“RISE UP, YOU LITTLE THRACKOIDS!!!” angrily barked the dark-skinned Lord-Commander (and first Blue Guardian Warrior) Ambo Raves, after he had entered the ‘Cadet Bunk Wing’ of the HIGHLY PRESTIGIOUS and GRANDLY REVERED Guardinas Royal Defense Military Academy.

  “I SAID, RISE UP, YOU RAXX-EATING SKOGGERS,” Commander Raves snapped as the twenty, eight-cycles-old Guardinian Boys who occupied the Cadet Bunk scurried up to their feet and got in two lines across from one another on either side of the wing.

  Amongst the twenty was young Dexius Solas, who was first of the cadets to spring out of his bunk and rise up to his feet.

  “ABOUT FACE!” Lieutenant Raves cried out as the twenty cadets stood with their backs straightened and arms down at their sides. The twenty Royal Defense Guardsmen Cadet Recruits stood still as statues as the gruff, forty-cycles-old former Intergalactic Warrior looked them over.

  Wearing a black, leather-like Guardsman jumpsuit with black gloves and a blue beret atop his shaved bald head, Lieutenant Raves looked over his assigned cadet unit with disgust in his turquoise eyes.

  “Pathetic, you lot be! THRACKING PATHETIC!!! In the shape you childlings are in now, you wouldn’t last FIVE MILI-CYCLES on a REAL battlefield! LUCKILY THOUGH… in your thracking PITIFUL cases, I have been assigned to be your Cadet Unit Squadron’s ‘Commander and Chief’ by the Lord-King himself!

  “My name is Raves… LORD-COMMANDER AMBO RAVES!!! You are to refer to me as ‘Lord-Commander’, ‘Commander’, or ‘Sir’ ONLY. CONFIRM COMMAND, THRACKOIDS!!!”

  “COMMAND CONFIRMED, LORD-COMMANDER!!!” the twenty cadets all cried aloud in unison.

  “Grand. You all listen quite well… BUT YOU ARE NOT HERE JUST TO LISTEN,” Commander Raves raged. “You are ALSO here to learn to fight… HOW TO KILL!!!”

  Dexius had an unsure look on his bronze-skinned face for a milli-cycle before he quickly turned off his emotions once more as the Lord-Commander continued, “I shall train you ALL to become Guardsmen one day-cycle… BUT I can already tell that some of you shall not make through your FIRST CYCLES here at the Academy. I smell fear REEKING from this unit and fear is what I DESPISE the thracking most!”

  As he treaded past Dexius, Commander Raves continued, “When in the HEAT OF BATTLE… If ANY OF YOU little raxx-eaters make it far, the enemy SHALL and WILL pick up on your reeking, COWARDLY fear and use it against you as soon as they get the thracking chance!”

  Stopping at Dexius, Raves looked down at him and snarled.

  “STATE YOUR NAME, CADET!”

  “CADET DEXIUS TYLERON SOLAS, SIR!”

  “Hmm… Solas, eh? I’ve heard of you.”

  Dexius glanced up at the Commander slightly, which Raves noticed right away.

  “DID I GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO LOOK AT ME, THRACKOID?!” Commander Raves shouted in Dexius’s startled looking face.

  “NO, SIR!”

  “Then why did you just look up at me with your fear-ridden eyes, Cadet?! ANSWER ME! CONFIRM COMMAND!”

  “COMMAND CONFIRMED, LORD-COMMANDER! I DID NOT LOOK AT YOU, SIR!”

  “ART THOU CALLING ME A ‘LIAR’, KROONE?!”

  “NO, SIR! I AM NOT CALLING YOU A ‘LIAR’, SIR! I was just stating my opinion, Sir!”

  “OPINION?! I COULD GIVE TWO RAXXES ABOUT ANYONE’S ‘OPINIONS’ IN THIS RAXX-HOLE SQUALOR! Especially one coming from a little ORPHANED URCHIN like you, Solas!”

  That last comment made Dexius very angry.

  Trying to keep his emotions in check, Dexius just bit his lip and did not reply.

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  “What be the disturbance, Solas?” Raves pressed after realizing that he had struck a nerve with the boy. “Do you not like that word? ORPHAN.”

  “No, Sir,” Dexius replied.

  “No sir WHAT, Cadet?!”

  “No, Sir! I do not like it, Sir!”

  “Heh, heh… Really now? Well… I DON’T GIVE A RAXX, BOY! I am your COMMANDING OFFICER at this academy! MY WORD IS LAW so you can just SHUT YOUR THRACKING MOUTH and FALL IN LINE, Orphan-Skogger-SCUM!”

