AzLean Soldier

Chapter 5 - Battleworld

I wake up to the sound of Hank's arm below my bunk banging against the top bunk's side. I don't really want to get up, but I manage to anyway. Sitting up and rubbing my eyes from being extremely tired, I soon get the chance to finally start moving fully, as if my body is functioning in awake mode.Hank and Hoy roll out of their bed and onto their feet. I can see that Hank and Hoy have a few bruises on their back, but they aren't so bad that they might need medical care. When Hank and Hoy finally stand up, they walk over to the box of weapons and grab the ones they showed me yesterday.I see the sword that I brought with me still beside the box. I start to climb down from the top bunk and head over to it. I grab it with my right hand and lift it up closer to my face to take a better look at it before lowering my arm down against my side, and I look up to Hank and Hoy in front of me. "Battleworld starts today, although we have only about two to three hours to practice. I hope you're ready," Hank tells me as he looks at me and the sword. Hoy, meanwhile, looks down at his weapon for a minute and begins to wipe blood from the sharp edges of it. I get a strange feeling of fright and worry about myself, hoping to god that I won't die on the field. "I mean, I don't see why I would need to fight when I can just surrender and go home." I don't really feel like fighting or wasting my time doing something that could risk my life. "Trust me, it's a lot more fun than it first may look," Hank says to comfort me, but those words don't exactly convince me about what's going to come out of this. I know for certain that I could die out there, and even though I can surrender, my mind starts to think about what the master said yesterday about winning. Is there some sort of prize? Or will they allow me to keep this sword? Not like I want to actually keep it, but something about the sword tells me that it's important. In fact, it kind of makes me want to fight the other beings that exist on this ship. The only thing I hope I get out of this is a type of reward, since they did just grab me out of a planet without asking.Unless it wasn't them that opened the gateway? I probably should've looked more into the whole culture about what the symbols mean. They would've given me more clues as to what these creatures are all about. They give me a weird feeling that they are trying to do something with all of us. Sure, I know that Hank and Hoy and their friends have been here longer than a year and probably haven't seen anything suspicious. Though, this sword in my own possession gives me the thought that these creatures are trying to do something.I remove the thought from my mind, and I start to focus back in reality, knowing that having distractions aren't going to keep me alive nor win whatever these creatures are trying to do. "You ready to go train?" Hank asks me, making me lose my train of thought. I look back up to him and give him and Hoy a nod, confirming that I am ready. They decide to take the lead forward, with both of us leaving the room and heading toward a double-door gym-like place. Although, this gym is massive, looking like it extends more than 1,000 feet in all directions. I could be wrong, though the room is so big that other creatures that are farther away from my sight look like ants. It is incredible to see with my own eyes. Not that the creatures from other worlds and planets are enough anyway. This time Hoy interrupts my train of thought, and I see myself standing on top of a nice, clean towel. The towel has just random shapes with green and yellow colors. I look up to Hoy and Hank a bit confused when suddenly Hoy swings his weapon at me without warning. I use the sword to block it, struggling to push it away. I look up to them both. "Whoa, could you give me a warning next time?!" I tell them. Hoy chuckles when I say that and stops what he is doing. "Looking at what you've done with blocking, I don't think you need warnings." He's right, I didn't do that myself, something else did. What could've made me do something like that? I get confused when I ask myself this, but it goes away when Hank swings in a few seconds later. I dodge this by leaning back and then punching them on their leg. Hank and Hoy both grunt when I do. Though, I once again get confused on how I am doing this. I look at myself for a second, then toward the sword. I begin to think about what just happened. How am I doing this? My brain isn't able to catch these moments, they're too fast for it to register. I stare at Hank and Hoy for a minute. "You two okay?" I ask. Hank nods in response. Then I hear a chuckle from Hoy as he stands up fully again and faces me. "You are pretty good, you've been training by chance?" Hoy asks me, but it just makes me shake my head. "Well, then that means there is a weakness somewhere. I just need to find it." Hoy takes his weapon again and starts to step back a little. I stare at them for a minute as they do, wondering what they are about to do. Soon, they begin to start running toward me with both of their weapons drawn and ready to hit me with them. I use my sword to block my face and the front part of my body, vertically. As I am about to use the sword, Hank and Hoy launch themselves into the air and raise their weapons to the back of their heads. Somehow, my legs leap outward, and I move so quickly that the only thing that's visible is a