Chapter 14: Friends?

"I thought you guys hadn't seen anybody else hospitalized?" I asked flustered.

'You're really not the brightest in the bunch are you?' Gil mocked.

"They didn't Caesar, I didn't get wounded like you did. Thanks by the way, I may have died if it wasn't for you,"he said with a smile.

"Wait Caesar went out of his way for somebody?!" Xynthia gasped.

"And it wasn't me?!" Kyla whined, walking in.

"Welcome to your new life Caesar, it seems we don't get a quiet one," Daron sighed.

From there on everyone kinda joked a bit and filled me in on what I had missed the few days I was in the infirmary. Apparently not everyone got the same test. We were sent in groups of four to a random island nearby. Wether we ran into the others or not didn't matter. As long as we reached the finish line alive, we passed. This does mean people did die, which only made me angry.

"How many people died?" I asked, shaking from my anger.

"We were told around six, and we started with thirty people when we got off the train, so there's twenty four of us still here,"Xynthia said, hoping to calm me down.

"Why does it matter how many are left?" I asked, trying not to snap at her, while me being here is her fault, the deaths aren't.

"Look at the floor, see the different colors? See how our outfits match our floor color? Four teams of six. We're competing against each other through our training,"Daron explained nonchalantly while eating.

"That's why you said to be careful what information I let out," I said to Icarus.

"I see you catch on quick enough," Icarus said smiling. "As I'm sure you noticed. Currently there is five of us, some people have yet to pick their team. We were told we all could wait until you woke up, but, those of us here didn't want to. So Xynthia made you join our team, she's talked a lot about you."

I glared at her and she flashed a smile at me. Like always she wasted no time making friends. I never understood why, most times other people just weighed you down.

They continued to explain that every week we would have a training exercise, and based on what place your team came in, they would get access to better food, things for their rooms and so on and so forth.

A competition, where the strong get better lives, and the weak get culled out. More of this oh so amazing new world that worships strength. Xynthia again had to calm me down, and everyone else looked a bit worried at how quick I was to anger. I didn't feel like telling them it's just because of the way the world was, instead of me just being a hothead.

After we finished eating we went to the building with crossed swords. Since I had missed a couple days, I was the only one who had yet to pick a weapon to practice with. Of course nobody was really proficient with weapons yet, unless they were like Icarus and practiced with them at home. In his case that would be a a spear, since spear fishing was his specialty. Xynthia has been practicing with a shield and sword, balanced offense and defense that made all to much sense for her. Daron uses a katana, he said he likes the way it feels and that it looks cool. Kyla had been using a bow because she doesn't want to have to get up too close.

When they showed me the selection I had to pick from I was overwhelmed, so many different weapons, and I probably couldn't even name half of them even with all my studies. If you can name a mellow weapon and even some ranged ones, they probably had it. Some didn't even look like weapons and more like armor. Gauntlets and leg bracers with blades running down then as an example.

Most of it looked cool, but none of it seemed like it would suite me. The transformations would already supplement me with enough attack power to make use of a weapon unnecessary for me. That is, until I saw the perfect weapon, though most wouldn't call it much of one.

After making my selection and the rest of them l, except Icarus, looking disappointed in me for not picking something that would deal much damage, we headed to the serpent building. For today was the day where squads would be finalized and we would begin true combat training.