by Jez Cajiao
He strode over to me as I opened the door, while the other two walked away to look at the weapons. He folded his arms and looked me up and down, grunting in disgust at what he saw. One thick finger shot out and prodded me in the belly, causing my fat to ripple.
“Ouch!” I said, slapping his hand away. Or at least, I tried to. It felt more like I had backhanded a brick wall. There had been no movement on the part of the offending digit, and plenty on the part of my hand.
“You are fat. Weak, lazy, and stupid. This will change, or you will die.” He said, his voice a low rumble. His African accent was so heavy, I barely understood him.
“Okay, so I’m a little outta shape. Seriously, dude, it’s not me we need to talk about. I hate to break it to you, but some fucker stole your pants and left his kid’s shorts in their place!”
My response was instinctive, shit talking as I always did, but the look he gave me made me regret it.
“Little man with a big mouth, I have seen many of you. We will see what it takes to break you now, yes?” He gestured toward the open area and we took up position in the center, about ten feet from each other, facing in.
We started off with a light warm up; stretches, lunges, and running on the spot. I was out of breath by the end of the five minutes, but that was alright. I knew I was unfit and had expected nothing else. After the basics, however, rather than taking a break, it got faster.
One minute of burpees, thirty second rest, a minute of sit-ups, thirty second rest. It went on that way through sets of weights, the rowing machine, the exercise bike, fast rope, squats…the list seemed endless. The worst part was that he did the exercises with me, while lifting weights I couldn’t move, and telling me I was lifting ‘the girls’ weights’. He wasn’t even sweating, while I could barely stand. We did ten different exercises before he let me collapse to the ground for a one minute break. My ass had barely hit the ground when he let me know that there were five more rounds of this, then the ‘warm up’ was over and we would start to exercise properly. I couldn’t spare the air to tell him to kill me now, but I damn well tried to convey it with my eyes.
“Pathetic!” he sneered, looking down at me. “You just lost an hour of your evening rest. I will set you a regime to follow, to try to cure you of your failures, and I will speak to the kitchens. From now on, you will be eating like a man should. Now, up worm! Begin again!”
When I didn’t move quickly enough, he kicked my arm out from under me, then kicked my stomach hard enough to make me lose my breakfast. His disgust as he made me clean up the mess only made me feel worse. I struggled through two more hours with him before I was finally allowed to leave. I collapsed into the shower in my room; my guards had practically carried me there. I was given ten minutes to clean up, with no sign of the girls this time. I luxuriated in the feel of the powerful shower washing the sweat away. Next was a two-hour session of etiquette. The tutor seemed to hold me in almost as much contempt as the Baron had, barely lowering himself to acknowledge my responses. By the time the lesson concluded, it was lunchtime. I was hurried off from the tutor, ignoring his glare as I left. I was already ready for bed, never mind food and an afternoon yet to come.
Lunch was eaten in the staff barracks canteen. Even here, the unmistakable signs of wealth were everywhere, but it was obvious the Baron didn’t lower himself to come here, judging from the good cheer and occasional horseplay I observed. West joined me, taking the piss out of my crippled state. He told me to cheer up, and that I was getting ‘eased into training gently’. I told him to go suck a bucket of cocks and looked down at the ‘drink’ I’d been given alongside my water. It was thick, almost sludgy, full of gritty mush, and it honestly tasted like ass. At least, I decided it tasted like ass, or perhaps as though someone had already eaten it once.
The ‘meal’ consisted of a liter of water, this ass-sludge, two plain chicken breasts, a ten-egg omelet, and a load of kale.
“What the hell is this rubbish?” I asked West, prodding at the leafy greens, and he laughed, tucking into his enchiladas.
“Training food, mate! Builds muscles and all that; plus all the protein makes your muscles heal faster. I heard you’d had a meal plan set. Seems they expect to get your belly gone and you looking like a real man in no time!”
