SHoom….
Dome after dome appeared in the parking yard of Country E's Heroes Academy.
(A.N: I will be naming the countries by letters. Reason? Could not come up with fantastical names. If you have any that sounds cool and befitting, please comment it. I just might consider it.)
They came in different sizes but all had the same shape and color.
Every five seconds after arrival, the students would march out first followed by the Soldiers, if any, and lastly the recruits. It did not matter whether they were huge, small, good-looking, nerd-looking, skin colour, whatever. As long as they were recruits, they staggered out of the domes and puked their guts out into buckets that had been provided for each individual.
Instantaneous travelling, also known as Teleportation, was sickening.
"Uhhhh! That did not feel good at all." Some loud mouth exclaimed, her voice rising above the discordant retching sounds coming from all over the parking yard.
Officer Bridgestone's dome was one the largest domes, occupying twenty recruits, two students and one one-starred Officer. It was among the last to arrive at the academy's parking yard.
He strode out of the dome with big steps. He moved proudly, closely followed by the two students who were no more holding their rifles. After that, the recruits began to stagger out of the dome with wobbly steps. Their legs shook and gave way multiple times. The bigger the dome, the worse the transportation felt.
Bronze came out last. He was better off than most of the other recruits due to his physique. His movements were less wobbly and his face less sickly. His insides did not feel as nauseated as those who were not blessed with his kind of gift. Even then, he still grabbed a bucket and puked his guts out.
"That teleportation is not meant for regular humans. They would die." Bronze mumbled.
"I will not be caught dead riding that damned thing again." A girl complained beside him. Bronze looked at her.
"Just look at my hair. It's so messy." She said, using her fingers to comb her hair as she sat on the paved floor of the parking yard. "I almost puked in my own hair."
Bronze chuckled. She raised her face to glare at him. He turned his face and looked away immediately.
He looked around the parking yard. Many of the buckets were already gone. Those that remained were slowly levitating out of the yard or straight up vanishing into thin air. As for their most recent users, ninety percent of them were sprawled carelessly over the floor.
For several minutes, there was barely any words spoken. And those that did, were merely venting their emotions. But after those first couple minutes, the crowd became livelier. Everyone who had friends in there, went to meet up with their friends. Those that were naturally friendly or trying to exert some sort of dominance or leadership early on, were meeting with strangers that looked naïve, scared and vulnerable, greeting them like old time friends.
Silver saw all these and sneered.
"Fools!" he mumbled an insult at the vulnerable ones, but still looked on in disdain.
Then, it happened!
As Bronze and Silver glanced around, their eyes met.
Their eyes met and the old dying coals of rivalry, born of spite and insane bitterness - which Bronze had thought long-dead -immediately sparked back to life.
Sparks flew through the vast distance between them, fuelling the fire. Anger. Immense anger that was hidden in the darkest parts of their hearts immediately reared its ugly, fiery head.
The air immediately became stale. The cool breeze seemed to stop. The atmosphere instantly became tense.
"You!" They roared at each other, their voices travelling through the air to arrive at each other's ears at the same time. "What are you doing here?"
Everyone in the yard stopped what they were doing and stared at the two. What sort of history existed between these two? This question filled the minds of most of the recruits who had quickly put themselves in the position of a separated audience.
On one side was a super-sized, bronze-colored teenager with a bald head and the physique of a gym-freak. On the other side stood a slim, relatively short – when compared to Bronze, but actually quite tall for his age, standing at the height of five feet seven - youth with silver-dyed hair and a dark look on his face.
Slowly and as quietly as possible, the couple of people who were positioned in the straight path that separated both enemies, stepped away from between them. Nobody wanted to be caught in the crossfire that seemed like a certainty.
"Okay. That's enough drama for today." Officer Bridgestone stepped in between them, cutting their direct line of sight to each other. He looked from side-to-side.
"I don't know whatever history you both have between you and I don't want to know. You are in the army now. And until you have retired your dumb asses from active and passive duty, you will love yourselves like little girls love their Korean-blooded pop musicians and little boys love their violent action figures."
(A.N: Yes! Even in this fiction, k-pop stars are a big deal. And no, I'm not Korean.)
Bridgestone stared at Bronze. Bronze dropped his eyes. Bridgestone turned his head and stared at Silver. Silver defiantly stared right back.
Bronze noticed it and silently wished for Bridgestone to break his shoulder as well. Maybe add a few ribs in the mix.
Bridgestone did no such thing. He merely held the gaze and continued speaking, His eyes burning passionately.
"You must and will learn to respect one another, trust one another, love one another, defend one another and if it comes to it, die for one another. Why? Because in the army, we are not a group of people, we are a person. We live for a cause greater than each individual. Greater than our selfish thoughts. Greater than each and every family. And most definitely, greater than any godforsaken rivalry. Do you f*cking understand?"
Bronze looked up at Officer Bridgestone only to catch the officer boring down on him with his eyes. He panicked.
"Ye.... yes, sir!" He responded.
