Everyone at the palace gave Costan the cold shoulder and he was under the supervision of at least four guards at all times. He was already missing his home by the time they got him off the shuttle. From the shuttle, they stripped him of anything and everything that could be used as a weapon, even the chromons.

Costan kept his mouth shut, despite the things he wanted to say. It was late at night when they took him to the groomers. It took three rounds of bathing to get him cleaned up enough to trim, and Heged's attempts at small talk were quickly shut down.

"So, how's the ear?"

"I'm surprised you still have your job."

"Same cut as last time?"

Costan just gave a nod and added "don't fuck up again."

The haircut passed without incident, the black fur and flat top really sold the seriousness of the eighteen year old owner of three private security firms. Heged didn't say anything aside from "all done."

From there, they took him to the medical wing. The doctors didn't talk to him aside from stand, sit, cough, and so on. They were doing a full medical panel on him, blood work, physical exam, vaccinations, visual and hearing, everything. Everything came back clean aside from him being bigger than expected and still having the broken teeth that they extracted without anesthetic.

The security detail quickly escorted Costan away and to his room. The same windowless room. He lay on the bed, trying and failing to sleep. They brought him here after blowing up his house, that damnedable bastard had better have a good explanation.

The morning came and to nobody's surprise, Instructor Grimclaw was there for morning PT with four palace guards and Captain Giagan. Costan was bigger than the usual eighteen year old due to all the sun root he had been eating, and due to surviving, Grimclaw, drills, and surviving Grimclaw's drills he was bulkier too. He still had about fourteen more years of growing to do, but was almost as tall as Trencos at nearly six units.

They proceeded to drill him harder than ever, switching out so that one could have a break every fifteen minutes or so while Costan received no breaks. This went from sunrise to sunset, then another two Instructors took over. Costan was given enough time to swallow a field ration and some water, then it continued until sunrise. It repeated for another two days before it came to a head.

Captain Giagan managed to get part of an order out at Costan before he interrupted.

"Fuck that!"

"The hell did you"

"Fuck You! And To Hell with that House Destroying Shit you call AN EMPER"

Giagan lost his cool and swung at Costan, who juked to the side. Costan faked a jab, but Giagan didn't take the bait swinging a kick at Costan's ribs. Costan took the hit, ribs cracking but capturing the leg and returning the favor with a punch to Giagan's knee. Something definitely broke, but Costan was reading one for Giagan's groin when the tasers hit him.

None of that was part of the physical test that Emperor Karcos requested. He hadn't asked them to try and run him to death. He also was shocked about how his men blew up Costan's house. Karcos knew why he was willing to fight Captain Giagan. Good thing that they were sending off to the Northern Wastes Academy soon.

Karcos called off the little chat he had planned with Costan. Nothing good would come from someone that angry being told that you were sending them off, again. The fact that it wasn't taken up with Costan, at all... again wouldn't help their relationship. Maybe time in the dungeon and a few years as a Cadet would help.

The dungeon was the same dark, damp, hell-hole Costan remembered. Exactly as he remembered it, in fact. It was only three days before a full palace riot squadron came for him. They bound him, gagged him, and put a bag over his head before dragging him down the halls and tossing him in a seat.

It was an hour or so before they drug him from the shuttle seat, snatched the bag off, and threw him out into the snow. They held guns at the ready as they ungagged him and removed the shackles. They then got back on board and left, revealing the rows of metal buildings and a terminally angry looking man in a white and grey winterized uniform.

The wind picked up to where Costan had to lean into it. He approached the man, whose name insignia read Instructor Karnak. Costan, in the orange prisoner's outfit and no shoes really envied the Instructor. Costan snapped a salute, "Instructor!" He had to shout over the howling wind.

"You're early, recruit! Follow me!"

He was escorted into a warm concrete building where he was shaved, showered, given a once over by the doctor, and given his uniforms and bedding. Once dressed, he was shown to a bunkhouse on the far end. It was a drafty metal building, the kind typically described as temporary or disposable. He was happy to have boots and not have to fight another bear. There were nineteen other recruits already there. Also, they didn't care about his cracked ribs, they were not broken.

"This is bunkhouse fifty nine, five niner. We have bunkhouses one through sixty. You, recruit, will never see one through thirty because they are for the promising youth being trained as the next officers. Thirty one through fifty nine are for the troubled youth sent here to get right. Sixty is for the true fuckups." The Instructor took a breath.

"We have read your file, you little junkie. You won't find any drugs here. You will follow the rules and all orders. Now meet the others of your squadron for the rest of the semester." Truth was that most of the Instructors just read the bullet notes of the Commander, who read the abridged version of the file.

