cont. from [ x ]
❝ NO, THE FLOOR IS NOT LAVA , ❞ john shepard corrected patiently before he sent his sister a chiding look, one that said: please stop fucking around already. ❝as i was saying, welcome to the interplanetary combatives academy, a.k.a I.C.T or N-school, where your courses don’t consist of training grounds filled with lava.❞ the man ignored the rather indignant noise that burst from under jane’s breath. ❝i’m commander shepard, and this,❞ he gestured to the redhead standing at his side, ❝is also commander shepard. — no, we aren’t married. we’re twins, so don’t try it.❞ as expected, there wasn’t a peep from the lines of soldiers standing at attention. shepard nodded. good to know they weren’t handed dumbass recruits to train. or worse, a bunch of wiseasses who thought they could step out of line just because they were given this honor.
❝we will be your instructors for the entirety of your N1 training. to differentiate between us, you may address us as sir or ma’am respectively. if you need to get specific, address me as commander anderson. am i understood?❞ john pushed on as they dropped their salutes. ❝i’ll make this simple. for the next six months, your training will consist of scenarios personally experienced by me, commander jane shepard, and the elite units of most land-based armies. starting tomorrow, you’ll be clocking in 20 or more hours a day. note that those hours may differ according to performance. how well you do out on the field will determine how long you stay here. if you aren’t up for the challenge, i suggest you leave now, while you still can. i can’t drag your ass back to your comfort zone once you’ve crossed this point.❞
the spectre waited, but only hardened expressions stared back at him. lacing his fingers behind his back, john spread his legs and stood at attention, his voice booming now, echoing in spades in the hanger. ❝mission types will vary from leading small units into combat over hostile terrain with little sleep or food to defusing cobalt-salted micro-nukes. trainees who do well are awarded an internal designation of N1 and will be invited to return for N2 courses. those who return to school will focus on their combat class. have i made myself clear?❞
the immediate salutes and resounding ‘yes, sir’ was answer enough. john stepped back, his gaze veering to his sister. ❝anything you want to add?❞
@littleredrenegade
with a long, drawn-out huff jane rocked back on her heels shoulders slumping to her sides as she gazed ahead with unabashed disinterest. She always did hate his commando voice…you know the one… right, the one he put on when he was giving some awe-inspiring speech, talking to a reporter, or accepting some new fantastical award. she didn’t have one of those, and that’s the way she liked it. jane’s voice was crisp with being whatever she was, she supposed it did change an octave when she was staring into the eyes of the enemy though. it was just so jane to spout a daunting one-liner seconds before headbutting a merc into unconsciousness. jane’s steely-eyed gaze locked on the children was empty in truth because she didn’t really want to be there. she’d only sort of agreed…also partly volun-told to be here. but…she wasn’t one to complain, stubbornly refuse to cooperate? perhaps…but whining and complaining weren’t worth her time. ’great, now I’m even starting to sound like a drill sergeant’ jane thought, casting a disapproving accusatory glare at the back of johns close-shaved head.
she should’a known it would be exactly like this…taking her back to her days in N school. way back when she wasn’t good enough to break the rules and she was tough there was only ever one way of doing anything: the alliance way. whatever fits under their pretty little regulations. some people were okay with that…and her brother had been one of them. hell, had things changed since then…she didn’t want to go into that now. green eyes cloudy below the surface with intense though looked ahead coldly and unamused, staring through the recruits and off at god-knows-what. she blinked back to the present as her brother addressed her, then jerked her chin in a nod of acknowledgment at the very least. her attention floated away once again however once her brother went back to droning on and sounding more uniform than EDI, an actual robot. better him than her.
her face remained angled forward, but she watched her brother out of the corner of her eyes while he sized them up. she didn’t bother because she knew the alliance would have conditioned any impertinence out of them by now, whether it was for better or worse.
jane had stood with her arms folded squarely across her chest this whole time, biting her tongue. she had plenty a’ thoughts, she thought that she’d better be sir, and he’d better be ma’am respectively. she wondered why they were training N1′s anyway, they could’ve put them up a little higher on the totem pole.
and then there it was. the big ol ‘cross a line and you can’t go back’ thing. she supposed she could give John the benefit of the doubt and say he made it sound good, but rather she’d smirk at the memory of herself being the wiseass who answered that with a ‘well, technically you can if its just a line… it’s not that hard’ or something equally insufferable.
she had been good up until her brother took on that awful tone and stance, she became immediately aware of her cheeks flushing red against her pale freckled face when she tried and failed to hold in a snicker.
she pressed her lips into a tight line and composed herself, shaking her head at her outburst, but nodded in answer to her brother’s question. she took half a step forward, an half serious. she knew the looks that would be waiting for her on the other side of such famous last words but that could hardly stop her.
❝i am now accepting bets on who you think is going to puke first.❞
jane quipped brazenly, shifting her weight into one hip as it jutted out to the side to complete her poor attitude.
she looked in feigned innocence at her brother…
❝what??❞
it seemed like he expected her to correct herself…so she did.
❝right, we‘re accepting bets.❞ and she couldn't help but grin at that one.
