Michael

Jonah returns a few minutes later with two spears in his one hand and two short swords in the other.

"How do you like spears and swords?" He asks with a serious air about him but the grin is still there.

"I'm sure I will learn to love them," I say already standing and stretching my shoulders.

"May I join?" Estergon asks suddenly standing behind me in that creepy silent way he does sometimes.

"Not today, today I start with a complete novice. Come, Michael." Jonah says tossing me the spear, I catch the shaft at chest level on reflex. I can already feel the hot welt trying to heal on my hands.

This will be a painful lesson, I can already tell. I think with my own grin.

Like all things, Jonah's lessons start with the basics of spear work, how to hold it and the many different gripping options. He first gives me a stick and directs me in how to hold it and how to stand when thrusting forward, it's almost like boxing but completely different.

‎"Ok, I'm gonna show you three different gripping options which you will repeat over until you either pass out or die," Jonah says seriously as I face the stone face of a mountain ridge with the stick in my hand.

"First is underarm, just hold the spear in the middle here like so. Left leg forward and knee not stiff. This leg moves as you see fit, your body slightly tilted exactly like that. Right arm back, left arm forward. Good, now thrust with all your strength into the rock." I play out his demonstration and repeat it. The blunt end of my stick hitting hard into the rock, not even chipping it and not wobbling much in my hand.

"Excellent, I want you to do that at least a thousand times on that side and a thousand on the other side. Show me again." I do so and he talks me through adjusting my stance and back leg a bit. The thrust comes from my legs amplified by my hips and balanced by my core.

"Good, let's that again. Good good, now I want you to hold the spear further back, this will decrease the power behind a thrust some but it increases your reach and the from end is pointy so it's still dangerous. Excellent, now you thrust in the same way from that position. Your hands closer together on the shaft, look like so. Use your back forearm to balance the shaft on for stability. Very good, that's grip two, you will do that a thousand times on both sides as well.

"There are different variations of these two strikes. You can pull the power from your arms as well, that's good like that. You're using your shoulders and arms for each thrust but still stabilizing with your core. You can twist the back foot slightly with each thrust, that added power and greater balance right there. Excellent.

"The last grip I will show you is over the head like so. You hold the spear above your shoulder with your thumb of your back arm facing towards you. Front arm is mainly for balance and direction, body slightly tilted sideways like so. That's good, your legs must be comfortable. You use your shoulders and arms to thrust, good. Ok, back to the first stance I showed you, middle grip, excellent." The old man says nodding while walking around me and readjusting my legs.

"Ok good enough, I want your strikes to have power behind them. You won't hurt the stick and you won't hurt the rock but they will help you maintain power behind your strikes. I want you to feel ever thrust in your arms as you strike, don't worry I will talk you through the entire thing your first time. Are you ready? Begin."

And I thrust as he directs, trying to give my all to every single thrust, taking a moment to readjust and set up for every strike as he directs.

"Excellent, seven. Don't forget to breathe.

"Eight.

"Nine.

"Ten. Adjust your foot slightly, good good.

"Eleven.

"Twelve."

And so we continue in that light, me motivated by the certainty that I can push myself to surpass my limits. I've done the same in football in high school and I've done the same at boot camp when I was still a young man. The older I got while still in combat the more I had to push myself mentally in order to compete with the younger man, it isn't always about experience. Sometimes a man just doesn't want to be surpassed by a younger version.

By the time I'm on the two hundredth thrust I'm sweating buckets and my arms and hands are complaining, but as he said he would Jonah stays the entire time with me. Talking me through it and directing me in each and every thrust. Even as the minutes turn to hours and the beautiful twilight of dusk makes itself known. Today its purple and red in both separate colours and in a combination that paints everything slightly pink.

By the time I finish my thousand thrust, I'm almost dead on my feet and get a water rest and an opportunity to bandage my shredded hands. I get to eat a small meal and pee as well because, well I'm still an inferior earthly human in most things. Then its change sides and doing the entire thing over again. Striking the rock is the most difficult I figure, the force of the impact tiring me out maybe but I can't stop, not with Jonah standing right there paying attention to my every move and counting. That fucking counting is going to drive me insane, but it also pushes me to continue.

I push and push and push, at around three hundred I'm seriously thinking of quitting I'm sure he didn't expect me to really finish this. And I say so, the old man just grins and sends the words 'saint' straight to my mind after every thrust. Fuck it, I will do it all or die trying, what do I have to lose after losing my legs? I thrust and thrust and thrust and thrust. Even as the pain of hot tired muscles and bloody hands fills my mind its nothing in comparison to not feeling at all.

"Hggrr.

"Hgrrr..

"Hgrrr...

"Hgrr...

I grunt with every thrust as shit gets real and I start losing my mind to hallucinations. Talking to myself like I've never done before like I have multiple personality disorder. Three of me present in my mind, one a mindless machine that does all the thrusting as the other two deliberate on the pros and cons of giving up now or continuing on for further torture.

The other me talking about how I've done my best and that the pain isn't even worth it. How I've definitely learnt how to thrust by now and Jonah should be satisfied with my efforts. The other me extolling me to push on, to persevere regardless of how my body feels. Reminding me of all the good things I will reap if I sow the effort into it now.

