Morph Combat [19]

[Nineteen]

Nineteen laughed. "What, Jullian, never heard of angry sex?" There were even lewder terms that meant the same thing, but she kept those to herself. "Really though, the best I can hope for is that three months from now when their guts are trailing two feet behind them and they manage to morph everything back into place, that they look back and think, hey, Nineteen wasn't so bad." Jullian would be helping with that too of course.

"I don't know. I'm not really into this long-term helpfulness thing, which I think is pretty critical for being a teacher. I mean, I know that this is what I need to be doing." What I'm stuck doing, she thought to herself. "But I just wish I'd been sent with Gage and Xander when they went. I feel like a flunkie. Which is dumb, considering I'm the one that's supposed to be doing the grading or whatever now, but still." Nineteen sighed, clearly unimpressed with her own ability to express herself.

"Oh well. When do you think you'll get them started on their morphs? I'm sure that Dustin kid wouldn't mind being able to count to ten again."

[Jullian]

"Well I really wish we had more time for a solid grounding in meditation techniques," this was an old argument with him and one that had not convinced any of those in charge to give him three weeks of straight meditation. The only time Seiya had not bitten his head off for spending time on meditation was in Nineteen's case but that probably had more to do with Seiya's initial wariness of her than anything else. He'd been more than happy to leave Nineteen without the morphing power until personal knowledge of her personality could fill the holes in her record.

"But I've scheduled class with them all tomorrow. I checked your class schedule and Seiya's to make sure none of mine conflict and I scheduled Dustin first since I feel the same way you do about his arm. Then again, he hasn't told any of us if it's a birth defect or an injury so I'm a little worried what may happen if morphing doesn't heal him. Still, I'm probably the best to handle that anyway I guess..." Jullian trailed off. He wasn't sure if he was the best but he couldn't think of anyone else at the academy that was as sympathetic as he was. They didn't really have a guidance counselor.

"When do you think we should introduce the combat situations?"

[Nineteen]

"It's not a birth defect," Nineteen said, as if it was a simple fact. He hadn't told her, either, but... "It's in the way he moves. He still seems a bit unsure of what to do with that half of his body. I bet if we could see the wound, it'd be all kinds of scar tissue." She wondered if he still tried to grab for things with his missing arm, and that struck her as incredibly sad. She mentally moved on.

"I can get them started on the basics early enough." Almost no one came to the Academy out of shape. In a lot of cases they'd been surviving on their own for years, which involved a lot of running and hiding. Even the ones from the more established free human colonies tended to be fit: there was always a surplus of physical labor chores to go around in those places. "Simple conditioning, stances, kicks and punches. Then we can move on to marksmanship." Nineteen didn't really excel at that, but she'd gotten good enough to teach the recruits, for sure.

"Those are probably all the necessary steps before combat situations. It's a lot more than I think most of us had," she said with a weary smile.

[Jullian]

"Hmm. And I want time to get them through the basics of morphing, especially with the bug morphs. Those almost always seem to cause the most trouble. Not that I'm surprised. I'll also want to work on endurance morphing with them before we do this so...mabye we can start the combat situations two weeks before graduation?"

Jullian had been jotting down notes as he thought through his course schedule. He looked up at Nineteen now as he suggested the timeline. He no longer looked like a slightly too friendly sixteen year old. Now he looked like the experienced morpher and teacher he was though he wasn't aware of it. Only Kovu had pointed out that he looked different when he "put on his teacher hat" and Jullian had dismissed it as infatuated flattery.

[Nineteen]

"Maybe three. Give them some time to dread the next one in between their sessions." Other than that, Nineteen agreed with the placement. They could have plenty of time to know it was coming down the pipes, and by that point they'd have learned pretty much everything they were going to learn at the Academy. Seiya's classes also seemed to lighten up towards the end of each batch of recruits. They wouldn't have to worry about papers while they were suffering through sleepness nights.

