Awaken: Book of Beginnings
Chapter 7: Making a Memorable Beginning
"Make a name for yourself, and let everyone know that you are here, and you're not afraid to stand up."
Waking up, I realize that my life is forever different, four excruciating days earlier, I was a normal boy, now, I'm a trainee, driven to join a group who wishes to overthrow the government. Life is damned unpredictable.
"Robert, wake up." Devante shakes me awake. "Tyson says we aren't taking any break. We're showing these guys we mean business now." I get up, rather unwillingly. Devante throws me the uniform that was apparently issued to me. It was grey, as was our team color, It consisted of a tanktop, and combat pants, loaded with pockets, it also had straps that could be attached to the tanktop, that crossed the chest and held ammo patches. My kind of uniform. Then I remember that we're in a desert, and it's going to be cold as hell if we're going outside. I attach the straps and scrounge through the chest where Devante had found my uniform, there I found a sweat shirt, grey as expected, with my first name printed across the back, as if some sort of sport outfit.. As I dress, I notice something. Tyson's not here. As I continued to scan the room for him I notice something else. It's almost pitched black and everyone is asleep!
"One, where is Tyson, and where does he get the balls to wake us up at…" I check my Com-Link for the time, 3:36 A.M. A Com-Link was communication device that displays a visual of from one to three people to talk to, it also works as a watch, GPS, and thermometer. Certain Government Issue Com-Links could also measure radiation and pollution levels. Due to Advanced technology, they were extremely adaptive and could be updated to do a multitude of things, for a price. They were primarily worn on ones wrist. Now that I think about it, why didn't we use this to find Tyson when we thought he was dead? Oh yeah, the Com-Tower burned in the fire, rendering all communication devices useless within a 5 mile radius, so until the next village over. Com-Link devices were relatively new, about 5 years in the making. Rumor was that soon Com-Links would go global, and Com-Towers would be unneeded. A year too late I guess. Where was I? Oh Yeah, that rat bastard who thinks that 3:30 in the morning was time for a wake-up call.
"Where is Tyson, and why the fuck do we need to wake up at three in the damn morning?" I demand, a bit grumpy from lack of sleep.
"He's out in the hall waiting for us." Devante sternly said, not feeling good about the wake-up call either. "And I swear to god, if this isn't going to be good, I'm going to strangle him."
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
Devante and Robert came from the boarding room and looked at me, a mixture of expectant and pissed. All right guy's, as you've seen from our warm welcome, we're targets here, which means we train now, and we train to our limits, so we can at least be on par with some of these muscle heads at the end of our 'rest period'." Their scowls deepened at hearing this. "Trust me, we make names for ourselves, or we get eaten alive here, are you with me?" I stick my hand palm down straight out to them, a way a team would in a huddle to signify the end of a talk and show teamwork and companionship to one another.
"Fuck you." Devante says sternly, right before placing his hand on top of mine. We both look at Robert.
"Fine, whatever." Robert joins his hand with ours.
"Good, one day, when we're at the top of this camp, you'll both thank me." I say.
"One, two, break!" We all say simultaneously.
We walked towards the obstacle course, If we can conquer this behemoth, then the rest of their training regiments will be a piece of cake. "Damn, doors rigged with an electric alarm, Tyson." Robert observes.
"Give me a second." I begin to scan the area. I look closer to the alarm system, upon opening the box, where the number pad was, I notice a small yellow slit somewhat hidden behind the pound key. I carefully remove it, and open the yellow paper. It read: 6031683*. "Got it." I enter the code, once I hit the pound key, a green light flashed before a small beep emitted from the system, signifying its unlocking.
"Way to go, now, let's figure out how to figure this bitch out." Devante said. We walked outside, where the expected sting of cold hit us. I scanned the landscape for a control station. Saw a ladder that led to the roof of the complex.
"Alright, I'll go check out what's up there." I say as begin to ascend the latter. Once atop the complex, I see a small station, I entered and saw the panel that worked the machine, once I turned it on, it demanded a password. Fuck. Trusting my instincts, I enter Carol. It accepts the code. Thank you God. It then gave me a multitude of options; I activated all the mechanisms, and turned all the lights. Once the mechanisms were sufficiently heated, it asked for a difficulty level, I enter 1.
Through the Com-Link I managed to salvage from the catastrophe that hit our village, I tell my comrades "Mission Complete."
"Good, now come down here and let's start already." Robert responds
"Confirmed" I reply. I was about to descend when I notice some stopwatches lying on a nearby table. I grab them and return to the ground. I distribute the watches to Robert and Devante. "Ready boys?" I ask. We had all lined up at the start position, ready to race. They nod in comply. "Then let's go!" I shout, and we all take off.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
3 hours later
First sunlight was just beginning to show itself on the horizon we were tired to the bone, and each of us had had difficulty with a certain part of the obstacle course. Over time we had been able to raise the difficulty level, we were now on 4. For Robert, the most difficult part of it was the zip line; he just couldn't hold on to it long enough, Devante seemed to be unlucky with the collapsing panels. And me, well, I had trouble with that damn rock wall. But for one night, we did pretty well. Our times had drastically improved from our first run, which for me, was roughly 10 minutes, now, even with the increased speed was 7 ½ minutes now. Our speeds were about the same, except Robert who was down to 6 minutes.