"Eight hundred and sixty-one.

"Eight hundred and sixty-two.

"Eight hundred and sixty-three. Come on more swing on the hip don't slack now.

"Eight hundred and sixty-four.

"Eight hundred and sixty-five.

I do them for a while and I'm an automaton doing everything it's directed to do as my mind goes out of my head and thinks about its own shit. By the time we reach a thousand I'm blank eyes and moving on autopilots, almost completely removed from the shit my body is going through.

"Well done Michael my boy, now head over to Mirabilis for a meal and seeing those injuries look at. After two hours of sleep, you will be back here to finish the rest of the exercises. " Jonah says and nods as I stumble away from him. What the fuck have I gotten myself into?

* *

My days consist of grabbing a stick and doing the exercises Jonah has in store for me for about 60 hours from then onwards. I get to sleep 10 of those sixty hours and I've learnt to spread out my sleep hours and not use them all at once. The exercises are their own challenge and I seem to only slowly be getting used to them so I negotiated a pause between them so I can rest by doing something else.

And what do you know, it turns out that Mirabilis is an adept at chakra release fighting, also known as taijutsu. A type of hand to hand fighting technique with different fighting styles but that uses the entire body as a form of hand seals releasing chakra throughout the body and enhancing all physical abilities.

Though I haven't learnt how to condense let alone release I learn the stances with Mirabilis. We do the moves slow and easily in what anyone from Earth would mistake for yoga and it really isn't, more a martial art than a yoga practice. We do it slowly and steadily and on repeat for two hours. Doing the same twenty moves/poses over and over and over again in different variations and sequences. Rumeria joining us on occasion and when he does Estergon going off somewhere to train with Jonah.

I like that my eagerness to improve myself has inspired them to join me in daily training but I'm also cursing them cause now I can't just stop. Not with all the eyes and expectations of me. Even when I get my hours of sleeping, eating, shitting and bathing they still train, this is why I hate having training partners.

After our jutsu yoga, I soak and sleep an hour before going back to Jonah for more torture. This becomes my pattern, night and day having no meaning as they both involved training. I have a dedicated five hours every night I have for meditation though to keep up with my chakra cleansing and trying to strengthen the current within me and stabilize my pools. This meditation is often done with Estergon still but sometimes I do it alone. Then I have ten hours of the day for nothing but blissful sleep. You don't realise how long 100 hour days are until you have to endure them. The worst part being that these people have absolutely no concept of a weekend, fuck.

We keep up this routine for about seven days before I really consider telling these people that they're fucking crazy but luckily Jonah calls a day off where we just chill and sip on chilled juice that tastes like apples and frost.

"You know we should have started our journey down days ago?" Estergon suddenly says as we all relax outside on our cots watching the spender of the sky.

"I know," Mirabilis says with a sigh. "Do you want to leave?"

"No, I'm just saying that by now most Welcomers that set out when we did are already down at the compound acclimatizing their earthlings to the customs of Gaia and the way of life here."

"And you think we're not doing that for Michael?"

"I didn't say that and you know what I mean. He shouldn't think that everyone on Gaia is as nice as we are, this is a very dangerous place and from what you've described of society in your America Michael you aren't mentally equipped for the realities of life on Gaia." Estergon says coolly, I grunt noncommittally.

I'm not offended, it's not the first time I've been told its a dog eat dog world down there and life cheats, human life especially since we are such prolific breeders. Mirabilis seems to be offended or defensive though, the training has been good for her and she really doesn't want to go yet. Staying up here and trading in the short sword with Jonah has been good for her martial growth and the moves she is learning will definitely surprise her usual sparring partners.

"I think staying here and learning to defend myself is a lot more important than going down there and learning about society and other social studies. Just relax a little, we will all benefit from being here more than we would down there I think." I say in response to his worries.

"I'm just bringing this up because we only have a month with you before we get reassigned when we eventually do. And it takes a minimum of 15 days to get down there and we've been here 17 of the allocated 30 days."

"Yes, but a lot of people stay longer with their earthlings before being reassigned again. We spent nearly six months with Sarah while we waited another assignment remember?" Mirabilis says fidgeting slightly.

"Yes but if we aren't down there they will send someone up to look for us, I worry that all."

"I'll go down tomorrow and tell Master Yoshi all is safe, and request that we stay longer, I should be back the same day with a response. If they want us back we can push down, if they allow us to stay we can stay as long as Michael needs before we introduce him to our twisted ways of life." Rumeria says to end the argument before closing his eyes and gaining sleep again.

Both Mirabilis and Estergon look at each other with surprise but say nothing. I haven't known any of them very long really, only about 1700 hours but I'm also surprised to hear Rumeria volunteer himself for anything, the man is lazy and proud of his slothful ways. So lazy in fact that I wonder what he does with Jonah when they walk off to do their own thing. But then the man is an Awakened so he must have done something right.

The rest of the day is spent in relaxation and continued language sessions, there is some meditation of course but I'm getting much better at that and the chakras come much quicker now.