Wow, this took FOREVER to write. I had no idea how I was going to write this and was scared to write it in fear I would screw up. Clearly, I am dedicated if I'm posting this around 4:30 am lol Enjoy this!

The remainder of the third week reflected the first day. And now on the fourth week, we'd be using the Plasma Pistol. Unfortunately, even as eager as I was, I knew this week would drag on by the simplicity and repetition of it.

"Alright, whelps. The week you have been dreading has finally arrived. I know many of you are not looking forward to using this weapon, but by now, your patience has been growing thin, I'm sure, of using only your combat skills. And with your waning tolerance, you will learn to greatly appreciate using any weapon rather just than your limbs. So, now then, onto the task." At first, I strongly predicted being thrown into a duty without instruction but, much to my surprise, he simply moved over to his son, who calmly stood there, prepared to be hit for the demonstration. Though I now despised him with his wicked shrewd character, I could sense Gharan was uneasy about being the guinea pig.

"The Type-25 Directed Energy Pistol is single handed and dual wieldable as many of you know. The Plasma Pistol is very lethal against infantry, causing third-degree burns. Very few individuals wield two; they easily take down the shields of any Demon when charged to a superheated bolt of plasma, so I recommend wielding two for quick and painful assaults. For those who prefer the battle on foot, this weapon is great for producing an EMP blast against Demon vehicles. While many of you realize that the Unggoy use this weapon, understand that until you have earned title as Minor, you ARE Unggoy. Now, next week, you will earn the privilege to use stronger weapons, however, you will need to first master this like any Unggoy; and if you show promise, I may decide to allow those who master this weapon early to use a weapon I give them; but believe me you, Whelps, not many of you will master this weapon all that quickly no matter the simplicity of this weapon, nor will many master the weapon I give any advancer just as easily. I will demonstrate the effects on this weapon on my son, so that you can try these methods out for yourselves on your now shielded training dummies. Son?"

"Yes, father?"

"Prepare yourself for combat!"

"Father, Sir!"

As they began to fight, Vaman explained that any given quarrel must give their opponent resting time if they manage to strike the armor with a full blast; as further advancements could potentially kill students who are not yet trained (On the other hand, those that disobey this rule and their opponents survive the onslaught of a charged pistol are rewarded for resilience and those who are beaten by said resilient opponents will more than likely be ridiculed for disobedience). Only could they observe the weapon's power on a dummy. The fight that took place between the two was tied once again, and though I knew they didn't use the charged power of the weapon, I expected that Vaman would have won were it not for his safety protocol.

And with the results of the duel, we were acquainted with our new training dummies. They had a shielding system similar to our own, but represented the Demons' shields. Many of the others preferred using their combat skills against the dummies, which, if they had listened, would work better if they were applying the lesson of this week rather than solely the previous lessons.

Assigning teams early, he let us pick our new team members. By default Eelo and I ended up with Nikhal; and we had already been practicing together for a week, and though this timespan may not seem like much, our prepared trio has strengthened. We had already expected being put into a trio, and we practiced upon one homemade dummy per individual, then two, and then three. Lastly, we practiced against all three as duos and as one; protecting each other. And each dummy we created, unlike the ones here at the academy, had weapons equipped; being sharp knives thrown towards us. Without a doubt, Vaman would have gestured us all towards the open door and to never come back if he found out we trained together. He believes in hard work and consistent training as a team and individually, yet the bastard will openly punish those that do so outside his walls. Why? Because clearly, he is sadistic and controlling, only wishing his rules be taken into account. This piece of evidence brings me closer to the now not-so-surprising behaviors of Gharan.

As we wore our brightest grins, we were well-prepared for this week; and no matter what Vaman had said, every warrior that truly shines above all the rest should use whatever sources to outsmart his foe and be many steps ahead of them; even if this means practicing disobedience behind the back of your (cruel and psychotic) instructor. We readied our bodies with a five minute warm-up stretching as we have been doing, which I'm sure raised Gharan's eyebrow and the brow of his father even more. Afterward, we then did what arranged tactics the three of us had been planning the week before; individually fighting one and more targets, then brushing up on our duo tactics with one and more targets, and lastly, as a trio with one and more targets. And while I'm sure we should have been using our newly assigned weapon, we all agreed that whether or not we were outside these walls, each time any of us together or individually train, this would be our training formula of sorts; and after stretching, we'd practice on combat techniques first before anything new. I'm sure that Vaman's tight time-limited classes wouldn't allow every student to do this kind of thing, but regardless, we understood that while we may not and wish not to advance to a stronger weapon early, the pistol is fairly simple even if most of us hadn't even ever picked it up in our life.

