Chapter the forth Training

'Well the trip there was mostly spent bleeding and looking around like a goldfish. The only one who spoke mandarin was talking to Sham-chan and I was as far away from her as I could manage.

I got a lovely view of us coming in to land, rock sides hurtling towards us at terminal speeds and a sudden deceleration. We were bundled out of the "skyranger" and thrown into what lokked a lot like a cell, even at that age I had seen more than one or two. I looked at sham she looked at me then we went for each other. I was just trying to stop her me but She was not holding anything back. Her chesnut fist bounced me off the back wall, my hundred kick floored her for long enough for me to get back up, then things started to get nasty. Luckily the room was set up with some serious taser restraints. Soon as the guard, a nutjob from Korea, saw us going at it he threw the switch to fry and watched us twitch-dance.

We were separated, interrogated and given the speech about "for the safety of every living being on the face of this planet we cannot, will not let you go." Next thing I know I am signing my life away, "I solemnly swear to follow the orders of my superiors in the defence of earth for the duration of the emergency or until the point of death." Didn't mean much more than that I was gonna stay breathing for a few more hours at the time. Then the PT and CQB instructors got me

"You belong to me MAGGOT!!!"

"And when your pretty little ass ain't being shat on by him you are mine."

"listen to what god here tells you and maybe, just maybe you might mke it through your fist hot-drop"

"fat chance, kid ain't got no guts," now me I really am not good at taking these sorts of things lying down, so rather than worry how thse two knew Japanese or what they were talking about I just shrugged and said

"feh, bring it," did I mention I have a small ego problem. Well the PTI swung a descending right cross at my jaw while the Cqbi just got clear, smirking I might add. I let the first connect, a little then I handed the guy his ass. He may have been the fittest (and meanest) person this world has ever seen, but my father had taught me every dirty trick in the book and been inventing more since I was ten. The fight was short, I was rude, arrogant and npot a good winner. The cqbi illustrated this by shooting me. Right in the leg, still got the scar. To say I was shocked is like saying Godzilla is a lizard. The pain was nothing new, what hit me hardest was that he did it smiling.

As I lay there, teeth clamped cuz only girls scream, he walked over,

"kid you got heart but you are gonaa wish you had just taken a dive, cuz now you are all mine." I swear he said it in a voice that would send chills down Dracula's spine.

Nor was he lying, the next two weeks sucked worse than anything my dad had ever put me through. Deep down I always trusted my pops to have some method to his madness, this guy just seemed to want to break me into pieces. I objected to weapons training, he shot me again. I objected to uniform, he threw a stun grenade into the room I was changing in. I think that up until I met him I had never hated a living soul, him I would have gladly spent hours …. Well maybe that isn't what you wanted to hear anyway.'

" yeah, tell us about Shampoo." Said twin-on-the-left

"how did you end up together if al you want ed do was kill each other."

'whoa, I never wanted to kill her, That sort of thing was just not in me then. NO the truth was the powers that be had seen that we were something special and were determined to make the most of us. I later found that the instructor's teaching plan was simply to kepp making it worse until he found a limit, thing was he didn't, not with me or Sham-chan. She had had it bad with Granny but this was worse. When they finally threw us together on a co-operative test we hardly noticed. We went through the team exercises cursing Sergeant-major Dundas. Whatever he said we couldn't do we proved him wrong. Not cuz we liked working together but because we were never going to give him the satisfaction of winning. When the testing progressed to traing with operational teams we always tried to be on the same side, not cuz we liked each other, far from it, just cuz losing has never been in either of our natures.

We were training with the cream of the world's special forces and it took a lot to hold our own when we started. When the others quit for the day we spent a few extra hours beating the lessons into each other. Somewhere along the line things started to change. It strated with grudging respect and moved on from there. Not that we would have admitted it but we started to enjoy each other's company, nobody else could even approach our mindset, they had real lives somewhere. When they were kicking back, unwinding we were just finding better ways to hurt things. Thing was that this isn't the whole story.

I am really good at what I do, no, I am even better than that. Thing was that during the training, it may have been team based and we may have been streets ahead of the others but I was consistently beating Shampoo. And I'll tell you now that she hated that. So she worked harder and harder, used ebvery trick she knew to distract me, and believe me when I tell you that she was damn good at that part of things. But I was not gonna let her beat me so I worked harder too. If either got an edge the other would thrash them self till they caught up. The thing was I always won in the end. It really pissed her off.

