Side-Story: Camp 1

Side-Story: Camp 1

The pair stood in front of the door, the others sitting behind them and watching. There were a few screens on the walls for the audience to watch the pair’s progress. Next to the door, the beefy dude with dog tags, Axel, stood with his arms crossed. He was one of the new hero instructors that had arrived over the past few days. He reached up and adjusted his sunglasses with a grin. “You two ready?” He asked with a grunt, “Happy with your choice of partner?”

Greg rolled his neck and rubbed it a bit with his hand. Next to him, John stood as stiff as a board, shoulders rigid and eyes straight forward. His hands moved, though, a long training knife in his hand. He’d switched from bouncing between butterfly knife and switchblade after some extra attention from Miss Chernovna. Greg tilted his head and glanced at his partner who nodded in his usual sullen way. Greg smirked and looked up at Axel, “We’re good.”

Axel tilted his head up and looked down at them, “We’ll see about that, best time is three minutes so far. Clear the room of hostiles, today’s theme is villains and human criminals. There’s a volunteer ‘villain’ inside. Keep the killing blows to a minimum. You’re heroes, don’t forget,” He crossed his arms and turned his eyes to the small crowd of aspirants sitting behind them. “You lot can watch on the screens.”

Greg licked the inside of his lip and rubbed his thumb over his palm, tugging a bit on his fingers and flexing them. “Got it.”

“Woo! Get ‘em Gravitic!” A voice called out from behind them. He rolled his eyes and glanced over his shoulder with a smirk at the girl with blue highlights sitting near the front of the crowd, gloved fist in the air. He raised his fist as well and winked before bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet. He’d seen Lillian do it a few times to get pumped up.

“You first?” John asked.

Greg glanced at him, “I’ll set ‘em up for you.”

“Shortest time then,” John nodded with a twitch of his lip, his version of a smile.

Axel looked between the two of them, “Back up that confidence,” He turned and tapped a button on the panel behind him, “Fifteen seconds till the door opens.”

Greg and John stepped forward and stood at the door. John twirled his knife and shifted his stance to provide a side angle of himself. Greg’s right palm began to glow and he entered a crouch, ready to dash. Three... Two... One...

The door snapped open with a hiss.

“Very,” Greg grumbled, “Borderline-fuckin-heroic.”

“Kick his ass anyway?” John muttered.

“Of course,” Greg chuckled and hopped back playfully to one of the crates facing their opponent and hopped on top of it, he slapped his right hand down on the surface and gravity erupted from it, pushing out towards John and Alex. John darted forward, his light body taking advantage of the ‘falling’ while Alex jumped into the air to land on the wall behind him, looking up at John as he hurtled ‘down’ at him. John turned into a pinwheel, twisting his body into a falling axe kick aimed at the center of Alex’s head.

Alex grinned and opened his mouth, his jaw widening to fit John’s entire leg if it had to. Greg snorted and slapped his left hand down on the box, John suddenly falling towards him for a moment. Alex grunted as he was lifted while John kicked off the floor as Greg reversed gravity again, the result made Greg burst into laughter. Alex landed back on the ground on his butt as his jaw snapped shut so he could change which limb he was increasing. Meanwhile, John landed behind him and whipped his knife out to press against Alex’s neck.

“Finish.”

Alex groaned, “Ah fine!” He grumbled and threw his hands up.

John looked ‘up’ at Greg and nodded, perspective was weird when you could selectively change gravity based on surface area. Greg disabled his ability and the two landed on the ground properly, hopping off the wall and onto the floor. Greg slipped off the box and landed on his feet, rubbing his hands together. A buzzer went off over his head.

“Not bad, boys!” Axel’s voice came in over the intercom, “The new time to beat is one minute, fifteen seconds.”

Greg threw his fists up in the air, “Woo hoo!” He cheered, “Yes!”

Alex and John came over to join him, Greg reached out and clapped Alex on the shoulder. “Scales look good, bud.”

Alex smirked, “Been a while since we tussled, you look happy.”

Greg grinned, “Well yeah, I just scored myself a date tonight.”