Chapter 11

The struggles of dealing with school, martial arts, and training were unbelievable. Sleep was just a notion of the past. It was amazing how much of persona a person was to keep during all of this. If I was to continue this, as if I had a choice at this point, I needed to keep my persona the same. This was no easy feat. The injuries and bruises I’ve sustained over the past couple of weeks were passed off as martial arts injuries. With school we also needed to keep our grades up, attend all of our classes regardless of how tired we were, and keep up with everything we were a part of. Then there was Martial art, we were still instructors and we had to keep up with our classes and clean up afterwards. Lastly it was the training itself. Sleep was peppered throughout but it was becoming far and few.

At first we stayed after school closed and trained. My father picked up my sister after classes before he went to work and Leon would drop us off later that night. My status as a tournament fighter gave enough reason to my father to stay behind and gain extra practice. My sister started getting somewhat suspicious when I came home late, worse for wear, but she was starting to ask a lot of questions. It got to where I had to come home, go to bed, sneak out, and run to the studio. It wasn’t that far only about a mile but Leon thought it was great way to warm up.

Trainings differ each week, working from each night, drills, weapons, first aid, any concoction he was able to put together, and finishing with having to fight with Leon. Regardless of what he put us through he never let up at the end.

Some of the things he put us through were interesting. One time, he cut the lights off as we stood in the middle of the floor. It was dark, I couldn’t see a few inches in front of me, I couldn’t see my fist in my stance. I could hear Jace breathing combined with the pumping through my ears. Leon was around stepping quietly as ever, he was wearing night goggles and could see us perfectly as my ears struggled to listen for any cues he gave but nothing was happening.

I couldn’t tell if had only been seconds or minutes before I heard a quip of a sound. I turned my attention preparing for any oncoming attack but nothing came.

“I heard something”

“Pay attention Jace”

It was quiet again.

“Could you imagine if he’s just sitting on chair looking at us just standing here?” He quickly became quiet again and not because he shut his mouth. I heard a swoosh noise of a staff swinging through the air as It flew over me and right into Jace. This went on for a couple of hours each time. Either multiple items flew in our directions or Leon took it upon his self to swing the weapon up close. Never once did I hear him and the time for reaction was seconds before impact. We were hit a lot that night and many others. We did get better, timing the sounds and blocking whatever was thrown.

We practiced late into the night but always stopped around one or two in the morning. Then we would run home. Leon still needed to patrol the streets when he could and he told us this was his warm up before his job began. He didn’t go out every night but we asked frequently when we would be able to help him but he continued to insist we needed more trainings.

So we continued training every night, my dad went to work, my sister went to sleep, and I made my way to the studio. After a couple of weeks Leon instructed us to stay in the dark when we ran at night, avoid detection, stay off main streets and find other ways to getting to the destination. When we get comfortable with a route we were instructed to take another one. It was hard at first living in a housing complex gated through the front connected to other housing complexes. I couldn’t tell you how many times I jumped into a backyard and was chased by a dog or accidently set off someone’s proximity alarms. It quickly got me in the habit of assessing each location before jumping into it. I still needed to be fast neither of us wanted to have the other wait let alone Leon. That habit transitioned into my everyday life. I walk into a room and look around calculating the best route, exit, who was there, what I could use to my advantage etc. This also became useful when we walked into the studio. Leon always had something prepared for us and if we were able to catch it and avoid it, the better.

I learned so much during the training, even though we had no rules about guns, Leon had a huge assortment of them. He didn’t say if he used them but he had great knowledge about them leaving more mystery into his past. I was no stranger to guns, my father being a detective I was exposed to them often. What I wasn’t exposed to was the science of firearms. Leon introduced us into the assortment of guns, showed us how they worked, and explained how each of them worked. During his encounters he comes across all sorts of weapons for us to have a better understanding of them we needed to know them inside and out. That’s what he had us do, we took apart each gun, put them together, took them apart again and repeat the process. Most criminals didn’t know how to properly put a gun together, therefore Leon would take it apart to the point it wasn’t functional.

We went through many drills and lessons, some of it was done during our classes, the school’s curriculum carried the basics of many disarms and takedowns so it transferred easily into the night lessons. We just had the advanced version of the curriculum at night.

