The Quest of Training [Training/Roland/Private]

The Combat Training Facility was nearly completely empty that time of day, a rare occasion considering it was a rather popular place to train. Only a few students were seen, although only one or two were using the equipment while the rest appeared to be socializing, sparring or doing other sorts of exercises which did not require the use of punching bags or dummies, but rather one’s own body such as push-ups or light jogs around the training facility possibly preparing to be able to use these combat equipment. A weary look was apparent upon most of their faces, possibly due to the hour which had read upon the clock of the wall which had told those who put their gaze upon it that the time was currently four minutes past five in the morning. Many would not find waking up at this hour to train to be their priority, although it was optimal to do so if one wanted to use all of the equipment before the rest of the school had awakened and the room was too crowded.

Attempting to rub the sleep out from her eyes, Amira looked around for a great place to train. A few days ago, she had talked to her fellow Junior, Roland to meet her at five-thirty in the morning to train and improve upon his combat skills. However, she was unsure whether he had turned up or not, but regardless she would attend in hopes that he would come as well. She had arrived early to plan a training regime for the both of them and wanted time to scout out where they would train. Taking a seat upon one of the empty benches that were used for rest or for one to place a few small items upon as they were training, her eyes began to scan the room for any equipment they would potentially use in their session. She made sure to eliminate those that held no use for the two such as the target stations for the marksmen or the trap making for those who were hunters after she didn’t think he could shoot a weapon or make a trap and was very sure she could not do both of the tasks she mentioned. It wouldn’t take long before she had whittled down the large selection to merely three pieces of equipment: the punching bag, training dummies and the mats where the sparring took place. Many different types of training could be accomplished via this simple gear.

A silent sigh came from her mouth as she looked around. She had also offered to train alongside Roland if he decided to come, a promise she now regretted. It was no secret that she despised to train; after all, she excelled in mental work rather than physical tasks. Getting sweaty and facing muscle pain was near the bottom of the list of how she would like to spend her weekend, although she was unwilling to go back upon her promise. The thought of how repetitive and tedious training still remained upon the back of her head. Placing a finger upon her chin, Amira began to think, Is there a way I could make training more fun? Randomly hitting a training dummy a hundred times in a row seems rather boring. Maybe a game would be fun? But what sort of game? A slight idea began to form in her head. Combat played an important role in the fantasy novels she read. The knight and his desire to find treasure with his sword, the archer who would never miss her target no matter how far they were and the goblin who was too happy to be swinging around his hammer and crushing dozens of the enemy’s heads underneath. Maybe if they imagined a fantasy setting this would provide a more fulfilling training session for the two of them.

The more she dwelled upon the idea of a fantasy story for their training; more idea had popped into her head. A small smile appeared on her face, maybe this training session would be a little more tolerable than she originally thought it would be? Amira’s mind had immediately flown off as she began to plan each detail of their little adventure quickly, making sure to provide love into each part of her plan. Others would stare at her as they saw her with a grin on her face as she appeared to stare off into space, although she was still aware of what had been happening in the real world. Blushing slightly, she moved her head away and stood up from her seat. It would probably be a great idea to look closer at her surroundings so better details would be created. Jogging slightly, she inspected each part of the training room for potentially better places to place things. It would be only a matter of time before she had the entire training room landscape to be mapped out. In addition to this, her three training equipment had also expanded to include more machinery including a parkour obstacle and the rock climbing device. However as she neared the end of the tour of the combat facility, she realized something. They did not have a prize if they were to complete this training quest. Amira, however, decided to come up with one later, as for now, she would need to change into her training clothing.

After hastily changing in the women’s locker room and locking away all her valuables she began to look around for Roland. She was very eager to start their training session. However, a silent worry began to gnaw upon the back of her head, What if he didn’t like my idea? Does he want to keep our training vanilla? Her excitement began to fade as those thoughts began to bite on the back of her head. She could only hope that their training session would not end up to be anything more than a success and something they would try again although the doubts would still attack her.

