by Drew Hayes
“No, only if your body actually touches the ground outside of it,” Professor Fletcher told her. “Everyone but your opponents and me will be behind a shield, so go nuts.”
The grin that sliced its way across Jill’s somewhat round and pleasant face made even more people inch further away, while a few said silent prayers that they wouldn’t be put up against her.
“I don’t see any more hands, so we’ll move on,” Professor Fletcher said. “If you’re going to be tested today, I won’t use you as an opponent for anyone else until after you’ve gone. Those of you good with math will realize that means some people will pull multiple shifts on the ganging up side. Anyone who needs some patching after a test can see Camille Belden, who has graciously offered to do spot healing. Those totally incapacitated will be taken to the infirmary. Now then, our first trial will be Chad Taylor in the center. The three attacking him will be Sasha Foster, Violet Sullivan, and Thomas Castillo. Everyone else, into the observation room.”
Professor Fletcher pointed at a small door near the rear of the room, one that blended into the corner so seamlessly they hadn’t even realized it was there. The students complied, hustling off behind the thick barrier, finding a viewing screen set up so they could watch and hear the action as it unfolded. A few whispers flew about the strange choice in people to fight Chad, but the trial began before a full conversation could occur.
Within moments, the professor’s thought process became clear. Sasha’s speed allowed her to match Chad’s reaction times, Violet’s density meant she could trade blows effectively, and Thomas’s energy allowed him to strike between the assaults of the other two, when Chad was distracted. If not for the recent bout with Angela, it would have been the longest fight anyone had seen Chad engage in. It took nearly ten minutes before physical exhaustion began to slow the other three’s movements, and it was less than three from that point until Chad claimed victory. Thomas and Violet made their way over to Camille, while Sasha made a stoic face and dealt with the throbbing pain in her ribs.
The next match pitting Shane against Jill, Adam, and Allen took longer, though the one forcing Roy against Violet, Thomas, and Jill might have dragged on all period if not for a lucky punch that weakened the bonds Thomas was using to hold Roy down. Roy mumbled under his breath, despite the win, as he headed back to the safe room—something about “all that training, and I get put in a circle,” or some such. Before he’d made it all the way back, though, Professor Fletcher called to him.
“Daniels, stay out here. You’re one of the attackers in this next round. Chad, Vince, and Camille, I want you three to come join him.”
Roy grinned in spite of himself. The small circle meant he probably wouldn’t be able to use the technique he’d learned over the summer, but this was still a golden opportunity. Since he and Chad had both fought already, the logical victim had to be Vince. Putting Camille in was a bit of a handicap; however, he didn’t begrudge his friend that. Going solo against Chad would be tough enough, let alone if Roy was pitching in.
The four gathered around the circle, where Professor Fletcher was waiting for them.
“This is going to be the last fight of the day,” he said, checking his watch.
“Looks to be quite a tough one,” Chad said, eyes sliding over his fellow students.
“You have no idea,” Professor Fletcher told him. “Camille, in the circle’s center. The rest of you, get ready to attack on my call.”
Camille’s voice, to the shock of everyone, came out even before Vince’s overly defensive tones could escape his mouth.
“I need a minute to change,” she announced, her words firm and authoritative, as far as one could imagine from the gentle tone usually falling out of her lips.
“Granted,” Professor Fletcher replied. “The rest of you, get prepared.”
55.
Within moments, Camille had shed the outer layers of her uniform, leaving a sports bra and pair of athletic shorts as her covering. In a rare surprise, her embarrassment was actually so overpowering she couldn’t even blush. Instead, she took deep breaths and tried not to think about how little she was wearing while in view of the entire class. This was the part of her power that she’d always hated most; the necessity for skin-to-skin contact. When healing, it was no big deal. Grabbing someone to impart damage, however, was a more difficult task.
