Hang stood up and looked down from the top of Slusher Tower. Right in front of him a portal opened up and Andrew crawled halfway through.

"Welcome to the entrance exam, Hang. Good luck."

"You'll need it!" Sean shouted as Andrew dropped back through the other side and Sean closed the portal, leaving Hang alone on the tower roof. His first thought, after the terrifying realization of just how high up he was, was to check the roof access hatch. Locked. He tried jiggling to lock to see if it would break off, but that didn't work. Then he had another idea: What if he could melt it with his fire? He sparked a flame in his hands and carefully brought it towards the padlock on the door.

"Steady, steady..." Hang said to himself, "Just a little bit-" Unfortunately, a little bit didn't come out. Instead a huge blast of fire erupted all over the door. "AAAUUUGH! STOP! STOP!" And the fire stopped with his command. The lock had melted, but melted to the door. With no other ideas Hang sat on the edge of the roof and looked down at the campus below. It looked nice to him. Greenery and concrete seemed to balance each other out. Too bad it was such a long fall down. Then he remembered, that doesn't matter at all. He looked for a good spot without a lot of flammable grass or trees and eventually found a fountain area. Perfect. It would hurt a lot, but he'd get down. he only hoped that it wouldn't count as failing the exam. He was about to jump when he spotted something right beneath him. There was a window, and it was unlocked.

He reached down and barely managed to grab the handle. He slid it to the side and repositioned himself to enter feet-first. The entrance would be a precarious one, but it wouldn't matter if he bungled it anyway. Carefully, slowly, he slipped through the room and into a very dark room. Even with the sunlight from outside, he could barely see anything. Suddenly, even that was gone as he heard something slam behind him and felt cold metal against the back of his head.

"Not another move if y'know what's good for ya, sugah," he heard a female, southern voice whisper to him.

"Who are you?" Hang asked, trying to hide the fear in his voice.

"We're Limes, sugah."

"We?" As if to answer his question, he felt two more of what he now realized were shotgun barrels pressed against his head.

"Yeah, we. And we've been waitin' up here for years fer the perfect opportunity to strike. You'd make the perfect hostage fer our plan, so you'd best kneel down and keep yer mouth shut."

Hang took a few seconds to process everything, but eventually kneeled down... But immediately he turned around and lit his left hand, holding it in front of him to see his green enemies better.

"Oh no you don't, I'm not gonna give up my new home and my new friends so easily! Do whatever you want, but I'll make sure you won't be invading any time soon!" He engulfed both of his arms in fire as he stared down the Limes, when suddenly...

"Okay, that's enough! Stop!" Hang heard one of the Limes say in a familiar voice.

"...Andrew?" Hang asked. The lead Lime took her "head" off to reveal it was Andrew all along. He then removed a chip on his neck.

"Yeah, yeah," he replied to Hang, "Alright boys, voice modifiers off, not that you needed them," he told the others, who unmasked themselves to be Kyle and Corey.

Hang put out his flames in disbelief as Corey turned on the lights. "W-Was that the entrance exam? Did I pass?"

"You did very well. You showed a lot of courage there, especially when under so much pressure. Immediately surrendering your own life to save hundreds of others, that, I have to admit, was impressive," Andrew commended him.

"Heh heh, thanks..." Hang looked away, knowing he didn't really deserve that praise.

"Unfortunately, you have not passed the entrance exam."

"WHAT? But you just said I did really well there!"

"You did. The entrance exam isn't over. Meet us on the Drill Field in two hours," Andrew told him and unlocked the door.

"Hey, Andrew, can ah keep this here voice modulator on? I kinda like soundin' like a gurl,'' Hang managed to hear Kyle ask as the three of them left.

Two hours later, Hang met Andrew at the Drill Field like he asked. With him this time were Eric, Waqas, and Luke.

"Okay, I'm here, what's this part of the exam?" Hang asked.