blur. When Hank and Hoy finally reach the ground, I smash their weapons above the towel and into the ground. They both get confused by the movement, and they slowly look over at me. When they finally see me, I am stuck staring at myself and the sword, wondering what just happened. My attention goes back toward Hank and Hoy, who are staring at me. "Remember when I told you that each species will achieve weapons of different strengths?" Hanks asks. "Well, that's what you are currently experiencing. The sword is what is giving you these reflexes." My eyes wander down to the sword, with a slight flash of glow on the symbols all the way up to the tip of the blade. I stare down at it, stuck with so many questions lodged in my brain. I am unable to even respond to Hank nor Hoy about what I am feeling. Hoy and Hank continue to look down at me. I soon look back up at them, somewhat wondering why this sword was in my hands. I then place the sword onto my side. "What exactly does a volunteer do?" I ask. At this point, I am trying to disbelieve the fact that what I am holding is giving me these abilities."Oh, you know, we still fight on the battlefield and such. Although, we don't fight you . . . we fight . . ." Hank tries to find the correct word, but Hoy responds instead. "Other volunteers." Hank nods in agreement."Yes, exactly, but we don't get the same weapons as you. You can basically just call us trainers, trying to train you and show you what your weapons contain." He sounds a bit sad, almost like they both miss the weapons they used to have. "What weapons did you guys used to have?" I ask them, a bit curious. "It's been a long time since we had one, or at least it feels like it. Though, I used to wield these chains with flames on them. They were probably my most favorite thing I've had," Hank says. Hoy quickly joins in about what he used to have. "I had something similar to this," he says, lifting up their weapon to make me envision it in my head. "Although, it was a lot more deadly. Was able to completely freeze you into ice." That and the combination of chains must've made them almost an unstoppable force. They were probably in the high ranks before they found someone who was capable of defeating them. "Do volunteers kill each other then?" I ask. "Nah, we aren't allowed to kill each other. We just fight each other for training and learning new skills to teach our own classmates," Hank mentions. "I am kind of glad that it's like that." "Hmm. Sounds interesting, hope it's going well at least," I say. "It is. We're happy to be in the program and all that," Hank tells me a minute later. I walk back over to them above the towel. "So, what type of things should I be training for?" I ask them both. "The first test we just did was reflexes and your responses to them," Hoy says."Now, we are going to test strength." Hank turns his hand into a tight fist, seeing his muscles and how buff his arms are. Then, without a second thought he launches it toward my face. My reflexes catch on to this and block it, with my hands basically grabbing on to it. Hank and Hoy notice this, and look at me in the face. I could feel something off going through my body. A sense of weird energy traveling through my veins and brain, until soon my hand crunches Hank's hand as I grab it tightly. Shortly after, I yank Hank and Hoy and throw them over my body and onto their backs behind me. When they finally hit the ground, my other fist launches toward Hank's as I turn around to them. I stop my arm to be really close to Hank's face, nearly touching his nose. I pant from the movement, but I notice what just happened. I move my hand back toward my body, and I grow a bit embarrassed. "Shit, I am sorry about that," I tell them, nervously. Hank and Hoy get up onto their feet again. They don't respond for a few minutes, then Hank starts to speak. "There is nothing to worry about, that's some good moves you have on you," he says, facing me once more. "I think just those alone can get you far into the leagues." "I mean, I guess. I don't want to risk killing you by chance," I say, still nervous."Nah, you don't have to worry about that," Hoy tells me, walking up beside me and placing his hand on my shoulder. "If you did happen to kill me, that is technically my job successfully completed in training someone," Hank says."If you happen to kill your trainer, it tells the judges that you might get far." I nod when I hear this, I look at the sword once more, not sure why this is much of a priority or important. I am just a college student, and I am now forced to use this unknown origin of a sword to fight to the death of other creatures with the same thing. Just something about this is not clicking right in my brain."Did you guys ever win the Battleworld?" I ask them both. "Nah, but we got high enough to be considered in the top ten," Hank confidently tells me. "Who came in first?" I ask again, a bit curious. Hank looks around the room for a minute to search, until their eyes finally catch onto the creature. "Him, also known as Hadeon the Destroyer. He won every game since he came here. Nobody even knows how old he is," Hoy says, making me gulp in fright. "How long has he been here for exactly?" I ask them, getting more curious. "From what I understand, he's been here for more than a thousand years and fought in more than twenty thousand Battleworlds. He hasn't lost once in those years either," Hank says, continuing to look