by Craig Gaydas
“Combat rule number one.” He held up his index finger. “Some people fight for riches, others fight for glory. A few fight for honor. It is only important that you fight.”
“What do you want me to gain from all this?” I felt the back of my head where Shai struck me. A lump was beginning to form. Vanth's training partners were more real than holograms.
“This training is like life. It's a journey where you will encounter many obstacles. You will also come to crossroads. A person may guide you but in the end only you can walk the path.” He motioned toward the door.
“That's it for today?” I asked incredulously.
Vanth nodded. “I will send Grillick for you at first light. Your grace period is over.”
“Great,” I muttered and headed to my room.
Day 2
Vanth was right. I ended up in the training room at first light. Unfortunately for me, Exorg 1 only experienced twelve hour days. Grillick collected me and half-dragged my groggy body down the hall.
Grillick stopped at the entrance. He turned to me and frowned. “Why so grumpy today?”
“Are you serious with that question? I couldn't have slept for more than an hour,” I groaned.
“Actually, you slept five and a half hours.” When he saw my frown deepen, he smiled. “I know what will cheer you up! A joke!”
I glared at him. This did not stop him. “Why do they call curium and barium the medical elements?” He hopped up and down and clapped his hands together. He was exploding with eagerness to reveal the answer.
“Go away,” I groaned.
My request did not faze him. With a broad smile he responded, “Because if you can't curium than you will have to barium!” He braced himself against the wall and roared laughter.
He continued roaring with laughter after I entered the octagon. The door slammed shut but didn't drown out his incessant tittering. I shook my head and pressed my lips together tightly. Vanth stood in the center of the room, staff in hand, unperturbed by the mousy laughter booming from the other side of the door. The laughter only died down when Grillick began coughing violently. After a few seconds of retching, the halls went silent and I knew he had coughed up another hair ball.
“So, what's on the agenda today?” I asked sourly. I felt my gorge rising at the thought of stumbling into a slimy hairball in the hallway.
“Your initial physical assessment has been completed,” Vanth responded, unperturbed by the events outside his door. “It is time for the mental assessment.” He touched the wall and the lights dimmed. His dark purple robe blended into the shadows cast throughout the room. He pulled the hood over his face, blanketing his face in darkness. “Our exercise today will test your mental prowess in the face of adversity.” The lights dimmed further, creating a fog of gloom. Vanth vanished into shadow. “This is just an initial mental assessment which will not be counted toward your final score but do not let that fool you. Do the best you can.”
Suddenly the room lit up around me. I was no longer in the octagon nor was I alone. Kedge stood next to me and Wraith stood behind us. I was in New Mexico again. Shai and his ship stood before us.
“Oh, please God no,” I pleaded. “I can't go through this again.”
“You must,” Vanth's voice boomed from an overhead speaker like the disembodied voice of God. “You will.”
Noz, Shai and the soldier were on the ramp, just like last time except I was not present—well at least my physical body wasn't. The New Mexico version of myself stood next to Wraith. I was still in Vanth's training room acting as a spectator. That was when I noticed everything moved in slow motion. New Mexico Nathan lifted the AR-15 for what seemed like an eternity. When Wraith started firing, the bullets sailed by me so slow I reached up to grab one but my hand slipped through it like an illusion.
The barrel of the sniper rifle gleamed in the sun just before the side of Wraith's head exploded like a watermelon under a sledgehammer. New Mexico Nathan was out of ammunition and cried out in rage. Kedge parried Shai's blow. As quickly as it had started, it stopped, frozen in time. I noticed brown spots in Shai's teeth when he clenched them together to put his weight behind the blow. Flame encircled the barrel of the sniper's rifle and the bullet was frozen just outside of it. Wraith was frozen in death, bent backwards, halfway to the ground.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?” I screamed. I looked around but the only thing surrounding me was the New Mexico landscape. “I can't stop this from happening.”
