Roger did as Yeager was meant to. Go at full power. In every class he committed to doing his absolute best the entire time to the detriment of socialization and relaxation. He noticed Katya was exhibiting similar behavior, but for entirely different reasons. He was spurred on by a mix of spite, anger, and a need to catch up to the rest of the pilots and surpass them, lest he be left behind. Constantly going all out was exhausting, and would lead to a crash and overwork, potentially being more harmful than in the long run. He knew this in the back of his head, but reasoned that it would be better to crash and burn than slip away into obscurity. He vowed that he would become the best pilot here (as unlikely as that was) and he wouldn't be able to do that if he was pussy footing around. Fitness programs were nothing new to him, and he performed on the upper end of the team, probably due to his age and experience. He wasn't as strong as Zim or Harold, and Ariin ended up being faster, but that didn't really bother him too much. He did pretty well all around when it came to pure athleticism. What he did excel at was Star Fist martial arts. He had a natural talent for it, and was probably the best in the class at it, aside from Sigma and her "sister." While he had the edge against them in brawn and build, it was pretty clear they had far more experience and agility than he did. He quite enjoyed practicing the forms of Star Fist, finding a natural preference for the more external aspects. While practicing he could rest his mind for awhile and let his body do the work. Aside from Sigma and Iota, his closest match up would probably be Zim, whose sheer bulk and tenacity allowed him to really lay on the hurt when he could get a hit in. Virtual Reality training was probably Zim's most difficult class, partially because he'd continually artificially lower his synch rate by 20% so that he'd be forced to rely on his poor piloting skills. Despite this, he didn't feel as if he was improving. It was frustrating, and the frustration would only further fuel his fire to get better and shove it in the face of that old bastard. Speaking of which, Lorenzo's class wasn't too difficult for him. He was used to learning about the logistics and mechanics of airplanes, learning about the logistics and mechanics of framewerks was a far more complicated task, but a familiar one. When he'd get stuck, he would find a way to find an aeromechanical equivalent (or close enough) and use that to make more sense of how everything worked. That didn't change the fact that the lectures were boring as all get out, but you can't control everything. During free time, when not eating or taking a piss, Rooney would try to drag another pilot into the VR room to practice until they left or it was time for lights out. When he couldn't get a partner, he would just sit in the room alone and run through drills in his head. ______________________________________________ Roger was halfway out the door of the classroom when the alarm rang out. He swore under his breath and walked briskly towards the briefing room. Unless this was some mock fire alarm, whatever they were about to be told wasn't going to be good.