While Jen had been knocked unconscious, Stanis hadn’t. This was why, the second the mana-water trickled down his throat, instead of struggling, he used all his willpower to draft up any power that lay dormant. It was a painstakingly arduous process, but fear of whatever Jen had done to his body forced him onwards.

The instructor had picked the two of them up by the neck and thrown them to the side so that Berry and Johnny could batter it out. He had also thrown the two of them side by side, so that their collapsed bodies were facing each other’s.

By the time Stanis had produced enough energy to lift his fingers, he noticed Jen rousing from her sleep. Her facial features flickered from expression to expression, eventually ending on a grimace as she opened her eyes. Her eyes were glazed over and she looked dazed at Stanis. Her blonde hair was coloured with mud and her light skin was covered in blood. She was a bit slimmer than Stanis would have liked but even he had to admit that she was beautiful, when she was clean, of course.

Not that her beauty took much out of his rage and bitterness for her though. And it turned out that Jen now felt the same way as him as he did as she quickly broke out of her daze, transforming her grimace into a glare that stabbed needles into him. She couldn’t move her lips, yet, to voice her thoughts but Stanis doubted they were anything nice.

Seeing her awake put further pressure on Stanis and he struggled even harder to summon energy from his body. If he could get up first while she still lay defenceless, well, he would make sure to make her death as painful as possible.

Soon enough, Berry, who had already been exhausted, was beaten and drugged with the mana-water. The instructor then sent Keiko out to fight Johnny. As this happened, Stanis finally managed to move his entire arm: not in a quick or elegant way, but movement nevertheless. Since they were facing each other, it meant Jen could see his progress as easily as he could see hers. Seeing his success, her face grew grimmer.

If he managed full movement first, then her fate was to be a grave one. She would have still been usually relaxed in the knowledge that they were currently in the instructor’s presence but the lack of his intervention last fight made her sceptical of the help he would provide. Besides, from Stanis’s reaction already, she knew he wouldn’t like it at all when he realised what had actually happened.

“Stop squirming, you’re mine!” she said in an attempt to distract Stanis. He took the bait…

“Insufferable bitch,” he wheezed out in between his swift breaths. “I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Ha,” she spat out, “I’ve already killed you and I can do it again.” She wanted to maintain her cold front and confidence from before in order to prove that she was still a level above Stanis, but her thoughts seemed to have created chinks in her actions as Stanis merely snarled in response.

She searched her mind to distract him once more. She didn’t bother talking with the others most the time but such a fickle pride was an easy giveaway when her life was on the line.

“Look at your body, I’ve already branded it,” she finally said.

He looked angry at first but then shocked as he peered down at his arms. At first glance, there weren’t any apparent differences, but the more he stared, the more he knew was wrong. His skin wasn’t this taut, his fingers weren’t this slender, and his arms were certainly not this slim.

While he was busy being shocked, Jen was busy watching his theatrical performance. She was also summoning up energy on the side but ruining her opponent took first priority.

“Do you like it? You were a bit too fat for even my largest puddle so I had to cut a few bits off.”

He didn’t respond whatsoever, instead staring down like a hollow shell. He trembled slightly as he realised that there actually might be truth in Jen’s words. The orders she had somehow transmitted to his head, his body being changed. What had she done to him?!

She cleared her throat loudly. “I had to cut a few bits off,” she said louder. “Fat, a bit of skin, hair, and your dick,” she emphasised.

She had meant to enrage him with the comments, and they did just that, but his anger went in a different direction than she had wanted. Instead of the senseless screaming, shock or silence she had hoped for, his anger simmered inside of him as he realised the one truth. Whatever she had done to him, as long as he killed her, he would be free, surely.

With this thought, he focused all his intention inwards. He blocked out all his thoughts of the surroundings and instead focused on regaining his energy. Jen continued to throw, and eventually shout, insults that grew in unpleasantness that the instructor continued to ignore, although with greater difficulty as time passed. Over a short period of time, however, she realised he was making a dedicated effort to ignore her, and so she focused her attention inwards as well.

