Chapter 4
I watch as Corgan steps into the room, with 3 kids around my age. "Alright everyone, this will be your new team member, his name is Allen. I brought y'all here so y'all could introduce yourselves." The first to speak up was a girl with slight pigment in her skin, with strange dark brown hair. "Really you woke us up this late for a new member. I'm not interested in babysitting another idiot." She made no attempt to hide her contempt. "Hey, don't be mean, he may be very talented." A woman with a sweet and quiet voice spoke. She was frail looking, with short blond hair, and what appeared to be butterflies in her eyes. "Why don't we test him then." A boy, also with blond hair and blue eyes speaks. "Not yet, introduce yourselves first." Corgan had butted in, his voice stern and ruff. The first to step up was the boy with blood hair. "I'm Lloyd, pleasure to meet yah." Lloyd walks to me, stretching out a hand. "Pleaser to meet you." I accept his hand shake, and it's a shame to say that I might be a bit shy. The next one, following behind Lloyd, was the girl with butterflies in her eyes. "I'm Alaina. I can't wait to work with you." Her voice is a little quiet, but I understood her words well. "Come on Okin." Lloyd yelled to the girl with brown skin. 'Is that a tribe name?' She finally steps up, but she doesn't look happy about it. "He doesn't need me to introduce myself, he already knows my name." I pause staring at her. I think back to what tribe I've heard that she could be from, I squint and attempt looking at her face from different angles. "What are you doing you perv!" She yells at me, snapping me out of my curious trance. "Well you're a tribe folk aren't you." Okin pauses like her breath was stolen from her, before she marches at me the angriest I've seen someone. She pulls her fist back, and her punch connects into my ribs. She hit hard so hard I thought she shattered them. As I sore in the air with the wind knocked out of me, the ground waits, arms spread apart, ready to embrace me into it arms. I lay there holding my ribs, struggling to grasp the air that had escaped. "Wh… wha…" I take a big gulp of air that's both refreshing and painful. "What the hell!?" I force myself to stand, my legs shaking. "Think before you bring up one's family next time!" I look into her eyes, my anger matching hers. "Hey, hey hey, why don't we calm down now. Okin I get he said something, but it was out of curiosity not hate for your people, you see you're a bit in the wrong." She clicks her tongue. "Whatever." She refuses to look in my direction. "Im sorry that she did that." Allana says walking up to me. "Don't apologize for someone else's stupid decision." I could tell Okin heard me, but she does nothing. "Well I hope this doesn't make you think badly about the MPS." Lloyd says, scratching his head. "MPS? What's that?" They all pause, and stare at me like I asked the dumbest question. They all turn to Corgan, yelling at him and sink. "You didn't tell him anything, did you!" I think back to the moment Corgan offered me to join, and the realization had struck. 'He didn't tell me a damn thing.' Other than the slight annoyance at Corgan's inability to explain things, I would soon have all my questions answered. Lloyd drags the other two around me, as he gets warmed up to explain what the MPS is. "So the MPS is basically the group that runs this building, and MPS stands for Mutation Protection Service." He talks slightly fast, which makes more questions appear in my mind. "Mutation?" he looks at me, his expression a little more disappointed before Alaina speaks up. "A mutation is what causes our abilities. We get them at birth, and there's multiple types as well." Alaina smiles, as she speaks with confidence in her knowledge. All that I can focus on is the word type. 'Would that explain why my ability has an ego?' "Can you explain to me more about the types of abilities?" Alaina nods as her smile brightens, and I swear the butterfly in her eyes flapped its wings. "Yes there is internal and external. The internal type is like being able to conjure fire out of thin air, while external is something that affects the physical body." I stare deep into the pink butterfly that lays into her eyes. "Then you're an external type right? Because of your eyes." She nods. "Well not all of the abilities are granted by birth." Those words grab me by the ear, pulling my attention deeper into her words. "Like mine they were given to me, I wasn't born with them." So she's not a mutant, in a way just someone that carries mutated flesh. "Who gave you those eyes then?" I asked out of curiosity, but it soon felt like a mistake, as I could feel the room silence itself, and Alaina's expression carried a new found sorrow. "OH I'm sorry it's probably personal, I won't pry." She grabs my arm, shaking her head. "No you have the right to know, you're part of our team after all. They were given to me by my mother, the Pure Knights hunted her down, and she gave these eyes and told me to run. I couldn't see it was dark and my eyes hurt, but I knew I was getting farther because her screams got quieter…" It hurt my soul having to hear that from her, I guess we relate in the sense, as we both lost our mothers. Yet along with the slight sadness it made me feel, it also gave me something interesting. "You mentioned Pure Knights, are they the knights in wight armor." She doesn't say a word, just nods. 