“I hate you all.” I muttered, forcing myself to ignore the real food all around me as I chewed down the rough equivalent of half a tree.
After lunch was swimming for an hour, with a short German woman shouting at me to go faster, harder. Telling her she sounded like my ex didn’t go down well and earned me an extra ten lengths after I’d already almost drowned from exhaustion.
Lastly, I was taken to a dojo and beaten soundly by one trainer after another for three hours more. In the end, the ‘training’ was far worse than Army bootcamp had been. The only consolation was that the last hour of training was slowly moving through the forms they’d taught me, giving me an hour-long cool down, which left me surprisingly refreshed.
When I finally dragged myself back to my room, I could barely stand. The pair of maids were waiting for me, and they ensured my every desire was met. This became the way of my life. The morning and evening massages from the girls were painful, but starting and ending the day with them made a hell of a difference, and the diet, while awful tasting, made a visible difference in just a few days. After the first week, I hated the world and wanted to die, despite the ladies that came to me. In the second week, my etiquette and behavior lessons were replaced with woodland survival skills and first aid. The insane workouts stayed the same, though. The third week was filled with stranger studies; tracking, hunting, and stealth. These lessons, I took to with gusto, as I discovered that I loved this kind of training, and when the fourth week came and I began to be trained in weapons, I was in my element. I took to the sword, mace, spear, and axe training with a joy I’d never known before. Even the basics of archery were covered.
The weapon I truly grew to love, though, was the Naginata. A polearm variant with a sword blade, it could be used as a staff, a spear, a lance, and most of all, it was an insanely dangerous sword with a really long handle. I didn’t care about the winces my arms masters gave me. I just loved that it was essentially a giant murder stick.
An hour a day of swimming was changed to two of hours riding and animal care, and I rode across wide fields, through snowy forests teeming with game, and explored valleys near the Baron’s citadel. Guards encircled me at all times, keeping me firmly in sight, but as time passed, I cared less and less about them. I asked constantly about Tommy, always receiving the same answers: that he went through this same training, won his fights, and went through the portal. That was all they could tell me.
Soon my training was expanded to include ‘magical theory,’ and when I looked obviously unimpressed at the nature of the lesson, my trainer, an ancient oriental woman, proceeded to summon a flame to her hand with only a few muttered words and a gesture. I sat there, stunned, as I watched the flame in her hand.
“Still, you do not believe?” she said, clearly displeased. “You think this a mere illusion?” Before I could move, the flames spread across her hand like a glove, and she grabbed my hand in hers. I screamed in agony, feeling my skin begin to melt, the fat beneath crisping and popping in the unnatural heat. I tried to yank my hand free, only to find that the guards on either side of me had stepped forward, and they restrained me as she burned my hand to the bone. I almost passed out from the pain, screaming in agony and feeling the world swimming out of focus, before I felt a cooling sensation flow through me. It concentrated in my injured hand and began to itch like crazy, the pain rapidly disappearing as new skin, muscles, and tendons regrew themselves.
I snatched my hand from her grasp, staring at it in wonder. Even the scar from where I’d crashed my first stolen bike as a kid was gone.
“What the hell!” I whispered, gawking at my hand. The guards released me and backed away, even as Xiao sat down heavily behind her desk, pan
ting with the exertion of two spells cast so close together.
“You believe…me now?” she asked, trying to catch her breath.
“Yes, fuck yes! How the hell did you do that?” I demanded.
“Three things, boy; The Will, the Word, and the Motion. If your Will is strong enough, you can force the ambient mana to assume the form you wish. Then, you give it life through the Word, directing the formation. Finally, you give it the Motion. The more complex the spell, the greater the Motion required, although all three obviously increase in effort and complexity as you cast more and more advanced spells.”
“Will and Word are reasonably clear, but the Motion?”
“Like this, fool!” She started to gesture with one hand, but when nothing happened after a few seconds, I smirked at her with one raised eyebrow.
