Crystalline Cavern: The Brigaders

Prologue

6-December-2216

0900 hours    |

Eliza

       Taking my usual stance, I take long, deep breaths and clench my fists a few times to ease the shaking that seemed to have started moments before entering the wide facility. My eyes kept wandering around the tall building, targets lining the walls with mock weapons and tall beams lining the edges towards the corner of the building. The concrete floor looked as though it dragged on forever as my eyes finally started to look down the course I was about to take. The Pathwa Centre was filled with other students, beams of colors whisking around the room as others ran their courses, none of which, was as crowded as mine. My Training Instructor or TI gave me a signal, sweat already forming a line along my brow. Turning my head further, my eyes finally land on my team. Their smiles and cheers give me the strength that I needed, for the most part, to simply just wipe the sweat off my brow. My main focus in the crowd was a tall, toned figure with slightly tousled dark brown hair. His piercing hazel eyes giving me more confidence.

       I look at my friend Ruby, a squinted eye smile was all that came from her as she gives me a thumbs up for support. Her short bobbed, light brown hair moved around as her small lean body slightly bounced in place in an attempt to hype me up. You couldn't ask for a better best friend. She's always there for me whether it's for support, a shoulder to cry on, or an alarm in the morning when you're late for class. Today is too important for me to let anyone down. Achieving Quartz rank is key so I can advance to the next procedure of my training, or we'll never be able to win TNT, The Neon Tournament, and achieve ultimate glory for our school. We still need to get our revenge on the Night Walkers for last year's...inconvenience.  We are the representative team for our school, Neon Warrior Academy. Anything that we do leaves an impression on the academy's reputation. Whether it be Rank Rage, academics, or TNT. To be the face of this place not only gives us the weight of immense pressure, but also a sense of pride. The Brigaders are a name that will be added to our academy's history books just as the previous team did. "I'm ready!" The TI nodded and took out a stopwatch. 

       Suddenly, there was a loud sound of a horn, signifying the start of the Leveling. I began running down the course and did small maneuvers to avoid raised metal poles from the ground, a few jumps to avoid the holes that could've caused a misstep to mess up my time and, a swift sliding motion underneath a raised wall that hung by two chains from the ceiling. The crowd started to get rowdy by the second. Everything was pretty mellow for us until we entered the Advanced Division of the academy. All of the stakes were raised: the curriculum, the training hours, the close attention to detail that they'd watch from afar. It was enough to have anyone just crack from the smallest critique. Not for us though, because all of us have something that we're looking forward to in the future for ourselves. For now, I'm going to focus on the task at hand.

       I summon my multi-staff and strike as I speed through the obstacle course and jump over the next wall, this time coming from the ground up, by pounding my staff on the ground and pushing myself upward. Utilizing my aura, which made a wave of fiery violet, as a boost until I transformed my staff by twisting it to add the blades on the ends to cut through objects that headed in my direction. I made sure to drown out all noise and distractions, leaving the Brigader's voices ringing through my ears. 

       I was pumped, like always when I train! But this was no ordinary training session, no this, was a Leveling Course, a Pathwa, and it's one of the most important courses of my entire life of training! I'm determined to continue on and defend our school and the Brigader's name! Even if it meant doing things that have never been done before and go past my limits mentally and physically. I headed towards an incline that caused me to be about six feet in the air. I leaped over the edge to then see a few targets placed before me, but I was slightly out of range of where I wanted to be. Using my Túresse, I teleported just a couple of feet further from the ledge of the incline, and using my Shift Activator, I changed my staff to my handheld blaster and fired a few shots at the targets, hitting bulls-eyes left and right. I then teleported closer to the ground to lighten my descent and continued running towards the finish line.

       All I want to do is take down the Night Walkers and win TNT with my comrades. I'll never forget all of the memories I've made with them and I'm sure we're only going to continue to make more in the future. Reaching the final stretch of the course, trying not to look at the timer that was displayed overhead, I skipped through the final hurdles of the course and slid across the painted white line at the end where another horn sounded off signaling the end of the Pathwa. I slowly looked up at the timer and back at my teammates as my body gave into exhaustion.