Kyle's POV

I'm supposed to be paying attention to the teacher at the front of the class who is talking about weapon types but my eyes aren't on the teacher. They're on the clock. In just a few more seconds the bell will ring and we can go on to playing our Free-for-All training game. I can get more combat training in, and this time I wanted to try to do some more advanced stuff that will at least mimic real firefights.

Oh yeah, I'm cadet Kyle 324. Nice to meet you! I live on the massive one-of-a-kind spaceship called the Infinity. I live here because my parents used to serve in the military but sadly, they both died in a car crash after retiring a few years after I was born. I was put in the UNSC's foster care until the age of 10, and then enlisted in the Infinity's Advanced Military Youth Corps, AMY Core for short. From there I was chosen for a special program aboard the Infinity thanks to my exemplary test scores and familial military history. As for my age, I am 12 years old as of a few months ago, 5 feet tall on the dot, and the smartest one in my squad. My red hair and green eyes make me stand out quite a bit along with my intelligence in the corp. I accidentally sliced my nose with a knife while trying to trim my hair myself once in foster care so there is also a scar cutting diagonally across the right side of my nose.

Currently I am in class and the bell is about to ring for my squad to go on to training. Today we are playing a Free-for-All, Last one standing wins. Of course it's with paintballs. I continued watching the clock and tapped my foot, counting down the seconds. Just a few more...

Riiinng!

I bolted out the door, anxious to get to the training room. My favorite part about these training exercises isn't that they are Free-for-Alls, it's that we are doing it in Zero-G. So if we ever get off-ship and have to fight in space(which happens more often than you think) we will be prepared for the lack of gravity and disorientation that comes with having no sense of direction. I darted through the metal hallways, weaving around people until I reached a large metal door. The door automatically opened and I slipped inside, going down a short hallway and turning right into the boy's locker rooms. I started putting on my gear immediately and was already half-way done before the others even arrived. I finished up, strapping my chest-piece on and putting on my helmet before walking into the training room.

The room was huge, bigger than a football field. The room appeared to be completely empty, not a box or item in sight, just swaths of solid gray metal flooring, but looks can be deceiving. This room was special. It was the only one of it's kind aboard the ship since it can change itself to become any environment or scenario. Forest, Cities, Space, you name it and it can create it. I'm not quite sure how they do it, but I know it's some pretty advanced tech and it draws a lot of power to create each zone. Scenario days come very rarely because of this and they will typically reuse scenarios once they've been created for a while before resetting the room for a new one. This was why I was so excited for today on top of the stuff I listed before.

I walked through it to the cryo-tubes as directed by the teacher that were in a room off to one side. They have us go in cryo-sleep for the set-up of the game not just to allow the Scenario Room time to change but also to give us practice for slip space journeys. It also keeps us from seeing how they set the game up, for security reasons, as no one is even allowed anywhere near the exterior of the room during setup either. Every second of room time matters, so this was the only way we could be stationed close enough to enter quickly and still be kept in the dark about the mechanics behind it.

Laying back in my cryo-tube, I waited for the everyone else to arrive and the cover slid down preemptively for cryosleep. It wouldn't activate until all tubes were ready.

My thoughts drifted a bit as I waited. I have always tried to do my best, in hopes of becoming a Spartan. And not just a Spartan IV, but a real one, like the Spartan IIs. I want to get my augmentations at 16 too, just like them. No one really talked about it, but everyone knows that the Spartan IIs were the strongest Spartans out of all of them. They were faster and just... better too. Because of this, I've always wanted to meet Master Chief as well, the last Spartan II known left. He's been my role model since I was little. I mean, all the stuff he does seems impossible, but somehow he never fails anything, ever. And he's saved humanity probably more times than we even know about from stuff like the Halo Ring's(massive ancient galaxy-destroying weapons), the Flood(like zombies but worse), and the Covenant.

