Major Valen woke up the next morning feeling extremely refreshed and invigorated. He saw that Verona had already left so he was a little sad, but at the same time he would at least have last night and parts of the early morning to remember.
Having not felt this good in a long time, Major Valen sent out a message to everyone on the base with a slightly sadistic smile on his face.
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Gray woke up early next to Yurika, it felt weird sleeping in her room for once and he was fearful a gaggle of girls would come in a shock him again thinking he was intruding.
"Yurika looks nice and relaxed though." Gray said to himself.
Yurika was sprawled out on her back with the blanket covering only half of her body. She held a pillow that had a small amount of drool forming on it with one arm and the gentle sounds of her snoring told Gray she was extremely relaxed as he brushed her hair out of her face to look at it.
"If only this could last" Gray thought. Yurika then rolled over on her side, flinging her other arm over the pillow followed by a little bit of a slurping sound from the drool. Gray saw her flex her butt slightly and was trying to figure out what she was doing.
Suddenly Yurika farted, loud and strong, like a trombone on a 1000 Watt amp with a side order fried eggs and two-day-old bacon causing Gray to feel like he sat out in the scorching desert sun for days on end until his hair burned away and skin turned to leather.
Ok, he was being a little dramatic, it was more like a cute little toot. Gray laughed slightly and thought that Yurika was still loud even when she was asleep.
A message came through Gray's armlet, then Yurika's went off moments after his. Gray picked his armlet up and read through it.
Yurika woke up from the notification sound, wiped the drool from her mouth, then lazily rolled over and almost screamed when she saw Gray.
"What the heck! You scared the crap outta me! I totally forgot you spent the night here!"
Gray died a little on the inside and said, "Was I that forgettable?"
Yurika laughed and kissed Gray quickly "No no no! It's just we're normally in your room so I got used to being alone when I was in my room!"
"I guess that makes sense... you should read the message, it's from Major Valen, sounds like it will be right up your alley!"
Yurika tilted her head slightly with curiosity then grabbed her armlet and read through the message.
Gray watched her eyes read through the message only she could see, then say excitedly, "Heck yeah! Sounds like we can give ourselves some well rounded training and a chance to beat up Major Valen!"
Major Valen had requested a mandatory self-defense seminar, he felt that the players on his base were lacking in close combat skills and that developing their physical reflexes and strength would help them. Also, last 20 minutes or so would be a Battle Royale style match where the objective was to get everyone else but yourself out of the ring. Winner would be eligible for a special mission and 500 merits.
Obviously just about everyone there was interested in the Battle Royale as the reward was tremendous for just a single seminar. It was only scheduled for 2 hours so Gray felt maybe Major Valen was using it as an excuse to give out a lot of merits.
"You remember our training hand-to-hand training combat earlier, right Gray?" Yurika said while grinning as she remembered repeatedly beating Gray's mech up.
"Don't remind me… even though I could never forget. I think it's a good idea, I bet only military personnel get this training for free normally so Major Valen is probably trying to just help the non-military players out."
Yurika nodded "I don't really need it, but a battle royale sounds fun and I think I have a good chance of winning, wanna get the team involved?"
"We can see who's available. We try to take it easy on Sundays so we've never scheduled anything on a Sunday before."
Gray sent out a message to everyone to find their availability and then said he was going to head back to his room and clean himself up.
Yurika merely yawned and buried her face back in her pillow then said to Gray "5 more minutes… I'll get ready in 5 minutes…"
Gray shook his head, then walked over and kissed the back of her head between her messy twin tails, which she always seemed to have, and went back to his room.
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A few hours later, Gray, Yurika, Paul, Xyra, Geoff, and Stacia met up right before the self-defense seminar started. Walking towards the large training hall, which hardly ever got used by the players, the six of them saw Major Valen in shorts and a tank top stretching.
Inside of the hall, nearly one hundred players were gathering around the small stage. Almost the entire floor of the hall had been covered with extra padded mats, they formed a circle of roughly 20 meters in diameter
"Gray, does Major Valen look different to you?" Geoff asked.
"Yes... he seems happy... I'm worried." Gray watched as Major Valen stretched and appeared to be extremely invigorated.
"He looks like he's glowing almost." Stacia commented.
"Hey, girls... when did Verona leave?" Gray asked the three girls.
"She left a few minutes after you left my room." Yurika replied.
"Did she message any of you when she made it back to Laguna base?"
"No... but I saw her entering the medical facility before dawn." Xyra said softly. "I like to go for a run right before dawn when it is the quietest out."
That felt so fitting for Xyra to want to go for a run at the quietest time of day. Gray made a mental note to try and surprise or scare her and see if she even screams softly.
"You think maybe she stayed longer and..."
All 6 of them turned to watch Major Valen, scrutinizing his movements and body language.
"He just seems... WAY to happy right now." Yurika stated "Want to ask him?"
"Leave him be guys, if he did, he did, he looks a little adorable being happy." Stacia said while smiling like she was looking at a puppy.
"Probably for the best we don't think about it then..."
Major Valen checked the time and then pulled out an old-fashioned whistle and blew it to get everyone's attention.
"Alright maggots! Line up in nice straight rows! I want your full attention!"
Major Valen's orders were clear and concise. He stood up on the stage then and barked, "In case you slugs don't know, I am Major Eugene Valen!"
A few snickers and giggles could be heard from the other pilots around and it didn't seem to phase Major Valen at all even though he knew they were laughing at his name, "Alright yuck it up, but remember that is the name my momma gave me, if you disrespect my name, you disrespect her!"
Almost everyone quieted down instantly, but one smart ass had said "I bet your Mother wears army boots!"
Everyone got deathly quiet as they felt this idiot was asking to die, but surprisingly Major Valen laughed and said, "You're damn right she did! And she could still kick your sorry asses too!"
Major Valen then pointed at the guy that said the comment and motioned him with his finger to come up to the stage. When the guy got up on the stage, Major Valen threw his thick arm around the guys shoulder and said, "We will send all of you a training program to your training AI to help guide you through these upcoming self-defense courses. We've noticed that most of you lack any physical combat skill and even in a mech, knowing it will help you wield weapons more efficiently!"
Major Valen then clapped the guy that was on the stage with him hard on the back. "Tweedledumb here has volunteered to be my first victi... I mean, opponent, to help demonstrate some of the basic moves that you can learn. We will hold classes twice a week so use it or lose it! The program we will send after to your AI will help you review and show you how to train what you've learned."
Major Valen walked to the other side of the guy and then continued, "We do not have a traditional martial art like Karate or Judo. We have what we call Modern Combatives Program that we teach to every soldier. This close combat program focuses on submissions, grappling, arm and leg strikes, weapons training and more."
Major Valen walked behind the guy again and this time put both hands on his shoulders. "Today, we are going to have a little fun, today will be about grappling and throwing and then we will have a free for all match where last one still in the ring wins."
For the next hour and a half, many of the players watching Major Valen's "demonstrations" on the poor guy that couldn't keep his mouth shut started to feel sorry for him even as they practiced some of the safer techniques on each other. His face had been almost every color of the rainbow between the different submission holds and throws.
At one point, Yurika started to help other people like Major Valen as Gray knew this was almost pointless for her unless they had more advanced classes.
The sweat started to drip down Major Valen's forehead and his voice started going hoarse after spending so much time talking and using his new friend for training. After one last throw, his training partner didn't get up anymore so Major Valen blew his whistle again and shouted, "Let's get to what everyone really came here for! Time to start the battle royale!"