Instinct took over as he slammed his head back but rather than having bone collide with cartilage, his head met nothing as his opponent pulled away.
Fredrick didn't have time to consider his options as Junior pulled on his staff bringing him back in contact with the tan mans back. A quick body shift on Junior's part sent the mercenary flying over his back into his long time associate Samuel, both men tumbling to the ground in a tangled heep.
Junior panted for half a second grateful to finally have the man away from him as he spun the training staff he had just relived Fredrick of. But true to their words the four didn't give him a chance to rest as Maxwell fired several arrows at him, causing him to jump and roll out of the way straight towards Rex. The large mercenary just smiled as he leveled a fist at Junior, the strike missed by juniors sheer determination as he forced his feet to grip the floor, flinging his body upright. Still gripping the staff as he rose he connected a blow under the mans chin sending him into the air. He didn't celibate, as he rolled out of the way as Maxwell fired off a few more arrows in his direction.
"Enough of this," the former socialite growled hurling the weapon at the man. Maxwell just scoffed as he sidestepped the pathetic action and watched it pass by. By the time he turned his attention back to his opponent Junior had made up most of the distance between them and sprung into the air, landing a kick with both feet into the mans chest, his girth adding power, driving the man into the ground.
Junior jumped off the man and rolled to his staff , gripping it he rose and turned to the quartet ready for their next attack.
"Enough," Senor Senior Sr.'s voice filling the air from above them, making all five men lift their gaze to the man, stopping the fight that had been going on for the last four hours. "Is he ready?" he asked looking down at his new security force.
Rex rose to his feet, "He's not quite as good as you said he'd be, but he's a damn sight better than I was expecting, give us a week to polish a few things on him and he'll be perfect."
"Then you trust he can lead you to victory?" their employer asked
"Between the five of us, and the toys your promising," a sadistic smile on his lips, "I'm not sure the damn monarchy could have stopped us."
"Good, that's what I wanted to hear, but we don't have the time for you to 'polish him', the longer we wait the harder it will become," tapping his cane the double door beneath him opening, five metal crates moved forward to the assembled men. "I'm sorry for the delay it took longer than expected to align the weapons energy input relays so they could optimally draw power from the suits internal batteries, but they are now ready for you to use."
Junior was the first one to the crates, the panel on the front sliding away with a soft hiss revealing it's contents. The armor was predominantly silver with its breast plate, shoulder armor, gauntlets, thigh armor boots and most of the helmet comprised of the color. While it's visor a translucent crimson and underneath the armor was a blood red material. Contained in the door was his sword, the weapon mainly silver with the exception of the hilt that was the same red as the under armor.
The others as either side of him were also looking over their armor obviously pleased with the outcome. Each of the armors were nearly identical, only differing in the visor, under armor, and weapon's hilt color. Rex and his battle ax had a dull brown look to them, Fredrick's and his spear were a off white, Samuel's had a flat gray appearance, and Maxwell's equipment was is murky yellow.
"This is incredible," Maxwell commented running his hand along his bow, "how long till they can be used?"
"As long as it takes you to put them on," their employer commented from above glad they approved of his purchase, "I trust each of you have read the manuals that were sent earlier?"
"We're professionals Mr. Senior, they've been long since memorized," Rex's eyes not leaving the ax as he pulled it from the grip of its case, images of skulls being sliced open running through his mind.
"I believe I understand everything father," Junior said lifting his eyes, "but I still find it hard to believe that these suits are capable of everything you say they are."
"Then there is only one way to find out, I've set up a little practice field for you outside, this will be first test to see if my money has been well spent." Turning to the door, "I'll see you gentleman outside, don't keep me waiting."
"I little demanding," Maxwell hissed removing the helmet from the case.
"True, but he's better than the last few guys we've worked for, and he's got real style," Samuel laughed pulling the mace from it's container.
