Welcome to the fourth chapter of the story, thank you all for reading and being interested in the story, also for the reviews!
Enjoy the chapter! :)
Previous:
My hunger started to get the best of me causing me to nearly how pathetic. I reached into the bag grabbing out utensils, a plate, napkins, and a bottle of water. Man was I in heaven. Excitingly I got to use the sense of taste, oh my god this food was phenomenal; totally better than eating scrapes of food of the streets or in trash bins. Blah. Engaged in the processes of eating I almost forgot that I was still wrapped up in a towel, I peaked over to the present that I seemed to have left my mind; curiously ready to open it. I put some more food in my mouth before grabbing the neatly packaged present. I untied the lovely crimson red bow, tore the wrapping paper revealing the surprise, you guess it Pj's. How convenient. Swapping myself from the warmth of the towel to the new comfort of fuzzy sleeping clothing, I plopped on the bed eating the rest of my amazing Chinese food. I threw away the empty plate and bottle of water in the small trash bin over by the nightstand. I turned off the lights to the room and hopped over to the bed snuggling myself under the covers, it's been too long since I've been in a bed, and let me tell you IT'S SO COMFORTABLE!
A window shed light into the room casting a mist of light. With my head flat on the pillow my eyes were forced to look up at the ceiling. The night was very calming, still, contained. Everything seemed so rushed, on high alert all the time from trying to stay out of danger in the streets. I thought about the day and the purpose of doing so. I felt pretty anxious and thrilled to see the ending results. I was pretty curious on what class I was going to be in, although I suppose it's was pretty obvious. Tomorrow would be the next day of my second trials. I hope it will be a little more productive than today's trials. My thoughts wondered in and out of consciousness, my eyes felt droopy for once; this time I wasn't scared to sleep, so I did.
Continuation:
~{:Chapter 4-Fixing Exploding Guns:}~
My eyes shot open to the sound of a loud annoying sound. It came from the right side of me, I quickly turned over hitting whatever it was. The loud obnoxious beeping sound stop, I realized it was just an alarm. Whoops. The time read 6:30 a.m. the sun just peaked from the horizon filling the sky with a orange red shadow. I stretched my arms toward the sky making a groaning sound as I tensed my body. I took a deep breath and immediately headed toward the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and saw a rat's nest that replaced my real hair. Dried up droop left its tracks on the side of my mouth, along with the a little remains of food from last night. I started with my teeth, hair, then face, it started to become a real routine. I changed my bandages from the injury before I placed my hair up into a ponytail and washed my face with the water and soap, that was left on the sink. Patting my face dry I grabbed my uniform changing into the half clean clothes. I walked over to the door and plopped on the floor placing my shoes on.
Two strong knocks came for the door, partially startling me, I finished slipping on the shoe-looking socks before opening up the door.
"Good Morning, ready to start your second part of the trials?"
I nodded my head with a smile on my face. I felt pretty confident to the start of the day, although a little tired, mostly excited.
"Great! How's that hand of yours feeling, because you're going to need it." She chuckled and walked off, assuming that I needed to follow I did. We entered the training gym again, but entered the second section of it. This time the room was bigger than the first section of the trials, instead of three separate rooms for the first trial the second held one huge room. On the side of the room were three karts: The first one with a wrench, blueprints, and what looked like scraps of metal; Second one had straps of bullets and a machine gun; the third one had a weird looking grenade launcher accompanied with over-sized capsules.
Miss Pauling stepped into the center of the room and explained the second part of the trails. "Welcome to the second part of your trails, today you are going to be learning the classes of defense. In front of you, you see three karts. One involves building strategy and critical thinking, the second kart involves courage and strength, the third tactical reasoning and strategy as well. Choose a weapon on the kart and I will explain further on what you have to do."