Her opponents took the strange behavior in stride, which spoke to just how bizarre the HCP world was, when such curious actions didn’t even spark a few impromptu questions. They silently surrounded her, forming a triangle, and waited for their cue.
“Everyone, begin,” Professor Fletcher called.
Chad was the first to react, bolting across the circle at speeds the others could barely see, let alone match. He didn’t know why Camille was being put against three opponents clearly out of her league, but he had his suspicions. The most logical assumptions were that she was either far more powerful than she’d let on, or the professor was using her defeat to teach someone a lesson. In either case, the necessary course of action was the same: take her out as quickly and humanely as possible.
The small girl was jerked off the ground as Chad slipped a simple sleeper hold around her neck. It was crude, but it would incapacitate her in only a few seconds, without imparting any unnecessary pain. She struggled briefly, then raised her hand a few inches and pressed her fingers directly on his cheek. The last thought Chad had was idly wondering if she was going to waste time trying to scratch him. After that, his world went black.
Camille rolled to the ground as Chad collapsed, the severe concussion she’d given him doing its work. She’d also thrown in several broken bones he’d have to heal if he came around too quickly. Hopefully, she’d get to heal them before he ever needed to experience the pain, but she wasn’t taking any chances against the number one rank in the class. Her eyes darted about, both wanting and dreading to see what Vince’s reaction to Chad’s defeat would be. Instead, her gaze fell upon Roy, who was running toward her. Strange that he’d taken this long to get into the fight, but then she realized why. Roy had used the extra time to remove his jacket, wrapping it around his right hand, giving him a makeshift boxing glove.
She dodged his first punch, leaping to the side in a move more acrobatic than Roy could have matched. There was a crackling explosion, and the area she’d been in a moment before became charred as a blast of lightning struck it. The upside to this was that the electricity almost hit Roy, knocking him momentarily off balance. It wasn’t much, but it was an opening.
Camille reoriented herself, running past Roy’s cloth-covered arm and diving for the hand still left bare. Roy recognized the danger and pulled his arm back; however, he wasn’t quite able to get away before her small fingers brushed his wrist. The months of training with Nick the previous year had noticeably increased how much damage she could impart with a light touch, which Roy discovered firsthand as he felt multiple bones in both his arms shatter. He grit his teeth through the pain and tried to focus, but his broken appendages meant he wasn’t able to stop Camille from grabbing his hand once more, and this time, snapping his femurs like twigs. With a grunt of pain, Roy went down, toppling onto his side like a freshly chopped tree.
Camille spun about, ready to dodge another electrical attack. Instead, she barely got away from a blast of fire, one that roared so close it struck her left shoulder and left visible burns. She found Vince, perched near the edge of the circle, another fireball manifesting in his hand. With a tentative, terrified rock of dread in her stomach, she let her eyes move from his flame-wielding appendage to his face, and nearly choked in surprise at what she found there.
Vince was smiling, no, beaming. He looked happier than she’d seen him in months. She had been ready for fear, confusion, even anger that she’d held a secret like this for so long. Instead, all she found was unadulterated joy.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” Vince casually remarked, sending his fiery blast at her legs. She r
olled to the side, very nearly putting a toe outside the circle, then scrambled to her feet.
“Yeah, my power is more versatile than I let on,” she admitted, her own eyes tracking his to see where he was aiming.
“Oh, I knew about that part,” Vince replied. “I just didn’t realize it would work against someone like Roy.”
His words brought her up short, causing her eyes to widen and jaw to open slightly. “Wait . . . you knew?”
“Sure did,” Vince informed her. “That’s why I stayed over here.” This time, he switched back to electricity, aiming for her legs again. Through intuition or luck, Camille saw the attack coming and leapt to the side. This time, she didn’t pause for chit-chat. She kept running, zigzagging through the small area of the circle before Vince could draw a bead on her.
