Chapter 35: Xain
So that’s what he meant by We may be seeing you soon. He’s a rebel? Is Prosper? Maybe Honey?
Wait. Where IS Honey Kanera? Is she covering for Kandi and Shugari—Sugar, I guess I should call her.
“He sent Kandi and Sugar to ‘spy’ on us while he and Honey try and work out cover for themselves,” Alestra breaks the silence. “Kandi and Sugar are our ‘prisoners’ for now. Apparently, a rebel group kidnapped them as leverage or revenge for C-5.”
“When are they supposed to come by?” I ask, “I assume that we can’t talk due to radio silence, so do we know when they’re supposed to make it?”
“And what about Prosper?” Jada says. I take my arm from around her neck, but she still maintains her hold on my arm. “Is he part of this?”
“He is alongside Jason in it,” Tanzi answers Jada’s question. “Both are going to stay part of the capitol people so as not to draw any suspicion.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” I say as I begin to walk, “I’m going to freshen up before lunch, so can I have my arm now, Jada?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jada blushes through her swarthy skin.
“It’s okay,” I smile as I walk off. What’s gotten into her? She’s been acting strange lately. It’s almost like she’s in love with me, which I see as unlikely. She’s like a sister to me.
After I get out of the shower, I get a knock on my door I quickly throw on a white shirt and jean pants and open the door. To my surprise, it’s actually Jada. She must have taken a shower herself. Her hair is pulled back in a damp, frizzy ponytail and she’s in a pink and black shirt with matching pants.
“Hi,” Jada smiles nervously.
“Um, hi,” I say with a mixture of confusion and nervousness.
“So,” Jada takes her eyes off of me and drops them to the ground as she bites her lip, “do you mind if I come in?”
“No, not at all,” I say as I stand back and allow her in. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Jada says as she sits on my bed, “I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Okay,” I say as I pull up a chair to sit. “What’s on your mind, Willow?”
Jada draws a deep breath as she lies back on my bed and closes her eyes. I prepare myself for the worst. An accidental radio message. A broken weapon. An unwanted favor.
“Xain, I think I may be falling in love with you.”
I did not see that coming. I mean, she has been acting a bit strange around me and blushing, but I have met very few girls that I couldn’t make blush. I search for something to say, but all that comes out is “What makes you say that?”
“Everytime I’m around you, I just get this warm feeling through my body,” Jada starts, “it’s as if the butterflies in my stomach are released and I feel free.”
I’m silent for about ten seconds before I respond. “Sounds to me like you just have a crush on me.”
“I guess,” Jada sits up but still doesn’t look at me, “but it’s different from the one I had on Derrick.”
I chuckle, not sure how to respond. Jada justs gets up and hugs me around my chest gently, so I hug her back.
“I feel so much better,” she says hushly.
“You should,” I respond, “it’s not easy admitting an attraction to someone to them.”
Right then, I notice that Katya has come in and is squinting her eyes at us. How long has she been there?
“Well if you two are done sharing your feelings, we can have lunch now,” she says as she twirls a knife around her finger.
Jada and I look at each other and awkwardly smile before we both walk out. Katya puts away her knife as she braids her hair and jumps over the balcony to the ground which is three floors down. I rush over to see her land almost quietly on her feet.
“A girl like me always lands on her feet,” Katya smiles and winks. I’m pretty sure it was meant towards me.
Jada and I walk the rest of the way down the stairs and into the cafeteria area. We’re the last to arrive and everyone is smiling. They smile even harder when I pull Jada’s seat for her and push it in. I’m just being a gentleman. Jada knows, but everyone else makes remarks of it.
Lunch isn’t filled with much substance as we eat stew made of deer meat. It’s salty and a little spicy, but good. The most talk is of fighting stories, childhoods, and training. Alestra, Sugar, and Tanzi are especially tuned into talking about Jada’s first battle. Alestra and Tanzi even invite her to go hunting with them. I’ve been hunting with Alestra a couple of times. She’s great with a cross-bow. Kandi and Sugar are still upset that we won’t let them train with us to become fighters. As much as it pains me, I actually have to agree with...my “aunt”. We don’t need Capital rebels that have no experience in fighting to train as fighters. It’d be a waste to train them for them to be wiped out due to lack of experience. Plus, they’re our key and map to the city.
