“Clearly you Cadets are not getting this,” Lieutenant Humphrey sighed, “so allow me to demonstrate.”

Those words no sooner left his lips than his hand, flat as a board, whipped out like a viper finding its target. Unfortunately for that target, Cadet Matthews, that meant a chop to the throat that left him on his knees gasping for air and making strangled noise of pain.

“Incapacitate,” Humphrey said as he turned to address the class once more.

With that same wicked quickness that was unexpected and deadly, the lieutenant exploded forward with his knee leading the way. That knee collided, an audible crack rippling through the crowd, with Mathews’ temple and he was unconscious on the ground before anyone even had time to gasp in shock.

Without so much as a backwards glance Lieutenant Humphrey walked away, dismissing the class for the day with one final word, “Solidify.”

No one moved; the lesson was clear. If we were going to become full fledged soldiers, there was no room for mercy. We needed to swift and deadly or die.