Okay, I know I haven't updated in a while, and I apologize, but I have been so freakin busy it's not funny! Okay, so this chappies longer, enjoy!
"You say that two are already out? That's even faster than I expected, usually it takes at least twenty minutes."
"Yes, but the other three have formed a team, I think that for the first time, we'll have more than one from each group passing the first trial."
"Interesting, it seems that our Annie DuVale has leadership skills," the halfa watched with interest as the team beat their way past obstacles and finally made it to the end of the labyrinth.
"That really wasn't that hard!"
"So why did Candy fail?"
Annie smiled, "Teamwork works people, duh!" She grinned and walked through the exit, followed closely by Hannah and Kenny. "Besides, we followed all the rules, who knows, we'll probably all pass now!" The three were now staring at a blank room, all a silvery-opaque color but there was nothing to be seen on the other side. "This reminds me of the Holo-deck on Voyager…"
"The what?" Kenny ruffled his hair nervously.
"Holo-deck," Hannah repeated, "You can make anything appear real, touch anything, smell anything, hear anything, and the food tastes great too!"
"Replicator food always tastes good!" Annie laughed as Kenny shook his head.
"Oh great, my teammates are trekkies!"
"Hey!" Hannah swatted lightly at his head, "Those were good series, and started a whole Sci-Fi epidemic, who knows what our world could have been like if Gene Roddenbarry hadn't created Star Trek!"
Kenny was about to retort, but the seemingly endless wall opened and Vlad Masters walked into the room. "Well done my pupils, though I'm afraid you will have to pass one more test before I can accept you as true students." He held up two small, silver bells and they jingled lightly, "You must take these from me, whoever gets the bells passes."
Hannah was the one laughing this time, "Are you kidding me, you totally stole that from Naruto! You try to pit us against each other, when you really want to see if we'll work together, doing the best for the group instead of just ourselves."
Annie was unable to hide the glee in her face, she had watched Naruto often, at least for as long as the series lasted. It seemed that Vlad couldn't think of an original idea to save his life.
Vlad's face fell and he raised an eyebrow, "Very well then, I'm afraid I'll have to separate you three and see who passes after that, just a one on one test against someone who will be a challenge."
"Who first?" Kenny asked, "Rock, paper, scissors?" The three teens put out their hands and on the count of three, Kenny held paper, Hannah had a rock, and Annie's hand was contorted into an odd claw. "What's that?"
"Hydrogen bomb," she answered with a grin, "that definitely wins!"
"Not fair, again! Whoever has the most deadly thing this time wins, okay? Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!" Kenny had both of his hands held up creating a vase-like shape, Hannah had made a bird-like shape, and Annie had an open hand with the palm facing up. "I've got Supernova."
Kenny looked at his hands, "Black hole."
Annie wiggled her fingers, "Big Bang."
The teens studied their hands, then turned to Vlad, their faces asking for a verdict.
"How about we start with the Supernova?" They nodded and Hannah remained in the Holo-deck while the others left.
"What does it do?" Kenny asked, staring through the monitor in the wall at his friend who stood limply in the middle of the room; her one active hand reached towards her belt where her ecto-gun was. "What the hell is this room for and what's going to happen to Hannah?"
"This is a surrounding room," Vlad explained, I can control the basic setting, but that's all the heads-up I'm going to give you over your classmate," he turned off the monitor to the laud disapproval of the other two interns, "I'm sorry, but this test has to be fair."
Kenny and Annie stared at each other for a second and then pressed their ears against the wall in hopes of hearing the outcome of the fight, but it was soundproof and all they got were a few muted noises. Annie turned on her stopwatch and waited for someone to walk in the door, timing the amount of time that her own fight would probably take, but when the exhausted fighter finally stomped through the door, Annie's watch read a mere three minutes.
Vlad turned on the monitor and peered down on his agent inside the holo-deck, who gave him a thumbs-up and motioned for the next student to enter the room; he re-set the settings on the room, turned the monitor off again, then led Hannah and Kenny away, which left Annie alone in the control room. She groaned and re-set her watch, wishing she could see the fight, but instead stretched out her limbs and reloaded her gun.
After four minutes of nervously cleaning her guns, Vlad entered the room again and, with a dashingly seductive smile, led her out to the holo-deck and left her alone. Annie pulled out her goggles and put them on in a flash. It was then that she noticed a green, glowing figure floating a few feet away; she pulled her gun up aimed, only to find the figure was standing directly in front of her, looking more familiar by the second
She gasped; it was the ghost-form of the cold, silver-haired guy who had led the five interns to the labyrinth. So he was a halfa! She ducked a swipe of ecto-plasmic energy and as he shot a bolt of energy at her head, she executed an intentional fall, slapping the ground with her palms so that her spine wouldn't absorb the energy of the fall. Annie then kicked the floor and spun her legs over her head so that she now lay in a crawling position.
It was then that she noticed the floor beneath her was starting to sink, like a marsh! She thanked her lucky stars that her father had been a marine-biologist and had taught her the tricks of walking in swamps and such; she stood and sank even further into the mud, but then pressed forwards towards the halfa, only to discover that he had flown behind her and she felt a sharp pain as a bolt of energy hit her back.
"GHOST FORM ACTIVATE!" Annie's anger level would have transformed her even if she hadn't wanted to go ghost; so she grinned as her form floated above the muck in a flash of green sparks that gave way to her ghost form, "Alright you dumb-ass, nobody touches me unless I allow it!" Her upper lip was twitching, "EAT SLIME CRACKER!" With one ectoplasmic bolt, she shot at the other halfa and with the other, she scooped up a glob of mud and flung it at the halfa.
He dodged the ectoplasm, but wasn't so lucky with the mud and wiped it from his face with a groan of disgust. "Alright kid, I was going easy on you, but you got MUD on my face; I don't care what the hell my father told me to do, you are going to get your ass whooped."
"I'd like to see you try," Annie had noticed a rounded spot in the mud and recognized the pocket of air underneath it, most likely consisting of a flammable fume, she began to float so that the marsh-gas bubble would be between the two halfas, "In fact, I think that you're just afraid to lose to a girl!"
He took the bait and came flying at her; Annie timed her shot and released a blast of ectoplasm just before the other halfa flew over the bubble, and it exploded in a ball of flame just as he passed over it. She laughed as he let out a gasp of surprise and disappeared in the fire; she flew over to the door and felt along the invisible wall for a handle. A punch from behind knocked the wind out from her, and she dropped out of the air and flopped to the mud, staring up at the cold youth above her.
"Intangibility is a wonderful thing," he laughed evilly and pressed his foot onto her stomach, pressing her into the mud. "Believe me…child, never mess with a more experienced person than yourself."
Annie's vision disappeared as her face sank into the mud, and she took one last breath of air before her entire head was submersed in the mud.
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