Everywhere he looked he was covered in blood. “Hector! Stop!” Isaac was half buried now but he could see a half dozen Hectors dancing around him, splitting off new clones who charged forward with a manic grin and eager screams. “Please, Hector! Don’t make me-“
“C’mon man, this is what we’re here for! Test it. See how far you can push!” Every single Hector cried out at once. “You’re a killer now. Try and have fun with it.”
“No. No. No! No! NO! NONONONO!!” Isaac screamed and screamed and started flailing around himself. Every time he moved his arms he felt that little bit of resistance, like he was wading in warm water. He wasn’t a killer. He was here to learn. He had to protect them, like he’d tried to before. Failure wasn’t an option. He’d failed her and he couldn’t bear the thought of-
For the second time in Isaac’s life, the world turned white. He lost himself, for a little while.
Isaac came back with a startled gasp. He was kneeling on the ground. No, he was kneeling on Hector’s broken body, covered in blood and… other things. Looking around, he saw more like it. None of them were moving. “It’s over?” The doors were open. He stood up slowly. Nothing hurt but his throat.
He’d been screaming. He remembered that much. As he picked his way over the corpses, some in piles, some laying alone, Isaac tried not to picture any other faces on them. Just let them stay Hector and he’d get through this. He was at the door, stepping through and shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand.
“Hey man, you okay?” Hector.
“What. The fuck. Was that?” His forehead was burning now. If that little bastard so much as curled his lips…
“Sorry. I’m sorry Isaac. I didn’t… I didn’t mean to freak you out like that.” He didn’t reply. Just waited, barely aware of Andrew Healer standing nearby. “I just figured… I couldn’t hurt you normally, right? Maybe if I could mess with your head a little… you said you had to concentrate to be strong, you know? I didn’t think it’d hit you that hard.”
There was worry in Hector’s face. Isaac didn’t respond, just stared. There was fear in Hector’s face, too. Isaac turned away, ignoring Hector’s continuing attempts to apologize, and went to wait for his next match.
* * *
Isaac realized it was a bad idea for a large man, covered in blood, to walk up to a group of nervous teens and brood. That they were a group of teens that were about to fight an Empowered opponent in what amounted to a near death match didn’t make it better. In retrospect, Isaac should have realized this before all the startled gasps and shying away started.
There were at least ten feet between him and every other trainee. Except Jason. His roommate hadn’t exactly stepped up to defend him from their silent, or at least muttered, accusations. Jason had just greeted him politely then continued to quietly wait for his second match. Eventually, Isaac couldn’t stand the awkward situation anymore and decided to distract himself.
“How’d you finish so quickly?” he asked. Jason looked up, not startled but, apparently, not expecting the question, either. “You were done in less than a minute. Did you get lucky and draw an easy match?”
“Anna Insight. She yielded immediately after the doors closed.” Jason still had that same polite, distant tone to his voice
“Huh, weird.” Neither seemed able to add much to that. Isaac abandoned any attempt to talk with the boy and tried to clean himself up a bit instead.
There were small towels and water nearby. Isaac hadn’t seen it happen, but either Coach had stashed the materials here earlier or someone had brought them out during his match with Hector. He tried not to think about the fiasco, just focused on getting clean. Wet a towel. Wipe his face. Rinse the towel. Wring it out. Do it again. Time passed…
He heard his name called and dropped the red colored rag.
Isaac returned to the combat domes in use to meet another of the healers and his next opponent. He noticed that the dome he and Hector had used earlier didn’t seem to be part of the rotation any more. When he got near enough, Isaac recognized the girl standing next to the grey clothed healer. It was Jenny. As soon as he approached, she turned to him. She was still smiling but now it was gentle rather than exuberant.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine. None of its mine.” He answered.
“That’s not what I meant. Are you okay?”