Junior just growled at their words, not really trust them. He'd know men like this his whole life, men and women who were just here for the money, who'd leave or betray a person for the right price. He had no allusions that he was in charge, he knew full well Rex was calling the real shots, he would just be for show, something to keep his father paying them till something better came along, or they decided to use these weapons to take what his family had worked so hard to gain. That was something he would not allow, but nor would he press the matter, not till his father well again, after that these men would be smart to watch their backs.
"Ignorant jackanapes," Will growled under his breath as the football player passed.
"Don't start this again," Ron moan pulling books from his locker, "things are the way the way they are, just accept it."
The Air Knight glared at him, "they humiliated me, the things they called me," his voice low and controlled, but the death glare he was giving Ron sent chills down the Forest Knight's spine.
"I'm not saying your not right and they don't deserve to get their collective butts handed to them, but that's not the way things work here. Your obviously not getting the High School experience do you, the popular people EI the football player, cheerleaders and so on rule this school. The normal people, myself, you," waving his hand at both of them earning another glare from the former GJ agent, "get tortured by them, unfortunately end of story."
"We are not normal, I speak six languages, know…"
Ron's glare just cut him off, "yeah in your last 'school' you were the top dog, but here," pointing down for emphasis, "you're the ground. It's not fair but we have to live with it."
Growling and turning away from him, "and how are you considered normal, how many times have actions saved the lives of multiple people, and their lives in particular?"
"Yeah go figure, I help take down a nut job with a death ray and it's no big deal, they win a stupid game that won't matter by next year and they're heroes. That my friend is one more little reason why life sucks," looking down the hall just making out their outlines in the crowded hall, a dark smile on his lips as he became energized by his own speech. "Then again, as you said we're not normal, maybe it's time to balance the scales a little."
"AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGG," Monique roared throwing the magic book aginst the wall and slumping into her chair. "I can't work like this," she whimpered putting her head on her desk, "I can't use this damn thing."
"Not this again," Kim shook her head as she retrieved the book from the floor.
"What would you know," she hissed, "you got you edge handed to you on a silver platter, you don't have to learn all this crap, all the spells and potions I need aren't in English, the few that are either aren't useful, have words I can't pronounce, or require ingredients I've never heard of! The only Foxglove I know is an animated bat," her body trembling.
"I know this isn't easy," putting the book on the desk next to her, "but we need you," trying to be sincere.
"Ha," she whispered sarcastically, "at least you understand this…."
"But you have the magic, I may understand the words but that's it, you're the only one that can do something with them."
"Ha," moving her hand over a paperclip and whispering words under her breath, after a moment the paperclip rose half an inch in the air and stayed between her hand and the word for two or three seconds before faltering and falling back to the desk, "yeah that's real useful, how am I suppose to avenge what those monsters did to my Uncle with that."
"Hey it's a start, think about it pretty soon you'll hurling buses into the sides of mountains and we won't need Bonnie and Will anymore," smiling above the mystic in training.
Shifting her head to glare at Kim with one eye, "not helping."
Kim could still make out a hint of a smile on what she could see of her lips. "So have you talked to Fin Varra about these problems?"
"Tried, I can't even get that spell right.," she groaned.
"I take it this is where the pronunciation problem comes in?"
Nodding into her hands, "I had a few problems, apparently if you don't get every word just right, things…… catch on fire."
Covering her mouth to suppress a laugh, "I was wondering what that smell was, to bad I wasn't around, I could have prevented that."
"Yeah, well hind sight is twenty-twenty, I already had to swear up and down to my mom that I wasn't smoking in her."
"Well at least we know the down side now," putting her hand on the book, "we're suppose to be a team when it comes to this, how about if I give you a hand with it and we'll see if we can't get him down here with out burning your house down."
Picking her head up and mulling Kim's offer over in her head, "what the hell, not like we can do any worse together."
"Nice to know I have your full support," sarcasm dripping from Kim's words sliding the book into her friends hands.
Monique opened the book and watched as the pages started flipping themselves before coming to the summoning spell, "so what does it say?"
Kim looked down at the pages, the various intricacies of the pronunciation unfolding in her mind. "Ok it's…," her words cut off as her red cord began constricting around her wrist. Kim looked up at Monique a little nervous that she seemed to be in the same situation.
