Welcome to boot-camp a la Kovu (Xander)

[xander]

“Murphy hates me” , Xander muttered, “it’s the only explanation.” He was in the ass end of the world, surrounded by ice, now fire being instructed by someone who thought they were “The Walrus”. If he died here his parents would never. They wouldn’t have known if died in England but they would have at least been able to assume the country he perished in. Why would they ever think he’d be in Antarctica?

He switched off the safety and got ready to fire. When it came to tracking Xander actually had some experience unlike with the swinging pendulums. While it would have been convenient, people rarely stood still when you where shooting at them. Shots counted and with the added incentive of possibly playing the part the part of the Marshmallow he wasn’t looking to miss.

Carefully he aimed and shot at all three of the disks. Xander managed to hit the first and last one, completely missing the middle button. He switched back on the safety and looked over at Kovu. Now he would have to see if he went back on his word and lit him up just for kicks.

[Kovu]

Kovu studied Xander as he took his shots. He was much more confident in shooting at the moving targets, his stance was stronger, his eyes more focused, and his reflexes were better. Kovu thus, was unsurprised when 2 of the 3 buttons fell from the air. "Good." He thought. "I'm not totally sure where the fire extinguisher anyway." He took his hand off the gun in his jacket, if Xander had failed, Kovu wouldn't have. Just an extra percaution, Kovu wasnt totally malicious, totally.

Xander looked at him, as if curious to what would be Kovu's next move. Kovu moved toward a wall, and flipped a switch. One by one the lames flickered off and Kovu looked sternly at Xander. "Good, your ability to shoot moving targets is acceptable, however we will have to work on quick deciseveness, and close combat. I'm done with you for today, leave, and call Gabriel in will you?" Kovu moved back to his knives and waited for Xander to leave.v "Oh!, and leave the gun on the table."

[xander]

As the flames disappeared Xander let out a sigh of relief. With the threat of being on fire gone for the moment, he threw up the bow fingers at Kovu. Hopefully his instructor wouldn’t know what they meant and would carry on his way. Most Americans were unfamiliar with the gesture much like him when he first got stranded in England. It always felt good to get a snub at someone without them knowing.

“Glad I’m up to par Boss,” he spat. As he set the gun down he glanced back at Kovu. He was half expecting him to yell “think fast” and throw a knife. Kid probably had as wicked an aim with them flying as in his hands. Exiting the room he quickened he started walking faster and began looking for Gabriel. Mr. Crazy was his problem now, Xander just hoped Gabe would fare better than he had.

When he spotted the other student he let out a whistle to get his attention. He moved closer before speaking. "It's your turn in combat training," Xander rubbed the back of his neck, "out of curiosity how good are you at morphing?"

[gabriel]

"I am pretty awesome at morphing," Gabriel said proudly. "Jules said that really good morphers are called morph dancers. That sounds like my thing don't you think?" In reality Gabriel hadn't had much more practice with morphing than anyone else. The process still freaked him out a bit, making him reluctant to practice on his own even though he knew that was the only way to get better.

"I've been waiting all day for this," Gabriel said, bouncing around a little and giving a Rocky boxing impression. "I hope he knows kickboxing. I always wanted to learn. What did you do?" Gabriel asked, coming to a stop and hitting Xander on the shoulder. "Anything fun?"

[xander]

Any other time Xander would have made a crack and joshed with Gabriel, at that moment he was just too tired. The morphing back and forth, trying not to let his fatigue show and the mental strain of just dealing with the training wiped him out. He tilted his head back and watched Gabe shadow box.

“I got cut, shot and almost lit on fire,” Xander said flatly without his accent, “Yeah, had loads of fun.” He gave him a quick thumbs up and a fake grin before he scowled again.

“I wish you the best of luck. As for me, I’m going to go take a nap,” he waved before walking off toward his room. He needed to get better at morphing, it was that simple. After learning parkour and keeping in shape, fatigue had become a strange. The fact he now experienced it every day didn’t sit well with Xander.

Palming open the door Xander stepped into his room and pushed it back close. He grabbed the pillow and blanket off the bed and dropped them onto the floor. Without changing Xander into something more comfortable he laid down on the ground, facing away from the mattress and pulled the blanket over himself. A few minutes of shut eye would do him good.

