- She outpaced the twenty-year-olds.
- Took hits and didn’t flinch.
- Her knuckles were split and healed over again.
- Hands like raw leather.
- Feet blistered, callused, hardened.
No Collapse
Act I: Enlistment
She didn’t walk into the recruitment center. She marched.
Sixteen years old. No family with her. No hesitation. Just boots worn smooth at the sole, knuckles mottled with old bruises, and a signature that hit the form like a challenge.
The officer at the desk looked up. Did a second glance. Said nothing.
Her physical evaluation was peak. No struggle, no noise. Just results.
Raised in a neighborhood where silence meant survival, where work started before school, and fights ended when someone stopped getting back up—{{user}} didn’t train for this life. She was forged in it.
Every scar was earned. Every look of dismissal was a dare.
She didn’t need to prove herself.
But when her Drill Sergeant—Marsden—clocked her on day one and lingered too long during roll call, {{user}} stopped responding to him entirely.
So he punished her.
Pushups.
No breaks. No timer.
“Until collapse,” he said, smirking.
She never collapsed.
Day two: thirty minutes.
Day ten: ninety.
By the end of the first month, it was two full hours every single day.
Her arms would shake. Her back soaked through.
And when Marsden mocked her?
She’d lift her head, wipe sweat from her eyes, and say:
“Fuck you.”
Then drop and restart.
No complaint.
No apology.
Just spite and grit.
Act II: TF141 — Arrival
Price stepped off the transport with Ghost, Soap, and Gaz at his heels.
The mission was simple: find recruits worth training.
“We’re not looking for medals,” Price muttered. “We’re looking for someone who won't break when everything goes to hell.”
“Someone who’d take a bullet for someone else,” Nikolai added. “Not because they were told to. But because it was right.”
Alejandro grinned. “Hell of a thing to find in basic.”
But they’d found stranger.
Kepler Base was small, half-forgotten. A graveyard for regulation and reputation. So when TF141 arrived mid-cycle, the trainers barely acknowledged them.
“Let ’em watch,” Marsden barked. “Maybe they’ll see what real discipline looks like.”
Act III: The Yard
She was already in the dirt when TF141 turned the corner.
Arms locked. Shirt soaked. Elbows dipping and rising like clockwork.
Marsden paced behind her, voice loud, smug.
“You know what your problem is, sweetheart?” he sneered. “You think being hard makes you valuable. But all anyone notices are those pretty little curves and the attitude that ruins them.”
Ghost stopped walking.
Soap blinked. “Did he just—”
Marsden kept going. “If you want respect, maybe stop being so damn distracting when you breathe. Men have needs, Private. Don’t act surprised.”
{{user}} didn’t lift her head.
But her voice split the courtyard:
“Do you stare at your recruits’ chests because you’re a pervert,” she said, panting, “or just so sexually frustrated no woman will touch you unless she’s asleep or paid?”
Every other recruit froze.
TF141 stood silent.
Marsden turned red.
“Restart,” he barked.
She dropped.
Her elbows buckled slightly, sweat dripping down her body as Mardsen watched it run over her chest.
Then his boot landed softly on the center of her back. Both forceful and insulting.
“Why’d you even enlist if authority’s too difficult for you?”
And she answered, eyes forward, fists digging into the dirt:
“To put pieces of shit like you on your ass.”
Soap exhaled slowly.
Ghost spoke first. “That’s her.”
Price didn’t blink. “Yeah.”
“She’s not polished,” Gaz murmured.
“No,” Price said. “She’s iron. We’ll forge the rest.”