The Call to Rise

Training Part 2: Under a Spell

For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, the four teens were training. They ended up having to do the drill with the gun turrets again. Afterwards, Sensei tested their strength, speed, and endurance in the normal gym room. While Jay was by far the fastest, he lacked endurance and he wasn't very strong. Cole was very strong and his endurance was slightly above average, but he wasn't very gifted in the speed department. Kai and Zane were the most well-rounded, with Kai being slightly faster, and Zane having the better endurance.

The next hour after that, they were sparring one another without their powers. Kai was the best at CQC, while Zane and Cole prefered to fight at a distance. In fact, Sensei was constantly telling the two of them to be more aggressive. Jay was pretty good fighting in close quarters, but he lacked the experience to keep up with the better trained Kai.

After that, they were back in the special training room to fight against the gun turrets, except this time it was one at a time. Out of the four of them, Cole had the most trouble since his powers were somewhat limited in the room. Surprisingly, or not surprisingly, Kai was the one who ended up with the most bruises from the laser blasts. He hadn't been hit as many times as when he had first attempted the drill, but it was still a lot.

Finally, finally, Sensei declared that they were done for the day and that they were free to do anything that they wanted. Cole called dibs on the shower first, as he and everyone else was sweating like no tomorrow. Once he was inside the shower, he turned on the hot water and sighed as he felt his already sore muscles relax a little. He stood underneath the shower head for a few minutes, closing his eyes and relaxing.

After quickly washing his hair, he got out the shower, dried himself off, and put on his favorite orange t-shirt(which read 'Camp Half-Blood' on the front) and black shorts. He walked back to his bedroom and flopped down on his bed, rearranging the pillows to get really comfortable. A quick look outside the window of his room revealed that the sky had turned a lovely shade of orange and pink.

Thoughts of his dad flitted through his head, and Cole was suddenly reminded of his promise to write to him as soon as he could. Grabbing his backpack, he pulled out a pen and a notebook. Lying down, he started to write:

Hey Dad.

Sorry it took me a while to write this, but please don't worry. I'm doing just fine. In fact, I'm doing great. While I was walking around, I met this really nice man named Sensei Wu. He said that he could help me control my powers better. Isn't that awesome?!
I also met some guys, Dad, and they're just like me! Well, like me in the fact that they also have super-powers! Jay's super nice, even if he does talk a lot. Zane's pretty quiet, but he's super smart. Kai's really stubborn and a bit of a jerk, but he's not so bad once you get to know him. They're training with me, and you won't believe it Dad. They made me their leader. Me! It was incredible! I hope I do a good job...

I miss you, Dad. And I'm really sorry that I had to leave like that. I just hope that you aren't too mad and that you know that I'm safe. And that I've made some new friends. I hope that one day you'll get to meet them. I'll see if I can send you a picture in my next letter so that you'll know what they look like!

Love you,

Cole

Cole read over what he wrote and sighed, ripping the paper from his notebook and folding it in thirds. He set it on the nightstand next to his bed. He'd ask Sensei if he could send it for him later. For right now, he just wanted to relax.

He placed his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. He lay there for a few seconds before frowning and grabbing his iPod from his bag. He chose a song, put in his earbuds and lay back down, listening to his music. But, even still, he couldn't bring himself to be still. His finger was tapping on his thigh in time to the music, and his foot was tapping out a rhythm. Suddenly, the young dancer was overcome with the irresistible urge to, well, dance.