𝐏𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐂 𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌

𝐭𝐰𝐨

- ⧗  ZARIAH PETROVA ⧗ -

   TRAINING WAS USUALLY ZARIAH'S LEAST FAVOURITE part of the day. Mostly because they ended up sharing the space with other younger students. All divisions were on a rota that dictated where they were in the school at what time, and on the current schedule it turned out Zari's class was sharing the training room with the second youngest division: 6-7.

   This wasn't a terrible pairing in Zariah's opinion as the younger girls were still learning basic skills; how to hold a gun or a knife, how to throw a punch correctly, strength training etc. So, they were rarely ever in the older girls' way. This afternoon however, it seemed both classes were set to use the main mats.

   The training room was another anomaly inside the red room. While all other rooms were grey, with marble floors and polished wood beams, the training room was sleek, black and modern. There were branches off to the side with firing ranges and other target practices. Both of which were stocked with the most expensive weapons available on the market.

   Inside the main body of the room were soft red mats, some larger for class demonstrations and others smaller for individual sparring. There were also lines of punching bags and an assault course off to one side for the girls to train with. When it came to stamina training, they mostly just ran laps of the school.

   Zariah's class had been instructed to warm up on the mats with a partner before they would move on to their proper lesson for the day. The redhead moved to a space with Yana, Annelise partnering up with another one of their classmates a few mats away. The pair of them began stretching on the mat, warming up their muscles so they wouldn't pull anything during training.

   As she did this, Zariah took a look around the class. Across from them she noticed that Hannah had found a partner in Annika. The redhead smirked. She knew the blonde-haired girl was not doing this out of the kindness of her heart, but because she'd finally get a chance to show Hannah what would happen if she disturbed her sleep again. Zariah knew a few dirty sparrings were heading the new girl's way.

   Suddenly there was some shouting from across the room. Zariah turned her head along with the other girls to a mat a few spots down. One of the older girls, Polina, was yelling at a smaller girl in loud Russian. When Zari spotted who it was, she quickly got to her feet and crossed the room towards them.

   As she arrived at the mat, Polina's arms reached to push the small girl hard on the shoulders. Mila hit the ground with a small grunt.

   "Hey!" Zariah yelled, her hand swiveling Polina's shoulder round to face her. "What's your problem?"

   "My problem?" Polina replied, squaring up to Zariah. "My problem is that this little squit is on my mat."

   "Your mat, huh?" Zariah squared further up to the brunette across from her. She stood a few inches taller, looking down on her. Without breaking eye contact, she spoke again. "Mila, who was here first?"

   A small voice replied. "I was."

   Zariah smiled. "Well, there you have it. She was here first, it's her mat."

   Polina scoffed. "I always train on this mat. Just because-"

   "Are we gonna have a problem here?" Zariah cut off. "Because I can easily change my sparring partner if we are."

   Polina's eyes were cold against Zariah's. She knew the sentence was a threat. To go against someone like that meant neither girl would play fair. And perhaps one would leave laying on a stretcher to the med bay, or maybe even worse. The brunette scoffed as she took a step back. Once again, the fact Zariah was the best in her division had prevailed in her favour.