Chapter Seven
The students fear grew as the light above them rapidly faded. Damian's gaze darted to his teammates. He tried to shout, but his words were lost to the wind. He knew he was short on time, so he tried to glide towards the others. Scarlet had gathered her team around Richard, and Brett seemed to be having a relatively easy time with his rocket board as Rylee roped their teammates together. Ryu grabbed Damian's shoulder and shouted into his ear.
"Boss, you better not let them out-shine us!"
Damian nodded and motioned for him to grab Gagana, who seemed to be struggling. Ryu launched himself to her with his rifle, then returned, while Nathan propelled himself over with the force of his shotguns. The four of them locked arms.
"What now?!" Nathan shouted.
"I guess we just fall!" Damian yelled back. He got a full set of uncomfortable looks. "I'll think of an idea when I can see the ground!"
Suddenly a beam of light shot out from the darkness below, and they could see the ground rapidly approaching.
"You just had to ask!" shouted Ryu. Damian's eyes darted around again, searching for ideas. His mind was blank.
What were the other teams doing? He saw Brett's team were glowing now, and starting to slow down. Scarlet's team were sitting on what looked like a ball of warping wind. Damian didn't know what he could do. How do you stop falling? What could his team do to help?
"We've got sixty seconds! Better get your act together!" Ryu shouted.
"Boss, how do we… not die?" Nathan sounded desperate. Damian had an idea.
"What have we done so far whenever we've encountered a wall in our path?" He yelled.
"Shoot it?" Nathan replied, with a confused look.
"Destroy it?" Ryu suggested.
"How is this helping?!" Gagana shrieked. Damian's grin stretched across his entire face.
"Forty seconds!" Ryu shouted, looking pale.
"I guess," said Damian, "We'd better destroy the force that's pulling us down then!" He pulled his missile launcher off his back. "Grab onto me!"
His whole team looked terrified now. They were about to die, and their boss of two minutes had gone insane.
"Trust me! Nathan! Ryu! Shoot my missiles, on my mark!"
They grabbed hold of him, and Damian let the first missile fly.
"Now!"
Nathan shot it. The force of the explosion hit them, and for a fraction of a second they froze in mid-air. Then they immediately started falling again. Damian fired a second missile.
"Now!"
This one exploded even closer to them, and they stopped for just a moment, but still kept falling.
The third and final missile hit into the ground a second before they did. This time the explosion cut it a little too close, and Damian took most of the brunt of it. He grit his teeth and closed his eyes.
All he could see was darkness. Was he alive? He didn't want to move a single muscle. When would he hit the ground? When would it end? He waited, not knowing what was going on. It felt like time had stopped.
After what seemed like hours he opened his eyes and screamed. He tried to jump up, but his entire body was in agony. Something was pinning him down. Was this it? Was death taking him? Everything felt blurred.
Then something hit him hard across the face, and his senses reset.
He blinked a few times, and took in his surroundings. He saw three figures standing over him, bickering. He tried to speak, but only rasps came out. The figures stopped their argument and looked at him, and his vision slowly cleared. He tried to speak again.
"G…guys?"
He someone grab him, and something wet against his face. It was Gagana and Nathan, both crying. They let go of him, and he slowly sat up. His team looked a little worse for wear, but at least they were all alive.
"How is everyone?" He croaked.
"Oh, you know, just survived a hundred-meter drop, thanks to some crazy fucker trying to have a competition with gravity to see who could kill us first!" Nathan said, laughing, with tears in his eyes.
"Hey," Damian wheezed, "Did you die?"
The boys all started laughing and carried on until it hurt, which didn't take long. Gagana grabbed Damian, looking as serious as she could with tears streaming from down her face.
"I hate you! Why did you think we'd be okay with you risking your life for us?!"
The laughter died down immediately. Damian weakly pushed her away and spoke as steadily as he could.
"I…I wasn't try-" *cough* "-trying to kill myself-" *cough* "-I just wanted to keep my team safe."
Gagana looked like she was about to start bawling again. Instead, she yelled at him.
"Well next time you have an idea-" *sniff* "-that puts any member of the team at risk, at least run it by all of us first!" Damian was lost for words. He flopped back onto the grass beneath him.
"I hardly think we could have come up with a better idea, even if we had had all day." Ryu interjected. Gagana glared at him.
"I was just trying to make a point!"
Damian decided to stop this argument before it started.
"Nathan where are we?" He asked, loudly changing the subject. Nathan and the others paused.
"At the bottom of a hole." he said simply. They all began looking around. They seemed to be in some sort of forest of pines and ferns.
"Wait. If we fell through the floor. How did we end up in a forest?" Damian asked, utterly confused now.
"Probably a hologram, or an extension of the training room." Nathan suggested, looking up at a very real looking sky.
"Anyone know what we're supposed to be doing down here?" Ryu asked. He looked a lot more colourful now. Nobody answered.
"Can we just lie here for a bit?" Damian asked. Nathan laid down as well.
"Sure, I don't have any better ideas." he said bluntly.