Chapter 4 Learning
The beads of sweat rolled across her forehead and fell to the floor; occasionally a red drop of blood would join the clear drops. He eyes were narrowed in concentration and her clenched fists prepared to strike. Lorena lunged at Romeo.
He caught the fist in an upper block and delivered a low-power but painful gut-punch that dropped her to her knees "Come-on!" He snapped, "Stop trying to hit me and use your powers, remember what I taught you!" Lorena jumped to her feet again, she would not give Romeo the satisfaction of beating her. But in truth, she doubted she could win. It had been a stressing time for all of them. The Easter holidays had started, which meant they were all studying hard for the coming exams. But on top of it all their underground base had caved in and they had had to be dug out by Romeo, Ammar and Freddie; Ammar had volunteered the basement of his father's barbershop as a temporary base but there was not much room. Lastly Adrian had assigned Romeo and Monique to training and while Monique's combat classes were not so bad, Romeo was driving them all very hard with his powers training.
She looked at her surroundings, Romeo was in front of her, clad in blue and red basketball shorts and a white t-shirt, and he was powered up but minimally. The rest of them were in a circle around a clear space where they had placed crash mats in an improvised fighting ring. Romeo placing her in a strong headlock, snapped her to reality; it hurt. "Think!" he yelled into her ear "there are literally half a dozen ways you could break out of this hold with your powers." Lorena bit his hand but he would not let go "Damn you Romeo! I can control the weather, not break bones like you!" the pain was intensifying. Romeo just scoffed "if you formed a small cloud in here and turned it into a jet stream around you like I told you, you could blast me skywards and give me a concussion. Lorena screamed in frustration and clouds began to form in the basement. The class backed into the corners out of fear but the clouds paid no attention to them, instead they gathered over Romeo and Lorena. A bolt of lighting flashed in the room and struck Romeo with millions of volts of electricity. He bellowed in pain and let go of Lorena who flipped around and kicked him in the face.
He fell to the floor, Lorena howled in triumph but stopped when she heard a laugh. Romeo stood up, his shirt was in cinders but he was otherwise unchanged except maybe he had powered up more. "Nice try" he said with a smirk playing about on his lips "but my powered up, dense skin makes me very resistant to electricity." He raised a fist to strike again but Monique placed a restraining hand on his shoulder "alright Romeo, that's enough… everyone can go, we're done for today."
Lorena caught a glimpse of Monique scolding Romeo but was unable to hear what she said as Adrian called for everybody's attention. "Allright Listen up everyone, there's a new mission and I need people to go right now!" Said Adrian in a relatively calm but nonetheless urgent tone. "Did Alice have a vision?" asked Aimee with wide eyes "no but Ammar saw this on the television upstairs." Adrian pressed a button on his iPhone and the small screen blinked to a newscast. The woman's voice said, "This man, who is calling himself golem, murdered three police officers and is now being chased down Regent Street. This man seems to have abilities of the kind many people around the country are showing; the man here has transformed himself into some kind of earth monster." Adrian turned the newscast off and looked at the kids, "Helen is already flying Agatha there for transport and Lydia is waiting ready, I need four more people to get ready. Dominic stepped forward along with Ellie Tapper and Anna, Lorena took a deep breath and stepped forward as well.
Adrian smiled "excellent, now the four of you, suit up… Monique will be team leader." Dom was already in costume and simply placed his helmet on and fastened his purple cloak onto his silver armoured costume… he looked like magneto and several others pointed this out to him, laughing. The rest of them went behind a screen and slipped into their costumes, soon Ellie was in her orange rubber suit that could stretch as like her, Anna was clad in her blue shorts, white women's sports top and bare feet. She finished her 'get-up' by transforming into her diamond form; she sparkled intensely and stepped out of the makeshift changing room. Lastly, Lorena jumped into her short black dress and high heels and slammed the blue eye mask on her face. She walked out and joined the others.
"Ok" said Lydia who was also in her costume (a white onesie with a black minus sign on it) "everyone hold onto me and we'll go. Lorena, Monique, Dom, Ellie and Anna all placed a hand on Lydia. "Remind me again how this works?" asked Dom "it's simple… Agatha and I can teleport to swap places with each other regardless of distance so this is the best way to get there quickly." They held hands in a circle and Lydia's eyes narrowed, a moment passed and they disappeared in a flash of white light.
They all felt a weightless feeling for a millisecond but then landed hard on the ground in the middle of the road. Dom dropped to his knees under the weight of his armour but quickly stood up and joined his teammates. They looked around and it wasn't hard to find golem, they just followed the destruction and globs of clay until they saw him; he was choking a police constable with an earthy tendril. "Dom" said Monique "can you control him?"
"No" said Dom, "I need eye contact to possess someone and I don't think he'll let me get that close." Monique furrowed her brow as she though about a course of action. A minute passed before she moved at all "okay Anna, you me, Lydia and Lorena are going to be decoys, we're going to lure him towards that alley where Ellie will ensnare him and Dom will possess him." Monique gave the go and everyone ran to action.