“Of course not,” Vanth boomed from overhead. “I want you to remember this day and what you were feeling. Think, recall and remember.”
I clenched and unclenched my fake hand as I recalled my feelings. “I remember being afraid at first,” I admitted. “But after they killed Wraith I became angry.”
“What were your mistakes?” Vanth asked.
I answered quickly. “I missed my shots.”
A long, drawn-out sigh came from the loudspeaker. “No,” he responded curtly. “Your first mistake was fear. Fear led to indecision. When your enemy first appeared you should have struck. Instead, you hesitated.”
“Wait a minute. I didn't—”
“QUIET!” he roared. Never speak during assessment. “Your second mistake was uncontrolled anger. The anger blinded you. Fear started what anger finished, therefore leading to complete failure.”
New Mexico vanished and the lights came on. Vanth strolled to the middle of the octagon and rubbed the top of his staff thoughtfully. “Your emotions are the reason you failed.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Do you think that perhaps my poor aim had something to do with it?”
“Perhaps,” he sighed “Or perhaps an army of giants could have flown from the heavens on the backs of unicorns and killed your enemies for you.”
I got the hint. “So what do you expect me to do, forget my emotions? Should I never fear or be angry again? I'm sorry, but I am not a robot,” I argued.
“No, you must never forget your emotions. You need to learn to use them, to control them and to make them work for you.”
“How do I do that?” I asked.
“This will be the basic building block of your training. You will learn to turn a negative emotion into a positive one.” He stepped out of the octagon and I found myself once again at the beginning of the encounter in New Mexico with one exception—I wasn't there. Kedge and Wraith were accompanied by Vanth. Instead of an AR-15, Vanth carried his staff.
“What the heck?” I cried out in surprise.
“Watch and learn,” he said. “The key to controlling a negative emotion is to convert it into a positive. Turn anger into gratitude. Turn fear into hope. Hate becomes love and sorrow becomes joy.” The scene behind Vanth was frozen in time as he lectured me. “You had two primary emotions during this encounter; fear and anger. The first emotion I will change will be fear into hope.”
“Hope?” I repeated.
“Yes,” he replied calmly. “Hope that my enemies provide me with the opening I need and that my actions result in their destruction. The second emotion I will change is anger. I will turn anger into gratitude. My gratitude will be toward my enemies. I will thank them for providing me the strength and motivation to fight.”
“Um, okay,” I muttered skeptically.
The action continued as soon as Vanth turned around. He approached the ramp where the three members of the Scarlet Moon descended. Without a word, Vanth slipped past Kedge and stood at the bottom of the ramp. Shai looked at him. Although it was Vanth playing out the scene, Shai still addressed him as me.
“Look what we have here,” Shai beamed. He pointed and turned to Colonel Noz. “Do you know who this is?”
Before Noz could answer, Vanth's staff danced through the air. Crack. The lantern end smashed Shai in the face and knocked him off the ramp. Before Noz could react Vanth was airborne. His boot caught him firmly in the center his chest. The momentum of his body knocked the Exorg through the entranceway. Vanth somersaul
ted backwards just as the sniper stuck the rifle barrel out the door. He fired and once again Wraith lay dying on the ground. Both Kedge and Vanth descended on the sniper and dispatched him with ease. Vanth's facial expression did not change during the entire encounter. He had a calm, almost Zen-like demeanor while he tore through his enemies. He stepped off the ramp and the landscape disappeared leaving me once again in the octagon.
Vanth entered and tapped the bottom of his staff on the floor. “For a blind man you sure fight well,” I quipped.
He ignored my jape. “Did you see how I used my emotions against my enemies?”
I shrugged. “It's easy to fight when you already know how the battle will go. Even knowing that you still managed to get Wraith killed.”
“Nothing could have changed that,” he replied. “These results were not due to any foreknowledge on my part. I simply did what was necessary to dispatch my enemies.”
“I suppose so,” I replied skeptically.