at him. I look at Hadeon and see that he is a tall creature. In fact, his proportions are very off. He is tall and very muscular, wearing Egyptian clothing, white beard and hair and eyebrows. Hadeon looks like an Egyptian god from thousands of years ago. What catches my eye the most is that he doesn't hold any weapons."I don't see what would make him so powerful," I say to Hank and Hoy."He doesn't need a weapon, simple as that," Hank says."Doesn't need a weapon?" "Yeah, but people don't know what that is since whenever he uses whatever it is, they don't come out alive." I get a bit worried about this. What do they mean 'no weapon?' Is he the weapon? I keep wondering to myself about Hadeon, but my thought goes away when Hank and Hoy push me back with their weapons. "Anyway, one more test and that will be it for today," Hank says, as he begins to walk closer to me.I back up of course, but I get the feeling that I should get my sword ready just in case. I place the sword in front of me in a blocking position, watching Hoy and Hank carefully in front of me. Hank soon lashes his weapon at me, but my sword catches onto it and struggles to keep it in place. Though, to my left, Hoy swings his weapon at me shortly later. When I notice this, I feel as though I have no way to dodge that attack next. I take my other hand and place it onto the handle of the sword and push Hank's weapon out of his hand. Then I quickly break the blade of Hoy's hatchet off of the handle with the blade of my sword. This causes the axe's head to fling a few feet away and slide across the sword. At this moment, I look down at the sword and see a large energy field around it for a few moments before it suddenly vanishes. I am shocked when I see this, but I am not fully surprised. I lower the sword back to my sides, and I look up to Hank and Hoy once more. Hank grabs his weapon again, while Hoy picks up the head of the axe. They face me fully this time and look down at me. "Surprising . . . I've never seen or experienced a weapon truly like yours," Hank says as he starts to examine the weapon once more. I decide to hand it over to them, but before Hank and Hoy could grab it, the sword is too heavy, and they get pulled with the sword to the ground. The sword slams onto the floor, and Hank and Hoy struggle with their mightiest strength to pick it up. I get confused as to why they can't pick it up, but I can. "Okay, stop, you're going to hurt yourselves," I tell them as I lift out my hand to the handle and pick it back up. I look at it for a minute for any sign of scratches or dents, but I see nothing on it. I place it against the sides of my body as I look up to Hank and Hoy once more. "Heh, I guess we can't hold it. That's fine, sometimes weapons have that kind of effect," Hoy says as they look around the room at other weapons. "So my weapon is no different, you are saying?" I ask them."Well, it's far more different than I have ever encountered in my fights. Though, I do think that it has some similarities with a few others," Hank mentions. "Hmm," I say to myself, then my attention comes back to Hadeon across the room. I can see that he is just hanging out beside a few other creatures that look to be pretty powerful as well. I look back to Hank and Hoy in front of me, who are just about to head out. "Wait, if Hadeon was known to be the top, strongest and undefeated, then, who was second and third?" This is my last question, as I want to know more about the type of other beings I am going to fight. "Ah, wonderful question," Hank says as he starts to search the room for where the culprits are. "Him!" he says, finding the person he was looking for and pointing toward him. "He was one of the more recent second-place champions of the last Battleworld. His name is Grettle." As I observe Grettle, he tends to be extremely muscular and has gray fur all over his body. What makes him scary is his face and his extremely sharp teeth and claws. He looks like some kind of hairy werewolf or monster."What happened to the other champions?" I ask again."Well, nothing special happened. They all either left, died, or they are still here, but are just volunteers, like us," Hoy says."If people fought Hadeon, then wouldn't that mean there wouldn't be a second place?" Hank and Hoy both laugh at my question. "Well, kind of. Usually when someone dies against someone else, the leaderboard brings you up a place. So if you were in, let's say, third place, you'd be placed in second." "Hmm . . ." I say, but before I can ask anymore, Hank and Hoy interrupt me from asking anymore questions. "Anyway, Hoy and I have to start getting ready for the volunteer trials. You should probably start heading toward the Battleworld doors. Wish you luck, mate," Hank tells me, starting to head out."Same here, wish you luck, and remember . . . don't die out there!" Hoy says, chuckling. When they leave the room, my attention wanders around to the other creatures and their own trainers and teammates. I soon take my sword and begin to head toward the place that Hank and Hoy mentioned to get ready. As I do so, another one of those robe-like creatures approaches me from behind. I turn around and look up at them as they try to get my attention. "Floyd Lorence, I saw your performance out there, and I gotta say, you sure do know some tricks despite the lack of training." "Heh, thank you," I tell them. "I do believe that you will do well out there today. Wish you