Dear Diary,

Sorry about having to cut yesterday's entry short. Right after my new nemesis whispered his threat in my ear, the Marshall had us start doing laps. Between running, calisthenics, and stretching exercises, he worked us from then until lunch, and made it very clear he expected us back in the Practice Yard before he made it back from his own lunch.

Whatever flaws my new school had, at least nobody told us to stop running in the halls. The four of us bolted down to the Dining Hall and started eating before our butts had a chance to hit the seats. We actually beat duBois to his own seat at the table at one end of the Hall. I hadn't really paid much attention to that high table before, but today I'd plonked my butt down in a seat facing that end of the Hall, and I watched as one of the maids brought him his own tray. He ate just about as mechanically as the four of us did, although where we each jammed food in as fast as we could swallow it, he simply didn't waste any time, downing bite after bite like a machine, only stopping every once in a while to down another stein of water.

I'd never much bothered with the steins. I commandeered a pitcher whenever I sat down, and since nobody said anything and it wasn't the only one at the table, I wasn't about to stop now. As we ate, I kept my eyes on the Marshall; the moment he shifted in his seat I dropped my half eaten loaf of bread onto the table and bolted for the door. If the others didn't take the hint, I didn't have time to explain it to them. I heard the thunder of boots behind me just as I hit the stairwell, but I didn't look back; I sprinted up the stairs, opened the sturdy Practice Yard door by ramming it with my shoulder, and ran head down to my central spot in the Yard.

I looked up to see duBois watching me, one eyebrow lifted. He smirked at me, but it vanished before I heard another set of boots enter the Yard. After that the Drill Instructor shouting started again, and after more wind sprints and calisthenics he broke us up into four teams. For the rest of the afternoon, we played the most hardcore dodgeball variant I'd ever heard of. Instead of the big red rubber ploink balls I remembered from Eastside, he pulled out eight red softballs. Okay, they weren't softballs, but they were grapefruit sized balls covered in red fabric. He also pulled out a few dozen headbands, some bright green, some fiery red, some flat black.

"You lot don't have your first Combat Training until tomorrow, but upon conferring with your Combat Trainer, we feel you all need as much help as you can get in that class, so we'll be doing some combat related sports in the afternoons. Have any of you played Squad Ball before?"

Angel raised her hand, as did all three of the rich kids. A couple of the others did as well.

DuBois nodded, then walked to the middle of the Yard and set the balls down around the central intersection of slabs. "Okay then. The rules are simple. If you're hit by a ball, you're a Casualty; you can sit or lie down, but if you get hit you drop. If you get hit again before a Healer gets to you, you're Dead, and you move over by one of the equipment sheds until the round is over. Every player can have one of three positions; Caster, Tank, or Healer. Casters, with the red headbands, can throw the balls. Tanks, with the black headbands, can deflect them with their arms as well as catching them. Healers, with the green headbands, can heal a casualty by tagging them and helping them back to their feet. Any questions?"

Of course some of the kids weren't listening, but after fielding a couple dumb questions, the Marshall announced, "Okay then. Squads are how you lined up this morning, NO YOU DO NOT HAVE A SAY IN THAT, LANCASTER!" DuBois' roar shut down the complaints before they started, but I wasn't any happier with Lancaster on my team than he was. "Grab your headbands, get to your corners, and start when the lines come up!"

My team wound up with three Casters and me as the Tank; Lancaster kept bitching about how 'pro teams did two Casters, one Tank, and one Healer', but since nobody wanted to play anything other than a Caster, and I figured we were better off with a Tank rather than a Healer, that's what we wound up with.

I learned a few things over the course of the afternoon.

Squad Ball balls are coated with some kind of red powder that splattered whenever it hit, which made it real obvious if you'd been hit or not.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

While they were covered in fabric, the balls themselves are pretty much solid hardwood. They hurt like a bitch when they hit. Midway through the afternoon Saffron wound up getting sent down to the Infirmary when she failed to get her arms in the way of her face. She came back about half an hour later, but until she did, her team played with two players. When the Barbie squad kid, Rider, complained, duBois' only response was, "I told you this is a Combat Training game; do you think your opponents in combat are going to stop just because they outnumber you?"