I was startled out of my brooding at a knock on the glass of my cryo-tube. I immediately smiled and knocked back. This was mine and my friend Slash 580's custom before going into cryo. He is a bit shorter than me and has dark brown messy hair and brown eyes to match. His personality can seem a bit cold at first, but he's just not great at making friends and chit chat. He has a strong sense of loyalty and a heart to match.

They notified everyone that the cryosleep process would now begin. I closed my eyes and felt myself drift off as I slipped into cryo-sleep. But something must have gone wrong, as I had a really weird dream. People don't usually dream in cryosleep, but it has happened on rare occasions. It seemed like somehow a file had accidentally leaked into the system that monitored and sent information to the brain during cryo. It was of a kid who's physique looked about 14 but his face made him look 12. He had blond hair, blue eyes, and was seriously ripped for a kid his age. He started to shrink from view. Then my dream zoomed out from the facility he was in and continued zooming out. I could now see the planet, orbiting a red dwarf and a sun. It continued zooming out until his solar system shrunk from view and many stars flew by at blazing speed. It finally slowed down, coming to the Infinity and the planet it was orbiting. It zoomed in on the Infinity and the training room until I could see my self, sleeping in cryo.

I jumped awake, choking on the cold air that was still left as the waking process finished. I gasped for air, bewildered by what I just saw. I shook my head and wobbly got out of the cryo-tube. Everyone was checking ammo and equipment. That was really strange, but right now I didn't have time to think about what I just saw. I quickly grabbed my gear and moved to the entrance of the Scenario room where the teacher was talking to the rest of the class. The teacher explained the gear and procedures, as he did every game, and I loaded my rifle with paintballs. We then pushed off from the hallway one at a time and spread out into the scenario, a scrap yard in space. The scenario had even generated broken vehicles and pelicans and there was a false-view of a planet on one side and stars around the rest of the room. If you couldn't see the door, you would really think you were in space. The gravity was turned off of course, and I pushed myself into a corner that was above the door.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The countdown started. I moved some scrap-metal floating nearby between me and everyone else, leaving a space to point my rifle through.

The countdown neared the end,

5...

4...

3...

2...

1!

Immediately I saw people in the corners of my vision pushing off of walls and sheet metal, starting to shoot each other. I aimed for a kid in a blue-suit and fired, hitting him in his side and rendering him immobile as it was a kill-shot. Quickly I turned my gun slightly and hit another light blue soldier next to the now immobile blue soldier. They had probably been teammates considering their proximity even though that was technically not allowed.

I spun upside-down to get a better view of the battlefield and it became up because in Zero-G, there are never any true ups or downs. I could see some cadets advancing in my direction and pushed through my scrap metal so I wouldn't be cornered by them, spinning and taking out 2 cadets near me. I took cover behind a big piece of sheet metal, shot someone to my right, and looked out.....hiding again after a paintball hit the metal next to my face. I envisioned where the shooter was in my mind, mentally preparing myself. Then I spun out, remaining still as they shot a paintball next my head only inches away and shot back at them, aiming instinctively from the mental view I had made.

The shot hit it's mark, splattering the helmet of a lime green cadet a few dozen feet away. I silently cheered in my head.... but then a paintball hit me in the leg, coming from my left. I spun a bit from the force of the paintball but quickly latched onto the sheet of metal I had hid behind before and moving it between me and the attacker with my remaining limbs. The paintball stung like crazy, and my leg was now immobile.

Whoever fired continued to do so, trying to sneak one through the gaps in the sheet metal. The shots got closer and closer. I was in a bad position so all I could do was wait for an opportunity as he advanced. There was a pause as he didn't see any response from me and questioned if I had been taken out and I took the chance. I flung the sheet of metal away from me, hitting the soldier and spinning him in the air while pushing myself back. Then I pushed off a few other sheets of metal that were behind me and flew around him as he grabbed onto a sheet himself to stop himself from spinning. Now facing his back, I peppered him with paintballs. He cried out from surprise and probably a bit of pain, and froze, an effect of the paintballs.

