Alternate Color

Chapter 4

Olivia clapped while James set up his outfit. Goggles and gloves were added to help fulfill the classic mad scientist look. Now all he was missing was spiky hair.

"I'm going to set up targets. Devan, I want you to hit them from where you are. You can move around all you want, just stay there." I nodded to let him know I understood, and got ready to smash things. At first, everything was right in front of me, targets appearing one at a time. I was able to head butt the first target, punch the second and third and so on until I was throwing invisible rocks from across the room.

"Easy, enough. Now I want you to hit these three targets at the same time. They will keep returning until you get them all at once." The three targets were lined horizontally. I tried to get them at once, but I couldn't think of a way. For a while, I was just throwing things at each target, taking down one at a time. I once got two of them by throwing with both arms. I stopped trying that when I hit Olivia, who was observing in the corner.

"I can't do it," I complained. There was no way for me to do it.

"That's okay. Now I'm going to blindfold you. I don't want you to hit anything anymore. I might be next. Just walk to the targets. Don't worry, the floor is clear. The rule is you're not allowed to move the blindfold. That's it." That sounds deceptively easy. I just couldn't think of a way around the blindfold. After running into the wall, a table and what I think was the target, I admitted to not being able to tell were it was.

"Was anyone else able to do this?" I wondered if James could even do it himself.

"Everyone else was able to do this. You're the only one." My jaw dropped as James finished. I looked over to Olivia. She nodded.

"How?" I asked. I couldn't wrap my head around it.

"It's simple really. I made mirrors and worked around it. Olivia made portals to the other side and pretended it wasn't there. Rachel could see the heat of everything around her, as she described it, Cindy let it pull her, as she described it and Green... I'm not sure what Green did. I think Green grew more eyes, but I really can't tell head from vine." I didn't know how to react to that. Good thing I didn't have to.

"Can you help him with his abilities at all, James?" He shook his head sadly.

"Unfortunately not. I couldn't see what he was doing. But whatever it was, it seemed inefficient. Devan, try to do more while doing less, if you understand." I got the message, grudgingly.

"Hey, hey, hey. Devan, stop sulking around, you've got something to do today," Olivia pitched in. I had something to do?

"What?"

"Rachel wants to kill you today. I bet on you, so don't die," James explained. Olivia looked upset because her shot was taken.

"Let me finish what I start next time, alright?"

"That's going to come back to bite you."

"Shut up." Olivia angrily waved her arm to open a portal. Having a wicked thought, she grinned and turned back.

"You know, since it is the unknown fighting, I thought you'd be delighted to gather more research without breaking the rules, but since you said you didn't want to watch and work on something instead, Cindy will put up the barrier once we get there." James stopped working on whatever he had on his table and removed his goggles, although he didn't turn around to face us.

"Your transport's slow, by the way. Have fun!" And with that, Olivia pushed me through the portal. As the portal closed, I could see storm clouds forming in the distance.

"Took you long enough. Rachel's been losing her cool for so long I think some of it's coming back." Cindy ushered me inside before bringing up the dome in great haste.