Vince realized what was happening and immediately switched tactics. He released a wall of flame between himself and Camille, a far tamer version of what he’d done in last year’s final match. Rather than try and run around, giving Vince enough time to line up a shot, she pushed through it, the fire licking her skin and sending spasms of pain through her already injured shoulder. Breaking through, she thrust her hand out, nearly in touching range of Vince.
Through the entire course of getting to him, Camille had been thinking about how to minimize Vince’s ranged abilities. What she’d let slip her mind, in the fog of battle, was the fact that Vince was far better at hand-to-hand fighting than he was at ranged battle. He slid a boot-covered foot against her ankles as she lunged, taking away her balance and sending her tumbling to the floor. Camille landed prone on her back, staring up at the concrete ceiling and the silver-haired young man towering over her. For a moment, she contemplated grabbing for his ankle; however, she doubted she’d be able to make contact, and even if she did, there was still cloth covering his whole leg.
Looking up at him, Camille realized his face had suddenly changed. In a frenzied motion, Vince ripped off his jacket and brought it down on top of her head with surprising force. He repeated the motions immediately, beating her with the large cloth garment as fast as he could. For a moment, Camille wondered if this was his way to get her to surrender without hurting her.
Then she realized that she could still smell something burning.
56.
“It’s fine, Vince. Really. It’s just hair,” Camille reassured him. She, Vince, Chad, and Roy were heading back to the lifts after a quick meeting with Dr. Moran. It seemed that, when jumping through Vince’s wall of flame, a section of her long, pale-blonde hair had caught fire. Luckily, Vince noticed and put her out before too much was consumed or the flame could reach her skull, but the end results had been some severely charred portions of hair.
“I’m still just so seriously sorry,” Vince reiterated. Only Chad’s perfect memory could keep track of how many times Vince had apologized since the incident, and he really didn’t care to.
“Relax,” Camille commanded. “I called the place in the mall where I get my hair cut. They can fit me in within a couple of days.” Absentmindedly, she adjusted the gray cowboy hat now perched atop her skull. In a move more chivalrous than anyone expected, Roy had placed his ever-present hat on Camille’s head for the walk back to the lifts and onto campus. It looked funny on her smaller noggin, however, it was a far sight better than the lopsided remains of her hair.
“As sorry as I am about your hair, I would still greatly like to know what it was you did in our trial,” Chad interjected. He’d been largely quiet after waking up to Dr. Moran’s healing touch, lost in his own thoughts as the administrator healed Roy and checked over Camille. Vince had been uninjured, but refused to leave the infirmary without his friends, thus resulting in all of them exiting as a group.
“Oh, that,” Camille said. Her eyes darted to Vince fleetingly. He said he’d known, but . . . how much did he know? She dearly wanted to speak with him in private, however, it seemed as though that wasn’t in the cards for the moment. “My healing power doesn’t just take away wounds, it stores them. Then, if I need to, I can expel them into another person.”
“Fascinating,” Chad replied. “Your ability functions more like that of an absorber than a classic healer.” Camille winced; she wished he’d chosen another word. “And you can give these injuries to people even with enhanced endurance, it seems.”
“Yup,” Roy confirmed. “A Camille attack will even bring down guys like us.”
“Incredible,” Chad said. “I cannot fathom how you kept such a skill secret for so long.”
“She was careful with how she used it,” Vince jumped in. “It was her ace in the hole, so it only got used when it really made a difference.”
“That would be prudent, given your non-imposing stature,” Chad agreed. “I will certainly be more careful in how I attack you during our next bout.”
“Our what now?” Camille asked, attention so affixed to Chad that she didn’t even notice they’d arrived at the lifts. Scattered about were several black-uniformed freshmen, along with the occasional spot of gray. One such gray-clad person was a tall blonde who immediately recognized the four people arriving at the lifts.
“Hey, what are you guys doing here?” Alice asked, making her way through the crowd of younger students to greet her friends. “Close Combat let out a while ago, didn’t it?”