"I'm not going to like this am I?" she asked knowing the answer.
"Only one way to find out," the Fire Knight shrugged, a little apprehensive that this appeared to be an all points call and touched the cord.
After a second Ron's sacred voice filled the air, "K, Z, M, Save me!"
Kim just looked at a very pale Monique, "are you under attack," the red head asked keeping her cool.
"SHE'S GOING TO KILL ME!" his voice panicked.
Kim looked up dumb founded at the message, afraid the she in question was Sea Serpent, but what the hell could she do to get that kind of reaction from Ron, all the deep thoughts were summed up in what word, "What?"
"I'd explain but you'd never believe me, I'm down the street from the school, I'm the one screaming in the tree, with the psychotic she witch beneath him," he hissed.
"OK," drawing the words out, a little taken a back by his explanation, 'if this is Serpent she's changed her M.O.' she thought running out of the house, Monique on her heels.
Earlier….
"Explain to me one more time why this is not abusing our powers?" Will asked his eyes on the football practice.
"Because," a dark smile on Ron's lips, "abusing our power implies using our powers to gain something we don't really need. What we're doing is target practice with a stealth edge added to it." Shifting his eyes to the guys practicing plays, "think of it as skeet shooting, only instead of blowing up those little disks, we're going to be slightly altering the balls flight plan. Come on we need to know how much wind you can churn up with your ring, and you never know one day we may need you to provide a stealthy escape plan."
Turning, a bit shocked by the Forest Knight, "damn you've thought this through," and turning back to look at the padded males. Putting his hand on his chin, "but you do have a point, we do need to know what kind of limitations we have, and now is a good a time as any to find out," a conniving glint in his eye.
"I had a feeling you'd see it my way," watching the ball fly through the air.
Bring his hand up and pointing it palm open, he focused on the image before him. Unlike the others he hadn't bothered to test the limits of his transformed weapons power, but now was a good time to do it. He watched the brown object fly through the air and couldn't help but wonder why it was called a ball, it wasn't round, if anything it looked like two egg half's taped together. "Americans," he growled under his breath as he felt the air around him shift. It was small at first then grew fiercer, at least in his mind, he doubted anyone else noticed the slight increase in the breeze. His eyes focused on Mankey, the teenager throwing the ball to Brick Flagg, as the ball soared through the air he released the concentrated air. The air around the two Knights forced their clothing to rise slightly, the breeze firing off connected with the ball forcing it slightly off course and straight into Bricks helmet.
"Nice," it was the only thing Ron could think to say.
Exhaling slightly, "shame he was wearing the helmet."
"To true…… so want to go again?"
Smiling to the Forest Knight, "what do you think," watching the coach scream at the two boys for fouling up a simple pass.
For the next fifteen minutes Ron and Will amused themselves by knocking the ball of course, ranging from the ball missing its targets by a few inches, to whipping the air around the ball so it hit it's target hard enough to drive him into the ground, all the while trying to suppress the desire to laugh.
"I can't believe the two of you," Bonnie hissed spinning the pair by the shoulders so they faced her.
"You know that's not a smart thing to do to us right," Will warned "we could've…"
"Save it," the Earth Knight growled, "gaw, I always knew you were a juvenal Stoppable, but I thought you might be better Duu."
"Excuse me," Ron glared.
"You heard me you're like little boys, you have absolutely no self control, now go home before you do something really stupid and let them do their jobs." Turning around and leaving, "and if your still here in two minutes, they'll be hell to pay."
Ron just glared at the back of her head, looking for the words to say before slumping his shoulders and prepared to leave, only to be stopped as Will put his hand on Ron's shoulder and reached with his ring baring hand. The air around them shifted as a powerful breeze shot up under Bonnie's skirt lifting the blue material of the dress up.
A few short seconds passed before Bonnie grabbed the material and pulled it down, the brief shock waering off, then something between a roar, a scream, a growl, a primal death threat escaped her mouth as she turned stared at the two males.