He was startled. Just talking to him, she’d completely changed. Earlier, questioning the Coach, she’d been shaking with energy and barely suppressed excitement. Now she was… different. She hadn’t known his name until it was called but there was so much warmth in her voice.
“No. I’m… Hector didn’t stand a chance. I’ve never really fought all out since I’ve had my powers and I didn’t expect… I didn’t mean to do that kind of damage.” She just nodded, eyes intent on him. The healer stood nearby, in gray clothes and face mask, apparently content to let the two finish before she tried to start the match. “I know I didn’t really hurt him. The bodies weren’t really people, just clones or however his power works, but it still felt real.”
“What do you mean, not real?” she interrupted for the first time.
“Hector’s a duplicator. He sent in a copy of himself to fight and that copy made more.”
“So you were basically fighting a bunch of normal people?”
“Yeah. They weren’t strong enough to hurt me, but my first punch… I put my fist through him. I swear I didn’t mean-“
“I know.” She interrupted again, voice free of judgment.
“He just kept coming. He was goading me and I… well, I lost control.”
“You said you couldn’t really hurt him?”
“Yeah. I think, basically, he wasn’t in the room with me.”
“Good thing it was him then.” She said, looking up at him.
“I… yeah. I guess so.” For the first time since it happened, Isaac felt himself relax. He looked at her smile, still warm, gentle, and he felt the tension just flow out of his shoulders. How the hell? She was just a kid. She hadn’t even said anything he didn’t know already.
“It’s cause I’m awesome.” Her smile returned to the enormous, bright thing it should have been while he just gaped at her. He laughed.
“Yeah. I guess you are.”
Isaac’s new mood stayed with him through the beginning of Jocelyn Healer’s well practiced speech, up until Jenny answered the healer’s first question.
“Nope! Physically, I’m a normal girl.” Part of him heard the rest of the Healer’s speech. Part of him was aware as he walked to the dome and through the door.
The rest of him was consumed with the knowledge that if this fight went the same as his last, Jenny wouldn’t be waiting for him outside the dome like Hector had been. It only got worse when he heard the starting signal. Jenny ran straight at him, just like Hector. He readied himself, determined not to let that happen again. When she was close enough, he reached out, grabbing at her arms.
Jenny’s smile was nothing like Hector’s had been. Isaac saw it as she jumped over him, slipping between his arms with effortless grace. She pushed off his shoulders, to get extra height, and knocked him forward. It didn’t hurt, of course. But, combined with his own forward momentum, it was enough to send him crashing to the stone floor beneath him.
He pushed himself back up and turned to face her in a crouch. She bounced in place, from one foot to the other, cheerful and eager. Her smile was bigger than ever. He felt a pain in his lip and reached up to touch it. There was a little blood on his finger, fresh.
“What the-?”
She was on him again, lunging forward to punch him in the nose. It wasn’t a very good punch. He’d been an amateur boxer in college and pretty much everyone he’d ever fought hit harder than her. Still, it hurt. He fell to the ground, surprised by the pain. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong. He shouldn’t even be able to feel her blows, much less have a bloody lip. She skipped to his side.
“How-?” And
then she kneed him in the side of his head.
* * *
Private Housing
Isaac walked back to his shared home, unsure what to think. The obvious explanation was that Jenny Awesome was a Null, someone who could shut down or negate powers. That didn’t feel quite right though. Regardless, she’d been correct. It was a good thing he’d fought Hector first.
He’d hesitated too much against Jenny, but if he’d fought someone else beforehand he might have really hurt them. Even another Strong type might have been badly hurt if he’d lost control. Exact numbers weren’t really available, but he knew he was well into the upper percentages of Empowered strength. Isaac still wasn’t sure how he felt about Hector, though. How could the kid have gone from being so nice at breakfast to… that?
Jason had beaten him home. Either he'd lost his second match as quickly as he won his first, or the boy had just needed less recovery time after losing. Regardless, he was on their porch with a man wearing the uniform of a high end delivery company, signing something on a clipboard. They turned to face him when they noticed Isaac’s approach.
