Superhuman [Book 1]

13 || When Times Get Rough

➟ zane
┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄┄
(vmc)

The hologram kicked up and I ever so slightly dodge it's powerful sway. Swinging upwards, I collide my metal fist into its chest and it split into a thousand orange pieces. I smiled at myself before the next hologram formed, punching my jaw hard. I hopped backwards and attacked the hologram like I did to the last one. It shriveled into a thousand orange pieces, then disintegrated back into the computer.

The next hologram tests my body cast talent. It charged at me with full speed with a ticking, holographic bomb its hands. I crept Titanium onto my skin and the bomb exploded into pieces.

This type of physical training was defiantly different from the day before. In this type there was punching bags, holograms to fight, targets to shoot at, gadgets to be tested. To be quite honest, I liked this training rather than the dodge ball training we had with Ms. Brutus. It helped me get more prepared for the fight with a potential Draos than dodging balls like I was back in Gym class.

On an even luckier side, the combat training was run by the Elders. This gave us the advantage of having higher ranked intelligence than poor Ms. Brutus who seemed to have an I.Q. of lower than eighty.

"Nice work," I heard the Metal Elder, Jane say. "Your reflexes need a bit of contorting, but you did well." She smiled and laugh lines appear just below her nose. Jane was an older woman with small wrinkles by her eyes and mouth. Although she didn't look a day older forty, she claimed she was a thousand years old. A thousand. Jane pulled her dirty blonde hair into a the ponytail.

"Why don't you go find the others? I'm going to go set up the monitors and grab the supplies we're going to give you for the training. I'll be a short couple of minutes," she smiled again and walked off. I left the glass dojo and roam around the physical combat training room.

I looked around and saw all seven, plus the Elders, in the combat training uniforms. The different colors for the Elements were the colors of our uniforms. I had grey, while Tommy had purple and Ly had green. They were all the same style: t-shirts, sweatpants, socks, and leathery, fingerless gloves.

Kyle was in another one of the glass dojos, morphing into a lion, then a tiger, then a gorilla. Shift seemed to be a cool talent to have. He dodged a few holograms, then used his poison talent to rain acid on his enemies. That was his secondary power; poison. For another weird reason, Alliot seemed to have secondary powers. Ones that normal Elements didn't have. Kyle was able to control poison, Ly controlled the weather, Hazel could meld plasma, Nia could manipulate the air, giving her the ability to fly, and Sam went invisible. The rest of us, we didn't know what our secondaries were yet. I hoped mine turned out to be something worth waiting for.

I ventured along and found Hazzy working on lifting things with her eyes open. Her Elder, Adam is sitting next to her, encouraging her. Next was Nia, she and her Elder, Sarah were floating above one of the target ranges seeming to meditate. I saw Jack punching against a red punching bag, she seemed sweaty and tired. Her hair was tied up in a small ponytail. Next to her was Ly, she kicked and punched away at the bag. Her hair was tied up, too. Ly's Elder, Bo sat on one of the benches texting away on her phone. I could see Ly take quick, angry glances at Bo and huffing each time she didn't lift a finger.

I decided to train with her. She seemed lonely after all. I stood at the punching bag next to her, and took a few swings at it. The bag barely moved, and my fists already ached. My toes felt crushed, and I knew that combat without my metal was difficult.

"Zane, do you need help?" Ly asked in a snippy tone. She stopped beating the bag and looked up at me with her fists still raised.

"I can handle myself, Panar," I sighed, trying to keep my cool. I continued to beat on the bag.