“We were required to make a trip to the infirmary,” Chad supplied helpfully.
This raised Alice’s curiosity, not merely because they had a healer with them, but because Chad had included himself in that statement. “Why not just have Camille fix you up?”
“I was getting looked at too,” Camille admitted, suddenly aware of just how precarious the gray cowboy hat on her head was.
“Must have been one hell of a fight,” Alice commented, eyes dancing between the bashful Camille, the guilt-ridden Vince, and the hat-less Roy. “Don’t suppose anyone wants to tell me what happened, or why Camille is wearing the hat Roy almost never takes off outside class?”
“There was . . . an incident,” Vince admitted.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” Camille hastily added. “My hair just got a little singed. Nothing that can’t be fixed.”
“Mmmhmmm,” Alice said, the words coming out from a set of closed lips. She crossed the small distance between her and Camille, then discreetly lifted the hat and peered beneath. After a few moments assessing the damage, she set the covering back in place. “Do you have a stylist?”
“I go to a shop in the mall that does a good job,” Camille told her.
Alice looked as though someone had struck her with a gutted mackerel.
“They’re really nice,” Camille kept going, “I think they’ll be able to squeeze me in by the end of the week.”
This time, Alice’s wide eyes went from the earnest girl speaking, to the three men behind her, back to Camille, and then ultimately upward, presumably to the heavens she was asking to spare her from such nonsense.
“Oh, honey, no. A thousand times, no,” Alice said at last. “What you’ve got there is salvageable, if, and only if, the stylist knows what they’re doing. I’ve had my fair share of snafus in getting hair gummed up or stuck on things, so trust me here.” In all her years as a Powered, Alice had never anticipated the times she floated up and got her long hair snagged on things would be useful experiences, but it seemed the universe had a strange sense of humor about such things. “We need to get you to someone with skills, and I mean today.”
“Perhaps you’re putting too much emphasis on the importance of this,” Chad suggested.
Alice shot him a look so full of venom it could have melted the ground. “How about I shave you bald, and we see how important you find it to be, Mr. Perfect-Part-And-Lift?”
Chad looked away, but stayed silent. He did make the effort to appear nice each day, so perhaps he didn’t have the right to criticize someone else’s vanity.
“Um, I don’t really know any other hair-places,” Camille said.
“You don’t worry about a thing,” Alice assured her. “As soon we’re up the lifts, I’m calling one of my people in town. She’ll be ready for you by the time we arrive. Maybe I’ll get our nails done too, as a way to de-stress from the day. Just leave everything to me.” Alice put a reassuring arm over the smaller girl’s shoulders and led her away to the lifts.
Camille had just enough time to shoot Vince a look of panic, to which he responded with a shrug of uncertainty before Alice dragged her completely out of sight.
57.
Distraught as Vince was about turning Camille’s hair into a fireworks display, he didn’t have the option of staying in Melbrook and dwelling on it all night. He and Mary were due for their last round of server training at Supper with Supers, and no amount of guilt excused him from the job. Mr. Transport dropped them a few blocks away, leaving them to casually stroll in several minutes before their appointed time. Already waiting there was a costumed woman around their own age, leaning against the host’s stand and flipping through the reservation book.
“Hey there, rookies,” Lacey greeted. Unlike Camille and Mary, Lacey had chosen a costume that accentuated her chest by clinging tightly to her torso. It was dark purple and blue, topped with a bobbed purple wig and face paint they imagined took several hours to apply each morning. Lacey had been their trainer through most of the process, and it seemed today would be no exception. “You guys ready to work?”
“Sure thing,” Vince agreed. He was quite enthusiastic about the idea, since it meant doing something to take his mind off the match with Camille.
“Indeed,” Mary agreed, with less gusto.
“Good, then let’s roll some silverware while it’s slow,” Lacey ordered them. “Hopefully, that will get our section closed faster later on. Once things pick up a bit, I’ll let you each take a table.”