luck, Floyd," the robed creature tells me as a comforting statement. I nod in response. "I will, thank you again," I say, and the robed creature starts to walk away, although float might be a better word. I finally come to the doorway that leads out to the Battleworld arena. I see several other creatures hanging out waiting as well, all of them with different weapons. Some are completely unrecognizable from the proportions and looks of them. I see that many of them come from as small as daggers, to as large as nuclear weapons. BlackAlthough, they aren't considered to be called or even appear as nukes. They seem to function in a completely different way. I try to not stare or observe any further, so that I don't track attention from them. Also I am trying not to cause a fight or even get in trouble by the robed creatures for "starting a fight" or whatever. I look to the doorway and see the sign above it in red text, reading, "1 hour and 35 minutes." I decide to take this time to go over beside a wall and sit down to wait patiently. I stretch my arms out to pop them, and I take out my phone from my pocket. I look down at the screen, seeing that the battery is at 27 percent. I decide to take this time to play games or check if I can go online or anything like that. However, the internet connection seems to be nonexistent. I decide to click on a game and start to play on my phone, waiting patiently till the doors open.1 hour and 30 minutes laterI look up from my phone after checking the time on the top right corner. I see that it is the official five-minute countdown. I look up and see that there are many more creatures clearly waiting for the doors to open. Probably a good 80 or 90 percent of the total creatures seen in the training room. I get up onto my feet fully once more, and I look around at the other creatures. I see none that are familiar; however, one catches my eye in the corner of my eye. A creature very similar to a human, their eyes are glowing yellow. Long and messy black hair reaching down to their shoulders. I look around for a bit longer for any sight of anybody else who is familiar. My attention soon comes to see what looks like a unicorn across the room. They are throwing a ball and catching it through portals in the wall as it goes through each one. My eyes then catch onto another creature with about ten or so arms coming off of its body. It has no eyes or any facial features at all, and even if it did, I am unable to see them. I keep looking around, and I keep finding some really astonishing creatures around me. It is surprising to see, but still scares me to know that there might be a creature around here that could dismantle me into tiny little pieces. I sigh quietly as I lay my head back against the wall, closing my eyes as I turn off my phone before doing so. I place it back into my pocket, and I relax for a bit as I wait a little longer.Eventually, I hear an announcement from a radio nearby. "The doors will open in one minute. Get yourselves ready." The voice sounds calm, but with a slight bit of excitement underneath. I stand up fully this time, keeping my sword in my hand.I turn around and look toward the door beside me, seeing the other creatures around starting to come closer to the door. Some push each other out of the way, even threatening to kill each other, or even challenging them in the Battleworld place. I keep myself grounded and ready, preparing my sword in my hands as I do so. I stare at the door like I am some kind of mannequin. My eyes come to the sign above that is in red still. I soon see that it's beginning to count down. "Five!" It reads, knowing that is in seconds. "4... 3... 2... 1..." When it reaches 1 on the sign, I hold the sword extra tightly in my hands. When the door finally opens, every creature rushes in as quickly as it can. It is a struggle to get in, especially because of all the pushing. Though, I see that the room isn't exactly large. It's medium-sized. At least until I see that, the creatures aren't aiming for the room itself, they are aiming for the teleporters up ahead that probably lead to the real Battleworld playground. The walls in the room show pictures and scenery of what the Battleworld might really be. I start rushing inward to the teleporters and step into the playground. When I do, I see myself within only three or so seconds vanish and reappear into a large area. This time, it looks like a planet itself with a city that is completely demolished to pieces. I keep the sword tightly in my hands, and I begin to start running toward the inside of the abandoned city. I see creatures in every corner of my eye, especially far into the distance. I see many of the creatures fighting each other and some even killing each other. I soon come to a very large creature, standing up to be about three times my size. It has a large club on its back, and swings it down onto me. I grab my sword fully into my hands in front of me, and I jump upward and over onto its shoulders. I take the sword and I yank it straight into its neck. The giant monster yelps and growls in pain. I yank it out once more, then I jump off of it and land on my feet. Right when I do, a type of chain grabs my feet, and I get pulled down onto my face. I turn my body around, and I see that it seems to be a clown with multiple faces across its body, with two very bulky arms.I take my sword once more as it continues to pull me closer toward it. When I