I looked around and saw a red tinge in a group of scrap-metal. The soldier was trying to catch someone else off-guard who had been battling with another soldier. I took aim and fired, shooting him in the back and taking him out. Then I aimed for the soldier he had been targeting and shot, but this time missing him. I cursed as he spun around, looking for me in the direction the paintball passed from. I quickly adjusted my aim and shot again, but not before he had spotted me and fired as well, hitting my left arm. My paintball hit him in the chest this time, pushing him back. I slowly spun from the impact of his paintball and looked around for something to stop my rotational motion, but then the bell rang. I smiled as this signaled a win and considering I was still alive, it was my win. The freeze penalty of the paintballs was removed and everyone began pushing themselves back to the equipment area next to the cryo room. I pushed myself back there and hung up my stuff, smiling as I could hear the groans of the soldiers becoming unfrozen and feeling the pain of the paintballs.

My arm and leg still hurt but nothing could bring me down from my ecstatic high of winning yet another game. I unloaded my gear, and the teacher informed everyone that we were free to go. I walked out, almost skipping down the halls as I enjoyed my victory. However, I didn't get out unscathed. I walked normally as I went over the mistakes I had made in my head when the First Officer came out of a door in the hallway. I stopped immediately and saluted. First Lieutenant Lasky was a young fellow with a pretty standard officer uniform on and brown hair. "At ease cadet. Have a moment?"

"Yes, sir?" I said, confused at his normal behavior. We started walking.

"I watched your training session. Good job on that move with the sheet metal by the way." he said. "Um, Thank you sir." I said, still confused. Shouldn't he be really formal or something? We walked towards the direction of the single-person training room.

"You're going to be a great soldier someday, possibly one the best in the UNSC." He said. "How's your shooting?"

"Point 87 accuracy." I said, with an idea now of where he was going. We arrived at the training room door and he pushed a button to open it. We walked just inside the door. "Let's put that to the test." He said. He handed me a semi-automatic rifle. "See those targets." he pointed to a group of moving targets. I nodded.

"See how many you can hit in 30 seconds. Starting now." he stepped back, closing the door and watching from a window.

Startled by the abrupt start, I clumsily got my gun up and trained it on one of the targets, firing and hitting it, but the shot landed pretty close to the outer edge. I took a deep breath and transitioned my mindset into battle-mode, focusing on just hitting the targets in front of me and nothing else. I moved with the fast-moving targets almost running around the room and avoiding the obstacles. I shot at one, hitting it in the head, a bullseye, this time only taking a few seconds to aim. I got better with my aiming and as the 30 seconds neared their end, I hit every one in the center. A buzzer sounded and I stop shooting, breathless. He walked in and clapped a few times, smiling. "Excellent shooting, better than I could have hoped." I looked at the targets. 14 out of 16 are hit and only a few were not hit spot-on. I felt a bit if pride for my accuracy.

"Well, that was a test and you passed. You get a promotion to level 4 effective immediately. I will send someone to your quarters to give you your new armor, real armor." he said.

"Thank you sir!" I exclaimed excitedly. This was a big accomplishment. When your armor gets upgraded, that means you are almost ready for some type of real combat. The new armor can withstand actual bullets, not just the training paintball ammo. I couldn't believe it. He smiled and said, "I've always enjoyed watching you train, you've got real potential. You know, every time you have a training match, there is a crowd near the observing windows. It seems you've become quite popular. I won't keep you any longer, you are dismissed Soldier." he said, emphasizing the Soldier part.

I smiled, said, "Thank you sir!" again, and left, jogging down the halls. Now that I think about it, I have noticed people near the windows when my training matches are going on. I also have heard other people talking about it but I never really paid any attention to it. I need to tell Slash and Seth I thought, about everything that happened today. The dream, the training, Lasky and what he said about the matches. Everything. I slowed down as I neared our hall and start making my way to the barracks, anticipating my new armor.