Anarchy | Book Two, The Genesis Series

Ten

Kai grunted as a torrent of blistering flames pounded his photon shield.

Of all the sparring partners he'd had in the past few years, Troy had to be his favorite.

Not only was he the only other member of their team that would go all out during their training sessions, but his grit and tenacity certainly cemented him as a worthy opponent. His enhanced strength, pain tolerance and durability-though it was only slightly above that of a normal human-made him qualified to throw hands with just about anyone.

"You're looking like you're about to fold over there, Brandson." Troy taunted with a grin, his voice breathy. Sweat flowed down his face like an angry ocean as he conjured two twin swaths of flames on his palms. "Need a break?"

Kai scoffed. "You kidding?" he panted, chuckling as he twirled his black, plastic training sword. He slipped back into his conventional orthodox boxing stance as he bounced on the balls of his feet. "I can do this all day."

Maintaining his footwork, he slipped to the right-out of the way of a bright, seething sphere of orange flames-before batting it aside with his shield and surging forward. Swiping his arm outward, he flung the concave disk in the direction of the pyrokinetic. It soared through the thick, snowy air, on course to strike Troy in the chest. Troy swiftly dove underneath the shield, evading it by the skin of his teeth.

The airborne weapon sawed clean through a tree before striking a portion of the facility and clattering to the ground. It blipped out of existence a few seconds later, leaving a lingering cluster of red particles in it's wake.

Kai's shoulders slumped.

Seeing that his old shield was unable to take the brunt of the force behind Rampage's thundering blows, Leo had taken the liberty of constructing him a newer, more durable model. While the newer version of the weapon could withstand twice as much impact as the it's predecessor, the tradeoff was that it no longer returned to his containment matrix automatically.

This meant that if he wanted his shield to return to his wrist when he launched it at his foes, he'd have to put more hours into learning how to calculate his throws and precisely ricochet it off objects so that it would come back to him.

That was easier said than done.

The sound of tree bark cracking pervaded the area for a quick second. With horror, Kai and Troy looked up as the slim yet towering spruce tree looming over them began to topple over. The snow-covered tree plowed through the wind as gravity seized control of it, bringing it down the freezing, metallic surface of the sparring platform like the gavel of a judge.

"You're a menace to trees everywhere." Troy teased, extinguishing the inferno coating his forearm as snowflakes clung to his sleeveless shoulders. "You should honestly start a woodworking business."

Kai deadpanned, ignoring the two other collapsed trees behind him. "Very funny."

A few months prior, Kai had made weekly outdoor training sessions mandatory for the original eight members of the task force. Though they were a highly effective unit by default, he couldn't have them getting too sluggish. They had to be prepared to endure an experience like a Titus Island again. In his mind, the first step to that was acclimating themselves to harsher climates and more strenuous conditions.

Besides, nothing beat the outdoors.

The idea had first surfaced in his mind when he'd stumbled upon Troy training outside in the wee hours of the morning, so he supposed he had him to thank for the revelation. Dissatisfied with the nature of his abilities, the pyrokinetic had been lobbing fireballs at some of the many trees surrounding the upper level of the compound, honing his powers in an effort to increase his tolerance to the cold.