“Fuck,” John stated more than said towards the ceiling. He had the feeling that this wasn’t the first time he had done so in the last four days since his night-time training started, and his aching body only further reminded him of that fact.

How many strikes did he owe that demonic geezer by now? John briefly calculated the number, only to bury a groan inside his pillow. Things were looking anything but good for him, and he could already guess how he’d spend the next few nights. ‘To think that I’d one day spend my nights training with someone who’s even older than me. This must be a bad dream, right?’

“Why are you cursing at the ceiling?” Ronnie, who was sitting on the only chair in the room, asked with an absentminded expression on his face.

It had been a long day for the two of them. They had spent hours on the sandy field, the old man cursing and shouting at their lack of competence whilst correcting postures and stances as he saw fit. It somehow reminded him of the bootcamp he had been forced to visit in the past. The remaining memories he had of that place, however, were anything but pleasant.

At the beginning of the weapon training, John had thought that something that seemed so easy in theory like moving one’s feet according to the position one’s body was in couldn’t possibly be that hard to do. At least not harder than shooting accurately a target that was a few hundred feet away. He was horribly wrong. It was one thing to hit someone with a melee weapon, but to do so accurately and with control of the swing’s trajectory was a completely different matter altogether.

His body was simply not up to par. His mind wanted to do one thing, but the body wasn’t capable of perfectly executing the orders.

Per their teacher, the only thing they needed was lots of time and practice intense enough for them to wish they were never born in order to master their weapons, which was just as obvious as it sounded.

At least they would have more than enough of invaluable the commodity known as time, since warriors tended to live far longer than normal humans. The old geezer was already two hundred years old, and Founders were supposed to have been walking these lands for more than twice that time.

As evidenced by the aged body of the old geezer, however, it would only slow the aging process down considerably, and not completely stop it. The peculiar thing about it was that it didn’t affect the growing speed of children; Warrior children grew at the same rate as others and even stayed young considerably longer than nature would have dictated. How fast one aged after maturing fully was, in turn, influenced by how powerful one’s body and channels were. In short: The more time and aether a person used during Meditation, the longer one would live.

The very fact that people couldn’t become immortal was already quite a relief for John when he heard it. Immortality in and of itself was already quite a scary thing, and just imagining the harm an army of powerful beings that would never die of natural causes could cause was enough to send goosebumps all over his body. Especially if the army in question retained all their reproductive capabilities.

“I was just imagining the hellish training our most generous teacher will be giving me tonight,” John finally replied after a period of silence. “You seem to be as shocked as I was about the fact that warriors live far longer than ordinary humans. Isn’t that knowledge part of common sense?”

“It is. But that doesn’t change the fact that I only heard rumours about the extended lifespan of warriors. Rumours being rumours, I of course thought that they were exaggerated. To be honest, until out esteemed teacher told us that warriors could, in fact, live for centuries, I always thought that warriors lived perhaps a decade or two longer than the average person.” Ronnie sighed, gazing out of the window again. “I guess the fact that I could live for quite some time unless I’m killed will take a while to sink in.”

John risked a glance at Ronnie’s scar-marked hands. His eyes narrowed as he tried to imagine what his life must have been like before he had been brought to the Golden Gate, but he dismissed that thought as soon as it came to his mind. The past was the past. What mattered was the present.

“Speaking of battles, when do you think will we finally be allowed to partake in an actual battle? Or no, scratch that. How long do you think will it take until we’re allowed to even spar with each other?”

John turned his body around, grimacing at the pain coming from his sides. “Well, considering that the weapons we’re using are more than capable of harming a person, I guess quite some time. If I were our extremely handsome and brilliant teacher, I wouldn’t possibly allow my students to fight each other when they’ve just started training with their weapons. The risks would far outweigh the possible advantages and fun such activities would bring.”

Ronnie’s body deflated a little upon hearing John’s words. “What are we even training for, then? After all we will have to fight on a battlefield someday, and if we haven’t even sparred against another person before how are we even supposed to fight a battle to the death?” The boy sighed, pouting at the thin air listening attentively to him whilst rocking back and forth on his chair.

“Calm down man, it’s not like we’re going to spar tomorrow just because you want it, right? Why are you not honing your swordsmanship if you have nothing else to do? You seemed pretty infatuated with it when back on the field.”

A pair of shining azure eyes glowered at John. “Training is training, and leisure time is leisure time. I can train whenever I want, but I can only visit you whilst the sun is up in the sky. I may like swinging my sword around, but few things can compare to a good discussion with my best friend Johnnie,” the boy stated matter-of-factly.

