"Oh man, this is way worse than I remember."
Jason groaned under the pressure of the 75kg bag he was carrying. Looking around the training arena, the other second years were not fairing much better.
Quite a few were sprawled on the red soil, exhaustion long since passed. The festive mood that filled last night’s celebration had evaporated from collective thought. Only a few students still carried their load as they continued to circle the quite large training arena.
The fact that Jason wasn’t lying on the red temperate ground was testament to his grit. He was last in the group, the others way ahead of him, inching closer to the finish line. Instructor Cletins Eselacha stood, face stoic as a stork, awaiting the victors.
Jason could have powered his way to the front of the line with relative ease; his speed, and stamina being much higher than most students’. He had consciously held himself back, in keeping with his performance last year. Jason was not interested in the attention that came with toping the class. The best students always went missing, taken more like.
Jason snorted in annoyance. He looked up, peeled away from his deep thoughts, saw that the others were almost at the finish line, and powered foward not to finish too far behind.
"Jason" , Felix called, clearly annoyed.
"Don’t tell me you’re still playing weakling this year?"
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Unlike the other students, he had given up before the exercise began. He too was sprawled on the ground, red soil staining his ivory skin.
Jason flashed his trademark smirk
"Yeah bud, still don’t fancy having tea with the shadow, no matter what my mom says."
"Figured you’d have stopped that this year man. With,you know, your mom all over you and all.”
He wheezed from the effort of matching Jason’s slow jog to the finish line. Jason slowed down a bit, partly out of pity for Felix who wasn’t looking too good, but also to mull over what he’d said.
"Naah, my mom I can handle: she’d be mad with my results. She’ll through her usual Rofana-woman tantrums but she’ll calm down eventually.” he said, moving the huge bag from his left to right shoulder. "Shadow taking note of me on the other hand..." Jason shuddered, "That will be the end of me. Off to God knows where, killing God knows who, for only God knows what.” Jason cursed. Felix nodded.
They’d had this conversation before, but he kept trying to change Jason’s mind. On the one hand, getting noticed by shadow was a bad idea for those who never sought a miserable life, but not getting noticed meant being sent to do less important, but way more dangerous missions, under equipped, under staffed and very often dead.
That was the academy’s way of getting rid of the undesirables.
"I know man," Felix sighed, giving up for the moment. "Just saying, you’re walking on thin ice here. Instructors either feel you are too weak to be here or that you do not give in 100 percent and either way man, you are fried."
A shadow of fear flickered beneath Jason's coffee-brown eyes and then it was gone. His gaze steeled likethe rare moment of weakness had never been there, but Felix saw it, he always did.
"Let’s just finish this."
Jason flashed his friend an assuring smile then powered off to the finish line. Felix groaned and stumbled after him muttering unintelligible profanities.
The rest of the morning passed on without incidence, if only excruitiatingly painful training.