7 Chapter 7

I grabbed the blade and threw it high into the air with my remaining strength. The blade began to fly down while a spirit of a falcon formed around the blade. With a screech the aspect of the falcon collided with the Berserker. I managed to glimpse at him from my where is was laying down, like a dead starfish. I saw he had turned around and both of his hands were gripping the sword that was embedded next to his collarbone. not a fatal attack to the real him however he's definitely gonna feel the blow for a while. he was profusely sweating while slowly drawing the sword out of him. by the time he pulled it he was slumping over, he used the sword as a cane and walked towards me. he threw his helmet off and revealed his face, he had a grimaced beneath long braided locks, his eyes were a whirl of emotions; pride, anger and pain. when he reached me, he readied his stolen sword to plunge into my chest and finish the fight. I was done for, not even my fingers wanted to move, and my head was killing me. a patch of sweat surrounded me, the liquid mixing with the sand of the arena floor, with a strain of effort my hand dug into the ground to grab a handful of it. in a fit of instinct and adrenalin my arm ignores every pain or instruction from my brain and flung the sand at him. large amounts collided with his face and he stumbled back while rubbing his eyes and coughing.

"You cocky kid," he hacked and fell over in the effort.

I slowly got up and stumbled to my sword. dragging it across the ground I approached him, the roles effectively reversed. I smiled to myself, I'm gonna win I'm gonna win! I'm gonna...pass out.

I imagined Sylvia began to laugh when I slumped over sideways and the instructor resting his head in his hand. how anti climatic that the fight ended with both opponents just collapsing. I in fact regained consciousness to Sylvia pouring a large bucket of water onto my face. The VR machine simulated this perfectly with real water being thrown onto my face as well. sporadically my arms threw themselves up to cover my face however fell back down from the effort. my eyes blinked open to see that Sylvia was staring at me with a confused face.

"normally that works, you should have gotten up," she commented.

"normally you don't fight someone who's twice the size of you," I whined.

she shrugged and grabbed my tunic and pulled me to my feet.

"are all of you inhumanely strong?

"oh, uh yes," she placed released her grip on my tunic and patted the dust off my shoulders.

my legs wobbled at each hit however I didn't fall back over. the instructor walked towards us.

"what the hell is this weakling doing here?" he shouted and lightly pushed me off my feet.

"see he's useless why did Derek enlist him?" he threw his hands into the air "Sylvia, I order you to contact Derek, so he can explain his shortcomings."

while was Carrying that out I groaned, the adrenalin was fading, and I was now feeling pain all over my body. managed to sit upright and analyse the details of the instructor. he was similar build to Sylvia in fact however his entire form was covered in thick black metal and he held a golden staff in his left hand.

"what is your name welp?" he boomed over me.

"Philip," I replied.

"although you were able to outwit your opponent Philip, you are the weakest recruit I've seen. just look at you!" he prodded my arms and stomach which made me grumble in pain "no muscles whatsoever, flabby fatness all over you and the posture of a goblin? why would Derek want you to be Sylvia's protector? you ought to be a distraction to the assassins really."

"I don't know?" I wheezed.

"Rule one worm, you only talk when I say you can," he shouted at me.

the noise was somewhat dulled though by my pain.

"Instructor Clavicus, Derek is coming any minute now," Sylvia announced.

"Rule one Sylvia, 10 pushups for each syllable you spat," he barked.

"but that's 160 of them," she exclaimed.

"now it's 260, care to add more," he coldly replied.

she groaned and began to do the pushups. Derek walked in from the same place I did his character was a battlemage, they casted spells through a longsword and wore medium armour.

"ah Clavicus what do I owe the pleasure?" he grinned while the instructor swung his staff at him.

Derek parried him "already starting with an attack, I'm hurt."

"why have you chosen this worm as the Protector. look at him he can't even stand up!" he pointed his staff at me.

"what's a protector?" Sylvia chimed in halfway through her Pushups.

"Sylvia you will now continue doing the pushups in the armoury along with a 5-minute wall sit," he roared at her.

she backed away and left the arena grounds.

"Isn't it obvious Clavicus? it's for his own skin as well, the assassins know he was hanging out with Sylvia, if he were not trained, he's going to be captured and used as a tool to kill her," he waved his arms towards me.

"why didn't you just kill him then?" Clavicus replied coldly.

"ooh that's dark, even for you Clavicus. the father ordered us to not kill any civilians."

"whoa whoa woah, you could have murdered me?" I paled.

"no! I'm not going to kill a kid because he's puny like you. I'm the one in this department who's meant to act human. unlike Clavicus and Bearnen over there," he pointed to the berserker who was currently polishing his sword.

"even if you wanted to revert this problem of yours the father has already second my decision, he quite likes this young man who tried to protect his daughter."

"how am I meant to train him then? he's so weak," Clavicus screeched.

"start small or something, figure it out," Derek blankly stated.

Clavicus' face contorted in even more anger and frustration at his situation.

"if that's all, I need to head off now, I have about 5 piles of paper work to complete that the previous support coordinator failed to complete," Derek began to walk away to where he spawned.

Clavicus grabbed my tunic and raised me into the air.

"listen to me boy, you will work as hard as any other recruit I've had, if you fail to complete the exercises I will set tomorrow your work load will double," he growled "by the time I'm done with you, I'm hoping that you will have died or become capable of protecting Sylvia from an army. Do you understand?"

"yes Instructor," I Replied.

"alright boot kisser, you have a 10-minute break then you're going to be doing the first Segment of your training," he dropped me, and I landed on my ass.

I groaned in pain and flopped onto the floor.

"this is the calm before the storm," I whispered.

"this won't be a storm tiny protector, it's gonna be a hurricane!" laughed Bearnen and I sighed.