Over the course of the next two days, the other eight recruits into Project Venom took up residence in the barracks. There would be two training squads, Shadow and Sabre. Like Carlos had said, most of them were only seven to nine, which was quite evident in the fact that when we would go to the cafeteria for lunch, in a room which was maybe, the size of two of the barracks, there were still shows like Paw partoll (yes, real show, Google it) Dora The Explorer (Fuck me) and Sponge Bob Square Pants (Nina and I even watched that, problem?). Over the two days before training started, Nina became a little less harsh towards me, which I saw as a good sign. I'm gonna tell you a secret here, it took me less than a day to realize I was in love with her. I tried to act like I wasn't interested, because it was very obvious that she did not like me back. I was a little worried that if she figured out I was into her, she'd put up a wall I had no chance of braking through, so I made sure I kept to myself for the time being. Also over those two days, I got to know the members of my training squad.
There was Nina, (yes), Jayden, who was 7, had blue eyes, red scales and a neon green underbelly and wing membranes. Like Nina and I, he was 6'5 with a skinny build and foot and a half long horns. Before he had been recruited, he was a Long Range Light Caliber Competition shooter with his Dad. He told me that he was quote "a little familiar with the AR-15 platform." I also learned, when I plugged in my Boom Cube so Nina, myself and the rest of the team could watch You Tube one night before bed, that the transformation had left Jayden with a complete inability to take loud noises. I swear I thought his head would explode when the video started.
We also had a 6 year old Native American girl named Arnett. She had gold scales and a silver underbelly and wing membranes and bright orange eyes. She had lived on a reserve on the Great Plains and was always complaining about the heat. She hated the sand, the bright sun and basically hated everything about the base. The one thing that had all of us envious of her was the fact that she seemed to know EVERYTHING everyone was thinking at any given time. How she did it, my guess was the transformation gave her the ability to read minds or some shit. Arnett claimed it was quote, "mischievous spirits tell me these things", which I thought was a load of horse crap. She also, as seemed to be the case in my squad, had a crush on Jayden and it was obvious to her that Jayden did not like her back, but not because he just didn't like her, as was the case with Nina and myself, he was clueless to her advances...that sounded bad.
And last but not least, was Mako, a 7 year old male. Mako was Mint green on his body, with a pink underbelly and wing membranes. He had silver eyes and light grey horns. He would much rather be around one of us than alone, and the reason for that became clear very quickly. He had told us the night before training started that he had come to the project because he had, literally no where else to go. His parents were killed in a car wreck, his grandparents didn't want him and the only foster family he had ever been with kept him locked in his room because they thought he was "problematic", though Mako refused to elaborate on what ever the hell that might have met. What Mako brought to our little band of misfits was the fact that, if you needed to know something about electronics for any reason, he was the dragon to see. Carlos came by the night before basic started while we were watching You Tube asking if any of us knew how to switch the processor of an Xbox 360 console so Morningstar could play Forza 4 at 120FPS. Mako spouted it off without missing a beat and had Carlos standing there going, "what?"
True story, I swear.
The morning that training was supposed to start, we went to the mess hall very shortly after wake up call, which was at 7:30, pretty damn late in the morning as far as most armies are concerned. The mess hall was about twice the size of a teacher's lounge that you might find at your school. The room was painted blue with black carpet and a white ceiling. There was a visible kitchen where two Marines cooked for us while there was a TV facing a few bean bag chairs with a couch and an Xbox and PS3 in the left hand corner of the room. There were two tables with ten seats each, which worked out well because each team could have their own table, as High School Stereotyped as that sounded. Shadow team was eating, while most of Sabre, who always seemed to be getting up before call time, was watching TV when Morningstar came in with a few papers and a pen in his hands.
"General on deck", I said standing up.
The other dragons ceased what ever it was they happened to be doing and stood up, saluting him.
"At ease kids", Morningstar said.
We sat back down as Morningstar took a seat at the end of our table. Most of Sabre joined us as well, except for their leader, a Neon Purple dragon named Mercury, who remained standing, mainly because there were no chairs left and Mercury was a little...how would I put it? He takes life waaayy to seriously. And that, coming from me, the kid who believes everything he reads on Alex Jones and then worries about it for about three weeks, means something.
