Waging War | The Amber Duology #1

9 | Ropes, Mud, and Everything Icky

Breakfast went by quicker than any of them wanted and Skylor found herself back outside. The sun was reaching its peak as the clocks chimed 6:30 am. It was getting hotter in the desert the more they stood, but Skylor would have preferred to stand there for as long as it took instead of doing their next phase of training.

"If you think jogging was exhausting," Kai led them through a different part of the campsite, and Skylor wished he didn't continue that sentence. "Welcome to The Trim Trail."

First Spinjitzu Master.

In front of them was a long obstacle course thoroughly laid out across the sands, even a large pit of mud–that was probably collected from the forests–could be seen spread out in different places. Each activity was built and designed to measure a certain type of strength, and Skylor searched every part of her for any.

She had none.

Only the Princess had the courage to speak what everyone wanted to say. "You're kidding right?"

Kai paced in front of their dumbfounded faces, a grin plastered on his. "You will spend most of your time perfecting this obstacle course. Every climb you take, every move you make, will be timed." Kai stopped in his tracks and turned to face them. "And this is will be a huge part of how your ranks are determined."

He reminded them about the scoring system once again which triggered plenty of thoughts that ran through her mind and Skylor wanted answers, but Akita made it clear she wasn't going to entertain any of her questions anymore.

Her hand shot up in the air before she could even comprehend what she was doing. "What happens to the person who ranked last?" The question hung in the air and silenced the crowd.

Kai tilted his head and Skylor could almost see a hint of amusement in his eyes from her question. Nonetheless he answered, "Severe punishments." and Skylor should have expected it. He clasped his hands together, bouncing on his feet, almost as if he was excited to see them fail.

Kai Smith was unreadable, and that frustrated Skylor.

They positioned themselves at the start of the obstacle course and her hand shot up to check on her hair, grateful she had let Princess Vania braid it into a crown to keep it away from her eyes. Skylor took deep, shaky breaths. You can do this.

The whistle blew and she broke out into a run with the rest of the initiates. Skylor couldn't focus on Nya's state right now, she can handle herself, she was too busy planning how to get past the first obstacle. Monkey bars.

The harmless, children's playground equipment was at least 20 bars long and 3 feet in the air. Skylor had to climb a ladder after cuing behind the other recruits but once she got a grip of the metal bars, she realized how much a lighter breakfast would have helped.

"Gah!" She yelped, the metal was starting to leave blisters in her palms but she pushed through and eventually made it to the end. It wasn't over yet.

After the bars were two long planks placed parallel to each other. She chose the left one and found out how thin the space was, it wasn't even big enough to fit her feet. Skylor couldn't count the number of times she fell over, or how many times Kai had called on her to start from the beginning of the beam.

"Use your arms. Balance yourself." She heard a whisper from above her as she lay on the sand once more. Pixel was doing a perfect demonstration of what she wanted Skylor to do, when she saw it was effective, she went to give it a try.

The next course was definitely the worst one she ever had to face. There were sharp wires placed between wood to create a barrier. It would have been an easy task except they were lodged too deep in the ground that the only way through was to crawl past the mud underneath it.