Chapter 26: Training Routine

(Cato's POV)

Riki and Christine stood side by side facing off against Lexy and Gumball. Everyone in their fighting stance as me and the general stood outside the giant boxing ring witnessing the fight that's about to happen. It was already about twenty seconds after the general told them to start battling, but they were just staring at each other for now. Probably waiting for the other to make the first move. Riki and Christine looked at each other before the white cat started sprinting to Gumball and pummeled him on the ground. Lexy - shocked by the sudden move - got distracted and left a huge opening for Christine to tackle her.

In a matter of a minute, a stare-off suddenly turned into a full blown cat-wolf fight. Riki and Christine gave it their all to attack and Gumball and Lexy were doing their best to hold off their ground. As Riki was throwing jabs on Gumball's face, Gumball got into the rhythm that Riki was making in his punches and managed to avoid them easily. Riki stopped for a moment and that gave Gumball the opportunity to throw him backwards. Unfortunate for Christine, Gumball threw Riki unintentionally in the direction of her as she was pinning Lexy down.

Now, Gumball and Lexy were having the upper hand. Gumball started assaulting on Riki but it looks as if Riki wasn't breaking a sweat against Gumball's attacks after he got back on his feet. Lexy, on the other hand, was holding a lock on Christine. Putting her arm around the pink wolf's throat. Christine however did a reverse headbutt and knocked Lexy back, giving her a chance to regroup. Christine started throwing cross punches on her in which Lexy somehow was agile enough to duck and dodge them.

Gumball too managed to hold Riki in a tight arm lock. Riki was trying to break out of it but Gumball's iron grip was too strong to let loose. As he saw Lexy backing towards him, he let go of Riki and pushed Lexy out of the way and jumping onto Christine. He succeeded into holding both Christine's arms behind her back and allowing Lexy to throw finger jabs on her torso.

After finally letting go of Christine, they turned to Riki who somehow disappeared from where Gumball had left him. They turned back around and saw the black and white cat falling from the ceiling onto them. With Christine injured, he knew he had to take both of them himself until she recovers. But the plan didn't last long as Gumball and Lexy did the same tactic that they used on Christine, this time on Riki. Standing over the two temporary opponents, Gumball and Lexy stared down on the general to see if he was impressed. But the general was facing underneath their feet. Without enough time, Riki and Christine swiftly swept them off their feet and both holding each of their opponents in an arm lock and head lock respectively. Only then, the general hold a smile on his face.

"Nice work, using your opponents greed and boast to your advantage. In the heat of battle, never let your guard down. Your opponent can have the upper hand the moment you show off." The general said as the four of them got out of the ring.

They all walked to the bench to take a breather and chat about their match. I was there stunned to see that they can fight very well. I know they can do self-defence, but what they did was flawless, up to the point where Lexy and Gumball got greedy.

But at the moment in time, I knew I'm gonna fight next. It wasn't even chosen wisely on who to fight the giant red action figure. It was all pure luck, and I was at the back-end of it. I'm glad Gumball or Christine didn't have to fight him. They're the last people I can think off to fight him off.

Right before I turned to see where he went, I felt someone breathing down my neck slowly, as if a tiger was about to pounce on its prey at any given time.

"Quit breathing down my neck and get up there." I said as I got up to the ring.

"Oh, tempted to be injured now, are we?" Red said with an intimidating voice.

I turned around and told him with the same intimidating voice. "Yeah, I wanna be the one putting you in bandages."

"Oh, it's on now." he said and finally got in the ring.

Both me and Red stood on opposite sides of the squared ring. I was looking to take him down quick enough to avoid any casualty. But I doubt Red's gonna let that happen. He made the first move and charged towards me and I avoided it by just a hair, his head slicing the fabric on my shirt. He turned around and I started throwing jabs at his chest. The first few looked like it was nothing, but after awhile he started feeling them.

He grabbed hold of my hand and started throwing punches at me now. The punches really hurt but I tried to take it in. He lets go of my arm and tried to sweep kick, which I nearly managed to jump over. As he had his back turned towards me, I jumped on his back and performed a choke hold. He tried to resist at first, but after about 30 seconds, he lost air and passed out on the floor.

I stood up and looked at him, then look at everyone else. They were all showing faces of shock. I put two fingers under his nostrils to see if he was still breathing. Thankfully, he still was, just at a slow pace. I dragged him out of the ring at put him on the bench alongside with everyone else. Blu rushed over to his brother's side.

