Things around the base started to settle down as the new recruits and guests got accustomed to their new jobs, their new routines, and, in general, embracing a safer life in the confines of Savepoint. While most of the villagers found their daily shifts and mundane activities boring, the trainees seemed to enjoy the training program more and more as it became a lot less sporadic. Frost set up hours for exercises and theoretical lessons, creating a schedule that his students were able to follow without inconvenience, and while his classes were quite long some days, it only meant the students got to spend more time outside, so they didn’t seem bothered at all. Frost also got to loosen up and not be so strict with the trainees, delegating his tasks to his teammates when he felt a lesson wasn’t too important. And since he always kept at least two other soldiers with him at all times, he got plenty of chances to take breaks and work on his secret plan while his students were distracted.
After the attack and defense game, he set up a few other games, though they were much simpler and didn’t rely too heavily on teamwork. The trainees got to refine their skills with games like dodgeball and a more extreme version of tennis, a running competition, a game in couples to stack towers, and pretty much everything he could come up with to work his student’s muscles. He even dedicated entire days just to training most of their important qualities, like speed, reflex, strength, and endurance, creating a set of exercises specific to each that would last half a day and push his students to the limit.
At first, the trainees couldn’t even run more than five laps around the field, but as they kept training, they ran the same laps just to warm up before class started. While they all seemed to struggle in some aspect, not being able to complete certain exercises or just getting tired before the rest, each student managed to either find or enhance their strengths, which Frost made sure to exploit as much as he could. It was by making sure everyone got out of their comfort zone and confronted their fears that he was able to turn them into competent fighters.
But while he focused mainly on the physical work, the real lessons were the ones where the trainees had to use their minds and think outside the box to be able to gain the upper edge to defeat their opponents. They had to learn about teamwork and collaboration, but as there was a friendly rivalry between almost everyone in the class, Frost had to do very little to entice them to participate. With some help from other members of Crisis, Frost put together more strategic games, which were very scarce, though he made sure to make the most with each one.
On one of those earlier team strategic games, Scott was paired with Zoey and Alex again, and even though they still argued at the beginning, especially Scott and Alex as they competed for leadership, they eventually listened to each other and came to an agreement. Since they always took time to listen and respect each other’s ideas, they worked together to come up with a great plan that allowed them to beat their opponents easily in a game tag bomb, where they pretended to explode after a short time if they were tagged. The matches were short as it was a sort of tournament with teams of three, though it was clear from the start that they were going to win, so in the end, it didn’t even seem like a competition.
After that game, they took every chance they got to work together, including Charlie whenever they could. He was becoming closer to them, even though he seemed to contribute the least to some activities, mainly because he lit up the mood, or always took one for the team because he wasn’t very good on his own and didn’t feel like being too competitive. Even Jumbo got to hang out with the group as his size came in handy in some games, like the double sumo one or the arm-wrestling exercise, which ended with one student fracturing his wrist.
But as the trainees continued to exercise and train their minds and bodies, they didn’t get much free time for themselves. They all had to work short shifts in the afternoon as well, and since they had to wake up earlier than everyone to train up to ten hours a day, they made sure to get as much sleep as possible, meaning they only trained, worked, ate, and slept. Even when they were dismissed early, they were too tired to hang out later, only sharing dinner with a couple of soldiers if they stayed awake. Due to this, they made sure to chat and relax during breakfast and lunch, where the friend groups of the class became apparent after a few days, with Scott’s table filling up rather quickly, even when Cookie was absent most of the time. He always showed up late for breakfast, but he still got a chance to get to know most of Scott’s friends, although he didn’t seem to leave such a good impression, so he didn’t stick around for too long.
The first week seemed to be the toughest one since Frost kept giving them lengthy, hard, and complicated exercises or games. But after a while, Frost just stayed in the background when his students were doing exercises, leaving Panda or whoever was with him to teach or coach them while he took care of his business. This caused the students to train more freely and even have more motivation without the constant condescending and humiliating comments that Frost liked to make. Instead, they got to spend more time with other soldiers, growing fond of the other Crisis members, especially Panda, Tricky, and Candy, who each had something valuable to teach in the couple of lessons they got to give while Frost was gone.