Word Count: 1036

Roland had meant to arrive at school much earlier had it not been for the fact that his alarm clock had failed to wake him due to it being... broken. Still, Roland couldn't start his day without a proper breakfast and warm-up in the form of stretches before the actual training followed by the jog all the way to school. All in all, it was Roland's inability to deviate from his schedule despite being almost an hour behind either way that would leave Amira waiting for him for much longer so than he had ever intended. Never the less, he had arrived more than an hour later than he had intended to, which surprisingly enough still gave him more than plenty of time to meet up with Amira in time.

After having somehow managed to slam everything except his pants, shoes and gloves inside of a locker; Roland had finally arrived at the scene at which he had promised to meet up with Amira. Even now he was debating whether to call her Ami like she'd requested or whether it would be rude of him to do so, since they really didn't know each other that well. While he wandered through the training facility whilst lost in such thoughts he eventually realised that the few students in the building were all centered at the entrance to the entire wing which was where he and Amira had decided to meet. It didn't really make sense to him what they've be looking at until he'd made it into viewing range of the subject himself. He was stunned for words as someone had seemingly taken up the entire wing with a multitude of training appliances from around the whole facility, something akin to an obstacle course perhaps? There really was no way of telling, but Roland had a fair idea of who to ask about it, assuming he'd be able to find her amongst all this. Assuming she was in there to begin with. It was really hard to see with just about every angle having been claimed by a dummy or the like. The curious thought that she'd gotten lost within her own creation sprung to mind, thought very much unlikely given her prowess, still funny though.

Assuming Amira was truly the mastermind behind... whatever this was, it was sure to be spectacular at the very least. While they hadn't known each other for that long, Roland trusted her ability to instruct and plan things out. It was mainly why he'd agreed to train with her to begin with after all. Still, just what was it? He could see punching bags and dummies spread throughout the place with the occasional obstacle and what he believed to be a rock climbing wall. If nothing else he had to admire her determination to have placed all these things out the way she had, barely able to imagine how much time she must have spent moving these things around, that with her appearent build at that.

Seeing as he hadn't found Amira yet, he figured he might ass well give the course a try, and maybe even figure out how it's supposed to work in the process. So began a most arduous task. He took a few seconds each with every dummy, thinking that he was supposed to deliver a set number of punches to each and every dummy in the room, thus improving his footwork too. That probably wasn't it though. He moved on to punching one of the punching bags only to realise that they were much too far away from one naother to warrant a similiar exercise to the one before. He then tried the rock climbing machine on it's own only to realise that it just lead to another obstacle. Finally, he attempted all of them at the same time. And so first hit each and every dummy he could find, then followed the "course" to climb the rock wall amongst many other obstacles, including the punching bags he insisted on giving a few whacks. When it was all said and done, he sort of figured that wasn't it either. At this point he really just felt like he'd always imagined that the characters in his fighting games would feel when they were subjected to otherwordly training courses that failed to make any sort of sense to actual martial artists. No mater how he looked at it, he'd just have to find Amira and have her explain this contraption of hers.

That's about when he suddenly saw the very same Amira walking around looking mighty depressed for whatever reason. He couldn't imagine why given what she'd accomplished all on her own like she had. All for the sake of their training at that. "You don't hold back, do you?" Roland had even managed a slight smirk to go along with the comment, thoroughly impressed with Amira's dedication. "Not that I mind, it's just... amazing" As much as Roland wanted to keep his cool as he usually did in these situations, he knew very well that he didn't serve to gain anything from pretending like he knew what... this was. "...So... WHAT is it?" He was hoping for a concise enough answer to just what this thing was so he could go ahead and make use of it already.

"I admit I tried to make sense of it myself but..." And with that said Roland once more let his gaze wander across whatever it was that he was looking at. Still unable to figure out just what Amira had planned out for the two of them. The only thing he knew for sure was that he was very much excited to find out and if time had proven anything, is was that Roland Gates couldn't see the point to these seemingly randomly setup training applications, or at least not right now.

