Chapter 70 - 70. Jogging

The door slid open and presented them with the bright sunlight. The three were blended for a moment before their eyes were able to adjust to the daylight. The view of trees filled their eyes from every direction. "Welcome to the crystal forest. It looks pretty green now but in the winter the mist freezes just right to show off the best ice forest you have ever seen." The woman that had grabbed Asher waved a hand at all the trees.

"The camp is ten miles that way, good luck getting there." She closed the door to the car hopped in and drove off. The three stood there silent and stuck.

"She just said ten miles...right?" Jackson gulped and looked in the direction she had pointed.

"I wish she didn't...at least I ate a full breakfast." Asher rolled up his sleeves and started to stretch his muscles. After he had spent a solid ten minutes he started in a straight line following the direction the woman had pointed. "No point in just standing there, come on!" His yell was enough to get Jackson on the move too.

For someone so large he was easily matching Asher's pace. "You have a good running pace, are you sure you aren't physically enhanced like me?" Jackson had no issues talking and running at this slow pace. To him this was a walk in the park, the main problem was that he absolutely hated running with a passion, he preferred the slow calm life.

Laura was nowhere to be seen and Asher couldn't find the breath to reply to Jackson. Instead, he just focused on his breathing and kept his feet moving straight. "Ugh!" Jackson had started a pretty impressive streak of tripping on almost every single tree root they passed.

"Ninty seven." Asher huffed out this number.

"I swear it's not a game. Just because I have tripped that many times." The defeated sounding Jackson easily caught back up to Asher.

"Whoa, you tripped that many times? You need to watch it more carefully. There are a lot more roots up there." Laura had shown up next to them without warning.

Asher didn't have the mental energy to be surprised and just kept on moving forward. The terrain was tough for him to maneuver and he had been jogging slowly for over two hours.

Laura was gone in another blink of an eye. "Is she actually teleporting instead of running? I can't keep up with her using my eyes. And they should be the peak of humans!" Jackson was having trouble fathoming Laura's power.

While the two ran Laura started to pop up here and there just to check on them, it was clear that she could have easily gotten to the camp without them. Knowing that she was worrying over them even though they just met made the jog more bearable.

Asher suddenly stopped and looked forward. "What's wrong? We still have at least two miles to get through." There was a slight sheen on Jackson's face but otherwise, he looked perfectly fine after so much jogging in tough terrain.

"I am pretty sure I hear water...great." Asher's sarcasm was the strongest it had ever been as he started up his job again. When he finally reached the water he could hear it was more than he imagined.

"So I was able to hop over the rocks to the other side. But they are slippery." Laura popped up and started commenting.

"Think I can pull that off too?" Asher did not even hesitate to respond. The number of times she had done this in the last few hours was enough to desensitize him for life. 'This has to be some hidden training. This girl just shows up without any rhyme or reason to test my heart.'

"Sure, just don't fall in by that big rock because it's really deep and you will get totally soaked." Laura pointed out the larges rock in the rapids. The water around it was swirling a little and had formed a pool.

"Why did there need to be a river here...Do you think it's on purpose?"

"Jackson, everything has been on purpose. They grabbed us when we weren't expecting them. They dropped us where we didn't expect to be, and now there is water which is also unexpected. Now I know why everyone called this camp cruel. Lucky for me my sister didn't let me work out this morning or I would be on the ground back there a few miles." Asher was counting his lucky stars and looking at the rocks.

Without much hesitation, he began hopping across the stones one by one. The water was not deep but it was moving fast enough to make sure he would fall down if he slipped. "Avoid that green rock it looks like its-" Asher tried to warn Jackson but he was too late. Jackson was sitting in a shallow part of the river completely soaked.

"Why must my life be so chaos filled…" Jackson lamented the loss of his slow life. Since he had his evo shot his life had become much more busy. He was priorly a skinny quiet person who studied and worked in the garden. He was the newest member of the gardening club at school. Now he was bulky and clumsy. "I will get used to this new body even if it kills me!"

Having found his inner fire, Jackson was already standing and trying to power through the water. He stepped over the smaller stone and vaulted over the larger ones. "Hey remember what Laura said about the big one!" Asher tried his best but again he was too late.

Jackson was fully underwater and trying to swim his way to the shallow part again. "Why is it every time I try to just get it over with it gets worse!" His cry made Laura giggle from the other side of the river. She had long gotten to the other side and was amused watching the bulky Jackson attempt to get across the river.