The Specialists

Chapter 7- Training, Tattoos and Pizza

When I finally found my way to the training room, everyone was already there, staring at me.

"Ah, Zelina, I'm glad you finally decided you'd join us!" David said with a sarcastic tone.

"Sorry, I got lost," I mumbled.

"That's okay, everyone gets lost. Lucky for you, we are still waiting for our new guy,"

As I walked over towards the group, I spotted Lily waving frantically at me. She was seated on top of a balance beam (because you know, the training room was more like a gymnasium), and was practically jumping up and down.

"OMG, where were you? I knew I should have made a map! How did you find your way here? Are you okay? Omigosh, this is all my fault!" Lily wailed.

"I'm sure she was fine," a boy sitting on the vault smirked. "Calletti. Rain Calletti," He said sticking out his hand.

"Zelina Blue" I replied.

"Hey Blue,"

"It's Zelina," Lily interrupted.

"Hi Rain," I replied.

"So what is your speciality?"

"My what?"

"You know, your oddity, the thing that makes you special,"

"I don't know,"

"How could you not--"

Rain was interupted by the loud clanging of the training room doors. Standing there was a pale skinned guy with darkish hair. He was glaring at us, and his eyes looked like as if they were shooting lasers at us. (they weren't).

"Ah, Daniel. Nice of you to join us!" David greeted, breaking the sudden silence.

The boy, still glaring at us, nodded and walked over to the blue mats.

"okay, now that we all are here, lets play a game to get to know each other more!" David enthused.

"We are Specialists, and our training is playing silly friend games?!?!" A group of identical girls with purple highlights glared, all speaking at the same time. They were like synchronised to the very millisecond! The only thing different about them was their seating positions, some scattered over the blue mats, and others atop the bars.

"Whoa. Is that weird or what?" I whispered to Lily.

"That's the LollyPops. Twins. They specialise in self duplication. No one knows how they got left together. Cuz like no one knows any of their real families other than them. Some say that they are really just one person and Pop is just one of Lolly's mind tricks, just like all the other LollyPops,"

"But which one is Lolly? There are-" I paused to count. "9 of them!"

"Who knows? They drive David crazy so much that he just refers to them as the LollyPops, and thus everyone else too," Lily replied.

"They aren't silly friend games, LollyPops," David said, "It is part of a team bonding exercise. Now, in the future, you will be working with your team mates, so you can be expected to know their strengths, weaknesses and names,"

"Hmph," The LollyPops muttered, and multiplied. It was strange seeing them multiply. It was like a blur, and then suddenly there was more of them there!

"Team bonding is an important part of being a specialist. If you can't work with your own team mates, what makes you think you can associate with your assignments? There are many skills you need as a Specialist to live through your missions. First off, you need to be able to associate, cooperate and work together with your own team mates."

As David was saying this, a giant projector screen came down behind him.

" It cannot be understated as to how important knowing yourself and your team is to being successful. The quality of work you do will never exceed the quality of the team behind it. Please sit in a circle,"

As we did so, David glanced at us. "Really, LollyPops? Really?" Muttering, the LollyPops blurred into a big mess of purple hair extensions, black eyeliner and pink, blue and orange cheerleader/gymnastic outfits. When they blurred out, all was left was two identical girls and a big gap in the circle. As we all shuffled to fill up the gap, I was stuck between one of the LollyPop twins and Lily.

For the next 6 hours, David made us do a bunch of exercises and games, involving a trust exercise where we had to be blindfolded n had to trust your team mates to lead you through an obstacle course, and two truths and one lie. It was so fun that time just flew by! I learnt that there were 8 of us in total, and that we were called the specialists because we had special qualities that separated us from other humans. I know right, weird. It just like 'Oh, you're different. Hey! You are a specialist!' but whatever.

Group B consisted of 6 girls and 2 boys. Turns out it is more often that girls are 'born with this power' and guys were more rare. Apart from Lily , Rain and I, there were the LollyPop twins, late boy Daniel, smarty pants Ivy and a sour faced girl named Jezzica (like Jessica with a z).

By the end of the day we were all sweating and laughing so much that we had to sit down.

"That was so much fun!" Lily bounced, still full of energy.

"Ugh I'm exhausted," Rain groaned flopping down on the blue mats, only to jump up again. "Gross! They smell! Do you want to go get pizza? I'm starved!" "Wait, you are allowed to go out of here?" I gasped shocked. "Yea! Duh!" Lily stared at me with her huge eyes. "What do you think we are? Animals?! They can't just cage us up here you know. I'm starving! Let's go!"

Lily, Rain and I ran through a maze of corridors, so fast that I got dizzy trying to work out where we were going. "So we can get out, just like that? Doesn't anyone try to run away or something?" "Oh no," Lily replied" We get special tattoos with trackers on them. You're not allowed to go out without them." "Oh." "You do have one right?" "um.. No?" "No?!" Rain practically yelled, voice echoing around us. "How are we supposed to get pizza then?" "I guess we will have to make a stop to the tattoo department," Lily beamed. "I love that place! Its so.... I don't know... I just love it!" She spun around so abruptly that I crashed into her. "Oomph," *thud*. "oops sorry. " "It's okay. What are we waiting for? Lets go!"

When we got to the 'tattoo place', it was surprisingly the opposite of what I expected. Instead of being a dark, gothic, black and white place, it was a vibrant and very colourful, spacious room.

"So?" Lily said, dragging me over to a blue table. "Chose one!" On the table, there was a thick heavy book, that could have probably been as long as my arm. Lily opened it with a big cloud of dust. Inside were millions of elaborate designs of tattoos. "wow," I gasped. "there are so many!" "Mine is a Cat in a C flower," Lily smiled. "Rain's is a pair of angel wings," "Angel wings? Nice choice," I smirked. "Oh shush," Rain muttered. "hurry up and chose so we can go get pizza,"

In the end, I chose a tattoo of a shadow Tinkerbell with sparkle beams and stars coming out of her wand. As I admired the tattoo artist's handy work on my hand. Just as I thanked her and got up to leave, she said "No! not yet! I still have to inject the tracking ink!"

So we were there for another hour. It was surprisingly not painful. The tattoo artist had put on antiseptic over my skin, and then injected some gold ink, making the whole design gold and sparkly. "wow! Thank you so much!" "You're welcome," she smiled.

"Can we go get pizza now? I'm starved!" Rain asked. "well " Lily said glancing at her pink bunny rabbit iPhone. "We don't have much time. Curfew is in an hour." "We'll get take away,"

So off we went through the maze of corridors until we came to a red door saying exit. "This is it," I breathed. "leaving the compound for the first time." We went through a series of metal detectors and ID checks until finally we got to leave.

A gust of wind hit my face, and I felt... free. I looked around. We were surrounded by a bunch of really tall buildings, and the moment faded. I was trapped again. "Where are we?" I gasped. "Welcome to New York sista!"