As a result of the variety of lessons, the students began improving not only in combat and attack strategies but also in critical thinking, survival basics, medical practice, and even how to reuse scrap and spare parts from weapons. They still didn’t get to use any weapons, though they were all more than satisfied to see Panda practice his aim with his machine gun, leading to them discovering how to dodge, approach, and attack with different types of guns, how to disarm one, how to build one, how much damage each gun did, and all the details that Panda was glad to explain.
So, despite Frost not being so present in his practical lessons later on, his teaching methods were still effective. He got everyone to work when he showed up, so every time his students got lazy and started taking things lightly, he only had to give them one glance, and they would start doing whatever they were told. There was still some of that fear factor that pushed them to work, but it seemed like they were learning from their mistakes and slowly getting over the anxiety of failing, especially as those humiliating moments of defeat became rare as Frost focused on more casual exercises, balancing his strict demands with easy-to-achieve goals.
The training was beginning to slow down after two weeks, mainly because Frost ran out of lessons to give, only coming up with a few exercises and short games for his students to play. However, since they were constantly competing with each other to determine who was better, the same students kept themselves busy as they tried their hardest to improve and become the top of the class. Even when they stopped learning new things, had reached a level of knowledge and practice where they could beat some of the weakest saviors, and just seemed to have reached their limits, they kept one-upping each other in every class to receive praise from their peers, and most importantly, pleasing Frost.
To keep the tradition, Frost gave one of his students a new nickname every class or so. Most of them started being quite negative, offensive, humiliating, and even downright inappropriate to say, which served as motivation for each one of them to earn a better name. As they continued to improve, they gained more nicknames to fit their level of performance and discipline, favoring the ones that took the boldest risks or most inventive strategies in games. A few students were just meant to be bad, though, since most of them were known for something remarkably embarrassing or just a flaw that was constantly pointed out by Frost as he loved to pick on their insecurities. Some nicknames were meant to last as well, like Turtle and Jumbo, who didn’t even get the chance to change their names, but they had embraced it and looked proud to have them as Frost came up with worse nicknames shortly after theirs.
Stolen novel; please report.
However, the same couldn’t be said about Scott, who continued to be known as Sissy, even in his friend group, except Zoey, who didn’t call him by that name once, even defending him when someone else tried to make fun of him for it. He was one of the ones that strived the most to earn a better nickname, and despite performing better than most, he remained the guy who got defeated by a girl, though it looked like his classmates had already forgotten, and the only one that truly called him by his nickname with disdain was Frost.
As always, Frost continued to be the popular thing to hate, even though there was a clear respectful relationship with their teacher, at least on their part. The hostility between students seemed to decrease after the first two weeks as they got to know each other better and chatted naturally on a few occasions. Since they had gone through a lot together in various games, they couldn’t really hold grudges against each other, resulting in a friendlier and more playful environment in class. Not all of them were close, though, but at least they didn’t mock each other or try to murder one another anymore, except for Shade and his group.
Even though his friend circle was smaller than when the training program started, Shade and his friends kept being the same. They continued to make enemies and treat everybody horribly, distancing themselves from the others, just watching from a distance with resentment while everyone else had fun. The worst part is that his group, especially Shade, was also learning and improving in combat, so they gave their classmates a harder time when they faced them in games.
After losing and being humiliated by Scott, it seemed like Shade had set his goal to never lose against anyone again, especially him. He missed a few classes at first, but as he then showed up to every exercise and worked out harder than everyone else, even training after the lessons were done, he became bigger and bulkier. He was more intimidating as he now scared off his classmates with a sheer look, which often forced them to surrender in the game as no one wanted to provoke him again. He never got physical with another student, but it was because he didn’t get the chance. Shade and his friends remained the bullies of the class that no one wanted to mess with, although the ones who were actually eager to confront them were the same ones who had already beaten them once.
Unfortunately, Scott and his friends never got a rematch with Shade, which almost seemed on purpose because Frost never put them against each other after that first game. But as they played more games and trained harder, the tension between the two began to increase, which quickly became distressing to everyone else. They could tell Shade was waiting for the moment to fight Scott again, but until they got to play against each other again, he couldn’t do anything about it. A couple of incidents only fueled their rivalry, though everyone sided with Scott’s group as Shade became despised and rejected, though he didn’t seem to care, even enjoying being one of the unpopular ones.
