Chapter 3: It Bleeds

The warm summer breeze gently ruffled through Pierre's short blonde hair, making him look younger than his age. He stood at attention with the other soon to be soldiers that were in his group on the man made battle ground. Pierre had trained here for as long as he could remember, but today was different. Today the instructors had asked for everyone to dress light with just the issued hunter green pants and tank top, instead of the usual training armor. No need to worry, nothing they can through at me will surprise me, and I certainly won't fail at it, Pierre said to himself with his usual attitude.

"Today, we are going to test your skills at hand to hand combat, but not with a person with safety armor on. Today you will actually feel the hits of your opponents. You have been randomly paired up with an opponent with your specific skill level," a burly man dressed in combat fatigues announced.

Pierre could barely keep from laughing as he made his way up to the instructor to see who he was paired with. This was going to be too easy for him. I mean who is even close to my skill level, Pierre smirked as he reached the burly instructor.

"Pierre Dupree," Pierre announced as he reached the man.

The man quickly scanned through a list of names before answering. "It says that you will be last up with a "unnamed" opponent," the man said as he were discussing the weather and not the importance of the matches.

What is Umbrella going to pull out of its ass this time, Pierre thought as he took his place around a round dirt patch. All of the young soldiers gathered around the dirt spot, awaiting the battles like a pack of ravenous wolves.

Although it was only an hour past dawn the sun seemed to already be beating down the young men as they broke a sweat. Pierre had never liked the fact that he had to watch all of the boys who lacked skill compete before he got his chance. It seemed useless to save the best for the last to him. Out of all of his group, and for all he knew the whole facility, he was the only one at sixteen years old who had already been graced with a mission. I don't understand why I am still hanging around here with these bunch of worthless students, he mumbled as he watched the first competitors enter the ring.

A small built boy with short blonde hair entered the ring; along with a guy who looked much older than he and who sported many battle scars along his arms and face. This wouldn't be much of a match. He knew the bigger guy pretty well; he had been in his barracks before Pierre was moved to another one as all trainees were. His name was Marius Vincent and he was nearly 18 if Pierre remembered correctly. Over all he was probably the closest to Pierre's skill level but Marius was still not as good as I am.

As the two squared up to face each other you could really tell the difference between them. While the shorter boy had dirty blonde hair and dark green eyes, Marius looked like an exact opposite with closely cropped jet-black hair and dark blue eyes. The size difference wasn't even close to balanced either with the shorter boy looking like a rabbit next to an elephant.

As the match began Pierre knew that it wasn't going to be worth watching. Marius quickly landed two hard punches in succession to the boy's jaw, which left it looking lopsided. Pierre soon grew bored of watching it and began looking around the make shift ring to see if he knew any of the other boys. They all pretty much looked the same, all of them were about his height and weight, and they all had dirt stained faces from the dirt that the competitors were kicking up.

The day dwindled on for Pierre, one boring match after the other. Until, out of the corner of his eye he caught a man walking up from the direction of the "corporate" buildings. The man was in his early 40s with black hair and he wore a matching black business suit. Pierre immediately recognized the man as Mr. O'Neal, one of Lord Spencer's lap dogs. Mr. O'Neal often came down from his office to check out on how the new breed of killers was coming, so Pierre wasn't too concerned with him for the moment until he saw someone on his flank. Running along side of him was a young girl who Pierre thought was around his age of sixteen. She was about 5'6 around 125-lbs. he guessed with shoulder length auburn hair and deep-set green eyes.

"Don't tell me that this place has gone co-ed," Marius mumbled beside him.

"No way, that little girl looks like anyone could break her in two, surely they aren't going to put her in here with us," Pierre said as a slight smile began to raise at the corner of his mouth.

"Good morning O'Neal, what can I do for you today?" the instructor said meeting Mr. O'Neal before he got to the training ring.

"I have just come down to bring you your "unnamed" opponent to you from the corporate building," Mr. O'Neal said as he gave the girl a push towards the instructor.

"Are you sure?" the instructor said expecting it to be a joke.

"I am not the joking type, now I do believe it is time for the last match, and if you don't mind I think I'll stay and watch for myself," Mr. O'Neal said flatly.

"Yes sir, does she have a name?" the instructor said skeptically.

"Madison, do I need to read her dog tags for you? I thought we paid you for something," Mr. O'Neal said coldly.

"No, sir," the instructor said as he turned to lead Madison to the ring.

Pierre cringed as he realized that this girl would be his opponent. Well, I suppose it'll be an easy victory at least, Pierre said as he strode quickly to the ring.

As Pierre stepped into the ring, he noticed a small scar just above Madison's right eyebrow. He usually would have noticed something like that from a great distance, but today he had overlooked it. Pierre moved his feet to square up his body as he had been taught to do as Madison did the same. Foolish girl, she really thinks that she has half of a chance. This is going to be enjoyable. Pierre's ears strained to hear the instructor call for the start, as his dead eyes stared at his unworthy opponent.

"WAR!" the burly instructor yelled signaling the start of the match.

Pierre wanted to see how much fight this girl thought she had in her, so he pulled his hands down away from his face and lightly stepped towards the bowed up girl. She did nothing, she kept her hands up and her feet bouncing slightly off of the dirt floor but she didn't make a move towards him as he crept dangerously close to her. We'll if she wanted to play this way he might as well just go ahead and get a technical knock out on her and move along with the rest of the day, he thought as he brought his hands back level with his chest.

No sooner had he done this than he felt a stinging pain shoot through him starting at his nose. She had hit him, and hit him good seeing as she had broken his nose. Seeing his own blood infuriated him, and knowing that his nose was broken because of a stupid mistake only fueled the fire. He immediately swung at her aiming to the right of her jaw. He swung with all he could, and hit only the air sending his arm back to him like a boomerang. Madison sprung up from her crouching position and hit her mark landing a shot where Pierre had originally aimed his sending him sprawling backwards.

"PEACE!" the instructor called out signaling the end of the match.

Both competitors stood up, but Madison was the only one that was not out of breath and bloody.

"Let this be a lesson to you all, no matter how tough you think you are if you let your opponent know that you bleed you let them know that you can be killed," the instructor said verbally slapping Pierre in the face.

Mr. O'Neal silently strode back to Lord Spencer's office. He didn't know why he felt the need to rush; by now Spencer would know what had happened on the training field with his prized student Pierre. He slowed his pace and dusted off his business suit. Why they had to practice in the dirt like a bunch of dogs was beyond him, but then again who was he to second- guess Lord Spencer. As he reached the decorative oak door of Lord Spencer's office he quietly knocked three times.

"Come in, Mr. O'Neal," Lord Spencer said in his usual aloof voice.

"What do you think of Pierre's performance at the arena," O'Neal said as he stepped into the cool air of Lord Spencer's office.

"I think he did fine, have they given out the teams yet?" Lord Spencer asked without answering O'Neal's question first.

"No, not yet they are going to do that after rifle practice today," O'Neal reported back.

"Do you know who will be in Pierre's team yet?" Lord Spencer asked already knowing the answer to his own question.

"Yes sir, it will be Pierre Dupree, Marius Vincent, and Madison Roberts," O'Neal responded.