"We're dead now," Ron whimpered as he turned and ran for his life, Will was a step behind as he realized just how much of a mistake he had made. "What the hell were you thinking," Ron yelled back at the Air Knight.
"I'm not sure, but it seemed like a good idea at the time," as he broke off from Ron and headed the other direction as they exited the school grounds.
Ron glanced back and saw the psychotic eyes of Bonnie right behind him, "Thanks a lot Will, remind me to kill you later!" Ron continued pumping his legs till he found the tallest tree he could see and jumped on to it. He reached out with his power upon toughing it as he climbed the wood faster and with more skill than normal humans possessed.
'Ok so this isn't the most useless skill on earth after all,' he thought looking down from the top of the tree a very angry Bonnie beneath him. "Come on Bonnie I didn't do anything, that was Will I swear, I would never do that, I couldn't do that. Come on he's an idiot, I'm an idiot, we're males were all stupid," looking down at her, he could almost imagine the foam dripping from her mouth, "and your not buying a word of this are you?" Bring his cord to his wrist, "K, Z, M, Save me!"
After a second Kim's voice rang from the cord, "are you under attack?"
"SHE'S GOING TO KILL ME!"
"What?"
"I'd explain but you'd never believe me, I'm down the street from the school, I'm the one screaming in the tree, with the psychotic she witch," he hissed.
Drawing out the word, "OK."
"Oh yes, he whispered to himself, when I get down…. If I get down, I'm going to kill you, and they'll never find the body."
Junior continued running in the armor surprised by the weight, or more precisely the lack of weight. The armor's component parts must have weighted at least one hundred pound, but probably far more, yet it barley felt like more than his normal clothing. He wasn't sure if the metal was just very light weight or the servo motors or a combination of the two, not that it really mattered as long as it worked. Perhaps most surprising was the range of movement he had in it, despite the bulk of some of the parts, none of them slowed him down in the slightest.
Which was for the best given the trial by fire his father was putting him threw as the ground in front of him exploded by a hidden subterranean explosive. The force from the explosion tossed him back, rather than wasting the momentum he shifted his weight and shifted it into a back flip, landing gently on his feet an couldn't help but wonder how the other were doing the nightmarish maze.
The others weren't in much better situations, Maxwell was being targeted by three blade launchers. Somehow he had managed to avoid the razor edged disks that were launched at his body only to watch them end up embedded in the rock surrounding him. Maxwell jumped and turned in the air, sliding across the ground on his back as he fired his bow emitting a blue-white energy blast only to watch it miss it's target are the pedestals the launcher rested on sprung to life and moved out of the way and continued to fire disks making Maxwell scramble to his feet not wanting to be the first to find out if the armors could really withstand the beating.
Fredrick was having somewhat better luck as he dodged the giant black top that came his way, his spear connecting as it passed leaving a long trail of ice along it's surface. Instead of bouncing off the upraised rocks the iced top shattered on impact sending the top careening out of control. Fredrick didn't bother to look at the destruction as he ducked in low under the blades of another top and froze the small balancing point, a few moments after it passed the top collapsed under it's own weight. As always Fredrick kept his mind focused turning his attention to his next target using his spear to pole vaulted over the next top allowing it to pass by him and collide with another.
Samuel cursed under his breath as he weighted his options and almost laughed at the thought of actually being between a rock and a hard place. Forcing himself to focus he hammered the stone tower with his mace, equal parts the weapon the strength enhancement of the armor allowed him to tear a huge groove in the stone. After a second the puncture wound became to crack, small rocks began popping from the monolith and it collapsed. Samuel could almost visualize the look of the driver in the attack vehicle behind as he dove out of the way as the stone descended and crushed the car.