Seeing the disbelief written on my face, he slammed his staff on the ground. “Enough with the past. I am here to carve your path as one would carve a statue from stone. It is now your turn. Since you think events of the past skew the test results I will allow you the same luxury.” The lights dimmed and he faded into shadow.
I was once again in New Mexico. However, this time I was in the hallway of my high school. The ringing of the school bell jarred me into focus.
“Hey, come on. We are gonna be late.” A hand fell on my shoulder. I turned to see Sam standing next to me.
“Late?” I asked.
Before he could answer his face froze as he looked past me. I turned and followed his gaze to see two of the biggest seniors in our school, Brett Raines and Tommy Stewart coming toward us. They were locked on us as they approached.
“Oh no,” I muttered. I was about to relive the biggest school beating in my academic career. The prior week I had caught them trying to cheat off me during our chemistry exam. I purposefully wrote down the incorrect answers and waited for them to turn in their papers. When they did I went back and replaced all the wrong answers with the correct ones before I turned in mine. When we got our graded papers back they knew they had been conned when their F's were compared to my A. That day I received a broken jaw and black eye for my trouble while they both received suspensions. They got a vacation from school while I couldn't talk right for weeks.
Turn fear into hope, Vanth's voice commanded me from the back of my mind. “Oh yeah?” I asked his voice. “Well, I hope they miss,” I muttered.
Tommy was the first to approach me. He was as big as a barn and star lineman for our football team. He shoved me against a locker. “You're dead, Chambers!” Each word was accentuated with a generous helping of spittle.
“You changed the answers, didn't you, you little shit!” Brett shouted from the peanut gallery.
Whenever I got nervous I became extremely sarcastic. This was a trait that did not serve me well at all. “The cheaters got cheated? Oh the humanity!” I responded. Tommy pushed me into the locker again, this time much harder than the first. It is you who control your emotions, not the other way around, Vanth bellowed from above. Tommy's hand dug into my shoulder and he cocked his fist back for a strike.
“You think you're funny? You're gonna pay for what you did.”
I did the first thing that came to mind. I fell to the floor so hard I thought I heard my coccyx crack. Tommy's fist flew harmlessly over my head and slammed into the locker. His cry of pain brought a smile to my face before I slammed my fist into his crotch. Wow the bigger they are the harder they DO fall, I admired when he fell like a sack of rocks.
“Son of a bitch,” he cried through clenched teeth as he covered little Tommy.
I stood up and smiled but never had time to truly admire my handiwork. Brett grabbed my hair and smashed my face into the locker. “How do you like that, you little jackwagon?” he sneered.
I fell to the floor and the coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. Before I could get up he slammed me in the back of the head with his fist. Unfortunately for me my face wasn't too far from the floor and I slammed into it. I heard the sickening crunch of bone as my nose shattered. Before I blacked out the lights of the octagon fell over me.
Vanth stood over me. “Grillick will take you to the infirmary to get that taken care of. This will conclude our lesson for today.”
I spit out a thick, red ball of snot and hoisted myself to one knee. “So how did I do?”
“You knew what was about to happen just like I did in New Mexico. Why did you not win?” He stood over me with his staff resting across his shoulder.
I pondered the question. He was right. If my theory was correct then I should have won the fight easily. “I did take Tommy out of the fight which was better than the last go around,” I argued.
Vanth nodded. “True. But you still failed. Do you know why?”
I shook my head.
“Because you were overcome with pride. You were too busy admiring one fallen enemy that you forgot about the other. There is no room for pride on the battlefield.”
I rubbed my face and my hand came back sticky with blood. Vanth looked at it with disdain. Get that taken care of. We will continue tomorrow.
Day 10
The next several days consisted of lessons similar to the first two. I received beatings and dished out a few. As the days wore on I learned to gain control over my emotions. I also gained about five pounds of muscle. As a result of the generous menu programmed into the Sustanant I was eating much better and each battle provided a great cardiovascular and strength training workout. Vanth watched my progression with growing interest. He still would not confirm whether he was truly blind or simply messing with me. Grillick insisted he was blind but he also insisted gremlins sabotaged some of his inventions.