The reason why she had tried to throw him off-track had been because he had already started with a head-start; he would have an able body before her no matter how hard she tried. But if she got to a decent standard and struggled to the instructor, she doubted that the instructor would allow her to die for such a nonsensical matter. Then she could just heal up and deal with Stanis at full strength.

By this time, Johnny had been beaten down and so the instructor forced mana water down his throat. Seeing as there were no other opponents left, he quickly dealt with Keiko before forcing her to drink it as well. From the start, he could have easily just beaten all five of them up and forced them to drink the mana-water, but it was better if they beat each other up as it meant that they were constantly refining their skills and tactics against beatable opponents, same as they would be doing in a week’s time.

He picked up Johnny and Keiko before dragging them towards the others as well. It was as he was walking over that he saw Stanis slapping Jen across the face; he was still stuck to the ground by his anchor-like legs but his shoulder and arm were fully movable by now, and with this great, new power came new possibilities.

Jen had attempted to defend herself but had failed as she could only move her forearm, meaning her insults were always cut short by vicious slaps.

The instructor threw the two bodies in his hands to the side before releasing a deep sigh. The day had almost gone perfectly, in fact, far better than he had initially expected. On the first day, he had expected around 4 of them to die, and thus had been surprised by their strength and tenacity. But of course that had been too good to be reality; friction had grown between them and a backstabbing had occurred in the end.

He walked over to Stanis and picked him up, and threw him a step away from Jen. He looked at the two of them; one stared back pleadingly while the other glared back.

“Keep it civil, please.” he said.

“She fucking killed me. And then turned my body,” Stanis roared.

Of course it would come down to this the instructor thought. He pointed at Stanis.

“You kill her and you die alongside. She now technically owns your body.” He then pointed at Jen.

“And I hope you regret your decision now. Unlike simple undead, you can’t just discard an intelligent one when you want. As long as it wants to live, the only way to kill it is by leaving its proximity. And that’s far. And it won’t be happening under my supervision.” he said.

After his little speech, Stanis stopped trying to kill Jen. Of course, this wasn’t because of what the instructor had said but rather because of the instructor’s presence. Eventually, all five of them had regained most of their energy and got back up. By this time, Stanis was siting sombrely, allowing his anger to simmer inside for a more suitable time. He had also confirmed that Jen hadn’t actually cut off his sexual organ, much to his delight, although its existence meant very little when he was owned by another being.

The instructor eventually got up and gestured for the five to follow him. They walked into the basement and waited. After a little while, four people came out. The Asian man was missing.

After a little bit of thought, Stanis decided that whatever had happened between their group was most likely intentional. Considering Pete’s, Vasile’s and Okoye’s characters, it wouldn’t be surprising if the group had done something like abandoning him.

Pete, who now looked wearier than before, had a glint in his eye as he looked at Stanis. The warmth was not the type you showed to family you hadn’t seen in a year, instead the type you showed after finding an item you had lost a few days ago.

The instructor led the group of nine into the sitting room and began to speak.

“6 more days of this and you’ll be set to go back to Earth. I could just drug you but that would be detrimental to future growth, so you will be allowed sleep every night. Take it as the one luxury we offer here; you’ll be woken up sharply tomorrow,” he finished.

He then led them upstairs, and put 7 of them into a large room with 10 beds. He then threw Stanis into a separate room, one which was lockable from the outside, before throwing Jen into a similar room. He made sure to lock both rooms before leaving.

At first, Stanis had relaxed down to sleep. He had tried opening the door and had failed, and while sleep was a luxury he no longer needed on a daily basis, it certainly was a welcome one on a rough day.

And so it was with great despair that he realised he wouldn’t be sleeping that night. That despair was, however, quickly replaced by his ignited anger. Jen, now fully healed, had decided shortly after the instructor had left her that giving orders to Stanis was worth a retry.

This reminded Stanis off the link the two of them now shared and so a mana-war between them began. And while Stanis suffered, as he rolled in pain, he told himself it was all alright. After all, tomorrow when they went into the jungle, it was his chance to repeat today’s play with a new cast…