"All you have to do is run from this part of the Drill Field to the other," he explained, "But unless you can fly, you can't use your powers. We don't want to start another fire."

"I think they can but I haven't tried it. Either way, that's it? Bring it on!"

"Calm down there, tiger. It's not that simple," Andrew pulled out a stopwatch, "First of all, you're going to be timed. To pass this part of the exam, you have to make it under a certain time."

"Okay, not too bad. I'm a good runner." Hang began to stretch out his legs.

"Well I hope you're a good dodger, because this track is also lined with hidden traps by yours truly!" Waqas proudly chimed in, "And I must say, they are fine pieces of work!"

"Not to mention, Eric will be hunting you down throughout the entire thing," Andrew continued. Eric silently tipped his hat. Hang looked closely at the rifle he was holding.

"...With a paintball gun?" Hang asked.

"What, do you think we'd actually shoot you? That being said, every paintball that hits will incur a significant time penalty. Finally, at the halfway point, Luke will start hurling his tomahawks at you. These are his really old ones, so the blades are so dull that they're not even blades anymore and more like clubs. Not to mention, they still hurt if you get hit with one."

"And you expect me to pass with all that going against me?" Hang asked in disbelief.

"Yes" Andrew bluntly answered.

"I... think I'm gonna go get some water before I-"

"Your time starts now, go." Andrew started the stopwatch and Hang started running as fast as he could. He looked along the ground for traps, but couldn't see any. Yet he was stopped when he felt something hit his leg and fell over. He checked and saw it was a red paintball.

"Aw man, already?" He got up and kept running but didn't get very far before he found a rope wrap around his other foot and lift him up in a tree. His first instinct was to burn the rope, but he remembered what Andrew said. Fortunately the knot wasn't very tight, so he managed to untie himself right before another paintball hit him.

By now he was running erratically back and forth, checking the ground for traps. A turret made of junk rose up from a bush and tried to shoot cans at him. A few hit, but he didn't slow down.

He noticed a suspiciously bare patch of dirt in the middle of the grass. He knew it was an obvious trap, but one dull tomahawk squarely to the head made him accidentally step on it. The path of dirt sprang up and launched him back. Then, while he was on the ground, a paintball hit him.

Hang wanted to give up, right then and there. But he raised his head and saw the end of the field. He looked back and saw the starting line way behind him with Andrew looking at his stopwatch. He pounded both of his fists on the ground and got back up, running like nothing happened.

Cans hit him, a tomahawk struck him in the back. A tree fell in front of him, but he slid right under it. A tomahawk hit him in the liver. Hang only slowed down briefly, powering through the pain. He narrowly dodged another paintball. He avoided stepping into another rope trap. A tomahawk landed in his ribs.

In spite of everything, he kept running and running until he finally let himself collapse right over the end of the field.

"Time! Come on back!" Andrew yelled from the other side. After laying there a few moments, Hang picked himself up and walked back. On the way there, he saw Luke mouth a "sorry" to him as he picked up his tomahawks.

"...just too easy," he heard Eric mutter to Andrew as Hang arrived back at the start. Eric stopped talking.

"Alright, Andrew, how'd I do?" Hang gasped, still out of breath.

"...Hang, this is the second worst time I've seen in the history of these exams," he told him. Hang's heart dropped to his stomach.

"The difference is the first worst failed." Hang let out a sigh of relief. "But you cut it awful close there. Anyway, rest up and head to the gymnasium at 22:00." Andrew said before leaving.

"He means 10 PM," Eric clarified and followed Andrew. Hang sat down on the ground until Waqas approached him.

"I don't believe we met." He extended his arm, "The name's Waqas. I saw you in the club room the other day. I'm the guy you come to when you need a gadget, gizmo, or just a repair. Hope to be seeing you on-board soon." Hang took his hand and shook it. "Welp, gotta go, there's a firework launcher with my name on it," he said and departed.