So one day we are winding down form a full contact spar, my ribs hurt like hell, and the bruise on her cheek is already starting to swell when I put my foot right in it again. Had I mentioned that I really ain't good at talking to people.

"just give up girly, go back to your dollies you ain't never gonna lick me." Yes I was also trying out some of my new yankie slang. Well I sorta expected her to come right back at me, like she always did, instead I got nothing. "Shanpoo?" I asked.

"Xian Pu, You fucking idiot!" she fired back, suddenly inches from my face. "how come you can learn stupid Rupert Rory's name and not Xain Pu's!" now don't get me wrong we had had plenty of arguments before but this was something new, she was livid. "how can stupid Japanese boy be so good and so rubbish at same time!"

"hey I am still better than you" I said, constructively, "as the saying goes 'anything you can do I can do better' get over it bimbo" yeah I know out of order just don't even come close, but what can I say I was young and stooopid.

"bull" she replied simply. "Xian Pu know one thing that you can never win at" she replied. If I had seen the fire in her eyes even I might have backed down then, but observant I was never good at.

"come on then girly, prove it!" I said with slightly more arrogance than Caesar himself.

So she did. The next thing I knew she had me in a full body press against the wall locked in a kiss that would have curled casanova's toes. To say my mind went blank, well let's just say she proved her point. Intellectually I had no idea how to respond but my body sure did. Her, pin and kiss turned into a pin and kiss/grope and shortly later our clothes were torn, yanked and thrown. Neither of us had been ther before, but what we did not know we made up for in sheer unbridled lust. There are three levels to X-com Okinawa and I swear that they must of heard the two of us even at the farthest ends.

Afterwards. Well yeah things were awkward, I mean we hated each other, and there we were coated in each other's sweat and fluids, having just screwed each other's brains out, loudly, repeatedly. Thing was that somewhere along the line it had stopped being about winning and started to be about returning the favour. By the time we separated the world had shifted o its axis, not that I knew it at the time but from that point on there was not a thing I wouldn't have given that girl. Something in me had broken and I was madly in love and way out of my depth. If I had known she was experiencing much the same thing then maybe the next few weeks would not have been so goddamn painful.

We both went out of our way to hurt each other, only to find that in the dark of the night it only made us feel worse. Hurting was easier you see. Easier than admitting that hole deep inside that ached every time the other hurt, smiled or hell just happed to be in the same room as you. Now Dundas, rest his evil soul, he wasn't about to let us self destruct like that. He threw us into a paired game, we sodded it up royally, found ourselves locked in a box four foot by six, ten feet off the floor and hot as hell.

"You miserable maggots, I have never seen such a pitiful showing in all the years that I have had the misfortune to be inflicted with turning turds like you into soldiers. Sod it you piss-ants can rot in there I am thru with your bloody shit. If you can get your pinko asses out o' there then come see me till then you can stew in your own shit!"

It took us hours to even start trying to talk. Even then it was no more than

"you 'kay?"

"uh."

"fine, just checkin"

"humph"

what seemed like hours later I broke. I turned to hr and started "lokk Xian I'm sorry okay, I know that you deserve better an all nbut I just couldn't help me'self, and I" She stopped me talking with one finger on my lips. Then we were kissing, and then the two of us were shakin that box so hard it fell off its dumb-ass chain and nearly did us both a very intimate injury when it bust to hell on the floor.

After that things were fantastic, she and I just seemed made for each other. We didn't need to talk much, everything was said in the way we looked at each other. We were cleared for operational duties faster than any other agent had ever been and within a few short drops found ourselves the lynchpins of our teams. Life was grand, sex was even better, I have never been that close to heaven. Sure we risked death on a daily basis but the nights were our own.

Her every smile lit my world, her sweet laugh was worth more than a thousand paychecks and when we came together it was like comets colliding, fire passion and …. Well maybe I'll tell you the rest when you are a bit older."

"you never told us how she died." Said twin two

"sure I did"

"hey short yes, but not stoopid" said one

"please trust me girls, it is far better that you trust me. She died fast, lets just leave it at that. Huh."

"you were there?"

"yes" I replied and you wouldn't need to be even vaguely psychic to hear the emoition in my voice. "I was there. Now please don't ask any more."

Silence reigned for minutes afterwards. Suddenly broken by a beeping.

"we late for shift" said one to two

"shit" said two

"bai bai" they said together.

Then they were gone and I was alone again. The petals slowly falling from the trees and my heart gently bleeding from a wound that would never heal

"Bai bai airen" I whispered to the cold impartial skies.