//------------------------------//
// Training 
// Story: No Strings Attatched 
// by Electroshloob 
//------------------------------//

It was early morning, and still dark, when Octavia and Vinyl were woken up.
"Rise and shine girls, you've got training to do! Especially if you want to defend yourself from those bastard guards!" Said Mordecai in his rough voice.

Mordecai turned on a lamp, lighting the room up.
It was quite plain. No personal belongings.
Just two beds, bed sheets, a table, and a cupboard.

The two girls hadn't even bothered to take their clothes off last night, and just laid on top of the covers.
"Why are we doing this again..?" Octavia said, moaning.
"To defend our selves against those asshole guards, remember?" replied Vinyl.
"Oh yeah.."

"You can have breakfast, and then its downstairs, to the basement."
"Why the basement?" Vinyl asked.
"Well, we can't do our training in public, for fear of the Templars getting wind of our operations, so we tunneled around the building, and created a decent training ground there. Don't worry, there's plenty of room, you won't need to crawl."

"Alright then.." Octavia said.

The two girls got out of bed, and followed Mordecai to the mess hall. There they were served Porridge. Not much of a breakfast, but they took it.

Mordecai sat down with them, also with a bowl of porridge.

The Mess Hall was pretty loud, and Octavia was surprised people didn't hear the clinking of plates, scraping of cutlery and voices, from outside. So she asked how no one knew about the place.

"Well, you see. We guessed the mess hall would be loud, they usually are. So we asked the members if they were any good at DIY. A few of them were, so we got them to add sound proofing to the walls. Not a sound leaves the place unless the door is open.

"Ah, clever" Said Vinyl "I should do that to my house."
"After breakfast, we need to go find Okami, he'll help us with the training."

After their breakfast, the trio searched for Okami, who was found sending out contracts to Brotherhood field agents.
"...And make sure he gets them this time, okay?" They heard him saying to one of the pigeons, who then flew out of a hole in the roof.

"Okami, i need you to help with the training."
"Uh..Okay."

And with that, they proceeded to the Basement.
It wasn't like you'd imagine it to be.
From Mordecai's description, they'd expected it to be little more than a wide, high tunnel.
It was more like an underground castle.And it was well lit.

"Here, you will go through your training. It will take months. And it is not easy. You will learn to be Stealthy. You will learn to be Agile. You will learn to be Speedy, and you will learn to be Efficient."

Mordecai walked over to a corner of the room, and grabbed four wooden swords, two of which he gave to the girls, one of which he kept for himself, and the last one he gave to Okami.

"Today, you will learn the very basics of combat. Parrying, and Attacking. And perhaps Dodging if you get the hang of parrying."

Octavia and Vinyl just stayed silent. Not sure what to do. Though this didn't matter, as Mordecai continued.

"Okami and myself will show you the basics. You cannot hold back. But try not to hurt eachother." he said, smiling.

Okami went into a defensive stance, and Mordecai lunged at him with the wooden sword.

Mordecai missed, as Okami had dodged out of the way just in time.
Okami kicked Mordecai in the stomach, winding him, and then brought his sword down on his back, not enough to hurt him, but enough to get the point through that he'd won.

"And how do you expect us to do that?" Vinyl said.
"You will learn, with time, Vinyl." Mordecai said, still wheezing after being kicked in the stomach.
"Now, what i did wrong there, was that i was slow, and clumsy. If i had been fast and agile, then this young recruit wouldn't have stood a chance, Now let me show you."

Okami went into a defensive stance once again, But this time, Mordecai didn't lunge with the sword, he sprinted towards Okami, and attacked him with a flurry of blows, each one connecting the sword.
Okami dodged out of the way of one, and attacked Mordecai, who easily dodged out of the way, and knocked the wooden sword out of Okami's hand.

"Now..you try.."

The girls were by no means bad at this.

Vinyl went into a defensive stance, just like Okami had and Octavia charged her.
But instead of connecting with Vinyl's sword, performed a Feint. Vinyl dodged the wrong way, and Octavia knocked the sword out of her hand.

"Excellent! I can see you'll be a MASTER of deception, Octavia!" Mordecai said, smiling once again.
Okami however, looked shocked.

"She copied my Defensive stance EXACTLY.."
"They're Musicians, Okami, they pay attention." replied, laughing.

"Now you try defending, Octavia." Mordecai said.

So Octavia went into a defensive stance, and Vinyl charged her.
They clashed swords, and Vinyl tripped Ocatvia over, who rolled out of the way of Vinyl's wooden sword.
Octavia retaliated by lunging at vinyl, who dodged, and knocked the sword out of Octavias hand.

"And you Vinyl...I think you'll be a master of agility."
And so they continued their training, learning to block and parry. A few months passed, and they had become masters of Deception and Agility.

They eventually came to their final test.
A test of Stealth. They had learnt a bit of stealth in their previous lessons, but this was the first lesson dedicated to it.
They were in another part of the Basement. 
It was a long room.
Make shift huts, and buildings had been created, for this test, ladders, Hay bails, and walls, had been put up to serve as hiding points for the two girls.

"There are assassins, stationed around, Hiding. At the end of this room, is a chest, with two feathers in. Both of you must go across, Separately, and bring back one of the feathers, without being caught by the assassins. You shall go first, Octavia."

Now, Octavia looked around the room. There were some rocks. Which she walked over to. She picked one up, and kept it in her hand. She climbed a ladder, up to one of the makeshift huts, and creeped around as quietly as she could.
She caught sight of one of the assassins, and threw the rock to the opposite side of the room, the assassin went to check, just like she'd hoped. Now she continued sneaking to the box.
She arrived at it, and took a feather, and equally as quiet, sneaked back to Mordecai, Vinyl, and Okami.

"You really do like to trick people, Don't you, Octavia?" Okami said.
"I prefer to be deceptive than violent."
"Okay, my turn." Vinyl said suddenly, she jumped onto the roof of one of the makeshift huts, and sprinted across it.
Although "Sprinted" Might be the wrong word, as it seems to imply that there was noise. Vinyl was light footed, so, though she sprinted full pelt across the roof of the hut, she barely made a sound. She jumped over a wall, and back flipped to the platform that the box was on.
She took a feather,  then continued to return to the other three in much the same way, sprinting silently. and jumping over obstacles.

Once she arrived back at Mordecai and the others mordecai spoke.
"Congratulations, both of you. You have passed every test, and overcome every obstacle. You are now an official part of the Assassins Brotherhood."

"That they are, Captain." Said  a voice from behind.
It was, Of-course, Mentor Blackthorn. He had a habit of showing up at convenient moments.
"But we have a problem.."