I finished listening and went over to one of the karts, the first one. I picked up the wrench and blueprints that laid nicely on the silver tray. "Ah yes, for this you are going to have to use that tool to build yourself sentry guns and health dispensers for your team. There in your right hand are the blueprints to those things and more. I will give you a few minutes to look through the plans and then the test will begin. Starting now."
A rush of adrenaline pumped through me, I quickly opened up the blueprints and saw the mechanical design. From my viewpoint it all looked like hieroglyphics, I didn't know anything about construction or engineering, but I couldn't give up. I looked through the rest of the blueprints and decided on the easiest one. At the top of the blue paper the words 'Teleporter' were written.
"You have 3 more minutes until you can start building." said the lady looking down at her stopwatch.
I looked over at the kart to see a crate of supplies in them. I looked at the bits and pieces of them, trying to find the correct materials for the process of building. I looked back at the diagram and back into the crate, I gathered some supplies but before I could continue Miss Pauling told me to begin building. She didn't give me a specific amount of time to finish, but I tried my best. With only the wrench, blueprints, and supplies I began to build. I grabbed whatever looked exactly like the samples on the instructions and went from there. In a pace I placed them together in the center of me, looking from the prints back to the object I was making. Ok place that there, now for the wrench... Ok, that definitely doesn't go there. Just have to click that on, and now.. Hit it with the wrench? I looked back to the instructions making sure I read it right, I did. I shrugged and took the semi-heavy wrench and hit the pieces of metal together. I carefully held, making sure I didn't put too much pressure on the healing burn. The sounds made a big *CLANK* "BAM" "CLANK".
Before I knew it the scrapes of metal started to react together, spinning slowly and then rapidly. Color started to emit from the device as well as noise. Did I actually do something? I may have not known how I did it, but I had that relish of accomplishment flood me. I stood up feeling good, but then I looked back at the prints and saw something that I didn't notice before. In small white ink the number two with an 'x' written beside it was apparent. It appeared I only make one teleporter instead of two. I quickly looked back to the supply kart, but I was too late.
"Ok times up, what have you make so far?"
I slowly stood up in disappointment and pointed to the mechanical device in front of me. "Looks like a teleporter, well sorta, where's the rest of it?" She glanced at the devices I made and looked for the other. I looked at the ground and shook my head side-to-side. "I see, you didn't get to finish, let's see you completed the first one in about 7 minutes. So if you were out in battle you have probably lost half of the time in the game if you finished both of them."
I looked at her with a straight face, not knowing if that would be a good or bad thing. "At least you did better then the lase recruit before you, she threw a fit and ranted about how stupid this was. Anyhow, let's move on to the next."
I agreed with her and picked up the strap of bullets and heavy weapon that looked huge compared to me. "Okay this is going to be a little tricky but I have confidence in you." I narrowed my eyes giving her a 'that's what you said last time' face. "For this all you have to do is aim the gun at the enemy dummies and shoot them down, you will start at certain levels. The first one will start off being easy and then the hardness will increase. I will be outside in another room watching you, you won't be able to see me but you'll be able to hear me. Just listen to the instructions I give and then we can move on."
With her clipboard and pen she walked out of the room leaving me alone in the empty room. I swung the strap of bullets over my shoulder feeling the weight bare me down. The strand of bullets looked like a dress on me, along with the over-sized gun I wielded. I used all my strength to lift up the machine gun to its proper use. That's when I felt a stinging sensation in my hand. The skin felt sensitive to the touch, I ignored the nagging pain focusing on the subject at hand. I heard a familiar voice on the intercom. "You see the white 'X' written in the center of the floor there, stand in the center of it." I did what I was told standing on the white written letter. "We are going to start off with something easy, you'll see a enemy dummy pop up, I want you to shoot it down."
Just as she said a wooden dummy popped up a few feet in front of me, I wrangled the gun as it spit bullets out with full force. The force nearly made me fall back but I held my stance. The metal of the gun chafed against the healing burn, starting to peal back the new piece of skin. My right hand started to slow sting, but I had to keep my cool. The wooden dummy was shot down to pieces. I think I'm starting to like this gun. The power feels amazing! Besides the part where it's cutting off my skin. "Great! I'm going to kick it up a notch and try to shoot down three of them."
