Power of the Gods

Chapter 8

Justin had taken a shower and changed into a clean pair of clothes that he kept in his locker before heading out to the courtyard for lunch with Alpha. He bought lunch for him and Alpha, then sat against the wall looking out at the courtyard. The rain had lessened somewhat, it was now more of a drizzle. While they ate their food, Justin pulled out the book the principal had given him and started reading through it.

As Justin read his book, Lucas stood at a nearby snack machine in the hallway, fully healed by the school nurses and counting his money.

"Great," he sighed, pounding his head on the machine when he realized he didn't have enough. He looked over at Justin. "Hey!" he said. Justin didn't notice him. Lucas tried getting his attention a few more times before walking over to him.

"Can you lend me some money?" Lucas asked him. Justin and Alpha looked up at him. "I don't have enough for the chips."

Justin and Alpha looked at each other, then back at Lucas. "Um, sure," he said. "How much do you need?"

"Thanks man," Lucas said. "I need about tree fity."

Justin stopped as he was pulling out his money. "I'm sorry, how much did you say?" he asked.

"Tree fiddy," Lucas repeated.

"You mean three fifty?" Justin asked.

"That's what I said. Tree fiddy," said Lucas.

Justin stared at him. "Say three," he said.

"Three," Lucas repeated.

"Now say fifty," Justin said.

"Fifty," Lucas repeated.

"Now say three fifty," Justin instructed.

"Tree fiddy," Lucas said.

Justin closed the book and sighed. "Whatever," he said as he pulled out the money. "Here."

Lucas took the money and turned towards the snack machine. "What's you're name anyways?" he finally asked.

"It's Justin," Justin answered. "What's yours?"

"Lucas. Lucas Mastin," he said proudly.

"Oh yeah," Justin said, thinking. "Didn't you fail during the Team Placement Tests and break your ribs or something?"

Lucas slumped over in depression. "Yeah, that was me," he admitted. "But now I'm fully healed and ready to go again."

Justin held in a laugh. "Okay then, but you're gonna have to wait for a while."

"Why?" Lucas asked curiously.

Justin opened up the book again. "Because I think that they're waiting for a new shipment of training bots. The other ones got destroyed."

"WHAT?!" Lucas shouted in disbelief. "How?"

"I trashed them during my test," Justin said. "Although I don't really remember doing it."

"Woah," Lucas said, stepping back. "What wave did you make it to?"

Justin thought about that for a while. "Let's see...I made it to wave 5, but blacked out after that. The next thing I knew I was standing in the center of a trashed simulation arena and a bunch of piles of scrap metal."

"Weird," Lucas said. He was just about ask another question before the bell rang. "Crap!" he said, looking at the snack machine. "I didn't get my chips!" He ran over to the machine just as a metal coating surrounded it, blocking out any use of it. A screen came up with red letters on it. Closed, please try again after class. Have a nice day! They read.

Lucas fell to the floor in defeat. "Why?" he asked the machine. "Why do bad things happen to good people?"

Justin and Alpha watched him. "Right..." he said, feeling awkward. "You can keep the money. I've gotta go, don't wanna be late for history." He slowly stepped back until he passed the corner, running towards his history class. "That was so weird," Justin said to Alpha.