Jason Fuller & The Elementals: The Stones Of Olympus (Book 1)

by Andarion The Storyteller

This story is about the adventures of a young mutant named Jason Fuller and his friends as they embark on a journey to save the world from Doctor Doom and the Masters of Evil. Lives will be changed, destinies will be fought, ancient magic will resurface, and for Jason, a question that has plagued him since his parents death, about what it truly means to be a hero, will be answered.

5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: I Make New Friends, Spar With Superheroes, and Have The Most Dangerous Gym Class Ever

Two alarms woke me up the next morning: the one on my iPod, and the one on my watch. Despite the little amount of sleep I got, I still felt energized, like I was plugged up to a generator while I slept. I got up, quickly took a shower, brushed my teeth, and went to my closets. I picked out a blue T-shirt with the S.H.I.E.L.D emblem on it, a black pair of jeans, my regular shoes, and a black jacket, which I left unzipped. While I was combing my dreads, I noticed something strange about me. My eyes, that used to be dark brown, were now electric blue! Despite everything that had happened to me yesterday, this was the most shocking of all. It was like a brand. No matter how hard I would try to hide it, now there was a permanent symbol of how different I was. To be honest, I didn't know if I could take much more.

After I was done getting dressed, I walked out of my room and checked the time: 7:30. I had half an hour to eat before boot camp, so I asked for directions, and quickly made my way down to the cafeteria. Let me tell you something cool. S.H.I.E.L.D. knows how to eat! Their cafeteria had everything you could imagine! All types of pancakes, lots of bacon, every type of cereal, and anything else associated with breakfast! I got blueberry, strawberry, and mango pancakes. Also, a plate full of bacon, some Cinnamon Toast Crunch with strawberry milk, blueberry muffins, strawberry yogurt, and a glass of apple juice. After I got my food, I sat down at an empty table that had a nice view of the sky. I blessed my food, but right before I started to eat, some guy shouted "Hey you!"

I turned around and saw a guy in a red football jersey, sitting next to a blonde girl, who was wearing a denim hat, and a sleeveless denim jacket over a long sleeve white shirt. Immediately, I was on guard, because I did not have pleasant relationships with jocks, and the girl looked like the popular type, which I did not mingle well with either. However, their faces said differently. The guy wearing the football jersey had a humble and friendly look in his eyes. Plus his brown hair was a bit untidy, which was not the usual look for a conceited jock. The girl, though definitely not a stranger to popularity, had a kind and gentle demeanor. Plus, she looked kind of athletic; like she could play ball really good. Even so, I politely waved hello, and turned around to eat my food.

"If you don't come over here," called the jersey guy. "We're coming over to you."

I shrugged my shoulders, sure that they were bluffing. I was wrong. They took their food trays, LITERALLY FLEW from their table, and landed right across from where I was sitting. The girl was actually glowing with golden fiery light as she flew, and cooled off when she landed.

"Dude, we're not gonna bite you," said the jersey guy. "Hopefully you won't bite us either. My name's Grant. Grant Jackson. It's very nice to meet you."

He extended his hand, and I shook it, not wanting to be rude. Either way, it looked like these two were here to stay. I might as well get used to them.

"Jason Fuller," I responded. "It's good to meet you as well. Who's your friend?"

"Allyson Grace," she said, quickly reaching out her hand. "I really like your hair."

"Thanks," I said, shaking her hand. "So why are you two here?"

"We don't know," said Grant. "Probably for the same reason as you. By the way, what can you do?

"I can shoot lightning out of my hands."

"Is that it?"

"So far, yes."

"That's cool, bro. As for me, I can fly, I have super strength, a lot of stamina, and as far as I know, I'm invulnerable.

"Awesome," I said feeling a little bit outclassed. "What about you, Allyson?"

"Oh me?" she said shyly. "I have the power to absorb an endless amount of solar energy. With this energy I can fly, shoot projectiles, make constructs, and heal any wounds through song."

"Whoa," Grant and I said at the same time. Clearly, she was way more in control in terms of power than we were.

"So are the two of you going to training after breakfast?" I asked them.

"Yup," said Grant. "Speaking of which, we should probably focus on eating now. We only got 25 minutes before crunch time."

With that, everyone ate more and talked less. If this is what having friends was like, then it wasn't so bad. In fact, I was actually starting to like these two.

After breakfast, the two black guys that came to my house showed up to escort the three of us to room 135X. We walked about 5 minutes before actually getting there. Inside, the room resembled that of a high school gym, except for the fact that most gyms don't have walls made of metal, and lethal weapons racked on the walls. Colonel Fury was already waiting inside, and I swear it's like he almost smiled at the sight of us. That didn't make me feel any better about what was coming up.

"Welcome, children," he said. "We have a lot of training to do, and little time to do it, so listen and don't ask any questions."

Allyson immediately raised her hand (once a school girl, always a school girl).

"Yes, Miss Grace?" asked Fury.

"Sorry to ask you a question when you told us not to Mr. Fury, but who exactly are we training with?"

"I'm glad you asked, Miss Grace, and it's Colonel Fury. "Today, the three of you will receive training from Nightcrawler and Storm of the X-Men. Also from Luke Cage and Ms. Marvel."

At first, I thought there was no way four well known superheroes were going to bother training three high school kids, but sure enough, Fury pressed a button on his watch, and the four of them appeared in a flash of light. Luke Cage was this big black guy, with huge muscles, wearing black workout pants, and a yellow muscle shirt. Ms. Marvel was a woman with flowing blonde hair, wearing jeans, a white T-shirt, and a crimson leather jacket. Storm was a black woman with silver-grey hair, and white eyes; dressed in a black tank top, and black workout pants. Finally, Nightcrawler was this guy, sort of, with blue skin, elf ears, yellow eyes,and a demon tail. He was also dressed in a black tank top and workout pants.

At the sight of these heroes, Grant burst into applause, while Allyson kept bouncing on the balls of her feet squealing: OMG, OMG, OMG. Me, I just smiled and acted polite. Don't get me wrong, I was definitely a little starstruck, but like I said, I don't have too much love for heroes.

After the initial hype had settled down, Fury broke us off into groups. For thirty minutes, we would spend time with a certain hero, working on different combat aspects, then we would switch until everyone had been at the stations Fury had chosen for us. For my first station I would be with Luke Cage and Nightcrawler, working on armed and unarmed combat. I shed my jacket, stretched out a little, and prepared myself to spar hand-to-hand with one of the world's strongest superheroes. I looked over at Grant and Allyson, who were doing the same, except they were in mid-air. I wasn't insecure about much, and this was probably stupid, but I was starting to feel a bit inferior to my peers. Grant could fly, had super strength, and was almost invincible. Allyson could combust into sunlight, fly, blast stuff, make stuff, and heal people with her most likely beautiful singing. All I could do was shoot lightning out of my hands, which was only good for blasting longtime rivals, and recharging batteries.

"Yo, kid," said Luke. "Get your head out of the clouds, and into the fight."

"Oh," I said, still shaking off my daydream. "Sorry about that."

"It's cool, man. Just focus on the task at hand, aight?"

"Ok. So what are we doing?"

"For fifteen minutes, you and I are gonna spar hand-to-hand. You can use your lightning powers for melee purposes, but you can't blast me from a distance."

"That is so not fair dude! I don't have super strength!"

"I can't blast lightning out of my hands. Your enemy won't care about what's fair, so just shut up and fight!"

