Van, Irvine, and Moonbay arrived back at Irvine's place around six that evening. It may be getting late in the day but Irvine wasn't finished for the day. He had one thing that he wanted to do before the day ended. This would help him decide on how to go about with the next tasks that he had in mind.
"Alright Van, we have one more thing to do today before I am going to let you go. I want to do a few tests that will help me find out your skills," Irvine said looking through one of the bags for a specific pair of clothes that they picked out for just this occasion even if Van didn't know about it.
After searching for a few seconds, he found what he was looking for and pulled out a plain white sleeveless shirt, and a pair of dark blue shorts. "Put these on, I will wait here while you do that," Irvine said before throwing them at Van only to have Van miss them. He knew one thing to work on already.
Van looked at them before looking back at Irvine. He was confused but he decided to just do as he was told and walked towards a bathroom that was close to there so that he could get changed in private.
Irvine waited for only about a minute or two before Van came out in the clothes that he handed to him. "Follow me," Irvine said while Moonbay moved past them so that she could get rid of Van's old clothes so that Van would never have to wear them again.
Irvine walked towards an area in the back of his house. They came upon a door and Irvine opened it to show a huge weight room filled with almost any equipment that anyone could think of. This was the reason that Irvine was as fit as he was.
"The last thing that we will do today is test your abilities in all sorts of different tests using the equipment that you see here," Irvine said indicating all the stuff around him. "This will help me determine how I will be training you for the next few months," Irvine said walking on towards a medicine ball.
Irvine picked up the ball with ease and looked at it for a second. "Here catch," Irvine said tossing the ball to Van while Van had a look like that was too easy. The ball soared through the air and Van attempted to catch it but it hit him and he fell backwards quickly while Irvine burst out in laughter.
"Not funny Irvine!" Van yelled throwing the ball with difficulty off to the side before standing up and dusting himself off. "You could have given me some warning," Van said glaring at Irvine.
"That wouldn't be any fun. Besides, I thought you would have known what that was. It is a weighted ball," Irvine pointed out with a laugh before he turned his attention towards some different equipment. "Come here Van," Irvine said before walking off again. He walked over to a weight set and knew that Van had at least some idea what he was supposed to do.
"So you want me to bench press?" Van asked and all that he received as an answer from Irvine was a slight nod of his head. Van knew that this was probably not going to turn out too pleasantly.
"We will start out with a light weight by only putting on two twenty five pound weights on. That would make it ninety five pounds all together. I hope that you can handle that," Irvine said and indicated for Van to lie down upon the bench.
Irvine watched as Van got onto the bench and laid down upon his back. "Now just put your hands on the bar… a little out… a little in... that is the right way to hold it," Irvine said trying to correct the way that Van was holding the bar. "Now I just want you to do one of these, we will do this until we find out how much you can actually do," Irvine said.
Van put every bit of strength that he could behind the bar and was barely able to lift it a few inches before it fell back to its original position. He heard Irvine groan in frustration and knew that they wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon.
"This is one of the easiest weights around. I can't believe that someone your age can't even lift it," Irvine said rub his hand across his face in frustration. "We will keep doing this tonight until you are able to finish this easy set," he said and got behind the bench to give Van a little help if it is necessary but he was determined to make sure that he did this himself. He wanted to make it so that Van could lift three to four times as much weight as this by the end of the summer.
Van attempted to do it again. He wasn't sure if he was going to do it or not but he was determined to accomplish this. Grabbing a hold of the bar again, he took a deep breath before pushing with all of his might to get it up. He failed to do it once again but managed to get it a bit higher than his last attempt.
"Better but it is not good enough. I will make you be able to lift a few times as much as this by the end of the summer, but you will never be able to do that if you can't even lift this small amount of weight," Irvine said growing more and more frustrated by the moment. He just hoped that his attempts wouldn't be in vain by the end of the summer.
"I think that I may know of a way to help. Don't hold your breath while you are doing this. Be sure that you breathe in when the bar comes down and breathe out when you push it up. Got it?" Irvine asked and received a nod from Van. Irvine stood back but was still ready to help in case Van ended up dropping the bar on himself.
Van found more determination this time and once again grabbed a hold of the bar. He took in the breath that Irvine had suggested and pushed the bar out while breathing out. He found it to be a little easier and this time he was able to list the bar all the way up. He still struggled quite a bit but he was glad that he could do it this time.
"It is about time that you managed to do it. You still seemed to be struggling quite a bit. I am sure that we are going to be doing this a lot so you had better get used to it," Irvine said as Van stood up and massaged his already sore arms.
Irvine walked on to a punching bag. "I want you to punch this with all of your might. I need to see how much power you can put into your punches," Irvine said standing away from the bag while Van walked up to this.
Van stood in front of the bag looking at Irvine like he had two heads. "Whatever. I think this is stupid though," Van mumbled as he clenched his hand into a fist and brought it up into the bag hard. The thing didn't even budge and all that Van got out of it was a very sore hand.
Van hand shot back from the bag immediately and he held it with his other hand trying to sooth it. He shook it for a second before putting his hand down and tried to ignore it.
"You really are pathetic Van. No wonder why people like to pick on you, you have no strength of your own in order to fight back. It gives them a feeling of power to know that you are weaker then them and that they can get away with it because you don't do anything about it," Irvine explained taking a seat while rubbing his head. He just knew this will end up being a long summer of training.
"I guess that I just can't help it. Irvine can I ask you a question?" Van asked and looked at Irvine and noticed that he nodded his head. "Do you think that this will actually work? Will this finally make people like me?" van asked thinking that maybe it was just a hopeless effort for them.
