First Day of Training (A Dice Changers Short Story)

It was five in the mourning when Nick went to Arron's door. He was wearing workout clothing and even had athletic gloves in his pockets. Nick knocked and could hear the dogs muffled barks as they came to the door. Arron opened it. "Whose ready for our first day of training?" Nick asked in a sarcastic optimism. "Nick it's five am. Why can't we wait until after school?" Arron said begrudgingly, he was still in his pjs. "Because I've got swim practice in the afternoon, and have to do homework after that," Nick answered. "Fine, but can I at least know what we're going to do?" asked Arron. "A little run, followed by a couple sets of push-ups, sit-ups, and other stuff," asked Nick. "We're running? Bro, I can't even run for a mile without feeling dizzy, or tired," complained Arron. "Well, we have to start somewhere," said Nick. "Now go get ready, I'll wait for you." Arron turned around and went back to his room, slowly, he made his feet slide rather than walk. "You know I can see you right?" Nick said with a sarcastic undertone. "Oh, no I just thought you would just leave and I would go back to bed and sleep for the next hour," answered Arron as his voice died as he went further away from the door to his room. About nine minutes later Arron returned with a nerdy t-shirt and shorts that were not the best for working out in. "Oh boy, you may need to ask your parents if they can get you actual workout clothes," said Nick disgusted by Arron's choice of clothing. "Well, I didn't think that I was going to work out at all much less this early in the mourning, okay. Let's just get this over with," said Arron in a pretty aggravated tone. Nick took out his phone, went to an app, and asked "You ready?" "No," answered Arron. "Welp, that's too bad," said Nick and the boys began running around the sidewalks in the neighborhood. Less than a mile in Arron's breathing got heavier, he was already tired, his muscles began to ache, and his sweat was making his shirt sticky. Nick, on the other hand, felt great. His muscles felt like they could run a half-marathon right now. Sweat had barely begun to form on his skin and his breathing was nice and controlled. "Can we....take...a break?" Arron asked as he stopped and bent over. He put his hands on his knees, still panting heavily. "Bro, we've only run about .4 of a mile in our 2-mile run warm-up." answered Nick "Wait...this... is just...our warm-up?" Arron asked with his breathing going back to normal. "Yes, after this we still have push-ups and sit-ups," answered Nick. "Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Look dude, can we just do the run and then the push-ups and sit-ups another day?" asked Arron. "Sure, but that would mean adding more mileage," answered Nick. "Oh come on," whined Arron. "the longer you complain the worse it's going to get." Nick threatened with a sly smile creeping on his face. "Alright, you win. Jeez," said Arron as he knew he was defeated. Nick and Arron continued their run. Nick kept checking his phone every so often. ".8!" he shouted under his breath. ".93" and then a couple minutes later "1.02 miles. Whew, that wasn't so bad, was it. " Nick said as they reached the end of the road. Arron hunched over, gasping for air. "We're only half done, correct?" Arron asked regathering his composure. "At this pace and the time left, we might as well head back," answered Nick. "Oh thank goodness. I don't think I'll ever want to run ever again after today," complained Arron. "I hope you realize that this is just the first day. next week we'll do everything as our dice characters to make the process go by faster," said Nick. "Why didn't we just do that to begin with?" asked Arron. "Because you need to know that you can do it too. If we had started off as our characters you would have wished you could do the same things and then feel powerless when you couldn't have," answered Nick. "Okay, I'm not saying you're wrong but, I think that applies more to you than me," responded Arron. Nick knew that Arron was right, the words were for him more than it was for Arron, but that shouldn't stop the both of them from trying to push each other, but then again he knew that if they were to master control over their characters they had to train, they had to train hard and they had to train a lot. The next day Nick came back and Arron struggled with just doing 5 push-ups, the next he struggled with doing just 10 sit-ups. Then soon enough it was the next week, then the next month. After just a couple of months, the boys were beginning to push beyond their physical limits. They alternated between being their characters and their normal selves. Soon both they and their characters were becoming stronger, faster, more powerful. After the third month of conditioning, Nick and Arron began to spar with each other as their characters. Nick's character, Sherren (a half-orc who supposedly is a warlock.) revealed in their training. His desire to push himself beyond his limits was almost matched by Nick's ambition. However, Arron's character, Goldleaf (an elven paladin.) could care less about their training. He felt that the divine powers he was given were good enough and that the training wasn't going to make him a more powerful being. In fact, rather than take the sparring matches and runs seriously, he started to talk to Arron in his head. Both would complain mentally to each other during every single practice. However, Arron slowly started to see results. Throughout the time he went from only doing 5 push-ups to being able to do 20 and not be tired. He went from being unable to run a full mile to being able to run a 5k like it's nothing. The training was paying off, but both of them couldn't see it. The pain they were enduring clouded them from seeing the peaks of power they reaching. Which was unlike Sherren and Nick who kept seeing results. They saw how strong and powerful they were becoming. Nick managed to go from having a 28-second 50 free to a 24-second. His 5ks went from 29 minutes to almost 26. Sherren felt his power grow, he even started to notice that Goldleaf's spells and divine attacks were not as effective as they used to be. Even when he was in the other world such a thing was extremely rare, yet he here was, constantly being able to one-up Goldleaf match after match. The runs, the push-ups, and the workouts made them into monsters. Monsters that would bring down an evil cult, sirens, various criminals, and even a demon. Their power grew, and they formed a little group that grew in number. This was the age of the Dice Changers.