Bridgestone did not like that response. He raised his voice at him.
"What the f*ck did I tell you earlier? Are you that f*cking dumb? I said yell your answers so very f*cking loud that the twenty-fifth battalion wakes up from the grave to beg you to lower the volume. I said, Do You Understand?"
"Yes Sir!" Bronze yelled at the top of his voice. At least more than a few recruits covered their ears. It was not only Bronze's physique that matured early. His voice did too.
Bridgestone immediately turned to face the snickering Silver.
"Was I talking to only him? Why can't I hear your response?"
Silver immediately stood straight and shouted;
"Yes Sir!"
Bridgestone, satisfied with Bronze and Silver's responses, switched agro to the entire parking space.
"Was I talking to just the two of them?"
The response was scattered. Some barely mumbled a yes. Some yelled with all their might, some only said a 'yes' without the 'sir'.
Bridgestone became really pissed. His fair skin visibly reddened. His already very loud voice somehow increased in volume.
"Are you f*cking kindergarten? Why is your response so f *cking scattered? Didn't I say the entire army is one body? Answer as a f*cking unit! Do you all understand?"
"Yes sir!" They all answered. All of them in the yard. Recruits and student soldiers alike. They gave a response that shook the entire yard and a four mile radius all around.
"That's what I like to hear." Bridgestone said and walked towards the exit. As he walked, he spoke; "Follow me in a single file. Silver hair leads the file, Baldhead covers the back."
Immediately, Silver hurried his steps to follow behind Officer Bridgestone. The recruits joined the line, while Bronze and the student soldiers stood still until there was no one left outside the moving queue but them. Bronze joined the single file, towering over most of the other recruits and the ten student soldiers covered both sides of the file in an ordered manner, occasionally moving one recruit forward or behind and sometimes slightly delaying someone so that they can maintain a balanced distance between each recruit.
****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ****** ***
Bronze and Silver were born fifteen years and a few months back, on the same day, at the same hospital. But to fully understand the unhealthy rivalry between them, one would still have to go back another four to five years prior - back when their mothers first met and were immediately embroidered in an intense financial race which only one could win and the other competitors would lose not just the race, but most likely their entire life's hard work.
Chance was, at that time, working under Hymn's father. Hymn was an irresponsible young man at that time, partying, drinking and wasting his father's hard earned cash on useless, expensive things and worthless women and fair-weather friends, while Sharon and Beaver were engaged at that time and were planning to get married after they had secured the deal, (which in this case was the financial race we are talking about).
Sharon and Beaver had put together all their live savings and invested all their time, energy and brainpower into securing the governmental contract that would secure their future for at least the next ten years.
Song's Mining Corporation – which was the company Chance worked for, Sharona's Mines –owned by Sharon and Beaver - and three other companies made it to the shortlist. They were required to make a physical presentation that would determine who was the best choice for the multi-million dollar, ten-year mining contract.
Upon getting the news, Sharon and Beaver bought all the mining equipment, booked for the more expensive ones they couldn't afford, borrowed money from banks, did their research and even spent sleepless nights checking and cross-checking their presentation, fixing and re-fixing their appearances and making sure everything was perfect.
The presentations went well, and with Beaver's special gift, he could ascertain that theirs was the best and was the most favorably looked upon. It made them excited to no end, even having an early celebration.
Sharon on the other hand, was frustrated beyond description. She had made a big slip up in her presentation. Her files had been mixed up by mistake by the new algorithm she had installed. The algorithm was supposed to separate video and audio files into separate folders. But due to some functioning bug, or maybe it was a virus, the algorithm and gone ahead and added some online porn to the presentation.
Imagine the shock on all their faces when they saw the video of two men and a lady having a threesome.
And it did not help that one of them looked like Hymn and the other man had an uncanny resemblance to one of the judges. It wasn't him though. Perhaps it was one of his triplet sons?
She managed to salvage the situation without losing her cool. She finished her presentation and left the room coolly like nothing weird had happened inside, but she knew deep down that she had been sabotaged and that she was ruined. But Chance wasn't someone to give up. She had already done so much to get to where she was. How could she allow some unknown computer geek do her in like this?
Chance, like every other person at the top, had lots of enemies. Many of whom hid their hatred for her in the shadows of their heart and beamed at her every day at the work place.
She was very well aware of it. But she had no idea which of the bastards had done her in in such a spectacular manner. She needed to find out who, and soon. At most she had a full day of work before the board came to a decision and officially fired her ass.
In short, she had a day, give or take, to find the culprit and save her reputation and job by destroying him or her in a likewise spectacular manner.
She hired an old high school friend that owed her a favour. This friend had been the best at gathering information back at high school and last she heard he had created his own investigative organization.
Usually, she would have had to pay some crazy, exorbitant, extortion-level fee due to the urgency of her request, but oddly enough, as soon as she mentioned her name, the call was transferred to the CEO's desk.
"Chance." The voice was really quiet.
"Doctor?" Chance recognized that voice even through the phone.
"You are really in deep trouble, ain't you?"