After brushing up on our combat moves, specifically for each "station" for five minutes, we then split the remainder of the class with times to train using the new given weapon; each with the stations we had been practicing before, estimating a total of one hour and thirty-five minutes (giving us ample time to rest at the end); except that since these dummies only reacted with combat moves and had shields and without our knives, we didn't concentrate that much effort into the overall training. Eelo took the spot of being first, as always, to fight one dummy with the plasma pistol. And while I watched her evade its movements pretty well, I observed how many shots it took to take down the dummy with both the charged shots and normal shots. Mentally I remembered one charged shot to the shields, and three or four more for the completion of the task; being death. If normal shots were ever preferred, twelve will kill my opponent if I am lucky. Though, melees are preferred by mr, and I could easily take out a demon with a charged shot and a melee; if I was truly that boastful…

Once she completed her single duel, Nikhal was up next. He seemed nervous for reasons I could not grasp yet again. Regardless, he stood to his dummy with mental vigor, and withstood what he could; which wasn't much. Each time he evaded the dummy's move, I'd watch intently, marveling at his sheer speed. Though this event was nothing new, it was as if it were each and every time; because while he may be clumsy and easily distracted, he manages to end up physically hurt in a different way In the end. Interestingly enough, his skilled evasion tactics were pretty good, his focus on my eagerness for him distracted him and though I am not sure if this factor would change it or not, he rarely used his pistol. Eelo was the one to gasp in concern while I helplessly giggled; which oddly caused him to blush. If only I understood this strange male more. How could someone so ridiculous be so mysterious?

In any case, it was my turn to wield the plasma pistol. I gripped it with a tight clutch; slightly nervous that I could potentially foul up an uncomplicated weapon. Tossing this notion aside, I narrowed my eyes, whipped my tail to and fro, flattened my ears and prepared for a virtual duel. I envisioned fighting Vaman for whatever reason, hoping it prove noteworthy to the headstrong teacher that I am more than an eyesore, he might see that I mean business. The dummy unpredictably moved to the left rather than the right; narrowly, I avoided the attack and charged my pistol. Letting the weapon do what it does best, I watched the dummy's shields break; and yet as I continued, I noticed that this did not help me. With a bruise on my cheek and a close proximity of the hard floor thanks to the unexpected assault, Nikhal came to my aid in both the physical sense and mental.

"Ruz. Don't be deterred by this mere error, get up." He said calmly, lifting me up to my toes. As he did so, I strangely felt a sensation of strength coming off of him; something that was quite different than what I knew of him. "What is it, Ruz?" Unfortunately, my shock had become known to him; or at least detected or hinted at.

"Nothing, Nikhal. Thank you for your help." I ignored the awkward feelings I had encountered and focused my attention on this dummy. I changed my tactic and ignored the charged-up feature of this puny weapon and instead fired it in three-shot bursts; whereas, before, I rapidly fired with little to no accuracy. This tip came from Eelo, who, with excellent accuracy with her combat, would gladly give me this hint. I used this helpful hint and it worked. Eelo and Nikhal both congratulated me on a well-done match.

While not many favor a challenge, we were greatly appreciated the joys of our stations, having much difficulty against two and three dummies individually with such a primitive weapon. Thankfully, we all, even Nikhal, outmatched the programmed dummies with skill. Moving onto the duos to make sure we could still fight as so, we each took turns with one another; Eelo and I, me and Nikhal, and finally the other two together fighting against one, then two, and then three dummies. What fascinated me is that not only did we have each other's backs, we also managed to understand truly that even with these primitive weapons, they quickly beat one dummy when fighting as two; I could only imagine how faster this would be with three of us together before we did so. Two dummies proved to be pretty normal but slightly challenging, it was that fight against three was the real challenge.

Laughing at the thrills of training, we included our good friend Nikhal into the session. The singular dummy had only a few hits upon us with our concentrated fire; I carefully took this information as valuable, as loners will most likely and surely perish fast in a heated battle. The two dummies were less than challenging, but not easy. Three dummies were quite enjoyable, even with the pistols simple mechanics. Gradually, we eased our way into our finished training session. Despite the disappointment of not learning better weapons, we thoroughly took this day as a reminder that we were headed towards our goals of becoming warriors; even with the hot-headed Vaman as teacher.

We then took our break and ate our meals as everyone else scowled at us; unpleased with our "arrogant" behavior. Vaman heavily stepped his way towards us, nearly taking our food from us.