finally get beneath it, I place my foot onto its chest despite it being chained up. Then I push myself to back roll, while using my sword to cut the chain, then force my sword straight into the clown's chest. I yank my sword outward across it's body, causing it to split in half. I look down to my leg, and I use the sword once more to cut the chain off of it. I stand up fully once more, and I look around me. I see lots of corpses, dead creatures lying on the ground around me, piling up a lot near where many, including me, have been teleported inside. I see that a good portion of creatures are spawn camping and killing anybody or trapping anybody that comes through. I decide to ignore this and start to head farther into the town.Although, as I do my eyes catch onto a large wall surrounding the perimeter of the planet. I see many robed creatures littering all over the walls, looking down at us, creatures fighting and killing each other. It gives me a unsettling feeling as I look around at them.I get interrupted soon by a large piece of rock slamming me, but I use my sword to get myself through it. I look up to see the blue-haired creature ahead of me once more. I can see the eyes glowing a bright yellow. I then start to see more objects around him appearing to glow with weird particles around them.Does this guy have some kind of telekinetic power? I wonder. I get a feeling of unease when I ask that question. I continue to stare up at them, placing the sword in front of my body. I see that they don't look surprised, so a glow appears around the sword, and it gets yanked out of my hands. Though, I see something that appears off about the human creature. I see that they grow hurt after the glow yanks it out of my hands. I stand back as I look up to them with a slight feeling of annoyance. They soon start to throw more objects toward me. I try to hit them out of the way the best I can.I try to run toward the creature, but I fail as I see beneath me that the ground is preventing me from doing so, as though I am on some kind of escavator or like the world is reshaping in front of me, like reality warping. This doesn't stop me; instead I leap forward toward the creature.When I think I am about to hit the alien backward, I instead get yanked toward the side with more of that telekinesis trickery. I land on top of my sword, so I pick it up and I look back up to the human creature as I hold it in my hands. It looks at me as it lifts itself up into the air with the telekinesis supporting it.I back up as I keep the sword close and tight in my hands, as I stare at him. I soon see that the creature is beginning to form a type of energy field into his hands. The energy is mostly red and glowing, having almost a weird fog effect coming off of it. I get a weird feeling about this, but I shake it off in my mind. When he finally begins to shoot an energy beam straight at me, I take my sword closely, and I begin to run toward it. I don't know what is going to happen, but I decide to try anyway, holding the sword in front of me as I do so.When the sword finally comes into contact with the sword, the beam of energy doesn't hit my body. Instead, it goes around me, but I still struggle to stay within the beam's range as it still attempts to push me back. I look forward toward the creature, and finally I hear its voice. "What?! How is that possible?" The voice is deep and dark, really frightening. I continue to try and get closer to the creature, but it tries to use other methods, like its telekinetic abilities, to smash me with objects. I block the objects, and when I finally get close enough to the creature, I use my fist to punch it backward, but it dodges out of the way. Now that I get a closer look, I can see that he has a black body. Something that I couldn't see clearly before. It is really odd seeing some creature formed like this. The creature looks at me in the face. "You really think you could defeat somebody like me? I have more power than you ever could imagine." I look at him with a face of confidence, but it goes away when I see a portal opening up beneath me and the creature. We both fall through the portal, and we appear in the sky, beginning to fall, but the creature uses its own abilities to stop his own fall, making himself levitate in the air.I don't stop falling, however. I continue to fall down to the ground. So I take a look at the sword for a minute, holding it extra tightly as I get myself ready to hit the ground. When I am about to hit the ground, everything around me stops in its place. I even see myself stop by seeing that I am levitating a clear foot above the ground. I open my eyes when I don't feel the ground for a long time. I look down and see the ground beneath me, but I continue to levitate off of it. I look at myself for a minute before I make myself land on the ground. I then take a look around me and see everybody stop at a halt. I look around for a minute for the source, until my attention comes to my sword. I notice no creature around here that could've stopped time or even slowed it down. I sigh in relief as I look around more. Then everything starts to move back to normal once more.I quickly start to run back toward the town again, not wanting to be in the middle of any particular fight in general. Before I can do this, the same creature from a few minutes ago is once more in front of me, as it lands on the ground and faces me. "I don't know how you did