CHAPTER 4

Jasmine felt her entire body strain to keep her standing. She could barely feel her legs anymore, and she felt her heart beat faster than ever. She was exhausted, but she was hardly through her first lap. The Dilliers research center was huge, and it had multiple buildings and structures around the main establishment, and they had to go around those too.

General Loeb had given them fifteen minutes to get back to him, and if even one of them failed, they would all have to do ten pushups. Jasmine was lagging behind the rest of the metahumans, but Franz and Agnes were still in view, and Veronica was already far ahead.

Franz was sticking with her because he was too weak to keep up with Agnes. He looked miserable as he wiped the sweat off his brow, but he wasn’t giving up. Somehow, the fact that an underweight starving man was keeping up with her embarrassed Jasmine, but it also pushed her to be better.

Come on. In through your nose, out through your mouth.

Her lungs burned as she passed a garage, where she barely avoided an oncoming car. She heard the driver furiously honk as she sped up, wanting to avoid the pushups.

When Jasmine made it back to the yard, followed closely by Franz, Agnes and Victoria were already there. She leaned on her knees as she gasped for air.

“Did we… ah… ah… did we make it?” She asked.

“I am afraid not. You were four minutes and twenty-five seconds late. Ten pushups for all of you.”

Franz and I groaned as we got on the ground. He barely got to four before collapsing, while Jasmine got to three. The other two managed to complete their ten.

“Good effort, everyone.” The general said. “Now, take a two-minute break before we start our first close combat lesson.”

Two minutes wasn’t enough at all to recuperate, but it was all Jasmine would get. She was figuring out she was terribly out of shape— at least by military standards.

“Alright. Each one of you should pair with one of my soldiers. Eventually, once you’re good enough, you’ll be able to train with each other.”

Jasmine walked in front of one of the soldiers. His eyes were fierce, and she almost thought he was glaring at her, but the girl also noticed something else. Perhaps it was regret or sadness. He introduced himself.

“I’m Kaleb.” He said with a nod.

“Jasmine.” She replied.

“I know. I was there when you introduced yourself.”

“Oh, right. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. First thing’s first, try to stand like you’re about to attack me.”

“Like this?”

Jasmine crouched slightly and brought up her two fists.

“Stand slightly sideways… turn your hips away from me. Space your legs out more… bring your fists up to your head. Good. This is your basic stance. Never forget it.” Kaleb said with a severe tone.

“Forgive me if I offend you, but can I ask something?”

The man paused for a second and then nodded.

“Is this really that important? Won’t I just get shot out there? Or blasted by an Elementalist metahuman or something.” Jasmine continued.

Kaleb put his hand on his chin.

“You’re right, but sometimes, knowing how to fight like this is the difference between life and death. You don’t want to be the guy who hasn’t practiced when you come across an enemy soldier inside of a building, and there’s no time to pull out your gun. I’ve been there.” He said.

“But you’re alive?”

“I mean I’ve killed that kind of guy. During the civil war.”

“Ah.”

The soldier lifted his hands. “Try punching my hands.”

Jasmine stepped forward and punched his palm with her right fist. She waited for his reaction.

“Rule number one of punching. Don’t wrap your fingers around your thumb unless you want to break it. Put it in between your first and second knuckle.”

Jasmine looked at him like he was speaking another language. He sighed.

“Right here.” He made his own fist as an example. “You want your fist to be tighter. Your punch was loose. Try again.”

Jasmine applied what he said and punched Kaleb’s palm.

“That’s better, but don’t forget your feet. They’re too close together again, and that makes it easier to throw you off balance or tackle you. The other problem is, you need to punch straighter.”

“Like… I need to be more direct?” She asked.

“Yeah. The idea is to send your fist out and bring it right back to its original position with as little extraneous motion as possible. It makes it harder to dodge. Punch my hand again.”

Jasmine punched again, feeling faster and stronger this time. She celebrated mentally.

“You’re getting better, but you need to use your body more when you throw the punch.” Kaleb said. “Have you ever swung a baseball bat? It’s a little bit like that?” He asked.

