A Sequel to the Quillan Games

Chapter 11: Preparing for the Games

So the two shook themselves together and tried to focus on what their main goal for that afternoon was, which was to concentrate and push themselves till they felt as ready as they'd ever be to go into these games with a somewhat positive attitude that they'd make it out again. Alive. Staying alive was key. Like many of the Challengers, they started off with a few simple warm-ups like stretching their arms, bending down seeing if they could touch their toes, rolling their necks, standing on one foot while lifting and holding up the other, shoulder strangles, upward stretches, bicep-wall stretches and basically, copying what all the others were doing.

Bobby, while back at Stony Brook had gotten a lot of practice with the daily routine of warm ups so that part wasn't so much a big deal. It was what came afterward. Once the warm up was finished, they got right to it. From push-ups to sit-ups to crunches to wall sit ups, they kept going and pushing themselves till they were sweating and gasping for air. Luckily, there were assigned dado's strolling about the gym, offering the Challengers bottles of water when they needed it and after working their butts off for a good hour so far, they needed a nice, cool drink. It's amazing how delicious water tastes after you've been pushing and pushing yourself till your throat's dry like crazy.

Bobby chugged down that water as if it were his last which really, it might have been. He sighed heavily and kept on drinking. That water was so cool and so refreshing, it quenched his thirst immediately. He gulped down every little drop.

Layra seemed to be handling the whole thing pretty well for someone who wasn't very sporty (she was more into the arts) but it was her determination really that kept her going and the fact that she wanted to prove not only to herself that she was in this for the long run but to the one man who kept her spirits up...LaBerge. She knew he'd be stopping by sometime soon to check up on them and see how they were doing and she could hardly wait. She told herself she'd work hard and then when he stopped by, she'd have a little break and the two could talk it over and see where they'd go from there. What bugged her most though was wondering when he was actually going to come. Seeing Veego drag him out of the room so fiercely gave her a pretty convinced feeling she wasn't too happy. What if he took hours in coming? Worse, what if he didn't show up? At all?

She shook that thought of her head and joined Bobby as he led her over to another arranged section of the gym, where he led them into a large and massive looking room filled with...wooden staves. There were shelves and shelves stacked with wooden staves that looked familiar. That's when it hit Bobby. The Grand X had been a mixture of games that came from other territories and here, he was gazing upon a room filled with weapons that belonged on Loor's territory of Zadaa.

Yet here they were, by the hundreds. It looked like the whole idea of "not mixing territories" had just gotten a million times worse than Bobby's last stay here on Quillan. Not only were they now mixing tunes and songs from Second Earth but by the sounds of it, it seemed like the people here were now taking it all and cramming it all together.

Because they weren't sure what sort of games they were going to be tackled with, Bobby felt it was only right to rely on his previous encounters and that meant, passing on what he already knew onto his Challenger partner, Layra. He took two of the short wooden sticks off the shelves and led her back out into the gymnasium, where they found a cleared spot to get in some practice. Bobby remembered too well the sort of game they played back on Zadaa. It was like capture the flag where there were two teams and each team was given pegs and it was their opponent's job to try and knock the colored pegs off.

But Bobby always looked at it as a sick, brutal version of capture the flag. Luckily he'd played before. Too bad Layra hadn't. She told Bobby games weren't a very big part of Rorgan culture back where she came from. Art was always the big picture.