One of the only good things about this place was that there was not much post battle clean up to be done. I had no experience on the battlefield, but if we had to get rid of the hundreds of corpses in and around our base, it would probably take us the better part of the day, even considering how many people we had to do that. Although this time, we had dead people to properly send off. Three people.

The first to die was the one eaten by the boss. After the creature dissolved into mist we found his mangled and half dissolved body where the boss had fallen. It was enough of a sight to make most people sick, including our nurse, Ciara. The second fell prey when the line broke, someone saw him stumble and fall to the rushing creatures. There were no mortal wounds, but plenty of stabs. There was no way to perfectly determine the cause of death, but Ciara’s educated guess was that he received too much venom for his body to handle.

The third death wasn’t John, but the person who had been stabbed beside him. The boss had managed to stab his heart. I believe this is what we would call a lucky critical hit if this was a video game. This isn’t. The smell of burning flesh in another funeral pyre reminded me of that.

John had survived, but was currently in a light coma. His wounds were healing at an abnormal pace, and Ciara had shared with us that he should have died. Whatever was keeping him alive while healing was beyond her understanding of medicine. Which made it hard for her to even estimate how long before he would wake up. We could only hope it would be soon, although I doubted we would have his assistance for the next wave.

With this new development the political landscape of the group shifted considerably. Will was John’s unofficial second-in-command, but without the big man, there was little he could do against Johann’s influence. The first thing the firefighter did was reorganize the fighting groups. He broke John’s group apart under the argument of making a more balanced fighting force. With John out of the picture, Johann had no trouble admitting that the people under John were better trained. Praising John while diluting his adversary’s assets, he created a situation that was very hard for anyone to argue against.

Personally I had no inclination to support John, or Johann for that matter. For all the conversations I had with the man, I knew they were all politically motivated since the first time in the auditorium. I didn’t care. As long as the group functioned in a way that benefited the collective, it mattered little who was in charge.

Ani and Sarah hadn’t stayed long after the wave was over, they clearly had no intention of getting involved with the group. Differently from last time, Sarah was the one who invited me to meet. She asked me if I wanted to train with her and I said yes, but not before asking if I could take Noah with me. She didn’t mind, only shrugging as a response.

Ani was unusually quiet after the wave, we had barely exchanged a couple of words before she left with Sarah. The more I tried to understand her, the more confused I was. Sometimes she seemed so worried and interested, but other times she had this cold aloofness that openly created a wall between us. I did my best not to dwell on it too much, but as we spent more time around each other, it was getting increasingly hard.

Noah and I walked towards the location where Sarah instructed me to meet her. It was a building three blocks away from our main base. With nothing better to do as we moved between the non descript empty buildings, Noah and I talked about the previous battle.

“Shit was fucked up this time, mate. I can’t believe a spider like that could exist.”

“I thought those were standard where you come from.”

“Fuck off, mate. The biggest one I have seen was like, this size.” Noah spread two hands together, which made for a huge spider by Earth standards.

“That would have been a terrifying thought if not for what we fought earlier.” I scoffed.

“Yeah, tell me about it dude. And that maw? Bloody hell, spiders with teeth! What is next? Spiders with wings?”

“Don’t jinx it, Noah. Fucking hell, I hope whatever is watching us isn’t fishing for ideas.” I frowned at him.

“Nah, mate. Whatever is running this place has a plenty fucked up imagination already.”

I couldn’t deny that, but there was something else I wanted to ask him.

“How was the bow and arrow in the fight? I thought I would get help from you against the momma spider.” I chuckled at the nickname he gave the abomination.

“Sorry mate. Poor me couldn’t afford more arrows. They ran out halfway through the battle.”

“It’s alright. Maybe we can get you some more before the next one. Did you manage to recover everything?”

“Most of them, yeah. Two of them had a broken tip and one had a broken shaft. Not so bad considering how many I shot.”

“A five percent loss isn't that bad, considering how chaotic the battle was.”

Noah had a vacant eye for a while and he mumbled something I couldn’t hear.

“Right, yeah. Five percent. Good math.”

“The perks of being an engineer.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot that. You really don’t strike me as one.”

“Is it the spear or the homeless looking outfit?”

We both laughed at that. After my scuffle with the boss I had plenty of new tears and holes on my outfit, a new one was already due. I was dreading the point expenditure, but I knew I had to buy a new one before the next wave. I planned to use this one for training and get a fresh change of clothes afterwards.

We continued making some small talk on the way, as I took the opportunity to take a few jabs at him regarding Gabriela. But it only reinforced what she said. Either she was right or they had both agreed on the same excuse. Regardless, I had nothing to tease him about. I would have to look for other avenues to get under his skin.

