he way, class is about to end for those at Manhattan Tech prep. So for those at that school, pack your stuff up." Oh shit it's almost over already!
"Thanks for that, I almost didn't see it!" Sam texted. I started to frantically pack my stuff up and the bell rang literally three seconds afterwards. After that I just went to my next class: business calc, like calculus but much easier! During the whole day the group chat was occasionally buzzing with texts and I sometimes checked them, but most of the time I have to be focusing during school.
After the fourth class it was my lunch shift, so I decided to circle back to the computer labs, where those two nerds are no doubt.
I opened the door and sure enough, it was Zack and Sam, "Hello" and "Hey" both of them said respectively. Sam was sitting down in a chair at one of the desks at the wall whilst Zack was on the other side of the aisle of desks sitting on one of the desks opening his laptop.
"Hey," I waved as I closed the door behind me, "What're y'all up to now?"
"Uhh, unpacking my stuff, the lunch just started ninety seconds ago." Sam realistically said. He then followed up with, "Are you guys gonna just go immediately to the labs after school or do y'all have any clubs to do?"
"I dropped my programming and web development clubs for this. It's imperative that we spend as much time as possible practicing magic," Zack muttered.
"Then why not quit school as a whole?" I quipped.
He raised an eyebrow, "Because… I still want a high school degree? Even if I spend the rest of my life fighting, I would still like to have the piece of paper that's the absolute baseline for getting a career of any kind. It's just the logical move."
"Same here. Except I was never in any clubs from the start," Sam added, "I've been thinking of dropping my homework so I could spend more time practicing magic."
"Why would you… do that?" I was so confused that Sam, who kept holding straight A's, would just suddenly stop caring.
"Well Quinn said like way-back when we started magic 'n shit that he would alter our grades to look good if we were really falling behind because of practicing magic… so Imma just started folding. Actually Sheila, you gave me this idea like two weeks ago."
I shouted, "When did I say that!?"
"Like I said… two weeks ago-"
"Did I!?"
I looked to my right towards Zack and he was just nodding, "You did Sheila."
"Ah, well… you're still in the wrong for that."
"Not necessarily," Sam stood up from his chair, "I'm taking much harder classes than you are so-"
I got mad, "dude shut up man."
He waved his hand, "Whatever Whatever let's just brush past it already." The nerve of this fucker!
"Both of you, shut it." Zack commented while taking a sip of his coke, "We're just here to idly chat and have lunch before returning to class. Not argue with each other."
I rolled my eyes, "You're right, but bantering and arguing is our thing." I then shrugged.
"Ditto," Sam raised his fist out.
"Do I have to?" I rolled my eyes again.
"Yup!" he said, eyes-closed.
I groaned, "ugh fine," and I fist-bumped him back.
I screwed open my thermos of black tea and started to take a sip. The tea has cooled down just enough where it's still hot but not enough to scald my tongue. I wonder if I can cool down and heat up the water with magic.
Out of curiosity I asked Zack, "How's Will doing magic-wise thus far? You haven't joined Sam and I for many practices ever since Will came around."
Zack was crunching down a small bag of potato chips. He set it down to say "Well yeah," he took a quick sip of his drink, "I feel responsible to teach my blood-related and identical twin to use magic." He took a smaller sip while muttering, "Also Xeno told me to teach him so he could focus on teaching Adam and Sage…"
"It's very clear that he has a favoritism for those two doesn't he?" Sam laughed.
I said, "I don't know if I'd call it a favoritism," I took a bite of a fruit bar I grabbed earlier, "he kinda has to. They're magic is much more unstable than ours because it's closer to pure magic. I'm pretty sure that'd make it harder for them to use magic than us."
"Oh you're right, I saw it said something like that in Xeno's packet."
I chuckled, "I'm surprised you read it."
He reasoned, "Why wouldn't I? I don't mind reading shit."
"Surprising," I joked.
"Yeah yeah whatever," he waved his hand.
Zack chimed in asking, "On the other hand, how's your skills going? Since I wasn't able to watch and train with you all the time, I'm rather curious."
Sam started saying "Well-" But I decided to cut him off,
"We're doing much much better. I've been able to learn a couple more offensive spells that are kinda short to form so I don't need a lot of time to make the circle. Also general stamina wise I feel as if I'm able to last twice as long as the first time we fought them in Times Square!"