  Dexius wanted to lash out at Raves, but he knew that he would be pummeled into oblivion.

  So, Dexius opted for a different route.

  “Commander Raves… I request permission to speak, Sir.”

  “REQUEST DENIED, CADET!”

  “LORD-COMMANDER, I REQUEST THE PERMISSION TO SPEAK, SIR!”

  Sensing a rising tone in the young boy’s voice, Raves turned his fiery eyes back down upon him.

  “I SAID ‘NO’, CADET! Do you have some kind of hearing problem?!”

  “No, Sir! I do not have a hearing problem, Sir!”

  “THEN WHY IN THE STARBLAZES DO CONSTANTLY KEEP ON REQUESTING THE PERMISSION TO SPEAK?!”

  “BECAUSE I REALLY NEED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING, LORD-COMMANDER!”

  “WHAT, CADET?! THRACKING WHAT?!?!”

  Now glaring up at the Lord-Commander, Dexius threatened, “If you so KROONISHLY continue to call me ‘Orphan’ then I shall have NO CHOICE but to have the LORD-KING LUXOR himself and PERSONALLY have you DISCHARGED from the Royal Defense Military, Sir!”

  The room then grew scarcely silent as the other nineteen boys all directed their turquoise eyes towards Dexius.

  The young, orphaned farm boy kept his eyes glued on Raves as he glared right back at him

  “Cadet… YOU DO REALIZE that insulting a SUPERIOR is a GRAND OFFENSE at this Academy???” the Lord-Commander asked with his dark-skinned brow lowered.

  “Yes, Sir… I DO,” Dexius snapped back.

  “THEN WHY IN THE THRACK DID YOU JUST INSULT ME?!”

  “BECAUSE I DO NOT CARE, SIR!”

  Narrowing his eyes, Raves pressed, “You are not afraid of me… ARE YOU, BOY?”

  “NO, SIR!” Dexius fearlessly replied.

  “GRAND… You show no fear when faced with opposition. I admire that, Cadet Solas.”

  Dexius kept a hardened look on his face as Raves lurched back to say to the other cadet recruits with a slight smirk on his bearded face, “The rest of you little thrackers should look to your fellow ‘brother’s’ fearlessness and take grand note of it! You could learn something… LIKE CADET SOLAS IS ABOUT TO LEARN!”

  As Dexius scrunched his brow in confusion, Raves ordered, “CADET SOLAS… I want you to drop down and give me FIFTY GRAV-PRESSES!!!”

  (A ‘Grav-Press’ was the Guardinian term for a ‘Push-Up’.)

  “NOW, CADET!!!” Raves shouted even louder as Dexius immediately dropped down on his hands and toes started busting out the fifty grav-presses.

  “You think that you’re better than your fellow cadets because of who you live in a ‘gilded palace’, Solas?” Raves asked after squatting down alongside the grav-pressing Dexius.

  “Urgh… No, Sir!” Dexius grunted out.

  “I think you’re lying, boy… OR ELSE you would NOT have said what you just said to me.”

  “Urgh… Nuh-No, Sir! I… Am not… Luh-Lying, Sir! Urgh… I am not… BETTER… Urgh… Than anyone else… Urgh… Here, Sir! Ugh… Urgh… Except for you, Sir!”

  “WHY YOU LITTLE,” Commander Raves started to blister until he realized what the young cadet was truly doing: EXPLOITING AND USING HIS OWN EMOTIONS AGAINST HIM.

  “Nice try, kid,” Raves smirked after catching on to Dexius’s game. “BACK ON YOUR FEET, CADET!”

  Heeding the Lord-Commander’s word, Dexius shoved himself back up to his feet easily. It was as if he hadn’t even done any grav-presses at all.

  “You have spirit, boy,” Raves shockingly commended. “Though you are quite defiant, insolent… AND DO NOT KNOW WHEN TO SHUT YOUR THRACKING GOB, you have spirit nonetheless. Tis something that you possess much of. You shall need all that you can muster of it here, Solas.”

  Turning to the rest of the frozen in shock and fear cadets, Raves continued, “YOU SHALL ALL NEED IT DURING YOUR INDIVIDUAL STAYS HERE! FOR YOU ARE GOING TO BE HERE UNTIL YOUR EIGHTEENTH CYCLES, CADETS! GET USED TO YOUR THRACKING SURROUNDINGS!!!”

  “YES, SIR!!!” the cadets, as well as Dexius, all sounded off in reply.

  “AT EASE!” the Lord-Commander then barked before turning away to leave the cadet bunk.

  As the cadets all returned to normal, Dexius remained standing firmly in place with a look of pure drive and determination on his face.