As 637 had expected he woke up to the brisk voice of the instructor. He was starting to think that the Instructor wasn't that bad a man, damaged definitly, but not evil. Of course there was no way to test his theorie and the only way it could be proven was through time. Having been lost in his own thoughts he didn't quite get wat the Instructor had been saying but it was hard to miss however that the other children where following him.

Before they reached the training hall they came past a desk with simple light grey cloth that contained clothes for each of them. Evrything the same but in diffrent sizes fully legged pants, and shirts without sleeves. There was another darker string of cloth they could use to tie up their pants with so wouldn't drop onto the floor.

637 removed his old pants and and threw them into the corner where they where told to leave them. He then put on the new pants. Surprisingly the ethereal chains just went straight through the clothing and did not seem to be affected by the pieces of cloth in the least.

Putting on his shirt however was a lot less pleasent the sore and burnt skin of the branding did not appreciate having rough cloth pulled over it. With some carefull tugging he was able to put on his shirt and after a while his back got used to the soft throbbing pain in his back.. After they had finished clothing themselves the instructor spoke up.

“We will now start weapons training, this will be done by yourself, I will and cannot teach each of you about your own weapons you will have to figure out how to use them yourself. Techniques you have figured out by yourself will be easier to use and more often than not more efficient than the moves others can teach you.”

“ I will however have each and everyone of you following the same physical training, the training will stack to give your body time to catch up. This means that we will start of with less and move on to more!”

As they walked further down the hallway the instructor continued his monologue. “However do not expect the training to be easy from the start! Most of you will pass out before the day has ended and the rest of you will be lying in a puddle of the contents of your gut! But before we get started the body needs its fuel to get the job done. Breakfast first!”

They then arrived in the training hall and there was a humungous heavy oaken table placed in the center of the training hall. Even though the design was simple and there where no exquisite details or craftmanship, the size of the table alone was more than impressive. 637 wondered how the table had been placed in the training hall and who had placed it there since it was not there the night before when they passed through the hall and chose their weapons.

The table had exactly 37 chairs, 18 on each side and 1 at the head of the table. The table itself was already set and there was food on each plate. The food was rather simple, mashed potatoes, bacon and eggs with 2 apples each.

The children sat down on the table as a result of the chains they automaticly ended up sitting next to the one they were chained to. Not that this really bothered anyone, the ones they ended up being chained to had an odd sense of familiarity to them. More importantly however they where to hungry to think of anything else than the food which was on the plates before them.

“No need to wait for something this isnt the bloody royal dining hall just eat!” The instructor commanded them.

The children needing no further nudge, started eating and dug in with extreme fervour. “DELICIOUS!” one of the children shouted after tasting his first bite. Indeed the food was abnormally tasty even though he was hungry 637 thought that the food shouldn't taste this good especially since the food seemed to be rather simple in essence, the taste itself was beyond belief.

It didn't take long for them to finish the food and happily rub their bellies in satisfaction. The pleasure did not last for long though. The instructor soon told them to follow him it seemed they would be running immiediatly after their meal.

“Some people say exercising after eating is bad for you! We dont care about such nonsense here! We have limited time to get you kids ready for fighting and we are going to use every bloody last second to get you prepared!” The instructor openend a door in the side of the training hall and started running down the badly lit hallway.

The hallway itself wasn't broad it would only allow them to move in single file. Because of the chains alot of the children where expecting to have trouble walking and slamming into each other.

The chains however did not hinder them in the slighest. Although each individual chain could spread out infinitly as far as they could tell most people ended up running next to their partners.

In reality however this proved far more difficult than expected. Everyone had different heights so their speed would not be the same if each moved their own bodies in the same way as the others. Those that were smaller than the others had to move their leggs faster. The instructor easily still the biggest of them all, except maybe for that treekid who was nearly identical in height already, set the pace for wat he thought was a decent one.

It took alot of effort from most of the kids to be able to adjust their pace to the one the instructor was setting.

“How about we let the smallest kids run in the front so the rest of us can adjust our steps to them, that way we would avoid running into each other?” The darkskinned girl suggested.

“This would indeed be most logical” The treekid boomed with a low rumble.

“Alrighty then, smaller kids upfront!” 637 yelled to the people behind him

The 2 smallest people ended up being 636 and a small beastman that resembled more monkey than human. Although the monkey seemed to have no trouble with running 636 was having a tougher time of it.

“Hhaha! Not bad kids, it took the previous groups alot longer to start working together properly. Comunication is key in survival. As i said remember to work together im glad u runts are taking it to heart! But fun time is over time to start for real!”

The instructor soon started to pick up the pace and kept a fast but steady pace that soon became monotonues. Soon everyone was falling into step and their heels beat on the cold stone floor with the exact same rythm. The sound of the harmonious heel stomps on the ground where somehow soothing and satisifying to 637. He took pleasure in the order and the group harmony that existed in this rythm of running.

Before he could even let his thoughts wander any further however the instructor started to pick up the pace again. Soon the pace was so fast that 636 had trouble keeping up breathing heavily and sweat started to drop down his back making the boy flinch in pain as the salt of his sweat ran over the burn on his back.

