11 Chapter (9) Training and Alpha Company (1)

(Mc Pov)

It has been about a month and a half since I began training here on Onyx with Alpha Company. I am currently having breakfast with Naomi on a day off. Yeah believe it or not but we get a weekend off every two weeks usually. Unless the class fucked something up or was not performing well, in that case we get no break and have to do "remedial training" as Kurt would say. In all actuality it's mostly just a beat down where we have to do a bunch of exercises as punishment.

Back on the weekend off thing you might think that the Spartan-III's only trained but that isn't the case. Similarly I originally thought that they would also be emotionless and socially inept robots that only had one purpose: kill the Covenant. I can safely say that neither of those statements are true.

In fact the second statement couldn't be further than the truth. All in all the fireteams of Alpha Company are not really fireteams at all and are more like small families. I guess that makes sense seeing as they are all orphans and can all relate to that fact, and also the fact they all have immense contempt against the Covenant. The fireteams are all closely knit especially the leaders and love to compete against each other. For example, Emile A-239 (Yes that Emile from Halo: Reach I expected to see him once) challenged Carter and us to a game of soccer during my first two weeks of training. Carter agreed and that's what we did on my first Saturday. I won't go into detail of how it went, but that type of stuff was common throughout the class and I loved the close feeling it gave.

"It has been a while since we have sat down together and ate like this. So how have you been Sam?" Naomi said, breaking me out of my thoughts.

"It's been good. I have been getting along well with my classmates and my friends in the fireteam so far. How have you been?" I say in response to her question following up with the same courtesy.

Naomi sighs "Busy. To say the least, Colonel Ackerson, the head of this program, has been giving me difficult tasks with near impossible deadlines. That's mostly why you haven't seen me very much." she says with a tired expression.

"That's tough, I would love to help you, but biology isn't really my skill-set nor is it my expertise." I said with a sympathetic expression

Naomi seemed to perk up a bit "Oh and what is your expertise then?" she asked with a teasing smile

I sat and put my hand on my chin adopting a pondering expression before answering with "Hmmmm push ups"

We both chuckled at my answer, before settling back down, and continuing our meal and conversation.

"Do you have any plans today?"

"Yeah, I plan to go to Instructor Kurt and get some additional training. From what I have seen he usually doesn't do much on the days off except read. So I figured that he wouldn't mind me stopping in and asking him to teach me anything."

"How diligent of you, and what do you want for him to teach you?"

"Well I need to be at least this bold to have any hope of surviving this war. As for your question, honestly I would be fine with anything he taught me. Instructor Kurt is like a library of knowledge, otherwise he wouldn't be the chief Instructor of the program. If I got to pick what we did I would love to go to the shooting range." I explained to Naomi.

"That he is." Naomi said in confirmation of Kurt's abilities. "Though why are you so eager to go shooting? Out of anything he could teach you. Why handling a gun first?" she asked with a slightly tilted head and interested expression. Completely ignoring the fact that a 5/6 year old just asked to go to a shooting range. At this point she is unfazed by my quirks and weird maturity, probably chopping it up to losing my family and home world.

"I used to go hunting with my dad and I always enjoyed shooting our hunting rifle whenever he would let me." I say with a remembering and happy expression.

Now you may be wondering how or why in the hell my father in this life gave a gun to a 4 year old. That's because he didn't, my father in my past life did however though it was only when I was 8 or 9. He gave me strict gun safety lessons and went out with me everytime until he felt confident I wouldn't accidentally shoot myself. After that I would hunt all the time on our property. It was like a hobby.

I used every weapon I could get my hands on or that my father would allow me to use. Shotguns for birds and turkeys. Hunting rifles for large predators and deer or elk. Heck I even used semi-automatic rifles for the wild pigs that tore up the environment. I would never kill anything for sport. I always ate whatever I killed and made sure not to go overboard while hunting.

I say all this for one main reason that no one in this universe knows yet.

'Little does she know that I could easily out shoot every non augmented person on this planet. Even in this child body I am certain that I would be more accurate than these teenagers. Of course that is because I had nearly two decades of experience shooting and also an absurd talent when it came to handling weapons.'

"I see, well good luck with that." Naomi said while nodding, and wishing me luck.

"What about you do you have any plans for today?" I ask wondering what she may do today.

Naomi immediately answered with "Catching up on sleep and doing nothing." she said with a proud expression puffing out her chest.

"How slothful of you." I said with a wry smile and an unamused expression before saying "Well I don't plan to train past 5:00 P.M, so do you wanna watch a movie tonight?" with a more hopeful look on my face.

"Sure, we can make some popcorn and get other stuff like that." Naomi said with a happy and excited expression.

"That would be fun, but you are picking out the movie. My only request is no romance or similarly boring genres." I said

"Well I guess I am going to pick a horror movie. How about this movie The thing, apparently it's about an alien parasite from outer space that can assimilate its host. So the cast in the movie have to figure out which of the people are assimilated and kill the thing before it is too late." Naomi said with intrigue and a bit of excitement at the movie's synopsis.

"Sure that sounds fine." I replied to her suggestion. 'Although a movie about an alien parasite that assimilates its host is a bit on the nose for this universe.' I thought as a wry smile slowly made its way onto my face.

