Horsemen Of Peace

Chapter 3: Training

The group had walked to the training center, Nyx leading the way. Raven had stopped to enter a room on their way to the center and came back with a set of clothes and a pair of boots that he handed to them.

"You can get changed in there," Raven told them, pointing to a small area blocked off with a curtain.

Ekta pulled the curtain and stepped into the changing area. They removed the robe that was placed on the when they had woken up and put on the clothes Raven had given to them. The clothes were simple enough, just a tight long-sleeve dark green shirt and flexible black pants with pockets on the sides of the thighs. They folded the robe and pulled back the curtain.

A woman had joined where Nyx and Raven were waiting for Ekta. She was dressed completely in dark clothes, with her hair pulled into a tight low bun. The woman watched Ekta with hard eyes before turning and walking farther into the training center. It was a huge cavern, but like the other rooms, it had crystals to light it up. There was fitness equipment, target practice areas, and mats that looked like sparring areas. The woman led them to a giant obstacle course. They could tell that the design was genius with the different obstacles designed to be passed by using different muscle groups. There were vaults, bars, beams to walk across, nets, ropes to swing from, and much, much more to get through.

"Wow," Ekta breathed. Even with the size of it, they didn't feel scared or nervous about it. Almost like they'd done it before...

"We aren't training with you today." Raven nudged his head in the direction of the woman. "Roxy wants you to start building up your strength before we start training with you."

"Okay." Ekta nodded. Getting through an obstacle course alone didn't seem too hard.

"One more thing, it's best to do the obstacle course at a run." Raven said, giving them an encouraging smile.

"Have fun," Nyx told them, flashing a wicked smile before she and her brother went to a different area in the training center to complete their own training. The smile was unsettling, but they shook it off.

Roxy made Ekta warm up with stretches and light activities before jerking her chin towards the course. "Now begin," she said looking at the start off the obstacle course.

Ekta nodded once and walked over to the start of the course. Remembering Raven's advice, they took a few paces back and took a running start, ignoring the sense of familiarity they felt looking at the obstacle course in front of them. The first obstacle was a hurdle, Ekta placed their hands on the wooden log and used their momentum to swing their legs over the hurdle and continued on to the next obstacle. Ekta pulled themself over bars, scaled log walls, climbed ropes, dodged magic arrows that appeared out of thin air, and leapt from logs at different heights at distances from each other before making it to the end of the course.

Ekta took a few deep breaths trying to catch their breath, but the breaths weren't uneven. More just deep than out of rhythm. Their muscles were already starting to become sore after centuries of being in a coma then suddenly being launched into this exercise.

Roxy didn't seem to care about that little fact when she barked, "Again!"

Ekta took another deep breath before nodding and making their way back to the beginning of the course and starting it again. Pushing themself to complete the course to be strong enough to find the other chosen, to lead and protect them. So every time Roxy said, "Again!" Ekta didn't complain, didn't acknowledge the stiffness building up in their muscles, just nodded before starting the course again and again.

They must have done the course at least 9 times, each harder than the last. They Knew they had to push through it, knowing they would come out stronger in the end. Until they completed the course yet again and their knees gave out under them and they fell to the floor. They took a few shaky breaths and heard Roxy approach them.