"It all depends on if you want it bad enough. When people set their minds on things and strive hard in order to accomplish them, then they can make almost anything happen," Irvine said standing up. Irvine then stood up and faced towards van. "Now my question for you is if you will be able to make the effort that is needed for you to change?" Irvine asked.
Van thought about it for a second before he nodded his head. "I am willing to do this. I just need yours and Moonbay's help to get through it," Van said standing up and looking at all of the equipment that was around him.
"Sure thing, we will give you the help that you need when you need it. For right now though," Irvine said and paused for effect. "We eat," he said and Van groaned in frustration. "Hey, you can't work on an empty stomach. I am going to go raid the fridge, you can come if you want," Irvine said walking out of the room leaving Van all to himself.
The two of them didn't do anything for the rest of the night and decided that they would get started the next Morning. Moonbay had already left so she wasn't there to talk about it with them.
Van was more than happy when he came home because he had been dragged all over the place that day and all that he wanted to do was rest. He couldn't help but think more over on his current situation.
Irvine and Moonbay were offering him a chance of a lifetime. Giving him a chance to have a new start and possibly gain the attention of the one person that he had wanted for so long. The two of them went to the same school since they started but she never showed any sort of interest in him and he couldn't blame her because he didn't really stand out amongst people.
Thomas had noticed her around the same time as Van. Neither really cared up until they started junior high school. It was then that they really started to notice how beautiful she was becoming and how kind hearted she really was. It made both of them want her.
Thomas and him had different views on her though. If Fiona would give him a chance, Van could definitely say that she was someone who he could possibly fall in love with. Thomas however was different. He seemed to only look at her as some sort of possession. It angered Van the way that he acted around Fiona. He looked at her with only lust within his eyes, like she was some sort of sex toy.
Van pushed all thought out of his head and laid down in his bed. Just thinking about what Thomas thinks of Fiona was starting to piss him off. He swore that one day when he was ready; he would knock that confident smirk off that posers face.
Van slowly closed his eyes before falling asleep but it felt to him that almost as soon as he closed them he was shaken awake. He groggily opened his eyes and noticed Irvine and Moonbay standing over him. He jumped out of his bed in surprise but still not completely awake.
He looked over to his alarm clock and saw that it was barely five in the morning. "You do know that it is barely five in the morning, right?" Van asked with a groan before falling back onto the bed and after throwing his pillow over his head attempted to fall back asleep.
"Sure I do," Irvine said pulling the pillow off of Van's head. "No one said that this was going to be easy Van. You are going to end up doing things that you don't normally do if you plan to make it through the summer. Now get up because I have a lot planned for the rest pf the day so we are going to get an early start," Irvine said before throwing Van off the bed. "Get up, and get dressed so we can get started," he said before walking out of the room. Moonbay followed shortly after him with the same smirk. Those two were too much alike for Van's liking.
Van was slouching and still half asleep as they returned to Irvine's private little gym at his place. It was still complete darkness and on these days, Van liked to sleep until nearly noon, yet here he was up this early in the morning. He could just his parents' faces when they learned he was gone. They would probably assume that he was kidnapped.
"By the way, there is no need to worry; your parents already know that I was going to be waking you up this early for this. They actually seemed excited to see that you were trying to change. They actually seemed worried by the way you used to act," Irvine said almost as if he was reading van's mind.
Van groaned, he was hoping that he might be able to use that as an excuse later to get out of whatever it was that Irvine planned for him today. Now he was stuck in whatever torture it was that Irvine had planned for him.
"First off we are going to do some lifting and try getting some muscles on those scrawny bones. Then later, Moonbay and I have a special training we plan to do," he said with a smirk because he knew it was something beyond Van's abilities right now. That was the reason that they were doing this, to help Van get over his weaknesses.
Irvine remembered an argument he had with Moonbay on the issue before they got started the previous day. She thought that it might be a bad idea to change Van to such as drastic extent. What Irvine had replied to her was that they weren't trying to turn him into a different person but just an improved one of himself. They were trying to change what it was that people picked on him about since he didn't try to do anything.
Van had very little fashion sense so they planned to just give him a new look. No physical strength so they were going to train him so that he could defend himself if needed. They also planned to give him some more social skills by giving him some confidence in himself. They weren't trying to change his personality or anything, just give him the ability to give people a chance to actually like him.
The thing was that they could only do little, what they were doing was giving him the ability to gain other trust in him on his own. Many wouldn't take to him that easily, never in Thomas's case but who cared about him anyways. He was giving up little but gaining everything in return.
"What is it that you want me to do?" Van asked. He may have been tired as hell but he wanted to do this. It was a change that he was willing to accept if only to get the people to stop taunting him.
It was then that Van noticed that Irvine was dressed in a similar outside to his own. "Were you planning on joining in?" Van asked and only received a nod from Irvine while he was tightening his shoe laces.
"Yeah, I figure that I can get a good work out as well," Irvine said standing up straight. "Here will be the plans for the days, first thing in the morning we will wake up and go for a jog. It will start out small at first but will gradually increase as the time passes. We will then do some weightlifting and try to put some muscles on those scrawny bones of yours. After that I will be teaching you how to fight, or more of self defense. That is how the days are going to go for the next few months until I feel you are ready for the final step," Irvine said walking towards the door.
"Final step? What's the final step?" Van asked but Irvine chose to ignore him and walk out the door. Van just gave a sigh before he followed him out of the door, where the start of his torturous training would begin.