[gabriel]

"Um, this doesn't sound like a class I want to go to," Gabriel said to Xander's retreating back. "What happens if we skip," he asked half heartedly. He wasn't about to skip class and get kicked out of the academy but seriously, shot? He didn't sign up to get shot...at least not by his friends.

He walked towards the gym much less excited than he'd been a moment before. This was the one class he'd been looking forward to the whole time. Kovu had had them doing physical training like running the obstacle course or doing exercise up until now and Gabriel had been itching to learn something more useful. Now he wasn't sure. It didn't sound like he'd be learning how to hurt people, it sounded like he'd be learning how to get hurt.

He turned the corner and knocked on the door frame. "What's up Teach?"

[Kovu]

Kovu slammed his hands on the table as soon as Xander had left. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. How he hated doing this. Then why was he? Oh right, it was necessary. Kovu said that over and over again in his head. Trying to ratioanlize the cruelty that he had just displayed. No doubt Xander hated him, or at least thought he was a lunatic.

He craned his neck back. He had to do a few things before Gabriel got here. He placed the gun Xander had used on the center of the table. He took a paper and quickly scrawled a note down. It said "Make your way throguh the maze, and do your best. Hit me once, and we will move on." Then he moved over to the wall.

The room was very dynamic, with a ton of built in features that assisted him. He flipped a switch and ouut of the floor walls rose. It was a maze similar to the kind you play paintball on. It had different shaped holes on the walls for paintballs to pass through. Except these were real guns, with real bullets. He moved into the maze and took out his gun just as he heard the door open. He said nothing and moved deeper into the maze.

[gabriel]

Gabriel watched the forms rise up from the floor and stepped out of the way. Kovu was no where to be seen and now there was a maze in front of him. Remembering what Xander had said about his lesson Gabriel decided forethought was the greater part of wisdom and did not rush into the maze. Kovu was almost assuredly waiting for him in there and Gabriel had absolutely no desire to walk into a trap just so that Kovu could tell him walking into a trap was bad. The hypocrisy of it angered him and he was determined to outthink the little pip squeak of a teacher.

He sat down outside of the maze and considered his morph choices. He could turn into a total of three animals now, a fox, a bat and a cricket. He immediately discarded the cricket. While it was the smallest and the one least likely to fall into Kovu's trap it was too small and he wouldn't be able to get very far as a bug.

He tried to weigh the pros and cons of the bat and the fox. Both would be good choices. The bat could maneuver in the tight airspace of the maze and work with the dead air of the room unlike most other flying morphs. And he could fly above the maze and spot Kovu from up there.

But as he thought that he saw the image of a duck getting shot out of the sky. I got shot, Xander had said. If Gabriel was going to get shot (and he had no intention of doing so) he didn't want to be a small animal when it happened. There was too much of a chance he'd die. Then again that very fact might protect him. This was only a training exercise after all. Kovu wouldn't kill him over it. Still, mistakes could happen, better not to risk it.

So he went with the fox and, as he closed his eyes, he wondered why he was even bothering to go into the maze at all. He could just sit out here and wait for Kovu to come back. Eventually the boy would tire of this game right? And Gabriel wouldn't have given him the satisfaction of even playing.

But Kovu's note came to mind and, even if he was 16 or 17 or however young he was, he was still a teacher and Gabriel had a feeling Kovu's word would hold more influence over his future via the medium of Seiya than his own. Better to beat him at his own game than to refuse to play.

So he morphed into the fox, the process going slowly but going all the same, and when the fox's sense of smell kicked in Gabriel was immediately able to tell which direction Kovu had gone in, or at least which direction the human boy who was about 16-18 and had eaten pasta for lunch had gone in. He wasn't sure how the fox knew how old Kovu was or at least how the fox mind was able to translate the scent and age estimation into a form his human mind was able to understand but he was grateful.

He trotted into the maze carefully, his soft padded feet hardly making a noise on the floor, only his claws making a slight clicking sound as he moved. He followed Kovu's path at first but then debated the wisdom of this. Kovu was waiting at the end of Kovu's path and he was no doubt set up in such a way that he'd see anything coming and would shoot at it or something equally unpleasant.

So Gabriel turned aside and began moving off in another direction that he hoped would take him around Kovu instead. Perhaps he could get behind him.