One quick round of Recruit [Name] later, and they were escorted out for PT.

"For most of you, we will be having our basic regimen, but you, Recruit Costan! You will be doing our basic regimen and then pushups until muscle failure for showing up early!"

They did the usual mile run, pushups, pullups, jumping jacks, lunges and so on. Then they just had to wait for Costan to hit muscle failure on pushups. He was still pushing an hour later, so the Instructor ordered a different recruit to stand on Costan's shoulders. It only took the better part of another hour.

That's how life went until everyone else showed up for the semester. That's when everyone was given their first shot at the obstacle course. It was nothing new to Costan, just set up a little differently than the one Grimclaw had him used to. They literally just swapped two obstacles to make the times slower.

The new people had difficulty finishing, some not able to get past the wall at the start. The wall even had climbing ropes on each side. It started with bunkhouse one and moved down the line. Bunkhouse five niner was occupied by people who failed the semester and Costan, so they were expected to finish.

Finally, it was their turn. Everyone else went before Costan. Everyone finished with mediocre times, even the one who hardly made it. Costan was more than willing to show everyone how it was done, and the ice was just an added challenge. Desert was on the line.

The whistle blew, Costan sprinted towards the wall and up it, only grabbing the rope to change his momentum back downward. Everyone expected some kind of injury when he fell on his face, but he tucked and rolled at the bottom, transitioning to a prone form for the crawl. Net climb, log cross, it was nothing new, the snow and ice almost made it fun.

"FIVE MINUTES FIFTY TWO SECONDS", one Instructor called out as Costan finished the run. Everyone knew that the bunkhouse with the fastest time got a choice. Deserts for their bunkhouse until the next timed trial, or better rations for their half of the bunkhouses. While bunkhouse sixty had decent times, it wasn't close.

"THAT'S THE FASTEST TODAY AND THIRTY SECONDS FROM THE RECORD. WHAT'S IT GOING TO BE RECRUIT?" Costan thought fast, but went with the safe option. "Better rations Instructor." He had been tired of field rations before they sent him here, and thought he saw just a glimmer of joy in some of the other recruits.

Costan's squad mates didn't see it that way, calling him out when they were showering back at bunkhouse five niner.

"Why would you pass up on deserts, for all of us? They let us in the chow hall after we completed semester one."

"Because, it would still be shitty rations with the shitty ration desert bars. Also, I was tired of only eating field rations and bailout bars long before now, have any of you even seen the chow hall? Not to mention, it gets us brownie points with the other bunkhouses."

"What are brownie points?"

"Imaginary points of disposition towards us. We weren't greedy little shits, maybe they won't be too terrible towards us in the future."

"Has that ever worked?"

"To be fair, not to my personal knowledge, no."

After they showered, they got dressed like they were going to go to the chow hall even though they were expecting delivered rations. Then an Instructor came in and told them to form up. This was new. They were escorted to the chow hall. All the bunkhouses were there, even one through thirty and sixty.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Costan looked at one of the Instructors and arched an eyebrow. The Instructor immediately started berating him, and continued to do so through the chow line and to the table. The Instructor especially criticized Costans food choices.

"Who the hell eats sun root stew? You planning on being special forces? Do you know how rare that shit is?"

"Instructor, last I heard, only one person actively cultivated it. Somebody named Justicar Costan in Emish territory, Instructor."

"Sounds like a swell fellow, I'd love to meet him, Recruit."

"I would too, Instructor."

The Instructor was about to lay into Costan again. There was the unmistakable sound of cutlery at the desert table, and all eyes were on it. One of the prissy boys from bunkhouse three was cutting off a piece of don don berry cheesecake. He didn't realize or didn't care that he was being watched. He noticed as he got finished slicing.

Instead of aborting the sweets desiring mission, he doubled down and took the whole cheesecake. Costan fixed the priss with the Grimclaw patented death glare. Little shit almost threw the plate of cheesecake when he locked eyes with Costan, but managed to recover and not drop it. He went and sat down, a couple of instructors got a piece of a different cheesecake and sat down near the recruit.

Costan quickly tuned out of them pampering the prick with questions like "is everything okay, how are things at home." Costan didn't care, that asshole who wasn't supposed to be part of the reward recipients probably just got them kicked out of the chow hall. He was done with everyone's bullshit long before this.

The Instructor near Costan took note on how he reacted to all of that. They knew that no one from bunkhouses thirty one to sixty would mess up like that, they sunk claws to every little positive thing they got a digit on. They wanted someone to mess up because the bunkhouses were to make them miserable, hot meals in the chow hall were counter productive to that.