“Look, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. I hear performance anxiety takes a toll as you get older. Maybe you should see a therapist, get some Viagra…”
“Fool! I am not casting! I am demonstrating the gestures for a simple Firebolt spell! I will not cast again until my mana recovers.”
“Sure, sure, you weren’t even trying. I totally believe you. And so do they; right, guys?” I said, looking over my shoulder at the guards.
“Mana is extremely limited here, Gaijin! It will take me days to recover the mana for a simple spell, and months for a more complex one. Why do you think the Baron and his fellow nobles only cast the great spells once every five years? The amount of mana required to cast it is truly awe inspiring and even then, with all the Great Houses contributing, only a single person can slip through to the other side. The power needed to breach the walls of reality is far beyond anything your feeble mind can comprehend!”
“Okay, so color me impressed,” I said, trying to downplay just how impressed I actually was. “If magic is real, and I’m gonna be chucked through a portal to the other side soon, how about you tell me a little more about what I’m expected to do once I’m there? I’m getting training in all sorts, but swords and shields, as much fun as they are, won’t last long against guns. Why not send me through with an assault rifle, and a fuck ton of ammo?”
“The Great Portal is extremely delicate. Explosives could be set off by the mana density near it alone, and what is ammunition but tiny explosives? You want that strapped to you as you jump between worlds?”
“Okay, point taken. What about when I’m there, then? Is there no way to, I don’t know, put them in a lead box so that they survive the jump?” I asked cautiously.
“No! Think about it! The amount of lead shielding needed to surround all the ammunition would mean you would carry nothing but boxes, and you would be unarmed after a few short battles. No guns! The Baron has been most specific in the past.”
“Yeah, but ‘in the past’ means that maybe he’ll have changed his mind…”
“No! Now leave it. There is no point to this, and I grow weary of you. You will be delivered to a location that was previously used for portals in the UnderVerse. Your portal will latch onto the weakened area of spacetime that was left behind. Once there, you must travel to the Capital, use the Baron’s Glyph to open the Great Portal from that side, and the first step will be done. A portal opened from the UnderVerse will be self-powering, and far more stable. The Baron will lead us across, and we will finally be able to live in the realm we were meant to, with the POWER we deserve!”
The more she spoke to me, the more I really didn’t want these dicks getting back there. I nodded to her and listened as she ranted on about the life she deserved and the power that we would all wield. When the lesson finally ended, I was taken back to the training area, where West waited for me.
“Hey, you ready for round two?” he asked, gesturing toward a clearly marked ring. I grinned savagely and climbed in, fully intending to teach the bastard a lesson.
There was a lesson taught, and it was violent, but unsurprisingly, it was West that walked out of the ring, while I lay there in a puddle of blood. I had found during these weeks of training that whatever other genetics I had, one definite plus was that my healing was faster than anyone seemed to expect. Wounds and damage that they expected to take days to heal repaired itself in hours. It was scant comfort as I crawled out of the ring and the big Nigerian told me that we would be increasing our training regime tomorrow.
I made it back to my room with the help of my guards again and the girls took care of me, and my…needs…but oh so gently. I was incapable of anything more energetic.
The following morning, I was rescued from a particularly painful workout session by West.
“Well, lad, the Baron’s decided it’s time for your Pearl. You got your big boy pants on, or should we drag you kicking and screaming?” He winked at me as he said it, and I grinned despite myself. He was an asshole, a highly trained soldier that worked for the Baron, but I couldn’t help but like the guy. He’d obviously gotten on well with Tommy and had transferred that good feeling to me.
“Aye, you old bastard, I’m ready.” I said, putting the weights back on the rack and wiping myself down with a towel. The Nigerian refused to give me his name, barely speaking at all beyond telling me “More!” whenever I collapsed in exhaustion, but I liked him. Leaving his training area a mess just smacked of disrespect to me. Plus, if Xiao could summon fire like that, maybe the Geas was real. As such, there was no need for me to be an asshole all the time.