At the exact hour, Hang approached the gymnasium, drinking a water bottle. When he finished, he crumpled it and threw it into the trash bin right outside the doors. Then he walked in, in complete darkness again. He lit his hand and proceeded forward with caution until the place was lit up by a large spotlight shining squarely on him.

"Good to see you made it, Hang," Andrew says over an intercom, "We've seen you can keep your cool in a tough situation. Now what we want to know is how well you can handle yourself in one. Because when something really does happen, nobody's gonna pull off their face and spare you."

With that explanation over with, two more lights turned on, one toward the left bleachers, right on James, and one toward the right bleachers, right on Thomas. James jumped down and Sthomas somersaulted off the bleachers. Shortly after, Marc dropped from the ceiling and landed behind Hang, the three of them forming a triangle around him.

"Slush Defenders," Andrew commanded, "Attack."

"Oh you think you're ready for me?" Thomas ran up to Hang, "Because you're NOT!" He threw a punch that Hang avoided. He retaliated with a weak flame, only intended to lightly burn Thomas. "HOT! HOT!" he screeched and ran away. But while he was distracted with that, James closed the distance and jabbed the side of his head twice. Hang turned around just in time to get hit in the face with an explosive right cross. Hang flew back and slid across the floor. Marc took his turn to attack and lunged at Hang with a flying kick. Hang geot back to his feet and dodged, sending a stream at flames where Marc landed. Marc dodged himself and went in to swipe his concealed knife at Hang, who dipped back to avoid it. Hang then caught a blue twinkle out of the corner of his eye and quickly rolled to the side to avoid the giant laser blast from Thomas.

Hang got up but saw himself face-to-face with James who delivered a right hook to the side of his face. Hang staggered off to the side and got hit in the other side by Marc's elbow. He got sent to the floor and the three of them slowly made their way towards him.

"Man, was that it? That was PATHETIC!" Sthomas said, charging up his fists of fury.

"You'd think he'd at least know how to take a punch," James taunted, cracking his knuckles.

"Why are you two surprised? I knew he wasn't getting in from the moment I saw him," Marc finished, brandishing his arm-knife. Hang waited for them to all get dangerously close before opening an eye. Before the others could react, he quickly did a windmill on the ground, sending a wheel of fire out all around him. Marc and Thomas had their feet burned while James jumped out of the way, but he too was quickly hit by Hang's follow-up flamethrower attack. As he recoiled, Hang covered both his arms in fire and punched James in the head, followed by kicking Marc over.

"What's the matter, can't take a punch?" He taunted James as Marc hit the ground, leaving him alone with Thomas.

Who ran away.

"Thomas, get back over there, it's just a testing drill," Andrew reprimanded him over the intercom. Thomas steeled himself, turned around, and launched himself straight at Hang with a flying overhead. "KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" he shouted. Hang just took a few steps back and blasted him with fire, with predictable results. Thomas fell to the ground, holding his face in pain.

"OH GOD! MY FACE BURNS! MY BEAUTIFUL FACE! DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO GROW THAT FIVE-O-CLOCK SHADOW!?" He whined as he writhed on the floor. The rest of the gymansium's lights turned on and the other two dusted themselves off and got up.

"Not bad, not bad at all," James told him.

"Nice trick," Marc admitted. Andrew came down to join the rest of them.

"Hang, this concludes the entrance exam. You have proven yourself to be capable of keeping a cool head under pressure, at least average athletic capability even with obstacles, and being able to handle yourself in a fight, even when the odds are stacked against you. Because of that, I am proud to say..."

He held out a hand for Hang.

"Welcome to the Slush Defenders."

Hang eagerly shook Andrew's and beamed.

"Thank you, I hope- I promise you that I won't disappoint!" Once Andrew lets go, he and Marc leave.

"Hey, congratulations!" James says. Thomas jumps in and gives Hang a celebratory noogie.

"Thanks guys. I won't let you down. I promise!"

The End.