As Bashira stared out into the vastness of the land before her, her tried her best not to fall asleep. From the pattern that her nightmares had been showing, she only had one when she'd had a particularly bad day. Today had been one of those days. She had come to this place not knowing why, she'd just felt comfortable here. She had been so many places in her travels that they were all beginning to merge together. Wandering aimlessly, she had never truly paid attention to where she was going, so had rarely bothered to find out where she was. For a long time she had felt that she had no purpose in life, and never bothered to find a destination. Although, she had wanted something, but she hadn't known how to go about finding it. For this reason, a sudden depression had fallen over her, putting her into a foul mood for a whole of the day. Nothing seemed to matter to her anymore and she had felt worthless. It was on days like these that she missed her family the most. She thought about their deaths on days like these and how much it had hurt to lose them all. So, she sat rigidly, and held her rapidly drooping eyelids open as best as she could. Unfortunately for Bashira, even negative emotion can drain away your energy. Despite her determination, Bashira eventually slumped over and fell into a disturbed sleep. As sleep which normally produced the results that she'd been trying to avoid.Bashira was sitting relatively straight next to the other eight cubs that had survived the horror. They had all been woken early this morning and lined up before Mother to get their daily "pep talk". Bashira had learned to half pay attention to what she was saying so that she would learn important details while filtering out the scare tactics that Mother enjoyed spouting. Apparently, The Beating was something that all newly orphaned cubs were subjected to. This was allegedly to "weed out the weaker ones". So, the nine of them were "rewarded" for their ability to survive such a beating with a few weeks to heal. While their bodies were allowed to rest, they were all kept in a small den that was always guarded. Mother visited them every day to praise them for being stronger than the five dead cubs, and to threaten them with more pain so as not to get their hopes up. Today was the first day that they had been brought out before Mother in the Center room. The Center room, was a large opening were all of the tunnels meet and connected to one another. The overall layout of the compound was that of a sea star with twelve arms. The compound was enormous, Bashira had never known that such a large structure could exist underground. As the small girl listened to Mother, she was surprised to hear that they would be given new names. "These are the names that you will be refered to and you will refer to yourself as. If any of you are heard using your orginial names, you will be beaten." All of the cubs flinched at the word, still hurting from the last one.
Moving closer to them, she began to walk down the line of them, shouting their new names. Starting with the small yellow spotted leopard girl at the end she said,"59-1'. Stopping next at a dark green cheetah girl she said,"59-2." Coming to the third child, a white wild dog girl she called,"59-3." The fourth was a completely black cheetah boy,"59-4". The fifth was a black leopard boy covered in light colored patterns,"59-5". The sixth was a hyena boy,"59-6." The seventh was a light red female leopard,"59-7." The eight was another female cheetah that was even younger and smaller then Bashira covered in dark indigo fur,"59-8." Finally, Mother stopped in front of Bashira, the one who had been caught the last, and said coldly,"59-9." Coming back to stand before them, she spoke once more,"from now, until you become juveniles, you will undergo Pain. Pain is the initial training that you will receive here. It is a test of you strength and endurance. You will suffer the most during this part, but you will become better for it." Cackling, Mother looked at them all and said, "I hope you'll all live through it," before waltzing away, leaving them in the care of the very lions that had beaten them near to death. Mother had explained that they were their Training Masters for this stage, and that the cubs had no choice but to obey them and subject themselves to whatever they dished out at the nine of them.
Early the next day, Bashira found herself being kicked awake, which was the way that she and the other eight were woken up for the entirety of the first stage of their training. If she had anything to say about it, she would have called it Torturing Cubs. After they were kicked awake, they were made to run for overly long periods of time, and their Training Masters always bit and tore at their heels should they begin to slow. One's endurance would be accessed based on how injured the hide leg was. Afterward, they were taught basic fighting skills by their Masters for the rest of the morning. In the afternoon of that first day, they were introduced to the Battle Games, which was basically a large fighting tournament held that pitted any and all cubs their age together in a fighting ring. The rules were simple, if you were knocked out of the circle, you lost, but if you managed to stay in the circle, you won the fight. Each cub had to try to make it's way to end of the games and win, however, only one cub could win, the last one standing.
When the games had begun, at first the two cubs simply stared at one another in fright, unsure of what to do. Then one of the Trainers barked, "If you do not fight each other, I will come and beat you both!" At that, the two young cubs lunged at each other, until one fell to ground outside of the circle. After that, the games continued similarly, and ultimately ended with a single hyena girl standing in the center at the end, worn and tired. Bashira had been shoved out from the circle after her fourth fight. She had made it that far, but there were still many cubs that were bigger and stronger than she was.
When the Battle Games had ended, they were herded to a familiar den in the hallway. Some of the cubs began to shout or cry as they realized that it was the very room that they had been beaten near to death in. Bashira felt the familiar sting of terrified tears in her eyes as her fear began to grow once again. One of the training masters stepped before them and explained why they were here. "This is the final session of your day training. You have been brought here for a similar purpose that you were brought here before," this he said with a wicked grin on his face. "Here, your strength and endurance will be tested once more in your daily beating." Each one of the young ones in the room gasped in shock and horror. They would have to repeat that horrible night daily. At this, Bashira was sure that they were trying to kill them, but their trainer laughed. "Don't worry, these beatings will be much tolerable for you. Each of your Masters will do his best to knock you out, your job is to not let that happen. Now, the one who won today's Battle Game will be excused from this for today, and this applies to anyone who wins the game on any day unless one of us says otherwise. So, 54-2 is excused for the day." A guard came forth and escorted the surprised hyena girl to the side wall of the room.
From the grin on the speaking trainer's face, the Battle Games would be much more intense from now on with the new knowledge and motivation. "Are you all ready? Prepare yourselves for pain." Bashria didn't need to be told before she scrambled to her feet and took off around the room, fleeing from the unexpected pain that she would be met with regardless of her effort. She just wasn't strong enough to avoid being hurt. On their first day of official training, it did not take long for the trainers to cause each cub to collapse to the ground in unconsciousness.