I took a deep breath, and concentrated on one emotion: anger. Anger was easy. Anger was all i've ever known since I was seven, and now, I was going to take out some of my anger on Luke Cage's face! My fists surged with so much voltage, I couldn't even see my hands anymore! I was generating that much lightning! Luke took this as a sign to attack. He rushed at me and swung with a right hook, that a dodged by ducking. He kicked at me while I was down, but I rolled backwards, getting out of range of his fists, and then rushed to counter attack. Luke did the same, and charged at me. Right before we collided, I jumped over him, turned in mid-air, and kicked him in the back. It probably didn't hurt him very much, but at least I managed to land a blow. Again, Luke charged at me, but this time I was ready. I trotted backwards, until Luke lunged to tackle me. As he fell forward, I did a backwards cartwheel that ended up with my feet planting themselves in Luke's chin! Right before impact, I thought how awesome it would be if my feet could catch lightning.

BOOM!

Luke caught a lightning kick under his chin, and crash landed a few feet away! As he was getting up I jumped on his back, hoping to keep him off-balance, and continue pounding him. Worst. Idea. Ever. Luke grabbed the back of my shirt, and threw me halfway across the room! Quicker than I could have ever anticipated, he caught up, and assaulted me with punches to the chest and face before grabbing me and throwing me again! At this point everything hurt, but I knew I couldn't stay on the ground for too long. Luke would be on my ass any second. I quickly got up to the sight of Luke charging at me, and made an attempt to dodge. Unfortunately, Luke saw this coming. He feinted an attempt to tackle me, and when I jerked to the side, he actually tackled me! I can still feel the impact my head made on the floor! Through the blurry haze of my vision, I saw Luke raise a fist, and I quickly moved my head out of the way before it came crashing down! Next I grabbed Luke's face, who quickly got off of me, due to the fact that I had just super-charged his face with voltage! I quickly got up to face Luke, ignoring my aching body pains, but this time something was different. Luke was throwing a punch, but it was like he was moving slower. Much slower. At first I thought he was just messing with me, but when I looked around at everyone else, it was the same. Grant and Ms. Marvel, who were locked in aerial combat, were punching each other at the speed of snails. Allyson and Storm, who were blasting each other, were also moving slow. In fact, Storm's lightning bolts looked as though they were being frozen. I didn't know what was going on, so I decided to test it out. I moved closer to Luke, who was still on the verge of punching me, and poked him in the chest. It was if he didn't feel it, or see that I was now in ass-kicking distance. I avoided his fist, and walked around him. He very slowly turned around, with a confused look on his face. At this point, I decided to put him out of his slo-mo misery! I focused more lightning on my fists, and punched Luke as many times as I could in the face, chest, and torso, while dodging and countering his attacks with laughable ease! Finally, I did a backflip lightning kick to his face (I didn't know I could do that), and power kicked him in the chest; sending him flying backwards! To add insult to injury, while he was still falling, which was also going in slow motion, I got a running start, and flying kicked him in the chest with more speed and power than I ever knew I had! I must have really put myself into that one, because Luke flew straight into a wall at above normal speed! That was really somethin', considering I launched him at least 50 meters, from the middle of the gym, where we started the fight!

"Nice moves, kid," Luke said as he slowly got up. "Why didn't you say you had super speed powers?"

"Because I don't?" I said, really confused.

"Yeah you do. For the last few seconds of that fight I couldn't touch you. I could hardly see you."

"What are you talking about?"

"Take a look," he said, pulling an iPod-like device out of his pocket.

He pressed some kind of app, and messed around with the device until it shot out a holographic screen replaying the fight. Not to toot my own horn, but looking at myself from a distance, I was pretty damn impressive! I watched the fight with Luke, up until the moment where he went super slo-mo. Instead I saw me, or I assume it was me, beating the living crap out of Luke, in less than five seconds! Even more surprising, was the blurry image of me kicking Luke while in midair, except a bolt of lightning was coming out of my foot!

"Whoa." I said.

"Yeah." Luke responded.

"Sorry about that last kick."

"It's ok. I've been hit much harder, but it's obvious there is more to you than just lightning."

"Cool."

"Dope. Now get ready. We still got 10 more minutes of sparring to do."

From then on out, the match wasn't too much of a contest. I found out that making my super speed work was to build up momentum, like a jet on a runway. For ten straight minutes, Luke was subject to an unending flurry of lightning powered kicks and punches, until it was time for my lesson with Nightcrawler.

To start off, Nightcrawler directed me to a wall that had various types of swords on it, and told me to choose one. I chose a leaf shaped blade (not literally. Just think of the sword Percy Jackson uses) with a curved hilt, that would be good for locking an opponent's blade, while Nightcrawler chose a blade that looked like it was used in George Washington's day. Next, the two of us stretched out for a minute, so I could rub off the soreness from my match with Luke. While we were stretching, I took a look at how Grant and Allyson were doing.

Grant was still holding his own against Ms. Marvel. The two fought with so much strength, power, and speed, it reminded me of Dragon Ball Z fights. Allyson was doing much better. She was gracefully moving through the air like a pro, assaulting Storm with blasts of light, blocking attacks with sun shaped shields, and hitting Storm with various constructs, like a sledgehammer, a giant fist, and even a lightning bolt made of sun energy! If this was the start of a new superhero team (hint hint), Allyson was definitely going to be the leader!

After we were done stretching, Nightcrawler and I got into our respective defensive stances, ready to duel. Now I know what you're probably thinking, but i've watched a lot of sword fighting movies, plus a lot of sword fighting technique vids on YouTube, by people who study the art, so I was more prepared for this fight than you think I am. I charged at Nightcrawler with a war cry, and brought my blade down hard in a vertical slice! Nightcrawler simply backflipped, kicking me under the chin and while in mid-air, and kicked me in the chest on the way down, sending me tumbling backwards. Luckily, I was able to hold on to my blade, because blue boy wasn't done yet. He rushed at me, and quickly jabbed and thrusted at me a numerous amount of times. If it wasn't for my quick reflexes, I probably would've been skewered on the third jab. Even so, I was just barely holding my own! It was all I could do to block and dodge this guy's sword! The next 10 minutes went by in a flurry of stabs, cuts, blocks, counters, and parries. Nightcrawler and I went back and forth (mostly back on my part) trying to finish the fight. Even though I could tell Nightcrawler was taking it easy on me, I had no intention of being swept aside like a training doll. Yet everything I tried failed. When I tried for a stab, Nightcrawler dodged and countered. If I tried for a slash, Nightcrawler would either parry, dodge and attack my torso area, or dodge and attack my legs. Again, only my reflexes were keeping me in the game.