'To think of what she had gone through, and she's still able to smile.' Llyod claps his hands together. "Hey let's stop all this gloom, right now we need to test your abilities, so why don't we get started. How do you want to do it?" I look at them all and I'm curious about each and everyone of them, and how they work together. "All at once." They pause and look at me, as if they miss heard me. "Sorry Allen, but it sounded like you wanted all of us to attack you at once." I look at him, not a change to my face. I nod. "You heard correctly." I step closer to Lloyd, as shadows wrapped their way around my body. "I want all of you to come at me at the same time." Lloyd sighs, placing his hand on his face, before a wired smile appears on his face. "You're hell arrogant you know, but why the hell not." He turns to the other two, walking past them. "You heard the man, all at once let's get into position." They follow behind standing side by side. They all have different stances that could give me a hint to what their abilities might be, Lloyd's stance is strange, he stands on the tip of his toes, keeping his palms open in a grab motion, will he centers his gravity by keeping his body slightly low. 'His ability is probably speed based. He will probably make the first move.' I take note of his stance as I look in Okin direction. Her stance isn't anything of notice, it's more like she hasn't decided what she will do yet. 'She could have multiple use ability, I need to stay a far distance till I figure it out." And lastly Alaina, her stance is clumsy as if she's never thrown a punch in her life. 'She is meant for support, I might need to go for her first.' Corgan walks to the middle, coin in hand. "When this coin touches the ground you may begin your match." He flicks the coin high, almost touching the roof of the training room, but it doesn't. The fall feels painful slow like time had stopped just to build suspense for the battle. The coin reaches just centimeters away from the ground as everyone gets ready to rush in, till finally we hear the loud chime of the coin hitting the ground. "OKIN KNOW!" Lloyd yelled, as what looked like wires sprouted from her fingers. The wires wrapped around Lloyd, as she began to twist her body, fling Lloyd into my direction. I stare in surprise as Lloyd opens his hand wider. "Gotcha!" Lloyd shouted as space began to ripple around his hand, as all that comes after is a loud bag as if lightning had struck, and the noise wasn't for show either, the damage that he would have caused to me would have broken almost all my bones. But as for now all I can do is stare at the crater he left in front of me. 'What the hell?! What could his abilities possibly be?' The last thing I saw before there was a crater was the same ripple that came from his hands being pushed forwards, causing the damage that was placed in front of me. I stand up and quickly try to catch my breath. I stretch out my hand as shadows wrap around my arm like bandages, and they gather at my palm. A sword forms itself into my hand, I now at least have a weapon. Lloyd jumps at me again, the space at his fingers begins to ripple again. 'Not this time.' I lunge forward gripping the sword tightly, as Lloyd brings his hands to my face, but he won't get the chance as shadows pierce through the ground pushing his hand up, I swing my sword down, but I freeze mid motion 'what.' I feel a strong familiar rib breaking punch to my side. Okin stands where I was a moment ago, but something changed, what was once a hand made of flesh and bone, was now a robotic arm with what seemed to be a green glow. I cough up a bit of blood, it splatters on the ground, and I try to step forward but my body freezes. 'I can't move.' I look up as Okin as she pulls her hand back and it makes contact with my face. I don't even process the pain as everything goes black. I wake staring at the ceiling of the training room, the pain gone. "What happened?" Alaina moves her head into view, her eyes glow slightly at me being awake. "You got knocked out by one of Okin's punches." I lift my head up trying not to fall back down. "No I mean what happened to my body, why couldn't I move." She looks at me with a confident smile. "OH, that's my ability, I can control anything I look at." I sit there puzzled as Lloyd chimes in. "It's true, the only real draw back is that Alaina is a pacifist." Corgan walks up behind us. "Alright I've kept y'all long enough, you may all head back to your rooms." I raise and eyebrow "rooms?" Corgan looked down at me, then at the other three. "OH yeah we had a room set up while I'll you were fighting." He points at Okin. "Take him to his room." She jumps up. "What, why me?" Corgan rubs his eyes and sighs. "Because I said so, now go." Okin doesn't argue with him, she just glares at me. "Let's go." We walk through a hall with wooden doors made from dark oak, all with numbers placed on them. We walk for a bit until Okin suddenly stops in place. "Sorry about punching you earlier." Her apology surprised me a little, I didn't think she was the type. "It's ok you don't need to, I already forgot." She let's out a little giggle. "With that punch to the face, I would forget too." huh so many unexpected things, I guess she wasn't the mean type. "A smile suits you." She turns to look at me with a slight pink color in her cheeks. "Shut it or I'll punch you again." I keep my mouth shut as we continue to walk in awkward silence. We stop at a door with the numbers 308 on it. "This is your room. I'll be leaving, and if you need anything, there's a phone in there to contact others." I nod as she walks away and I enter the room. The room is plain with a circular table in a corner with a phone on top, a window across the room from the door and a bed. There's another door that seems to lead to the bathroom as well. I throw myself atop the bed, my head hitting the soft pillow, as my hair branches off like a crown of thorns on the pillow. "It's soft." I look up at the ceiling as shadows come out from under my bed. They take the shape of my parents as they grab the blanket pulling it over me as they pat my head until I'm embraced by the elite of sleep.