Ajax had been sceptical of this new coach. His introductory speech was good enough, not anything astounding, and being sent on a relatively long run after that, without supervision no less, was worrying. Was he intending to just sit back and watch them, ordering them around to his whim without lifting a finger himself?

Ajax wasn’t one to judge by appearances, but everyone else was clearly having some sort of doubt about the coach. He was extremely short and, if you weren’t looking closely at the muscle definition on his arms, you’d be forgiven to think that the man was overweight.

Ajax followed the man’s leisurely walk back towards the elevator to go up to the cafeteria. His stride was the exact opposite of Tracker’s elegantly efficient walk. It seemed like he had all the time in the world.

It took a few minutes to walk all the way to the cafeteria, rest of the team that was following behind Ajax looked about ready to collapse, Walter and Mirah especially. Aaliyah had done better than he thought she would, managing to keep up with his jog. It was pretty impressive to see the girl really push it to try keep up with him, and he hoped that the coach had seen the effort.

Willem sat down at the table they had used that morning in one of two seats that wasn’t being filled by the other members of the team.

“Alright, time for a performance review.” As he spoke the small man nonchalantly messed with the menu, ordering a large amount of food, probably for the entire team.

“Ajax, you did okay, though you didn’t push it all. Your physical state might be impressive, but if you cruise along like you did today Aaliyah will come beat your ass in ten seconds flat. After training today you are going to give me another twenty at full tilt.” Willem brooked no argument, not that Ajax would have complained. He felt that it was entirely reasonable that he should be forced to push himself.

“Aaliyah,” Willem continued, having finished placing the order and batting away Walter’s hand from the touchscreen menu, “you did well. If you keep that sort of effort up, you’ll get good very quickly.” She nodded at his words, taking them in and processing. She hadn’t truly realised how little Ajax had pushed himself, and it was almost embarrassing in retrospect. Though, if what Willem said was true, she would maybe be able to match him if she kept up with her effort.

“Walter and Mirah. You did about as well as expected. Walter, your effort was quite impressive. In the next few days training under me, you will see large gains in your physical state.” Walter’s face grew lightly red at the compliment and Mirah, as always, looked at Willem like a dead fish.

Ajax felt conflicted by Willem’s repeated disregard for Mirah. He had barely given her a look when he was sizing everyone up before the run, and now she wasn’t being given anything constructive?

He pushed down his discontent though. Ajax was a big believer in that someone always had a reason, even if they said they didn’t. In this case, he had a big suspicion that Willem was the sort of man that always had a reason for what he did, no matter how small. He got the impression that Willem was a man of control, even when he wasn’t displaying it.

“Overall, for your first training session, you are doing pretty well. Obviously your first run isn’t going to be fun, or particularly beneficial, but you will see yourself run that same twenty laps in what amounts to minutes.” Even Ajax was a little surprised at that claim, but Willem passed it off as if it were a foregone conclusion.

“Now, I know that you have just eaten breakfast but Linked, especially under rigorous training, will need to eat far more than the average person. Over the years we have developed ways to easily satisfy that energy requirement so that we don’t end up accidentally killing ourselves from overtraining.” Right on cue, the waiter from early in the morning bustled over and placed an entire tray of sachets and a piece of steak.

The steak was quickly snatched by Willem, who then started to hand out the different sachets.

Ajax got a large one, Aaliyah received a medium sized one, Walter got a small and Mirah also got a large. At that, Ajax turned a concerned eye towards Willem, who was too busy pulling out a well-made knife and fork that looked dated as all hell. A recurring theme with the man, it seemed. Now that he looked at it, even his gym clothes were obviously at least a decade old, just from the type of material and colours used.

“Each of those packets contain a jelly that holds a huge amount of calories and other good bits and pieces. It tastes like crap, but it will be a necessary part of your daily life for many years, maybe forever. Over the course of those years, you will come to understand how much of it you need, but for now I will be doing the understanding for you. Bottoms up, kids.” The middle-aged man turned back to his large steak, his knife cutting through the meat and bone with seemingly no effort on Willem’s part.

Ajax tried to keep the surprise to himself at he heard the bone that Willem had cut through being crunched within the man’s mouth. Ajax grabbed the nondescript, silvery surfaced sachet and tore where a dashed line indicated.

There was no smell, past maybe a slight chemical tinge to it. The jelly looked… unpleasant. It was a yellow-green colour, the jiggling mass of semisolid had flecks and chunks other unknowable things in there. In Ajax’s life in the woods, he had encountered all sorts of rancid looking things, but for some reason this jelly was particularly revolting looking to him. In one smooth tip of the head, the jelly slid down his gullet. After which the taste of the jelly being briefly in his mouth made his face scrunch in polite disgust. It took a whole five seconds before Ajax could even think about anything other than the taste of the jelly, so indescribably terrible as it was. Thankfully, the taste didn’t linger, returning neutrality to his tastebuds in quick order.

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Ajax, however, looked across the table at Walter. He had managed to get the jelly into his mouth, but just seemed to be stuck in limbo, unable to swallow because of the intensely disgusting taste, but unable to spit it out right in front of Willem.

