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Ch4. Training Begins.

"Wake up!" Came the sound of the load booming voice of the lion as he entered the room. "I want everyone up now." He demanded.

The boys all flew out of their bedding now wide awake. Ian quickly came into the room and looked at everyone, "Hurry up and get changed then make your bedding." Phillip quickly slipped on his pants and socks before grabbing his shirt. After putting it on he bent down and tucked his pant legs onto the boots after he slipped them on. "We don't have much time." The human told them just as Phillip was finishing up tying his last knot, he moved over to his bed and fixed the blankets and made sure that the pillow was at the top. Phillip stood and looked at the others as they were all already finished and was waiting on him. "Go get your hygiene kit and go brush your teeth, you have five minutes."

Phillip rushed over to his bag and grabbed his items, he proceeded into the bathroom to one of the sinks. He got out his new tooth brush and paste then started to clean his teeth. He finished quickly so he wouldn't keep his superiors waiting too long. After he placed his kit back into his bag, he turned to head back to his spot but the anthro was standing in his way.

"Grab your weapon and tie it to your back." Phillip looked over to his sword that was resting on the wall, he walked over to his and picked it up. Once he flipped the blade over his shoulders, the boy tied it securely to his back. He looked back up to the lion to see him pointing stand near the door. The boy waited until all the others had done the same thing. Once everyone was ready they were all taken outside, they walked through the front doors of the building to see it was still night outside.

"What time is it?" Mike asked.

Hallic didn't even looked behind him at the boy. "It's 3:30."

The shock on Mike's face made Phillip smile. They all continued to walk until they came up to one of the gates to the base, the horse standing watch approached the small group before they got to close to the exit.

"Where you guys going so early?" the horse asked.

Ian pointed to the kids behind him. "Just group training."

The horse gave a glance at the boys before turning his attention back to the human. "Oh so then the..."

"Yep." The lion responded quickly.

The horse smiled and stepped aside. "Have fun."

"Thank you." Ian said while everyone moved through the gate and proceeded to head for the forest. Immediately Phillip could feel that something was off as they got to the woods, he was looking around the trees but he couldn't put his finger on it. "What's wrong Phillip?" Ian asked.

"I-I can't really say." He said honestly.

The lion chuckled. "We'll you look kind of lost."

"I just have a feeling as if we're being watched is all." The boy said as they stopped at the woods.

Both Ian and Hallic laughed. "That's because we are." Ian told him.

In that instant five figures jumped from the branches of the trees and landed beside the two. The boys were all looking at the anthros as they all stared back. One by one Phillip looked over them, the first one he saw was the white tiger standing on the end, next was two bears, then a wolf, and a coyote. They all stood silently waiting, Hallic started to stretch his arms.

"I'd get stretched out if I were you guys." The lion told the group while reaching for the ground.

"What are we doing?" Mike asked while everyone else started to stretch.

The anthro looked right at the human. "Going for a five mile run through the woods, now stretch."

Phillip's eyes widened when he heard the lion mention running. He knew that they were going to have to do some running and exercise but the fact that they were going to start with five miles the first full day was crazy. "I can't run that good." Phillip stated, the anthros started to chuckle at the human.

"Don't worry about it." The tiger said. "Now stretch."

"But it's dark out, how are we able to see?" Ben asked.

The question turned the anthros chuckling into laughing. Phillip just sighed and started to stretch out his body. He looked over to see the other boys were already stretched out and were ready to go. Phillip finished up his leg reaches quickly before standing up and waiting for further orders.

Hallic looked at everyone. "Ok, is everyone ready?"

Everyone nodded their heads and before Phillip knew the lion and Ian took off into the woods. The boys followed the big lion with the rest of the anthros hot on their trail. Phillip had a hard time seeing the trees as he tried his best to follow Ian's path. Once or twice he almost ran into a branch, his eyes started to adjust to the night but it was still difficult. His breath was starting to get heavy while his endurance was staring to get low, having a heavy sword on his back wasn't helping his situation at all. Phillip looked over at the other boys to see that they were having the same type of difficulty.

"Come on keep up." He heard Ian yell from ahead of them.

Phillip bit his tongue and tried to keep up but his sides were starting to hurt from the strain of the run. He heard someone run up beside him, he looked over to see the coyote.

"Kid, you need to let those around you lend their strength to you. Just concentrate." The anthro said. Phillip was beyond confused. He didn't understand on what he was supposed to concentrate on. "Think about the test." The coyote told him.