“No, but I’ll try.” She said, feeling determined. Even if she somehow managed to get out of the clutches of the state, this was good information to learn. She punched again but felt herself almost lose balance.

“Don’t exaggerate your motions. You don’t want to exaggerate the motion and throw yourself off balance, but you want to feel your lower body pushing your arm forward.” The soldier added.

Jasmine nodded as she rubbed the sweat off her hands on her uniform.

This was going to be a long day.

---

As it turned out, punching something was more complicated than it seemed, but Jasmine was getting the hang of it now. Her arms felt tired, but she kept pushing. There had been an incident where Veronica had broken her trainer’s wrist by punching too hard, so Jasmine was waiting for the others to be finished. She figured that she probably didn’t need any of this because of her powers anyways.

“Alright, let’s stop for now.” Kaleb said. “You seem to be doing alright. Now it’s all about consistency and building muscle. You’ll practice a bit every day.”

Jasmine smiled and nodded.

“So what now?”

“I’ll lunge at you, and you try to counter me.”

“Wait w—”

The soldier rushed toward her, holding up his guard until the very last moment. Jasmine tried to dodge to the right preemptively, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her toward him. The girl tried to grab his wrist. However, he was too strong, and Jasmine saw his fist make its way toward her face. She closed her eyes and held her breath, waiting for the impact, but there was none. She opened her eyes and saw that he had stopped right in front of her nose.

“Hey. Stop your invisibility.”

Jasmine blinked and realized she had gone invisible without realizing it. She resumed her breathing and looked at Kaleb incredulously.

“You could have held back. I wasn’t ready!”

“I was holding back. Plus, you’re never ready in a real fight. Sorry about taking you by surprise, but this served a purpose. I needed to see if you’d apply the training we just did, but you didn’t.”

She looked down in shame. The soldier continued.

“You didn’t keep up your guard, and you didn’t keep your balance by spacing out your legs. And you closed your eyes. Let me add a new rule right now, never ever close your eyes in a fight.”

Jasmine nodded.

“But don’t worry, this is normal, and it shows you that the real thing is always different from practice. Apply what you learned for the rest of your life.”

“Alright… I’ll keep it in mind.”

Kaleb smiled.

“Now, let’s do it again.”

---

Jasmine was limping back to the residential quarters along with the others. Every single part of her body hurt horribly. She had never exerted herself like this, and it showed. Franz and Agnes were the same as her, but Veronica looked fine. Jasmine wasn’t sure if that was because of her power or because she hadn’t trained much after the initial run around the facility.

“Gah! I feel miserable! I can’t believe they’re making us do this for ten weeks!” Agnes screamed out while looking at the ceiling.

“Right.” Franz answered while panting. “I’m just going to go collapse on my bed. I don’t have enough energy to shower right now.” He added while calling one of the elevators.

“I feel you.” The girl answered. “But I have to shower. I’d feel icky otherwise. Plus, we still have to eat dinner. And I wouldn’t skip it if I was you. No offense.”

“None taken. I’m glad you’re comfortable enough to joke about how I was starving until recently.” He answered sarcastically.

The group got into the elevator, got off on the fourth floor, and Agnes started running as soon as it opened.

“Dibs on the shower!” She exclaimed as she got out of Jasmine’s view. The girl wondered how Agnes still had enough energy to run.

Jasmine slowly shuffled to her room and closed the door. It was no longer locked now, and she was free to go and leave as she pleased. She wished she had brought books from the communal area to read while she waited, but she had forgotten to. The girl decided to sit on her bed and relax for a bit. She took off her dirty uniform and threw it in the corner of the room, and then she laid down.

Thoughts swirled in her head. Could she really keep doing this? For this long? Jasmine wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she had no choice. General Loeb was just as ruthless as Jasmine had expected, but his men were not the cold-blooded killing machines she had heard about. When she looked at Kaleb, she felt like he was human. A human with regrets, dreams, and feelings. Maybe her parents had been, right? Maybe Marshal Gessner was different.

