I Get the Most Fashionable Uniform of All Time

After I came back from the office with Nurse Manzana—who was a very nice lady, might you—the class was already pretty much done with discussing rules. All I got to hear were the last four rules, which I personally thought were really important.

Vin was reading aloud from a book, from what I saw. No, was it... a manual? I couldn't tell with how thin it was.

"...Rule 147: Individuals are prohibited to use their chasm watches outside of Combat Instruction without proper authorization. Tinkering with other individuals' watches, as well as your own, is also prohibited. Any sort of this behavior will result in severe punishment and discipline."

Mr. Vin looked up from his little book and saw me standing by the nurse, who was making another stretcher out of thin air. "Ah, Aaron, is it? Please, take a seat."

He gestured to the middle of the class.

"Um, sir, it's actually Andrew."

He waved aside my comment. "Yes yes, now please take a seat Aiden."

Continuing from where he left off, he began reciting the rest of the rules.

"Rule 148: Any form of fighting, including arguing, teasing, bullying, or physical attacks, will result in severe punishment and discipline. Needless to say, combat training is a different story, so fighting outside of class is a big no no. Rule 149: No weapons are allowed outside of combat training and campus. Contraband is prohibited and will result in punishment. Depends on severity. And finally, rule 150: if staff deems you with inappropriate behavior, they have full permission to discipline with any means necessary. That concludes with the rules, please stand and line up in front of my desk. Girls on the left, boys on the right. I am handing out academic uniforms and combat uniforms. And please, don't horse around."

He placed the manual on the table before picking up a tote behind him. He opened the lid, and inside were just normal looking black cotton shirts.

The girls groaned. "So bland..."

Me personally, I was a little hyped. I didn't mind a good black shirt. Most of my shirts were white anyways, so I wouldn't mind a little variety in my wardrobe. Also, hate to break it to them, but this was a military academy, not a fashion school, if they couldn't tell the difference yet.

"Please line up correctly. One at a time please. Girls to the left, boys on the right, thank you," he said, ignoring the girls' remarks.

When it was my turn to get a shirt, I noticed behind him several other totes that were left unopened. None of them appeared eye-catching, just simple grey totes, probably containing the rest of our clothes.

"Mr. Vin?" I asked.

"Yes, what is it now."

"How come you haven't opened the rest of the totes? Wouldn't it be easier just to hand us all our clothes at once?"

He glared at me. "I've been given strict instructions to hand out each article of clothing one at a time. Not my choice, Alex. Please refrain from being nosy."

"Again, it's Andrew. I just thought it'd be nice to, y'know, have a 'packaged deal'," I grumbled.

I sat down in my seat grumpily. So he just caught Sebastian's hand like it was nothing, knocked him out cold, and decided to just call it a day? And yet he thinks he's some 'righteous rule follower' or some crap. If he was a rule follower, Lee wouldn't have had his limbs snapped like toothpicks and Sebastian wouldn't have went on a rampage. I dunno who he thinks he is, but something's up with this guy, and that's all I know.

After someone grabbed the last shirt, he asked if anyone didn't get a shirt. When no one responded, he took the empty tote off the desk and grabbed another one from behind him.

"Get used to lining up guys, 'cause we're gonna be doing this for the remainder of class," he said.

Everyone got up again, this time for pants. This time they were a black camouflage design. Girls got leggings, guys got cargo pants with the design. There were also tan cargo shorts for everyone, but it was only a couple guys—including myself— that took one.

I figured we were done, but Mr. Vin only ended up pulling up another tote. I was confused a tad bit, maybe a little curious. I didn't have a clue on what was inside.

"Okay, listen carefully everyone," Vin instructed. "These are very expensive, and I need you to treat them carefully. They are also difficult to use at times, but these are your wrist wallets. These are how you will make transactions throughout the campus. They virtually can buy anything, but it will be with great difficulty. Each of you are already handed 500$ to start out with."

Chatter and whispering erupted out among everyone. 500$? That's a hefty price they're willing to pay everyone in ALL the classes...

He continued on. "Each week, you will get an allowance depending on your performance in class and training. Do your best, you will be rewarded. It's as simple as that. I'll teach you how to use them once everyone gets one, so please be patient."

Ohhhhh, so we have to work for the money. That makes sense though, to be honest. They're trying to teach us to rely on each other as well as ourselves at the same time. Shit, it all makes sense now: the fighting, leaving the classes unattended. It's all to toughen us up before we actually start to really train. The strong prey on the weak, so the weak strive to get stronger. So they weaker ones are gonna be the ones that are working harder. But they're playing a pretty dicey game here. Either they win, where 'Unite and Conquer' kinda stuff happens, or they lose. The strong and the weak are divided between each other, and the weak can never get stronger, which would probably devastate the entire system they have. I ain't gonna lie, I don't think they'd wanna 'lose'. Then again, the school's managed to keep themselves together this long, so maybe there's some other strat behind-the-scenes that i'm just not seeing.

Everyone got a white wristband with a black screen on it. Next to the screen was a dark green hexagon, probably representing how much service we've put in or somethin'. After the wristbands, I kinda zoned out, being handed more clothes, gadgets, and accessories as I daydreamed.

Only when a bell rang did I snap back to reality.

"Oh? Well he's quite antsy, isn't he. Dismissed," Vin said.

I was a bit confused by what he meant, but still followed everyone out of the room. Everyone poured out of the classrooms and into the hallway, where we walked down until we reached a set of doors. On an old metal sign above them were engraved words that simply read 'Combat'. With a sudden realization, I figured out that it was already time for Hand-to-hand training.

Several pulled on the handle, but it was locked. I thought I caught a glimpse of Jarun and Ziya in the crowd, but they disappeared just as fast as I saw them. Everyone was confused and just stood there or wandered aimlessly while talking.

"What now? We'll be in trouble if we don't hurry guys," someone said.

"Ok, but like, we can't do anything about it. The door's kind of locked, if you haven't noticed like the rest of us," a guy replied.

He looked down, embarrassed. "Yeah, I guess so..."

"Why don't we just leave? It's not like there's anything better to do—"

BOOM.

The hall went quiet. Everyone shifted their attention at the door.

BOOM.

Another loud sound went off from behind the door, like someone was banging on it. People near the door started backing off, worried that something was trying to get out.

The noise stopped for a moment. Even though it stopped, everyone was still quiet, on the edge of their toes waiting for something to happen.

The guy from earlier spoke up. "Hey, I think it's gone—"

CRASH.

Dented metal doors flew off the hinges and straight through the crowd, which was separated into two sides already. Apparently, I didn't get the memo to join, because I got to meet a fifty pound door with my stomach. If I'd been paying attention, I probably wouldn't have been slammed ten feet back and folded on the spot.

A familiar sounding laugh bellowed, loud and clear.

"Good to see ya, punk! Looks like you couldn't dodge that one, aye?"

Standing in the busted door-frame was the one and only, pain-in-the-ass, cockiest teacher of all time: Mr. Jovic.