“So Jada,” Alestra starts as she lifts her glass, “Do you have a special weapon you like to use?”
“Well,” Jada pauses to think to herself, “I’m not so sure. I’ve been trained in all sorts of areas of weaponry—knives, swords, bow and arrow, even snares—but I would have to go with my sword with my sais in a close tie.”
“You should see how quickly she picked up the use of sais,” Tanzi smiles, “I could dare say that she’s one of my most formidable opponents.”
We all laugh at that. The thought of two small teenaged girls in a fight seems entertaining.
“So did you show Jada your batons?” Alestra asks Tanzi. Tanzi’s eyes shoot open wide as she looks at Alestra.
“I was going to surprise her,” Tanzi glares at her sister. She then looks at Jada. “For my sixth birthday, my father gave me two baton sticks with special abilities. He always called me his ‘little acrobat’.”
I can see that. I remember walking in on her in the training area. She had apparently managed to steal my spear from my room. I remember just watching as she spun, flipped, and twirled around with my spear as she took out multiple hostile training bots with ease. She was able to figure out how to change its shape.
“Now that the secret is out,” Mason takes a sip of his drink, “you can give everyone a demonstration.”
“Good idea,” Sugar squeals out. Kandi claps and hugs my arm for some reason. “I love to see some action, especially since we can’t have weapons.”
We all know that the last comment was directed towards Alestra, who just squints and glares at Sugar. Sugar just smiles and winks at her.
“Okay,” Tanzi smiles enthusiastically, “show you after lunch.”
We have to wait almost two hours after lunch so that Tanzi can digest her food. It was her request, but I think she’s trying to make us wait to see her. After the two hours, we all gather in the observation room of the training simulator—a room built to immitate any type of battle situation. You can control how many enemies, what kind of obstacles there are, even the landscape and weather.
Tanzi has on her black and red training outfit with an addition of thin, silver bracelets. In her hands, she holds two black and silver batons. She nods to Alestra though the glass to say that she’s ready. Alestra flips a switch on a panel and the machine hums to life.
As if out of nowhere, virtual bot enemies spring up. Some are much bigger than her, but she’s so small that any opponent might be bigger than she is. Tanzi twirls her small batons around and waits for the first hostile to attack. As soon as one charges and punches, she catches its arm and slams it to the ground, pouncing out of the way of another attacker. She hits one right in the groin and it staggers back as she counters an attack from another attacker.
For about five minutes, Tanzi just flips around hitting bots with her batons. No one is really interested.
“I’m just getting warmed up,” Tanzi shouts through the glass, “Hit it, Aly!”
Alestra turns a knob and the bots appear with weapons ranging from knives and swords to actual guns. Tanzi connects both of her batons together to make one big staff, and then extends it to add about a yard more to the length. The enemies attack much more quickly and brutally than before, but Tanzi still handles them quickly—twirling the staff, sweeping the bots off of their feet, and even vaulting off of the staff and into some of them. She occasionally slams one or two against the wall or floor and takes them out completely.
She doubles back around as one begins to shoot pellets at her. She dodges the first bullets and twists her staff, causing a shield to form. The bullets bounce off as she approaches and slams into the bot with the gun, causing it to fly back and impact the wall. Once she’s surrounded by the remaining bots—about a dozen of them—she puts away the shield and breaks apart the staff into two batons again, smiling as she does it.
I look around the room and everyone is confused about what she’s doing. Jada is biting her lip as she waits for something to happen. I look at Alestra, who winks at me as if to say “it’s not over yet”. As if on cue, Tanzi’s two batons begin to transform. Her left baton begins to shape into a small dagger-like weapon while her right one begins to widen and turn circular. Completed, it’s a shield and dagger set. My eyes are now wide. Those weapons are amazing. Not even my shadow spear could compare to them.
The first bot to charge gets sliced across the abdomen with the shield, causing it to fall back in an imitated pain, as Tanzi slices off the arm of a bot with a sword. I now start to see how the shield doubles as a sharp tool as she throws one over her back and uses the shield to slice its head clean off. It’s as if nothing is able to phase her shield. Even the strongest of attacks are knocked away as she hacks with both her dagger and her shield.