"As you all know", Morningstar said, "your 12 week training course will begin today. You will be drilled in PT, Weapons and Equipment, Vehicles, Tactics and Survival. In the last week of the 12, the two highest scoring cadets will be declared team leaders will choose four others to fight with them and then you will go through squad training. Hours for training are 9AM to 4PM and then from 4 to 6, you will have class, and then you have free time until lights out, which is eight PM."
"School?", Jayden asked, "like...seriously?"
"You didn't think you were gonna get out of it did you?", Morningstar asked.
"It was more a hope than a thought", Arnett said.
Morningstar sighed, "Trust me guys, after training, you'll be happy to sit at a desk in the AC."
"Who has to go?", Nina asked.
"The eight of them", Morningstar said, "you guys have both finished so your exempt."
"Not fair", Mercury said.
"How is it not fair?", Nina asked. "were older and we finished, why should we have to go through it again? We would learn anything new, so what would be the point?"
"Well if you wanna get technical", Morningstar said, "you and Ace could take collage courses and you'd could make a little more money at the end of each month, but it's up to you."
'How much more?", I asked.
"About 100", Morningstar said.
"Hmm", I said, "I don't think an extra Benjamin a month is worth 4 years."
"Me either", Nina said, "but just out of curiosity, how much is the yearly salary for all of us?"
"50K", Morningstar said.
"Holy shit", Nina said, "that's....fuck."
"No kidding", I said, "what do standard service men make?"
"I think 24, but I could be wrong", Morningstar said.
"More than double what the grunts get", I said, "I feel a little guilty now."
"Don't blame you", Morningstar said standing up, "well guys that's it. In 5 minutes you have to report to the tarmac for Day 1. The Drill Sarge is already there, I suggest you finish up and get going."
"Yes sir", I said.
Morningstar nodded, "good luck guys, by the way, the class room is in the Dome, I'll be waiting for you once you get off of training."
He left. We finished breakfast as quickly as we could and then headed to the track. It was a long paved road that stretched around the entirety of the base and wound through a few dunes and had over 100 turns, stretching for well over five and a half miles. The man who would be our instructor was standing in the Apex of one of the corners with a HK Mk23 strapped to his leg, intimidation by my guess. He was a tall man, taller than any of us, which I assumed they had done on purpose, I mean, how likely was a dragon to attack someone who was smaller than he was, who was unarmed and screaming at him? My guess is very, because I would. When we got there, the first thing he did was order us all into a line. He then walked up and down the line, seeming disappointed
"First off", he said, "my name is Staff Sargent James Roberts, but you will refer to me as Sargent, am I clear?"
"Yes sir", we answered, loud enough for him to be satisfied, but not so loud that we'd hurt Jayden's ears.
"That was a pussy response", he said, "louder."
No one made a move to answer.
"Was I not clear?", the sarge shouted, making Jayden bring his paws up to his ears.
"The fuck are you doing?", the sarge yelled in his face, "am I being too loud solider?"
"Sargent", I said.
He snapped around and starred daggers at me, "you got something to say to me?"
"With all due respect Sargent", I said, "yes I do. The mutation gave him a hearing sensitivity, General Morningstar said to keep noise to a minimum around him."
The Sargent looked at me, "alright Private, I'll buy that, however..."
He pulled out his handgun.
"Has the General told you your scales can stop bullets?", he asked.
The ten of us exchanged glances.
"Seems not", he said, "well."
He leveled the HK with my chest and let off about five rounds, all of which struck me dead. I had never felt anything so painful or hot as those five rounds. I was certain as I lost my footing and fell back that I would die before I hit the ground, but when I came down, I found all five rounds smashed flat in the sand. When I brought my paw up to my chest, I didn't feel any blood or even a dent, they hadn't even made it through my uniform.
"Mother of GOD!", I hissed.
"Get up", He said, "your safe anything short of a 20mm cannon round. It won't even brake anything, all it will do is bruise."
I took a minute to catch my breath before I stood up. I was very sure the throbbing pain that was now residing in my chest and most of my rib cage was only going to get worse as the day went on.
"If you give me shit", the sarge said dropping the magazine out of the HK, "that's what you get. If I have to shoot anyone more than twice, I'm trading the pistol for a shot gun. Do I make myself clear?"
"Sir yes sir", we answered loudly. Even Jayden, who I could obviously see was hurting from the sound, made no attempt to cover his ears, probably out of fear of getting shot.
The Sarge paused for a minute before shouting.
"Drop and give me 50 push ups!"
