The duo has trained box for a long very long time. In the beginning, they were training only their bodies because they weren`t strong enough. Mike said that boxing had a few simple rules.
Rule No1. The most important thing for a boxer is brain, legs, fist. In that order. So they had to train their reflexes and quick decisions to the utmost limits. They run ultramarathons, on every kind of terrain, they trained balance in extreme situations. For punches, they just did pushups with weighted vests.
Rule No2. There is not a single man who is immune to punches, there are only bad punches. First punch they learned was left straight. They had to punch sandbag 10000 correctly. If they made even the slight mistake they had to repeat the whole series. They trained every punch in boxing in that way.
When they finished learning all the punches they come to practice. Mike was holding the mitts for them. Zibi had a quick rhythm and preferred outboxing and counters. He was able two punch three times in less than a second and was really fast when moving in the ring. Alex did not have his own rhythm because he was punching to the rhythm of the music he was currently thinking of and sometimes he changed his style too. Usually, he stayed in mid-range but sometimes he just dived in for a brawl. Mike was pissed and reprimanded him about this constantly but with no effect, but one thing made Mike just mad. Alex in one spar suddenly changed into Southpaw, which made General of Legions miss the timing for about 1/4 of a second. Mike`s sermon was long, but again he did not disapprove of this, he just told Alex to practice all punches again but in Southpaw mode. The most upset about this was Zibi because he too had to practice these punches.
Finally after what seemed for them 5 years of training they could enter the ring alone and fight their clones. The tossed a coin to decide who will be first. Zibi won and entered the ring. He jumped over the ropes and made a superhero landing. He had white sports shoes, black pants with 3 stripes, his gloves were black. His clone appeared in the corner. Its equipment was gray.
-"Defeat it, and I will prepare any kind of meal you can imagine."-Mike sat on the chair beside the ring. -"Ring the bell."- Alex rung the bell and watched his friend with high expectations.
The tension was high, both Zibi and his clone were observing each other. They made a whole circle in the ring, but that stalemate couldn`t last long. Clone attacked first with a left straight. It cut the air with a sound. Zibi leaned backward, clone reach wasn`t enough, if he just had a few more millimeters. Zibi smiled and leaned even more. Clone stopped in his tracks and observed falling enemy, suddenly his face distorted because he was kicked in the balls. It fell to the ground while Zibi put up his guard again. It looked like his clone wasn't able to continue the fight and disappeared.
Alex started to make a fuse.-"You cheater, it was a boxing match, not a braw;!"- Middle finger pointed at Zibi.
-"Good job boy. Very good job."-Mike prised Zibi`s fight while Alex became quiet and looked at them with his jaw wide open.-"I never told you to win by using only boxing. It is CQC training, not boxing."
-"You are only telling me this because you know that this will make things harder for me."
-Alex! Life is brutal..."-Zibi smiled in a provocative manner.
-"...and sometimes kick in the ass."-Mike finished the sentence.
-"Rather kick in the balls."-Alex was cursing under his nose. -"Ring that bell, I want to get over it as fast as I can."
Before clone could actually see what was going on Alex rushed at it with a left straight to the eyes. He then grabbed it, lifted and thrown out of the ring. He quickly jumped out too and run towards the clone who was trying to stand up, kick to the liver put down the clone for good.
-"Fuck-yeah"-Alex raised his fist to the sky while Mike and Zibi stared at him with WTF face.-"I a strong! You are not."- Heh pointed at the disappearing clone.
-"Before you start celebrating I want to hear from you how you beat your enemies."-Mike looked at Zibi.-"You first.
Zibi crossed his arms on his chest.-"Hmm, I think that I thought only about boxing, but when that clone punched me I could not help but notice that it`s lower body is wide open. So I kicked him and here I am."
-"Observation and quick decisions. Good"-Mike turned his gaze to Alex.
-"What can I say. I know my capabilities so I decided to make a preemptive attack before it fully materialized. It was my only chance to win I think. So I just rushed."