After she spoke three more dummies appeared and I shot them down with ease, the rate of the shooting was phenomenal, but my speed was super slow. I wasn't able to turn the gun as fast as a simple light pistol, but cause way more damage. The sound of bullets dropping to the ground satisfied me with pleasure, but my arms started to get a little tired. My shoulders cramped up and my legs arms were slouching toward the ground. I arched my back a little more, separating me feet apart as well; this way I could stable out the weight and keep my dominant stance. "You're doing great, let's make things a little more complicated. Try to shoot the moving targets now."
I took a deep breath and got ready to aim for the moving targets. Left and right targets popped out moving back and forth. I turned the gun going back and forth destroying as many of the dummies as I could. My arms started to shake from my strength giving out, at that moment I thought to myself How could anyone pass this test, they would have to be a bodybuilder or something. The amount of dummies started to die down along with my will to continue. Finally it all stopped altogether, I dropped the gun and tried to catch my breath. I looked down at my hand seeing it starting to bleed and become irritated. Come on, you're almost done with the tests. You can hang in there. Even though all I had to do was pull a trigger I've never felt to exhausted in my life. I could feel the strain in my back already. "Good job you did good for a beginner. You shot 5 out of the 28 dummies." Five, wow that's terrible...
"Alright let me just write down a few things and then we can start the next part. In the meantime get ready for the next one."
I took the strap of bullets off my shoulder and threw them on the ground, immediately I felt a million times lighter, almost to the point where I felt like I was floating. I went over to the last and final kart. I picked up the grenade launcher and studied it. I looked like the pill-looking grenades went into gun itself and was shot hitting anything with great impact. I held one of the capsules and was curious how they got it into such a form.
"All done, for your last test we will test you on the grenade launcher to see how good of a strategist you are. Just like the machine gun trial you are going to be hitting targets, each level will get harder than the other. Give me a thumbs up when you're ready, I'll let you have a free trial of just getting use to the gun."
I walked over to the white 'X' and lifted up the much lighter gun to a random location and pressed the trigger. The Red capsule launched out of the gun hitting the wall and flew back at me. I dodged letting it hit the kart behind me. An explosion occurred on impact sending parts of the kart everywhere. Whoa! That was close, these must bounce off of inanimate objects. Hm, interesting. I looked up at the intercom giving out a thumbs up. A few seconds later one of the dummies popped up. Instantly I pulled the trigger and one of the capsules popped out exactly hitting the target exploding it into wooden sticks. The same events repeated there selves, more of the wooden targets popped out and I shot them one by one, perfectly hitting each and every one of them. The targets started moving side to side coming at different directions. I looked around my surroundings blasting the capsules off the walls hitting multiple targets at once. All of the bombs ran out leaving the test to end.
"Wow, you did great on this test Kayla. You got all of them, every 30 of them. That about sums up all of the tests for today, you can head back to your room and get washed up. I will come get you once lunch is ready."
I nodded leaving the grenade launcher on the floor and headed back to my room. The morning went by pretty quickly with all the tests. I opened the door and headed straight to the bathroom, the shower felt amazing once again; it never failed. It felt like a reset button, even with the roughest of days showers seemed to be my escape. My muscles relaxed taking in every hot drop of water drowning my stress away. I didn't bother washing my hair or anything I just let the water fall on my exposed self. I looked down at the shower's tiled floor, the clear water swirled into the drain. Small speckles of red mixed in with the pure water contaminating it with it's dark color. My right hand started throbbing. I turned off the water restricting its flow, drying myself off as I tried to find a new bandage for my hand. I opened up every drawer I could find, but no bandages could be found. I put back on my uniform checking the time, exactly 11:00 p.m. It didn't feel like it, but I had tested for about 4 and a half hours. I still had a few minutes before Miss Pauling would get me so I took the time to find myself some supplies, surely there would be something in the supply closet right?. I walked out of the room and continued down the halls, past the training room, and down another hallway. It should be down here somewhere... Did I take a wrong turn, uh my hands going to start leaving a bloody trail. Sooner than later I came across another door, but this one looked different from the others. Above the door frame read 'Hall of Fame'. I looked in disbelief, why would a room be called a Hall of Fame, unless this room was a hall.
