Six months later classes were in full swing. My growth had radically increased even further changing my body to that of a ten year old. The others were slowly catching up mentally as well. Instead of being whiny, many had taken to asking politely and apologizing when required.

The person I had paired to fight against was an uppity clone, named Benth. He and his little gang of misfits had been repeatedly firing spitballs and creating a ruckus around me. They wouldn't do anything drastic. Earlier last month, they tried to group up against me. They followed me into a deserted part of the campus, where I sprung my trap. I had borrowed a chemistry set from, Mr.Zoyo.  He didn't mind when I told him I was creating explosives. The landmines blew up maiming and injuring his goons with bits of metal and nails as shrapnel. Unfortunately he was left unharmed.

He was lazy, but was tall for his age. He was one of those manchildren who had a bearded face by the time they were out of the womb. He wasn't actually much of a threat, but he was the son of an admiral (still cloned, but adopted unlike the majority). My glorious career could be very short if I didn't pull the upcoming fight. I had to win, but do so gracefully. My little stunt earlier felt worth it, but getting shit on by a powerful influential figure was a no go.

Nud did well physically, and learned under Tara’s tutelage. He didn't get the equivalent of A’s or even B’s but he was passing his course. Courses such as martial arts made up most of his grade point average. Speaking of martial arts, the class was progressing well. I remained inconspicuous, while the psycho who I later learned was Mr. Todbrook kept himself busy with other recruits.

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My combat style involved using throwing knives and brass buckles (or in battle plasma knuckles) to smash the enemy's skull in. I could keep my mobility this way while heavily dealing damage. The fifteen times strength would do much blunt trauma. I had started to gain muscle, putting on the start of a lean look. Sadly, I was never going to be ripped. My body type meant I could eat a horse without gaining any weight. In fact, I had three plates of food for dinner and was down three pounds from two weeks ago.

Heavy weapons was a class I managed. After the incident, public shaming and such, she seemed to forget the whole ordeal. No one fired larger rockets yet. One would have to major as Heavy infantry, to deal with anything more than grenades. Luckily there were many types of grenades which stunned, killed, and maimed the enemy. The devices used a five second timer, which was activated by a flat red indentation. Each grenade was imprinted and only usable with squad members. Taping a severed thumb to the indentation would work to solve this problem, but who had time to sever a finger in the heat of battle?

Our practice involved chucking grenades at each other. This doesn’t sound plausible and it wasn’t. Nanites had to regrow arms and legs, although our vitals were protected in blast proof armor. She stated that pain was the best way to improve. I had raised my hand in the class only to find my legs detached from my body. With adrenaline pumping I didn’t feel a thing at first. It took ten minutes to get the medics over there and I did feel the pain on the stretcher. I’d rate the pain a ten, because any more pain would be indistinguishable from what I had felt. Therapy sessions were held after the insanity, but do to the lack of A.I my movements suffered the most.

I had asked for a new one, but the administration replied saying, my A.I. was too expensive to replicate on a clone twice. “Become an officer and prove yourself”, they lamented. Alice was running a muck down in populated civilian areas. She had taken to the dark side, starving a village. I knew Alice wouldn’t have willingly turned on the empire, so I scoffed at their complaints. I had put down the phone immediately after hearing the news, and played some sick tunes. “The Bellow of the Beast” was an Arth classic, featuring once again the Ersah. These people were crazy for their living tanks.