Finally, with five minutes left before the end of the match, I made my move. I tapped into the momentum I had built up over the course of the fight, and unleashed it to travel faster (i'm gonna start calling it Speed Mode. Sounds cooler). I wasn't traveling as fast as I was when I was pummeling Luke, but it was enough to give me a decent edge. I slashed, stabbed, and even used my legs to push Nightcrawler on the defensive, while I attacked at what few openings he left me. Even with my speed, Nightcrawler was clearly the better swordsman; dodging and blocking even my best attacks and maneuvers. However, he didn't have lightning powers, and I was going to exploit that weakness! Nightcrawler downward slashed at me, which I blocked with my sword. Next, I pushed the blade up and kicked him as hard as I could in the chest, sending him tumbling backwards. Finally, I charged at him, and spun around before slashing at him. This was a risky move, because a fighter should never turn his back to his opponent. Plus, the whole sword spin attack you see on TV is not as effective in real life as you think it is. The only reason I risked such a move was because I had the speed to pull it off. Anyway, while my back was turned, I charged my blade with lightning and when Nightcrawler blocked my attack, like I knew he would, his blade shattered like ice! Nightcrawler was clearly surprised by my trick, and as he was staggering backwards, I rushed in, and attempted to stab him! However, right before the blade made contact, he vanished in a puff of blue smoke! Suddenly, I felt a lot of weight on my back, but before I could counter, everything went dark, and when the lights came back, I was free falling to the floor! I crashed hard, and before I could get up, I felt the tip of a sword at my neck. I was so stupid. I completely forgot he had teleportation powers! Nightcrawler helped me to my feet, and congratulated my efforts with a huge grin. Which by the way, is kind of unnerving with the yellow eyes, blue skin, and fangs.

"Good job, Jason," he said.

"Not good enough," I said. "You still beat me."

"Don't beat yourself up, mein friend, that was very good for a first try, We'll have many more sessions, so you will improve."

"Ok, cool. Thanks for the awesome match. I had a lot of fun."

I shook Nightcrawler's hand (which felt weird, considering he only had three fingers), and moved on to my next station with Ms. Marvel. Because Allyson had put the smackdown on Storm, who was completely exhausted, Grant and Allyson would both be at the station I was at, alternating between Luke and Nightcrawler. In the meantime, I would be working with Ms. Marvel on ground level ranged fighting. Basically, this meant for one hour, I was gonna get blasted around the gym, while trying to figure out how to access my inner Zeus.

"Ready, kid?" Ms Marvel asked me.

"No, not really," I responded.

"Too bad!"

Quicker than I could react, Ms. Marvel shot at me with a photon blast! Now, you'd probably think that i'd dodge this, due to my super speed and quick reflexes, but the truth was I wasn't ready, and I covered my face with my arms (like that would help) while I fumbled backwards in a really heroic manner. Lucky for me, my powers activated on time to save my sorry ass. Right before the blast connected, I felt a bump, as if the blast had hit something that wasn't me. I lowered my arms to find, to my surprise and delight, that a force field of electric energy had saved me from being a splat on the wall! Ms. Marvel was still blasting away at the barrier, but it was standing strong! On a hunch, I balled my right hand into a fist, and struck the barrier. The result was an electrical shock wave that blew Ms. Marvel (and everyone else) off of their feet! Ms Marvel, though blown off her feet, simply rolled with the momentum, got up, and resumed the attack.

For the first few minutes of the fight, Ms. Marvel was in charge. This wasn't because she was stronger, quicker, or more experienced than me (although all of these were true), but because my attacks were too slow. For example, when Ms. Marvel got up, she blasted me with a volley of photon blasts. I dodged them all, and willed a bolt of lightning to shoot out of my right hands. She dodged this too, and blasted another turret of photon blasts at me. This time, instead of dodging, I willed both of my hands to release a crazy amount of voltage that I focused into a mega lightning bolt. The bolt blasted right through Ms. Marvel's volley attack, and pelted her right in the chest (I assume it was the chest. Everything went bright when the bolt made impact. I couldn't see her much)! Surprisingly (well, not THAT surprisingly), she quickly got up, and resumed her relentless photon blast attack. This time, Ms. Marvel saw right through my tactics and broke them down. When I blasted her with a lightning bolt, she dodged it, and threw like ten or twenty blasts at me! I was forced to resort to dodging and rarely attacking. It went on like this for a while. I blast, she dodges, she shoots, I run. To make matters worse, Ms. Marvel decided to blast at me from the air (cheating if you consider the fact that we were practicing ground ranged battling)! Now, she had more room to maneuver, more speed to work with, and I had less chances to dodge. Hell, even if I did, from such a good vantage point, Ms. Marvel could predict where I would be, and strike there. At one point, she had me pinned down, and I had to create another barrier to avoid being bombarded. However, this time Ms. Marvel was serious! She created a super charged photon blast, about the size of a jumbo beach ball, and hurled it at me! The blast crushed my force field on impact, and sent me flying backwards into the wall! Although, the force of the blast broke through my barrier, the initial impact didn't hurt too badly, so I was able to roll out of the way before any more of Ms. Marvel's blasts could do more damage. However, I was still at the same place I was when the fight started. Ms. Marvel in the air, and on the attack, while I was on the ground scrambling around for dear life. I couldn't hit her while she was up there. I knew that for certain. I wished there was a way to bring her down. For a brief moment, I imagined lightning striking her in the back.

CRAKK!

Suddenly, Ms. Marvel plummeted to the floor, after a thundercloud suddenly materialized, and struck her with lightning! It was at that moment I decided to get a bit more creative with my powers, and really see what I could do!

For the next 50 minutes, I fought like a beast! After I realized my powers could do more than just straight lightning bolts, I decided to experiment further. For starters, instead of shooting straight and focused bolts of lightning, I willed my lightning to turn into balls that I blasted at Ms. Marvel. This made a tremendous difference in the fight, because now I could attack, as well as defend more effectively. For example, one time Ms. Marvel blasted another volley of photon blasts at me. I saw this coming, and used a bolt of lightning to blast through them. She dodged the bolt, but I expected this, and unleashed my own volley of lightning blasts at Ms. Marvel, about ten in total! Every blast made impact, and sent her tumbling, not soaring, backwards. I kept at it, knowing that if I held back for even a second, Ms. Marvel would capitalize. We battled on for a while, mostly matching each other blast for blast; tho I did get a few good hits in. For example, after we had reached 45 straight minutes of fighting, I figured out how to use my speed powers to make my blasts move faster, and hit harder. This technique worked by concentrating my speed powers solely in my hands, and resonating into my blasts. By doing this, I could fire like 20 individual shots in 2 seconds. Also, instead of merely blunt force, I willed my blasts to explode on impact. This helped keep Ms. Marvel off balance, and give me an advantage.

Finally, after a long and brutal battle, and with only 10 minutes left in the fight, I decided to try and end it early. Don't get me wrong, I still had fuel to burn, but I could tell Ms. Marvel was up to something. This fight was a bit too easy for my liking. Better to end it now, on my terms, than wait for her to pull out her ace. I lured Ms. Marvel into a false sense of security by keeping up our game of blaster cat and mouse, then, while she was off guard, I tapped into Speed Mode, making her, and everything else in the world seem frozen. While in the Speed Mode, I weaved through the photon blasts, and absorbed all of the electrical blasts that were also frozen in mid-air. With this energy, I slapped the ground with both of my hands, creating a surge that traveled across the floor to where Ms. Marvel was standing! A new thing I had learned at that moment was that while I used my lightning powers, it would deteriorate how much I could tap into Speed Mode. Even now Ms. Marvel was slowly starting to move again. I knew I didn't have long, so I quickly pulled out my ace. I created a thunderbolt, yes an actual thunderbolt, like the one Zeus would use, charged it with a ton of voltage, and hurled it at Ms. Marvel! The blast itself was so powerful, it knocked everyone off their feet (again), and threw them various directions; including myself! The good news was that everyone was ok, although my friends and the other heroes were starting to give me dirty looks. The bad news was that everyone was ok, including Ms. Marvel, who dusted off her clothes (what were those things made of?! They could survive an atomic bomb!) and started to glow!

