My Novel Side Project ~ Part 4

“Back early Gene, you know it usually takes at least a week before you can be fully sure of a new recruit’s abilities.” Gene completely ignored Richard’s words, instead dragging out from behind him William, who was in a weird state of awe with his new surroundings.
“This is William, he’s got the skills, got the smarts, and I like his mouth.” Gene gave a chuckle.
“William eh, well we’ll have to test you out still. Does he have a code name yet Gene?” Richard’s curiosity was rising.
“Osiris. Apparently it’s his real name, so he says.”
“Not anymore it isn’t. Well welcome to the testing phase William.”

Richard passed William some tracksuit pants and a shirt as they moved into what seemed a gym room.
“Get changed in there, then come back and we’ll begin.”

William went into the change room. While pleased that he could finally change out of his dirty worn clothes, he still felt somewhat uneasy about the whole situation he was finding himself in.

So after cleaning himself up he came back out into the gym only to find an unknown man standing out on the mat in the centre of the gym. Medium height and build, with shoulder length blonde dreadlocks and shades you’d find in an Tom Clancy novel film adaption, for some reason William knew his next set of unknown events revolved around this man.

“So this is the rookie,” a straight, laid back tone came from his mouth.
“Tom, this is William. William this is Tom. Tom’s going to help us see the full extent of what you’re capable of, hand to hand combat wise.”

William looked at Tom, then proceeded to walk up to him.
“So, hand-to-hand combat trainer huh?”
Tom looked back, unfazed by William’s presence.
“Yup... Bad day for you,”
Richard spoke out from across the gym, “Go when you’re ready William, all you have to do is put Tom to the ground.”

William paused for a moment, then began. He went straight for a textbook grapple take down. He couldn’t have picked a worse starting move. Tom took William’s right arm and thrusted his own left palm into William’s chest, putting him ass on the floor.
“Rejected, wanna’ try that again?” Tom gave a wide smile. William got back up.
“No,” William this time went for a more technically series of combat manoeuvres, but the end result still didn’t have Tom on the ground. Tom retaliated throwing a right fist at William’s face, he wasn’t joking around anymore.

What Tom didn’t see coming was his fist connecting with William’s, and on connection Tom felt a few of his knuckles pop out of place, he gave a slight grunt as he jerked back only to be smashed straight in the chest by a fist from William. Tom was on the ground, he was winded and was struggling to do anything.

“Just returning the favour,” William grinned.

Richard and Gene began to walk over,
“Nice display William, good to see there are still people out and about who can dish out a little hurt. You did quite a number on Tom there, though if Tom was one hundred percent and was allowed to kill you, the outcome of the fight would have been substantially different.”

William turned to Richard, not sure if Richard’s comment was intended as some sort of threat for if he wanted to pull out, or if it was just giving him a friendly notation of Tom’s prowess.

“Alright, we’re done I think. Both of you get changed and wait for Gene’s return. In the mean time, Tom can show you around a few areas of the place.”