Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Crimson ❯ Defiance ( Chapter 7 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

"Do you understand?"
Satin nodded to Axe, but her eyes were still full of defiance. Axe noticed it immediately and didn't believe a single bob of her head. He sighed, rubbing his temples with the steadfast trainee standing before him like a sculpture of ice. Satin stared at him hard. The loose sleeves of her black t-shirt reached her elbows, peeking out from under one of the cropped, shortsleeved hoodies Sub-Zero knows her for. This time it was gray-blue with black stripes on the shoulders. Her navy blue mesh shorts hung loosely about her legs, obviously a tad large for her small frame. It would've fallen off if not for the drawstring elastic bands. The same, battered old sneakers adorned her feet. Plated wrist guards and shinguards made up her armor, but she seldom wore more protection than them. Her hair was tied into a low ponytail, with shorter fringes framing her face on either side of her head. Her bangs were choppy, like they were trimmed with hedgetrimmers or something awkward. Even in this military like environment, she had survived two months in blatant insubordination. Whatever punishments she received were taken without argument and performed in perfection. Every task was done thoroughly. The only problem was the rules. Satin did not like some of the standard rules, meaning there was always a set of codes that she did not advocate.
The Axe shook his head, looking back up at her. "You'll will do one hundred push-ups with a trainer to count them. For every time you stop, you will add three more to your count. Tonight, you will clean the locker rooms. Both of them. No one else will be in there."
"Yessir." Satin's soft reply was more cutting than some drill sergeants' voices. Her gaze never left him, causing him to sigh again.
"Why do you do this?" He asked, his tone weary and exasperated.
Satin's reply was immediate. "He called you a lazy coward who would rather do paperwork than be in action. How can I not attack him? Breaking his nose was the very least I could do."
"So I suppose that's why you gave him a black eye and a fractured wrist as well." Axe muttered, "That's not what I meant, Redkite. Why do you always start fights? Can't you try to talk it over instead of duking it out?"
Satin's whispering tone cut into space again, sharp and biting, but only to herself. "I've tried, but I'm an idiot at speaking. It's fitting that he is too dumb to understand anything but fists."
Axe felt the prick in her words, but he felt it for her. She blatantly insulted herself without hesitation. Here, one of the most versatile workers of Sub-Zero. Satin obviously hated everything that she was, while three quarters of the younger trainees looked to her as their ultimate mentor, if not a supreme SS goddess. He drew out one of his large drawers of folders, selecting the one tabbed with her name and setting it down before him. Satin looked curiously at the comments and scores written over the sheets inside. Most of them were exceeding expectations, but not quite reaching Outstanding. Her lowest marks landed on speech and language, on the high end of Adequate. Reading upsidedown wasn't much of a problem for her. She used to practice doing that for fun. There was nothing else to occupy herself with in the upper tiers. Nothing but th enoisy crowd and their dumb little games. Soccer, football, baseball, ice skating... how were those things going to help anyone in life? Unless if the person was destined to be a pro, which was less than 0.001% of the time, they were useless for anything but keeping a body in shape. Even then, they wouldn't be much help if someone attacks with a knife. Then there were those girls with their make up and nail polish. Unless if they were trying to be a super-slim model or something, which is about 0.001% of the time, they wouldn't need it. Them and their lives... they don't cherish every moment they have to live. When they die, they will have regrets.
Axe's voice brought her back. "Your trainers say your advancement is unusually fast. It's hard for the class to keep up with the speed you're learning, but you're not advanced enough to move on to the next class."
Satin knew exactly what he was going for. "You're going to make a deal with me, sir. Am I correct?"
"Bingo. I like the way your brain works." Axe's eyes were like stone. They penetrated every inch of her, threatening to break her apart if she was not worthy. "If you are willing to give up most of your free time each night, I will gladly use that time to tutor you on more advanced combat techniques. Techniques that I will expect you to substitute for the ones you use on idiots."
Satin was surprised. What sort of techniques were those? Nevertheless, she couldn't contain her excitement when she was given this offer. Her face broke into a grin, "I would be honored to learn from you. When can we start?"
The Axe couldn't help smiling back at her. She was almost exactly like him when he was first taken into the SS. Versatle, zealous, naturally gifted but unable to fit in with crowds. He knew for a fact that Satin wasn't a simple fighter. She was cut out to be a strong leader. All he had to do was to trim off the rough edges and sew the pattern together. "Seeing you're so eager to begin, I'll say whenever you want."
"Then how about tonight?" Satin asked quickly, forgetting everything that had taken place but her new lessons.
Axe shook his head, his face grave again. "You've got 200 push ups and two locker rooms to clean. That will take you a good four hours to finish."
"C'mon. The push ups won't take more than four minutes." She did some mental calculating. "Gimme two and a half hours and I'll be done." Satin gave a quick salute and immediately dashed out the room. "Thank you, sir! Please excuse me."
The door snapped shut as her footsteps faded away. Axe smiled again, leafing through more bits and pieces in her personal folder. "She has yet to learn to wait for a dismissal..." With another deep sigh, he began to read one of her reports.
[B-377. -29.8.2215 -Phys Ex Comments
Body functions are generally normal, aside from occasionally skipped heart beats. It is unlikely for a Gift to make itself apparent at her point in life, however. If it develops, it must appear in the next two years, normally. There are cracks along both of her shoulderblades, however. The cause is undetermined and the fact that they have yet to heal is intriguing. No information has been collected. Psychological aspects are complete mysteries. She has a fear of the excessive use of the color white in an environment or on a person. The magnitude of her paranoia was abnormally high for a seldomly severe phobia case. The medical staff was forced to blindfold her to restrain her movements. Some of her behaviors could be classified as unstable, irregular and at points, insane. She shows unusually low self-esteem for a highly gifted and seldom taunted being. It could be theorized that she may be in contact with an unknown figure. At the moment, nothing is diagnosed.]
Axe looked at the paper just a little longer before he closed the folder. The expression on his face was uninterperable. All the sound in the would could not have supressed his whispering. In the silence of of his office, the single breath was a booming knell.
"I'm sorry.

