Chapter 357 - 357. Shaky

By the time Asher and Jackson had returned to the main camp they had armfuls of berries and some roots that were edible after being cooked by the fires they had started. The day was progressing fairly fast and the other students had been more or less lazing about when they weren't trying to find food themselves.

Louis had managed to find one boy who had trained in making traps for small animals. None of them seemed to catch anything but since this was a man made forest that was often changed, it was not a surprise. However, the knowledge was useful, and as soon as Louis felt he had grasped it her found the others and began to show them too. 

The training was improving their teaching and teamwork skills. They had to work together on their projects to make sure that they all had food and warmth. The group ended up making their own small shelter that Art had bent metal for and Jackson had supervised. They had learned about braiding long grasses from Jane who looked it up when she was younger to make a grass crown. 

The skill could come in useful for when they were out on rescue missions. There were some heroes that would search for weeks on end in the wilderness for a missing person. This would often be joined by many others but there was always a hero that refused to give up. If and when they succeeded they would be praised. The truly impressive quality they had though was the endurance that was trained to search for the smallest signs and proof of life. 

"So why can't you make us a pot to make soup or something better with the wild herbs and nuts?" Sammy was trying to figure out why Art was so adamant about letting them use some piece of metal he could shape in to a pot. In her eyes, it was a valuable way to use his super power. 

"Alright, let's think this way. What if the metal leys chemicals pff of it and you eat it? " This was a good point but was easily countered by Sammy.

"We can wash it pff forst." Her smug grin made her look exactly the way she was thinking. She thought she was a genius that had just solved their dinner problem.

"Yeah, and what will happen if the metal comes off in the water and poisons us instead? Or do you know what metals the wreckage is made out of and of the melted parts are just metal or something more?" Art had not ignored the lessons when he was in the chemistry classes. He knew exactly how dangerous metal could be. Especially when the wrong metals were added in to the body. Just because they had super powers not, did not make them invincible. 

Art and  Sammy were about to continue arguing, but before they knew it the ground had begun to tremble slightly. the slight trembles began to grow and grow over the course of a few moments until a full-on earthquake was shaking them to their core. The shouts of the students were the only things that could be heard around them until Asher's voice broke through.

"Everyone away from the trees exclamation! they could get uprooted while the ground shakes!"  Asher pulled away from the nearest tree and the entire group move toward the center of the clearing. Some of the smaller shelters begin to fall over but the well made ones managed to remain standing through the entire three minute long earthquake. 

" what in the world was that!" Cara  Was looking around for any potential cause.  see half-expected that garnet and Coach Winters for the cause of this due to the additional challenge that it would make. However, if this was the case then there should be more to it than just an earthquake. Cara could not understand what the whole point of all this had been. 

"That couldn't have been it, right? Just knock over some of the small shelters and that is that?" The rest of the group mimicked her thoughts and began to look around on high alert. 

Before anyone could say or do anything there was a stampede of footsteps. There were about twenty staff members from the school all wearing combat uniforms. Coach Winters and Garnet were leading them. "Get in line and head back to the school. We are locking down. There was an incident in the city!" Garnet shouted, she knew that there would be a prompt response. The students she was yelling at were trained enough not to panic in these situations. 

"They are really getting in to this." One of the students was trying to take this lightly. The only problem was that all of them were slowly noticing the massive plume of black smoke coming from further away from the school ground. They had all realized that this wasn't some planned test. If it was then the school would be shut down by the environmental protection branch of hero corp.

Laura had been the one deemed to carry the communication earbuds that they had gotten since she always had spare room to carry snacks for when her metabolism forced her to eat more. She was moving quickly to hand them out since the situation called for their use. She had not used them during the training since it was not very important and most likely a punishable breach of the survival rules. 

"This is a little more than just training." Art wanted to believe that this was actually a very convincing illusion of sorts. 

"Garnet, coach Winters, is this bad?" Asher jobbed to the front and tested the waters with a question. He had a feeling that they would answer him more so than any of the others. 

"Unknown, we just know that a small villain group started a fight earlier this morning. Heroes were dispatched and then it was found that the villains were in much higher numbers than expected. They targeted research labs to get certain doses of the new evo shots all over the news.' Garnet knew this and only this. 

"Most labs were shut down and barricaded. They have plenty of trained hero staff or law enforcement staff. " Coach Winters knew that Art would be worrying about his parents. This was the only thing she could think to say to make sure that none of the worried. 

The school began to show and the trees began to thin out. They were much closer to the school than they had been before fonding the clearing. They were not permitted to head back to the school during the training but a lot of the students had gone out for walks or food harvesting and not seen the school at all. 

The door to the large gym was open just long enough to allow everyone inside. The metal shutters closed locking them in and a lockdown alarm was finally turned off. "Listen up, we are going to find out the situation in the city. If need be we will evacuate all of you. For now, stay here and wait. We will open some rations to eat so you can maintain your strength." 

This was all that Garnet said before she and the other staff members left. "That was a little intense." Louis was watching them leave and realized that all the staff members were familiar but had normally blended in to the background while normal school was in session. The custodian, cafeteria workers, and even one of the other gym teachers were in full combat gear. They were all trained in some aspect of law enforcement. This doubled to protect students and also for the fact that they were better to teach certain subjects. 

"There's no cellphone service in here so we can't even tell your parents we are alright or have them ask us." Cara was trying to call Asher had her parents to no avail. The sudden influx of calls about the earth quake had slowed the system and crashed the cellphone towers. It was something that shouldn't happen but was inevitable during a disaster. 

"They are fine. We just need to wait this out. Worst case we have to fight, Best case, everything is over and we just need to breathe and relax." Asher comforted Cara a little until she slapped his hands away. She had enough and was now waiting to see what would happen.

'"t was a pretty big earthquake, but it was caused by an explosion. One that big would normally have aftershocks. It was an explosion and not an act of nature." It was simple to deduce. But having the knowledge was not helpful. The group was still stuck in a room. Jackson's voice said what they were all just as curious and lost. The villains had caused this and everyone needed to be o  their toes and prepared." The training had fallen to get something completely different. The entire group was just happy to have everything ready to use at their fingertips.. Now to wait.