“Hello boys. Took you long enough.” Sarah greeted us as we turned a bend and found ourselves a few meters away from her.

“Hey.” I shot back, while Noah quietly waved.

Sarah motioned for us to get inside the building, and we did. It was, unsurprisingly, very spartan. Devoid of any furniture, there was quite a large empty space with a spiral staircase leading to the upper floor. The only exception was Ani meditating in a corner. She had her eyes closed and her large backpack beside her. I didn’t have much time to pay attention to her as Sarah started explaining how she wanted the training session to turn out.

Her idea was that we started with calisthenics, followed by shadow training and then spar. I had no objections and neither did Noah. We started immediately. First she showed us some forms and how to properly perform them. I wasn’t familiar with all of them, but most were the common ones that I had practiced during my gym classes in school. There was nothing overly complicated or hard, it was quite easy for me to understand after seeing her do it once or twice, sometimes accompanied by a pointer here or there.

Noah, on the other hand, had a hard time grasping some of the exercises. Sarah had to, more than once, get very close and personal with him to show the proper execution of the form. After the second time, when I caught his sly smile when glancing at me, I understood why he was having such a hard time. Sneaky bastard.

Part of me felt inclined to blow his plan, but Sarah didn’t seem to care that much. After the more, up close example, he quickly learned it. She was patient and seemed to be genuinely happy when her lesson got through his, supposedly, thick skull. Despite prolonging our training session for a few minutes, I didn’t mind. We weren’t exactly in a hurry.

The rest of the training flowed without any issues. Despite Noah’s difficulty in grasping the concept of shadow boxing and requiring more assistance from Sarah. I took this moment to also refresh my striking skills. Sarah was very experienced, she had a career in MMA, although she wasn’t on the world stage yet. With her pointers and advice I felt like I had improved after the session.

I didn’t neglect my spear forms, and I would go as far as saying that it was the focus of my shadow training. Which made me realize something I had so far ignored. I had zero previous experience with the weapon, but somehow I instinctively knew what movements I had to do to exercise with the weapon. At first, when I bought the weapon, I had done what I assumed was right. Stab, pull, overhead blow and slash. I was probably very awkward with the weapon, testing where to hold, the proper way to leverage distance, etc. Now, after I had acquired the skill and even leveled it, I knew more. A lot more.

Rotating the weapon for an overhead strike, followed by a short thrust, left foot forward, rotate my waist, sideways strike, lower body center, diagonal slash, double spin of the spear, thrust and stab. It was fluid, even if simple. The more I tried to envision how to use the weapon, the more engrossed I felt in its usage.

“It’s weird, right?” Sarah’s voice interrupted my trance.

“What?”

“Had you trained with a spear before coming here?”

“No, never.”

“So, isn’t it weird that you can do all this in such a short time?”

“Yeah, I guess you are right. It’s very weird. It’s like it's not really me, but the weapon that is telling me what to do.”

“I feel the same way.” Sarah held her sword and I couldn’t help but stare at it. Paying better attention to it, it reminded me of a gladius, but longer than I thought they would be.

“At first I just hacked away with abandon. The creatures were stupid enough that it didn’t really matter, you know. Now, I know what to do. I know how to better leverage it and my instincts just guide me. It’s a little bit irritating.” Sarah continued.

“Why do you feel irritated? Isn’t it great we can learn a skill like this in such a short time?”

“Yeah, but I can’t help but think of all the years I spent tirelessly training. My dad was a fighter and I started training very early. Took me years to develop a proper fighting instinct. I had to lose a lot. I didn’t always lose, but I always felt like I learned more from losing than from winning, but now…” She stopped and I respectfully waited.

“Now to lose means to die and I am learning so much through winning that it just… doesn’t feel fair. It feels like my life prior to this held very little meaning if anyone can learn so fast in here. We have been here for four days. Four fucking days, and look at us? How long before my ability with the swords surpasses my twenty five years of training? A year? Six months? Three months?” I had spent a few years of my life training, but always a hobby. As much as I would like to say I understood her, Sarah had a very unique perspective on the whole thing. One that I felt hard pressed to disagree.

“Shit. I didn’t want to dump all this on you.” Sarah spoke with some sadness in her voice.

“It’s alright. I am glad you shared, it does give me a new perspective on this whole thing.”

“Thanks for listening. Anyway, ready for that spar?”

“Sure. Just go easy on me, alright?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t be harsh on you.” Sarah laughed, and I somehow doubted I would get out of this spar unscathed.