"Agh, why did I drink so much last night, I should've stayed in my bed."
Hermes says as he's walking in the woods towards their base for his first day of training.
Well, it was more like dragging himself there. His eyes were squintier than usual.
Grrrrrr* there's a distant grueling coming from opposite directions and in the blink of an eye Hermes was about to be attacked!
He dodged it nonchalantly. He leaned his body back to avoid the blow while pretending to look up to the sky he said, "umm, I guess it is nice outside today, I should try to enjoy it."
Another attack was about to hit Hermes and this time he dodged forward as he bent over pretending to have found a nice rock and grabbed it. "Uhh, what are you doing out here pretty thing?" and as he gets up he continues talking. "Well is always like this I guess, there's always that little flower of hope that emerges beautifully in a hopeless deserted land." ... he was holding a regular rock that looked exactly the same as the other ones around it.
The two beasts that attacked him came out in front of him. They were nothing like what he's seen before, they resembled mythical creatures. They had different shades of secondary dark colors and tails with two ends instead of one. But it takes a lot to surprise Hermes now a days.
After Hermes gazed at them, they opened their mouths and a ki blast started forming. He tried to dodge both of the blasts while throwing the rock at one of them, however, the blast was too fast for him to dodge entirely. His quickness is the thing that Hermes was most confident about but in a matter of two days he found multiple things that make him feel like a snail.
The rock he threw hit one of the beasts in the eye and as a result that messed up the aim of the blast. The other blast grazed his right arm and once it connected another presence emerged towards the east… by the sound of the steps this time it was a human.
Hermes looked straight towards the direction the person was in. The person got a look at the most intimidating stare they'd ever witnessed and immediately hid their presence again.
"Too bad for you I'm not in the mood to play games right now. You see. I'm not trying to be late on my first day." He brings out the same beat up knife he always carries on him and holds it as he kicks up another rock and catches it.
*I'll take care of these animals first. Then I'll worry about the person… it seems they aren't that quick while they charge their blast, that's the chance I'll take.* ~ Hermes thought.
A few seconds after, the person that was hiding shouted, "This is as far as your arrogance goes, now all of my beast will haunt you. Hahahaha." from the sound of the voice he could tell it was a girl.
By how many footsteps Hermes heard approaching him at an alarming speed. He turned to the side and got into a fighting stance.
The girl thought *Is he mad? Is he really going to try to fight that many of my babies by himself. Ashley was right, this guy has guts.*
As they almost surrounded him, he finally made a move…
He started running away as fast as he could and said with a goofy look "the bravest of man know when is time to run away haha."
The girl put on a relieved face and said, "I guess he's just stupid".
They kept closing the distance but Hermes kept running for his life through all of the obstacles in the woods. *These guys sure are persistent*...
After 10 minutes of running he sees a crowd of people standing around as if they were waiting for him. It was some of the guys that were fixing the ship. At the front, stood a tall beautiful woman he hadn't seen before along with a girl on one knee petting one of the beasts that attacked him.
"I see you made it here, kind of surprised you didn't back out Herrmis." the tall woman said as she smirked at Hermes. After catching his breath he looked up at her and boy was she sexy, starting with her silky caramel skin color all the way down her legs. Her voice was familiar, it was Robin.
"This is just to keep from dying of boredom, plus I never back out of a challenge." He said while smirking back at Robin and catching his breath.
The girl that was on her knee walked towards Hermes and said, "Hi, I'm Lobarnese and I'm impressed you were able to outrun my babies even though they weren't at their full speed. That was still pretty good that you were able to. Ashley was right ! you are cute, plus you look strong, I got scared when you looked at me like that and how your still fine even after your injuries. I bet you're even faster if you give it your all but I look forward to training alongside you and maybe fight one day..." She talks a lot…
"That's a cute name but it's too long. Is it alright with you if I called you Loba ?" Hermes said and She blushed and nodded but Robin was surprised when Loba stopped talking when Hermes spoke to her.
"Loba, don't concern yourself with my health. Rather you should concern yourself with your babies, sorry for hitting him in the eye." Hermes said as he pointed to the beast's eyes. She immediately went to treat the beast that Hermes hit in the eye with a rock.
While she was treating her baby, Loba noticed that the wound was way too deep for a simple rock throw wihout ki and she wasn't convinced that it was Hermes full strength either.
The rest of the guys around them were still not accepting Hermes as one of them because they didn't think he was worthy of even being there.
