Young Blood (PART ONE OF THREE)

The Armory

10. The Armory

Vaan was still a little unsure about Song. He was being very moody, and he knew he would be. Even Vaan was having some anger issues. It was difficult to be able to control a bunch of teenagers as a teenager, and even more difficult to watch your good friends die-especially in some of the most awful ways.

It was also especially difficult to watch their killer’s commander on TV and not want to break the screen. Ugh. Vaan really hated Samuel. The guy was just horrible. He tortured and killed and leeched off of a goddess gift, and somehow. Somehow he stole people’s powers when he killed them.

It’s this weird process, when a Gifted dies. The bodies stay there, but you can see all this energy flowing out of them and soaring in to the sky and it’s actually pretty beautiful, if you can get past the fact that that person is now very, very dead.

Vaan sat up abruptly, accidently changing the channel on the TV with his foot because it had landed, on its journey from the coffee table to the floor, on the remote. He realized that there were only a few days left of the break. “I have to get the stuff ready!” He said to himself and he jumped up and ran out the lounge door.

He ran down the hall to the weaponry and armory. Inside was pile upon pile of sharp metal blades and shields. It was weird to look at it all, like it was a normal thing. A few years ago when he was a freshman, before the war actually started, he would’ve considered them movie props. The kind of thing that was too old, tool ancient for the modern battles of today.

And they were, at first glance-because normally people would think, “Oh, a shield? How will this protect me from the Agency’s guns?”

They were bullet proof. Every piece of chainmail, every breastplate and every weapon was coated with a special type of magic designed to disintegrate any bullet that reaches within an inch of it.

 Also, the good thing about it all was that a lot of students weren’t very good with swords or bows, and just liked to use their own powers, and the armor is so well made and enchanted it was super light weight, allowing the ability to run in them.

The big problem they face was hand to hand combat. Sure, there were a few Gifted’s who been gifted with exceptional swift reflexes and martial arts mastery, or others had just trained. But there were a still lot of Gifted’s who couldn’t control their powers well and didn’t know how to fight with any kind of weapon, including their own fist.

There wasn’t time to train them. They were all so stubborn they insisted on fighting.

Yea, there were lots of adults living at the school and helping the cause, and they knew what they were doing, but they can’t just drop everything to teach the teens.

Vaan arranged everything in to piles by what they were. Then he went to the pile of armor and arranged it all by size, so that the smallest of the fighters could find their armor easily, and so could the biggest.

He heard the door open behind him, but he didn’t pay much attention to is, and he polished his own breastplate while sitting on a small stool in one of the corners of the very large room.

“Vaan,” Song said, attempting to get his friends attention. “Someone is here.”

“Well I figured, since you opened the door and all,” Vaan said, setting down the piece of armor.

Song shook his head, “No. That’s not what I meant.” He walked over to his friend and looked him dead in the eyes. “Someone is here.”

Vaan’s mind immediately went to Blake, and he stood right up and started walking very quickly out the door.

But the person who stood there just outside, tapping his foot impatiently, was not Blake.

Song came up and rest his elbow on Vaan’s shoulder. “Vaan, I hate for you to meet, the very Samuel. The one, the only. Let’s hope.”