Ev took his place in the center of the formation. “OK, what am I supposed to—?”
His words were cut off as one of the devices came to life and bashed him in the head with a metal arm. There was a flash of light across his vision while he collapsed to the floor.
“To answer your question,” Atlas said with a certain smugness, “you’re supposed to not get hit. Those training dummies are going to go all-out on you, and you’ve got to be ready to defend yourself. Put on your metal gauntlets and block, block, block. And if you feel like it, get in some shots of your own. Don’t think they’ll go easy on you, either. As you just saw, they pack enough punch to take down even someone as strong as you.”
Ev picked himself up and redirected energy to his head to heal. It was a good thing he could do that, he thought; were he human, he most likely would have a concussion right now, or worse. Atlas wasn’t kidding about the strength of these contraptions.
Summoning his steel gauntlets which covered his hands up to his elbows, Ev prepared for the next assault from the training dummies. He was not disappointed. They came at him one at a time at first, and he had little trouble blocking their attacks. But gradually, all four of them joined in, and he found himself being battered silly. He soon went down once again, his body a mass of nasty bruises.
Maya ran over to help him, but she almost got hit by the training dummies and had to jump back to avoid their blows.
“Careful,” Atlas said. “They have motion sensors. They’re designed to attack whenever someone approaches. And as I’m sure Ev can tell you, they hit pretty damn hard.”
Maya stood there, uncertain as to what to do next. She looked from Ev to the hard-hitting devices, evidently trying to decide how to proceed.
Ev spoke up. “It’s OK, Maya. They can’t hit me while I’m on the ground.” Indeed, the lowest of their arms couldn’t reach him. “Just give me a moment to heal, and I’ll be fine.” It wasn’t as easy this time, though. He had to redirect energy to multiple spots to heal all the damage that had been inflicted. After a minute, his body returned to normal.
He soon leapt to his feet to resume the painful sparring session. The dummies attacked with renewed fury, and Ev was once again on the receiving end of countless blows. However, this time, he put forth a better showing, countering more attacks by using his legs as well as his covered arms.
Inevitably, he went down again, covered in lumps and moaning. “You had the right idea,” Atlas said. “By using your legs you can block more attacks. But your legs aren’t protected like your arms. You need to cover them as well.”
Ev nodded, in too much pain to speak. As soon as he was healed again, he set about summoning protection for his lower limbs. He imagined something akin to his gauntlets, except longer. Within moments, a pair of tight greaves appeared around his legs. They were too tight, actually; they quickly threatened to cut off his circulation. So he pounded and clawed at them to get them off. He then dropped them to the floor in pieces. In addition to having made them too tight, he had made them too brittle as well.
“Let’s try that again,” he said. He focused more on the gauntlets he had already succeeded in covering his arms with. He thought back to when they had first appeared during his battle with Arcturus. Remember what you were feeling, he told himself. During that fight, he had been desperate to save all of mankind which had effectively been locked in Gehenna by Arcturus. If Ev couldn’t save them, they were all going to die of exposure in that dark vacuum. When Arcturus bore down on him with his swords, Ev raised his arms and desperately wished for a way to protect himself. Before he knew it, the steel gauntlets were on his arms, shielding him from Arcturus’ attack.
He imagined his one-time friend slicing downward with his blades, only this time to cut his legs. Remember what you were feeling. Several moments passed as he lay on the ground, and when he looked at his legs he saw proper steel leggings covering them. He gave them a solid knock and found them to be far more durable than the previous pair. He then wriggled his legs—carefully so as to not set off the training dummies’ sensors—and to his delight, they did not encumber movement.
Atlas said with pride, “’Atta boy, Bannen. Your conjuration skill has really come along.”
Jaysin, for his part, laughed. “Glad to see that. Couldn’t have watched you get beaten to a bloody pulp for much longer. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I could.”
“I think what Jaysin means to say,” CiCi said with a smile, “is that he’s glad you’re better able to protect yourself now.”
Daryn just nodded slyly. He was enjoying this as well, but not out of spite as he would have the day before.
“I’m proud of you, Ev,” Maya said.
“Thanks,” Ev replied. Her words meant more to him than he could ever say. “But now I think it’s time to put these babies through their paces.”
He got up and once again challenged the dummies. This time, he made effective us of all four limbs and did a far better job of countering attacks. He still took his lumps, but not nearly as many now.
“Keep it up, Bannen,” said Atlas. “Now then, Maya. Right this way.”
* * *
She was reluctant to leave Ev, but he had things well in hand, so she went with Atlas to another area of the gym where a dozen cylindrical tubes atop plastic boxes were set up in a circle. “These things right here are pretty simple.” He walked to a nearby computer console which had wires running from it to each of the tubes. He pressed a button on the computer, and a disk shot out of one of the tubes.
