After that shit sandwich that was this morning, it was time going on to training. This first training exercise of the day was basic fitness, their started with a 200m run, at the beginning Slate thought he could pass this without a sweat, after all he did win silver medal in track during his second year of high school, what he didn't account for was the sweltering heat. By the end of the run Slate was dying, what made his case worse was that they had to also do planks followed by 150 push ups. When they finished doing push ups Slate was begging for someone to kill him, but instead of death he got a bucket full of water. "Thanks." Slate said while panting
"No problem." Gideon said as he helped Slate up. Slate was wondering what fresh hell is next. The next training session was weapons training, He hoped to not mess this up especially since this was his first time firing a gun, he was going to do the best he could though. when they arrived to the shooting range, Slate noticed the assault rifle they were going to fire- the ERS 50 cal, a gun his father designed and built, This was going to interesting the drill sergeant grabbed the gun and aggressively gave the gun to Slate, he really hated him and the temptation to point the gun at the guy was really high, but decided not to, instead he walked up to the targets and began to aim, He started to double check his aim before he started to pull the trigger, the kickback from the gun made him fall flat on his ass, Then he started get laughed at. that seriously pissed him off He started to think about getting back; if he remembered correctly there was a secondary set up that had less kick back and used custom rounds, maybe that'll show them. Slate started to get up and began looking for the switch for tactical mode 2 When he found it he made the switch, the assault rifle changed its profile then he aimed, he pulled the trigger and several customized explosive rounds came out. "What were numb nuts laughing about?" Slate asked rhetorically He just blocked it out. Slate switched the gun back and passed it to Gideon, this confused him.
"Um... what do I do?" Slate tried to explain the best he could but Gideon was still a little confused, this made slate roll his eyes
"Just pull the fucking trigger."
"Okay."
Slate sighed. Gideon struggled to hold the gun, it was heavy "Oh my God this ways a friggin' ton!" Slate saw the drill sergeant, he did not look happy, Slate face dropped, he had to deal with more of this bullshit again, he hoped he wasn't going to get punched again. Slate stood in attention, hopefully that'll stop king dickhead of the house of scream a lot at bay. He didn't breathe, he was that nervous, the drill sergeant came up to him, he was freaking out on the inside "Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh, no, oh no, OH NO!" Slate thought. He started to tighten up his muscles, the drill sergeant was now up in his face "Shit!" Slate thought before the drill sergeant could yell at him, Alexander stepped in front to prevent Slate from being yelled at. Slate was surprised- Why was the immie that got off on the wrong foot with defend him? He didn't want to screw up even more
"Get out of my way you Rusky piece of shit." the drill sarge said in a threatening voice. Alexander stood his ground "What part of get out of my way does your pinko commie brain no understand!?" Alexander continued to stand his ground.
"Stop standing your ground, I'm not worth the trouble." Slate ordered Alexander started to listen, but not before clocking the drill sergeant one in the face. Slate was shocked- why would he do something so stupid? Was he trying to get kicked out?
"I'll have your head for that." that made Alexander laugh
"What's so funny?"
"I'm not sure if you know this, but my father is your boss." This made Slate and Gideon look at each other
"Um…." Alexander started to walk away- what the fuck was that? He looked at Slate, Slate wasn't sure how to respond
Gideon spoke up "Alexander is your dad ready his boss."
"Yeah."
"Oh."
Slate and Gideon were shocked "Thanks for standing up." Slate said
"It was nothing just an american helping a fellow american out." Alex pridefully said
Slate was confused Alexander accent said otherwise
"Why do you call yourself American? You sound more Russian than you do American." that question made Alexander groan
"Why did you ask me that question? just because I have a Russian accent doesn't mean I'm not an american citizen. Besides just besides would you like it if I called you foreigner because you're a quarter Japanese on your mother's side?" Alex asked, causing Slate to go wide eyed- how the hell did he figure that he had japanese heritage?
""How did you figure I'm quarter japanese, let alone on my mother's side?" Slate asked, Alex smirked
"Two things. One it's your eyes and two I read your file and did some research." Slate was silent, this guy was good and it scared him of all the people that scare him, it's the star spangled Russian kid
Slate was in the mess hall when he bumped into to Alex again, something he noticed was and American flag that was tattooed to the back of Alex's hand, he tried not to look at it for that long, but it still amazed him how patriotic this guy was.
"Hey Alexander."
"Yeah?"
"I like that tattoo."
"You do?"
"Yeah."
"Thank you very much."
"How long did it take to get it?"
"Two days." Alexander said, that surprised Slate- he had that done in two days? Getting that tattoo must've hurt too, since it was from his knuckle to his wrist.
"That must've hurt."
"Oh like you wouldn't fucking believe."
The conversation was broke up when Someone was thrown into their table, this caused Slate get confused and angry- what the fuck was going on? His answer was soon answered when he saw a guy jump on the person, Alex sighed and carefully placed his food on Slate's tray to smack the with it, this caused the whole Mess to break into a fight, food and people were flying, Slate was shielding his food the chaos was continuing until Gideon intervened.
"STOOOP!"
Everyone stopped for a moment Slate saw someone holding someone up that confused him greatly. The next thing he knew was that there were several higher ups walking in.
"Uh- oh it's the fun police." someone said
Gideon froze this is bad news- oh the joys of punishment. Alexander's father was the first to speak up.
"What the hell is going on in here!?"
No one answered the question it was dead silent and it really pissed him off. Slate had a feeling that there was punishment coming, what surprised him was that Alex stood up and and was about to take the blame, as touching as that might seem, Slate rushed in front of him to take the blame.
"It's my fault sir."
Everyone's attention turned to Slate, Alex gave him a "what the Hell are you doing" look. Slate started to make a reason for what started the fight to happen, Alex's father nodded.
everybody but Slate and Alexander are dismissed!" Gideon was in shock, why the hell are they doing that? But he started to walk out. Alex's father walked up to the two of them, Slate waited for a lecture and lectured they were. Slate was getting flashbacks to his dad yelling at him- God what a nightmare those were, Slate just wanted the punishment, but even though that was painful it was as bad as the lecture Alex got, there was lecturing and then there was criticizing one's life choices. Slate was starting to feel bad for Alex, what made him feel worse was how Alex hung his head in shame. Slate didn't know what to do.
"Dismissed!" Alex's father shouted
Slate walked out of the mess.
Slate was in the barracks when heard what sounded like a zippo lighter igniting, He turned his head to the sound, he saw Alex lighting a cigarette, he was curious. Alex noticed Slate looking.
"What is it Slate?"
"Do mind if I bum a smoke off you?"
"No." Alex handed Slate a cigarette, this was his first cigarette ever, First time for everything right? Slate pulled out a box of waterproof matches that he bought in bulk before signing up, then he lit the cigarette after that he inhaled on the cigarette. It was horrible- terrible he started to cough despite that he refused to put out the cigarette, despite how nasty it felt to smoke it, there was something soothing to it and because of that kept smoking the cigarette till it was down to the butt. Alex looked at Slate and noticed his face
"I take it that you're not sure of how to feel about smoking?"
"Yeah."
"You want my advice?"
"Yeah."
"Get two packs Smoke one pack so that you get used to it, and then hold out on smoking and only smoke a cigarette when you're going through an extremely stressful situation."
"Okay." Slate had a feeling that that'll come handy in the future