Phillip thought for a moment as he struggled to keep up with Hallic and Ian, he remembered how he felt when he opened up to the small creature in Padreion's paw, how a happy emotion came over him. He decided to give it a try, he started to concentrate on the coyote first. It took him a while but he started to feel a small bit of mixed emotions from the anthro, happiness, joy, and even sadness. The feeling started to wash over him when he tried to concentrate more.

"Now you're getting it." The coyote chuckled.

Without even realizing it that his breathing started to get lighter, the pain in his sides started to fade, and his vision a bit sharper. When he started to open up to the others, he could feel where they were, where they ran and weaved between each other. Phillip was truly enjoying the feeling so much he had to bite down on his tongue from laughing out loud but he did have a big grin on his face.

The coyote and Phillip ran side by side. "You pick up pretty fast kid." The anthro complemented. "See if you don't open up to us then we can't lend you our strength, and when you bond to your anthro, you're going to have to learn to lend him your strength."

"How will I know when I bonded?" Phillip asked.

The anthro just got a grin onto his face. "Oh, trust me you'll know."

Phillip just smiled as they continued. Surprisingly they all ended up coming up to the front gates where they finally stopped. Phillip was breathing slightly, his hands on his hips and his chest raising and falling with his breath but when he looked at the others, they were all hunched over breathing heavily.

Hallic turned and started to laugh. "Seems you all get the concept on how to open up to anthros but only one of you can grasp it. It will come as second nature with more practice." The lion waved to them. "Let's go."

The whole group followed him through the gates and towards their building where their rooms were. Phillip looked up to see that the sun was just about to start to come over the horizon by the time they finally got back. They all slowly trudged into the room with their trainers right behind them.

"Ok, go shower and place your clothes in the nit bags that were issued to you." Ian announced before he and his anthro walked out of the room. The boys did as they were told and placed their weapons away before washing up, put new cloths on, and tossed the dirty ones into their nit bags before plopping back down onto their bedding. They all rested for a couple of hours until they heard the door open.

Ian and Hallic both walked in. "Ok, let's go eat." The human said.

All the boys slowly got up and headed out of the room, they walked outside and to the cafeteria. When they got inside Phillip was surprised to see a menu board with lots of different verity of food to choose from. He seen eggs, bacon, sausage, French toast, oat meal, and much more. They all fell into line and waited where they grabbed a trey, silverware, and cups. The line moved very quickly, Phillip got his food then looked around to see where he was supposed to sit. He was surprised to see a familiar face waving him over with a big smile on his face. Phillip smiled and walked over to the empty seat and sat down.

"So how's training so far." The human asked.

Phillip shrugged. "Not too bad actually. How are you guys?"

The anthro yawned that gave the two humans a good reason to chuckle. "Well after we dropped you off Troit and I had some paper work to finish before we headed back to the guild."

"Guild?" Phillip asked.

The human nodded. "Well, the other militaries would call it command, but we call it guild."

Phillip was a bit confused. "Oh so then you guys aren't stationed here?"

The lion shook his head. "Na, all the guilds goes to the closest schools to give the test. If someone passes then we pick them up and drop them off. Once that's done we return back to our guild."

Phillip started to eat, enjoying the taste of freshly cooked eggs. "So what guild you guys belong to."

"Wolf fang." The lion answered before he sipped his drink.

"I see you guys are bothering my check-in." Phillip heard a voice from behind him. The human turned to see Hallic standing over him with a smile on his face.

Troit sat back in his chair and shrugged. "Just making sure he's being properly trained."

Hallic looked over at the lion. "What's that supposed to mean."

"Well..." the lion said with amusement as he sat up a little. "I recall one of your students getting his hand sliced off during practce." Phillip's eyes widened as he stared up at his trainer.

Hallic laughed. "Bull, it was his foot not his hand." Phillip was still in shock when they all started to laugh, the big lion that stood behind him patted him on his shoulder. "Relax we're just messing with you."

Troit nodded. "Yeah, he's a good trainer. We used to be in the same guild when we were younger."

"Yeah those were the days." Hallic said as he sat down in the empty seat beside Phillip, chatting away with the other lion. Phillip listened to the two chat away while he was continuing to eat his meal. They talked about when they were ambushed but fought their way out and how they both went through training together. It's when the two started to talk about Phillip that he really paid attention.

Soon Hallic stood up and stretched his back a little. "Well it's nice to see ya again but we have to get going."

Phillip stuffed the last bit of food into his mouth before he shook Troit's paw and waved to his human partner. Phillip placed his tray were the others go to be cleaned. The other boys also got up and were leaving when they saw the two heading for the door. Phillip walked outside to see Ian waiting for them with a folder in his hands.

"Enjoy your little chat." The human said to his partner.