“Hello Isaac. Would you mind helping me with this?” Jason indicated the larger of two packages, much larger. “This one is too heavy for me to carry, and Mr. Henries is not allowed to bring it into my room for liability reasons.”
“Sure, no problem.” Isaac eyed the plain, brown box. It was the size of a refrigerator.
“Thank you.” He finished filling out the form and thanked the deliveryman, Mr. Henries. Then, Jason picked up the smaller of the two boxes and held the door for Isaac.
Hefting the box took little more than an act of will for Isaac, maneuvering it through the door and up the stairs without damaging anything was the difficult part. By the time he had it in Jason’s room, the other box was open. It had a large number of small plastic tubes, a like number of rubber stoppers and some containers of what looked like blue oatmeal. Isaac’s box actually was a refrigerator.
Isaac should have wondered what Jason wanted with a separate, full size refrigerator and blue oatmeal. Any other day, he would have asked. Instead, he responded absently when Jason thanked him for his help and went back downstairs to his own room. He took a long, hot shower, then got into bed. He was asleep before hearing either of the other two return.
* * *
CHAPTER 2: FIRST LESSONS
* * *
The Sky
The peregrine falcon is the fastest member of the animal kingdom, reaching speeds in excess of two hundred miles per hour during their hunting dives. Kelly couldn’t break one fifty, yet. Her flight form was heavily modeled after the famous bird but something changed when she scaled it up to a larger size. Or maybe the loss of speed was from something more subtle? She knew the texture of her feathers, the bone structure and muscle assembly all played a role.
She’d studied up on birds and bats, dinosaurs and airplane wings. It was pretty much her first reaction after she realized that her powers weren’t limited to the human form. Everything taught her something she could use to fine tune her flight form and who wouldn’t want to fly?
It was hard to tell time when she didn't have a watch but she was pretty sure her first class was about to start. The foot traffic around the Tower was picking up and most of the added volume was in all black uniforms. She turned to make one final loop before landing, not able to resist tinkering with the tail feathers a bit.
The sky went dark around her, something else was in the air with her, something huge. She dove frantically, almost losing control as she went as close to straight down as she could. She changed back to human right before she hit. Her legs broke on impact but she was fixing them even as she looked up. Her jaw dropped in awe.
It was a dragon.
A dragon.
There was a giant, red, fire breathing dragon circling the Tower’s stone spire. Well, technically, it wasn’t breathing fire just now but Kelly had no doubt that it was capable. It was big and beautiful and terrifying and everything she’d ever imagined a dragon should be. It circled around in a long, lazy loop, just like she’d been about to make.
The great beast landed and disappeared with a little popping noise and where it had been there was just a girl. No, not quite the same spot. The new girl had appeared maybe twenty feet to the side. Short, but not as short as Kelly, she had red hair in a pixie cut, freckles and a pug nose. She was wearing a trainee uniform. Kelly remembered reading that there were at least four classes of trainees at any given time, sometimes even more, but they must be in the same one because Kelly kinda recognized her from the fight thing yesterday.
She wanted to go up and say hi to the other girl, but come on. The redhead could turn into a dragon and Kelly couldn’t even get her flight form working right. While she hesitated, she could feel her face changing. Her nose was a little different and there was a tingling sensation on her face. She concentrated and managed to stop it before her hair changed too. She liked the blonde pigtails she had now. By the time that was done, the girl was gone, off to class.
“So you’re the bird! Hi!”
She looked up and there was another girl, backlit by the morning sun, hovering just a few feet off the ground. Kelly raised a hand to block the light and get a better look.
“Uh… yeah. I’m Kelly.”
The new girl was tall and kind of skinny. Not model skinny, just regular skinny. She had that dirty blonde or light brown hair that was always so hard to describe. Her face was pretty normal, nothing special just sort of plain. Except for her eyes, they were a little off, too widely spaced or a little too big. Kelly wasn’t sure.