The Instructor resolved to read Costan's file. A reaction like that could be indicative of disgruntlement. They were in the bunkhouses, so some disgruntlement was expected. Too much disgruntlement could cause problems.

They got kicked out of the chow hall. Costan was not surprised, but he was still pissed off about it. They didn't even give the choice to the best scoring recruit anymore, only deserts for their bunkhouse. Unless it was Costan, they recorded his scores but always disqualified him from rewards.

The Instructors actually went through the abridged version of Costan's file and concluded that he was already as disgruntled as he was going to get, outside of something drastic happening. Five months after arriving there, they had been trained like they were in basic and it was time for the first war game. Then it happened.

While they were using a blank fire to laser tag system, everything else was real. Uniforms, firearms, knives, and bayonets were all very real. Goal was to capture the enemies flag and keep your own. A thirty bunkhouses versus thirty bunkhouses two team war simulation to give everyone a taste of how chaotic war was.

Costan was doing well, he was taking out the sentries left to guard the other sides flag. Him and five other recruits made a mockery of their defenses, scoring kill shots on them all despite being outnumbered fifty to one. Sending your best marksmen against a highly defended position was very risky, but it left far more people to defend, precision strikes and all that.

They knew that there would be a lot of the prissy pricks left on guard, but that's why they begged and "borrowed" extra ammunition from their teammates. After all, nobody's going to miss one round and five hundred ninety four extra rounds was arguably in better hands. Those hands being the six recruits who were doing hit and run and fire and flee tactics to wonderful effect. Someone stuck a toe out of cover? It got shot.

They really wanted that flag, but Costan ordered everyone else to fall back both in case of reinforcements and to circle around and maybe catch their offensive line by surprise. It wouldn't matter if everyone in there was out, they couldn't risk getting surprised. They followed the orders and indeed they caught the offensive force from the flank, hounding them with fire and flee. What were they doing in the fancier bunkhouses? Despite having better weapons and gear, they were getting slaughtered.

Costan radioed in, got the confirmation that no reinforcements were coming and replied that he was moving to capture the target. He went in, checking every inch of the compound before proceeding to the courtyard. He didn't bother with the rope to let the flag down. He pulled the stay out of the base, letting the pole fall to the ground.

He got the flag and radioed in the capture, and the defending group confirmed all hostiles neutralized or fled, medium casualties. Costan turned to leave. The cheesecakers didn't seem to get the memo. They were all "dead" with red indicators on their chests or heads, and lost their flag.

They shot every part of him with their simulation rounds, putting him out of the exercise and cutting of his radio. Costan let them have their petty victory, setting the flag down and sitting on the ground as per exercise rules. "Okay, you got me."

Costan's respectful tone was not mirrored by them. They hurled slurs of all kinds, improbable heritage, incorrect assumptions of financial status, all of it. Nothing Costan hadn't heard before, being the black cat of the family and most of the places he went, it wasn't phasing him. They riled themselves up until one affixed his bayonet, followed by others.

Costan discretely thumbed the medical aid button on the strike detector. It was one of the things that didn't stop working when you were out, also known as "dead". It was also one of the things that you did not play with because the Instructors would be coming, and you had better need aid.

Their first pass at him left his uniform with a few tears due to him rolling to his feet. He had been trained just like them, but they had Costan outnumbered in a melee. Their second pass left him with more tears in his uniform and a gash in his shoulder. On the third pass, one got him in the gut, but they didn't stop there.

The Instructors came in an emergency shuttle, seeing what was going on and barking orders before they even landed. Costan remembered recruits getting tased and cuffed, then a brief flash of someone trying to save his sorry ass. He woke up to a hell of a lot of pain, chained to a hospital bed. It was bad, but not rehab bad. Costan saw someone out of the corner of his eye.

"The hell?" Costan called out, but wasn't answered. They finished whatever they were doing and left. It was a while before a doctor came in to ask him some questions.

"Costan, I am the leading physician over your case. You were repeatedly stabbed by bayonets and clubbed with rifle buts. Your injuries were extensive. We have some of the best surgeons. I am going to ask questions and you will answer."

"Okay, Doctor Octcos. Why am I chained to the bed?"

"I ask the questions here. Have you taken drugs or been administered drugs since rehabilitation?"

"Nothing outside of the palace doctors jabbing me vaccines and something that felt like ice in my blood they stuck in my ass cheek."

"So no prescription or over the counter substances for pain or energy?"

"No, haven't even been anywhere but the palace and the Academy."