Dom and Ellie ran to their positions in the alley while the others charged Golem. The monster saw them when they reached less that half the distance, the four girls formed a circle around him and began their assault.
Monique was first to attack, she leapt into the air and delivered a powerful spinning back-kick into Golem's belly, her foot sank in and remained stuck. Golem laughed and spawned more clay that began to envelope Monique. Anna charged forward at this point and made a chopping motion that slashed through Golem's clay body and set Monique free. Lydia pulled a Glock pistol from her belt and fired four times into Golems head, but the bullets had no effect and simply went right through him. He retaliated by firing several clay blobs at Lydia which hit her hard, knocking her off her feet. This was going to be a tough battle.
"Hey everyone! Can you hear me? I've established a telepathic link" it was Arthur speaking to them in their minds "got it Arthur, thanks" Thought Monique. She charged again but was smarter about it this time, she dodged his swipe and leapt over him, she punched him several times in the back but every time there was no effect, "how can we hurt him, he's made of earth!" thought Lydia as she fired more shots in vain. "We have to keep trying" though Monique "Ellie, Dom he's too strong, forget the plan and come here now we need to charge cause he isn't moving." They did not respond but followed the instructions. Ellie snaked her arms out and punched through Golem's head; he swallowed her fist, which dragged her over and clobbered her to the ground, knocking her unconscious. Before he could finish her off though, Lydia ran forward and grabbed her, there was a flash of light and they were both gone, replaced by Agatha who looked slightly surprised but quickly jumped to action.
Suddenly a large rock fell from the sky and smashed through Golem, splitting him in two. They looked up and saw Helen floating a hundred feet above them. The two sides of Golem now reformed into two Golems that attacked different people. One went to Monique, Anna and Helen who moved to formation, Anna used her diamond nails to carve slices of concrete from the road, which Helen and Monique threw in a barrage of sharp rocks at the Golem. The other one however swiped at Agatha, winding her, he then formed a clay scythe with one hand and would have decapitated her were it not for a police officer who ran forward and tackled into the golem, distracting him long enough for Agatha to dodge, the two girls saw the officer's eyes were dead and sure enough, they also saw Dom on the sidewalk with his fingers to his temples. He made the officer do a series of athletic leaps they were sure the man could not have done in his own mind.
This was all in vain however. Nothing any of them did seemed to affect the monster. Dom was taken out with well-aimed clay projectiles and Agatha succumbed to her injury and fainted. Lorena had spent the whole time firing lightning bolts at Golem; they had had no effect. Tears were forming in her eyes, her companions weren't getting up and the Golem that had taken out Dom and Agatha was advancing towards her. Lorena would have screamed but something kept her mouth shut that wasn't just paralysing fear. She noticed that the rain clouds she had formed to barrage Golem with lightning was also drenching him and his clay body was now dripping onto the pavement. Then it all came to her in a flood, "water turns clay to mud… and wind scatters mud" she cried aloud to herself. Finally, what Romeo had said that day flashed through her mind, she could clearly remember his words "If you gather a rain cloud into a concentrated area and then funnel it downwards, you can channel it into a storm blast.
Lorena gathered a very large storm cloud directly above her she continued to condense the air until it was focused into a point no bigger than a chicken egg. This got progressively more difficult but she dug deep. She finally released the air just as golem was upon her. Channelling it downward was the easy part, but funneling it forward took every ounce of her strength and willpower. The results were more than pleasing however because the sudden and violent windblast struck Golem in the centre and he flew apart like leaves. The other golem howled in pain as he was damaged beyond repair; his clay body began to dissolve until all that was left was a frail old man in a foetal position, quietly crying to himself. Monique, Anna and Helen looked in the direction of a wide-eyed Lorena who had not moved from the strike potition out of sheer shock, "Lydia" thought Monique "take us home, and you Helen stay here and fly Lydia back."
Back at the base they saw Dom and the other injured people on gurneys as Floww and Romeo tended to them. Romeo noticed they had returned and said "Monique take over for me, I need to speak to this lot" Monique made to protest but one look from Romeo told her that today was not the day to argue.
The rest of them lined up and waited to be berated for how the mission had gone. "Okay lets start right at the beginning" said Romeo "you didn't follow your leader's instructions, you panicked at the first sign of danger, you endangered lives and you deliberated damaged public property… well done." Anna, Helen and Lorena looked up in surprise at Romeo's last words but he continued "no battle plan survives first contact, how you adapt determines skill, and how you play to your full potential…" he looked at Lorena "determines character." He dismissed them and Helen went to change while Anna simply left to go home.
Lorena however stayed behind and went up to Romeo. "I'm ready to learn," she said half tentatively and half apologetically. He smiled "good because I'm here to teach" an understanding passed between them and they both instantly jumped to battle positions, Romeo powered up to a low but still considerable level Lorena gathered a cloud over her head. They started at each other for a moment, each daring the other to make the first move; Romeo took the initiative and leapt at her. Lorena however just grinned and let loose a windblast that knocked Romeo backwards; he hit the wall hard and flopped down. He rose to his feet slowly and lightly touched the back of his head, he saw the blood on his hand and looked up, a smile spreading across his face.