Chapter 19

  Team Names

  “A name is something unique, something that identifies one person or group from their peers. To have a name is to have an identity.” -Anonymous

  “Welcome to chub scouts, or as is listed on your schedules, extracurricular exercise. For those that are incoming, this is nothing more than a light workout designed to help get many of you into shape. And before you give me any of those old adages, round at least for your time here, is not a shape,” the instructor bellowed.

  Arla just listened, and performed the exercises as instructed.

  There was nothing wrong with trying to work harder to improve both your mind and body. Arla also used this as a litmus test, to see just how strong the normal students would get, if they performed all of the exercise programs offered to the students.

  This was obviously not going to include evening sessions that Arla would do on her own, but were meant as a means to gauge how much students who truly pushed themselves could expect to improve.

  Groans.

  Despite the relative ease of the movements, the other students let out verbal complaints about the level and conditioning expected of them.

  Of no real surprise to Arla, was the fact that almost all of the cadets in the S-Rank were assigned to extracurricular exercise classes.

  No doubt this was done to both fully wear out the S-Ranked individuals, preventing many for being able to go out and do dumb things with their powers. The second main reason for all but forcing S-Ranked cadets into extracurricular exercise was so that these Cadets could attune their bodies to be able to handle the stresses that S-Ranked powers will exert on a body.

  Fortunately for Arla, she had Marcon, who was aware of the strains that S-Ranked potentials placed on one’s body. Of particular concern were the stresses placed on a young body. It was Marcon’s training that made it so Arla had no trouble adapting to the intense regimen offered. By comparison these exercises could barely be considered a nice warmup compared to a typical Marcon workout.

  Still, this was good as it would help her blend in.

  “Cadet Hylinch, are you already quitting on me?” The instructor called out, all but demanding everyone turn their attention towards the one cadet who had wobbling arms and could barely raise themselves off the ground.

  “No Drill Instructor,” Lyria called out, as she desperately tried to get her body off the ground once more.

  “You wanted to be class captain, didn’t you? Going so far as to all but have a mutiny if you didn’t get it, yet look at you. You and all your mutanteers are all so weak and pathetic, that you make me sick,” the instructor called out and then gestured to the other S-Ranked students who registered with Lyria, as also having trouble keeping up with the exercises. By comparison, the other students in the A-Rank with Arla were clearly nearing their body’s limits, but they refused to show such contrition. Instead, they just continued to push themselves.

  The only S-Ranker who was not present was the boy, the one that Arla was fairly certain was not having a hard time keeping up on the first morning of exercises.

  “In fact,” the Instructor went on, “I think that is what I am going to call you all the Mutanteer.”

  By that statement the Instructor proved he either purposefully used the wrong word, or just doubled down on his mistake and now preferred to call these students by this less than stellar nickname.

  “You already got your name for your group there Battle?” The Instructor assigned to Arla’s group of students called out.

  “I believe I do, honestly looking at this batch of misfits, I can’t think of a better name to describe the lot of them,” the S-Rank Instructor called back. Then he seemed to roll over the word in his mouth, the same way one would speak if they found that they had suddenly swallowed a fly, “Mutanteers, yep a terrible name for a terrible class of cadets. One would think for people born with S-Rank potential, they would be more inclined to work out, if for nothing else than to make sure their own bodies didn’t explode while using their powers.”

  This was likely a myth, while using powers in a body that was not fit enough to contain said powers could cause rupturing of blood vessels and other organs, particularly in the elderly, complete explosion of bodies was almost impossible. It was especially impossible in bodies that were young and able to adapt to the changes.

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  Not for the first time, Arla found herself wondering about randomly giving out seemingly unlimited power to individuals, but ultimately held back.

  As Marcon had put it, when she had such objections earlier, “It is no different than giving millions of credits to a financially irresponsible person that will blow through the money in no time. All you did was offer the chance for these people to change for the better. What they did with that chance is on themselves.”

  That was Marcon’s way of telling Arla to get over the fact that one of her symbiotic bonds died within hours of receiving their recently enhanced set of powers.

  “What about you battle?” The S-Ranked Instructor asked, “got any ideas for platoon names?”

  With that, Arla’s instructor looked over the platoon of A-Rankers and seemed to take in everyone. While they looked down at everyone, Arla was the only one who looked back. Never missing a beat with the prescribed set of exercises.

  At first it was clear that the Instructor was not impressed by the cadets she saw.

  It was only once she turned her gaze to see Arla that something inside her shifted.

  “Lurkers.”

  “Lurkers?” The S-Rank instructor asked.

  “Yes, the Lurkers. They will sit around, watching you, only to wait for the moment that they can strike you down.” The Instructor replied, as they stared directly back at Arla.

  In that glance there was a bit of an increase in tensions, until Arla finally nodded her head in acceptance of the name and its seeming implications.

  “Haha, got a bunch of creeps over there?” The S-Ranked instructor questioned while laughing.