1018 Words

Deeply engrossed in her own thoughts and having tuned out the world around her it wasn't very likely that anyone's voice would break her out of the small mental state she had placed herself in. However, a familiar sound had filled her ears, causing her to bring her mind back to the reality that she was in. At first, she did not remember where she was at this current point in time and began to panic slightly, although this emotion did not last more than a few split seconds as her eyes rested on the large man whom she had been waiting for. She felt relieved, he had accepted her offer for training and was secretly glad that he had not declined her offer. "Good morning Roland." She greeted him. "What's this?" She said the tone of surprise was apparent in her voice. "Well... I guess I may have gone a tad overboard, but I was simply wondering. Training isn't fun by itself. Don't you get bored of the repetitive work? 'Twenty push-ups, five sets of reps, twenty punches to this training dummy'. It's so predictable, monotonous and boring. Come with me please." She requested as she began to stroll towards what she had marked as the beginning of the large obstacle course she had created. She felt her heartbeat rise and her mouth go dry. Each step Amira seemed to take appeared to amplify this feeling. She tried to calm herself down, but that small part of her mind was nagging her, telling her that he will think this entire affair was completely stupid.

First, the began to gesture towards the beginning, forcing a smile on her face. "I hope you don't mind but to allow our training session to become less boring I took inspiration from those fantasy novels I used to live as a child. A story of adventure, to retrieve the hidden relic that was guarded by the large dragon. The perilous journey the protagonists had to face in order to retrieve an item that did not work more than the journey itself." It wasn't long before she would catch herself in the middle of the small tangent she had been going on upon. Upon realizing this fact, she lowered her voice before quietly beginning to speak once more. "My main point is, I created a small story for us to enjoy as we train. We are going to play the role of the protagonists in this story. Our goal is to retrieve the hidden philosopher stone which shall grant our dying village the money it needs. If you know the myth of the philosopher stone, it was a legendary item that was said to be able to turn anything into gold, just what we need for our village. However, we aren't the only one after it, Roland. Others from across the kingdom are also after the stone. Not simply due to their gold turning ability, but the philosopher stone also has the power to turn its user immortal. Their intentions are nothing but selfish, not that ours are rather selfless although we truly have good intentions. We must get the stone to save our village!" Amira said, her voice raising slightly although not loud enough to be heard by the others. A smile appeared on her face as she looked at the man once more. "I do admit I got rather carried away planning the story. But I feel as if it would be one that would pique both of our interest. You can also help develop it if you wish, help is always appreciated. What do you say?" The feeling that had invaded her thoughts earlier returned, this time a strange new emotion had also decided to join the party, it made her stomach feel as if there were butterflies and sent chills down her spine, although she would not completely call it unpleasant. She had assumed there was some connection with the way she truly looked forward to this story she tailored.

However upon inspection to her creation, taking a look around the combat facility she noticed other students were looking at her course with rather strange faces, causing her to feel a bit crushed but she attempted to laugh it off. "I guess, upon first sight, one would not understand what I was aiming for. It isn't rather obvious either. I guess if you were to look at it with an outside perspective one may assume it was simply just a jumble of training equipment, random devices I placed together and a random object I placed to act as the philosopher stone. But I assure you, this quest will not be easy. We will be obtaining some decent training in this course. But unlike regular training, we will be able to have some more fun in the process of doing so. How does that sound?" Amira once again allowed a smile to appear on her face as she looked at the boxer. "It's not your conventional training process but as I mentioned before, it will be just as effective and surely more fun. If you do not enjoy this process, I'll make you a deal." Taking a moment to swallow the nagging regrets of what she had to say next she spoke, injecting confidence in the tone of her voice. "If you do not enjoy this training process I created, I will accompany you to your next three training session. I do not recall if I had mentioned this, but I myself am not a large fan of physical activity." Amira's eyes flitted around the room, almost as if she were looking for an escape in this situation. "It will be vanilla, nothing more than one of those average workouts you may see others do in here. This will be nothing more than a win-win situation for you. If you enjoy this, I'll be sure to plan more workouts like this in the future. If this is not your style, you may treat me to something that you do enjoy doing." Her heart began to beat loudly in her ears, almost as if it were also anticipating his own response although any feeling of unease was masked behind her resolve.

Word Count: 1072
Total Word Count: 2108