The Dragon Awakens

Chapter Ten

Lanie had gone through a grueling, intense, Navy Seal level-esque training when she joined Dragon Army but this military training under Shang was something else. It left her, she hated to admit it, exhausted. Their morning began at sunrise with various levels of physical exercise. Monday it was always jogging up the mountains to the post, and every Monday Lanie made herself fall, but not before allowing herself a few extra inches or so from the last time. What she just couldn't understand was what the damn weights were for, and why he always lectured about training and discipline. Most of the other recruits were inching down but Lanie was determined to go up, no matter how much it burned her arms.
    After their morning exercises, they ate the blandest breakfast of oatmeal, watery eggs, and burned bacon before being split into rotating groups. Every day the group was different because Shang believed no military unit could function properly if not every member of the group trusted each other unconditionally. Lanie had to hold back her snort when he'd said that because she knew for a fact you could. She was living proof of it. She trusted no one at the DA and she'd made it out perfectly well.
  

Three weeks in, however, she was starting to see the benefit of being "friends" with everyone. No one completely hated her anymore, but most of them still kept their distance from her. All except for Linc, Yao, and Po whom she couldn't seem to get rid of. Because they were always split into four groups she always ended up with one of them and their annoying banter was beginning to test her nerves.

"Why do you three keep hanging out with me?" Lanie asked softly at dinner one night as they approached the end of week three. They were all sitting outside on the grass because the chef had accidentally burned their porridge for the morning and the smell and smoke were too much to bear. Also, it was a nice evening with a cool breeze blowing in over the mountains and across the river and it gave them a chance to stretch their legs. 

"Because you're cool," Linc said, popping a blueberry in his mouth. The four of them while trekking up the mountains with fifty-pound backpacks on had stumbled upon a few blueberry bushes and promptly began shoving as many as they could into their pockets to save for dinner.

"Plus, and I mean this nicely, you've got kind of a killer vibe about you. Real mean," Po added in his soft, gentle tenor. He was sneaking puffs of his e-cigarette between bites of food and was found of blowing smoke circles in the air that the three of them quickly had to wave off least Shang should see.

"And I don't know if you've noticed, but the three of us don't exactly fit in with everyone else," Yao pointed out, gesturing to all the other men laying on the grass in various clumps. And as she looked Lanie realized he was right. All the other men fit the tall, stocky, fit stereotype of a solider but Yao's squat frame, Po's extra 200 pounds, and Linc's stick-figure body weren't typically soldier material. And Lanie, she hated to admit it, was athletic but too small.

"So what does that have to do with me?" Lanie pressed, staring them down.

Yao glanced at her and sipped his water. "You protect us, and we watch over you to make sure you don't get, like, too intense. You can't go through this kind of training without some sort of friendship with your fellow soldiers. Psychologically you couldn't stand it."

Lanie supposed that was true. Her nightly trek up to her lone tent where Mushu sat living the dream was taking an odd toll on her that she hadn't realized until now. She sat silently, popping blueberries into her mouth, and thought briefly of her parents and Nainai and if they had noticed her absence. She wondered that if they had noticed, if they had actually done anything about it. Obviously it wouldn't have done any good and she would never find out anyway, but she was curious. Sometimes the action could mean a lot more than the outcome.

"Alright everyone," Shang called, emerging from his tent with Clark, the man with the tablet glued to his hand and a permanent look of righteousness on his face. He wore expensive silk suits every day, drove everywhere in a golf cart, and was always spraying himself down with bug spray. He emerged from the tent in a spritz of bug spray and a scowl on his face. Lanie noticed a thin layer of mud on the cuffs of his pants and wished she'd be around to see that hissy fit.
      "Due to the meager progress you have made, I have decided it would boost morale if we gave you the evening off from your lessons. So enjoy the evening and I will see you at 600 sharp tomorrow morning."

"Yes captain," they all chorused, saluting him as he went back into his tent, Clark hot on his heels and jabbering away about all the work that still needed to be done. Lanie looked around at the soldiers and was surprised at how little their demeanor changed. One of them stood and ran into his tent and emerged holding a football.

"Who wants to play?" he called and suddenly all the exhausted men around her turned right back into high school teenage boys as they jumped up and cheered. They began running for the empty field they used for drills in the afternoon with far more energy than they used for their morning jogs. Even Linc, Yao, and Po jogged off to the field, leaving Lanie by herself for the first time in a month.

"Hey, Mushu?" Lanie asked as she stood, stretching out her sore back.

"Yes?" he responded quickly, ever her present guardian angel.

"Grab your toiletries, we're going to take a bath," Lanie instructed as she started jogging her way over to the river. A stream of protests flooded in her ear but Lanie just laughed and grabbed a clean uniform from the laundry bin and took out the microphone from her ear. She might have dropped it, might have stuck it in her pocket, but she knew Mushu would have more. He was too prepared to not have at least five.