When I say she started to glow, I mean she would give Allyson, the sun queen, a run for her money! The energy I felt radiating off of her was incredible, scary in fact, but what was even more frightening, was what she did next! She screamed a crazy Amazon-like battle cry, and blasted me with enough energy to plow through at least 10 walls! In that instant time froze without me even needing to tap into Speed Mode! Maybe it was a reflex, or maybe in the moment of certain death, my body decided to start the habit of freezing time. What I did next was so impulsive, and so dangerous, that I shoulda been on the top 10 list for most troubled mutant kids on the planet. I immediately felt a huge surge of energy generating from my body. Where all this power was coming from, I didn't know, but I did know I had to release it at that moment, or else it would explode inside me (which would not be a good way to kick off the holidays)! I willed the immense energy to transfer through my arms, which felt both exhilarating and excruciating! The energy output was unbelievable! I literally was lost in the voltage! I couldn't see my hands, arms, or even my body! It was a miracle I could make out Ms. Marvel's image to aim at properly! I placed my hands together, focused all of my energy on my trainer, and let it rip (for those of you that don't know, that move is called Final Flash, by Vegeta, a character on Dragonball Z. Look it up, it's a good show)!

My energy blast collided with Ms. Marvel's in a deadly intense power battle! Still, I could feel that even with all this power, I would still lose if I didn't dig deeper, so that's what I did. I looked inside myself, and willed all of the energy I had, even my Speed Mode Momentum, to assist my Final Flash, and help me end this fight! You would not believe how fast the response was! Immediately, my blast quadrupled in size and strength! Plus, with my Speed Mode momentum pushing it on, the blast completely steamrolled Ms. Marvel's and crashed into her! On impact, the blast propelled Ms. Marvel into the steel wall, causing a major electrical surge throughout the entire complex, setting everything electrically powered or metal based on a power frenzy! After 5 seconds, my energy blast dissipated, and I actually got to survey the damage. The most shocking thing was how powerful the blast really was, and how it affected my opponent. Ms. Marvel was shot through not one, not two, but 10 steel walls! At first I was worried that I had killed her, but she briefly got up, before fainting and crashing to the floor again, so at least I had confirmation that she was sort of ok. The next thing I realized was how spent I was. Like, I had no energy left in my body, and I crumpled to the ground.

Through the haze of my blurred vision, I saw the silhouettes of Grant and Allyson rushing towards me. A few seconds later, I felt Grant slowly pick me up (not bridal style), and put my right arm around his shoulder in an attempt to keep me upright.

"DUDE!" he shouted. "THAT WAS FREAKING EPIC, YOU DESTROYED HER!"

"uhhruugglahhhr," I responded. Which was extremely exhausted for: 'Thanks. Now please stop screaming in my ear, and give me a ton of red bull.'

"Grant," said Allyson. "Stop screaming in his ear, and let me help him."

I was really starting to like this girl.

"Ok, what do you need me to do?" he asked.

"Set him down on the floor-NO, DON'T DROP HIM!"

Apparently to Grant, "set him down on the floor"meant 'drop your new friend flat on his face'. I made a mental note to zap him as soon as I had the energy for it.

After I was put on the ground with such gentle care, Allyson knelt down, repositioned me so I was in a more comfortable state, and then began to gently touch my chest, arms, hands, and face (her hands were really soft). Next, she hovered her hands over my chest, and began to sing. Her voice was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard in my life! Like an entire choir of angels singing through one person. As she sang, my body filled with a sudden warmth; like the kind you get when you walk outside after being locked in a cold classroom for two hours. To be honest, I felt as though my body was glowing. Hell, maybe it was. Allyson did have sun powers after all. After she stopped singing, I felt….better? I mean...I didn't feel completely re-energized, but it was good enough for me to sit up straight and form clear words.

"So how do you feel, buddy?" Grant asked me. "You still don't look so good."

"Maybe because you dropped me on my face, you bonehead," I snapped.

"Oh. Sorry about that man. I didn't think."

I was gonna say something like "no, you didn't" but Grant had such an "i'm sorry" look on his face, that I couldn't stay mad at him. The guy was a moron, but he was still a good guy.

"It's ok, bro," I said. "Just don't ever do it again, or i'll zap you."

We both laughed for a little while.

"But seriously," said Allyson, who still had a concerned look in her eyes. "How are you feeling? Are you completely re-energized? You don't look like it."

"Well," I started. "I'm not completely re-energized…..BUT you still did a very good job," I quickly added, because Allyson looked like she was on the verge of tears.

"But, my healing songs always work! On me, other people, even Grant!"

I gave Grant a quizzical look.

"Oh," he started. "After I fought Ms. Marvel and Luke Cage, I was bone tired, dude. I fought with everything I had, so Allyson did her magic song healy thing on me, and all my energy came back. I felt stronger than ever."

"So why doesn't it work on you?" Allyson asked me.

"I dunno," I said. "Try it again. I did release a huge amount of energy. Maybe I need another dose of sun energy."

"No," said Allyson flatly. "It never takes more than one song to heal anyone. It can literally bring them back from the brink of death, and heal up the most gruesome of all cuts and gashes."

She said this with so much certainty, that I could tell she spoke from experience. Somewhere out there, a lot of people owed Allyson their lives.

"Besides, I can sense that your body has had too much exposure to my sun energy. Any more, and you'd burn up. Literally."

"Really?" I asked.

"Well either that, or you'd get cancer so severe, you'd die within two hours."

How she knew that, I didn't wanna know. But it was clear I wasn't getting anymore sun healing.

"Maybe he needs a different type of recharge," said Grant. "Maybe the electrical kind."

He looked in the direction where I blasted Ms. Marvel through 10 walls. Sure enough, there was a hanging power cable, surging with voltage.

"Electrical huh?" I said to myself.

I got up and walked towards the power cable, ignoring Allyson's frantic cries to stop me. Once I got there, I steeled my nerves, knowing that either this would work, or I would be committing suicide. Before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed the cable.

Imagine drinking a gallon made of: Red Bull, Monster, espresso, and the most caffeinated sugary mixed coffee imaginable! The rush of power I felt was 10 times that in energy and power! I felt all of my energy return, and then some! I felt like I could run around the world, fight forever, and take on an army without ever getting tired! I quite literally leaped 10 feet in the air, landed perfectly on my feet, and ran back to Allyson and Grant, grinning like a madman!

