Burning Grace

A Fire, a Fight, and Time Among Friends

Aaron 
Friday Night

"INCOMING!" The crowd roars. This is followed by outbursts of laughter as I approach the mat in the center of the spacious room. It's a typical Friday night at the academy, with the senior instructors and officers all off campus picking up supplies and enjoying their weekend. The trainees, including myself, along with the security force that guards the grounds, are alone at the Corbulo Academy, a military boarding school made to train soldiers from early ages to join elite peacekeeping forces around the world. Each and every student had been an orphan, selected by academy's recruiting staff, then volunteered for the program at the ages of four and five as a means of escaping their various orphanages. The years of training have been arduous, and like all people, we need time to relax and blow off steam. That's why tonight the other trainees and I are throwing a party in the academy's rec-building.

Turning my head to take in the sight, I see my friends enjoying themselves in any way possible. They're doing everything from lounging around the fireplace, to playing pool, to drinking beer stolen from the staff's private commissary. A renewed wave of shouts brings my attention back to the what I'm doing. Placed in the center of the rec-building's main room on the ground floor lies a wrestling mat similar to those that instructors use to train us in hand-to-hand combat. The other trainees and I however, use this particular mat to beat each other up for bragging rights.

As I walk towards the center I look over to the table we use to organize the tournaments and call out to the tall and toned trainee sitting behind it, "Hey Bishop! Who's my playmate tonight?"

Bishop, who has been one of my closest friends since our arrival at the academy together, grins and replies, "Well seeing how you send anybody we put against you to the infirmary, I decided to step it up a notch. You're going against fireteam Onyx." The crowd cheers and I wave my hand to get them quiet as four bulky guys walk out of the crowd to face me. I know this group well and the reason Bishop has chosen it.

The night Bishop and I had arrived at the academy; these same guys had pushed Bishop out of our van and into the mud and pouring rain out of impatience. When Bishop asked them to help him up, they had kicked him and spat on him. Not one to stand idle, I pushed them all into the mud from behind and threatened to hit them with the van's tire iron, which had been a bluff since I could barely hold it above my head, until they apologized to Bishop. Upon entering the auditorium holding the rest of the new trainees, many had asked why I was the only one not covered in mud. Within moments Bishop was telling a highly embellished tale of me single-handedly subduing all four of the other boys and coming to his rescue. From that moment forward, the two of us were partners in all of our activities and Bishop quickly rose to the top of many of our combat-oriented courses, ensuring that nobody would ever be able to harass him in such a way again. This group has never forgotten how they had been embarrassed by me that night and has always tried to take any chance they get to return the favor.

I can't help but grin and admire Bishop's sense of humor as the group comes to meet me on the mat. They sneer and obviously are looking forward to embarrassing me. Bishop rises from his seat and speaks into a wireless microphone with his best sports announcer voice.

"Alright folks," he calls out, "it is time once again to see who the big dog on campus is. In one corner," he pauses for dramatic effect, "we have our current champ, mister Aaron Shepard; a decorated squad leader and star student who believes himself to be invincible and whose smell is almost as dangerous as his punch." Bishop pauses so everyone can laugh and so he can give me a joking smile and run a hand through his closely cropped sandy-colored hair before he continues. "With that said," he begins again, causing the crowd to settle down, "he is also my best friend and if any of you punks have anything to say about him, you can tell him yourself next week because I'll put you as his next match. Now in the other corner," Bishop spits out in a bored voice, "we have the ever-hopeless fireteam Onyx. They have tirelessly worked to show us all that they are incapable of anything more complicated than eating with utensils. Tonight however, they wish to entertain us by showing us that their combat prowess can compensate for the single, pea-sized brain that they all seem to share." Bishop pauses to bow while the crowd begins laughing as Onyx starts shouting and throwing rude gestures at him. This just causes his smile to stretch wider as he paces the edge of the mat.