"Great," Zack said while crumpling up his chip bag and threw it to the garbage can… he missed and had to get up and put it in the trash can. He turned around to face us, "Sam what about you?"
"Stamina-wise, about the same feeling as Sheila," he stated, "Also my fire spells are starting to get much much larger and I'm even able to control it. Now my fire is about on par with Sheila's water, so when we clash it creates plumes and plumes of steam instead of the water just completely decimating my flames with just tiny amounts of steam."
"Ahhh," he acknowledged, "My lightning has been getting pretty strong too. I've been practicing by blasting through any attempt of putting up an Ice wall during sparring matches. Though he just got his sword yesterday so I haven't been able to practice using my axe much."
"So what I'm hearing is," Sam started to get a bit sleazy, "If we spar, I would win because my swordfighting using my odachi," I bet he just wanted to say Odachi again, "is much better than your skill with your axe?"
"It's possible unless I blast you with lightning right off the bat," Zack grinned and started laughing and lightly punching Sam's arm.
Sam started to crack up too saying, "I would just shoot flames to cover where I am so you can't see me and the next time I do I'd be right in your face."
"I'll make sure I back away then pfft haha," they kept joking and joking. I just watched because, honestly it's amazing they can have this much fun joking about fighting… them. The Zankoku are just a bit too terrifying for me to joke about. They might actually be coping with the enemy by joking about it a lot.
[Ring Ring RIng]
Uhp it's time to get back to class… I don't wanna go back to class!!! The rest of my day was just boring and monotonous. English, boring. Chemistry, mildly enjoyable- DAMN IT I SAID MILDLY… gross I'm starting to pick up Sam's vocab. Ahem anyway, Human Geo with Will… boring and finally music tech, not super boring because it's a free project class and since I'm ahead I did nothing.
At the end of the last class, I met up with the others to head to the lab. The ride to the lab was quite uneventful, just them sharing homework whilst I was just people-watching on the subway. It's a very interesting thing to do, I can see people in various different outfits and physical builds and I'm able to freely wonder what their lives are like that got them to how they're like now. As long as I'm not blatantly staring I don't think it's weird.
"Our stop's next." Will reminded me since he was sitting to my left.
"Thanks," I said as I was grabbing my bag and strapped it to my side.
The four of us walked the same streets to the labs as we have been for about a month now. The same accounting firm… the elevator in the back needing a special card and the same elevator ride down… sighhh
I waved a bit to say, "see ya later," when we reached the locker rooms. I stepped in and Sage was there changing, "Oh. Heyyy," I said.
"Oh sup'," she excitedly said back, "how was your first day back? I was like super SUPER tired coming back and it was really really hard to pay attention to any of my classes."
"Yeah, pretty much the same." I sighed, "I only got like a couple of hours last night so I was about to doze off in most of my classes."
"Oh tru tru same for me, when did you leave the labs last night?"
"Around… one in the morning," It set in for me, the fact that I was at the labs yesterday for eighteen hours…
"Jesus christ whad'ya spend your time doing till one in the morning. I left like," she thought for a bit, "around ten-ish right after Xeno finished up his last lesson with us." She finished changing and closed her locker, "God I wonder how Xeno can do all of this: somehow trying to teach magical abilities to people with nine strange powers when he doesn't specialize in any of them."
I closed my locker and took a deep breath, "He barely does though. He prioritizes teaching the newer ones and when he can: you and Adam. That's at least what I hear from the others."
"Who are the others?" she asked.
"Zack, Sam and Will," I counted on my fingers, "Yeah those are the only ones that go to my school so yeah those are the others."
She nodded, "yeah that's fair… he does teach Adam and I a lot though he teaches us very different things. He taught Adam how to make spell circles as shields and weapons for him as well as portal gate whilst for me he taught me how to use my bow more effectively and some very destructive spells."
"Ohhh, yeah he hasn't taught me anything new in like a week or two but it's understandable." I stated.
The PA system at the door of the locker rooms turned on its red light. Quinn then started to order on the system that, "All magic users should report to the meeting room as soon as possible! There are important topics to discuss!" And the system's red light turned off.