Because we finished this part of our training ahead of schedule, and because my Final Flash caused a few technical problems with the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s training rooms, Fury gave us 30 minutes to rest up before moving on to our next exercise (not that any of us actually needed any rest). We used this time to talk, and get to know each other better. Since none of us wanted to sit on the floor for thirty minutes, we decided to have our conversation in the air. Grant and Allyson were hovering in the air sitting criss-cross applesauce (sorry, force of habit), and Allyson made me a sofa constructed from sun energy, hovering across from her, to sit on (which by the way, felt so nice and warm. It was perfect for taking naps). For like ten minutes, we talked about basic stuff like: where we were from, what we liked to do for fun, favorite sports, music, books, etc. As it turned out, we all had a lot in common. We all shared the same love of: WWE wrestling, extreme sports, rock music, and roller coasters. We all talked about how and when we got our powers. I told my story first, making sure to go in detail about my epic dodgeball comeback, while trying to make my incident with Crosby sound less horrific than it actually was. Grant was really chill about it. Even said Crosby got what he deserved. Allyson on the other hand was somewhat horrified that I could do that to someone. She put her hands over her mouth, and had a really shocked look on her face. I tried not to feel overly bad about that. Grant as it turns out developed his powers a few hours after I did (or before? Time Zones suck). He was at football practice, somewhere in Nebraska, and made football history when he trucked a quarterback, and sent them both flying from the 10 yard line to the opposing End Zone in one leap! I didn't think Grant could take a lot of things seriously, but as he told his story, his expression turned stony, and he told the story as if it were a bitter memory. I got the feeling that back at home, there was an open position on Grant's football team. Allyson, on the other hand, developed her powers a little over a year ago. She was singing at her Christmas play back at her hometown, in Alabama, when she suddenly began to glow in the middle of her solo as a Christmas angel. Because it was a Christmas play, and she was playing the part as an angel, the crowd thought it was all a part of the play, and Allyson wasn't exposed as a mutant. For a year, Allyson, with the help of her parents, learned how to use her powers, and effectively hide them in public (no wonder she was such a pro. She had a head start). That surprised me, because most parents would be mortified to learn that they had a mutant child, yet Allyson's parents accepted it, helped her master it, and by the sounds of it, were happy she was a mutant. We talked about this stuff and more until our thirty minutes were up, and we had to go to room 134X for our next assignment. Thinking back on it, I realized that was the first time I had ever hung out with friends…...ever.

Once inside room 134X, which was almost the same as 135X but much bigger, and with no weapons racked on the walls, Fury and the other heroes walked into some kind of booth that had a dark window shielding them. I couldn't see inside it at all.

"Ok, kids," said Fury (when was he gonna stop calling us kids?). "This will be your first test to see how you do as a team, and it starts right now."

An alarm suddenly went off, and a million lights flashed quicker than I could blink! When they dissipated, me. Grant, and Allyson found ourselves surrounded by the same Terminator looking robots that I saw last night! The only difference was that there were only three of us, while there were at least 500 of them! Some of them were smallish and skeleton-like, but I could tell they were much stronger than they looked. Others were much more intimidating, with huge bodies, a muscular build (assuming robots can have muscle), and laser cannons on their arms and shoulders. We were way outnumbered but maybe not outgunned. Before I could get a plan together however, Grant charged forward with a yell, crashing through a dozen robots, and went smashing away! I knew robots couldn't feel or display emotion, but one of them looked at Grant, looked back at me, and I may have been imagining it, but his face said something like: "Is your friend nuts?" I did the only thing I could do: thought to myself: "Yes he is", and blasted the robots head off with a bolt of lightning!

For like 5 minutes, the entire fight was chaos! Allyson and I managed to stay together for a while, blasting down robots with sun blasts and lightning bolts respectively, but eventually we became separated in the rush of robots. I didn't like this. With Grant God knows where, doing his own thing, Allyson and I were already at a disadvantage as it was when we were together. Now we were all on our own, and it was only a matter until the divided became the conquered. For a while tho, I was doing well on my own. I blasted through like 20 runts with bolts of lightning, and when they got closer, I switched to blasts, which proved to be just as effective at making scrap metal! Just when I thought maybe I could turn this around, get back to Allyson, and then make our way to Grant, I met my first giant robot (I'll call them Titans from now on). He looked at me, and his eyes flashed like a car blinker on alarm mode. After that, all of the runts backed up, refrained from attacking me, and formed a circle around the two of us. I knew what was going down. I'd been in plenty of these situations. The big guy wanted to fight me one on one. He wanted to make an example out of me. Stupid move.

I started the fight by blasting him in the chest with a huge lightning bolt. The blast hit him considerably hard, and caused him to stumble backwards, but it didn't damage him as much as I had hoped. Plan B, I made my hands surge with voltage, and tried pounding him with my fists. Yeah, that didn't work out too well. For starters, metal is much tougher to damage with your fists than flesh, even with voltage fists. My hand didn't break, thank God, but the Titan grabbed me by the neck and lifted me off of the ground. He raised a fist, and I knew what was coming next! Before I said goodbye to my face, I blasted him in the head with another lightning bolt! I must have been pretty desperate for him to let go, because this time the Titan actually crashed into his buddies, taking out maybe a good 10 or 15 for me! Unfortunately, this wasn't enough of a blast to trash the Titan, as he got up and charged me. I charged him back, and right before collision, (or should I say trample) I baseball slid between his legs, tapped into my Speed Mode, and while the Titan was going slo mo, I jumped on his back, grabbed his neck, and released a major electrical surge that traveled through his body (mostly his insides, where all of his wiring probably was), making him go into a crazy seizure-like state! Yet that still wasn't enough to put him out of commission, cuz he grabbed and threw me off of his back (how many people were gonna throw me off of their backs today?). Fortunately, he must have been severely weakened, because I only hit the floor with minor force, and I didn't get thrown very far. The only downside was that apparently the Titan had had enough (he knew he was losing), and the runts began to join the fight! I didn't have a lot of Speed Momentum left in me, but I did have enough to make them slow down for a while. While in Speed Mode, I created a thunderbolt, supercharged it, and used it to slice the Titan, who was already in bad shape, in half. Before I could attack any of the other robots, I heard Grant shout "YAAAAHHH!", followed by the sound of metal being pounded. I looked up, and saw a damaged Titan falling towards me. Naturally, I threw my thunderbolt at it, causing it to explode into scrap that harmlessly rained down around me.

Afterwards, I quickly created another super charged thunderbolt, and went hacking away at my enemies. Even without my super speed, I was pretty quick on my feet. Plus, with the help of Nightcrawler, my skills with armed combat greatly improved. I did a 180 slash through 20 runts, as if they were butter, before turning around to face the surge of enemies heading my way. Before they could reach me, I swung my thunderbolt, and imagined a shock wave mowing them all down! It worked! The few that remained rushed at me, but were quickly cut down. Cool beans, although I had a new surge of about 50 to deal with. They came at me, and I slashed them down as they came in range, taking about 30 of them out, before they had me backed up against a wall. Unfortunately for them, I anticipated this. As soon as my back touched the wall, I unleashed a mega blast of lightning that came out of my chest (I was thinking about Iron Man's unibeam blast at the time), taking down the other 20, and giving me some room to think! I could hear Grant tearing away at other robots, but he was too far away, and in way too deep for me to try and regroup with. Allyson on the other hand was a lot closer to me, and from the looks of it, she was doing pretty good. I caught sight of runts being blasted to bits by sun blasts, being scattered by the swing of a giant sun hammer, plus Allyson hovering in midair, using a giant fist to clobber what I can only assume was either a Titan, or a major pack of runts. Anyway, she was a lot closer, and there wasn't too much blockage around her, so I ran in her direction. Needless to say, I was met with resistance from all ends. There were runts coming at me left and right, as well as front and back. To get them off me, I created a giant electrical explosive wave that destroyed a lot of my aggressors, and blew away many more. Then I used a thunderbolt to hack down more as I went along. After a bit of hacking and slashing, I realized that I wouldn't get far, even with a thunderbolt. Especially not one that was only 3 feet long. I quickly corrected this, as in mid swing of another wave of runts, I willed my thunderbolt to become much larger; about the size of a spear. The result was a clattered heap of robots who didn't see it coming! I mowed down runts as quickly as they stepped up, taking 5-10 of them with each swing. The thunder spear was also good for helping me keep the robots from surrounding me. For example, just when I was about to reach Allyson, I felt myself getting overwhelmed again by the runts again. I took the thunder spear by the lower end, and swung around in a circle two times. I don't know how many I cut though, but I knew it had to be around 30. Suddenly, I wasn't overwhelmed any more. The thunder spear was also good for dealing with Titans. This was good, considering the fact that one just happened to be charging at me from my left side.

