Chapter Twelve – Survival 101: Don’t Be Weak

Chapter Twelve – Survival 101: Don’t Be Weak

“Run my minions! Sweat for your master! That’s right, a million more push-ups! A million more burpees! Oh-hohohoho!”

-Ojou-Sama Sweat School, exercise stream, 2036

***

Class was going down in the same room as last time, only the room itself had changed. The desks were all lowered, and a sort of matted floor was placed atop that half of the room. It was squishy underfoot, but still firm enough to walk on without too much difficulty. It would probably break a fall, a little, but not so much so that crashing onto the floor would be comfortable.

The students were gathering to one side, under the watchful eye of Professor Rogers and two teacher’s assistants. They were all dressed in gym shorts and t-shirts, with running shoes on.

“The changing rooms are this way,” Olivia said as she guided me past the class and to the back, where a tied corridor split. One side had showers, the awkward open sort, the other had a bunch of changing stalls and lockers along one wall with thumb-print locks on them.

“Here you go,” Olivia said as she handed me a heap of clothes. “There should be everything you need to find a set that fits you in there.”

“Thanks,” I said before slipping into one of the free stalls. They were those shitty ones, where the door only came down to about my knee and the floor was all cold tile. I set down the bag Olivia had given me, then opened it up and started to sort through its contents.

There were shirts with the school logo on one breast, which was fine. Shapeless gym shorts of the non-sexy variety which was… yeah, I suppose that was fine too.

But the sports bras? That was a little weird. And I was definitely, one-hundred percent not going to wear the granny panties with the school’s logo on the crotch. Bet Olivia would, though.

I left the stall feeling a little under-dressed, especially since I wasn’t gonna walk into gym class with my Trenchmaker strapped around my thigh. That’d be a little weird.

“Is the uniform comfortable?” Olivia asked. She’d changed into pretty much the same thing, though with a scrunchy keeping her hair out of her face.

“Eh, it’s whatever,” I said. I dumped my things in one of the lockers, then walked back to the class.

It didn’t take long from there for things to start.

“Alright everyone,” Professor Rogers said. “This is the physical education part of your class. Let me get one thing straight, this isn’t about who can run the fastest mile, or who can do the most pushups. Those are important measurements of your own skill and capabilities, but they’re not what’s important. What’s truly important, is your ability to survive, and your ability to kill.”

I stood up a little straighter. Yeah, I didn’t want to be tested on my ability to jog in a circle or lift heavy shit.

“Whether you’re fighting the antithesis and your weapon jams at a bad time, or you need to subdue a VIP that you can’t simply shoot, or you’re caught fighting a crowd of protestors in close quarters, you need to know the basics of modern combat. We’re going to focus especially on fundamentals, the things you need to know to survive. Learning how to kill effectively comes second.”

The professor gestured, and the assistants ran off. They returned with these big lumpy beige bags that they dropped on the floor before us, then they ran off to get more from a storage room at the back.

“We’re starting the day with basic stretches, then we’re going straight into core strength and endurance training. Line up, get some space between each other. I don’t want to see one of you smacking your neighbor in the face, c’mon!”

The class spread out, taking up a good chunk of the room until we all had enough room around us not to touch even if we reached towards each other. Then Rogers started us on stretches.

Initially it was pretty easy stuff. Arm extensions, squats, lunges. Then he started to repeat the same pattern, but a little more extreme. Arm extensions combined with full-body twists, squats that turned into doing the splits on the floor, lunges that had us turning half-way to try and touch the ground behind us.

Stolen story; please report.

A few students tripped over themselves and landed their ass on the floor, but it wasn’t so funny when I was trying not to lose my own balance.

I very quickly discovered that I wasn’t half as flexible as the old man at the front. He could do a full split, lean to the side and touch his ear with a toe. I was pretty sure that if I pushed that hard, I’d rip something.

I wasn’t quite sweating after ten minutes of stretching, but it was a near thing.