  “A few creepy ones, not going to lie,” Arla’s Instructor called back, as she once again made eye contact with Arla, before looking over the rest of her platoon.

  Ding.

  At that, the sound of the morning assembly bell chimed out.

  “Form up,” the Instructors all called out in unison.

  With this, the students who had all been a part of extracurricular exercises lined out. Then they waited for those students who chose not to participate in extracurricular exercises.

  At this, Arla saw the same S-Ranked individual form up, and seem to fall in line at the end of S-Rank’s platoon, which just so happened to put him next to Arla.

  As he fell in, he gave a broad smile and whispered, “fancy meeting you here.”

  Hmph.

  Arla knew all too well not to get caught up in gossip and chatting while in a platoon.

  Instead she just turned her body and face forward and waited.

  After the light warmup, one where many of the extracurricular students had a hard time even stretching properly, they were informed to run around the quad and come back.

  Not given any more instruction, the platoons were lined up and told to go.

  Arla tried to be nice, she tried to let the S-Ranked cadets keep the lead that was afforded them by their start position. But soon found that many of the S-Rankers were too tired to run, and quickly found themselves falling to the back of the formation.

  Realizing that this would only cause Lyria and the others still more trouble later on, Arla just shook her head and soon fell into her own rhythm.

  With all but a few S-Rank and A-Rank students falling away from her, Arla found her mind sinking into a zone that was only achievable by the Zen state of running.

  As she moved, she found her eyes and body looking out, seeing the instructors who were placed along the route, no doubt trying to catch students who tried to relax in hidden out of the way areas.

  Arla moved, feeling multiple sets of eyes on her, but never letting any of them truly unnerve her.

  Instead, she just ran and used the moment to let the world around her fade away.

  She chose a pace that was not her fastest pace, but one just ahead of the other students that no one try to surpass her while running. From this state, she just blurred out her mind, went over her class and workload for the day. Planned her breaks, and overall just found her mind having a moment to catch up to what was expected of her.

  That was the great thing about running, here in this state, this was her time. As long as she kept running, her mind could wander where she wanted it to go. While her body might be forced to go places out of her control, her thoughts, her ideas, her calm, these were all things that no one could take away from her.

  As she neared the quad, it was clear that many of the instructors had pulled away. No doubt, willing to let the Geminoid statues warn of any students who took this time to dilly dally.

  Again, Arla did nothing to break this implied trust from this task.

  That is why she ran.

  Though as she ran, she took in a number of differences to the quad.

  These were subtle differences from last night to now, but ones that could seem to imply something greater.

  First and foremost, the statue that had been Admiral Gibson had moved and been replaced. Glancing around, Arla soon found that quite a few others had also shifted platforms.

  The ones that Arla knew to somehow be denser and therefor more powerful stood next to the new Geminoid that took the form of the fabled Admiral.

  Also of note, the Geminoid that took over the form of the Admiral had a lot more gems and unique particles.

  If Arla had to guess, this replacement statue was someone important. If for no other reason than the fact that it had powerful bodyguards surrounding it now, meant something. But there was also the fact that this Geminoid was intent on watching all of the students that ran past.

  This was also odd, as the last statue chose to roll their eyes up into their skull, while this one looked on with almost glowing emerald eyes. Those giant emeralds for eyes, those were the sign of a true leader of the Geminoid and is believed to be how this species got their name to begin with.

  Honestly, the look from true emerald eyes was slightly unnerving, as there seemed to be something dead in that glare.

  Still Arla did nothing to draw attention, at least she thought she didn’t. However, upon locking gazes with the statue, she could almost swear the statue made the faintest of head nods in her direction.

  Then blinking away, she looked and saw that the statue had seemed to revert back to its original position, the only difference being that the left hand which had a finger raised in a seeming come hither gesture.

  Noting the seeming change, Arla nodded and then made her way to the turning spot and went back to the start location.

  While she was the first one back, she felt the tension of someone staring at her dissipate as the runners from behind her suddenly caught up and were able to move past her back to their starting positions.

  To no real surprise the man with the pearly white smile was one of the first people back.

  While Arla was already in her squad leader position and stretching out comfortably. The S-Ranker by contrast was clearly wheezing as if having pushed himself too hard for too long.

  As he got back, they made eye contact and Arla again nodded.

  Panting.

  The boy opened his mouth as if wanting to speak, but then chose better of it, as he could only begin to regain some semblance of normalcy before others also came back.

  Of note, Lyria and the other newly Ignited S-Rankers were among the last to arrive. Which only further cemented their need for extra training.

  Still the lines had been drawn, and Arla knew what was being requested of her.

  That was why later that night, after everyone had left, Arla found herself heading towards the very statue that had seemingly called for her to come earlier that day.

  Long melodic rumbling.

  “So you came?” The Geminoid statue who had taken over as Admiral Gibson began to say in their odd native gravely tongue.

  As they spoke, Arla could feel the attention of the statues all turning her way, letting her know that this would be a test of some kind, but of what, she was not certain.