I didn't even need to go into Speed Mode to handle this one. I charged at him, grabbing my thunder spear by the middle, and slid through his legs right before impact. The spear cut clean through his legs, turning him handicap. I quickly got up, careful not to cut myself with my own weapon, and cut clean through his torso. I was feeling pretty proud of myself, but that was quickly brought to a halt when I heard Allyson scream!

I looked over to see that she was backed up against the wall, being held in place by a dogpile of runts. That wasn't the scary part. There was a Titan that had all of its lasers trained on her! I didn't know if the lasers would kill, but I was certain they wouldn't be a pleasant experience. Yet I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't blast the Titan, or the dogpile. With that much metal in such close vicinity, I might accidentally fry Allyson. I could have went into Speed Mode and cut the Titan down, but he was already on the verge of blasting. I wouldn't be able to stop it from shooting, even if I did cut it in half. I wished there was some way the blast wouldn't hit Allyson. For a brief moment I imagined a shield protecting her.

When the Titan fired, everyone, especially me, was surprised when a medieval shield, made of lightning, got in the way of the Titan's blast, causing him to be severely damaged by the reflection, and tumble backwards! I didn't waste another second. I went into Speed Mode, and charged at the remains of the Titan. At this point, I didn't doubt the capabilities of my powers. So far I could: blast lightning, reshape it, wield it, and make shields with it. Why not a sword? I swiftly closed the distance between me and the Titan, and leaped into the air. While airborne, I raised my arms, as if I was holding something, and imagined a huge wicked looking medieval sword being brought down to cleave the Titan in two. As I came down, that's exactly what happened! A sword made of lightning formed in between my hands, and sliced the Titan right down the middle! I turned around to check on Allyson, who as it turns out had everything under control. Before I even made an action to help, she shook off her aggressors with a huge explosive wave of sun energy, turning them all into scrap. I quickly ran to her, checking to make sure she was alright.

"You ok?" I asked her.

"Yeah, i'm fine," she said. "But Grant won't be! He's wearing down! Look!"

I turned around to where Grant was still fighting his heart out. Allyson was right, Grant was strong, and he was doing surprisingly well for someone who was fighting alone, but he was slowing down, and he was getting surrounded. As if on cue, a Titan knocked him down, and started to blast him with his laser cannons! Three more joined in on the shooting, and it was all I could do not to charge in myself!

"GRANT!" screamed Allyson.

"It's ok!" I said frantically, while tryna think up a plan. "We'll save him! We just have to-"

"WATCH OUT!"

Allyson quickly put up a force field that guarded us from three Titans who had already begun to fire at us. The barrier held, but the force of the impact knocked me forward a few feet. The good news was in those few seconds, I had already formulated a plan to get us out of this tight spot, save Grant, and trash the rest of these robots.

"So what's the plan?" Allyson asked me.

"What?" I responded.

"You look like you have a plan, and right now i'm all ears, so what is it?"

"Make another explosive wave, a bigger one, it'll damage the Titans enough to get them off of our backs. After that, leave them to me, and start blasting the runts and Titans in Grant's direction. I'll fill you both in on the rest of the plan once were inside another barrier. Are you ready?"

In response, Allyson made the biggest explosive wave i'd ever seen, knocking away the Titans (amazing how fast she caught on to my lingo), and destroying many surrounding runts. Then she took to the air, and started blasting sun energy at the surrounding robots that were pounding Grant. Her sun blasts were even exploding on impact to do more damage! How good was she?!

As for me, I went into Speed Mode, quickly cut down the remains of the Titans, and then threw my sword in the air, willed it to grow 10 feet long, and then supercharged it. After that was done I willed the sword to fly diagonally right, where a lot of robots were. The blade cut through all of them as if they weren't there! The destruction toll had to be at least 50, not counting the ones who were destroyed during the aftermath of the explosions! With a lot of our surrounding enemies in shambles, I helped Allyson, who was still blasting away, frantically trying to save Grant. It took about a minute, but our combined efforts in blasting down the robots proved successful when we finally got in range of the Titans who were still blasting away at Grant. God, I hoped he was ok. Once in range, I went into Speed Mode again, and cut down the four Titans with a Thunder Sword (lightning sword construct) in less than 1 second. After that, Allyson quickly put up a sun barrier, and I checked to see if Grant was ok. To be honest, you'd expect he'd have a lot of bumps, bruises, and probably burnt skin and bleeding gashes. This was not that. Except for the fact that his jersey and jeans were badly shredded (thank God his undies were mostly undamaged), he was fine. Didn't have a scratch on him, although he was barely conscious.

"He's fine," I said to Allyson. "But he's in no condition to fight.

"I can take care of that," said Allyson

"By singing? I thought people couldn't handle more than one."

"Grant has a much higher tolerance level. He'll be fine."

"Ok then, do your thing. Wait, do you need me to take over barrier duty until you're done?

"Nah, I'm good at multitasking. Just be ready to fill us in on the rest of that plan when he comes to.

Allyson began to sing (so people DO glow when she heals them! Cool), and after about 10 seconds Grant was back on his feet.

"You alright man?" I asked him.

"Yeah," he said, looking extremely humiliated. "Yeah i'm good, thanks for saving me, guys. I was in serious trouble there."

"WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULD THINK ABOUT THAT NEXT TIME YOU WANNA GO ALL GUNG HO, AND LEAP TO YOUR DEATH, YOU STUPID BOY!" Allyson screamed at the top of her lungs; which was pretty terrifying, considering the fact that she was still glowing like a sun goddess.

Then she did the unthinkable, and gave Grant a big hug (apparently her sun form doesn't burn other people. Good to know).

"Almost scared me to death," she barely whispered. "Never do that again, promise me."

"I won't," said Grant. "I promise."

I cleared my throat, loudly.

"Uhh, guys, not to be a third wheel here, but were still in the middle of a war zone, so how about a little less cuddling, and a little more killing please?"

Grant and Allyson both turned bright red, and quickly let go of each other.

"Alright, here's what we're gonna do," I started. "Allyson, make another explosive wave, as big as you can possibly make without blowing the Helicarrier to bits. I'll release another wave following yours'. That'll destroy a lot of the remaining resistance. After that, you take to the air and blast anything on the far reaches of the room in all directions. Grant, you stay on the inside. Smash anything within reach, and try not to get blasted again. As for me, I'll be using my super speed to take out robots in the mid section between both of your zones. If the enemies start to pile up, i'll rush in to help wherever i'm needed. Is everyone good with that plan?

"Yup," said Allyson.

"Let's do it," said Grant.

"Alrighty then," I said. "Allyson, whenever you're ready."

Allyson yelled at the top of her lungs, and thrusted her hands out. Immediately, an explosive wave was unleashed on a bunch of poor robots! I quickly crossed my arms over my chest, like a mummy, yelled at the top of my lungs, and unleashed my own explosive wave (no, that was not necessary, but it looked a lot cooler on the recording), taking out even more robots. In total, there were only about 200 of em' left (yeah, I know, "What do you mean ONLY 200"). It was time to go to work.