Hallic nodded. "Yeah, it's been a while."

The other boys caught up and were lead back to their room. Once there they were instructed to sit onto their beds while Ian and Hallic sat in front of them. They all got comfortable before Ian placed the folder out in front and pulled some papers out. "Ok, now that you're in the military you're going to have to have money to live on. This is for your bank accounts that the money will be transferred to." He started to hand out the papers to the group with some pens. "Fill out as much as possible except for address."

"Why can't we fill that part out?" Jacob asked.

The lion leaned onto his knees with his elbows. "Because you don't know where you're going after here."

The boy just nodded and went back to filling out the papers. Everyone was still filling out information when Ian looked at the time on his watch. "Ok we have some time before weapon practice." He said while he leaned backwards. "You guys have any questions you want to know?"

"Why don't you guys carry weapons?" Jacob asked.

Ian shrugged. "We're not in danger here so we don't need them, you carry them with you so you get used to the weight and handling them properly."

Jacob nodded but quickly asked the next question while the others continued their work. "How many different kinds of anthros are their?"

Ian looked over at his anthro. "This one is all yours."

The lion just shook his head. "Thanks." He scratched his head while he gave the question some thought. "Well, there are really two main kinds of spices, which are felines like cougars, lions, or tigers and canines as in wolves, huskies, and coyotes. You also have bears and horses but they're not as common as the others."

"Are their female anthros?" Ben asked.

The lion chuckled. "Of course theirs female anthros or I wouldn't be born."

They all laughed at the obvious, Ben gave a chuckle before continuing. "I know that but I mean are there any female anthros Users?"

The lion shook his head. "Sadly no their is not, it's actually custom for females to just grow up to be, umm how do you put it..." The lion thought for a bit.

"House wives." Ian blurted out.

The lion nodded. "Yeah, men are fighters while the women tend to other things that we can't."

Phillip handed his papers to Ian. "How do we know which Guild we will be sent to?"

Ian took the papers and placed them into the folder. "Well, we give you a list and location of the guilds. You chose and we contact them with your records that we have been putting together on your progress and then they pick you or not. If you don't get picked by any of them then we send you to one that needs the most help."

"Unless..." the lion continued after the human. "You do well and get specially requested to go to a certain guild."

"But that's not that common to happen." Ian stated.

One by one the other three finished up their papers and handed them back to Ian, they all talked a little more before it was time for them to get going to weapons practice. Phillip walked over and grabbed his sword, after he tied it to his back he walked over to the door and the whole group left the room once more.

The practice field wasn't too far for them to go to, by the time they got there Phillip seen another group of two young boys finishing up and getting ready to leave.

"There's not many human Users is there?" Phillip asked.

Ian shook his head. "No their isn't, it's about one in every thousand that passes and makes it."

Once the group left the field Phillip and the rest was motioned to move. The practice field was nothing more but a huge round arena with benches lined on the outside, the ground was firmly packed dirt. The arena had a huge line drawn straight through the middle.

Each boy was instructed to spread out so that they were all spaced out evenly, once they were in their place they all got their weapons into their hands.

"Now, we aren't going to be getting too much on how to fight with your weapons because that's your guilds job. We are just going to show you how to properly hold the weapon and get into the basics, so with that I asked for some help to come and train you in their field of weaponry." Hallic told them.

Phillip looked off to the side to see four out of the five anthros from earlier come up to the field, armed and ready. The white tiger gripped his broadsword while he stepped onto the field and pulled it out of its sheath. The others all did the same and moved over to the other boys, Phillip look over at his trainers to see Ian walk over to one of the benches while Hallic continued to walk down the road.

"Ready?" Phillip heard and turned to see the tiger standing in front of him with a smile on his face and sword in his paws. "To start, hold your sword with your hand spread apart." The tiger showed him the proper holding position. Phillip held his sword the same way, the tiger smiled as he was satisfied. "Now you have to know that Bragins are strong and fierce creatures that show no mercy, so when you strike at them you give it your all. Now hold the handle firm but not too much and strike at me." Phillip looked at the tiger somewhat scared. The anthro just smiled at him. "Don't worry you won't hurt me."

Phillip gulped as he brought the sword over his shoulders and swung it down at the anthro, the tiger quickly moved his sword in the path of the blade and blocked its path before it hit him. When the blades connected, the tiger barely moved. "You hold the sword well but you have to put more force in your strike. Now again but this time hold the blade over your head like this." The tiger spread his legs a little and held his sword upwards over his head.