I groaned, "Ugh I really don't wanna be with the entire group. Being with three of them is already tiring enough."
Sage optimistically countered saying, "frankly, I enjoy these meetings. Y'all argue in like a joking kind of way and it's really funny usually. Also it's nice to know all of our own member's names and faces."
"Yeah," I very pessimistically stated, "once you get to know them… I'm not so sure you'll be excited to be near them all the time."
She wrapped her arm around my shoulders, "oh c'mon you gotta have a nicer outlook on life!"
How can I!? How can I be having a nice optimistic outlook on life when we are here spending the majority of our waking hours training and perfecting skills to defeat a bunch of warmongering aliens!? Sounds selfish, but I can't work on my OWN projects and do what I want and what I think is for the better of humanity! Every time they arrive there's a serious chance that one of us will die which causes a chain reaction leading to many of us dying or all of us and a byproduct of that would be the entire world! I didn't want to say all that to make Sage not like me so I just meekly said, "I'll… try."
The both of us stepped out of the locker rooms and were headed to the meeting room. We passed by Andrew's personal room and I could hear talking… no one but his own voice though. Wonder what he's doing in there.
"He voice logs to himself," Sage said.
"What?"
"Yeah. Cyrus told me." she plainly stated.
"Like he just turned on a voice recorder and just talks to himself?"
"Bing Bong! One-hundred points you're right!" she snapped her fingers and pointed finger guns at me.
"That's… yeah super strange. I wouldn't be caught dead doing that. What does he even talk about anyway?"
"Eh from what I eavesdropped on, usually his own inventions." she shrugged, "It's also like, heavily not my business, so I haven't done so since like the first or second time I ever saw him."
"If it isn't your business you shouldn't have eavesdropped at all," I said in a serious tone as a joke, "Of course I don't care so what does it matter to me," I started to crack up a bit and elbow Sage's left arm with my right.
She started to crack up too, "pft alright whatever."
I opened the door to the meeting room and stepped aside to let her go first, "why thank you madam," she joked.
I nodded down like I was tipping a hat, "your welcome ma'am." I stepped in after her. The others, that I listed earlier, had already taken their tacky-ass seats with the insignia of our elements. I mean it's a creative way to sort where we sit but it's a bit weird right? Our names or an honor system would've been better. Like c'mon, just sit there and that's your seat for the rest of the time we're here. I just sat down and asked, "what's this about?"
What followed was just a ton of "I don't know" 's and shrugs. I just rolled my eyes. In a minute or so, Cyrus, Andrew and Richard all walked in saying their unique forms of hello.
Cyrus said, "Sup y'all!" excitedly.
Andrew didn't say hello of course and just took his seat. And then there was Richard…
He burst in loudly with a huge "GREETINGS!"
A couple of us waved but at the end of it all, the nine of us were sitting in a dark room only lit up by the holograms popping up from the table.
"Thank you for waiting," Quinn said as he opened the door letting Xeno through first and then he went in last and closed the door. I wonder when he's going to show up on-time or early for once. He started to tell us that, "Xeno and I are truly glad that we have managed to gather all the possible members of this… elite team." Xeno nodded along from what Quinn said after taking his seat.
"Really? Elite Team? We're a band of misfit teenagers at best," I called out.
Will was the first to say something, "is 'band of misfit' really the best words I'd use."
"It's accurate," Andrew scoffed.
"See!" I pointed at Andrew, "even the broody one agrees with me!"
"Oh my goddd, shut up Sheila!" Sam and Zack dragged.
"I mean… he is the broody one," Sage was cracking up.
Richard declared, "HAHAHA Interesting to the fullest! We may be a band of misfits, but it's all that this planet has!" Oh shit he has a point…
"C'mon Richard calm down a bit it's called a Joke," I defended my comment, "J-O-K-E joke!" I had to add that… sarcastically of course.
"Oh," Richard slumped back into his leaf insignia carved seat, "I see."
Quinn nodded, "Richard is very right. All we have is the nine of you and Xeno. I'm doing my damn best to be making weaponry to arm you to the best of my abilities and even those without magic."
Cyrus raised his hand, "Yeah, uh how the hell you gon' do that? Arm peeps without magic 'n all."