Satin didn't even bother to count when she did her push-ups. Axe had definitely gone easy on her this time. One hundred was nothing. Two hundred fifty at an additional five per stop? That was probably her breaking line. One-fifty was a difference. The younger trainees from age 12 to Satin's 14 years on break crowded about, watching her go through the exercise like a hurricane, whispering to each other. The trainer held a counter in one hand and a stopwatch in the other. On every up, she clicked the counter. After a while, she realized she had passed one hundred. Stopping the clock, she looked at the counter.
"Satin, you can stop now. you've done a hundred and sixteen..."
Satin pushed one more time, this time springing to her feet. "What's my time, Lex?"
"Two minutes, twelve and a half seconds. No stops."
A grin appeared on her face. "It's getting better." One of the younger female trainees handed Satin's towel and water bottle to her. Satin thanked her and poured some water into her mouth. Draping the towel around her neck, she headed towards the bench, sitting down next to Eridde, who looked like he just died. She handed him her water bottle. "Here, you look like you need it."
"Thanks." Eridde didn't hesitate in taking the offer. Neither he nor Satin understood why people made funny faces at them when they shared things. Satin didn't care, since she was practically more boy than girl. Eridde didn't care because he thought of Satin more as a brother than a female co-trainee. Satin even dressed like a boy, except for her unique, cropped hoodies. She didn't bother with her apperance or the way she walked. Her posture was only straight because she was trained that way. What natural elegance she had only appeared in combat. She deliberately kept them locked away.
"So what sort of trouble did you get into?" Satin asked, wiping sweat from her forehead.
"You know the idiot that insulted Axe?"
"No, I don't know. Which one?" There was a pause before both of them broke into laughter.
Eridde chortled, "The one that you just sent to the Meds, I mean. Yeah, he had a couple of buddies trying to sneak up on you, so I had a bit of my own fun with them. Nowhere as good as your nose-cracking aerial spin-kick, congrats, but I think I might've heard a few cracks." He sighed in mock wistfulness. He was obviously very cheerful. "While you were chatting with the ol' Axe-head, Drake nabbed me and sentenced me to twenty laps around the track, an extra lap for every time I walked. Two extra for every time I stop."
"So how many did you end up doing in total?" Satin inquired, smirking. Eridde had some brains. He probably got one or two extra laps because he decided to conserve energy in the middle by walking.
Eridde knew what she was thinking. "Twenty-two. You do know how much that is, right?"
"Four laps make a mile. You just ran five and a half miles." She thumped him on the back harder than she intended to, making him cough. "Congratulations to you! you probably did it in half an hour."
"Yeah... something like that..." He rubbed his shoulder muscles. "Remind me never to watch your back for petty arguments again. That one kid packs a heavy punch."
"No prob. I fight my own fights." Satin stood up. "That bruise looks pretty bad." She jerked her head at his shoulder. "You really shouldn't have been running with that thing."
"I'm fine--" He started, but Satin interrupted.
"No, you idiot, you're not." She stood up and headed towards the door. "Stay here, I'm going to grab some ice. You want anything else while I'm there?"
"Uh... yeah. I have to restock on my first aid kit. I'm out of aspirins." He smiled sheepishly.
Satin was surpised. "Already? I thought you restocked on that last month!"
"Well, if you take one or two a day..."
"You know what? I'm bringing a Med back with me if I can find one. Those headaches need to be checked. You're going to turn into an aspirin addict if you don't find an alternate medication." She left before he could stop her. Eridde silently cursed himself for his big mouth. He couldn't just leave. Satin would kill him if she came back and found him missing. If he didn't leave, he's be stuck with a fussy med for a while. Lucky for him, Satin only came back with the ice, no med and no aspirins. She didn't know where the medical center was. He was happy to have lucked out this time. After all this excitement... lunch sounded great.





Author's Note: Sorry for being so short this time... I was seriously running out of little bits and pieces for the ideas. I'm going to be doing some splitting up on the mini stories so it won't only be focused on Satin and Eridde. There should be a good story about Geb and Flippy and Pi... sometime or another. Next few chapters will have less action if any, but the real story will actual start to form... sorta. Um... yeah... my plot won't actually thicken until I can get everybody upstairs... up... tiers. Yeeeaaaaaah... you know what? I feel stupid. Why don't you review while I bash my head against the wall a few times? If some hard contact doesn't jumpstart some ideas into that blob of gray matter, maybe your comments will.

~Esperati Nero