No, she thought. She couldn’t be sure. Not yet. Jasmine sat up in her bed and groaned in pain. She heard Agnes come out of the shower and slam her door. She smiled and held her breath.

One of the perks of being able to become invisible is that Jasmine could do things like this. She opened her door and sneakily made her way to the bathroom. Jasmine wasn’t going to put that uniform full of dirt, sweat, and grime on again. The girl quickly entered the room and locked the door as she mentally cheered.

After a long shower, the girl opened the drawers only to be disappointed by the same blue uniforms again.

“Looks like that’s what I’m going to be wearing for the next ten weeks, then…” She muttered to herself and sighed.

After stepping out, Jasmine looked at the clock. It was almost six, which meant that dinner should be brought to their rooms soon enough. She decided that she’d hang out in her room until she heard a knock on the door.

Surprisingly, as she opened the door, Agnes was lying on her bed.

“W—what are you doing here?! How did you even get in here?” Jasmine scurried inside and closed the door. “Is this even allowed?”

“I dunno, but you better keep that door open. It smells awful in here.” Agnes said as she rolled over.

“I don’t think this is a good idea.” She answered as she rushed to close the door.

“Come on, relax! There’s a hidden camera in here. Do you think they wouldn’t have come already if they had a problem? Let’s hang out.”

“Um… alright, I guess? Did you need me for something?”

“Ouch. What’s wrong with wanting to hang out with my good friend Jasmine.”

“I only met you today, but fair enough.”

“Cool!” The girl answered with a smile. “Come on, sit.” She said while patting down on the bed.

Jasmine squinted suspiciously but sat down nonetheless.

“Ahh,” Agnes exclaimed while stretching. “Today was a bitch. My instructor was an ass and kept telling me I was horrible.”

“I heard you swear at him a couple of times, yes. I had a bad time too, but I found it valuable.” She answered. Agnes looked straight into her eyes, and Jasmine couldn’t help but be intimidated by her stare.

“You’re weird, you know.” She said bluntly.

“What?”

“You’re weird. Why aren’t you kicking me out? You obviously don’t want me here.”

Jasmine had to do a double-take. Was she doing something wrong?

“I’m fine with you being here, I was just surprised.”

“No, you’re not, but that’s fine. Thank you for being nice, I guess.”

The girl nodded, not knowing what to say. They laid there in silence until they heard a knock on the door. Jasmine had almost started to dose off, but the sudden noise woke her up right away. She got up as she got ready to open the door.

“If I get in trouble for this—” she said as she grabbed the handle. “—I’m blaming you.”

Agnes only answered with a smirk.

One of the guards had brought her dinner in a tray. The food looked quite good. It was chicken, rice, and beans all mixed together, along with a bottle of water. The man raised his eyebrows at Agnes’ presence but didn’t seem to be angered.

“Your food is in front of your door.” He said as he left.

After a few seconds, Agnes perked up as Jasmine sat on her desk.

“I told you it’d be fine. They’re relaxing security because they know we can’t escape.”

“Well, theoretically, we could.” She answered as she started to scarf down her food. “Well, Veronica could for sure, I don’t know about us.”

“You probably could if you planned it well enough. But you know just as well as I do that it’s not an option.”

“‘Marshal Gessner’s direct orders’” She answered while imitating General Loeb.

“I mean, you saw… king Carl’s execution, right? He did it on live TV, and every country condemned that shit. Believe it or not, even I kind of thought it was too much by the end.”

Jasmine paused. Had she just…?

“Stop it. You know saying his name is banned, Agnes. Don’t get us in trouble.” She said as she double-checked the door. “But no, I didn’t see it. I wish I did, he deserved every second of that.” She quickly added.

“Hm. I agree, but it was just difficult to watch. Anyways, I’ll be on my way now. My food’s getting cold. Thanks for letting me hang out, Jasmine. We’re going to get along, you and I.” Agnes said as she winked.

“No problem. I would appreciate a warning next time.”

“Noted.”

The rest of the evening was uneventful for Jasmine. She finished her food and put the tray in front of the door so that the guards could pick it up. At ten, the lights went out, and she drifted off to sleep.