I took off into a zone in the middle of Grant and Allyson's designated sections, created a Thunder Sword, and began to run around, killing as many robots as I could. Although I was going really fast, I wasn't going as fast as I could. What I mean by that is I had very little Speed Mode Momentum left, so although I was outstripping my opponents easily, everything was only slightly slower around me, so I had to be careful. While I was busy hacking down enemies, I caught a few glimpses of Grant and Allyson doing their share of the plan. Allyson was blasting away at the outer areas, keeping a lot of robots out of my zone. Every time I saw a group of robots meet their fiery end, I knew Allyson was looking out for me. Grant was fighting like a madman in the inside zone. Call me crazy, but I don't think he liked being blasted with lasers. He fought with such anger and intensity, I wasn't ashamed to admit I was a little afraid of him at the time. For example, he quickly smashed down 10 runts with his bare hands and then, when a Titan crossed his path, he tackled it, launched it into the air, flew up, grabbed it by it's feet, and smashed it into the ground so hard, most of it shattered on impact! Grant then used the remains of the Titan as a club to smash on other robots.

After a bit more fighting, I realized that I was getting too slow with my strikes. I had to run in and help out Grant a few times, because robots in my section were overflowing into his. After that, I switched it up from the Thunder Sword, now opting for newly created Thunder Claws (yes, like Wolverine's but way longer) to improve my striking speed. Believe it or not, it really made the difference when it came to border patrol. Afterwards, it was smooth sailing to the end for me and the team. With our combined efforts, we managed to sweep up the rest of the robots in under three minutes. Unfortunately, our battle was not yet done.

The roof of the room opened up, and out dropped three giants, as in 20 feet tall, robots with huge laser cannons, and wicked sharp hand talons! These had to be at least 10x the strength and power of the Titans, and i'll just call them Giants, as it's self explanatory.

To start the fight off, the three Giants trained their lasers on the three of us and fired. Allyson and I put up barriers to keep the lasers from hitting the three of us, but even with our combined might, we wouldn't be able to hold the barrier for long. I had to think up a plan FAST!

"Allyson," I said in a strained voice.

"Yeah?" she asked me in a voice just above a whisper.

"On the count of three, we release another wave together. That should take out their cannons. Grant, afterwards, you take out the one on the far left. Crash it, smash it, thrash it, do whatever you have to, just take it out.

"Gotcha," he said in an almost annoying burden free voice.

"Allyson, same to you. Go for the one on the right. Make a giant sword out of your sun energy, slash at its legs and arms, then smash it to bits with a big hammer."

"Alright, but what are you gonna do?" she asked me.

The truth was that I didn't know. I was running on empty, and I had no idea how to fight a giant without my Final Flash move.

"Don't worry, I have a plan." I lied. " 3,2,1, NOW!

Allyson and I blasted together (wow, that so did not come out rig- crap did it again-oh never mind, you get it) in an intense blastwave of sun and lightning. The good news was that the blastwave did indeed take out the Giants' laser cannons, and even damaged their armor a little. Grant did as instructed, and went punching away at the giant on the left, flying straight into his chest over and over again, bashing its head with his crazy strength, and just giving it a bad time! Allyson was doing much better. She created the giant Sun Sword, cut the Giant down to size (that's funny), and began to relentlessly smash it with her hammer. Me on the other hand, I was on all fours, trying to catch my breath.

The truth was, my Speed Mode Momentum was spent. Plus, making all of those lightning constructs took a lot of energy to make; especially the bigger ones. I was at my end, but I couldn't let that stop me. I had a small amount of energy left, and I had to put it to good use. I focused on a lightning strike, directly above me. It took a few seconds but finally I heard a loud CRAKK! BOOM! followed by the sensation of a bolt of lightning striking me in the back, and restoring my energy! The good news was that I now had the energy to fight back. The bad news was that somehow my robot, the one in the middle, still had working laser cannons! Oh, and did I forget to mention that my speed was still out of commission?

Naturally, the Giant started the fight by blasting his three laser cannons (one on the right hand, two on the shoulders) at me. I immediately created a Thunder Shield, but even I couldn't block that much laser power. The shield surprisingly held, but it was pushed back by the force of the laser cannons, and rammed into me! The momentum pushed me back into the wall, and now I HAD to keep the shield up, or i'd be vaporized! Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Allyson was just wrapping up her fight (or should I say smash fest), but before she could rush in to help me, another giant appeared in a flash of light, forcing her to go back to work. Grant was still working on his Giant, and although he was making considerable progress tearing through its chest and ripping out anything that looked important, he wouldn't be finished quick enough to help me out.

The Giant had me pinned down for about 20 seconds before I made a move to escape. I knew I was tiring fast. Every second I held up my shield, my energy was draining. The question wasn't whether or not my shield would hold, rather than how long could I keep it up. One way or another, if I stayed in this position, I WOULD get blasted! With that bit of motivation, I concentrated on pushing the shield against the laser pressure, using my feet to push the shield even further. It wasn't much, but it was enough to give me a small opening to jump towards my right, and avoid the laser blast. Although I did escape the initial impact, the force from the explosion threw me forward, and I smacked into another wall. Even worse, this time I was cornered. I scanned my energy levels, and felt that I did have a decent amount of power left, but I needed speed, as it wouldn't be long until the Giant shot at me again.

"Ok body," I thought to myself. "I need some Speed Mode Momentum! I don't care how you give it to me, but I need it now!"

Amazingly enough, my body responded! Lightning started to flicker around me, and I felt the insides of my body shake and vibrate as the power started to build up inside me!It was slow at first, but then it rushed to me all at once in a surge of voltage that concealed my whole body! The power surge felt so good, I think I screamed in elation!. After the surge died down, the Giant shot at me, or at least I heard the cannons go off. In actuality, the lasers had only traveled a few feet from the cannons, and were moving super slow! I took this time to create another giant Thunder Sword, and ran toward the Giant. Instead of slashing and hacking, I literally ran up the length of his right leg, then his torso (how fast was I going?), and cut off his right arm! Probably shoulda had the sense to get off it before I hacked it off, but thankfully my speed didn't cut out, and I ran back to the robot's body before I fell. Afterwards, I ran across the giant's shoulders, cut off his other arm, ran back down his body, and slashed both of his kneecaps. I then came down from Speed Mode to watch the Giant collapse. Before he could fall over, I threw my blade in the air, and willed it to impale itself into its forehead. With my business all wrapped up, I yelled at Grant to get out of his Giant, and when he was safely away, I created a giant electrical boomerang, big enough to cut though a statue, and used it to cut the giant through the middle, and across the neck when it came back. I then willed the boomerang to fly back to me and I re-absorbed the energy. Meanwhile, Allyson was just finishing up her second robot. I don't know how she did it, but she was using a giant sword and shield made of sunlight, so I pieced together a rough image of her blocking lasers, and cutting off robotic appendages.

Of course the fight wasn't done yet, as two more Giants flashed into the room.

"Grant!" I called. "Heads up!"

I created a giant Thunder Sword and willed it to fly over to him. Now before you ask me a million questions, I willed the Thunder Sword not to shock him, or at least that's what I wanted it to do. Grant was hesitant at first, but after seeing that he had no other choice, he grabbed the blade, and flew towards the Giant. The fight was so unbelievably quick, it was over before I even attacked my robot! Grant flew towards his Giant, dodging the laser cannons, sliced it in half with the sword, decapitated it for good measure, and sliced the head and body right down the middle! The poor thing didn't have a chance. I almost felt sorry for it.

I willed the thunder sword to fly back to me and I absorbed the energy, much to Grant's disappointment. I think he was quite fond of it.

"What about yours?" he asked me.

"I got it," I responded.