We dropped down without any fuss and started. I had never been good at pushups, there was a whole lot of push and not a lot of up. However, I found I had a ton of strength in my arms. Might have been from the change, or maybe it from the workout of the manual steering rack in my Civic, either way I was pleasantly surprised by it. For the first 25, I was fighting with Nina for the lead. I began to catch up around the forty mark, caught her at 45 and then pushed the 50. One by one, the other dragons finished the push ups and then once everyone was standing, Sarge wasted no time in throwing us another pitch.
"Back down!", he said, "200!"
Fuck. This guy meant business.
I dropped back to the ground and started again. This time I stayed ahead of Nina and was done with my two hundred and trying to catch my breath while Nina was still around the 150 mark. She was the second one to finish and Mako and Jayden followed her quite closely. I forced myself to take deep breaths as the others finished and tried to ignore the fact that I could feel the frontal muscles in my shoulders starting to ache, Mako and Arnett sounded like they might die, already, while Mercury appeared be having a lot of trouble with his. All of my friends finished first, while all of Mercury's teammates finished ahead of him. His cheeks had taken on a tint the same shade of pink as Mako's underbelly.
"600!", the sarge shouted, "get on it!"
What? He quadrupled them and then doubled them? I understood we needed to be in shape, but 850 push ups? Seriously? Damn did I hope this was going to be a one day thing. I dropped back down and started at zero again. At about the 50 mark, Arnett as well as the two females on Sabre team, were out. At the 125, Jayden called it quits. At the 175 Mark, Mercury and Mako quit. It was the 225 mark when Nina and I were the only ones left, and by then, we didn't have much left. At the 245, Nina quit and at 250, I was done.
The sarge shook his head, "that's depressing. Dragons who can't do 800 pushups. Well, let's make things a little easier. Gimme 450 sit ups."
The Sarge probably knew none of us were going to finish, but I think that was the point. Surprisingly though, Mako was the only one who couldn't finish the sit ups and even then he had at most ten left. After about 30 seconds to catch our breath, he ordered us to do Wing Pushes, 400 of them. He explained it as placing where the bones attached to your wing arm on the ground and using them to push up, like a push up for your wings. At first, it sounded easy, but damn, I was wrong. We maybe did about 100-200 before we were simply unable to go any further. After the Sargent got done yelling about how weak we were and about how little time we would have left to live once they put us into combat, he lined us up on the track and ordered us to lap it in under three minutes. What?
"With all due respect sir", I said, "LeMans is a five mile track and prototype race cars designed to race that track and capable of 200 miles an hour can't lap it in under four."
The Sargent starred daggers at me.
"Five miles in three minutes is unrealistic for anything short of a Top Fuel Dragster or a Venom GT", I said, "if you wanna shoot me go ahead."
I should have known better than to give that man permission to shoot me, because he wasted no time in putting six rounds in me, four to drive me to the ground and then two in my back.
"Lap the track in three minutes!", he shouted, "who else do I gotta shoot?"
"Apparently me", Mercury said, "Ace is right, that's an unrealistic number."
Mercury gave very little fight as he crumbled underneath the 9mm from the Sarge's Mk23. The Sargent reloaded and looked at everyone else.
"Next?", he asked.
No one said anything as the others helped Mercury and I up.
"I get one more ounce of shit out of anyone and I am getting a Desert Eagle .50 AE", the Sarge said, "lap the track within three minutes!"
Sucking up to the Sarge's unrealistic expectations, we ran around the track. As we were all sure, we were unable to finish within the three minute time range, taking about 50 minutes to do the five miles. Well, at least when it came to the road march we had breathing room. Sarge wasn't to happy about us failing his time frame, so as punishment, everyone ate 100 pushups and then we had to run the track again. When we finished at the same time, it was 200 push ups. When we failed for a third time, he had us do three hundred, then lead us over to an obstacle course and had us navigate that. It consisted of razor wire, paint throwing landmines, (he told us he'd use real mines if he thought he could get away with it) ladders and ziplines as well as dummies with AK-47's firing live ammunition. The worst part is that we were told not to engage the targets, which didn't go over well. We were shot to pieces by those plastic training dummies and none of us got through it without finding out that AK ammo tasted strangely like dirt. The Sarge once again punished us for failing "this simple task" with 100 push ups before lining us up back at the track.
"I'm bathing in disappointment right now", he sighed, "the ten of you are the sorriest excuse for warriors that I've ever had the displeasure of training! Meet back here tomorrow at 9AM! Anyone who is late will find out what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a Desert Eagle!"