"A- all right guys," I panted "Robert, g-go turn it off" I finished with a heave.
"Can do" He replied before dashing to the latter. Short people and their boundless energy. Robert wasn't really all that short, but, ever since he was little, he was shorter than me, and with the way we grew, it seemed he never changed in height. He stood about at 5'2 so compared to my 6 foot stature, he was short.
I listened to the gears power down. I sigh and look to Devante, who had dropped to the ground in exhaustion. Robert hit the ground.
"Sweet can we go back to bed now?" He asked.
"Yeah" Devante seconded. I nod n=my head in comply with my goofy grin plastered to my face. Suddenly, our attentions were snapped towards the clapping from the entrance of the building, where Mike and Carol stood. How did we not notice them? How long have they been there?
"Impressive, I give you a break, so the first thing you do with your time is crack our security systems, with a faulty code that was placed there for a reason, which in turn sets off the alarm in our chambers." Mike smirks at our stupidity.
"We thought you were trying to escape." Carol added.
"And what's the first thing we see when we step outside to locate you?" Mike asks. "Three newbie's willingly going through the obstacle course at 4 in the morning. I'm impressed, your break stands, and your being up ranked. You're now rookies, congratulations."
"Being up ranked on your first day, that's a record kids. By the way, you just now officially put targets on all of your heads. Enjoy." Carol stated in a singsong voice. She has a darker side as well. I guess they meet half way.
"We were already targets, as Mike knows from the warm welcome his former pupil gave me." Devante said holding the dagger he had apparently decided to keep, which just a few hours ago, Rose had expertly chucked at him.
"Well, then I guess you're making a smart move, taking the course while everyone else is sleeping, which by the way…" Mike began to grit his teeth. "They shouldn't be, I can see the sunlight." They might have done the same thing we did, if it wasn't for that sleeping schedule of theirs, up at sunrise.
Mike and Carol made their leave, to wake up their troops. While the three of us give each other thumbs up in a job well done, as we make our way back to our beds.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
The rest of our break flowed flawlessly, we were at the obstacle course nightly, we slept through breakfast, and woke up to head to the gym in the complex, and then we went to our weapon training courses. While Devante and Robert only focused on their elemental skills and sharpshooting respectively, I split my time, I would spend half my time on my swordsmanship, then either join Robert or Devante in his elemental control training, I switched to the other friend every other day, to keep myself well rounded. While training with Devante, I discovered a power of my own, my roundness before had prevented me from learning an elemental skill. Elemental skills required one to push in a direction that would form emotion, which in turn would branch off into a power. The only other way to obtain an elemental skill was through intense mental and physical training. This is how Devante gained his ability over lightning, which he was helping me achieve myself. Now that rounded personality was shattered in the death of my family, which had caused me to turn harsh, and cold. Thus, my ability to control Ice was born, Devante had much better at controlling his elements, but that comes with experience. To control an element, or achieve one, you must understand it in its entirety, and find its connection to yourself. I believe that Devante could learn them all.
One of us would volunteer to operate the obstacle course, and the other two would work in the kitchen, though only for lunch and dinner, because we were out in the mornings. We had rose in the ranks drastically, and our official training hadn't even started yet, we had gone from Maggots, to Rookies, to Students, and were now Apprentices', this was mostly because we were now some of the best on the obstacle course, we could now go on level 9 and still get a time of 7 minutes, and at this point, the collapsing panels were disappearing constantly, and the narrow stones now moved, as if they weren't difficult enough, and to my sever disapproval, the rocks on the rock wall now moved downwards, making a 'up on a down escalator' effect, whatever the fuck an escalator was.
We were well known in the complex now, and the green team was itching to get their hands on us on our first challenge, which fortunately for them, was scheduled for the day our break expired, tomorrow.
"Do you guys thank me yet?" I ask.
"For waking me up at three thirty in the morning to exorcize for the past month?" Robert asked in turn.
"Hell no." Devante piped in.
"I'm with him." Robert replied.
"All right, I'm just telling you, one day, you're going to thank me." I tell them.
"Yeah, yeah, get some sleep; we have to get up a sunrise." Devante says
"Beats 3:30 in the morning." Robert replies harshly.
"Fuck you man." I state friendlily. Tomorrow, those bastards in green learn what we're made of. God I hope I get to beat some respect into some of those cocky assholes. Cause bet your sweet ass I will.
Awaken