The P.R.I.D.E.F.U.L.

Chapter 2: "Basics"

Chapter 2: "Basics"

"Are you sure about these self-defense classes? This isn't something that you'll start and quit in a few weeks, is it?" the voice of a woman drifted into April's ear from her phone as the girl walked down the sidewalk towards the dojo.

"No, Mom!" April huffed. "This is something that I seriously want to do."

"I'm all for you learning to defend yourself, sweetie," a man's voice followed after the woman to imply that they were talking on speaker. "But we've been down this road before. You start new things all the time. Why not try a few free seminars at the community center first?"

"They won't be able to train me like these people," April argued. "I don't want to be afraid and defenseless anymore. A community class wouldn't really teach me how to stay safe. To be strong. This place is different. The master's students are amazing. I want to be like them so that if anyone breaks into the house, then I'll be able to protect myself."

The guilt trip seemed to get to her parents. They muttered incoherently away from the speaker so she couldn't hear them. Of course, she refused to mention her bullying issues. Their solution to that might be to send her to a new school again. April refused to run anymore or be dumped off alone for what felt like the seventh time in her life.

"Fine," Mom sighed. "Give the owner our credit information and have him call us later."

"Do we have to sign anything?" Dad questioned. He then turned his attention to talk with someone other than her. "No! No! The statue is supposed to be at the entrance where everyone can see it when they walk in!"

"No. Ancient Arts doesn't do written contracts besides the permission slip that I sent you," April silently pumped her fist. "Caesar's grandfather will bill you month-by-month."

"Caesar?" Mom's interest immediately peaked. "Wait. Is this about a boy?"

"Err," April glanced to the young man walking next to her. He had put in earbuds to give her some privacy. Her face lightly flushed. "The guy that recruited me is a boy, but it's not about that."

"Is he cute?"

"Mom!" April hissed but denied nothing.

"I refuse to pay for you to flirt with some boy," Dad jumped back into the conversation.

"I told you that it's not about him!" April turned her head away from her companion to hide her frustration. "Please. I need to do this."

"Fine, but I expect to see the results of what I pay for," Dad rushed away from the phone after his input was established so that he could help set up the art show that they were planning.

"We have to go, hun. Things are falling apart around us. Go ahead and sign up. We'll talk more later. Love you!"

"Wait! I was wondering when you could come back..." April heard the beep which signaled the end of the call, "home to visit."

Sighing, April tucked her phone away. Seeing that she was done, Caesar pulled out his earbuds, "So? What did they say?"

April gave an awkward smile, "They said yes."

Caesar noticed her discomfort. His burning eyes of passion carefully examined her face. Eventually, he decided to not comment on her conflicting feelings. He gave her a supportive smile, "That's great! We're going to have a hell of a time! Give it a week, and you'll see the difference! I guarantee it!

She couldn't stop herself from returning the smile. His enthusiasm was infectious. Together, they made their way to the Ancient Arts Dojo. When they got to the building, Caesar entered the structure with a bow. April followed his example. Once inside, she glanced around to see that the inside looked the same as what she saw through the windows. Most of the large room was covered with thick black mats. The narrow strip of wood flooring before the mat began was lined with metal chairs.

Seeing Caesar remove his shoes, April did the same. As she sat to take off her footwear, she looked further into the room. While one side of the room was lined with mirrors, the other side appeared to be a mural which was slowly being designed. An old man was carefully working on drawing the design on the wall with a thin pencil. Every part of his body below the neck was covered in loose black robes which were held together with several dark sashes. In complete contrast, the aged master's long hair and braided beard were a pure white that matched the snow on a mountain peak.

"Hi, Grandpa!" Caesar called out to his grandfather. "I brought the new student that I told you about!"

The grandfather continued to silently work on the mural. April opened her mouth to say something but stopped herself. She didn't want to insult the man. When her shoes were off, she followed Caesar onto the mat with a second bow of respect.

Caesar pointed to the end of the room with multiple doors, "The far right door is the restroom. You can change there. I'll head upstairs so that I can get ready too."

"Oh?" April examined the stairs. "What's on the second floor?"

"My room," Caesar noted.

"You live here?" April questioned.

"Uh huh. We both do," Caesar headed towards the steps. "Where else are we supposed to go?"

April watched as he walked up the stairs. She began to head towards the changing room when the old man finally spoke out, "What's your name, child?"

"Ah!" April jumped a bit. "It's, uh, April Brodie."

"Hmm, my name is Alexander Dias. You can call me Sensei Dias," the old master didn't look back at her. Instead, he focused on drawing the tiger on the wall. "Go get changed, and we'll see how dedicated you are to learning the art of war."

"Right," April began to walk to the restroom once more. "Um, don't you want my payment info? And what about my uniform?"

"We'll wait to see if you're willing to stick with us before we dedicate to anything," Alexander mentioned. "No more questions. You have two minutes to change. Go."