“Samantha Soar. Nice to meet you.”
She landed and took a step forward, one hand out to shake. Kelly took it, a bit surprised. No one back at her old school had ever been this nice to her. Of course, this was a training base, not exactly a school.
“I saw a giant bird yesterday morning and I almost freaked out. I thought you were a real bird and you were just frickin huge! I don’t do anything but fly so I was kind of afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it around here. Like, you were big enough to eat me so I couldn’t go up anymore because then I’d be in your territory. But I looked it up and the biggest bird in the area is a vulture or buzzard or something like that.”
Kelly needed a moment to process all that.
“There was a dragon. It was a huge, scaly monster... and you were scared of me?”
It was actually kind of flattering.
“Kerry, you mean? Sure, she’s big and all, and I guess kind of scary, but she’s obviously a person. Dragons aren’t real unless some nutcase Richards type made a Dragon Bomb but I think I’d have heard about that. If you’d been a real bird you might’ve been dangerous to me but she was obviously empowered. So, she must be in the Citadel and that means she’s on my side and it turned out you were too! Plus, I met Kerry while we were waiting to fight yesterday and she was really nice.”
Kelly was starting to get Samantha’s rhythm down.
“Don’t we need to get to class?”
“Oh, yeah. Let’s go.”
“You fought a dragon yesterday?”
“Well, no, not really. I mean, we got paired up in the first round but we were two of the last to go so we had plenty of time to do some talking. I told her what I could do and she told me what she could do and it was really obvious who was gonna win, right? Like I said, all I can do is fly. What good is that in a fight, especially against someone who can do that? But she was really nice and promised not to hurt me.
“When we started, she just turned into a dragon. But not that one, she didn’t have wings and she was kind of dark green and snaky. Then she just sort of pinned me down with her hands and I shouted out that I gave up but there wasn’t a noise and I remembered I had to say ‘yield’ and that was it.”
It was now or never. Either she was going to make friends at the Citadel or she wasn't.
“That does sound nice. Do you think you could introduce me?�
� Kelly asked.
“Sure!”
* * *
Instruction Area
Kelly and her training mates were waiting for Instructor Catharine to begin. She had arrived and taken her place behind the podium at almost precisely eight AM. Rather than begin speaking immediately, she had been fiddling with a big stack of papers. Her long brown hair was in a bun today. Combined with her glasses it made her look stern, in control. Kelly watched as the Instructor looked around and was surprised at the differences she saw in the others’ behavior.
Samantha was fidgeting nervously. Jenny was talking to Kerry with a quiet intensity that made her wonder what was going on between them. Isaac and Hector were both waiting, notebooks and pens ready. Jason looked perfectly attentive. He was staring straight at the Instructor, notebook out, paying no attention to the room around him. She thought there was something a little strange though. It took her a moment to figure it out. He wasn’t moving, no twitches, no shifting of position, nothing.
“Good morning, Trainees. I am Catherine Verres, a member of Citadel support and your instructor in Ethics.”
Her voice was clear to every member of her audience, some kind of amplifier or something. Kelly couldn’t see a mic but by now she’d figured out what having a regular name meant for a Citadel member. Instructor Verres didn’t have sound projecting powers.
“Yesterday, I sent you each a questionnaire, describing various scenarios. I have here the responses from everyone but the members of your class who elected to leave Citadel training in the interim.”
A hand shot up, Jenny.
“Yes?”
“What do you mean? People quit already?”
“Yes. Three members of your training class chose to leave the program after your matches yesterday. There is no blame in it. We screen our applicants heavily but not everyone can face a beam of energy that cuts through steel without flinching. Some wounds can’t be treated by our healers, not immediately. Do you understand?” She waited for murmurs of assent before continuing.
Citadel (Book 1): Training in Necessity Page 3