“Target practice. This exercise is designed to hone your archery skills.”
Taking the hint, Maya made her way to the center of the disk launchers and conjured her bow. Atlas pressed a button, and there was a puff sound behind her as a disk was launched. She whirled around and fired an arrow, but it didn’t even come close to hitting it.
Atlas said, “It’s completely random. You don’t know which of the launchers a disk will be fired from, so you have to be ready to shoot in any direction at any time.” That would definitely be a challenge, she thought. Still, she was happy to take it on if it meant giving them a fighting chance in the God Games. “Oh, and this goes without saying, but no using your homing arrows.”
“Understood,” she said.
“All right, then. I’ll begin the program for real now.”
“You can do it, Maya!” CiCi cheered.
There was another puff sound to her left, and she turned to get a bead on the disk being launched. She quickly acquired it and fired an arrow. This one also missed, but it came much closer than her previous shot. “Better,” Atlas said.
Another puff sound, this time to her right. This time, instead of pointing her bow at the launcher, she pointed it upwards in anticipation of the shot. The disk was hurled into the air, and she quickly took aim and fired. The arrow hit the disk and knocked it to the ground.
“Great job, Maya!” Jaysin said.
Even Daryn nodded. “I have to admit, it was pretty good.”
CiCi ran over and hugged her. It seemed the girl with the pink hair was recovering her bubbly personality at an impressive rate.
After several more minutes, Maya found her aim greatly improving, and she was hitting her targets nearly half of the time. It was a far cry from the level she needed to be at, but the day was still young.
Atlas said, “You’re getting there, Maya. Keep practicing. Let me know when these things run out of disks.
“Now for CiCi…”
“Ohhhh,” she said, excited. “What’s my exercise?”
“It’s simple, really. I’ve hidden a lem somewhere in the gym. Using your reconnaissance chakrams, I want you to find it.”
“What? I have to search this entire gym for a coin?”
“Yes. That’s what I just said.”
She sighed. “Fine. I’ll do it.” She closed her eyes and held out her hands. The chakrams appeared hovering a few inches above her palms. Once again, her eyes were in
the center of each one. Maya had forgotten about her own exercise and was focused on her friend’s bizarre display.
CiCi sent one chakram to one side of the gym, and another to the opposite side. They began flying over the bleachers, searching between the seats.
“CiCi, what is that like?” Daryn said. “I mean, what do you see?”
She shrugged. “It’s like watching things through a camera mounted on a plane or helicopter. I see what the chakrams see. Basically, my field of vision is split down the middle. The left side shows what my left eye, currently in what I call Chakram A, sees. The right side does the same for Chakram B. I should probably give them better names. I know! Maybe I’ll call them ‘Sugar’ and ‘Spice.’ Are we in agreement those would make awesome names?”
“Whatever you say,” Jaysin said.
“This could take a while,” Atlas said. “In the mean time, Jaysin and Daryn, it’s time for your exercises.”
“Hope you’re not thinking of going easy on us,” Jaysin joked.
“Hell, no. You two are going to spar with one another using your weapons.”
“That’s more like it,” Daryn said.
* * *
While Jaysin and Daryn went at it, CiCi focused on finding the coin Atlas had hidden somewhere in the gym. She sent her sensory chakrams everywhere: over the bleachers; around the hezball goals; even in the locker rooms. She had never had them active for this long before. She found her energy being rapidly drained the longer it went on. Eventually, she had to recall them to recover her strength.
“Those things really take it out of you, huh?” Atlas said.
She nodded in between labored breaths. “Yeah. I never realized before now. Before this, I had only used them in short sessions. They use up a lot more energy than I thought.”
“Better to learn now than when you’re in the middle of battle. The whole point of this session is not just to make you stronger, but get you to discover your weaknesses so you can bolster them.”
“It’s a good idea,” she said. “I need to know the limitations of my tools so I can use them effectively.”
“Exactly. You can bet your enemies are going to know their tools, so you’d better know yours.”
After a short break, she brought out her chakrams again and resumed the hunt for the coin. This time, she found she could use them a little longer. Eventually, she found the coin hidden behind a trash can in the far south corner of the gym.
“Way to go!” Atlas said.
“Thank you. I think my control’s getting a lot better.”
He looked past her towards the exit. “You’ve tested them for endurance, but not for distance. Now I want you to send them to the farthest reaches of the Academy and find out how far they can go. Think you’re up for that?”
“You bet!” she replied, chipper as ever.
* * *
Brandon Strong was grading papers in his office. He didn’t even realize his door was open, and he certainly didn’t notice the silent intruder.