My curiosity got the best of me, my hand reached for the knob; I twisted ever so cautiously, as if I was sneaking into a babies nursery. The door opened revealing a dark room. I felt for a light switch and flipped the lights on, lightly closing the door behind me. One by one a sequence of lights flickered on, the room seemed like an actual hallway (believe it or not). I stared down the hallway in astonishment. On the right side of the walls had pictures of these, I'm assuming-famous people that fought during this so-called war. On the left side a collection of, what looked like, historical weapons and newslines from the past was displayed in a glass container. I focused myself toward the wall of pictures; It looked like they were in 3 sections. I noticed all the people were male, one of them looked to be about in his early 20's while the oldest looking one looked about 50. These must be the mercenaries that work here I thought. At the very top their was a silver rectangular plaque that read Offense; two others read Defense and Support. Under the section of Offense three photo's were presented. Engraved right below the pictures were the class names.
Class: Scout
Class: Soldier
Class: Pyro
I looked at the Defense seeing the same layout as the rest; their ID picture and name of class below them.
Class: Demoman
Class: Heavy
Class: Engineer
I looked slowly at all the men that represented each of the classes, when I got to support I noticed something familiar about the Spy class. I looked closer toward the picture seeing the same man that I saved back in Pennsylvania. So he represents the Spy class, huh. That explains about everything. I turned around to continue reading the newslines from the old articles. The small black ink print started to fade away, I looked in the corner of the paper; stating the date back to the 1820's.
How long has this war been going on? There must be more to this war than I really know; what I'm being told.
"Fascinating isn't it."
I gasped sharply turning around. My heart instantly started to race, face somewhat flushed. Dang it... Must have lost track of time. I didn't know what to do or say, but I could do was stare in sorrow.
"Looks like you found the Hall of Fame." said Miss Pauling, breaking away the awkward silence. She walked over to the photos of the mercenaries, speculating the lightly dusty photos. "I guess you already know these are the mercenaries." She looked back at me with her bright green eyes, I nodded. Her chuckle made me relax, I approached standing beside her. I stared at all the mercenaries in curiosity, amazement. I wondered what they were like, what their job was, and how they did it. As if she could read my mind-perhaps it was my facial expressions that gave it away-she started to describe each one of them.
"Since you're going to be on the team, it's only fair to tell you what to expect from your teammates. Here you have your Offense." she pointed to the section of mercenaries in offense. "Scout, Soldier and Pyro. Scout's the fastest one on the team, female and male alike. They can be rambunctious and annoying, oh an they're known for their flirting; they are the athletic ones on the field. Next is Soldier, they are known to be leaders, great speakers, but don't be fooled by their title. Soldiers can be... crazy, loud, and also annoying. Next, we have the Defense."
I grabbed her arm signaling her to stop. I noticed that she forgot one of the mercenaries, the Pyro one. I looked at her and then pointed over to his picture. "Oh... Did I forget that one? Whoops. That's our Pyro, he... or she sees the world in a different point of view. They are the misunderstood part of the classes. You won't be able to get much out of them, no one really know for sure why they see what they see. Let's just say they can be known as the pyromaniac." She looked at me with a half smile.
Why didn't I see this coming. During the first part of the trials, the fire, that's the pyromaniac test. Great, just great. I'm going to have to deal with a fire loving teammate. The pit of my stomach started to ache, I crossed my arms around me trying to stay comfortable.
