Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Twelve - Survival 101: Don't Be Weak

Chapter Twelve - Survival 101: Don't Be Weak

"Run my minions! Sweat for your master! That's right, a million more push-ups! A million more burpees! Oh-hohohoho!"@@novelbin@@

-Ojou-Sama Sweat School, exercise stream, 2036

***

Class was going down in the same room as last time, only the room itself had changed. The desks were all lowered, and a sort of matted floor was placed atop that half of the room. It was squishy underfoot, but still firm enough to walk on without too much difficulty. It would probably break a fall, a little, but not so much so that crashing onto the floor would be comfortable.

The students were gathering to one side, under the watchful eye of Professor Rogers and two teacher's assistants. They were all dressed in gym shorts and t-shirts, with running shoes on.

"The changing rooms are this way," Olivia said as she guided me past the class and to the back, where a tied corridor split. One side had showers, the awkward open sort, the other had a bunch of changing stalls and lockers along one wall with thumb-print locks on them.

"Here you go," Olivia said as she handed me a heap of clothes. "There should be everything you need to find a set that fits you in there."

"Thanks," I said before slipping into one of the free stalls. They were those shitty ones, where the door only came down to about my knee and the floor was all cold tile. I set down the bag Olivia had given me, then opened it up and started to sort through its contents.

But the sports bras? That was a little weird. And I was definitely, one-hundred percent not going to wear the granny panties with the school's logo on the crotch. Bet Olivia would, though.

I left the stall feeling a little under-dressed, especially since I wasn't gonna walk into gym class with my Trenchmaker strapped around my thigh. That'd be a little weird.

"Is the uniform comfortable?" Olivia asked. She'd changed into pretty much the same thing, though with a scrunchy keeping her hair out of her face.

"Eh, it's whatever," I said. I dumped my things in one of the lockers, then walked back to the class.

It didn't take long from there for things to start.

"Alright everyone," Professor Rogers said. "This is the physical education part of your class. Let me get one thing straight, this isn't about who can run the fastest mile, or who can do the most pushups. Those are important measurements of your own skill and capabilities, but they're not what's important. What's truly important, is your ability to survive, and your ability to kill."

I stood up a little straighter. Yeah, I didn't want to be tested on my ability to jog in a circle or lift heavy shit.

"Whether you're fighting the antithesis and your weapon jams at a bad time, or you need to subdue a VIP that you can't simply shoot, or you're caught fighting a crowd of protestors in close quarters, you need to know the basics of modern combat. We're going to focus especially on fundamentals, the things you need to know to survive. Learning how to kill effectively comes second."

The professor gestured, and the assistants ran off. They returned with these big lumpy beige bags that they dropped on the floor before us, then they ran off to get more from a storage room at the back.

"We're starting the day with basic stretches, then we're going straight into core strength and endurance training. Line up, get some space between each other. I don't want to see one of you smacking your neighbor in the face, c'mon!"

The class spread out, taking up a good chunk of the room until we all had enough room around us not to touch even if we reached towards each other. Then Rogers started us on stretches.

Initially it was pretty easy stuff. Arm extensions, squats, lunges. Then he started to repeat the same pattern, but a little more extreme. Arm extensions combined with full-body twists, squats that turned into doing the splits on the floor, lunges that had us turning half-way to try and touch the ground behind us.

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A few students tripped over themselves and landed their ass on the floor, but it wasn't so funny when I was trying not to lose my own balance.

I very quickly discovered that I wasn't half as flexible as the old man at the front. He could do a full split, lean to the side and touch his ear with a toe. I was pretty sure that if I pushed that hard, I'd rip something.

I wasn't quite sweating after ten minutes of stretching, but it was a near thing.

"Alright!" Professor Rogers said as he bounced up to his feet. "Next, strength training. We're not looking to build big muscles here. I don't give a shit if you look good on a poster. What I care about is functional strength. The ability to pull yourself up over obstacles, the ability to carry a wounded VIP or comrade, the ability to walk for half a day and still shoot at the end of that. Pick a body! We're doing some light jogging for the next half hour."

Picking a body meant grabbing one of those lumpy things the TAs were dropping in front of each student. They were big, vaguely-human shaped lumps of weighted mass. I grabbed mine, then immediately regretted the way I'd tried to just lift it. The damned thing was heavier than I was, and it was a sort of dead weight, all lumpy and almost liquid.

I glanced at the side when I saw someone do a roll that ended with them under the weight, then they lifted it with a squat.

I did the same, thought not nearly so gracefully. I think if it wasn't for the grip strength on my cybernetic arm, I might not have been able to hold on at all, but eventually I had the lump over one shoulder and I was able to hang onto it.

"Alright! Get running!"

I started to jog along with the rest.

We went around the edge of the room in a big circle, and I could immediately tell that this wasn't going to be fun after a few minutes. I had a few cybernetic enhancements on my side, plus some upgrades that Myalis had pushed on me, but in the end I was still an underfed, under-exercised twig of a girl that was only in shape because I couldn't afford not to be.

Running around with my own weight on my back was not normal for me.

It was worse for some of the others, though. They were gasping after three minutes and one chick fell down and crashed to the mats. The professor was on her in seconds, barking orders and telling her to get back up.

So, no mercy from the old asshole.

I locked in as best I could. Some of the guys in the class were moving as if this was nothing. There were a couple that were more cybernetics than flesh, and they weren't having any trouble with this shit.

"It's... not fair!" one skinny dude said. I immediately pegged him as a nepo-baby.

"What's not fair?" Rogers asked.

"They're modded... for this," he said.

"Then get mods of your own, imbecile," the professor said. "You work with what you have, and in this day and age, if you don't like what you've got, get better."

The running around ended after far too long, and this time I couldn't hide the fact that I was a sweaty, tired mess.

"Good... now that you're all warmed up, let's start some speed drills. We're going to start with hand-eye coordination drills, then once that's done, we're going to do a bit more sprinting," Professor Rogers said.

The TAs started to pull out these pole contraptions with red balls on stalks. Once they set a few down, it wasn't long before I figured out how they worked. A light would go off in the ball, and the student in front had to punch it.

The lights went off progressively faster, and there was a penalty counter for missed hits.

My legs were hurting before, and this thing was designed to fuck up my arms too.

Why had I ever agreed to any of this?

At the same time... I couldn't help but feel like this might be a good way to come out the other side stronger and faster, so I'd trust the process for a bit.

***