There are about six bots left—one is missing its arm and one has a damaged leg. All of them are spread out in different directions. I’ve seen this before. One time in the arena, a boy had been surrounded by about eight opponents. When one ran to attack, the boy readied himself and got struck by an arrow. Turning to the shooter, someone cut at his leg. It didn’t take long for all of the fighters to take down the one titanous boy. My heart pounds as I think of what might happen to this one girl.
Tanzi smiles as she observes the field. She then raises her shield and throws it almost like a disk. She takes out out one of the bots—bad armed bot—as the shield circles around and takes out three before returning back to her arm. Tanzi ducks as one fires at her. Instead of shooting her, the bullets hit another bot, causing it to die. It doesn’t take much to slice the other bot in half.
The last both has a large shield. Where did it get a shield? It covers the whole body, making any attack impossible. Tanzi thows her shield, but it’s deflected to the ground. When Tanzi charges at the bot, it knocks her into the glass. Everyone gasps. Tanzi flips and flings the shield at the bot, followed by her dagger. Both fly past the bot as her dodges them. Tanzi smirks as she turns around and faces us and the bot approaches her. I think it’s over when suddenly the shield slams into the both from behind, knocking him forward. The dagger follows behind, ripping right through the bot’s back. Tanzi catches both of the items and shifts them back into batons as she exits. The whole room is silent as she enters.
“So what did you guys think?” Tanzi smiles, “Must have been amazing if no one is saying anything.”
“Where did you learn to fight like that?” Jada snaps out, “And where did your father get those?”
“I learned from my father,” Tanzi answers, “He actually crafted them from vibronium metal.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Abi says, “It can transform into any form without melting. It also can absorb vibrations and waves, sometimes even deflect them back. It’s related to the material that Xain’s armor was made out of.”
“Except viberon is softer, almost kevlar-like, and is flexible,” I respond, “not to mention that it doesn’t deflect vibations back.”
“You have a viberon armor?” Alestra seems astonished with that fact. “Is it here?”
“Uh, yeah, it’s here,” I respond.
Alestra almost knocks me over as she rushes over and wraps her arms around me. “That’s so awesome!”
“Is it possible that we could examine it in the lab?” Mason cuts in. “We were hoping to duplicate a form of viberon, but we have a very tiny amount in supply.”
“Would it be damaged in any way?” I ask. I don’t want it to be damaged in any way. It was a sponsor gift for Xania, but she died before it could be completed.
“Of course not,” Alestra is giddy and jumping up and down, “we’ll just scan it into our system and see if we can re-create the armor for the rest of the rebels.”
“Go ahead,” I say. Alestra squeals and throws herself on me again, this time laying a huge kiss on my cheek. I feel guilty for being some-what attracted to my own cousin, even if we aren’t blood related.
Just then, there’s a ring from a wall panel. It also flashes a red light. Mason crosses the room and presses a button and speaks into it.
“This is Mason James,” Mason says sternly.
“Mason, is Alestra with you?” A female’s voice comes through the panel speaker. She has a slight tone of worry in her voice.
“Yes, she’s right here,” Mason says as he looks at Alestra.
Alestra finally lets go of me as she walks to the panel. “Is something wrong?”
“I think you should see for yourself,” the woman says and almost immediately hangs up.
Alestra looks at Mason for a brief second and then both of them dart out of the door. The rest of us follow closely behind. We don’t even bother taking the elevator, we take the three flights of stairs up to the main floor. We’re met by a lab technitian who points us towards the infirmary wing.
The infirmary is surrounded by a lot of people clamoring about something indistictively. As we approach, they part and let us pass through. We get to one specific where a woman greets us.
“Regina, what’s wrong?” Alestra frantically asks.
“It’s better I showed you,” Regina says. I think she may be the woman from the phone.
Regina walks about ten feet before coming in front of a curtained off area. She removes the curtain and we all gasp.
Behind the curtains lie Jason Gibbert and Prosper Odilatu. Both are battered and bruised.