“Sometimes you need to humiliate someone to make them see reality.” - Old folk saying.

The rest of the trainees were dealt with in short order. Erycea had her people draw straws to determine who went next, while she herself only sat and watched from the side while entertaining her little sister and pointing out the mistakes the trainees made at the same time. Every five trainee, another member from Erycea’s platoon went up to allow them to test their mettle and handily crushed the trainees.

That was not to say that there weren’t any promising trainees around. One of the larger mixed breed girls gave Hakim some trouble at first since she was taller and stronger than he was, an advantage of her heritage more than anything, before the more experienced young mercenary turned the tables around just as the girl was feeling confident.

Hakim used his shield to block the girl’s sword and cleverly trapped the axe in the girl’s other hand using the shaft of his spear before he swept her feet from beneath her, which sent the young girl – Larissa, Erycea thought her name was – sprawled on her back, with the tip of Hakim’s practice spear held against her throat.

Other than her, the other promising trainee was a boy named Kev, less for his skill but for the way he persevered and kept fighting even when he knew he was hideously outmatched. Many of the other trainees lost their battles before it even began because they had been sufficiently intimidated by the way their fellows were swiftly dispatched by the young but experienced members of Erycea’s platoon. Kev was one of the few who never lost their spirit.

Which was saying something, as after the way some of Erycea’s people went through the trainees – Valeria in particular had practically rolled over her opponents in brutal-looking spectacles, though she took care not to hurt them too much – the rest of them had every right to be intimidated at the sight.

Kev happened to be in the last batch of trainees to go up to fight, and Rhiannon was in charge of that last batch. The boy made a good showing of himself, fighting carefully with his axe while he kept his body protected behind his shield. That said, all it took Rhiannon to dismantle his careful stance were some quick moves to disarm him.

Erycea could see that the boy still looked rather unresigned at the results – all the trainees had been handily beaten down, though some had made good showings of themselves in the process – and thought that maybe he needed a little bit of extra lessons beated into his head. As such, she stood up and called him out just as he began to walk back dejectedly to where the rest of the defeated trainees were at.

“You. You’re still unconvinced that you need more training, ain’t it so?” asked Erycea as she accosted the boy. The sight might have been rather intimidating for many, given how she was easily half a head taller than he was, with her sharp fangs openly on display as she grinned. “Want another chance to prove you got what it takes? Or are you too chicken for that?”

“Let me have another chance,” replied Kev firmly as he looked Erycea up in the eye. His confidence was at least praiseworthy, to say the least.

“Okay. Go get your training weapon and head back to the ring,” said Erycea nonchalantly. “Catch your breath as well while you’re at it.”

Kev did as she told him and waited for a bit in the ring alone, the focus of attention of the audience gathered around them. He was indeed given a few minutes to catch his breath and did the best he could to calm himself, to prepare himself as best he could for the second chance he had. The other trainees looked on, both with curiosity and with some trepidation as well.

“You know, I joined the Company when I was fourteen. That wasn’t because my dad runs the Company, but because I’ve been training for it for nearly a decade by then,” said Erycea nonchalantly, across the clearing from Kev. “You guys might have a year or two of age over us, but you’re missing out on that decade of training and the years of experience since. This year or two of training they give you is their best attempt to let you catch up.”

“To make this a bit more fair, I’ll have you fight someone who is still training with the intent to join the Company. If you win, I’ll propose to dad to reduce your training periods, for all of you, that is. If you lose, you take your training without any further protests, we got a deal?” asked Erycea as she looked towards the trainees with a predatory grin on her face.

“Deal!” replied the trainees in one voice after only a short discussion.

“Good. Aly, you take it from here,” said Erycea with a nod.

Alycea stood up from beside her sister and nodded as she walked forward to stand across Kev. Once again, the fight looked like a severe mismatch at a glance. Kev was not the biggest for his age, but he was still a sixteen year old boy with most of his growth already done. Alycea was twelve, and not particularly large for her age either.

The way the little girl held her long polearm – one that was notably much taller than she was given her young age – was almost comical, yet there was some certainty in her stance as well. Alycea’s training weapon had a metal rod socketed into one end of the long wooden staff and a shorter one on the other side, both weighed properly to allow her to use a weapon that weighed just as much once they crafted the actual heads for her polearm.

What Kev found rather odd was the way the wooden shaft of the weapon seemed to bend and wobble even as the girl held it steady. It was a solid wooden shaft, and wood shouldn’t have been that flexible, even with a weight on its end.

His doubts were answered when Alycea struck out towards his head. Kev instinctively raised his shield to catch the blow, only to see the girl wobble the shaft of her weapon, sending the weighted end swaying over Kev’s shield and straight towards his face. He only managed to aoid it by a quick duck, and even then it still grazed his hair.

By the time he collected himself, another blow descended from above. This time he tried to catch it with his axe, only for the pole to wobble and sway exaggeratedly once more, the blow landing a good bit away from where he expected it to land, nearly hitting his hand.

He was unprepared when the little girl used his preoccupation with her previous strike to whirl around and thrust the other end of her weapon towards him. The point moved and swayed almost as if it was alive and avoided his attempts to block or deflect it, directly striking him in the gut hard enough to make him keel over in pain.