The Sargent turned around and left, going to the main building. Once he was out of sight, most of us dropped to our knees, and Mercury even fell down to his back, his horns burying themselves in the sand.
"And we gotta put up with that guy for 12 weeks?", Nina asked.
"Fuck that", Mercury panted, "at the rate were going, were gonna be dead from exhaustion."
"Unless he get's a 50 cal or something", I sighed sitting back at the sand, "or the heat kills us first."
We didn't say much after that. After about four minutes of resting in the sand, we pulled ourselves up and walked to the showers to clean up. The last two days we'd been spreading out through the hangar, but this time we made sure that we could all get to each other in case someone lost the feeling in their legs and bashed their head on the ceramic tile on the way down. Once that was done with, we went back to the barracks and got dressed and then the little kids went to the dome for class while Nina and I went to the mess hall. When we got there, we found Carlos and his Marine team as well as the doctors sitting at our table eating Pizza Hut pizza. There were four boxes still on the table and they looked like they were done.
"Oh can we have some of that?", Nina asked as we sat down.
"Dragon's don't eat pizza", the Korean Doctor said.
"These two do", Nina said reaching for a box. She slid it down to our end of the table and opened it, it was a stuffed crust sausage.
"Yes", I said pulling out two slices and putting them on a paper plate.
"You guys look beat to shit", Carlos smiled, "how was your first day?"
"Horrible", I said, "started off easy, but then the ache from the workouts, the heat and lack of water kicked in and to top it all off I got shot at least 12 times."
Carlos laughed, "ache and heat I buy, but you getting shot, yeah right."
"No he's telling the truth", Nina said, "the Sargent shot him 6 times when he told him about Jayden's noise sensitivity and six more when he called him out for a lap around the 5 mile track in under three minutes."
"Show me the bruises", Carlos said, "not sure I believe you."
I set my pizza down and pulled off my shirt, showing Carlos the bruising on my back and chest. Carlos sighed.
"Are those bruises caused by bullet impact?", Carlos asked looking at the doctor.
The doctor looked me over, "yes, nine millimeter at close range, he has powder burns on his chest."
"Okay, that's proof enough for me", he said.
"Sargent's a douche bag", I said pulling my shirt back on, "he said that if any of us are late tomorrow that were gonna find out what it feels like to eat a .50 Action Express."
Carlos growled, "that mother fucker. Morningstar will be here soon, make sure you tell him about this."
"If I didn't no any better", Nina said taking a bite out of the crust, "I'd say you were a dragon, you sure growl like one."
Carlos laughed, "I'll take that as a compliment."
"Your a Sargent", I said, 'why can't you train us?"
"Yeah seriously", Nina said, "I'd take you over the dick we got any day of the week."
"For one", Carlos said, "I'm not the rank required to be a drill instructor. Two, Morningstar would have to remove the DS currently in place and then three, I would have to get promoted by a couple of ranks and then get run through what you guys need to know, all of that would take a while, unless you could give Morningstar direct proof of what's going on."
"Proof of what?", Morningstar asked walking in.
"The Sargent is a douche", Nina said, "he wasn't training us so much as he was torturing us."
"I said the same thing about my drill Sargent", Morningstar laughed, "I ended up thanking him for being as harsh as he was."
"Sir", Carlos said, "permission to speak freely?"
"Granted", Morningstar said sitting down, "as long as I get some pizza."
Carlos reached back and handed him one of the boxes, "The Sargent who drills them is being abusive", Carlos said, 'Ace has powder burns on his chest from where he was shot at least 12 times."
Morningstar looked at me, "is that true?", he asked.
I pulled my shirt off again and showed him. Morningstar didn't seem all that surprised.
"That's all the proof I need", he said, "however, if I'm going to order a Court Martial, I need evidence that he's hurting you kids, a few powder burns and bruises won't hold up. I'd need at least video of him pulling the trigger on one of you. If you get that I'll kick him out on his dead ass."
"I've got a video scope I can put on my Ar-15", Carlos said, "I can sit up on the dome tomorrow and watch them."
"When you toss this guy out", I said, "can we have Carlos for our DS?"
Morningstar looked at Carlos, then at us, then back at Carlos.
"Fine with me", Morningstar said, "what about you Carlos? Want a promotion?"
He smiled, "it would be an honor sir. I'll make soldiers out of them like nothing the world has ever seen."