"C'mon, Dan," Leah pleaded with him. "Just whip it off. It's easy."
"Maybe it's easy for you," he muttered, "you've already done it once."
"Yeah, but I didn't mean for it to happen," she replied. "It just kind of... happened. Now come on, just do it slowly, one inch at a time."
"I never thought something so simple could be so difficult," Dan said.
Leah smiled. "Trust me; it'll be much easier once you've gotten some practise in. Now come on, just take it off. Don't be so afraid – I promise I won't laugh if your first time doesn't go well."
"Hey Leah," Matt called from across the room. "When do we get our turn? Quit spending so much time on Dan."
"Yeah," Katie added, grinning. "We need some practise too, you know."
Leah laughed. "Be patient guys. You'll all get a turn, but I have to do it one at a time, or else I'll be overwhelmed." She turned back to her friend. "Now come on, Dan, there are other people waiting to have a go, so off with it."
The five kids were sitting in their sunlit apartment. Dan and Leah were sitting cross-legged on the sofa, facing each other, while Matt, Katie and James were sitting up the dinner table, with their respective Number cards spread out in front of them. They were anxious for Leah to start training them too.
The previous day, Leah had engaged in a fierce battle with a Number holder. In fact, the duel had been so intense that the enemy Number had ended up shattering Leah's metal wristband, the only thing that prevented her from being possessed by her Numbers. Amazingly, however, the young girl had managed to fight off all four of her Numbers, and had managed to avoid being possessed.
Since then, her superiors had given her a replacement band so she could still extract Numbers from other people, but at the moment it lay forgotten on the table beside her. She really had no use for it – she was now able to dispel an attacking Number with just a flicker of thought. She marvelled at how easy it had become with practise. And now she was training the others to do the same, by telling them to remove their bands and fight off their Numbers when they attacked. The others had agreed that it was for the best, and decided to let her train them.
Well, three of them did. James couldn't be bothered to go through all that effort, since he didn't hunt Numbers that often. Instead, he was content to lounge around on his laptop, learning everything he could about the metal bands. He'd already learnt a lot about how they work and how they fitted together – so much so that he felt confident that he could take one apart and put it back together perfectly.
Wearily, Dan dug his fingers under the edge of the metal band around his wrist, and prepared to pull it off his arm. "So when I remove this thing, all of my Numbers will attack me at once?"
"Yep," Leah nodded. "But your original Number will overpower them and try and take you over itself. You need to learn how to fight it off. You've mastered your doubts just like I did, so the Number will try and attack your mind using waves of negative emotions. You need to protect your subconscious using positive emotions. The way I did it was to think of a happy memory, and immerse myself in it." She grinned. "You need to become part of the Happy Revolution!"
The others just stared at her. James looked up from his computer. "The Happy Revolution...?" he said incredulously.
She nodded. "Yep! That's what I'm calling it. So there."
"Sounds simple in theory," Dan muttered. "Ok then, here we go..." With one swift movement, he pulled the metal band from his wrist. Immediately, he gasped as the presence of his five Numbers assailed him, attacking his mind with every negative emotion they could muster. There weren't enough negative emotions in Dan's own body to amplify, so the Numbers created their own and hurled them into his mind. Leah watched with interest as four glowing numbers etched themselves onto his hand – twenty, fifty-five, three, eighty-six – one after the other, all of them overlapping. Then, all four symbols shattered, and a new one replaced them – the blue number sixty-eight. She recognised it immediately. Number 68: Glacial Dragon was Dan's original Number, and it was trying to take him over, just as her Number 17 had done.
All of the Deltas watched carefully as Dan clutched his chest and cried out in pain, the number on his skin glowing brighter than ever. The metal band fell from his rigid fingers and landed on the carpeted floor with a soft thud. Leah allowed the process to go on a little longer, before finally deciding that Dan wasn't going to do it. She reached out and placed her left hand gently over the top of his right.
The blue number sixty-eight on the back of his hand went out like a light. In that same instant, the invasive presence in Dan's mind was washed away by a great, calming force, and he allowed his breathing to stabilize once again.
Leah smiled at him. "Close, but not quite," she told him.
"I really thought I knew how it worked," Dan lamented as Leah reached down onto the floor to retrieve his band. "But that power... it's overwhelming. I just got swallowed up by it."
Leah pressed the metal band into his palm. "Don't worry about it," she said. "No-one expects you to manage it first time. Now come on, let's give someone else a go." As Dan stood up, she turned to the table and called to the others. "Alright, who's next?"
Katie stood up. "I'll give it a try," she said. Leah nodded and motioned her over. She gathered up her five Number cards and strode over to her. The sofa shifted back slightly as she sat down.
"Alright, you know how this works," she said. "Except it'll be slightly different for you than it was for me and Dan."
"Different how?" Katie queried.
She was about to explain, but Matt cut in instead. "Because those two know each other. They both had exactly the same doubts about each other, and they both mastered them. Am I right?"
Leah nodded. "That's basically it," she said.
Katie sat in thought for a moment. "Well, all of my feelings regarding Keane and Esta have been resolved, so I'm not really sure what my Number will do..."
