Obey

Chapter 11: Survival of the Fittest

Monday - Mr. Raven's class...

After a month and some change of brutal physical training, the crazed tactician's suit up order hadn't come as a surprise.

Emerging from the women's locker room, Tina winced when she smoothed her hair into a bun. Her crown was still tender.

Trifling wolf.

"Still hurtin'?" Denzel asked from the doorframe of the men's locker room.

"I should be asking you that."

"They're evil, man." Denzel rubbed some of his fading bruises. He'd gotten them from the last tolerance training, where he and Tina had iced beside each other after their Guardians had let them become intimately acquainted with the floor. "Guess I should-"

The sound of scraping metal drew Tina's attention to the indoor obstacle course. In the time it took her to change, it had expanded and looped about the gym.

Looking at the barriers, Tina noticed they began with a rubber track and tall ladder. Attached to the ladder was an overhead jungle gym, and parallel to that was a body of water with an assortment of steppingstones. A short strip of land and an angled trampoline just big enough to fit two people sat at the water's end. Suspended above the trampoline was a trail of rings, and below was a long patch of sand.

Well, that's a landing, the obsidian-haired teen thought as she spied a large foam pad past the rings and rolling log contraption. The nutty professor's up to something.

She put her hands on her hips, and drunk in the maze's lengthy sandpit and stretch of back-to-back hurdles, thinking it looked too easy.

As she made her way to the bleachers, the Protected got flashbacks to high school with the subsequent rope climb to an inverted wall that likened ground-mounted solar panels. Squinting to see a platform, Tina noticed a downward ramp that led to the last obstacle, a type of warped wall at least twice Roscoe's height. With its landing up top, the thing reminded her of those ramps she used to see her out-of-state cousins do tricks on at their neighborhood skatepark.

"Today the name of the game is Think Fast or Die." Mr. Raven, with his lopsided smile, leaned against the ropes of the boxing ring-like center. "These babies are your enemies." He patted the side of one of the course's many animatronics. "Their job is to kill you, so unless you're some type of sadist, evade 'em." Doing some last-minute drone calibrations, the fit man gazed at the bleachers. "Hop-Skip-Jump, you and your Guardian are up first."

Kyle snorted and ran a hand over the field's outlining.

"Oof"—Monáe winced—"Il va détruire ses Jimmy Choo."

"Seriously?" Roscoe regarded. "'He will destroy his Jimmy Choo'?"

"It's good quality." The French beauty wrinkled her nose in an adorable scowl.

"Not to mention, pricey," Tina added.

"...You two have questionable priorities."

"You'll have thirty minutes to run the track as many times as you can," Mr. Raven shouted. "On my mark." He used his handy remote to project a sizeable countdown on the far wall.

"Frogger," Kyle rumbled his psychic order, "we better make it to the end."

"Three!"

"Yes, Mr. Union," Alex mumbled.

"Two!"

Kyle smirked and glanced at the bleachers. "Watch."