"Just what do you three think you are doing?"

"Resting shortly before continuing. We weren't planning on quitting until dismissal, only a moment of rest, sir." Eelo calmly retorted.

"Yes, it Is not as if we were going to include the entire class into a celebration or something like that." Nikhal smugly added.

"Indeed. Even the strongest of warriors require fuel for their bellies and rest for their aching bodies now and then." I finished.

Our rebellion as it were displeased him greatly.

"Warriors may march on the gut, but they are taught to withstand any circumstance! That includes lack of food and rest!" With that, he attempted to confiscate Eelo's sandwich (like I actually know what Sangheili eat…) but I prevented him from doing so. He grit his mandibles to a frustrated grimace.

"I do not care if either of you fail or not, but you are bringing at least one of a promising student to fail with you, Eyesore, and your pathetic affectionate behind you. Fine! Do what whatever you please, but be warned; your training outside my classroom walls is very well known about and you are all very lucky that the Council is in favor of Eyeaore or the three of you would be explicitly escorted out of my sight - permanently!" With that, he went about his own business.

As we finished eating and resting, we continued to casually train (mainly to avert Vaman's already fiery gaze from us rather than draw it to us sitting around), we discussed this hot-head as a serious matter.

"So, if I may ask, he seems to be getting more violent as of late. How shall we deal with this?" Nikhal questioned as he decided to practice more than us, as we really didn't wish to nor actually need it, even as we all agree the more training, the more knowledge we taken in. We stood around him, as if giving him advice, to further avert "Master" Vaman's eyes.

"This is a very good question, Nikhal," Eelo was first to answer him. "Hmm…answering is difficult. The more we train our agreed way, the more it may upset him." She reasoned.

"But if we don't, the lack of stretching and the structure will prevent us from being prepared. Not to mention we cannot walk in looking tired and hungry each day. Gods only know the amount they must eat when they get home. Additionally, I reckon they have no more time to train if they chose to, their goal after eating will be most likely resting the rest of the night." I noted.

"Indeed," Eelo agreed. "And that would not result in any benefits for either of us."

Watching Nikhal desperately fight the dummy, I had just then formulated a very simple idea.

"You two, there's only one solution; we cannot stop what we have started. This could potentially give us the ability to fight together on the battlefield when the Council sees us working together; further ranking us higher in succession and fame. Our bastard of a teacher is trying to hypocritically teach teamwork yet stresses that every student is for themselves. The only option is to throw this logic back into his horrific face. He may even try to separate us in the future, but if he does that, he knows it would only strike confusion in the minds of the others; separating 'kooks' from one another may seem feasible to them, but they will eventually realize he is separating a team. "

They nodded their heads in agreement. It was conclusive; we need to not only do our duties outside the class, but show them that while the others are instructed not to eat or sleep well before training, he will have no choice but to advance us as we were more physically capable, mentally stable, and skillful than those who were malnourished and too weak from sleep deprivation to fight. His sole plan is now made known to us; he hates the weak so much that he pushes any unsuspecting student to their death to prove their "strength", to shove his arrogance and "better" skills in their faces. He is wrongly eliminating competition for his title, whatever he wants to be. However, by default, his plan to push his students will backfire; as these individuals were chosen based on core knowledge of basic combat; which is a mixture of nothing to very little. As with the case of the three of us, we are secretly knowledgeable about some art form within the realms of combat, but the Sangheili who has a blade up his rectum refuses to see this. And while even it is not known what Nikhal is proficient at, Vaman will soon choke on his own words to us all at graduation day. With these things in mind, we packed up our meals and equipment with us and we headed towards a place in High Charity where we could be at peace and to ourselves. This would be our own training grounds from now on rather than switching from home to home. And to end the day, as well as the rest of the training sessions, we decided to increase the number of dummies in our personal training, to make the challenge slightly more difficult. Surely, this would baffle our teacher if not impress him. And while we trained hard to the very bones, we all rested a well-earned rest that night and hoped more rest to come each and every day until the day we stepped onto the battlefield with the title of Minor.

And meanwhile, Gharan and his father engaged in no conversation or abuse that night; as Vaman was too busy angrily and without success trying to figure out how we got our hands on plasma pistols for our own training, as he realized a number of six were missing when he went to clean them before getting shut-eye…

I'm so very glad that this chapter was six pages long rather than one like I expected! The next chapters are planned in my head, so expect some interesting stuff ahead.

Next Time: Find out how the trio got their hands on their pistols and how it relates to week 5. Also, find out who joins their team of four. Will this week break Ruz to her core or keep her going?