“All right recruits, line up!” Master Revenant yelled out.

The children immediately formed an orderly line, eyes set on Master Revenant. The two assistants began to wheel in benches containing a wide variety of weapons. Knives, swords, short swords, just to name a few of the items that immediately caught Asher’s attention. Upon closer inspection he realized just about every weapon he could imagine was being placed before them.

“How many of you have ever had any type of martial arts training?” Master Revenant asked the children. Just as he was about to continue with his lecture he saw one little hand raised up. One’s hand. “Oh ho, why am I not surprised?” He walked over towards the boy.

“What form of training did you receive?”

“Hand to hand, Master Revenant.” Asher said looking up towards the man

“Show us.” Master Revenant replied as he looked towards one of his assistants and gestured for the figure to move forward. The children began to make room, eventually forming a large circle around the figure, One, and Master Revenant.

“The rules will be simple, it is restricted to hand to hand. You will fight until I stop it, or when one of you surrenders. Are we clear on the rules?”

“Yes, Master Revenant.” Asher said as he took a squared stance, forearms vertical, fist slightly above his temple. He began rhythmically tapping his front foot preparing for the fight to start. The figure simply nodded in acknowledgement of the rules and assumed an orthodox bladed stance.

“Begin.”

Since coming to this world, Asher had noticed that his physical capabilities were far better than his old life. It was little things he noticed in hindsight that made his assumptions ring true. His perception was better, everyone appeared to be in slow motion. His dexterity and agility was better, along with his raw speed. His strength was also off the charts despite his small body. In this world, age didn’t seem to matter if you had the appropriate stats. Perhaps stats could be raised through aging, but he didn’t have enough experience to confidently conclude that. What he did know is that he didn’t feel like he could lose to most people, let alone the children in his own age group.

The figure made the first move, quickly advancing towards Asher. “Slow.” Asher thought to himself as he easily dodged a right jab with minimal movement. He threw a jab of his own which the figure dodged by slightly jumping back. The two began to circle around each other, trying to find an opening in the other’s defense. The figure in front of him had, from the start, taken a stance very similar to a boxer’s from his world. He was happy to see this because boxer’s tended to not worry about certain things in a fight, he would exploit those things when the time was right. The observation stage was once again broken by the assistant. Right jab, right jab, left hook, right hook. Asher could see everything that was being thrown at him and easily made the appropriate dodges. “I have to lure him in, I’ll eat a few of these to send out the bait,” Asher thought to himself.

The figure pressed the barrage seeing that as the fight continued, One began gradually taking on more and more hits. None were clean, but they would be the start to the boy’s eventual end. Asher had managed to avoid most of the damage, opting to take the brunt of the blows on his forearms, up until he had only been exchanging punches with the figure. Now, it was time to shake things up and see how they reacted, Asher purposefully lowered his guard to create an opening.

Finally, the figure had brute forced their way past the boy’s defenses, seeing an opening, he lunged at it ready to finish the fight. What happened next shocked everyone, as they saw One smash into the assistant’s ribs with a brutal roundhouse kick. Deciding not to give up his lead, the boy clinched his hands around the back of the assistant’s head and began delivering brutal knees to their midsection and face before throwing the assistant to the ground.

As Asher saw the figure roll on the ground he immediately returned to his squared off stance, tapping his foot rhythmically, preparing for the next volley of blows. In his old world, Asher had been a student of many things, these things also included martial arts. Specifically he learned muay thai, some techniques of its old roots of muay boran, and boxing. He also learned a few joint manipulations from Brazilian jiu jitsu, but he was nowhere near considered a black belt, he just learned the basic locks and chokes most people were aware of. It was safe to say that he was fairly comfortable in a fight.

Revenant watched the fight with extreme interest. The boy was holding his own against a full fledged Syndicate member, but more than that, he put them on the back foot. His spatial awareness was top notch and his fight IQ was top tier as well. He watched as the boy allowed minimum damage and he watched as the boy laid his traps. He wasn’t afraid of taking some punishment if it meant dishing out some of his own. This was going to be an interesting fight.

The children had begun cheering when the fight started. Any time a punch was thrown, it was met with ‘Ooohs’ and ‘Ahhhs’. Most of the kids didn’t care who was winning, they were just enjoying the entertainment that was in front of them. Anything that could take their minds off of yesterday’s field trip would be welcomed with open arms.

The figure stood up and got into their fighting stance. Both of them locked eyes for a brief moment and ran towards one another. Asher was surprised to see that the assistant had thrown a kick of their own, but that surprise only lasted for a moment. He caught the kick with one arm and instinctively elbowed the figure in their thigh with all his might. An audible groan could be heard coming from the figure as they hopped back and shook the pain out of their leg. “Destroy the foundation, and the castle will fall,” Asher thought to himself as he remembered his Kru’s teachings. The figure charged him again. Asher feinted a roundhouse kick, forcing his opponent to attempt to try and block it. He switched midway through his swing from a roundhouse into a straight kick into the figure’s solar plexus, sending them to the ground once again. His opponent was completely falling into his pace, moving the way he wanted him to.

