Superhero CITY - The Test

Chapter Eight (edited)

We met back up together when Miss Summers called us, moving back to assemble new the doors we had come through.

"Now that I have scanned and approved of all of your weapons, it's time for you to go back to class. You have twenty minutes left, which should be plenty of time for you to lock everything away in your dorm safes. And please remember that you are to wear these suits now rather than your school ones, as until you disqualify, you are cadets and not students." A cheer ran out as she said those words. "Now go, and don't be late for your form classes. I expect to see you all in the arena after dinner getting used to your new toys."

We all grinned back at her as she finished, before turning back around and leaving the armoury systematically. One team at a time, we exited in the order we had arrived in and made our way through the busy kitchen and silent halls.

She had given us only twenty minutes to go from one end of the school to the other and back again. It was a quarter hour walk each way, and that wasn't taking into consideration the time that it would take to travel up four stories to my doom room – by stairs because of course heroes-in-training would not have the convenience of elevators. Nor the time to get to and unlock the safe inside of it.

We would have to run if we didn't want to be late to our next class. Our form teacher, Mr James, was not a forgiving man and he hated tardiness more than he did seeing a student set a textbook on fire. I knew from first-hand experience.

The four of us looked at each other, and a wide grin split Natalia's face, daring us to join her as she shouted her challenge over her shoulder. "Race you!"

She was already sprinting to catch up with the teams in front of us before the words finished leaving her lips. I turned to look behind me at the inconspicuous entrance, gave it a quick, thoughtful glance, and then shot off to catch up with her.

Our school had many unusual rules, and it was missing many of the more normal rules that you would expect. One of the ones that we didn't have was no running inside or around buildings. Here, if you were running, then it was just another part of your training and to be accepted. There were even paths sectioned off all over the campus to separated walkers from runners.

We didn't have to use those right now, as we were the only students not in our classes. As one large, multicoloured group, the sixty of us moved past the gymnasiums and arena in a massive blob that was far wider than the strip of concrete that we would have normally limited ourselves to.

Everyone had their weapons strapped, belted, buckles, magnetized or held against them as they moved, and I was already thinking of ways to beat them with our own equipment.

There were blasters, projectors, enhancers, blades, guns, whips, shields, bows, nanotech partial armour, and more gadgets than I could identify. I hadn't even had a chance to look at the tech that my team had chosen, yet.

The first thing we'd need to do was test the parameters of our new weapons. We already knew that we could work well together without them, but now we would need to figure out how the dynamics have changed by adding the technology.

I let myself fall to the back of the group and watched as they ran on ahead of me. Chuckie was leaning slightly on his right side and the movement telegraphed that the new tech was heavy, and Allison's footsteps were landing a lot heavier on the ground and she wasn't lifting her legs as high off the path as she normally would. Natalia's weapons hadn't seemed to have impeded her movements at all.

These people would be my team, be the family and home that could only be built through shared hardship. They would be the ones I worked steadily with for the rest of my time at school – thirteenth graders almost always kept the same teams as they had in year twelve, and they even went so far as to take all of the same courses. They would shape my future and likely take an important role in it, as it was not uncommon for superheroes to employ the entire team after graduation. It was actually less common when they only selected one or two of us.