The end of the night fights even started to evolve over the weeks. Different rules and stipulations were thrown into the fight each night. It ranged from fighting with staffs to having one armed tied behind our backs, to only using kicks. Each night brought something harder than the night before. During one fight he shot out small flash paper to throw off our concentration and it worked. We both went in for an attack and before we got to him he shot it at us totally throwing me off my strategy. The pain was the same but I will admit it was somewhat easier to handle after a while, again somewhat but I noticed we both were getting faster and working together better as our teamwork ethics improved greatly. I even saw Leon show some concern at our attacks, but it didn’t stop him from winning each night.

He liked to change things often, keep us guessing. He explained you never know what kind of situation you’re going to be in therefore you have to be ready for anything. One weekend, after classes were done, he did another thing different.

“When did you become in possession of a warehouse?” I asked looking around, the place was a real rundown.

“It’s technically not mine. It’s an old abandoned laundry facility.” Answered Leon

“So we’re borrowing it.” Jace followed.

“You can say that.”

The three of us were standing in the entrance, broken windows and shattered doors providing the safe secure feeling as we looked at it. We made our way in and I saw machines were the first thing greeting us inside this decent size structure. I didn’t know what they were called but after looking around a bit and gathering the environment it was evident it used to be an old laundry facility that was salvaged through and left for dead years ago. There were still conveyor lines at different levels, huge tubes of metal that looked like giant dryers, chutes, and carts thrown everywhere. The only thing in order was large crates positioned in the middle of the open floor. There were about 9 of them placed throughout.

“As nice as it is in here.” Jace started sarcastically “What are we doing here?”

“We are here for your training?” Leon said walking ahead

“Do you want us to learn the laundry business or something?”

“That was pretty weak” I commented.

Jace shrugged.

Leon didn’t find it amusing and continued with his explanation. “Free running, are you two familiar with the concept?”

Of course, it wasn’t as huge as it once was but it’s something people are familiar with. Free running the idea of running through any environment using the terrain in any way to get to your destination as quickly as possible. We both nodded.

“Good. That is why we are here. In most cases you will be running and this facility will help you build that experience.”

Never had I consider the possibility of having to learn free running but it did make sense. I was however wondering how this was going to work. Leon answered that question as quick as I had thought it. Leon was standing by two chains connected at the top of the third floor railing.

“The course starts here, arrows are marked to show where you need to go.” He said pointing to an example of one. “Let’s see how fast you can complete the course…go.”

And just like that he walked away with Jace and I staring at the two chains in front of us. I took a deep breath and grabbed the chain on the right.

It was a real struggle going up the chain, at first my hands were having trouble grabbing a good grip. Jace wasn’t haven’t much luck either, after a few attempts we looked at each and tried to figure this out together. The time was in my head but at this point I already knew it wasn’t going to be good. I wrapped the chain around my leg and decided to climb it like a gym rope. I hadn’t done it since elementary school but I figured the mechanics were the same. It wasn’t, it was ridiculously different but I was moving up the chain. I utilized my strength and my hands were over gripping the higher up I went. My teeth gritted against each other, I was slowly freaking out. I kept it together as my breathing speed up. I made it high enough to grab on to the scaffold on the second level and used that support to get me the rest of the way.

After I got on I looked down and saw Jace using the same technique I did and saw the same struggle I went through. My feeling in my hands came through and I pulled Jace the rest of the way up.

“Thanks man.” He said as he sighed.

“Any time.”

There was in fact arrows mapping out the rest of the course, we followed it with a strong degree of hesitation. The scaffold made many creaking noises and the fear of following crossed my mind more times than I cared for. The arrows led us through windows to the outside of the building leading to the rooftop. This was easier as we jumped over columns. There was still doubt in the integrity of the roof but it lessened compared to the inside.

The course eventually made it back inside the building, crossing between machines, jumping through gaps. Leon just stood and looked as we progressed with an emotionless face but knowing him it wasn’t going to be an impressive emotion.

We came across one gap that was wider than the others and would need more of a running start to make it across. A bar was in the middle and based on the position it was close enough to make the jump grab onto and swing to the other side. I looked over at Jace who was coming to realization what was expected.

“He wouldn’t put this up if it wasn’t safe right?” Jace asked calculating the distance.