Suddenly the assistant disappeared and reappeared next to Asher delivering a savage right hook across his face. The opponent pressed forward, delivering a brutal uppercut, rattling his teeth. The onslaught didn’t stop, but Asher had managed to readjust to the change in tempo. He blocked some of the assistant’s blows, but some still managed to land true. Everything came to a head when the assistant swept Asher’s legs, putting him flat on his back. Asher looked up to continue the fight, but saw that a fist was at his throat. This fight was not his to win just yet.

“I surrender.” Asher said, putting his hands up, no longer wanting to continue.

The assistant simply looked Asher in his eyes, regained their composure, and made their way back to Master Revenant’s side.

“One, get back in formation.”

“Yes, Master Revenant.” Asher said as he spit some blood onto the floor. The taste of iron had been filling his mouth and he was looking for some type of relief.

“Today we will begin your martial training. Any rogue worth his salt knows how to get himself out of a situation, whether that’s running or fighting. In time you will learn both, but today we start your physical and combat training.”

During the fight, the other assistant had set up various training dummies around the area, as well as an assortment of weapons near each. Master Revenant walked up to one of the weapons benches and grabbed a dagger.

“The dagger,” he said as he made a series of swift, practiced movements, jabbing and slashing. Asher watched as he saw Master Revenant at work. Each of the man’s movements were precise and deadly. Asher imagined an opponent standing in front of Master Revenant, getting stabbed in the heart, slashed across the throat, and having their tendons and ligaments cut.

“The dagger is a staple weapon for any rogue.” Master Revenant said as he finished his demonstration. “It’s light, easy to conceal, and most importantly…it gets the job done.”

He cycled through each of the weapons, giving a unique demonstration for each, but showing that an underlying foundation was needed for all sword play. Give ground when you need to, take ground when you can, parry, feint, avoid, attack. The concepts were very similar to bare handed martial arts. Asher found himself eager to learn something new. Something that he could completely zone out and focus on. The only time when the demonstrations changed were when Master Revenant began using some ranged weapons. Throwing stars and knives were hurled with expert accuracy landing center mass of the targets or in its head.

“An important thing to remember is that we in the Syndicate don’t fight with honor, we fight to win and live.” Master Revenant said as he threw another knife into a target’s forehead. “I’d rather be alive and dishonorable, than a corpse that’s only useful for being maggot food.”

The demonstrations finished, with the children staring in awe. Master Revenant’s gaze was strong and emotionless as usual. “All of you pick a weapon you think you’d be comfortable with and have a go at the target. I need to see what I’m working with.”

All of the children scrambled to look at the weapons and take their pick. Asher and Seventeen grabbed a dagger, Four and Five each took a shortsword. The rest of the children took various other weapons, Asher noticed that Two had taken a pair of brass knuckles. Each of the children took their turns on the targets, hacking, slashing, and stabbing. While all this happened Asher sat back replaying Master Revenant’s demonstration with the dagger repeatedly in his mind. He was the last to approach the training dummy, which had already been almost hacked to pieces.

He proceeded to mimic Master Revenant’s demonstration to the best of his ability. He jabbed the dagger into the heart, spun around and slashed across the target’s throat, and made use of his smaller body to get quick access to where the target’s Achilles tendon would be. He finished his demonstration by jabbing the dagger into the back of the target’s head.

“Sloppy.” Master Revenant said as he walked towards him. He took the dagger from Asher and did some of the movements on the target. “But you have the basic idea down.”

“Now that I know the level of skill you all are at, we can move on to the next step.” When Master Revenant finished his sentence the assistants proceeded to give the children wooden replicas of the weapons they had picked, except for Two, who simply had the brass knuckles taken away from him.

“I can’t trust you to not kill each other with real weapons, so we’ll be practicing with these,” the man said as he waved a wooden dagger in front of the children. “Don’t worry though,” he smashed the wooden dagger into one of the kid’s arms causing them to yelp out in pain “They still hurt like shit.”

The assistants began the process of removing all of the weapons and replacing the training dummies while Master Revenant continued his speech.

“I’ll be taking on a more hands-on approach in this phase. We’ll be sparring and exercising daily.” He pointed his wooden dagger at Asher.

“One, you are forbidden from sparring with the other children during training hours. You’ll be sparring with me.”

“Yes, Master Revenant.”

Two looked at One with a complete look of disgust mixed with anger. “He thinks he’s big shit huh? We’ll see.” He said as he spit on the ground.