-"Blitzkrieg, good but not the best."
-"Yes I know, it won't work always but here it was the best tactic."-
Mike nodded in approvement.-"What do you want to eat?"
-"ME! ME! ME First!"-Alex started to shout and jump with his hand raised high in the air. Mike couldn`t help but sigh.
-"What is your order."
-"Kara Mustafa special with shahid`s belt and hussar set."
-"For me grilled pork neck with extra potatoes with grilled garlic and BBQ sauce."
-"Here we go!"-Mike materialized two trays filled with food. Zibi`s had brown pork neck with potato pyramids. with a generous amount of garlic. It was hot and smelled nice. Alex`s, on the other hand, had 1kg kebab with spicy peppers that formed a ring inside the bun and 6 shashliks each with six pieces of different meat on it. -"Alex you know that is just clear racism."
Alex did not hear him because he was immersed in his meal.
-"Do not touch him, he will go berserk if try to steal his food."-Munch, munch. Zibi warned Mike who wanted to check the shashliks.
Alex finished his meal when Zibi was an only halfway through his.
-"You sure you do not want this meat?"-Alex pointed at the half-eaten pork neck.
-"Touch it and you will spit your balls."- Zibi had a very dangerous look on his face. They were similar in that aspect, they both hated when someone touched their food. Alex experienced it first hand because once he tried to steal Zibi`s pizza which resulted in him being hit by Zibi`s slippers, pencils, bags and many other dangerous things that were near his friend.
-"Okay."-Alex retreated.
When Zibi finished Mike stopped their merry behaviour.-"Tell me, do you believe you are strong."-Both nodded in response.-"Then both of you are fools."-He started to walk around.-"I think that you do not realize what kind of opponents you will be facing."
-"Some sects guys, probably with some military training."
-"Yeah, and they will be so high that they will not know what is happening.
-"Yes, in most cases you will be beating drug addicts that are communicating with gods, but sometimes you will be fighting these gods and every single one of these gods is as strong as humanity is able to imagine him or her. For example, loved and favored Thor. Humans imagine him as being able to lift a giant snake that is able to wrap around the planet so he has that much power."-The duo jaws fell to the ground so hard that they wondered how they still had their teeth.-"You are nowhere near his level, at most you are as strong as Delta Force Soldier or GROM soldier if you prefer this comparison."-The looked at him in disbelief.-"Do you want the prof? "- The nodded"-Alright, come with me."
They walked to the warehouse. Mike ordered them to wear military uniforms. When they were changing he opened the portal. When they were ready all three entered the portal and appeared in the military base. It was extremely hot, thermometer show 30 Celius degree in the shadow, at 7:00 A.M. Mike had a military uniform too but with the insignia of a general.-"We are in the special training ground reserved only for Pope Bodyguards, and it is reserved only for guards that I choose personally. By the way, they do not know that I am an Archangel."
Soon bald officer comes running and saluted. He was speaking in English. Mike received the salute and led the way towards training ground. On it, they saw the morning appeal. -"Today's training will Russian Medicine."-Officer saluted and run towards drill sergeant who when informed made a cross sign on his chest.
-"General, could you enlighten us what is a Russian Medicine?"-Zibi asked Mike because Alex was to busy looking at nearby Infantry Fighting Vehicles or IFV.
-"Good question, rumors say that in medieval Russia if someone was ill they would give him a stone or log and make him run through the forest only in pants. If a said person ever slowed down there would be a Dzhigit with a whip to give him more energy. If the patient survived he would be cured if not, well you can think about it, and right now Spectznas is using this method to get rid of weak recruits."
-"It is not much different from what we were doing all the time. We were running and ou was the dzhigit."
-"I wouldn`t be so sure Zibi."-Mike`s smile was creepy, almost scary.-"No go and take your equipment!"