that, but that won't stop me from ending you," the creature says as he starts walking up closer to me.I take a step back. "Why me?" I ask."I can feel the power leaking from you. I know if I destroy you, nothing will stand between me and the number one spot," the creature says. This time I can see that more energy is forming around him. Instead of it all being close to his body, it is around me and him at the same time, all red glowing energy.I take more steps back, lifting up my sword in front of me. "Well, if that's what you want, then I guess let's do it," I tell him, getting myself ready to launch toward him. The creature laughs when he hears me say that."You really think that you could stop me? I'd like to see you—" He is interrupted by a large piece of metal slamming in between me and him. This time, the energy isn't the same color, but more of a blue color. I look over to the right of me and see the unicorn from earlier looking at both of us. The unicorn's attention soon goes over to the creature. "If you want to get to him, you'll have to go through me," it says, walking to the other side of the metal and facing him. The unicorn turns to me and says, "Run," then looks back at the creature face-to-face. "Very well then . . . If that's what you desire, then I'll end you too," the creature says. I decide to take the unicorn's advice and start finding a different way into the town, wanting to find a place to rest for a few minutes before I feel like fighting more. It's making me kind of exhausted. I soon discover a path straight into the town, so I start to go down the pathway. I keep a lookout for any more creatures around, but all I can see are bodies of dead creatures all over the place. As I start to get farther and deeper into the town, I see a giant tree falling down in front of me and onto the path, blocking the path and me from continuing on.I look at where the tree fell from, and see a giant humanoid thing with several arms and faces all over its body. What disgusts me the most is that there is a chainsaw in its hand, and it has a female face. It weirds me out, so I start to back up when I see it. The giant creature is laughing, but it is more of a chaotic or psychopathic laugh than a comforting laugh. It kind of makes me feel a bit uneasy as I hear it. When I finally find myself against the wall, I hold the sword tighter in my hands, and I start to run toward the giant monster. It swings the chainsaw at me, but I start to pick up the pace after dodging it. I then see that I am going fast enough that the giant psychopathic lady with multiple faces can't tell where I am, or even catch up with my movement, nor is it moving as quickly due to my perspective of the speed. I leap over its back and yank the sword through its neck, slashing it and cutting it off of its body. I finally land on my feet, and I hear no more laughs from the creature. Then I finally feel it slam forward onto the ground. I stand up fully once more and immediately start heading toward the center of the town. When I finally get there, I barely see many more creatures left standing in the arena. So I start slowing down and taking a small breather. When I do, I soon start to hear announcements from the speakers given by the robed creatures. "In one minute, we are about to teleport ten of our most favorite contestants into a death match apocalypse. If you are not picked, you will be allowed to continue fighting for five more minutes," the announcer says.I look around the arena a bit longer, seeing more creatures ahead of me. Though, when they notice me, they decide not to attack, telling me that they are waiting for the one-minute timer in case they get teleported into the death match. I join them on the decision, continuing to pant, and wait patiently. When I am about to look away, however, I feel myself vanishing and reappearing in a large platform in the sky, though, this isn't any normal kind of platform in the sky. It is almost as if I am in a completely separate room of space and time, just barely any stars or galaxies in sight.Though, I do start to see ten chambers all around the platform. This time, I can see several entities in their own chambers. Hadeon is the more obvious contestant, knowing that Hank and Hoy have spoken about him. Although, it takes me a minute to notice that this is probably the top ten fight. This probably means that I am in the official top ten most favorite and powerful entities in the room. My eyes catch on to the blue-haired human and unicorn who were not that far away from me, with the rest of the creatures being completely unrecognizable to me. The platform is fairly large, being a circle with a center tower showing different weapons there. This time, though, I can see that my sword is no longer in my hands. Instead I can clearly see it leaning off of the tower in the middle, ready to get picked up. It worries me a bit that another entity might get their hands on it and use it against me. Though, as I think about that, I remember back to when Hank and Hoy tried to pick it up in the gym. It makes me think that I am probably the only one allowed to pick up, which I sure hope is true. I see four screens hanging above the tower with a ten-second timer ticking down. When I see it get down to five, I get myself ready to run toward the center. I watch the TV above me. "5... 4... 3... 2... 1!" I feel a bit of a rush across my body. I am so ready to get this started.