Lancaster, for all his douchebag personality grated on my nerves, had a decent arm and could aim. He wound up with more 'kills' than any other single player on the field. Second and third were Rider and Rosen; I guess their Academy Prep tutoring hadn't been entirely wasted.

Pros do things for a reason; Bill's team, the only team with 'two, one, and one', wound up winning more matches than any other team. Pretty embarrassing to be schooled by a team led by a kid so obviously averse to physical exertion, but given how all the other teams were more or less playing as four individuals, and he was actively calling out warnings and opportunities to his team, I couldn't really be upset at him.

As dinner time approached, duBois called a halt and sent us to the infirmary to get any scrapes and bruises patched up before we hit the Dining Hall. I expected bandages and maybe some alcohol swabs or something, but when Sister Siobhan checked our schedules and realized all of us had Combat Training the following day, she had us line up and, one at a time, muttered some kind of prayer that made her hands glow, then laid her hands on the person at the head of the line before sending them off to dinner. When my turn came and she laid hands on me, a rush of something that felt the way spearmint tastes ran through my whole body, and all my minor aches, not to mention my bruised up forearms, stopped hurting.

While we ate, I told my three friends I had a plan for tomorrow.

We met back at my room, and after I'd told them my plan, I asked them how they'd done on the entrance testing. They looked a little weirded out by my asking, but Bill just shrugged and headed back to his room to get the packet he'd been given. The other two did the same once they saw he was sharing.

It turns out the numbers listed weren't some kind of abstract measurement, but just where we placed among the Candidates.

Angel was the Strongest; I'd come in fifth in that. Bill was the worst not just of us four, but probably the worst Candidate overall, with a listing of thirty two. Saffron surprised me by coming in fifteenth. Her only explanation? "I've had a lot of practice lifting with my legs." After she said that, she excused herself, saying she had to go to the Infirmary, but she left her papers with us, saying she'd let us clue her in on how she stacked up when she got back.

We all scored pretty well on Agility; Bill came in first, I came in fifth, Saffron in seventh, and Angel in twelfth.

The others took the opportunity to ask me how many laps I'd done when I confirmed duBois' comment that I came in first in Endurance; they looked a little put out that I didn't remember, but goggled a little when I told them what the Marshall said about a Marathon. Angel came in third, Saffron in tenth, and Bill in twentieth.

I kind of wondered about Bill making the cut, even with his number one showing in Agility, until we looked at the mental scores.

I'd scored the highest out of the four of us at fourth in Reason, Saffron right behind me at fifth, and Bill at sixth. Angel just shrugged when she showed us her twentieth rating. "Not my thing."

Saffron beat us all on the Memory testing, coming in second overall; Bill came in third, Angel at tenth, with me behind her at eleventh.

I guessed I'd figured out how Bill managed to get his team to cooperate when I saw the Personality scores; he'd scored first in that as well; I came in fifth, Saffron tenth, and Angel again had twentieth.

Around then Saffron came back, and we shot the shit talking about nothing much at all until the hall lights dimmed.

The next day, we all got to the Dining Hall when it opened, Saffron having rousted us all out of bed early enough to do so. We attacked breakfast like it owed us money, and the moment we saw Marshall duBois settle into his seat to start breakfast, we all left and high tailed it up to the Practice Yard.

Which is where he found us queued up with Bill at the head of our line when he just fucking appeared out of nowhere shortly before the rest of the class showed up.

Of course the members of the Barbie Brigade each took that as an opportunity to grab a squad leader spot for themselves.

DuBois waited until everyone was lined up before announcing, "So your Physical Training instructor tells me you all know how to play Squad Ball?"

We groaned, although I couldn't tell whether my own groan was from the prospect of more Squad Ball or duBois' terrible attempt at humor.

The same as the prior day, our teams were the squads we'd lined up in. We varied the normal lineup just a little, with Bill and Saffron both taking the Healer role, me Tanking, and Angel showing what her first rating in Strength meant when applied to someone's precious body parts via Squad Ball. We changed it up a couple times, with Angel and I swapping. It turned out my aim was better, but she threw the damn ball so hard she broke one of Lancaster's fingers when he tried to catch it, so we left her on Caster after that.

It felt good heading to dinner undefeated for the day.