The Hidden Continent Book 1: The City of Dystopians

Chapter 18

"I'm starting to think that you people are insane." Megan explained. "we could barely control our powers yet and you will send us out to a god-forsaken place full of zombies."

"Dystopians aren't zombies," Says Thirteen "they act like zombies but they aren't. They're smarter than zombies. And I believe I said will accelerate your training."

"How exactly are you going to do that?" Asked Diana. Though she was perfectly informed how, she just thought that things would be faster is she ask it.

"By some exposure therapy." Says a voice behind Thirteen. Though it was unfamiliar to the others it was more than familiar for Kent. It was Cerberus.

Cerberus stands beside Thirteen and all of the Utopians betrayed shock on their faces. They were exactly alike. Not a feature misplaced. Megan broke the spell.

"Okay," she says "what are we looking at?"

"You are looking at two different organisms-" starts Cerberus

"Very different." Interjects Thirteen

Cerberus gathers himself and continues with his gruff, deep, and extremely adult voice "Yes, very different organisms but genetically identical. But still with the exception of the fingerprints. Anyways, we were talking about your training being accelerated. We can, and will, accelerate your training by means of exposure therapy. We will expose you to various situations which will enable you to exercise your powers. So that you'd be able to use them more naturally." Cerberus looks up at the cockpit and signals to someone. "We will start immediately."

At that note the Lecture room disappeared. The Utopians found themselves inside an abandoned concrete building.

"Whoah," said Kent and Miguel simultaneously "this is cool."

"It's just holographic imaging. But we're still in the Lecture room." Says Thirteen

"You're calling it the Lecture room?" Asks Cerberus "I thought I told you to call it the Lecture hall."

Thirteen rolls his eyes. "I do, sometimes."

"So what are we going to do here?" The moment those words left Megan's mouth the building began shaking.

"What are you doing?" Miguel asks Kent.

"Obviously I'm not doing it." Kent connected with the ground. He felt something hitting the building from below. "Something is hitting..." Kent trails off as the shaking stops.

Crumbling sounds can now be heard from the side of the building. Diana approaches the edge of the floor and looks over it. She sees that they are on some multi story building, probably in the tenth floor.

"Guys," says Diana "something's climbing up." In an instant, all of them are looking over the edge.

Tracy looked over the edge and saw a grotesque creature. It has the body of a giant gorilla and the bald head of a human. The creature looked up at them and roared. It's jaw opened up at an unusual size. The roar was so loud that the floor vibrated.

"Guys," says Kent with urgency that they all looked at him "the floor is about to collapse." Miguel whistled.

Tracy looked back over the edge again and shot the gorilla creature with a jolt of electricity. The shot hit the creature on the right shoulder. It's hand started to spasm and it momentarily hung limply on the side of the building. But in a few minutes it recovered and resumed climbing over the side of the building.

"Nice try," Cerberus commented. Tracy almost blushed.

"Let's go down," suggests Megan

"That's you're best plan?" Says Gerardo. Megan looked at him venomously.

"I guess it's better than nothing," says Alice, meekly "we certainly can't just wait for it here."

"And we shouldn't fight something that large on this type of floor," says Kent. Everyone, except for Thirteen and Cerberus, mutters assent.

"Let's go find the stairs." Says Tracy.

"No need for that." Cerberus opens a holographic screen and presses some command on it. The whole building starts to pixelize and reform again but showing a different scene. They are now outside the building.

The gorilla creature sees them on the ground. The gorilla, without a second thought, let's go of his grip on the side of the building and plummets to the ground. The creature lands on his feet. Unhurt.

Now the Utopians get really good look on the creature. It's general physique is really, without a doubt, that of a gorilla. Except that the creature is towering over them at a height of eleven feet. The creature roars again.

"That is really deafening," Miguel commented, plugging his ears. The gorilla started towards them and raises its humongous arms

For obvious reasons, the Utopians threw themselves to the side. Alice stumbled as the ground shook at the impact. Miguel helped him stand up but the gorilla swungs its arms towards Kent who was just standing dumbstruck.

"Kent," calls out Miguel. That snaps Kent back into reality but the gigantic arm was almost upon him. Alice imagines a javelin piercing through the open palm of the gorilla. The arm stops abruptly as the pain registers. The gorilla roars as it pulled back its arm. When the pain fades the gorilla sets its gaze towards the Utopians across from Alice,Miguel, and Kent.

The gorilla jumps into the air and lands directly in front of the Utopians. It raises its arms and about slam the Utopians flat when it violently jerked back as if something forceful hit its torso. Apparently, it was a someone. Gerardo.

He tackled the creatures huge belly. Gerardo minutely lifted the creature and slammed it into the ground. The creature was momentarily outbalanced. But it wasn't enough.

The gorilla swung its arm in front of him and Alice sees Gerardo fly like a plastic toy. He hits the concrete hard. Or he would have if his sister hadn't appeared behind him and catch him. But both of them still hit the ground rolling.

The surroundings started pixelizing again. This time, the Lecture room reappeared.

"That's enough for today," says Cerberus. "And I just have to say this, you did quite well."

Thirteen laughed nervously.