And it wasn’t just Shade; Bryan received the nickname Baby after he chickened out of a game that involved guns, being awarded the name by Panda himself instead of Frost. The rest of the class fell in love with the nickname, making sure to tease Bryan every time they saw him, which caused some hatred to muster up inside him. The rest of Shade’s friends received sarcastic and derogatory nicknames as well, enticing them to try harder each time, though it only made them bitter and more aggressive during training, treating their classmates viciously, and almost abusing them whenever any authority wasn’t present. But as the entire class was more united than ever, Shade’s group didn’t get to torment the other students as much as they wanted to, and no matter how well prepared they were to confront their bullies, they all knew that pent-up frustration was bound to be released at some point.
On the other hand, Frost’s bitterness and apathy slowly faded away, but not because he grew as a person or turned soft with his students. He still didn’t put any effort into being friendly or sympathetic with them, in fact, he distracted himself more and more as he prioritized other things above his class, always having something in mind during his lessons, which did spark some concern in his students. Regardless of how he treated them, the trainees got used to it pretty quickly, and as they got to spend time with Candy, Panda, and Tricky, they didn’t appear to miss him so much. However, they still found his behavior mysterious; as to them, he just disappeared at times to rest or distract himself. His absence became more noticeable, but as the students were too afraid to ask, they just assumed he kept himself busy doing soldier work. But in reality, he was continuously running off classes to continue his secret plan.
While he taught during the day, Frost called some of his teammates to help him sneak out during the night. Every time he did, he needed them to steal the same items as well as place them back after his short recon missions before anyone noticed in the morning. Luckily, it looked like he only needed the binoculars, radio, and keys, so it became a routine that wasn’t too hard to complete, at least at first. In the beginning, he was only going out three times a week, but by the second week, he was sneaking out every night and coming back well past midnight, forcing his teammates to stay up late to help him return the stolen gear. But even though he was always excited to get out of the base and explore the outside on his own, his demeanor after each mission varied severely.
Frost looked content with most of his missions, and while he was making progress slowly, it kept him focused and less pessimistic during the day. The first few nights were only dedicated to keeping an eye out for the sensors that he placed around various areas near the base. But after he saw very little movement, he chose to set their location somewhere else, trying and failing over and over again. At first, it seemed like he had found exactly what he was looking for; he even marked it on the map, but after two weeks of trying to spot the exact location of his target with no avail, the big red dot on the map just kept changing location almost every day. These attempts only made Frost pay closer attention to the potential locations, he kept following them each night, trying to study every movement to find some sort of pattern that connected all of them, but in the end, that pattern never truly formed.
He was picking up movement far away from the base, but then he backed down and tracked locations near them so he could quickly check them out. The movement signals kept changing randomly, and despite him marking every single one that he received and always following them the next night, he only returned with a different sensor location and less hope than the previous night. By the end, the map was a mess of lines and dots that only Frost could understand, even though he didn’t seem to be making sense of it either. He asked for help once or twice, but Panda and Tricky couldn’t really do anything other than help him sneak out for a few extra hours, so he just kept trying. He spent days without any progress, but just when he was about to give up, he found the smallest hint that could take him to this supposed hidden enemy base, and that alone was enough to drive him.
He kept searching for a while, but the cycle repeated over and over again, which eventually started to frustrate Frost to the point where he couldn’t stop obsessing over it. He was less and less present in the classes, although it wasn’t an issue as his teammates could take over most of the time, only having to be there once a week when Indie showed up to see his students’ progress. Luckily, she didn’t seem to suspect him or be anywhere near aware of his secret night recons.
But after three slow weeks with little to show for and no more than a few possible enemy sightings, Frost became impatient and went out in the morning as well without any gear. His teammates advised him not to leave, but as he had run out of options, he escaped nonetheless, and it was then that he returned to the base an hour later with more excitement than ever. All of Crisis, except Indie, waited for him in the office during the lunch break after that day’s class was over. They were left anxious as he took too long to return, going out once again before dusk, almost leaving as they would soon be caught. But once he arrived, the first thing he did was open the map to draw a single dot near the forest surrounding the training grounds. They all looked at him in confusion at first, but from his expression, it was clear what he was intending to do next.
| NOW WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BE?
BORN FREE TO BE |