Premonition

Chapter #15: To Become a Warrior - Part 1

***5am, the next day***

Keiji knew he would be for a long day today. Duke had stated that he would expect Keiji to be at the abandoned brewery by 7am every day for the next two weeks. He was to train with every member of beta squad and learn their specialties as much as possible. Hella would be first and was the weapon specialist of the squad. She knew how to disarm and use every single weapon that was originally brought/smuggled onto Mecha Station. That being batons and any form of knives. She would teach Keiji only how to disarm each weapon safely, as they would be encountering these once they tried to capture Jin Woo. Next was Duke, who was the precognitive specialist of squad beta. He would be teaching Keiji to use his powers quickly and seamlessly in a pressure situation. To see what was going to happen next and analyze what the next best options were in terms of handling the situation. This included infiltration of enemy hideouts, subterfuge from enemy patrols, and of course hand to hand combat. Duke however, would not be teaching him how to fight – only how to predict an enemy’s movements. It was Ricky who would be teaching Keiji how to fight hand to hand. This was what Keiji was most nervous about as he sensed Ricky wasn’t going to go easy on him. From what Duke mentioned, Keiji and Ricky would be sparring for the majority the time, as the training from Hella and Duke were only meant to supplement Ricky’s training. Truly, they meant for Keiji to become on par with their skills.

As Keiji arrived the first day, he was greeted by all of them, minus Ricky – who was reading a book at the table. Ricky looked up from his book and nodded at Keiji and went back to his book.

“You ready Keiji?” Hella said.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Keiji said.

“Then let’s start…” Hella said. For the duration of the morning, Hella taught Keiji how to disarm someone with a baton and a knife. Keiji noticed that she was effectively babying him and was going very slowly. Hella did mention however, that her style was purposeful, as the art of disarming someone with a weapon quickly needed to be done right, otherwise you risk harm to yourself. Keiji understood this and followed Hella’s lead. By 12:00 noon that day, he was confident that he understood the basics of her disarming technique.

Not letting up the training, Duke approached Keiji while he was getting some water.

“You learn quickly Keiji, that’s good,” Duke said. “I would have thought that your ability to learn only extends intellectually because of your light levels analysis background.” After taking a gulp of water, Keiji responded.

“Actually, when Mecha Station was recruiting my sister and I, they demanded we be of top physical shape as well,” Keiji said. “It was a requirement because of the physical demands of space and leaving the atmosphere.”

“I see….” Duke said thoughtfully.

“Why….how did you become a Mecha Warrior?” Keiji asked.

“That’s slightly classified,” Duke said. “But I’ll tell you since the Chief wants you to become apart of Squad Beta anyway.” Duke grabbed some water from the table as well, and then walked back to Keiji, bringing two chairs in the process. Keiji, thankful for this, sat down next to Duke and let him continue his stoy. “To become a Mecha Warrior, all you need is good genes. The Mecha Warrior’s goal of becoming a secret policing society within the station did not happen right away. At first, we were all just members of the united earth police. When President Fox was elected to become leader of Mecha Station, he was very focused on the new drugs that were being developed at that time. One of them of course being NX7. Once he realized what the effects of NX7 were, he had his own research team figure out how to optimize it within people. The result was that for NX7 to be optimized in an individual, they needed to have a wealth of homozygous allele’s, instead of heterozygous. This would in turn lead to the side effect of NX7 giving the user precognition. After, President Fox fashioned a recruiting bid for all united earth police to get genetically tested for the presence of homozygous allele’s. The officers with the most, were recruited into the Mecha Warriors and given NX7. We were then trained in our specialties, and ordered to leave with Mecha Station.”

“So….I must have a lot of homozygous allele’s,” Keiji said.

“In actuality, the only way to have that much homozygous allele’s is if you have disorder of some kind, for you that was your Advanced Alzheimer’s. So, in retrospect, you can thank your advanced Alzheimer’s for giving you the necessary genetic base for NX7 to be so effective on you,” Duke said.

“Never thought I would be able to thank my disorder. It’s a nice sentiment,” Keiji said as he got up. “I think I’m ready to train with Ricky.”

“Don’t be scared Keiji, he’ll more than likely go easy on you. But, don’t take him lightly either,” Duke said. “Ricky can easily tell when someone isn’t taking it seriously.”

“Noted,” Keiji said.