Sensing the seriousness in his voice, April rushed to the restroom. She changed within record time. Once finished, she stepped out of the bathroom in loose shorts and a large t-shirt. Caesar was already back on the mat by the time that she got onto the floor. He was joined by Shelby and Ricky. They all wore the jacket and loose pants combo of a gi. While Caesar's uniform was black, the others' gis were covered in blue.

"She actually showed up," Shelby snorted.

Ricky nodded, "I'm glad. New training partners are always a good thing."

Shelby smirked, "You mean decent training partners are a good thing. Alright. Let's get to work, girl. I'm starting you off on your warm-up. Let's get your first day in hell started."

"Hell? What—Hey!" April was silenced when Shelby grabbed onto her. The more experienced woman then dragged the newbie to the edge of the mat.

"Twenty laps! Go!" Shelby rushed off around the floor. April sprinted to follow after the senior student but was unable to keep up. She was lapped several times before finishing. Sweaty and out of breath, April knelt over to gasp for air. Before she could breathe right, Shelby shoved her to the floor. "Stretch! You won't be able to train right if you pull a muscle."

Not willing to complain, April did as she was told. As she stretched, Shelby gave several hints about controlling her breathing. Once the more brutal girl was satisfied, Sensei Dias stepped in to begin the session, "I want to gauge your fitness level, so we'll be doing an 'until failure' workout."

"Yeah!" Caesar jumped up in excitement.

April looked around confusedly, "What does 'until failure' means?"

"I means that you're doomed to fail," Ricky explained. "You keep doing the exercise until you start to slow down. The goal is to constantly improve your reps."

Upon getting the explanation, the students moved to do their exercises. April recognized the basic strength movements. She mentally groaned at the prospect of doing pushups, sit ups, and squats. Despite her distaste of the situation, she did her best with the exercises. To her embarrassment, she only did about one dozen of each moment before Sensei Dias caught her slowing down. Her shame only grew when her classmates were able to get close to hundreds of reps before they were stopped. She was pretty sure that the aging master halted his grandson's workout without any change in the boy's speed in order to save time for the rest of them.

By the time that the training was over, April felt completely drained. She was soaked in a layer of thick sweat. Despite her failure to come close to keeping up with the more experienced students, no one appeared to judge her for her weakness. Caesar even gave her a thumbs up for her efforts. With the atmosphere feeling as understanding as it was, April felt satisfied with her first day of training. Her sense of victory immediately shattered when the old master told her that it was only first part of their class.

"Now that you're worn out, it's time to get started on the basics," Sensei Dias noted. "Take your stance."

Whipping the sweat from her brow, April nodded. She spread her legs and took a deeper stance. A snort sounded out from Shelby as she moved away with Ricky to work on their own stuff. Confused, April looked down to see her toes and knees pointing at each other. Shaking his head, the old master stepped forward to poke her on the forehead. Giving a surprised squeak, April wildly tumbled backwards onto her rear, "Ow."

"Your stance is your foundation. It is like a house. If the foundation fails, everything fails. Stand up and try again," Sensei Dias ordered.

Nodded, April did as he told. She flipped over onto her hands and knees to get up. Before she could make it to her feet, he poked her on the back of her head, "You died."

"Huh?" April looked up at him in confusion.

"Never look away from your foe like that. Never. You won't be able to see what's coming next, and you won't be able to protect yourself," the old master explained. "Caesar."

"Yes, sir," the young man flopped onto his back so that he could show her the proper way to stand. She watched as he swung his leg back to get in a defensive stance with his toes pointed forward at her.

To emphasize his point, Dias stepped up to his grandson and poked him on the forehead. Caesar didn't move. Nodding, the teacher turned back to her, "Follow his example."

"Okay," April copied her friend. She shakily swung her leg back to stand up in her awkward stance.

Frowning, Sensei Dias poked her again. Instead of falling, she stumbled backwards instead. Right before she could fix her balance, he poked her again to make her tumble down a second time, "Better, but not good. Caesar give her directions. I'll be back after helping Shelby and Ricky."

The grandson saluted his caretaker. When the old man moved to teach the other students, Caesar plopped down next to her, "When swinging your back leg to get up, try kick standing your hands on the mat to make up for the lack of balance."

Doing as he said, April managed to get to her feet without shaking. Once she was in her stance, Caesar moved to correct the flaws but stopped before he could grab her leg. Coughing, he pointed to the different joints in her legs while trying to show her what to do with his own bottom appendages. When her stance was good enough for his standards, he lightly pushed her. To April's joy, she didn't move at all.

"I did it!" April gave a beaming smile.

"You did!" Caesar responded to her grin with a thumbs up.

"What now?"

Caesar tumbled onto his back, "We keep doing the same thing."

