.

Short punches and elbows flew between them as they jabbed and prodded each other in a devolving series of blows, but Alex got her forearm on Tia’s face and pinned her to the ground.

Alex realized she was screaming as Tia bit into her arm.

A large hand suddenly reached down and gripped Alex and lifted her off the other girl. Hills used his other hand to lift Tia up into the air as well.

“Match. I’m calling that you both lost.” He said as he held them both in the air at arm’s length, before setting them on their feet.

Both girls continued to glare at each other as they brushed themselves off.

Instructor Hills was not impressed.

“This is why Red group is getting special attention. All of you have had previous martial arts instruction. You think you know everything. Not a single one of you applied anything you learned of the Meltisar Mixed Martial Arts we taught you. Every single one of you jolted toward with whatever nonsense or prior training you had learned before. But do not worry. Red Group will be here focusing on what you need to learn until you get it right or you freeze to death!”

Alex blinked and realized that the entire cadre had stopped their training to watch her and Tia fight and was listening to Hill’s speech.

Hills looked at Alex and her bleeding forearm. “Myers! Get to medbay. Get your ass back here when you’re patched up.”

Tia was still glaring and only stopped when Hills snapped his fingers in front of her face. “RECRUIT! Two laps around the circuit! NOW!”

Tia snapped out of it as she hesitated a moment, but the instructor’s gaze finally computed in her mind, and she started running.

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