"It's fitting, isn't it." A young man mused as he and another, sloghtly taller one settled into their new bunks. The other man simply raised an eyebrow. "It's the beginning of the midnight madness."
"Ah." Was his only response. Aleksis was more quiet than his best friend and companion Nicoli. They were settling into their new quarters at the Academy. They were the very first Ranger recruits to see who would pilot the brand new Jaegers. They were in the army and had assisted int the ground evacuations for the Kaiju attacks that ha rocked the world. He guessed Nicoli had a point. In the summer this far north in Siberia the sun doesn't set. Midnight madness it was called. The entire world certainly was feeling it however.
"Come on, lets go." Nicoli broke through his thoughts. It was time to meet the other recruits and start evaluations.
They walked in, taller and wider than most the recruits. Their was one recruit however that caught their eye. She was more than a foot shorter than the pair and one of Aleksis's thighs was thicker than her entire body.
"What are you doing here Sasha?" Nicoli growled when he saw her.
"Warming up." She shrugged. Aleksis couldn't decide if He should laugh or be infuriated.
"Does father, Vlad, or Demetri know you're here?" He demanded.
"They will once you inevitably tell them." She shrugged. Sasha was Nicoli's younger sister and youngest sibling.
"Aleksis!" Nicoli complained. "Talk some since into her!"
"How?" He asked honestly. He was practically her older brother as well an knew she didn't take no for an answer.
Her mother had died when she was young leaving her father, a General, to raise her and her brothers. All the men in her life constantly treated her as if she was fragile. Her father had put her in Ballet instead of sports. He made her wear dresses and tried to make her as girly as possible to make up for not having a mother.
But all she wanted to do was be like her older brothers. She had been able to convince them to teach her to fight if only on the basis she should know just in case. Against her fathers wishes she had joined the Army just as her brothers had. And now she was in the Ranger program. She might be tiny but she was tough.
"I'm not leaving Nicoli." She glared.
"It's still not safe." Aleksis contributed. "You would be sparing with all of us, and no one will go easy on you."
"Good, maybe I'll get a workout then." She shot back. Before either of them could respond, the instructor walked in. The all formed into a single line.
"Welcome to training." He said as he looked over the group. "You ten have been selected as the best of the best. Now we will be drilling you all to see of any of you are drift compatible. We will be doing initial sparing drills so you all and I can get an over since of each of you. Then you all will be getting EEG's and doing drills in pairs. In one week we will have our drift pairs and hopefully more so we can get more Jaegers out."
"Sir, yes Sir!" They all responded. He looked at his paper and saw that most of the people in the group were either related or close friends. Then a name popped up at him.
"Slepushkina?" He asked. Sasha stepped forward and he grinned. "Glad to have a female in the group. I've been saying we need some. I'm assuming the Slephuskin is your brother?"
"Sir, yes Sir." They both responded.
"This should be fun." He set up a rotation system that made sure everyone would fight each other. He had them spar in 120 second increments so he could walk between them fighting to simply observe them. Most of the siblings were the better matches. They obviously knew how each other fought well. However there were a few, like Sasha and Aleksis, who were able to match their opponents styles easily. Aleksis would simply use brute force to overpower them while Sasha would out think them.
The instructor, Belakov, easily enjoyed several matches. Aleksis and Nicoli, Nicoli and Sasha, and Sasha and Aleksis. All three were the most adaptable fighters but it was in those fight their true fighting nature came out. Aleksis and Nicoli were brute force that didn't let the opponent get in anything. They would go in close so the opponent had little room to maneuver and used precise techniques to take each other on. Sasha was the opposite. She liked to dodge and analyze before attacking so fast the opponent had no time to react. It was a tie in all three matches.
"Alright, shower up!" He said. "Take your EEG's tonight, shower again, and be ready for drills tomorrow. We will be doing basic drills with all partners tomorrow, then double sparring the next. I'll then start to place you with people you are good with and EEG compatible with. Finally when I think we have some good matches we'll do some preliminary Neuro handshakes."
With that they were dismissed.
"Sasha." Nicoli came into step with her, Aleksis on her other side. "You did good."
"I know." She smiled, but she did appreciate it.
"You have a good left hook." Aleksis agreed, rubbing his cheek. The siblings laughed at him. Sasha and Nicoli had both gotten him in the same place during their matches.
"See you tomorrow." Nicoli sighed. "I'll have to call dad tonight though."
"I know." Sasha nodded. She walked away knowing she was in the right place and the brother closest to her in age might also agree.