She blinked at him in surprise, "The same thing?"

"Yep. Repetition is the mother of all skills," Caesar got up into his stance to emphasize his point. "If you want to do something right without thinking about it, you have to keep doing it until you move automatically."

"Oh. That makes sense," April admitted despite feeling disappointed. She glanced over to Shelby to see the other girl rapidly hitting a bag. "What about hitting things? I already learned how to do that."

"Ehh…" Caesar shrugged. "I guess that you learned it. It was an impressive kick, but it was also a lucky shot. That Fiona girl was completely untrained. It was just as likely that you would have fell on your face."

"But you were encouraging me to do it."

"Yeah, but we were there to help if you messed up," Caesar explained. "Next time, there might not be guarantees. So it would be best to teach you right. You have to practice something tens of thousands of times to ingrain it into your body."

"Like muscle memory?"

"Exactly!"

April deflated a bit, "So I'm going to be getting up into a guard stance ten thousand times?"

"No," Caesar shook his head. "Just enough for you to do it somewhat naturally. Don't worry. I'll be here the whole time doing it with you."

"What about your own training?" April glanced over once more to see Ricky swinging around two sticks connected by a chain.

"This is my training. Everyone has to practice the basics, even the most experienced martial artist," Caesar smiled. "Besides, I'm in charge of your training for now. Let's get better together."

April nodded happily, "Yes. Let's."

Together, the duo went through the repetition of building their stances. After only a few minutes, April felt the fatigue of the strength training catch up to her. Every movement caused her muscles to ache in pain. Caesar still didn't look tired at all. As he went through the movements with her, he gave her tiny tips on how to fall, get up, and move without hurting herself while preserving energy. After close to a half an hour, they finally finished their training session. April could barely remember dragging her tired, sweaty body home and collapsing on the bed when she woke up the next morning.

The next few defense classes consisted of mostly the same format with minimal modifications. The strength training consisted of the same exercises. A few more tidbits were put into to her movements. At first, Caesar only added a retreat step after the standup. He eventually included a few blocks to give her a couple of actual defense moves to her ability set. While the training wasn't unbearably hard, the monotony and fatigue steadily wore down on her spirit to the point that she wanted to be anywhere but the dojo. After a week, she felt terrible.

"Then take a day off," Caesar suggested when she brought up her concerns. "Everyone needs some rest time."

April blinked, "Really? But I thought that you guys trained every day."

"Well, Grandpa and I do, but we're weird," Caesar shrugged. "You're newer. Doing too much too fast will burn your willpower away pretty quick. We're not going to create a set schedule for you. You don't need to be afraid to rest."

While his explanation made sense, April couldn't help but feel discouraged. Every day, she saw her seniors in the dojo training extremely interesting stuff. Shelby was flipping bags over her hips and practicing taking someone's arms off. Ricky was using every weapon she imagined a ninja would wield. Plus, she felt like she holding Caesar back. He didn't seem to be challenged at all when working with her. Despite the conviction that she felt when she decided to learn self-defense, April could sense the urge to quit boil in her stomach.

"Hey!" Shelby's harsh voice made April pause in her walk.

Turning, April saw the other girl glaring at her as she stood on the sidewalk leading to her home. Shelby had changed out of her gi to return to her professional clothes. Gulping, the newbie martial arts answered, "Yeah?"

"We need to talk," Shelby stepped up right in front of her. The fading sun was almost beyond the horizon to leave them in twilight. "I don't care what your motivations are in all this. Whether it's a whim or some kind of stupid crush doesn't matter to me, but don't jerk Caesar around."

April shook her head, "I haven't-"

"Yet. You haven't yet, but I'm pretty damn good at seeing weakness in people," Shelby sneered down her nose at the weaker girl. "One week in, and you look like you're about to burst out crying."

"I'm not going to cry," April frowned.

"Uh huh," Shelby crossed her arms. "Don't think that I don't have you figured out, girl. I saw how Fiona dragged you around. You shrunk down like a frightened little bunny and whimpered for someone to save you instead of acting. Caesar is an overly kind moron, but I'm not. I don't pity people who don't even try to get out of shitty situations."

"But I did do something!" April argued.

"At the very end because Caesar cared enough to help you for some weird reason," Shelby scoffed. "I have to admit that the kick was impressive, but not enough to have 'a lot' of potential."

"What does that mean?"

"Caesar thinks that everyone has potential. The first thing he did when he befriended Ricky and I was tell us that we were both had potential despite being crappy people," Shelby's burning eyes of passion slightly softened, but the niceness swiftly faded back to anger. "Neither of us have heard him tell someone that they have 'a lot' of potential. You're the first. He's drawn to you. Maybe he likes to help pity cases. Maybe he wants in your pants. I don't know either way, and I sure as hell don't care."

"If you don't care, then why confront me?" April questioned.