Luckily 637 was the one behind him and slowed down his pace accordingly. The monkey boy had noticed the faltering steps of 636 aswell and adjusted his pace to match 636. Soon the gap between them and the instructor started to slowly grow.

Most of the children seemed to have alot of stamina but after wat seemed to 637 as a mere 20 minutes the violet haired 636 started to stumble and almost fell on his face. Before 636 could even hit the floor 637 caught him. And swung him over his shoulders

“Not much of a runner are you snowflake!” 637 jested at him

636 looked at him and returned a weak grin. The poor boy was completely exhausted he had probebly never done any real exercise in his previous life. “Wat's this snowflake you speak of?”

“You don't know wat snow is?” 637 said looking at him in surprise.

The small boy shook his head. “I have never heard of this snow you speak off”

“Well when the weather gets extremely cold the water will freeze. This will cause the water drops of rain to become cold white flakes, puffy and soft if gathered together will fill the ground with its cold plushy wetness.”

“This is a truth you tell me? Frozen water falling from the heavens must be a great sight to behold”

The young boy said in wonder.

“Yes i suppose it would be a great sight to behold, lets hope we still get the chance.” The last words turned the mood grim and stopped any further conversation from happening.

Soon enough he got used to having 636 on his shoulders after a whilet he movement somehow felt natural and the tiny bit of weight the small child brought on his shoulder was negligible. After some fumbling around with his clothes so his shrt didn't rub his back so much he picked up the pace again to catch up to the instructor. He was soon able to catch up to the instructor.

The monkeyboy seemed to have no trouble what so ever in keeping up with the instructor but the same could not be said for all of the children.

637 started to hear encouraging words coming from behind as the darkskinned girl and the treekid were doing their best to keep the spirits up of the ones who where having a tough time. Another kid seemingly collapsed but was soon scooped up by yet another of the kids. This kid was bald and had no hair to be seen on his body, the only exeption where the eyebrows. His skin was a pasty grey and he had some kind of tribal tattoo's running over his arms and head.

He was actually pretty sure that they were not really tattoo's because they did not have the same flat look as he tattoo's normally tended to have. There seemed to be a little thickness difference in the tattoo's almost like they where pasted onto the body instead of simply changing the colour of the skin. Other than that the strange boy seemed to have no difficulties carrying the extra weight the girl over his shoulder added.

After wat seemed like an endless run they finally arrived in the training hall again. Most of the children collapsed on the ground soon after struggling to catch their breath. Only about 6 children other than 637 seemed to only be panting. “Well u guys deserved a little break! 10 minutes and then we are running it again!” The instructor informed them.

His death sentance was heard by the children and their own groaning and complaining was wat they answered him with. “IF YOU GUYS KEEP WHINING ILL MAKE IT 5 MINUTES!” This effectively shut everyone up.

After the 10 minute break had ended the instructor started moving again and just like before Snowflake, as 637 had started to call 636 in his head was walking infront of him again after having rested abit while on his shoulder. He seemed to be able to keep up the pace for another while Soon they where in the same monotonues running rythm. 637 however did notice that the pace was noticeably slower than the speed with the instructor had increased it to before.

Now that he was actually sweating he could feel the luke warm sweat running over the brand on his back. It didnt take long for it to start stinging more and more. The other kids where also grimacing in pain as as their shirts started to get plastered to their back's rubbing over the sore wound the branding had left. Snowflake and most of the other kids where starting to tear up at the pain they felt each time a drop of sweat ran down their back.

The pain started to get worse and worse the further they continued down the hallway it didn't take much longer before children started to collapse and where unable to run anymore. The more able bodied kids like 637, the treekid and the bald one picked up those that collapsed and swung them over their shoulders and continued.

Snowflake was surprisingly not amongst the first few to collapse. 637 looked at him and his purple eyes seemed to be glowing somehow his veins also seemed slightly more visible and seemed to have a purple pulse running through them. 637 didn't have enough time to wonder about it has another kid collapsed. The treekid simply swooped this one up aswell and swung him over his other shoulder. He was now carrying 2 kids at the same time and it looked like it didn't bother him in the slightest.

Surprised by this feat of strentgth he took a closer look at the boy. First off the buy was huge for his supposed age judging by the other kids he shouldn't be older any than 16. He had noticed it before but seeing it now it was clearly of another caliber.

His partner was the darkskinned girl, it was really hard to miss with that long hair. She also had weird pointy ears not a human maybe? She certainly didn't move like one her movements had a strange and entrancing flow to it.

He thought to himself. It didn't take him long to notice that they weren't the only strange ones in the group the child he had picked up had a tail so bushy that he really felt the urge to start petting it. Which he hadn't even noticed at first.

Consumed by his interest in the diffrence between the children he noticed that only 4 of the children where like him and most others had some smaller or larger identifying features. It was a mystery to him why he had never noticed this before.

Of course he thought wrly i was somehow transported into a weird arena and then someone poked a redhot glowing stick in my back and casually mentioned i was a slave. Other things on the mind dull the senses i suppose, his train of thoughts wandered further and further and before he had even noticed it they where back in the training hall again.