My giant prepared to shoot at me, but this time I was ready. I had never tried this before, but then again, I had never had lightning powers before. I imagined the three giant electric hands blocking the Giant's three cannons. Surprisingly, it worked! Right before the cannons went off, three giant Thunder Hands blocked the cannons, causing the blasts to backfire, and severely damage the robot! After that, I went into Speed Mode Supreme. For those of you that don't understand (probably cuz I just made it up), Speed Mode Supreme is just me using a lot more of my Speed Force Momentum at once, so that I can go a lot faster, and be less affected by gravity, so that I can run across vertical surfaces; like a giant robot's body for example.

Anyway, I ran across the Giant's body and placed four big balls of electrical energy on it's kneecaps and elbow joints. Then, once I was safely away, I detonated them, causing even more damage to the robot. I willed the excess energy to surge intensely across the robot, wreaking absolute hell on its inside circuitry and stuff, making it shut down! Finally, I created a giant Thunder Arrow, willed it to fly straight through the robot's head, and then back to me so that I could take back the energy. The fight was finally over, and Grant, Allyson, and I took a small break, while Fury evaluated our performances.

"Grant," he started. "You're very strong, and very brave, but you're also very stupid. You don't just rush into battle without a plan of attack, even if you can take on a dozen robots single handedly. I'd give you a D-, but considering the fact that you did hold your own for a good while, plus the fact that you did shape up your act after your little ordeal, i'll give you a B."

"Thank you, sir," said Grant. "I won't be doing that again. I…...uhhh…..made a promise."

Fury nodded and addressed Allyson.

"Ms. Grace. During this battle you were very level headed. You proved that you can stand on your own, as well as participate in a team. You did indeed hold your own until your unfortunate incident. Lucky that Jason was there to save you. But other than that, you have proven yourself to be a capable fighter, and a reliable asset to your team. You get an A."

Allyson blushed like crazy.

"Thank you, Colonel Fury," she said. "I did my best."

Finally, Fury addressed me.

"Mr. Fuller. You were very good all around. You made very good use of your powers, especially considering the fact you just came into them. You displayed ingenuity, creativity, resourcefulness, improvisation, and leadership qualities that are necessary for successful teams. You have also proven yourself to be a very capable fighter, both as an individual, and as a member of the team that you led to victory. You get an A+."

My eyes lit up, and I couldn't help but smile! It was just like gym class! I had blown the competition away, and wowed the coach!

"Thank you, sir. Couldn't have done it without my friends."

Friends. That word sounded weird to say out loud, especially with the word 'my' in front of it. Still, it felt good. Like I finally belonged somewhere.

"Yeah, yeah," said Fury. "Don't get sappy on me. Y'all still got training to do, so let's hop to it."

The rest of the day went by in a flurry of training activities. I knew for a fact that Grant and Allyson sparred against each other a few times. Grant won, but Allyson put up a good fight. As it turns out, he's strong enough to smash through solar constructs. They also worked together in a bunch of air simulations. As for me, they put me on some kinda weird mega treadmill, and made me run real fast while they tracked my speed. While doing this, I learned that I could use my lightning powers to refuel my Speed Mode Momentum by making it double back through my body. It took a little bit of concentration at first, but after 30 minutes of straight running I got the hang of it. Next, they told me to run with my lightning trail. At first I was like WHAT?!, but they showed me a recording of me running up the body length of the Giants. As it turns out, when in Speed Mode Supreme, I was an electric blur! It looked awesome! I tapped into Speed Mode Supreme and took off! I didn't pay too much attention to how fast I was going, but I did once see that on the meter I was going at 2000 mph (and yes, I did feel the sonic boom after I broke the sonic barrier 1,239 mph ago)! Fury also had me fight against specialized androids. For example, I fought an android that had super speed, for 2 hours straight. At first, the fight was really even, then the android started to kick my butt. Finally, late in the training session I learned how to effectively use hip tossing, and shifting momentum to use another speedster's momentum against them. Fury also had me fight against androids that could blast fire and multi colored lasers at me. The fight was four on one, and although the androids did put up a bit of a fight (they REALLY put up a fight), my lightning constructs helped me win the battle. Finally, Fury had me fight against Grant and Allyson. When I fought against Allyson, it was a battle of lightning weapons vs sun weapons. We blasted each other back and forth with lightning and sun, and occasionally used constructs like swords, shields, even missiles at one point (it was a really competitive fight). Ultimately, I won when I knocked Allyson out of the sky with a lightning strike, and used my super speed and lightning constructs to chain her in lightning handcuffs, before trapping her in a lightning barrier (I didn't have the heart to actually hit her).

Grant was MUCH different. When I tried fighting him with my Voltage Fists (melee), he eventually overpowered me, and I had to resort to using lightning constructs. But remember when I said he was strong enough to break through constructs? Yeah, well the thing was…..he broke my constructs, or at least most of them. I tried to hit him with a Thunder Sledgehammer, but he caught it and swung me around. I created Thunder Fists, like the ones I used with the Giants, to beat on him from a distance. That worked for a good 20 seconds, before he took to the air, and quickly outstripped my constructs. Also, my lightning blasts didn't have too much of an effect on him. While he was flying, I hit him twice with lightning strikes, and while he faltered, he didn't fall, forcing me to go into Speed Mode, create a supercharged thunderbolt, and hurl it at him! This time Grant went soaring backwards into a wall, but he quickly got up with a yell, and came flying toward me at the speed of a missile. I created a shield construct, but Grant flew through it like it wasn't there! Before impact, I went into Speed Mode, created Voltage Fists, and began to beat up on Grant. It's impossible to say how long I was punching Grant, 5 seconds? Maybe 10 or 20? However, at one point Grant did the unthinkable. He stopped my fist from hitting his face, and kicked me backwards! I charged at him again, determined to continue my assault, and he charged me back! The crazy thing was he wasn't moving slow at all! We were going the same speed! Grant had super speed!

We battled in Speed Mode for a long time. Punching, running up walls, you know, super speed stuff. Though I was initially better than Grant at Speed Mode combat, his strength was the deciding factor. I was outwitting Grant the whole fight, striking him in multiple places, and changing directions constantly. I actually managed to trip him up a few times, and resumed my furious Voltage Fist beat down for a short time, before he managed to get me off of him. Finally, Grant (gotta get the word out of my mouth) B..B….BEAT me, when I tried to hip toss him, but couldn't, due to his weight difference. Grant got a hold of me, flew me in the air, and punched me so hard, I flew into a wall! Before I could fall to the ground, Grant pinned me to said wall, punched me a good few times in the face and stomach, and then threw me across the room, where I hit another wall, and fell to the ground. Luckily, I wasn't too hurt, and Grant helped me up.

"Good fight, man," Grant said, a smile of sportsmanship on his face. "You're a really tough opponent."

"Thanks, man," I said, shaking his hand. "Good thing were on the same side, huh?"

"Good for you, bro!"

We both laughed hysterically, and left the training room. Afterwards, we rejoined Allyson, who was also coming from a training exercise.

"Who won?" she asked us.

"Grant," I said.

She gave Grant another hug, and congratulated him. Then she also hugged me, telling me that as long as I tried my best, I was a winner too (spoken like a true 2nd placer). Afterwards, Fury announced over the intercom that we were done with training for the day, and that we could go and get some dinner (it was 5:00 pm at the time, and we had trained through lunch). Also, he told us that tomorrow we would have our "final exam", and that we should rest up for it.