Earthborn [Rewritten]

2. Elite Madness

"Sis," I said, inclining my head.

Beside me, Commander Brutus was standing with his jaw hanging open. His huge finger was slicing the air as he  pointed first at me then at Shadow.

"You—her—" he spluttered. Both of us started laughing at his apparent mental breakdown. Like it was inconceivable that we're siblings. I laughed while I still can without the fear of having my brains pushed out from my nose.

"I'll see you after training, Thor," my sister said, still smiling. She turned to the still sputtering Commander. "I see you have promising trainees this year. I'd love to see them perform well in their aptitude tests tomorrow."

With that, she turned and marched out of the training field. I stifled the laughter choking me and tried to look as serious as possible as Commander Brutus turned back to me. I snapped into a salute.

"Just because you're the Lieutenant's kid brother doesn't make you any better than Terran chow, you hear me?" he barked.

"Yes, sir!" I said.

He straightened and looked at the rest of the trainees. "Show's over! Get back to training!" he bellowed.

"Yes, sir!" replied the one hundred and sixty three trainees.

With that, he turned on his heel and stomped back to where he came from. I released the breath I'd been holding in a shaky laugh.

A fist, ten times smaller than the Commander's, smacked the back of my head. I turned to see Juris glaring indignantly at me.

"What?" I grumbled, already knowing where this was going.

"You didn't tell me you have a sister and a gorgeous one at that! I thought we were friends!" he complained.

"Could you keep it down?" I sighed. Even without Juris hollering to high heaven, the fact that everybody heard that Shadow is my sister was enough to garner me more than my share of daily stares. Maybe it was because of her Elite status?

"Oh, don't give me that. You are the worst. Friend. Ever!" he whined, accentuating the last part with lightning-fast punches that landed bulls-eye everywhere he threw the punch. He started to come at me with fists and feet flying. You would think that a small guy like him would have second thoughts before taking on a guy twice his size. But Juris is different.

Despite being small, he made up for it with his speed and agility. He was also one of the guys I could actually spar with without fearing that he'd break after a couple of punches. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the instructor, glanced at Juris and smiled evilly. I dodged his next attack and spun away from him. Jogging over to the instructor, I requested to have my sparring partner changed since mine was still in treatment.

I turned back to Juris who had noticed me talking to the instructor. He held up his hands in a bid for surrender but I had other ideas. My own were starting to crack some knuckles as I stepped closer to him.

Let's see about that punch...

***************

The mess hall was packed by the time our batch finished with training. Commander Brutus came back an hour after I started chasing Juris around the field, ordering us to do a special course for the aptitude tests tomorrow.

By special, he meant climbing the small mountain behind the camp loaded like a supply mule, wearing complete gear and take the long way back down. Trust me, this is not a happy trail Boy Scouts will even consider taking. My legs were screaming torture and my back looked like it had frozen permanently into a straight line. Something latched onto my ankle. Surprised, I kicked and heard a very familiar yelp.