Bright and early at seven in the morning I was waiting for Carrie at the track that had been built to work endurance and speed into the recruits while waiting for the Nephilim serum to be perfected. I knew that was going to take a bit but I didn't see any reason to wait for training to start.

"I'm sorry I'm late Commander," Carrie said as she dashed up to me outfitted in the suit I had designed for the Nephilim to wear while they trained or worked out.

"Only by a few minutes," I smiled at her, she didn't need to see me as a monster right away. "A few extra laps around the field should be enough to make up for it don't you think?"

Before she could answer, I was already giving her the regimen that Cai and I had built.

"First you'll run at an easy pace for at least twenty minutes, then you'll take a one minute water break, don't make yourself sick. After your water break, you'll be doing sprints around the track for ten minutes. Once you finish those ten minutes we'll move on the obstacle courses," I told her. "Oh, and you won't make the timer go down if you don't move at a certain speed so find out what that is or you'll be running all day."

Before she could protest, I had taken off down the track for my own session of easy running before my session of sprints. I couldn't avoid this training just because I was the Commander, not if I expected to live through my next encounter with the Scourge. I was happy to note that Carrie was taking this seriously, without complaining or storming off, she had started in on her run and was keeping a steady pace. I figured that pretty soon I'd see her slow down or start begging for a break.

It was with a happy note that I saw she was able to keep her pace steady throughout her easy run, even if she was breathing like she'd run a marathon. She hadn't, the track was maybe a mile and in thirty minutes she had only looped it maybe three times. Really good for someone who likely wasn't used to running everyday, if you asked me. The ten minutes of sprinting was something that I hated myself, but it was placed where it was to get us used to running at full speed for more than a minute or two and it was after our muscles had a chance to warm up. Once I finished that; I took another chance to check on my recruit and watched as she also ended her sprint, Cai was keeping track for her with a hologram timer that floated with her at the minimum speed she needed to maintain.

"You suck," she panted as she shuffled up to where I was standing. "Why do I need to be able to run fast exactly?"

"You're going to need to be able to reach the Scourge quickly if someone's in danger," I told her. "It's also to help build your endurance and overall fitness level. Just like the next part, come on now, keep up."

With that I jogged off toward the obstacle courses that had been set up. Carrie, points to the girl, jogged after me.

"You'll start with that one," I said pointing to the course marked with a green A. "The time you need to hit for that course is five minutes. Once you've hit that you'll move down the line. Questions?"

"What are the other times for the other courses?" she asked while studying A.

"Don't worry about that until you're going up against them," I told her. "Each of them gets progressively more difficult and dangerous and they're all meant to teach you how to move in complex environments and react to changes that you may not be expecting. I think at K is where they start to get lethal, but by then you'll be putting master parkour experts to shame in any environment."

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"Did you say lethal?" I heard her ask as I moved up to course C and began to move down it. I remembered halfway through that I hadn't told her how long we'd be doing these but oh well. She wasn't hitting the minimum with A on her first run or even her twentieth. I took nearly fourty runs Cai told me. After another fourty-five minutes of attempting the courses, I called her to stop and checked her progress, she wasn't close to finishing this one just like I thought.

From the obstacle courses we went to the next part of the training that I had been completing for the last two weeks, weapons practice. This one was especially important because it would be what built the skills of all Nephilim that signed up. It would also save all their lives.

"Pick one," I told Carrie, pointing toward the racks of practice weapons. "You don't have to stick with it forever if you don't want to, but you will need to pick something that you think you'll like to use. If you pick a spear and you decide that you don't want to use that, then choose another until you find the one you like best."

"Which one do you use?" she asked while examining the various weapons on display.

"I use a sword," I told her walking up to the rack and grabbing the one I'd been using for the last few days. It had the closest weight and reach to the one I had used already.

"Does that mean you want me to pick something else?" Carrie asked.

"No, just pick whatever you think you'll use," I told her. She eventually walked up to the rack of shields and picked a round one before going back to the rack with the axes and choosing one of the handaxes.

"Alright, step up here," I told her from my position by the pedestal to the side of the first sparring ring. "This pedestal is where you'll input your chosen weapon and it will set up a training program for you to follow with it. After today, whenever you show up you'll come here and let it scan your hand, from there it will send you to one of the rings and you'll spend the next hour following the hologram's movements to learn your weapons. Once the hour's up, you'll take a five minute rest before you start on the hour of sparring. For now, you'll spar against holograms of people, aliens, and Scourge; after a few more people join up, you'll have the chance to spar with them too. For now don't worry about that though, okay?"

With a nod, she stepped up and started to put in her chosen weapons so that the program could begin running her through the basics of them. For my part I made my way over to the ring that was waiting for me and began my own weapon training. The few basics I had learned from Cai while alone were enough for most Scourge, but I wanted to say I had mastered a weapon well enough that every fight with the Scourge didn't feel like I had scraped by with hairs missing. Because of that, I had made the Warden's construct this so that I and every other Nephilim could start really learning to fight. I could already see it paying off for me whenever I sparred against the program's various opponents that it would pit me against. Some of the human holograms used weapons and styles that were exotic and difficult to face; some of the alien holograms used their physiology to fight me better than their live counterparts could; the Scourge holograms were every bit as brutal and violent as their live counterparts.

I did fight against Scourge holograms that I hadn't seen yet and against them and others I worked to perfect my abilities so that I wouldn't be caught on the backfoot.

When the two hours of weapons practice was over I led Carrie to the showers and directed her to the part set aside for women, while I made my way towards the men's. That shower was great, not as good as my private shower, but still something that I wasn't looking forward to having to give up whenever I was fighting Scourge in prolonged campaigns.

Once I was clean and refreshed, I made my way outside the showers in a fresh suit and was surprised to see Carrie waiting for me. I guess the girl had showered quickly.

"What's next Commander?" she asked, standing from the bench she was sitting on.

"Now I send you to the medical people," I told her. "They'll give you a small surgery that will implant a chip within you. That chip will contain your new Cybernetic Artificial Intellect. Mine's named Cai."