UNDER EDITING 𝐺𝑅𝐴𝑉𝐸 𝐷𝐴𝑁𝐺𝐸𝑅 | 𝐴𝑃𝑂𝐶𝐴𝐿𝑌𝑃𝑆𝐸 ✔︎

Training the Trainees

Time skip to a couple hours later~
(Lexi's POV)

We have been training all morning. Cooper started off with teaching me hand to hand combat. How to throw a proper punch, the nerve areas that you could hit to give yourself an advantage in a fight, stuff like that.

Now I'm a bit terrified though, because now we are going to fight each other.

"Alright, just because you're new to this doesn't mean I'll go easy on you." He says very cocky. "No need." I say.

Suddenly, Cooper lunges at me while throwing a punch towards my face. I dodge it by ducking under him, surprisingly. I turn around towards him and go to throw a punch. As I run up to him, he uses his leg to sweep my feet off of the ground causing me to fall on my back.

"..ow." I say simply while groaning. He puts his foot on my shoulder, pinning me to the ground.

"Terrible job." He says as if he's not surprised. He releases his foot and holds out his hand to help me up. I take it and stand up.

"We can take a quick break." He stretches and hands me a water bottle. I huff and take it anyway.

Do I make conversation with him? Sometimes I'm not even sure if that's allowed.

"What?" His voice breaks my thoughts. My head cocks towards him with confusion. "Huh?"

"Nothing. You're just making a stressed face is all. Like you're contemplating something." He raises an eyebrow.

"No I-" I begin to say. Guess I am allowed to make conversation. "I've been wondering... how you got that scar." I decide to say and point to his face.

He furrows his brows. Is he mad. Oh shit-

"It happened two months ago. Jasper and I were on a ration run when we... ran into a few thugs. We didn't see them at first and they jumped the two of us out of nowhere. We were of course able to fight back but one of the guys sliced me pretty deep with their knife."

My eyes widen.

"That's uh... wow." I mumble. "It was a bit too close for comfort. Almost nicked my eye."

I nod and huff a bit. "So is that why you're training us? So that if we encounter thugs then we actually know how to fight?" I question, not realizing the shade in my sentence.

He gives me an annoyed look and I realize what I had said. Shit! I didn't mean that he doesn't know how to fight!

"I didn't mean-"

"Let's just get back to training."

I awkwardly nod and we get back to our previous sparring.

(Noah's POV)

We've been at this for hours.

I've been throwing a knife at a target for what feels like forever. Jasper isn't the best teacher if I'm being completely honest.

Jasper said that we couldn't move on to anything else until I hit the target. Every time I throw the knife it either flies and hits the ground, goes backwards, or passes the target completely.

Jasper isn't very helpful either. He's just sitting on a piece of debris, fiddling with his pocket knife. Every time I miss it he either laughs to himself or just stares at me like I'm stupid. He only demonstrated how to do this once. How does he expect me to get it right, right away?

I throw and just nick the side of the target.

Jasper scoffs again.

I roll my eyes. "You aren't all that helpful, are you?"

Jaspers eyes retreat from his pocket knife. "I am being helpful. You're never gonna hit that thing if you don't keep trying."

"Yeah, but I don't even think I'm doing this correctly." I huff and walk over to my water bottle, taking a swig.

"You aren't." Jasper shrugs. I blink at him in shock. "What? Why aren't you helping me then?"

A yawn escapes his mouth as he leans back and stretches. "I'm tired. It's early. This is boring. The list could go on forever."

I groan. "C'mon, really? Why even offer to teach me if you aren't gonna do anything?"

Jasper sets his pocket knife down and stands up, taking a knife away from me.

Immediately after taking it, he throws it effortlessly at the target and hits the bullseye.

"I- how did you... woah." I barely stammer out. How did he manage to do that like it was nothing?!

"All I'm saying is that you should be happy I didn't throw like that last night." He says.

Jasper walks up to the target and pulls the knife from it. He jogs back to me and hands it to me.

"I'm only showing you this one more time." Jasper scoffs.

"Okay. Stand directly in front of the target. Plant your feet." He waits for me to do so. "Now, hold up the knife and align in with the bullseye." I hold up the knife and do so.

"Okay, so when you throw it you want to make it one swift motion. Every time you were throwing it, you kept hesitating and throwing it way to hard. You don't have to chuck it, just let it release from your fingers and let gravity do the rest." So he does know how to give instructions.

Disclaimer: Idk how to actually throw knives. I'm just picturing how it looks in my head and I'm just guessing this is what you do. I'm not an expert or anything.

"Okay. Go ahead and try it." He says while stepping back. I take a deep breath and pull my arm back. I take a good look at the target. I thrust my arm forward, not as hard as I was doing it beforehand. The blade leaves my hand and spins through the air. I watch it carefully and it eventually hits the target. Not the bullseye but close under it.

"Yes!" I say, a bit too excited. I immediately calm myself down while Jasper shoots me an annoyed yet relieved look.

"Fucking finally."

My mood is a bit ruined at that, but I still attempt to take it as a win.

"How's it going over here?" Lexi. Jasper and I turn to see Lexi and Cooper walking up to us. Lexi looks a bit more roughed up than Cooper though.

"Noah got something done, finally. Right under the bullseye." Jasper points to the target like he could care less.

"Shit, Noah. Good job." Lexi smiles.

"We should all go eat breakfast now. We trained a lot. On the other hand, it seems like you guys didn't train much at all. So we'll do this tomorrow morning as well, and possibly the morning after." Cooper said while yawning.

We all nod and walk down to get breakfast. There isn't much to eat though, we must be low on rations.

I go to grab for the last granola bar but another hand takes it before me.

Jasper looks at the snack in his hand, contemplating. He opens the wrapper and splits it in half, dropping the piece in my hand.

"Nice job today, Ashwell."

He then walks over to his friends, who were already glaring at me from a distance.

Huh.. maybe he's not that bad after all.