“Kid,” the coach looked up from his mostly eaten steak, chewing on a piece in his mouth, “you really want to swallow that right now. That taste doesn’t get any better when it dissolves into a liquid.” The coach grinned, almost sadistically as Walter’s eyes went wide and he started to swallow furiously, but only managing to get down half before his eyes widened and face started quivering from the sheer disgust.

“Told ya.” Walter took a final swallow, coughing right after. Willem pushed a glass of water that he had ordered across the table towards Walter, who rapidly took the glass and skulled it in seconds, coughing further afterwards. Ajax heard snickers coming from tables surrounding theirs, He looked over to those tables, seeing obviously more experienced trainees, some even drinking the same foul concoction themselves. Ajax grinned at them, gaining himself a few knowing smiles as well.

It seems that this was a bit of a necessary tradition around here.

Aaliyah took a deep breath and swallowed hers, but rapidly stood up after and briskly walked in the direction of the toilets. Ajax then looked over towards Mirah to see her simply sitting there with no sachet in front of her. He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, and was about to ask, when Willem chimed in, chewing the last bit of his steak.

“She drank it before I even told her what it was.” He gave a soft laugh, “Didn’t even flinch. Went and thew out the sachet while you were stuck with that look on your face.” Ajax’s eyebrows soared. Really? Didn’t even flinch? That was surprising.

“I thought this was made by Chef, its disappointing.” Mirah said, her voice neutral. Willem laughed.

“Ah, you’ll be happy to know, then, that Chef didn’t create this swill. You have various linktech producers to thank for that.” Mirah nodded thankfully, a small smile of relief on her face, before returning to stoic neutrality.

That was the most emotion he had seen her display since he’d met her at the door of her room. Ajax worried about the girl, unsure how much he should try to talk to her, or if trying to do so will just push her further away. This group seemed… dysfunctional, you could say. The only really solid parts so far were himself and Walter. Aaliyah was nice, but she didn’t seem that into the whole team thing as a general note. Though she did get along with Walter, at least a little.

“Don’t they make that stuff with flavouring, or something?” Walter said, still cringing every now and then from the aftertaste of the liquidised form of the jelly, remembering the horrific taste of the bits as they touched his tongue. The were almost so bad that it had felt like lightning had struck his tongue. Aaliyah wandered back over to the table, looking sick, but fine. She was still walking with that gait similar to Tracker, efficient and graceful. She seemed like she was picking it up while we were walking with Tracker this morning.

“They do, and it costs a whole lot more.” Walter’s eyes lit up, probably the only one in the team that could possibly afford to buy it, “Though I warn you, I’ve tasted them all, and I swear that the flavouring only makes it worse.” Willem laughed as Walter’s hopes and dreams were dashed, ultimately resigning himself to eating the acrid goop in future, before it turned into liquid, preferably.

“Did you throw up?” Willem said, turning to Aaliyah. She shook her head after a moment but didn’t deign to say anything else.

“Good. None of you were unable to eat it or threw up afterwards. You don’t get multiple of those a day, so you would have been in for a bad day tomorrow if you hadn’t gotten them down.” Everyone on the team nodded, an action that they were quickly getting used to. Willem didn’t seem like a man that was a stickler for respect and proper acknowledgement, pretty clearly displayed by his lack of care what they called him by, even giving them his first name. Though, Ajax wasn’t sure he was ballsy enough. One thing that Ajax had a feeling the man wouldn’t let pass was not being listened to. He hadn’t been overly cruel or dealing out punishments yet, but Ajax wasn’t about to find the limits of Willem’s patience.

“Alrighty, break over. Back down we go.” The walk was quicker this time, Willem’s pace significantly increased from just after the run. It was probably intentional. This time, the group made their way past the racks and racks of equipment and exercising trainees, making a beeline for their private training area. Once the group entered, the small man turned to them, the group stopping in their tracks.

“So! You all have links. I have reports from Tracker on some of their characteristics based on what she observed,” he looked pointedly at Ajax and Aaliyah, “and some based on previous reporting,” a glance at Walter, “and some of which we have precisely neither.” His eyes looked directly into the eyes of Mirah, who Ajax almost thought squirmed under his gaze.

“Today, however, we are throwing all that information out the window. What your preconceived notions about your link may be, we are leaving them at the door back there,” pointing theatrically to the door of the private gym, “and re-understanding from the ground up. This is especially important for those with powers classified as ‘undefined’, there are a million variables that can influence the usability of your power, and we need to narrow it down so you can function correctly without getting yourselves or someone else killed.” His gaze laser focused, a beam of pure will. His eye gazed across each of the trainees, making sure that his words sunk in. When he was satisfied, he nodded and waved his hand at the group, motioning for them to follow as he walked further into the back of the room.

As they walked they were greeted with the sight of a corner of the room that was entirely padded including with what seemed like a massive moveable metal wall, able to lock those within the corner of the room.

“This is where we test links, and new aspects of your links,” gesturing flippantly towards the area, everyone in the group giving worried looks to what seemed like a prison containment cell, Willem rolled his eyes, “look, it’s real simple. Some powers go boom, some people do not realise that their power goes boom. We put them in here, let them go boom a lot, and no-one dies at the end of the day.” That dragged a laugh out of Walter and a chuckle out of Ajax, Willem just gave them a grin.

“Well then, kiddos. Who’s going first.”