Chapter 24: Brotherhood

Klaus woke up with a start and saw that it was night already, he used his hand to wipe away the sweat that beaded his face and squinted his eyes trying to make out where he was, he soon got his ebari gs and started off towards the tent, on entering the tent he saw everyone huddled together and decided to join but was told off by Bryan who asked him to go wash himself up, since he was bloodied and smelly. Klaus left the tent and cought violently, he then proceeded to spit out the phlegm that was caught in his throat, after washing himself up, he sat underneath a tree and closed his eyes feeling the cool breeze on his face, after a few minutes he heard footsteps approaching him but he still kept his eyea closed he didn't want to be disturbed by anyone.

Bryan tailed Klaus while he walked out of the tent since he found Klaus recent behavior to be weirder than normal, everyone knew that Klaus still had violent bursts of anger, but they accepted it since they knew that was his way of processing trauma, but what happened yesterday seemed different, and Bryan wanted to talk to him about it.

"What's up bro, seems like you are enjoying the caress of mother nature tonight" Bryan said

"Is that not obvious, though I was doing it in silence till you came along" Klaus replied with his eyes still closed

Bryan decided to ignore his comments and talk to him about what he really came here for."so you spent a lot of time today punching that tree, care to tell me what that was about" Bryan asked

"I had a deal with Feng, I held up my end of the bargain I believe it's his turn to do so" Klaus replied casually

"If I may ask what deal is that" Bryan asked again

"I told him to cut the bullshit and give us another training schedule and he gave me a task to punch a hole through a tree to see if we were ready for the next training phase so I did" Klaus said and closed his eyes once more

"That evil b**t**d, I always knew he was never willing to train us but since he can not go against the wishes of the grandmaster he has decided to make things very difficult for us instead" Bryan cursed under his breath and went towards the tent to inform the others of the information given to him by klaus.

Klaus watched Bryan walk away and shook his head, Bryan had always been the most emotionally one of the the lot, he always wondered what drove him to signing up for the army, he brushed such thoughts aside and cleared his mind, he just wanted to enjoy this moment.

Bryan informed everyone about, how Feng had been playing them since but they didn't seem to bother, the only thing that made them seem slightly angry was the fact that Feng had manipulated Klaus, asides that they expressed no anger or shock.

"Why are you guys so passive about this" Bryan asked angrily

"Are you meaning to tell us that you were not aware of the fact that Feng was never serious with our training, everyone seems to know that except you." Chen replied Bryan

"What do you mean by that"

"Remember that time we had to subdue the snow jaguar, Feng didn't help out, neither did he help out when Victor slipped and his Boulder almost crushed him to death, most of the time during our training he is always absent, he doesn't make any effort to put us through dangerous situations, and only makes fun of us, you must be really dumb not to have noticed any of these" Chen said with finality

"We all knew he was never interested in training us, we just played along since we all have to get stronger, Chen has been having this premonition of danger for a while now and he really thinks something dangerous would happen very soon" Romeo said

Bryan just stared at every one, he had always thought Feng was a little bit unserious and he had never thought things through with regards to this, but after listening to Chen's opinion he began to peice things together and he noticed that even during the training sessions, Feng always went missing, Bryan was beginning to have this strong desire to confront Feng but after thinking things through he decided not to go through with the plan, since he would just end up getting his butt kicked.

Feng sat atop his favourite tree juggling a few purpule coloured fruits, he had overhead the conversation between the mbers of the group but he couldn't care less, he felt that they should be grateful he was training them because chu would have been worse and might have killed them and claimed it was an accident, this wasn't the first time unwanted visitors had died accidentally.

Klaus was beginning to feel sleepy again and decided to head towards the tent to get some rest, when he got there he found that everyone else was fast asleep, he headed to a free corner and collapsed on the ground and started sleeping immediately.

It was morning again and Feng came once more and poked them with sticks trying to get them to wake up, everyone was groggy at first till they saw that it was Feng and suddenly became alert.

"Seems like you have been taking us for a joke for a while now" Chen said

"What's with the hostility, we don't have much time for chit chat, if you are Interested in the next phase of training follow me outside for meditation after that we can begin" Feng said dismissively and walked out the tent

Everyone came together and packed up the tent then they all proceeded to meet feng, the pattern of meditation remains the same, clear your mind, focus on your breathing and try to channel your Oxygenated blood to the right areas" Feng instructed

Everyone did as he instructed and after a while they were done with the meditation and breathing exercises.

"We can start the training now or you guys can go get something to eat, then we commence when you guys are done, your choice" Feng said

"Let's get something to eat, after that we begin with the other phase of training" Chen said and walked into the jungle.