Seated at his desk, he looked up. “What the…?” Floating in front of him was one of CiCi’s chakrams, its, her, creepy eye staring back at him. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it winked at him. “Get out of here!”
The circular blade hesitated a moment, and then noiselessly departed. The lack of any kind of sound was the most unnerving thing about it.
He reclined in his chair. He felt bad about having yelled at CiCi. Knowing Atlas, the episode was probably his idea, so he shouldn’t have gotten mad at her. But dammit, that was freaky.
Chapter XVI
For a week the team trained day and night. All school work was forgotten as they focused solely on becoming ready for the God Games. Atlas drove them to their limits, and the training only got more intense with each passing day.
Eventually, the day of the mysterious competition dawned. News outlets reported the reappearance of the Midgard in the skies above Dokiu.
In the Academy hangar the team met with Bethos, Brandon, Freya and Atlas to say their goodbyes.
“Give ‘em hell,” Atlas said.
“We will,” Maya said. “But what will you be doing while we’re gone?”
“Preparing the Academy for evacuation,” Brandon said somberly.
“Sounds like someone doesn’t have faith in us,” Jaysin jested.
But Freya said, “It’s not that at all. We have complete faith in your abilities. You five have surpassed all our expectations. We simply want to take every precaution in case things don’t go the way we want.”
Ev gave them a confident thumbs up. “You don’t have to worry about that. We’re going to win and get the location of the Flawless Few.”
“Forget about that for now,” Bethos said. “Just focus on not letting Carnaval tell Zero Grade our location. This may sound grim, but protect the secret even if it costs you your lives.”
“That does sound grim,” Jaysin said.
“You can count on us!” a cheerful CiCi assured them.
Ev said, “Well, we’d better get going, then.”
Brandon replied, “Good luck, you five. Just know that the entire Academy is with you.”
“It just sucks that we can’t simply attack the Midgard and forget about these God Games,” Daryn said.
Bethos shook his head. “You’d best forget about that idea. Just one of those ships carries enough firepower to blow us all to our respective afterlives.”
“Just win the God Games,” Freya said. “And watch out for a double cross. Commander Loki was a good man, but, after spending who knows how much time in Gehenna, he could be capable of anything now.”
“We will,” Ev said.
* * *
As they flew towards Dokiu, the ocean making waves below them, Daryn said, “Professor Freya is right. We can’t trust those guys to keep their word.”
“I agree,” Maya said.
“But what can we do about it?” Ev said.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Daryn replied. “We win the God Games, and then we turn the tables on these guys.”
A skeptical Jaysin said, “But what about their weapons?”
Daryn explained, “We’ll be inside the ship where their cannons can’t hit us.”
“But we don’t know what other weapons they might have,” CiCi pointed out.
Daryn had to concede that was a good point. “Once we’re inside the ship, keep your eyes open. By the time the God Games are over, we’ll need to know exactly what those lunatics are packing. Once we spot an opening, we attack.”
The rest of them nodded grimly. It was decided.
* * *
The Midgard was just as imposing as Ev and Maya remembered. Jaysin, CiCi and Daryn now saw it for the first time. At several miles in length, it dominated the Dokiu skyline. Jaysin whistled at the immense cylindrical cannons jutting out from various points in the hull.
They hovered right beside it. “Well, we’re here,” Jaysin said. “What now?”
Ev shrugged. “I don’t know. We didn’t go inside before, so we don’t know where the entrance is.”
A voice declared, “A very good question.”
Approaching them was a group of five figures. Ev recognized one of them as Set. So, this must be Zero Grade’s group, he thought. Set and his entourage stopped ten feet from them, and the two groups floated there above the city.
“Hello, again,” Maya said curtly; there was little warmth in her voice.
Set gave them a casual one over. “Miss Brünhart, Mr. Bannen. These other three I’m not familiar with.” Jasyin, CiCi and Daryn introduced themselves. “Hmph. Bethos insults us by sending children. I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much; this will make winning the contest so much easier.”
“We’re a lot stronger than you think,” Maya said.
“Better not underestimate the Academy’s training regimen,” Jaysin added.
“You guys don’t look so tough,” Daryn said.
Set laughed. “Confident little fools, a
ren’t we? Well then, allow me to introduce you to Zero Grade’s representatives. In addition to myself, there is…” He pointed to a thirty-ish looking man with blood-red hair and matching track suit with “ZG” emblazoned the front (in fact, all of them wore the same outfit). The man had a slightly larger than normal nose, thick eyebrows and a sinewy frame. “Mercury, god of speed, who will assure us victory in any racing events.” He then pointed to a stunning twenty-ish woman with perfect facial features. She had long purple hair and was deceptively slender. “Persephone, daughter of Zeus and queen of the underworld.”
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