“After everything we gone through so far, it’s hard to say.” I chuckled looking down at the drop. There were piles of cardboard but I wasn’t confident the cardboard was going to provide much safety.

I stepped back taking a deep breath and went for the jump grabbing onto the bar timing my swing so I had the right momentum to make it. Next thing I knew my feet landed. I smirked at the accomplishment while turning my attention to Jace who landed right behind me.

“That was actually fun.”Jace smiled

We continued on the course coming across large walls where Jace and I utilized each other to get over. We stood in front Leon after what seemed like forever and awaited his response. He brought the stopwatch out and showed our time. It was an abysmal thirty minutes time.

“The time is not good, not even for going the first time.” Leon started “What is the first rule of walking into an area?”

It took a minute for either one of us to respond. I thought fast for an answer, what didn’t we do when we came in, I assessed the location, planned for my next move…but I never assessed the course, I just went for it.

Leon walked to the chains but walked past them to the staircase behind them with an arrow clearly visible.

“We didn’t look at our surroundings.” Jace answered

“You took the longer harder way. I will admit I did not expect you to make it up the chain as you did so I will commend you on that but given the points of the exercise didn’t deal with that you failed.” The words you failed struck hard but I kept my head up. “Since you did it that way I too will start.”

Those words did surprise me and was excited to see Leon in action. It didn’t take long for him to start. He started up the chain with both arms shimming his way up with such speed. His movements as he moved around were quick and smooth, similar to his fighting style. He ran and jumped without fear putting any thing we did to shame. Where Jace and I utilized team work he jumped off walls to reach the top. Where we crawled underneath structures, he slid. It was truly impressive and my mouth couldn’t close.

I didn’t need to look at the stopwatch to know his time blew our away. He stood on the other side of the center floor when he was done. I was about to congratulate him but before the words came out of my mouth he drew out a gun and before I gave myself an opportunity to process what was happening shoots were being fired and I dove behind one of the crates freaking out.

Jace was scrambling away on his stomach.

“What was that about?” I yelled out. Leon didn’t say anything as he continued firing. I quickly thought about the integrity of the wood and what kind of damage they could take but then it hit pretty fast. There was no contact being made. Not only the wood but anywhere, no ricochet, nothing.

I wasn’t safe in my assumption because my mind was still racing but I didn’t hear anything. I peeked around to get a view of Leon and he pointed the gun at me as I pulled my head back making it to the other side of the crate as the gun went off, but again no connection to anything. I stood up and looked at him as he aimed at me.

A few seconds past and a small grin came across Leon’s face. “Good, you realized I was shooting blanks.”

“Blanks!” Jace could be heard behind one of the crates slowly poking his head above.

“Yes Blanks, I wanted to see your reaction when a gun was involved. You reacted well.” Leon followed. “Now set up and get ready to run the course again.” He said nonchalantly as if what he put us through was nothing. Jace and I looked at each other taking everything that just happened. I actually found myself smiling as I made my way to the start line this time looking at the staircase. This time around we went in with more confidence and a better understanding of the course. We improved our time but we needed a lot more of work.

No surprise Leon instructed us to run the course multiple more times. We attacked the course improving our technique looking for better ways when we went into an obstacle. Jace and I couldn’t help but feel the achievement within ourselves every time we finished the course. Leon kept his impassive expression but even he had to feel some sense of accomplishment.

We finished the course again but this time Leon stood at the finish waiting for us. I was out of breathe and muscles were aching. “You two did well today. As you can tell running through neighborhoods is different from free running.”

Leon walked around going through the crates. “I will continue to reiterate each situation will be different. You will have to control your emotions and be ready for anything. You will be scared, you will have doubt but you cant have that stop you.” He pulled the gun out he used earlier and just held it within his crossed arms. I figured he was just using it as imitation factor to really drive his point. “You will do things, you will see things that will test your will. It may break you down, it may haunt you, but doing this, you will need to push past it all.”

The words were deep. We went through some traumatic experiences already. I still see the images flash time from time. Everything now is embedded into my head. I want to push forward, I want to know there is something I could have done to help. Will I be able to do this? Yes…

“Is this understood?” Leon finished.

“Yes sir” we said in unison.

Leon nodded his head. “Good now this time these aren’t blanks.” Raising his gun at us again. This time splinters from the crates were being ripped off.