“It’s John, not Johnnie,” the person in question corrected his friend. He himself wouldn’t have called Ronnie his best friend, but he had to admit that it was true. If one only had one real friend it wasn’t difficult for that person to become one’s best friend. “And if you’ve already got so much time and energy to waste why not just spend it creating stuff inside your core. It would certainly accelerate your growth. Didn’t you want to teach that, uh, Jessica a lesson?”

Ronnie sighed, leaning his head onto his arms. “Don’t remind me of that. Who told that arrogant bitch to proclaim herself the best swordswoman in our group? So what if she’s the most powerful one out of us as of now? I’ll surpass her in no time at all!”

Remembering her spectacular show of pure skill and strength earlier that morning, John couldn’t help but snort. “Well, good luck then. I’m sure that she won’t mind another competitor.”

“And today, children, will be the day you get to spar for the first time in your as of now quite short lives,” the old man finished his morning speech, his eyes all the while resting on John, whose jaw was about to smash into the ground. “Get together in group of pairs and summon your weapons.”

John and the others were in the same sandy training field they had chosen their weapons in. The sun was blocked by a cloudy sky that marked what would likely soon become a rainy day, and the temperature was comfortably cool. Far in the distance, beyond the high walls surrounding their city, John could hear the faintest sounds of thunder reverberating through the air that even the excited chatter of the children around him couldn’t cover.

When he saw a hand wave in front of his face, John finally snapped out of his exasperated state. He turned around to face the owner of the hand, Ronnie, and asked him, “I thought you wanted to have a fight with Jessica?”

“I do, but I’m neither ready nor in need of a horrible beat down. The other boys-“ Ronnie pointed his thumb backwards, where Logan and a few other boys were smiling at Jessica. “Will do that for me I guess. There’s no point in rushing things, right?” He smiled sheepishly.

‘Is he really just a kid?’ John asked himself once again. Ronnie’s way of thinking just seemed too mature and calm to belong to a kid his age. But then again, if people could become multiple centuries old then a kid being more mature than he should wasn’t that strange, he comforted himself.

Shooing the unnecessary thoughts away, John summoned his halberd and went into the stance he had practiced far more often than he would have liked to. His muscles sent stabbing pain throughout his entire body in protest, but John silenced them with a small influx of aether, which worked better than any medicine he heard about.

“Begin on three. I repeat, on three! If I catch one of you little shits starting on one or two I’ll smack you senseless, understood?” the old man shouted across the field. Seeing that his pupils had nodded obediently, he continued, “And don’t worry about getting hurt. Even if one of you beats the other to the brink of death – which I sincerely hope you won’t since I’ll beat you up even worse if you do so – I’ll be able to stabilize and heal you.”

Taking a small breath, he continued, “Anyway, the first one to fall to the ground or admit defeat loses! Should someone actually dare to continue fighting even after his opponent has lost I’ll skin your butts and hang them on my chimney, is that clear?”

Seeming to take the silence as a confirmation, the geezer grinned once more. He raised his right hand, stretching his index finger out, but otherwise staying silent.

John blinked, feeling his heart beat faster as the aether started to storm through his channels. he carefully observed Ronnie, who was standing seven feet away from him. The boy was holding a sword in his hands that neither elegant nor bulky and was staring back with an even greater intensity. A smile danced on the corner of Ronnie’s lips.

“One!”

The sudden shout caused John to flinch. He felt his vision, which had, at some point of time, started to tunnel in on Ronnie, expand again.

The area was quickly brightening as the sun broke through the cloudy barrier blocking its rays from reaching the earth. All the childish playfulness had vanished from the field. No one except for perhaps the old man moved.

“Two!”

Feeling the adrenaline rush into his brain, John tensed his muscles even further. Scenes of horrendous screams and chaotic gunfights flashed across his vision, but he drove them all away with a deep exhale. ‘Focus, damnit!’

“Three!”

Silence reigned on the field for a brief fraction of a second before everything exploded into motion. John stomped forward and thrust his halberd out with all the strength his childish body could muster.

Ronnie ran forward in response, batting John’s halberd away with a wooden bang before rapidly closing in. John mumbled a curse and fell back, pulling the halberd with him. His opponent performed a diagonal slash that he evaded with the grace of an elephant in a china shop.

With all thoughts of not wanting to hurt the child in front of him now having vanished from his adrenaline-filled head, John swung his halberd sideways whilst stumbling backwards. Wood met flesh, and his halberd crashed into Ronnie’s unprotected side. The person in question just grunted and moved on, seemingly unaware of the hit he just received.

The other’s sword whistled through the air once again, but it only met a wooden shaft. Not wasting the chance he had been given, John let the blade slide off his halberd and swung the blunt end of his weapon at Ronnie’s rips, driving the air out of the other’s lungs.