[Kovu]

Kovu went deep into the maze, and waited. His ears perked up as he heard the door open. He was looking foward to this, Gabe had proven he could move, lets see how well he could read his enviroment and shoot. He listened and it perked his interest when he heard a long siilence. Then a silent fear reached him. What if he had underestimated Gabriel? What if he was hunting him now?

This fear was silenced when the footsteps picked up again. This time however, they were much softer. Kovu went through the maze to a circular panel, no bigger than a fist, but large enough to see. A flash of red streaked across a panel a few walls back. Kovu snorted angrily. This was a test to see if Gabe could handle a gun, and he had morphed.

Kovu moved to where he could see the creature, but only his hind leg. Kovu quickly aimed and shot. The fox turnedc to the sound too quickly, the bullet whizzed by its leg. Damn it, Kovu thought. He ran through the maze, tracing and retracing his steps, trying to get his scent everywhere. He moved quickly then slowed to a crawl, then looked around, hoping to see a flash of red.

[gabriel]

<<Are you fucking insane!>> Gabriel yelled as the fox whelped and sprinted away. He let it, not bothering to control its actions any. He wanted to run, it wanted to run, it worked.

<<I don't know what type of lesson this is but I'm so out. Play in your maze by yourself man. Fucking Hannibal junior.>> The last was more muttered to himself as he sought the smell of slightly fresher air among all the others. He wanted to get back to the door and get out of here. He kept his ears peeled for sounds of footsteps approaching...or gunshots.

[Kovu]

((Sorry I know this is long over due))

As Kovu heard the thought-speak he headed toward the exit, rolling his eyes. He flipped a switch, and the maze retreated back into the floor. Before Gabriel had a chance to try and run, Kovu closed the door and put a spare lock on it. He didn't have a key of course, that would give people a chance to get out. No Kovu would have to pick the lock when he was ready to let Gabriel out. He moved toward the fox.

"You'll find, that I don't appreciate when my orders are blatantly ignored." Kovu picked up the gun that he had left for Gabe. ""The purpose of this exercise was to ascertain your experience with a gun, unfortunately we weren't able to do that, so we'll have to try something else now won't we?" Kovu tossed the gun on the ground at the fox's feet. "Demorph quickly and grab your gun, we have work to do."

Kovu readied the targets that Xander had used, slightly dissapointed that he didn't have the maze showdown he was looking for. Still he had to move on and whether Gabriel liked it or not Kovu would do his job. And damnit he would do it well.

[gabriel]

Gage demorphed and picked up the gun. He watched Kovu move around and then carefully disarmed the gun, taking the clip out, before walking over to Kovu and holding out the gun and the clip.

"I don't do guns," Gage said with unusual soberness. He waited for Kovu to take the gun and tried not to think to hard about why he hated the things. Even the feel of the gun in his hands made him feel like he was covered in filth. "Teach me anything else but I don't do guns so just take it back."

[Kovu]

Kovu paused for a second to take this in. His first instinct was to force Gage to use the gun, but he realized it was the anger talking. Gage held the gun out and Kovu still didn't know what to do. then he thought, if it was Jullian, or Matt or Julia, would he take the gun? The answer was simple.

He took the gun and let out a sigh. He then said in a softer voice than he had intended. "You know you won't be able to avoid firearms forever, we all have to make sacrifices in this war. I know it isn't easy, but necessity outweighs choice. Still, if you wish to not learn how to use guns, I will respect that."

Kovu tooke the gun and clip and put them on the rack on the wall. "If you don't want to start with guns, fine, we'll start with morphs, since you seem to be so keen on morphing, we'll have to go over a few things on guns later though. Quick, remorph your fox, lets see what you got." Kovu began to morph his Jaguarundi.

[gabriel]

Gage nodded, thankful that Kovu hadn't challenged him on it. It made him respect him about ten times more than he had a second ago. He was still convinced the kid was crazy but at least he wasn't rude.

He just shrugged when Kovu told him he couldn't avoid firearms forever. What else could you do when you heard a truth you didn't like. He didn't know what he'd been thinking. He'd signed up to fight a war. Had he really thought it wouldn't involve guns? He supposed he hadn't been thinking. That was always his problem. He rushed into things.

"Yeah ok," Gage muttered before closing his eyes and remorphing his fox. When he saw what Kovu was becoming he just groaned. This was going to be a long day.