"Damn, dude. You took him out like it was nothing." he yelled in both excitement that I got to take him down in a short amount of time yet terrified that someone like me actually took him down.

"It was one of the ways I know how to beat an opponent bigger than me. Fight smart, don't fight hard." I said.

"Good, so you already know the basics of self defense I presume." The general spoke out.

"Yeah I guess so."

"Excellent, so all we need to do is get you toughen up your skills."

The doors behind them suddenly bursted open and three people came in wearing battle attire.

"Ah, here are your trainers." The general said as he pointed to the person on the far right and moving his finger in order of the line. "That's Ken, he'll be helping you on strategy plans. Cassie will teach you unarmored hand-to-hand combat. And finally Sykes, who will help you on weaponry and target practice, which is what you're gonna do next."

10 minutes later, we entered the weaponry building and found numerous weapons all over the walls at the target practice area. We were all required to pick a gun and shoot targets according to gun type: pistol, SMG and sniper.

After we picked our guns, Sykes told us to stand at the platform towards the firing range. We took our positions and got ready. "Shoot all the enemies and watch your fire for friendlies."

Sykes started the simulation and a loud alarm was heard followed by a bunch of red targets started popping up all over, the ground, the levels above it, and even through spaces that we didn't even notice beforehand. We shot as much as we can until Christine accidentally shot a blue target at the head. The alarm sounded three times and the simulation ended right after.

"You shot a friendly straight through the skull. You should've known the difference between enemies and friendlies by now." Sykes retorted.

"Well I didn't know there were gonna be different coloured targets." Christine said.

"No excuses are to be tolerated in the battlefield. You have to ID them yourselves between friend or foe. 'Nuff said. Switch to SMGs."

I knew Christine wasn't liking the treatment she was getting, let alone every single soldier outside the training facility, now this guy, but she wants to do anything to see her brother again at this point. We took our SMGs and got ready when the alarm sounded. We were doing fine with the SMGs and managed to avoid shooting friendlies. The alarm sounded once and the simulation ended. We all looked at each other if one of us had triggered it because of shooting a friendly.

"Don't worry, the alarm going off once means you done good. Now switch to snipers."

We took out a sniper each and again got ready at the platform, our eyes looking through the scope like a hawk. The alarm sounded for the third time and we start shooting the enemies that were now like a mile away from us. I took about ten shots at the enemies when the alarm sounded for the last time.

"Good, good. You guys did well on accuracy. The best on pistols was Anderson, got 10 rounds to the head and 17 targets through the torso, the two vital spots on the body that can kill instantly. Best on SMG was Arashi, you guys didn't do much on terms of headshots, but Arashi took down the most through the torso. Best on Sniper is Watterson, got 15 kills and all were headshots." Sykes announced the results on his tablet. I looked to see the twins staring at each other on who did get best.

"Um..sir, there's two Wattersons here." Gumball finally spoke out.

"Oh really. Siblings in the fold, huh. Well it says here it's...Gumball Watterson." Sykes corrected himself.

Gumball pulled a smile on his face thinking as if it was a joke that he got the best on snipers but he shrugged it off.

"Don't get cocky just because you're the best on guns. Even the best can have their downfall. Lexy and Jackson did well, don't get me wrong. But both of you shot most of the targets on the limbs, which is legs and arms. It is good to do that if you want to weaken them. Since we don't know what exactly we're facing yet, you're gonna need as many confirmed kills as you can get. However, just because you aimed for the head, doesn't mean the target can get hit on the torso. So stay disciplined." Sykes said. We all looked at each other, wondering what he meant. "You're all free to go now. You get the rest of the night off. But tomorrow is crunch time."

And Sykes was not joking about that. Just as the sun came up, we did a lot of aching training. Ken tried training us how to strategize by playing chess, Cassie almost killed all of us despite going 5-on-1, and Sykes kept making us go through accuracy training for almost 6 hours straight. It was three days full of hardwork and tired emotions until we had to prove our worth.

All five of us were driven on an empty road heading towards an abandoned airport along with Sykes and Cassie. We were all in a team for support. There was another 4x4 beside us but the others have already gone up ahead to prepare.

We stopped at the side of the airport near a bunch of trees. Sadly, due to the fact that it's December, the trees weren't really helping with the stealth tactic.

"This airport has a convenient forest nearby. Anyone can assault it at any time." Gumball said.