Intent on pressing his advantage, John stepped even closer and was about to push Ronnie down when he saw something approach his face from the corner of his vision. A piercing pain erupted from his cheek as he found himself staring at a completely different direction. Another blow crashed against his shoulder, forcing John’s knees to buckle.

He looked up, only to see the trembling tip of a sword stop just short of his face. “Surrender,” Ronnie squeezed out in between wheezed breaths. His voice was icy, as if he wouldn’t hesitate to ram the tip into his face if he decided to resist any further.

The sun was slowly starting to be pushed back by the billowing clouds. There was a certain moisture in the air that indicated that it would rain soon, and the rough feeling of sand invading his clothes, along with the pain that became stronger as remaining aether inside his body slowly retreated into his core, only served as an additional reminder that this wasn’t simply a bad dream. A cold wind whistled past, bringing a raindrop that fell onto John’s face along with it.

His ass plopped onto the ground. The action may have been insignificant at any other time, but at this moment, that simple action made John more bitter than he would have expected.

He had lost.

In a fight.

Against a kid.

John sighed, wondering whether he was too weak or Ronnie simply too strong. He stared up at the smiling victor, who was staring back at him with a shit eating grin. A hand stretched out to him. “Where did you learn to fight like that?” John asked as he pulled himself up.

“Well,” the young boy started to speak with a laugh, his words being interrupted by a grunt as John heaved himself up, “I guess I picked a move or two up during my time on the streets.”

“I guess you won’t elaborate on the fact that you ignored my blow as if it had been nothing?” John stared at Ronnie’s torso, which didn’t seem to be any different from that of a normal person’s.

“Nope. Wouldn’t it be too boring if I were to tell you every secret of mine?”

John sighed, not bothering to respond any further. He retrieved the halberd into his core and proceeded to wipe the sand that was starting to itch away with a grimace.

The sounds of children chattering away mixed with the occasional pained high-pitched moans entered his ears. Without stopping what he was doing, John looked around, only to realize that most of the fights had already wrapped up. The only two people still fighting were Logan and Jessica, who were busy exchanging a flurry of blows, all the while pacing back and forth as they fought across the whole field.

By the time the last bits of sand had been thrown out of the insides of his trousers, both fighters had tumbled down in a tangled mess of limbs. When John looked closer, he realized that the two were wrestling.

‘How nostalgic. Back in the day, we also used to wrestle like this.’

Before the fight could escalate any further, a gentle gust of wind rushed through the whole field to separate the two sand covered combatants. Feeling a refreshing feeling as the pain from his wounds lessened considerably, John breathed in deeply as it brushed past him. Small drops of aether trickled in through his skin, entering his channels and rejuvenating even his very aether reserves.

“Okay kids, you’ve sparred enough for today.”

Every head in the field swivelled around to face the old man who was the owner of the voice that spoke out. The person in question smiled at the wildly varying expressions on his pupils’ faces, beckoning them to come over. He waited until they were all gathered before he started speaking, “I know you’re probably expecting a small break in which I’ll explain every mistake I observed to you, forcing you to train even though your whole bodies are aching. That won’t happen. What you will get, however, is something far more important.”

The old man paused, his intense pair of amber eyes examining each of the children. They lost focus for the briefest fraction of a second before he continued, “It’s a piece of advice that could possibly save your lives. Don’t. Lose.”

John gulped, but the sudden explosion of noises as the children around him became engaged into wild discussions he expected never came. He looked around, only seeing a group of grim faces.

“I know a little less than half of you-“ He shot an amused look at Logan and Jessica, who were sitting on the sand with crossed arms and dark expressions on their faces. “Have lost today. And, as far as I have observed, the loss seemed to have bothered most of you kids less than it should. I know this reminder won’t be pleasant, but you have to keep in mind that you will be sent to the frontlines, sooner or later. And if you lose there, you’ll die.”

John felt goosebumps crawl up his skin as the realization that the institution he had been sent to really was one that turned orphans into warriors hit him. He would have to kill again.

“As such, I’m fully expecting you to give it your all the next spar. If I catch any of you simply giving up after being put into a disadvantageous position, I’ll whoop your asses until you won’t be able to remember what sitting without pain used to be like, understood?”

“Yes Sir,” came the mumbled response from the children.

The geezer pulled a thin brushwood rod out of nowhere and slapped it onto his hand. The nasty sound of it echoed through the silent field. “What was that?”

“Sir yes Sir!”

“Now that sounds quite a bit better!” Brandishing the rod into the direction of the walls surrounding the Golden Gate, he shouted, “As a punishment for being tardy, you’ll have to run ten laps around the grounds! The last one to finish will receive twenty lashes. Start, now!”

The group of children stormed away simultaneously. In the ensuing mess of sand, coughs and curses, John started running towards the walls whilst mulling over his defeat.