"Glad you asked," Quinn started digging for something in his pockets, "This is the main reason I have gathered you all!" He placed a capsule about the size of a triple-A battery at the center of the table, "This is a new kind of battery, one that can store your magic power and release it back out!"
"AH!" Sam pointed at it, "The inside is filled with the same stuff as your magic stick thingy right!?" he excitedly connected.
"That'd be right," Quinn then pulled out a light stick looking thingy-majig out, "this is my magic stick and this glowy stuff inside is the same as the liquid inside the tiny battery which I dub: The Magic Charge! This is the first one we've ever made and I can replicate it, but I do not have enough of the liquid to fill these charges." he pressed a button on his phone. The door to the meeting room opened and an FBI agent wheeled in a cart full of syringes. Quinn thanked the agent and then explained that, "the next time the Zankoku arrive. I need you all to infiltrate the ship and use these syringes to extract this liquid. Now this liquid comes right from the engine of the ship so: if you grab this liquid, you also stop their ship making your lives easier and mine as well, got it?"
"We getcha," Adam snapped his fingers. Ughh that was awkward as shit!!
Quinn looked around the room, "So no more objections? Perfect!" he clapped his hands, "I need to get to D.C. tonight, but before I go," he was digging for even more things from his pockets. This time he dropped nine pins on the table, "this is a present for assembling all nine of you. Each of you shall have one. They're pins I made out of the space alloy and they're meant for your suits before I can sew official patches onto them." he explained.
Each of us grabbed one of the pins. It was a neat metal pin with four letters brandished on them. S, G, O and U. There was a dash between the S and G but I had no idea what this meant.
"Um excuse me!" Will called out and raised his hand, right before Quinn could leave the room, "what do these letters mean on the pin?"
He turned back around to us all, "oh right, also you don't need to raise your hand. The letters make-up the acronym for your subdivision of this foundation. S-GOU also known as: Special Operations, Ground Offensive Unit!" Oh so that's our official team name…
"So like, should we pronounce it S GO or all as one word SGOU?" Sage asked.
"However you want. I really need to get going now so I'll see you in a couple of days." You could visually see Quinn was getting frustrated at answering these questions.
"And why do you need to go to DC tonight?" Andrew asked.
"To lobby for more funds for this operation." Quinn just simply said, "Now I NEED to get going. Have a nice day!" and he left the room.
"So uh…," I tried to make some conversation happen before these idiots said something, "how are you gonna pronounce the team name?"
"I like the sound of letting it all be one word, SGOU" Sam swayed his right arm to his side as he said SGOU.
"Me personally, I'm highly fond of saying S GO for me!" Richard chimed in.
"I think I'll be going with SGOU then…" I just don't want to associate with Richard that much. I stood up, "Welp. I'll be leaving now and practicing my spells… if anyone wants to come with me, so be it." And I walked out and closed the door. I slumped down to the floor and curled myself into a ball. So now I'm like officially officially into this… I'm way too deep into this now huh. The same routine everyday, keep sharpening my fangs in magic just for the chance that the aliens return. Do I want to do this? Or am I forcing myself to do this? I feel pretty sick, almost ready to vomit because I can't tell if I'm forcing myself to fight just to be named a hero or something. I shouldn't tell the guys this, they wouldn't understand I think. I think they might want to do this but I have no idea. At this moment I yelped, "AH!" and I fell on the floor. Someone opened the door behind me.
I looked back and it was Cyrus, "Oi sorry, but uh… ya shouldn't really be sittin' down behind the door to a room with only one damn exit." I just stared at him and he instead raised an eyebrow, "Are ya cryin' righ-now?"
"HUAH!?" I wipe my face just in case while standing up, "I don't think I was."
"Well… I don' know ya too well so I'll leave you with your other friends."
"... thanks," I rolled my eyes.
He just walked past and Richard followed along. I watched them walk down the hall into gym number three. Man the fact that they're friends this quickly is weird. It's been only a day.
"Hey," Sam came out next, "was cyrus lying or were you actually crying out here?"
"I don't think I was, but he also told me my eyes were watery." I told him.
Zack opened the door and told us, "You start to lose control of your powers if you feel deeply emotional. Could you be thinking something deep at the moment that your water powers started to leak?" he smirked.