"With Defense you'll have your Demoman, Heavy, and Engineer. Demoman, a.k.a demolition expert, they are tough scotts. Don't let their accent intimidate you though, their a softy." She nudged me, I smiled a fake smile. "Although, they do appear drunk on the battlefield most of the time. Anyways, Heavy; they are your heavy weapons expert, they will be the big guns. They are both family oriented, family is everything to them. You won't have a problem getting along with them, just try to stay away from their hugs. Seriously, there's a reason we call them heavy. Next, Engineer; born and raised in Texas these texans love to build. Hence the word Engineer. You'll see them out on the field building sentry guns to take down opposing teammates, health dispensers incase a Medic isn't nearby, and teleporters to get you to a specific location fast. They're very loyal and kind."
She paused for a moment for me to process all the information. So far all the mercenaries sounded great, well most of them at least. They all sounded like a real family, something that I haven't had in a long time. Which ever class I get, hopefully they'll except me as family. I stopped staring at the Defense classes and nodded for her to continue.
She inhaled another breath getting ready to describe the last class. "Last, but not least, Support. In this class section you'll have your Medic, Sniper, and Spy. The Medics will be out on the field helping mostly their heavies, for some odd reason that's become a thing, but they'll be out and about healing their opponents when they are injured. Some people would call them psycho for all the experiments they try out, but I wouldn't worry about it. Sniper's, these guys are quiet, you won't see them around a lot. Their job will be to snipe from above hitting incoming targets that pose a threat. They mostly stay up in the trees or somewhere isolated. They don't really like to create conversation, but if they do consider yourself lucky. Last is Spy. Spies are mysterious, secretive, and cryptic. They like to stay in the shadows, getting their enemies from behind. If you see them out on the field, chances are it's too late. They like to roll like the Sniper's, you won't see them a lot as well." She looked back at me with a friendly smile. "Those are just some things to expect from the mercenaries." She pushed her glasses up before slouching back some. I grinned a little trying to see which class that I would fit. I remember hoping it would be a cool class like Engineer or Medic, some class that would be a major credit to the team.
A monstrous sound came from the room we were in. I looked down at my stomach feeling the tightening get worst. "Goodness, it's almost 2 p.m. We should get you some lunch you must be starving." She quickly took her eyes off her watch and rushed to grab my hand. I cringed in pain feeling the sharp sting travel up my arm. She leg go quickly seeing to pain in my eyes. "Sorry! Forgot about that, wait... Shouldn't you be wearing a bandage? Oh nevermind let's get you something to eat and patch you up." We left the room walking over to the kitchen to get me some lunch, and hopefully find a bandage to the wound. I believed that Miss Pauling was a good person. She cared for the mercenaries, all the things she's learned from them, including their personalities. I found it honorable. She truly is amazing, though I've seen her before; even though I didn't know it. Already knowing more and more about her personality, I honestly wanted to know more about the mercenaries, I needed to know more about them. I still had so many more questions like; what were their names? Did they always call them by their titles? What's the point of this war? Will there every be a conclusion?
UHHH! If only I wasn't so stubborn to talk things would be so much easier. I just... I just can't. My mind wants too but my brain refuses to comply. WHY MUST THIS BE SO FRUSTRATING! Maybe my emotions are getting the best of me, I'm in pain and my stomach is begging for food. I just need time to think clearly and rationally, before I cave into darkness.
To be continued...
YAY! Here's another chapter. Hopefully this one is enjoyable as the rest. Have any changes to who she might be? No? That's fine. THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING YOU BEAUTIFUL VIEWERS, I LOVE THE SUPPORT YOU GUYS GIVE ME. Today Kayla gets to know a little more about Miss Pauling with who she is as a person. Also the discovery of the Hall of Fame for the mercenaries, it's got Kayla thinking what's really going on with this so called 'war'.