"We should throw them a party, too," Nineteen said absently, as if not realizing she had the idea stored away until she was already saying it. "I mean, after everything we put them through -- and by we I mean mostly me -- it might be a welcome gesture. Then again, none of them seem like really big partiers. What do you think?" There was nothing worse than a stale party. And for that matter, throwing parties as a teacher was a lot different than sneaking vodka and rum in and spiking the punch as a recruit.

[Jullian]

Jullian's face lit up when he heard the word party. He worked to regain some type of normal expression. "Maybe not a party but a little ceremony with some celebration afterward would not go amiss. I don't think we have enough recruits to make a party succeed but they should have a chance to celebrate."

He finished making his notes and put the pad away. "And I wouldn't be so sure you'll be the hardest class. They can always morph away your injuries. Nothing takes away morphing fatigue," Jullian said with a wicked grin, party themes already running through his head.

[Nineteen]

Nineteen tried not to let her distaste show when Jullian mentioned a "ceremony." A party, on one hand, sounded like it had the potential for fun. At the very least there could be some good music and some hard liquor pulled out from secret stashes. The word ceremony, however, just made her think of a highschool graduation -- the kind none of them would get to experience, with people in stuffy uniforms staying really still for long periods of time. No thanks.

Nineteen laughed in a conciliatory way when he mentioned morph fatigue. That was very true; their bodies would be as good as they were before. But when it came to which class would result in the most nightmares... she doubted there was any argument. "We'll think about that more when the time comes, I guess," Nineteen said in a way that she hoped didn't betray her skepticism. She sat forward on her bed, and rubbed her legs. "Want to go scare up some food from the Mess?"

[Jullian]

"Yeah, sounds good...as long as the new recruits aren't on cooking duty. Maybe we should check before heading down there." Recruits still had to cycle through as cooks for the moment. Jullian wanted them to get a full time cook because good food was key to a good atmosphere. But cooking had almost become a shadow course at the Academy. Seiya always calmly listened to his suggestions and then, nothing happened. Jullian had decided it was a conspiracy.

"Not that I, uh, don't like everyone else's cooking," Jullian said, carefully not looking in Nineteen's direction. "It's just, I enjoy cooking for myself sometimes. Taste of home I guess." He didn't want to offend anyone.

[Nineteen]

Nineteen snickered, clearly not hurt by the implications. She was well aware that her knowledge of cooking didn't extend beyond 'just nuke it in the microwave for two minutes, it'll be fine.' As far as she was concerned, any food was good food if it had some kind of recognizable protein in it. And on that, the Academy delivered. Tofu was her least favorite, which they seemed to serve quite a bit, but she never complained. After spending years eating slop in a cell (at least until she proved her worth to her captors), food was one of the only things Nineteen never breathed a bad word about, so long as it was edible.

"Maybe one day one of them will surprise you," Nineteen offered. Which was probably not the case. Even if they had a would-be four-star chef on their hands, the ingredients on hand weren't exactly the freshest. They were terrible, but it was a lot of canned and frozen stuff. The life of rebels the world over. Nineteen half-launched off the bed, landing on her feet. "C'mon, it'll be a surprise. Live on the wild side, and all of that."

[Jullian]

"Um," Jullian said as he stood up, his hands clutching his morph text book in front of him. He couldn't really say no could he? And he did have to eat at some point. He tried to eat during regular meal times as often as possible since it allowed him to chat with more people. But he would sometimes just sneak down to the kitchen in the middle of the night and whip something up for himself. Most nights it felt good, like he was indulging himself. Since there were no tubs large enough for a bubble bath and the world's supply of chocolate had practically dried up, it was one of the few ways he could indulge himself.

Lately though, it just reminded him of Kovu and how lonely he was. He was a little annoyed with himself. He shouldn't let it get to him this much. He had a job to do and good people here and he even had a few friends, Adamo among them. Great, now I'm reboudning. Not that Adamo was his type nor Jullian Adamo's. They both tended to be into more masculine guys than themselves. And-

"Yeah, let's go," Jullian said, cutting into his own thoughts. Bad food or not he really needed to get out of his own head.