With that, he gestured toward the door and we both went out into the hall. West led me down a couple of corridors and into the medical section of the Baron’s castle or citadel or whatever it was classed as. He waited until the corridor was clear at either end and paused, turning to look at me seriously.
“Listen, before we go in there, you need to know something. The Baron seems to feel you still need to learn your place, and he’s ordered me to report any slights towards him that you might show. No! Don’t say anything!” He jabbed me in the chest with a finger and went on. “He’s been asking which of the maids you prefer, if any. When I couldn’t give him a favorite, he said that they can all be disciplined the next time you fail, and maybe that’ll teach you respect.”
I froze, thinking about the girls, feeling anger and fear rise in equal measure. “Wait… no, he wouldn’t! They serve him, for fuck’s sake…”
“He wouldn’t think twice! He might decide to withhold their wages and give them a stern lecture, have them flogged, or hung, drawn, and quartered, depending on his mood, so for their sake, bite your tongue around him, okay?”
With that, he spun around and started walking again. I stood for a second in shock, then hurried to catch up. My mind spun as I realized the Baron would do it all and probably worse, and he would make West do the dirty work, punishing me twice over. I had to make him believe I was loyal, for now at least. We passed down another corridor, this one decorated in black and red, with gold leaf practically dripping from the walls. West informed me that we were approaching an area the Baron frequented. When we arrived, two doctors stood waiting, along with a handful of guards and Madame Xiao.
The crazy little magic teacher opened a vault at the back of the room while I stripped down at the doctor’s insistence. They led me to a chair with restraints on the arms, legs, waist, and throat, and strapped me down, pulling each one as tight as it would go. I could barely breathe.
I laid there, repeating in my mind that it was the only way to see Tommy, I could do this, it was fine... All the while, I had visions of the Baron coming in and starting to torture me for shits and giggles.
After what seemed like ages, Xiao finally stood over me, lifting a small, gleaming Pearl in her thickly gloved right hand. I heard a noise to my left and saw the Baron wander in, although he was mercifully quiet, keeping out of the way and seemingly content to just watch. I forced myself to not meet his eyes.
“You know what this is?” Xiao asked me in her usual clipped tones.
“Aye, I do.” I whispered.
“Then you know you
need it. When it begins, it will assess you, locating its primary station on your most advanced meridian. Then you will be given a choice to make. Depending on what it sees in you, you will be able to decide on the location of a secondary node. This will strengthen an area of your body in different ways. Each Pearl is unique, so only you can choose what is right for you. I have no doubt you will choose poorly, however, as you are a fool.”
I grimaced and stared at her. When she said nothing else, and realized I would not respond, she nodded before continuing.
“Once the Pearl has taken up its station, it will expand throughout your body, mapping your nerves and neural pathways, amongst other systems. This is where the weak usually fail and die. If you wish to live up to your potential, and indeed to live at all, then you will not surrender, you must remain conscious until the end. Are you ready?” she asked, one eyebrow raised in question.
I tried to speak. I wanted to know what the meridians were, what would happen if I passed out and how long this would take. A hundred other questions filled my mind, but all I managed was a croak as the doctor by my head tightened my throat restraint.
“Excellent.” she said, and she lowered the Pearl to my chest, releasing it and stepping away quickly. As soon as the Pearl came into contact with my skin, I felt a slight tickle. I twisted my head as far as I could, practically choking myself to see it, and saw a faint haze around it, which grew outward slowly. As the haze grew closer to my face, I saw that it was made up of thousands upon thousands of tiny strands. So thin they made a hair seem huge in comparison, they spread out across my body, multiplying and growing thinner and thinner, until I was covered with a glistening, hazy blanket. I could feel it flowing over my tightly clamped lips, up and into my nose, over my eyes, and into my ears. I tried not to panic.