Seeing the look on my face Naomi decided it would be a good chance to attempt to tease me.

"Or we can watch something else if you are too scared." She said with a challenging look trying to get a reaction out of me.

"Thank you for worrying for me, but you shouldn't be so concerned about me-." I said with a thankful expression.

This statement most likely perplexed and warmed Naomi's heart, if the look on her face was anything to go by. She was most likely going to say something similarly wholesome, but I decided to finish what I was going to say.

"- when you yourself is the one that you should be worrying about. I doubt you have ever seen a horror movie so don't worry your 'brother' will hold your hand when you are scared." I said with a righteous smile while patting her shoulder.

I'm just an instant her warm and happy smile turned to a look that could certainly freeze beer. Just as she was about to make a retort about what I had said. I got up quickly ran and threw my dishes in the sink and left.

'Nice bail.' I thought to myself before stretching for the multiple mile run to Kurt's residence.

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After about half an hour and a 2.5 mile run. I finally arrived at Kurt's residence. I sat around for a bit to catch my breath from my run. I then got up, composed myself and knocked on the door.

After a couple of minutes that seemed like an hour. The door finally opened and in view was the giant that I called Instructor Kurt.

"How can I help you cadet Samson?" Kurt asked in a formal and somewhat cold term.

'I think he is actually surprised and somewhat happy to see me. Guess he doesn't get many visitors. That is kinda sad now that I think about it. Mendez really struck gold when he pulled Kurt out and recommended him to train the next generation of Spartans.'

Now based on what the trainees saw and how he greeted me. Many would guess that Kurt is just doing his job nothing more nothing less. Some would even think that based on the punishments and tone that Kurt uses when in training, that he actually feels this task is beneath him. Perhaps, lamenting the fact that he is being forced to teach a bunch of kids rather than helping his fellow Spartan-II's on the front line.

Again however, this sentiment cannot be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is that Kurt cares, and cares a LOT about every single cadet/trainee that appears in front of him. This is best shown in his interactions, he knows every candidate's emotions on a near empathic level probably from paying extreme attention and reviewing the actions of every cadet from that day of training and the ones before. He does that for over 300 different individuals, and uses that in his 'stick and carrot' approach.

Because of that level of detail his failure rate in training is astronomically low, and has little to no casualties in training. One day during this past month of training we had a drop out in training, the trainee couldn't keep up with the required standards and ONI decided to cut them from the Spartan-III program. Out of curiosity I asked Carter one day if he knew what happened to them afterwards.

He said that usually Kurt goes out and gives them referrals to other branches of service that they would be better suited for. That and he also has a talk and sends an entire training plan to whatever instructor or teacher they may have for their next set of training, and that is just the tip of the iceberg of things he does for the trainees. To make a long story short he cares.

Breaking out of my line of thoughts I state standing at attention "Instructor Kurt I am here to ask for training."

"Training picks up again Monday. You have been here for over a month. I am certain you should know that by now." He responded

"I do understand Instructor Kurt. What I meant to say was I am here for additional training." I said clearly

This got his attention because I could see his eyes narrowing and becoming more focused before speaking again.

"You could have done the additional training by yourself. So far you have only been physically conditioning yourself, so why are you here?"

"Because Instructor Kurt, I believe it would be best to begin learning other skills needed. In order to better succeed in both training and the field after training."

He stops to think for a second without changing his gaze nor expression "...And why would you ask me for it, and not the other instructors?"

"Instructor Kurt, with all due respect you appear to be the most 'squared away' in comparison to the other instructors. Additionally, you have gone through a similar program before unlike them. Therefore, I believe that there would be no one better to ask for additional training besides you sir."

There is a long pause of silence between the both of us. For what felt like hours no one said anything as he continued to bore holes in my head with his eyes. Eventually I began to think that maybe being so bold wasn't the best approach. Until finally Kurt said something.

"Very well then we will begin in 10 mins. You will come here every Saturday at 8 A.M and you will train until 6:00 P.M. You are allowed to quit, but know that if you do. I will never entertain the thought of training you again. Am I understood cadet?"

"Yes Instructor Kurt" I said without hesitation

And with that I lost a chunk of my Saturdays for many years. In exchange I got experience from one of the greatest Spartan-II's. A good trade if I do say so myself.

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What is UP party people. First I would like to say sorry for the late upload. I went and watched John Wick 4 last night which was the main reason for the tardy. My apologies.

So this chapter was mainly a more in depth analysis of Kurt's character as well as looking at Spartan-III training in Alpha Company as a whole. I feel like I did a good job making it seem realistic. I also helped characterize Naomi and Kurt in the chapter so there's that.

I also wanted to have Kurt and the Mc have a "closer" relationship (Not in the way you are thinking you sick fuck). For some of the things I have planned in the future.

Thank you all who responded to the Author's checkpoint I got a lot of feedback and plan to implement whatever I can.

Hope you guys didn't take the prank yesterday to hard. It was a joke no cultivation nonsense going forward.

Someone said something about song of the day coming back so I shall do as asked. Song of the day is "Forty Six & 2" by TOOL

That is about it have a good rest of your day and I shall See You Star Side.