"On a scale from one to ten, with one being similar to a needle prick and ten being completely debilitating, rate your pain level."

"Definitely an eight, possibly a nine."

"I see. Do you know why you are restrained?"

"No."

"What do you remember about the incident?"

"I hit the aid button as they turned me into a pincushion, saw recruits get tased, someone tried to keep my organs inside me, and now I'm here."

"Yes, and what was your pain level in rehab?"

"Ten or higher. Felt like I was being turned inside out in nitrogen while someone torched my bones."

"I see. Do you remember what you were addicted to?"

"No, and nobody bothered to tell me. I figure that unless it's regular food and water, a doctor will stab me with whatever I'm supposed to need."

"Okay, now I'm going to start asking questions that may make you uncomfortable. It you need to stop, we can. The more information we have about you, the better treatment we can give you."

The questioning continued for hours every day the three months Costan was in the hospital. He was sure that the doctor had nothing to do with his medical treatment. Probably a psychiatrist sent by someone, likely his father or the Academy Commander. He didn't care, the system was constructed to hurt people and take their stuff. The shrink probably wasn't happy about that point of view, but he still didn't care.

They put him in physical therapy for two extra months. The questioning continued and Therapist Grimclaw was still a dick. They also fed him the same field rations, not even the better ones, like nothing changed. Maybe they were trying to break him? He wouldn't give them the pleasure.

It was only a month into physical therapy that Costan stopped humoring the not a medical doctor, ignoring them completely. He only did the things listed in the recovery notebook. Therapist Grimclaw was furious about Costan ignoring him, but his shouting was ignored as well.

The last day of therapy before being sent back to the Academy was different. The shrink didn't bother Costan, and Grimclaw didn't even raise his voice.

"Okay, what is wrong Costan?"

Costan didn't answer.

"Something's clearly wrong, ignoring authority isn't your thing."

No answer.

"I guess you decided you are done with our bullshit? Guess what?"

Grimclaw got right in Costan's ear.

"WE DECIDE WHEN YOU'RE DONE, NOT YOU."

Costan didn't flinch and didn't answer, just finished the prescribed workouts and got ready to be sent back. He didn't speak to anyone. The psychiatrist sent the last update to the Academy Commander, who was not surprised by what happened.

Lots of high up military brass push their children too hard and fast to be a valuable part of the military. Only for the children to decide otherwise when finally given a choice. Academy Commander Octkar's children had been much the same, only way of dealing with it was to accept a loss. Loss wasn't an option with a child of the Emperor, so he would have to arrange some things.

Costan arrived in a standard ground van. He greeted the Instructor sent to meet him with a simple "Instructor." Nobody liked that time of year, it was winter in the Northern Wastes. Costan would be there awaiting a new class to start in Spring, through the long night.

The long night was a longer than normal night that lasted a full month. The temperatures were too brutally low for even special forces training. The Academy sent home those they could for Durshdas, a holiday celebration winter's hight. Those who had to repeat the fall semester would be stuck for the winter, in the caring hands of Instructors who drew the short straw.

Costan failed the summer semester due to hospitalization and missed the fall semester for the same reason. Despite the Commander's best efforts, the Emperor was always too predisposed to answer his calls, emails, and letters. He now knew well what made Costan disrespect the Emperor. The communication requests with the Immortal Emish were answered and information was gleaned, thankfully. The representatives from Costan's various businesses were mostly all busy or ignoring the calls as well.

The long night came and went without incident. The Commander's little talk to each of the Instructors made sure of it. No reason to give the disgruntled, disgraced, and possibly deranged boy more axes to grind.

Thankfully, the rest of the four year program went smoothly, except nobody being home the times when Costan was allowed off Durshdas. It didn't seem to effect his performance. And then the time came, everyone was being trained on the graduation ceremony, Costan got a letter.

The Instructors were clear, the graduate hall was to be silent, and so it was. The only things making noise were papers shuffling where a person was reading something or a pen scrolling on paper. It was shattered by the loud thud of someone punching the wall.

The Instructor descended upon the offender quickly. Costan never acted out of line, doing everything as ordered, by the book. Instructor Kargrim knew it, seeing that it was Costan, he went for more diplomacy than intimidation.

"What reason do you have for this?"

Costan looked at the Instructor and handed him the letter. The Instructor read it quickly, expression unchanging.

"Take this to the Commander. He will want to know why you will be unable to attend your own graduation and thusly not graduate."

The Commander held it together until Costan left his office, but he was fuming. "Who the fuck force drafts their own child out of the Northern Wastes?"