CHAPTER 79
"WAAAAAAAKE UP! UP! UP! UP!"
The aggressive, raging sound of a bullhorn sliced through the air, roughly dragging all of the Miyagi-Dos from their sleep. Although they all lay in tents that had been firmly zipped shut, there was no doubt that it was Johnny yelling through the bullhorn, and their theory was only made certain when they felt him violently shaking each tent from outside, forcing them all to wake up. Inside their tent, both Robby and Tory swore violently at Johnny, demanding for him to be hit with every curse under the sun, neither of them morning people at all. The same could be said in every single other tent around them.
"Do we have to do this shit?" Tory murmured quietly to Robby.
"YES!" Johnny's loud bark came from right outside their tent, overhearing the girl. "And maybe I'll ignore the fact that you're in the wrong tent. And I won't question what the two of you were doing last night!"
Checkmate. Even though Robby and Tory hadn't actually done anything that night, they knew that the one rule Daniel had for them the night before had been about sleeping arrangements. They had made sure neither couple was sleeping together - Robby was supposed to be with Miguel and Sam with Tory - and they knew that Daniel wouldn't be pleased at all to hear that they had broken that rule. Needless to say, they had little choice but to slowly rise and exit their tents, along with the rest of the teenagers, all of whom were still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. For valid reason too, as the sun hadn't even risen yet. It was still almost pitch black, the fading campfire providing minimal light, and yet they were already being summoned by their sensei.
A few minutes later, just as the students had started to finally wake up a little, the rest of the senseis arrived. Chozen, Daniel and Barnes all walked over to them and when they did, the students all noticed something about their senseis.
"Ugh, why do you all look so… normal?" Demetri grumbled. "I spent the whole night sleeping on a rock. I can't feel my back!"
"Yeah, what did you guys do? Bring beds for yourselves?" Hawk asked.
"We didn't sleep here. We went to a motel." Johnny replied. Immediately, outrage rang around the group of students.
"What?! You guys got to stay at a motel?! How come we didn't get to do that?!" Anthony exclaimed.
"Turn 50 years old. Become a sensei. Maybe then you'll understand." Daniel replied. "Anyways, Chris wasn't feeling well at all so we had to drive him home last night. By the time we made it back to this area, we figured it would be easier to just crash at a nearby motel."
"Not fair." Bert grumbled. Looking at the alert, active senseis, they could tell that their senseis' night had been a lot less… primitive than their students'. They were all groomed, warm and happy. Their students on the other hand were all hungry, exhausted and freezing.
"Eh. Having to put up with all of you, we've earned it." Barnes replied. "You really didn't think we were going to spend 3 nights sleeping in a campsite, did you?"
"Is that even safe? Leaving us alone?" Sam asked. "What if one of us got sick? What were we supposed to do?"
"You're adults. Figure it out, princess." Johnny snapped back.
"You have phones. And we left a car with at least a half tank here. With the keys in the car. Most of you have licenses. Get help. Or call us." Daniel instructed. "We're getting off topic here. Training for today is about to start."
"Now? It's not even sunrise yet." Miguel complained.
"Yeah, and we haven't eaten breakfast." Robby added.
"Tough." Johnny responded. "Besides, quite a few of you could probably benefit from missing a meal."
"Anyways, let's get started." Chozen interrupted all of them. Daniel nodded.
"Yeah, let's." Daniel agreed. "Everyone, come with us."
The Miyagi-Dos followed their senseis over to the edge of the lake, all of them still pretty exhausted. Sleep was threatening to overtake them, even as they walked over to the edge of the lake. When they arrived, they stood in a line, facing their senseis, trying hard to keep their eyes open from the tiredness and stifle their yawns.
"Sensei, why are we here?" Miguel mumbled, starting to fade already from tiredness.