Phillip got into the same stance, with a nod from the tiger he swung downwards. This time when the tiger blocked the sword his blade moved down a little from the force. A satisfying smile came over the anthros face. "Better." The two continued to work together, the anthro showing him proper stance, striking and moving with the opponent. Soon Phillip was moving in step with the tiger and striking at him, making the anthro step back with every strike.

"Ok you're getting this pretty fast kid, now let's put you on defense." Phillip got into his stance ready for the anthro, the tiger swung at the human lightly. The human reacted and moved his sword in his opponent's path but when the blades collided Phillip stumbled a bit and dropped his sword onto the ground. "Good block but never let go of your weapon. If you have nothing to protect yourself, then your good as dead." The tiger said while he bent down and picked up the sword and handed it back to the human. "Again."

Phillip took his sword back and got back into his stance, the tiger this time swung downwards. Phillip held his sword sideways over his head, the two blades connected. Unlike last time, Phillip stood standing without stumbling or letting go of his blade. "good." The tiger said while getting ready to attack again.

The anthro started to take different strikes at the boy, one blocked after the other. Just when Phillip was getting a hang of things, the tiger took a step to the right and swung downwards with his blade laid flat. Phillip slowly reacted and stepped to his right also but didn't get his sword up in time for the block, he grunted as the blunt side of the blade smacked him on the shoulder.

Phillip fell into his knees while gripping his shoulder. "Cheap shot." Phillip said while rubbing his shoulder but he slowly got back into his stance. The tiger just laughed while he got ready. The tiger came at Phillip swinging, as the anthro got closer Phillip took a step back as he blocked the attack. The two continued to train, exchanging offence and defense.

"Break." They all heard. Phillip looked over to see Hallic setting brown bags on the benches. The tiger walked up to Phillip as he wrapped his arms around the boy's shoulders and lead him over to the bench.

They each took a bag and sat onto the bench, Phillip listened as the tiger gave him tips on different stances and weapon handling. They quickly finished up and went back to work. They continued to spar into the afternoon, by the time they were done Phillip was tired and arms sore from holding the sword for so long, they took small breaks but not enough to get a good rest. The trainers lead the four boys to the cafeteria to have dinner then back to the room. The boys all placed their weapons back near their bags, unlike the others that plopped onto their bedding Phillip got out some clean underwear, towel, and soap. He walked into the showers while the others looked as if they were about to sleep. The trainers were talking till Ian stepped out. Phillip stripped his clothing and set them onto the floor in the corner, he placed his towel on the hook above his cloths before he moved to the shower where he set his soap down and turned on the warm water.

He waited for a little before he moved under the water, he heard a noise in the other part of the bathroom but dismissed it as stood facing the wall, he brought up his hand and rubbed his shoulder where the tiger hit him. A small bruise could be seen against his dark skin, Phillip moved his hand away and was about to bend down to get his soap till he felt two strong hands on his shoulders, "Damn he got you good." The boy quickly looked back to see Hallic standing behind him. He was naked and had his paws moving over the boys shoulders.

"Shh..." the lion said gently when Phillip opened up his mouth to say something, the anthro started to rub the boy's shoulder making Phillip groan. "You did well today kid." Phillip didn't know what to do, he was too embarrassed as he stood their unable to move and stared forward. "Relax." The lion said while he continued to massage the boy's shoulders tensed shoulders. Phillip took in a big breath then exhaled, he tried to relax the best he could. Phillip felt the lion start to move his paws down his back and then back up to his neck. The lion stepped closer and licked the boy on the cheek, Phillip flinched on contact before he quickly looked back at the anthro.

Hallic just smiled at the human. "Get use to it kid, anthros are going to be somewhat... more friendly to those who haven't bond." The lion said chuckling, he turned and started to walk out of the shower. "Finish up and then get to bed." Phillip stood in the same spot for a while,

'What was that about' he thought.

Still stunned, after he knew that the lion was gone he managed to get washed up quickly. He got to his cloths to find that his towel was somewhat already wet.

Phillip shook his head. "He used my towel."

The boy didn't have a choice but to use the towel and dried himself off. He slipped on his underwear then headed into the other room, he placed his cloths into his dirty nit bag before moving over to his bedding and slipping under the blankets. He laid onto his back while staring up at the ceiling.

"So what did you two do?" Phillip heard.

He looked over to his left to see Jacob and the others all propped up and starting at him. Phillip rolled over onto his side to face away from the others. "He gave my shoulders a message, nothing more." He said quietly. He could hear the boys talking about him, how Phillip and Hallic probably flirted with one another. Phillip just ignored them as he closed his eyes, sleep didn't come quickly but when the others stopped talking and finally went to sleep that he was able to drift off himself.

To be continued.