"If you ask me," Leah said, "I reckon that, since you've already mastered your own emotions, the Number won't have anything to amplify. So it'll do to you what it did to me; try to fill you up with misery and pain that it created. You have to combat it with your own happiness and joy. The Happy Revolution, Katie! Can you do that?"
"I can try..." she said, and yanked her band off without a second thought. She cried out in anguish as the siege of her mind began. Ninety-four, thirty-three, twenty-two, fourteen - each one blazing trails across her hand like a bolt of lightning, before being replaced by the main one, the number ninety-one. Her original Number. She felt the immense waves of pain and hatred and sadness come crashing down on her soul like a tidal wave, and like Dan before her, she clutched her heart as she desperately tried to fend off the Number.
After about half a minute, the glowing red symbol on the back of her hand flickered. It was very slight, but Leah saw it, and knew that Katie must have found a way to fight back.
But then she messed up. Leah noticed a brief look of triumph pass over Katie's face, followed almost immediately by a look of horror as the Number took advantage of her lapse in concentration, and integrated itself further into her mind. She frantically tried to retrieve her happy memory, but amid the Number's dark presence it was too hard. She felt her mind fading into nothing, succumbing to the darkness...
Then a hand touched her arm softly, and the Number's presence was swept away. The glowing red ninety-one on her had vanished in an instant, and a sense of calm passed over her.
"Really good first try," Leah said enthusiastically. "You made some real progress."
"That's... it's unbelievable..." Katie panted. "I knew the theory, and I knew which memory I wanted to use. But I had no idea that you had to concentrate on it that much."
"Surprising, isn't it?" Leah grinned, as Matt stood up. Katie's band had been knocked a bit further than Dan's, so he went to pick it up while Leah maintained skin contact, keeping the Numbers at bay. "Even the slightest distraction or crack in your armour, and the Number will break through," she explained.
"Yeah..." Katie nodded. She was exhausted, so Leah sent her back to sit down and beckoned Matt over. "Alright, captain. You're up."
Matt handed the band back to Katie, then swapped places with her on the sofa and sat facing Leah. "I'm ready," he said, serious as usual.
"Ok, for the most part, the same thing applies to you as it did with Katie," she explained. "I don't really know about what your Number was amplifying when it possessed you, so only you can determine whether you were able to master yourself to a high enough degree. Regardless, you need to work out how your Number plans to attack you, and you need to do it quickly once you remove the band. Understood?" Matt nodded. "Ok, then give it a try. And remember: Happy Revolution."
With apprehension, Matt curled his fingers around the cold metal... and hesitated. He couldn't believe he was really doing this. The last time he had combatted his Number, he had been possessed, and had injured a great number of innocent people. What if it happened again? What if he was unable to control it? What if he-
He shook his head vigorously. No! He mustn't think those thoughts. He mustn't put doubts into his own mind – doubts that his Number could use against him. He had to be absolutely sure of himself. Besides, Leah was sitting a few feet away from him. She wouldn't let anything happen to him. It made him happy to know that she was watching him, caring for his safety...
In one deft motion, he slipped the band off his wrist.
He felt the Numbers' presence attack his mind almost immediately. He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, ignoring the glowing symbol that flashed onto the back of his hand, and prepared himself to fend off any doubts and any fear that came his way. He knew there were plenty of both inside him, and he was more than ready to counter them.
But the reality shocked him. Instead of assailing his mind with misery and despair, the Number picked a very different emotion. A positive emotion. One that Matt hadn't even realised was there.
The Number amplified it and used it to lash out at Matt's mind. Matt had been expecting to deal with negative emotions, not this. He wasn't prepared for this. He opened his eyes and shouted as that powerful emotion intensified even more. "Leah! Help me!" he cried. "Stop the Number! I can't fight it! Stop it!"
Leah was shocked to see Matt like this, and immediately thrust her hand forward and clamped onto the side of his neck.
And just like that, it was over. Matt felt the Numbers presence, along with the amplified emotion, disappear from his mind. No... not quite disappeared. The Number's power had drawn attention to that emotion, and now he could feel it, aching inside him.
He looked at the other three Deltas, who were all staring at him, wondering what had happened. Then he turned back to Leah, who was looking at him with concern, and the emotion inside him intensified even more as he made eye contact.
He knew which emotion it was. In his heart, he'd known it for months. He just hadn't wanted to admit it. But the Number had forced it to the surface, thrust aside all of his other emotions and forced him to confront this one head on. There was no hiding from it anymore.
He took in everything about Leah's form: her bright hazel eyes, her long brown-blonde hair, the concerned look on her face, and the gentle feel of her hand against his neck. He felt his heart jump, ever so slightly. And that confirmed it.
It was infatuation.
He was in love with Leah.
Fun Fact #1: And there you have it. That's what all of those Ultra-Subtle Foreshadowing Hints were leading up to. I know that you were probably expecting something better than this, but this will have to do. Hope you enjoy it.
Fun Fact #2: Remember, the Deltas may be Number hunters that are out to save the world from vaguely evil forces, but they're still teenagers. They still have to go through all the crazy stuff that comes from growing up, including "high school crushes".
Fun Fact #3: I'm willing to bet that most of you were thinking of something completely different from Number training for the first eight lines.