Rex laughed a dark haunting laugh, punctuated by the clang of his gantlets connecting with the heads or various robots that were attacking him. He couldn't help but flash back to his time as the lead combat instructor of their order and how he'd have everyone attack him at once just to see how long it took him to bring them all to the ground alone. He snapped back to the present as he upper cutted one of the automaton's head send it flying, sparks firing off from the hole. With a primal roar he pulled his ax from his back and sliced the robot in front of him down the middle and turned slashing his weapon through another's mechanical waist, the torso falling to the ground with a hard thud. Turning back around he hurled his ax at the nearest machine and watched as the ax sliced right through it's head, waving his hand the ax changed directions following the hands arc cutting through the neck of another two bots. He spun quickly and thrust his hand forward making the weapon fly past his body in into the torso of another bot before embedding in the stone wall. Throwing his head back in a roar he pulled his hand back, the double bladed ax coming free of the stone and landing gently in it as he grabbed the last of the androids head in his free hand and squeezed as the sound of screeching metal filled the air. The robot flailed in his grip as it's processors tried to make sense of what was happening, only to end as Rex's finger dug into it's synthetic brain and pulled the limb from the machine.
"Oh no," Junior moaned as he jumped back feeling the earth beneath him shift, out of reflex he back flipped out of the way expecting the ground to explode once, again only to watch as the ground splintered and exploded upward as numerous metal tentacles filled the air. He just stared at tentacles his mouth hanging open not believing what he was seeing, his momentary shock did nothing to halt the traps programming as it attacked, two to the tentacles lashing out at him. The sight of the oncoming attack brought Junior back to reality as he jumped back again as the metal coils shattered where he had been standing.
"Enough of this, " he growled pulling his sword free, the polished silver blade glowing bright red after a few seconds, his visor growing dark to protect his eyes as he assaulted the metal trap, slicing through the first tentacle he could reach with one swipe. A quick dodge was all that saved him from the next assault as he jumped up and caught an overhanging tentacle with his free hand, the tendril flailing at his contact sending him whipping through the air, yet inspire of the force he kept his grip. Slashing up he cut the tendril off and fell on another, only the armor protecting him from a painful landing between his legs. For a brief moment he felt like he was in a rodeo as the tentacle whipped him about, only to be stopped as he the red hot blade cut through the middle of the tendril, his augmented strength allowing him to slashed encased blade up cutting the tendril down the middle.
For the next several minutes his world was a tangle of writhing metal coils, sparks, and blazing metal, but in the end the tendrils ceased their attack, to damaged to posses any further threat to him.
Senor Senior Sr. smiled as he watched the progress of the various warriors from monitor bank in front of him having decided to retreat to his private chamber after he lost sight of the men as they entered the labyrinth. The cameras he had hidden in the field were paying off, even if many of them had been destroyed in the various conflicts the men had with the traps. The armor and weapons were handling better than he had been led to believe, and five within were mastering them quickly. Maxwell had had some early difficulties with the bow, but he was now eliminating every target that came before him. Fredrick had already made short work of the tops, just as Samuel had of the attack vehicle. Rex however was unnerving him, he knew the man was violent and ruthless, but his display against the robots had made it obvious that he could become a clear threat in the future.
"Not that it matters," he whispered under his breath, "once I have the weapons you will cease to be a threat. His son however was the biggest surprise. At first he had harbored the thought that in his training the four had been letting him win and making him look good. However that was not to case, the elder Senior could see that, his son was indeed a man of great skill and courage, he was successfully handling that threats as they appeared, and doing so with great elegance, as a Senior should.
"Perhaps I should have the course be reset and allow them to choose new paths," he mused with a small chuckle eager to see what his son would do against the automatons of the blade launchers. "Perhaps after they've accomplished their mission," he mused turning his chair and looking at the display of his final project, "this had better be all they are saying it is."
Authors note 1- Sorry this took so long, I just couldn't figure out what I wanted to do to Junior, I know it's a small detail, but I wanted it to be special, I spent days just tossing ideas out on what kind of a fight I wanted him to get in and all I was getting were the same four and slight variations of the four I had already used. Then last night it just came to me, spikes shooting out of the ground, and from there it was just a simple step to what I ended up with.
Authors note 2- please don't bite my head off on the Bonnie/Will scene, it just came to me and was to good to pass up, and I'm sorry if anyone finds it the least bit offensive.
Authors Note 3- I'm hoping someone here gets the Rescue Ranger reference