"So, congrats on making it past Lobarnese's test, but don't get comfortable yet because the real cardio training is going to start now" ~Robin.
"Huh?" Hermes said with a depressed face.
"Hehehe giving up already?" Robin said while laughing. "Everything has already been set up, I took the responsibility of training you these four weeks. Don't think anything of it."
"I wouldn't have had it any other way. Plus me and you have a pending talk." Hermes responded.
"If you can survive these four weeks of training, te respondo todo lo que quieras saber."(I'll respond everything you want to know) Robin said to Hermes in their native language and he responded by saying. "Perfecto." he couldn't help but smirk at her because it had been a while since he met someone that was from his homeland and spoke the original native language. But he thought of Ashley and wanted to see her.
"Before I start this training, can you tell me where Ashley is? I need to talk to her."
"Here's what you asked for commander." random guy under Robin.
"Thank you.. Here Hermes, you will complete the training during these four weeks while wearing this special weighted uniform. We made sure to make it more appealing to you. Hehe." Robin said to Hermes.
The special "uniform" was a romper that was small, really short and full of neon pinkish colors. Hermes looked at it with disgust and refused to wear it. "haha, you really thought I was going to wear that, don't disrespect me like that mama."
This made Robin annoyed and she got closer to him, " If you don't wear it, don't even think about training here."
Hermes turned around and walked away, "I guess I'm not training here then."
"He's just an ungrateful street rat, he shouldn't have been here in the first place" comments from the people around.
"You won't be able to talk to Ashley ever again if you leave or even ask me about La Española." Robin said to Hermes and this made him stop walking. After a few seconds he turned around and grabbed the weighted "uniform" off Robin's hand. "Make sure not to wear clothes on top of that because it won't do any good for ya. haha."~Robin
"Okay i'm ready to train." Hermes said as he came out of a smaller ship wearing the romper and to his surprise Ashley was outside.
Everyone around started laughing at Hermes because they couldn't believe that he really wore it. After noticing that it didn't face him they got annoyed. They couldnt stand that narcissistic aura that he always carried with him.
The whole time he was staring straight at Ashley while not caring what he was wearing, he was just happy to see her.
"Hey Ash, how are you?" Hermes says as he gets closer to her to give her a kiss on the cheek. She let him kiss her cheek but pushed him away when he tried to go for a hug.
"What are you wearing Hermes?" Ashley says while giggling and Hermes replied as he modeled it for her. "what? you don't like it? And here I paid so much for it. Haha"
"You got ripped off hahaha." Ashley replies while laughing.
"Clearly I have no taste in clothes, so next time you gotta come with me so you can help me choose." Hermes said as he bit his lips. it's a habit of his.
"Don't you have training to do?"~Ashley
"Yea, see you around?" Hermes asked and she replied. "Maybe."
Hermes walked away and started stretching to get used to the "special uniform" Robin gave him.
"Okay Hermes, the first thing on the list is to get out of that ridiculous romper hahaha I really can't believe you actually wore it hahaha." ~Robin
Hermes stared back at Robin with a straight face.
"Haha, at least your butt looks nice." Loba said while laughing "Go back to the ship we left your real uniform in the room, it is weighted so it should help you a lot in your training. Maybe next time I'll tell my babies to go full speed against you. they'll for sure..."
"Thanks Loba" Hermes cuts her off " but they won't be able to keep up with me when I'm done with this training."
The real weigthed uniform they made was similar to the clothes he wears. It was made special for him.
And so the training began for Hermes. Robin had everything set for him to train for these four weeks.
The first part of the training was the worst of them all. Robin had him working on his physical body while he was wearing the weighted uniform until it was time to move on. He had to run up and climb steep mountains, run through lots of wet sand and swim long distances. In addition, he had to do 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats and 100 arm push ups for each hand. Everytime he did not complete the task he had to climb another mountain while dragging a boulder held by the ropes attached to his stomach. Everytime he completed a 100 of any, the next target was doubled for the next day.
After completing his physical training during the day, at night came the balance training. Starting with standing on all five fingers of one hand, until you can stand on one finger for 2hrs. After completing it with one arm, he had to switch to the other hand. In addition, proper breathing training and meditation were also part of his training.
Even though he has always been athletic, he had never done any training of this caliber in his entire life. His life is no longer dull but let's hope he survives and makes it to the trial.