The duo went into the barracks and received their new uniforms, vests, protective gear, weapons, magazines with munitions and fully equipped backpacks. Everything weighted near 50kg. Then they stood in line with all other soldiers and listened to drill sergeant speach.-"Today you got Russian Medicine. Direction North, in addition, you got fresh meat so make sure they do not lose their way. Run" - All soldiers started to run, and run, and run, and run. After an hour they entered a forest, and obstacles began. In the beginning, Alex and Zibi thought that it would be as usual but they were slightly mistaken. First, now they were running with an additional 50 kg and they did not have their comfy tracksuits. Second, tracksuit even if wet is much lighter than the military uniform, and they had more than one swamp to conquer, and more than one mountain to climb, sometimes both.
-"Zibi, maybe I should fuck it and go to Bieszczady."
-"You told me you hate mountains."- Zibi breath was loud but steady.
-"I still hate them. By the way, where do you think we are?"
-"Who knows, maybe you should ask them?"-Zibi pointed at soldiers that were running together 20 meters before them.
-"Nah, we will soon find out."
They did not, because the route lead them through mountains and valleys. Alex first started to brake. He was much slower than before and his breath was rugged. He lost count of how many times he climbed a mountain, swam through the swap, not counting all special obstacles like tires, walls they had jump over, or barbed wire they had crawl underneath. But he could not stop because Mike and his assistant were raiding on quads with whips in standby mode.
Zibi, on the other hand, felt like a newborn. He always loved mountains, so this little up and down run was nothing to him. He had more troubles with swimming or crawling but all in all, he was perfectly fine.
-"I am a water animal, not a mountain chamois."-Alex was grumbling to Zibi.
-"Shut up. You should stop thinking and start to admire the landscape. We have a pretty good view from here.-"Zibi pointed at the beautiful view of forests and fields. Alex did not respond, he was only slowly jogging and gasping for air. Zibi decided to use his ace in the sleeve to save his friend. Something that always worked. He thought about suggesting to him that he will get food when they will finish the run, but the risk was that he had no idea how much the still need to run, and if Alex lost strength again he would probably not get up anymore. Normally it took them 5 to 6 hours to run 100 km. But they were on a flat terrain. Now with all the differences, he lost the feeling of how much he ran.
After one more hour everyone stopped. The sergeant ordered everyone to make 100 push-ups, he was counting, really fast, but everyone finished his part, even half dead Alex. They gathered in line waiting for commands. Mike took a step forward and ordered them to fight at least three times between each other. The duo stood there in silence.
Soldiers quickly organized themselves and took Zibi and Alex for a spar. They wanted to test the fresh meat. Zibi was dispirited while Alex just turned off his brain and stood with an empty face.
The first test was for Zibi, they had to fight barehanded with whole equipment still on them, he lost miserably and spat his tooth. Alex test was similar, every single test was similar. The duo lost miserably. They were nothing when facing these soldiers.
-"Can you see it now? You are not as strong as you thought you are."
-"Ha, ha, haw?"- Alex was lying on his back.
-"You mean how did you lose when earlier you did all that running and punching? It is simple, you are still not used to your bodies. Besides, these guys were training their whole life, do not expect that after two days of training you will be as strong as them."-Mike was looking at the sun.-"And partially this is my own fault."
-"You mean?"- Zibi was on all fours and looking for his teeth.
-"That training ground has the ability to boost your regeneration. To the level that you can forget about the sore muscles, I changed the flow of time too. Oh, and your progress was really good that I forgot to yell at you."
-"So you mean that because you forgot about a few things I got a deficit in my mouth?"- Mike nodded to Zibi`s question.-"You are gonna pay for that dentist."
-"It will regrow when we return to the base, now get up. Enough with the sentiments."- His mood change was so abrupt that Alex could not respond to it quickly enough and got kicked in the ass. He massaged his poor buttocks.
-"So what are we going to do? Because I would eat something."
-"Back to training, but this time I will tun of regeneration bost and make conditions bit harsher. I was too soft for you."- Mike`s friendly smile was gentle, too gentle.