Ashes

Fifteen: Gwen Stevens, pt. II

"Alright. So our first stop for today is the training department," Eva tells us, as the train pulls to a stop with a screech. The doors slide open, and a cool blast of air smacks me in the face. It smells like bleach and sweat that's been masked over by cleaning product, and the smell of gunpowder fill the air a little bit, too.

The staircase up is little more than just concrete, but I can tell by the giddy expression on Kyros' face that this is going to be something familiar to him. Fight training.

And fighting it is. The staircase leads directly up to a mostly concrete building, with dark gray stone flooring covering the entirety of the ground floor. There's a few tables here and there with people surrounding them, and four elevators on the right and left walls. There are lightbulbs handing from the concrete ceiling, shedding light everywhere despite the many windows on the front wall.

A burly dude with a heavy-looking leather jacket nearly bumps into me, a tattoo running up the side of his neck. With a kindly smile, he apologizes quickly, and then waves at Eva quickly.

"Sam, is Johann here?" Eva asks him, and he hesitates like he's thinking.

"Yeah, I think I saw him with Hayden on the third floor," he tells her, and our guide thanks him quickly.

"I don't like this place. I always feel like anyone here is about ready to fight," Eva chuckles nervously, and we all kind of glance at each other. All of us have some sort of tendency to want to pick fights at this point.

"Alright. Up we go," she says, and we all cram into the elevator that somehow manages to keep us all in it.

"The second floor is the shooting range. Not much to see unless you want to practice your gun skills. There are four underground floors for those training to be field agents or Argos workers. Third floor is the sparring area, and fourth is the armory. Here we are," she tells us, and we all step out into a huge room with concrete pillars around it every so often. There are rows of sparring rings everywhere, filled with hardcore-looking people going at each other.

Eva leads us down the rows, looking more than a little afraid of the whole scenario, which I think Felix finds really amusing.

We find Johann sparring with Hayden, the awkward boy we met in the science building yesterday. Johann's shirt is hanging on the side of the ring, exposing his tattoo-covered torso. Seriously, he's tattooed enough to make it look like the ink is his shirt.

Hayden is across from him, in joggers and a t-shirt, with his knuckles wrapped tightly in some sort of gauzy material.

They're both ridiculously fast and calculating to the point that I'd be afraid to ever get into a fight with them. Fists and kicks flying, I'm just as surprised by Johann as by Hayden.

"Guys!" Eva waves, and Hayden looks over momentarily only to have Johann bodily flip him over his shoulder. We can all hear the air rush out of the boy's lungs.

Johann lets out a borderline sadistic laugh, which sends a trickle of fear through all of us, I think.

He helps Hayden to his feet, despite the other boy clutching at his side and gasping for air. Johann throws his shirt back on and flings himself over the side of the ring.

"Morning! Welcome to the fight building,"

"Not actually," Eva corrects, and Johann laughs a little.

"You're too uptight, Stryker. If you guys are ever interested in becoming field agents, this is your place," Johann informs, and Hayden half-limps up next to him.

"Yeah, just don't pick a fight with Mr. Blackwood. He literally graduated with a specialty in injuring people," Hayden coughs, and both Echo and Kyros find this particularly amusing for some reason.