"Can we talk about this once we get in a gym… and also turn off the cameras and mics so we can talk privately?" I asked them.
"I mean yeah we can," Sam started, "but the fact that you said this in the hallway where we're being recorded… means they'll know they want this private."
"Well Sam what you fail to realize," Zack countered, "Quinn isn't here right now, so no one's around to force the camera's and mic's back on. So of course we can talk Sheila," he pointed with his thumb, "gymnasium one is empty."
"Thanks," I said endearly, rare I know. The three of us ditched Will and Zack told him to practice with Cyrus and Richard cause they both are 'creation types' or whatever. I remember seeing that in the packets from Xeno at some point, but I can't for the life of me remember what it means.
Sam and I stepped into the gym whilst Zack went to the door on the side to turn off the camera and mic.
"Hey Sam," I said. Should I ask him if he's forced to do this or not? No, definitely not, he wouldn't get it, "uhhh, what's a creation type? I know that I know what it is but I just forgot… what it is." I asked him.
"Oh well huh. I thought you'd ask something different." he commented.
"Why?" I meekly responded.
"... No reason. Anyway," Thank god he didn't ask any further. He was thinking about his answer for a little bit "so there's two types: Creation and Destruction. We, Zack, you and I are all destruction types because our elemental powers are really great at destroying things because fire and lightning do that duh. But water when there's enough of it is also highly destructive. Then there's creation… Will, Cyrus, Richard and Andrew are all creation types because they make new stuff using their respective elements."
"Oh that makes sense… So what of the remaining two? Sage and Adam."
"They're the purest forms of Creation and Destruction." Zack stated as he came in, "Adam is the purest form of creation whilst Sage is the purest form of destruction."
"Oh… cool." I just reacted calmly. Yeah I knew of creation and destruction but not light and dark in between, "What took you so long?"
"I couldn't find how to disable the cameras initially," Zack reasoned.
"So, besides allat," Sam tilted his head, "What did you want to talk about?"
"Uhhh… hmm," I was trembling and my hands were starting to shake a bit. Why am I feeling scared, I'm just trying to ask my own friends a question, it shouldn't be this serious. God they're both looking at me! "Umm," I posed the question, "Do you guys come here because you want to or because you're forced to? Like I'm throwing my life away to do this for the majority of my days and I don't know how I can carry on doing my own personal projects and work," I looked up at them, "I'm not weird for asking that right?"
"Of course not," Sam consoled, "This is a pretty big decision to be making at sixteen. When we were first asked to join, I was so confused about… everything really. We spend a hell of a lot of hours in the labs, but I think it's worth it. It's more of a question of putting yourself before the community or vice versa."
"Exactly what I was thinking!" Zack agreed, "I think that I personally do this not because 'I want to' or 'it's fun!' kind of reasons. I do it because I want to, and this may sound horribly cringey, but it's for my family and the ones that surround my life in a positive light."
"Wow, I didn't know you worked so hard perfecting your magic for that reason." I acknowledged.
Zack chuckled once, "Did you think I functioned like an android?"
I shrugged, "A little bit…"
Sam was laughing in the background, "What?" I asked.
"Nothing," he swayed his right hand, "I think you're focusing on what you want to do more when our current situation isn't really a matter of what we want to do freely. It's a matter of fighting for those we love."
"Yeah, but… why were we chosen?" I meekly asked. Like Why did the universe choose us?
"That's obvious," Is it Zack? "Because there isn't anyone else."
"No NO! That's not what I mean!" I told them off, "Like why did the Universe choose us!?"
"PFT," Sam scoffed, "You're making it sound like we know the answer. I'm no cosmic god or being. If anyone's up there they're just playing cruel games with us."
"Is that what you use to trick yourself to work so hard to fight?" I'm damn near ready to break down into tears.
"Like we said," Zack started, "our trick to keep ourselves fighting is the will to protect those we love."
"Y'all don't get it!" I shouted and slammed open the door to the gym. I ran off and just curled up in the break room. I don't know what's wrong with me. It's so hard to force myself to keep practicing like I'm making much of an effect. What even brought this on… I don't know. I felt a tiny tear drop onto my arms. God I'm so pathetic…