"QUIETTTT!" Johnny bellowed, causing everyone asleep to jump in shock. "Listen up! This is going to be the hardest training of your lives. Some of you, even fully awake, are too weak for it. There's no way in hell you're going to be able to do that if you're tired! How many of you are tired?!"
Pretty much everyone raised their hand. Johnny smirked at Barnes, who knew exactly what his colleague was doing and grinned back.
"What are we doing?" Demitri slurred, his eyes closed and him in a daze, asleep but still standing.
"Close your eyes. Stand on one leg." Johnny demanded to everyone. The group reluctantly stood on a single leg, wobbling for balance as they were all still tired. Johnny stood opposite Miguel - who was on the far left of the group - and Barnes stood opposite Hawk - who was on the far right. The two senseis grinned at each other.
"Ready?" Barnes asked Johnny. Johnny smirked and nodded.
"Hell, yeah." Johnny replied. With that, Johnny and Barnes pushed every single student into the frigid waters of the icy lake. The freezing cold, as well as the shock of being in there, caused them all to wake the hell up immediately.
"Oh, we should have asked them if they can all swim." Barnes remarked afterwards. Johnny raised an eyebrow.
"Nobody can't swim. Everyone can. They just need the right incentive, and drowning seems like a pretty good one to get legs working so they'll be fine."
Daniel looked at Johnny, incredulously, having watched all of this unfold in front of him.
"You can't be serious?!" Daniel exclaimed. "You're insane, you know that?"
"Eh. What are they gonna do? Sue me?" Johnny shot back. Daniel rolled his eyes at Johnny as the students slowly climbed out of the lake, absolutely freezing but wide-awake now.
"All right!" Johnny shouted. "Now, I ask again, how many of you are tired?"
No one raised their hand this time.
"Mr. Larusso, can I go grab my jacket?" Demetri asked. "I have medically diagnosed thin skin and I…"
"QUIETTTTT!" Johnny bellowed, cutting him off. "You don't want to be cold? Tell your body not to be cold! I don't give a shit about your comfort!"
Demetri blushed and stepped back into the line of the students.
"Now, let's begin." Johnny said in a slightly quieter but still pretty loud voice. "Today's training exercise… a race!"
"But not just any race." Barnes continued. "This race will yeah involve speed, but it will also involve strength, stamina, balance, agility, everything that you will need to succeed in the Taikai."
"It's an obstacle race." Johnny explained. "You guys are going to be split off into random pairs and each of you is given a map of this whole forest and a compass. On the map, marked out, are 15 obstacles, ranging from tightroping across two trees, swimming across the lake, fighting, and more.
"11 out of 15 obstacles will be unmanned by any of us." Daniel informed them. "There will be a clearly indicated objective that you need to complete, and some kind of object that's proof you completed the obstacle."
"But… for the other 4 obstacles." Barnes said. "These have been specifically designed by the senseis. Each sensei will be there at the obstacle they designed to oversee it."
"Yeah, and mine's really, really good." Johnny remarked with a smirk on his face that caused groans of apprehension from all of the students. They knew what 'good' meant with Johnny… it was most likely going to be something that involved them doing something stupidly dangerous.
"You are going to go to all of these obstacles in the order they are assigned to you to prevent cheaters from just following one another to the obstacles." Barnes said. "The race should take you at least 5 hours, and by the end, whenever you're done, come back to the campsite."
"What does the winning pair get?" Sam asked, eagerly.
"A 50 dollar gift card to a store of their choice. Each." Daniel replied. Everyone's eyes widened. This was insane! At that moment, things suddenly got a LOT more competitive.
"What happens if we get lost?" Anthony asked.
"Well, you have a compass and map so try and get back on track. However, worst case scenario like one of you are injured or you're really lost, you do get to have one phone on you." Daniel replied. "Before we start, you're going to turn off the phone and you can't turn it on. We're going to check the screen time activity after the game ends so we'll see if you've used the phone. If you have, you're automatically out of the race. If you're lost, just call us and we'll track your phone's location and pick you up." Daniel said, reassuringly.