As the days passed I grew fond of Grillick despite his pass-fail invention ratio. For every invention that worked at least ten failed or, as he called it, achieved undesirable results. After the fifth day he insisted he had created a pocket-sized flamethrower. He showed me an object that was no bigger than a wallet. He pulled a pin out of it and tossed it on the ground. The wallet opened up into a long gun barrel on a tripod. He pressed a button on his wristwatch and the turret melted into a smoldering pile of sludge.
“Hmm, perhaps I used the wrong fuel,” he pondered that day. “I seemed to have exceeded turret output capacity.”
It was on day ten that Menjaro arrived. Grillick explained to me he was bringing news of the war. I asked about my friends but he only shrugged. “They didn't invite me to the meeting,” he explained.
Day ten was also the day that I completed my hand-to-hand combat training. During the previous ten days all of my combat had been weaponless. When I needed to fend off armed attackers I asked Vanth where my weapon was. He responded, “Weapons are tools for the weak.” I countered by explaining that he carried a weapon after pointing to his staff. He looked at me with a deadpan expression and responded, “I have no idea what you are talking about. This is simply a walking stick.”
We started weapons training the next day.
Day 30
I learned a lot over the past twenty days. As before, I participated in skirmishes ranging from one to five opponents. This time however I practiced with weapons ranging from daggers to rifles. During this period I gained another ten pounds of muscle and started to change from scarecrow to an actual man. My birthday passed during this time according to the Earth calendar Grillick hung in my room. It had officially been a year and a half since my first encounter with the Consortium. I was now 18. “Hey, I can now buy cigarettes legally,” I joked to Grillick. He responded with the curium/barium joke and I wanted to slug him.
Vanth acknowledged I was better at controlling my emotions. He put that to the test on day 27 when he put me in the octagon against two of Vaire's Shreen. I had to admit I almost crapped myself that day. That day I had been training with a lightning rod—a staff
with a large electrified bulb at each end. I managed to catch the first Shreen by surprise before the second even had time to react. I was amazed at my reaction times in battle. I won but I believed it was more of slow reaction time by the holograms as well as their smaller size. Vanth noted that they were not full-grown warriors because in his words he didn't want to “kill me yet”. He did acknowledge that I was one of the fastest learners he had ever trained. I felt better than ever before.
Day 90
The past sixty days went as expected. I participated in more battles and became proficient in most hand weapons as well as all trigger-based weapons. My battles went as Vanth expected. I won some and lost some but the most important factor had been that I never gave up. I controlled my emotions and used them when needed. We replayed the fight in the halls of the high school and I won with ease. During the fight in New Mexico I still had some issues controlling my anger. On day 88 Vanth thought he had lost me. We replayed the New Mexico battle for the third time and I managed to dodge the sniper's bullet, but it ended when Shai stabbed me in the chest. It took Grillick two hours to stitch me up and get my blood pressure under control.
“If the sword were two inches more to the left we would be jettisoning your corpse into space,” Grillick grumbled in the infirmary.
On day 90 I stood within the dark recess of my doorway when Menjaro arrived again. He did not seem pleased. This time Vanth summoned Grillick to the meeting, but when I asked him what was going on he brushed me aside and muttered something about his “geometric tribulometer being on the fritz”. I had no idea what he was talking about but the look on his face told me something bad had happened. I found myself wondering what messages Menjaro was bringing them.
Day 173
On Day 102 I graduated from skirmishing. Despite a broken nose, near fatal stab wound and an accidental gunshot to the thigh, I came out of training relatively unscathed. Vanth praised me as being one of his “best students he had seen in a long time”. Grillick brought me aboard his ship and bought me a drink. Grog was his usually grumpy self that day until Grillick dropped a silver coin on the desk and his expression changed.