"And that's why they've pumped up defenses at these parts. Now, nobody can attack from the sides." Sykes said pointing at an outpost nearby with a guard watching overhead.

"No turning back now." Cassie said as she turned on comms. "Support team Two ready."

"Support team One ready. On your go." The comms buzzed. "Alright, move out."

A number of smoke grenades popped out as the blast of fire starts firing. The criminals turned their attention at the assault teams as we silently take out some people from the rear. It didn't take long for the assault teams to bombard the enemy until they reached indoors. We went in through the side and Christine saw a ladder going up to a walkway which had about three people on it, all firing away at the assault team.

"We can use the walkway. Over here." Christine said. She led the way and we all followed her.

Christine and Sykes went on first to take out the people on the walkway as we took our position with Support team One with Cassie covering our backs. We could clearly see the assault teams mowing their way to the airport gates. One by one, we took out the criminals below us to ease the pressure against the assault teams. We then managed to push on till we made it to the plane tracks. We took our positions at the windows facing a tricked out military aircraft.

"That's a big plane." I said full of awe.

"You've obviously never seen a plane. These are standard sized. There's way bigger planes than this." Cassie retorted.

"There's the kids." Riki said pointing at the bunch of small figures going into the plane.

"Incoming from the right. Time to put your sniper skills to use." Sykes said looking straight at Gumball who then nodded. He took the sniper Sykes gave him before the mission and he and Sykes sniped as many people as he can. The rest of us went down to help the assault team.

"We're taking heavy fire from the right side!" The buzz of comms from the assault teams rang in my ears.

We gave them cover fire as the assault teams pushed on to grab the VIPs. Suddenly, a few amount of people started firing from behind us.

"Incoming, 6 o'clock!" Riki shouted.

"Jackson, Anderson, take care of those guys!" Cassie ordered.

As I turned around, one of them pinned me down and I wrestled for my life. I punched him through the cheeks and got him staggering. I took out my gun and started shooting him mercilessly. Then, I continued firing at the remaining people until all were down. "All clear." Christine said. We then turned our attention back to the assault team

As the assault teams rounded the VIPs, a loud siren was heard.

"Simulation complete." A computerized voice played overhead as the entire field went black and a wall opened up.

"This is a great way for soldiers to train in a mock battle." Lexy commented.

"Yeah, we're lucky the government had money to whip these up." Said Cassie, putting her hand on Lexy's shoulder. "But overall, I'd say you guys did pretty good. Quick reflexes, accurate aim, and solid positioning. But I'd used my knife on close combat than waste my bullets, Anderson." she continued, looking at me.

"Yeah, sorry. Adrenaline kinda hit me." I apologized making up an excuse.

"Adrenaline can be good. It can help you be better on close quarters. But getting too into it can cause grave danger." Sykes replied. "Also, its not adrenaline at all, you're not even wounded."

"So, how's the progress?" The general said, walking towards us along with Ken.

"Their aim could still use some work but is quite impressive than before." Sykes said.

"And strategy-wise, they're good to go. Using the walkway as your position gives you height advantage, so props to that." Ken commented facing to Christine, knowing very well it was her idea.

"I'd say give em the greenlight. They can very well take care of themselves and they already proved to be more than just a liability." Cassie said with full confidence.

The general looked at all five of us with full seriousness. Then, he pulled a smile on his face. "Alright, you've proved yourselves. You'll be notified on your position tomorrow. Be at the briefing room first thing in the morning." He said turning his backs to us. "Beware, this simulation might be nothing compared to what you might face out there. Be prepared for anything." He finally walks away.

We've been given the night off to rest up. We got into our room and took a break. "So, this is it, huh?" Gumball said jokingly to break the silence.

"Yeah, it's do or die once we get in tomorrow." Riki replied.

"We're gonna make it, all of us. In and out." I said trying to give some motivation.

Christine started laughing over at her side of the quarters. "It's funny how we're this good now, and it's only been three days." There was a moment of silence, then we just laughed it out. But like the general said, we don't know what's gonna happen out there, so better be prepared for the worst.

And finally that wraps the chapter. One month of hiatus, so I bet you miss me (Not really). But that's the chapter as of now. Sorry if I'm terrible at making military scenes and situation, this is the best that I can do. And sorry for being out for awhile. You know, school and stuff piled up. But anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, comment down below on what you think and I'll catch you guys in the next chapter. Love you guys, peace out!