"But don't forfeit. Quitting is for pussies." Johnny remarked. "If you quit simply because you're too tired or you don't want to continue, don't expect us to help you at all. You're finishing this race or you're not on the car with us on the way home. You're walking the whole way yourself."
"Let's start." Daniel said. "First things first, teams…"
Immediately, eyes began to dart around the room as the Miyagi-Dos glanced at who they wanted to pair up with.
"I swear to God, if Miguel, Robby and Hawk are on the same team, I'm just going to go home." Anthony remarked. "No point in bothering to compete."
"Leave then. No one's stopping you. In fact, some of us would prefer it. We'd be saved the next 3 days of you bitching about everything." Johnny remarked, gesturing in the direction of the campsite. "It's a 12 hour walk back home, so for you I'd say… 3 days maybe. We'd probably get home at around the same time actually."
"Johnny, stop." Daniel murmured and to his credit, Johnny did. Daniel then turned to address the rest of the group. "We anticipated that there might be a bit of an argument about this so we decided to make some accommodations. On all of the 11 obstacles that we're not there for, you're all going to be doing the same thing. No way around that, sorry."
"But… for the 4 obstacles that we're there for, we're going to modify the exercise to what we know each of you are physically capable of doing. Something that'll push each of you to your peaks and limits but isn't physically impossible."
"Maybe for them. I say equal opportunity for all." Johnny chimed in. "I'm not going easy on any of you with my drill. If you're struggling… just be better and maybe you won't struggle so much."
"That's reassuring advice. 'Just be better.'" Demetri muttered quietly to Hawk.
"Anyways… the teams." Daniel said. Everyone stood up a little straighter, anxious to hear who they'd be working with for the next 5 hours at least. "We thought of how we can do this. We were going to put you in teams ourselves. But we figured there'd be people who would always complain that the teams were biased or unfair. So we're going to instead leave it up to fate."
Barnes opened his backpack and pulled out a bag filled with small slips of paper, rustling it so they could all see it.
"We made this last night." Barnes said. "In it is everyone's name. We're going to completely randomize the team. We'll pull out 1 name from the bag, and the person whose name we call will pick a slip of paper. That person will be their teammate. Everyone get it?"
It was time to select the teams. Barnes reached his hand into the bag, pulling out the first name and reading it aloud.
"Anthony." He called. Anthony took a deep breath and walked over to the senseis, reaching into the bag himself and pulling out a small slip of paper. Slowly opening it, Anthony was nervous for some reason. He knew he was far from the most athletic member of the team. If he wanted any chance of even completing this course, let alone winning it, he'd need an athletic teammate to help. And preferably someone with a bit of patience to deal with his athleticness. Which was why Anthony was so happy when he read out his teammate's name…
"Robby." He said. Robby didn't seem angry that he was being paired with Anthony. If anything, he even smiled at the younger teenager and walked over to him, putting a hand on his shoulder, a silent gesture of reassurance to basically tell him 'we got this.'
"Alright. That's team 1. Next…" Barnes reached into the bag for another name. "Samantha."
It was Sam's turn to pick out a name from the bag and reveal her teammate.
"Nate."
"Demetri…"
"Miguel!"
"Devon…"
"Tory!"
That left only 2 people left, who would be pairing up. The five teams were now confirmed:
Team 1 - Robby and Anthony
Team 2 - Samantha and Nate
Team 3 - Demetri and Miguel
Team 4 - Tory and Devon
Team 5 - Hawk and Bert
Ironically, the teams ended up being more equal than any of them could've imagined. None of the teams were head and shoulders above the rest, and they all stood a very good chance of winning.
The next thing to happen was each team was given their map of the area and a compass. On the map was clearly marked out 15 numbers, indicating the 15 obstacles they needed to make it through.
The teams were set. The resources had been handed out. It was finally time to begin. The game was on…