"I don't care about you. Caesar? Him I care about," Shelby stated. "I owe a lot to the big dork, and I won't let you get his hopes super high just to crush them. Either quit now, or stick with this until the end. I won't accept a middle ground."

"You're telling a student to quit?" April frowned. "That's not good business. Maybe you're the reason why the dojo doesn't have a lot of students."

"Don't talk about things that you don't know about!" Shelby grabbed her by the collar. "Fine. You want to be sassy. Then let me show you what you're dealing with right now."

April squeaked when the senior student began to drag her back down the street towards the dojo, "What are you doing? I don't want to fight."

"I'm not pulling you into a fight, wimp. Be quiet or he'll hear you," Shelby pulled the newer student to the gate in the dojo's fence. She carefully pulled the wooden passage open to give them a peek into the yard. Most of the area was well kept. The grass was trimmed while the flower beds along the edge of the building were in their spring bloom. A wide shed was opened to show a lot more equipment than what was in the dojo. There also seemed to be a doghouse with a tiny Papillon with brown and white fur sticking it head out of the small home. What really stood out in the scene was the oddity at the center.

Caesar appeared to still be training intensely. He seemed to be doing laps back and forth along the yard. Instead of running, he was walking on his hands and feet. More accurately, he was holding onto large cinder blocks to weigh him down as he moved. With each step, he lifted one of the concrete slabs up with either his fingers or toes wrapped through the opening in the center of the blocks. To further harshen the exercise, Sensei Dias sat on Caesar's back to weigh him down further. Sweat soaked through Caesar's uniform while droplets rapidly fell from his brow. He shook tiredly with each movement yet did not fall despite his loud groans of agony. April felt her body ache uncontrollably just from watching him.

"You see that?" Shelby whispered in her ear. "This is the man that you're dealing with. He does stuff like this every night until he collapses from exhaustion."

"W-Why?" April asked.

"To make sure that he's ready for tomorrow. So that no one gets hurt," Shelby silently shut the gate just as the dog turned to look at them. "Caesar does everything one hundred percent. There is no maybe. There is no quit. Not a lot of people can handle it. Hell, I don't think that you can handle it. That's why I'm doing this. Either prove me wrong or quit, because I'm not letting someone who just goes along with what's in front of them hurt him."

With that said, Shelby turned to leave. April watched her walk away into the night. Most of the street lights had flickered alive by now. Left alone in the cooling evening, she listened the sounds of Caesar harshly training. She had thought that the process of learning self-defense would be a lot simpler than this. While she knew that she wouldn't be at the more experienced students' levels, she thought that things would get easier as time passed. Now though, the whole experience seemed to only intensify the further that people went.

April lightly hugged herself, "Is becoming strong really that hard?"

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Stan glowered at the picture of Caesar that he had taped to the concrete wall. Ever since his defeat at the hands of the smaller man, he had been obsessing over what happened. He had ripped the picture of the other man out of Fiona's yearbook and contemplated how such a seemingly innocuous person could be so terrifying. From what his boys had told him from spying on the guy, Caesar trained like there was no tomorrow. That would explain some of the strength but not everything. Stan knew that his own power was already at the peak of humanity, yet Caesar defeated him with a single blow.

"Honey?" Fiona stepped up next to the man. The swelling from April's kick had faded to leave only the inkling of bruises along her eye. He hated to see her hurt. "Everyone's here."

Nodding, Stan turned to see that the warehouse was packed with every member of the Knife Edge gang. While the building was large, the number of gangsters in the structure was so vast that they were overflowing. None of them had space to move. Some had even climbed up on the crates to get some breathing room. He could see the inkling of guys that had been beaten up by Caesar's friends. Like Fiona, the bruises across their bodies were slowly fading.

He didn't know why that the invaders didn't call the cops to clean things up after the fight. Maybe they didn't want to deal with the trouble. Maybe they thought that Knife Edge would be too afraid to retaliate. From what he heard, Shelby and Ricky appeared to have some kind of harsh past. Still, waking up to find a note on his chest telling him that he had potential was one of the most infuriating things that Stan had ever experienced.

"Alright," Stan looked across the sea of faces. "As you all know, I got my ass kicked. I'm man enough to admit it. Hell, I could get over it, if they didn't spit in my face by beating up my men too. We're going to take it to these chumps. They may have some high quality people, but no one can beat the numbers game. We're Knife Edge. We're family. If anyone messes with one of, then they're going to get cut!"

To emphasize his point, Stan whipped around to punch the picture of Caesar on the wall. The concrete crumbled while the photo tore from the force. The sea of punks shouted a battle cry of support. They all held up weapons ranging from bats to knives and even to guns. Fiona nodded at his speech. Soon, the Ancient Arts Dojo would feel the full force of the Knife Edge. Even the most elite of soldiers couldn't beat thirty to one odds.