Over the next few days Ajax’s life was a whirlwind, moving at a pace that he hadn’t experienced for years.
The training was simple enough, the physical exercise wasn’t doing a massive amount for him especially with his fitness already being quite good, though his stamina was slowly increasing as he pushed himself to run those laps faster. He had moved onto using some of the more heavyweight machines pretty early on, leaving the others to do more laps and build basic fitness.
The heavyweight machines were crazy, to put it lightly.
Ajax could only take advantage of the lower settings on the weight machines. Some of those machines went up to multiple tonnes of weight, which simply dwarfed Ajax’s standard level of ability. While he used the machines, generally Coach Willem spotted him, giving pointers on form and making sure he was being pushed to his absolute limit.
It became obvious that the Coach had a lot of strength that was hiding away in his unsuspecting form, especially when it only took a single hand to manage Ajax’s maximum natural weight. Just casually lifting the bar without even a grunt of exertion.
Training his link had been… less successful. He was still bound by all the same rules that he had figured out himself years ago at this point. His link was difficult to train with, just by virtue of the alignment the axe needed to his actions.
He wasn’t able to call as much power as he wanted to, always lacking the strength that he knew was available to him. It was all there right at his fingertips, begging to be used, but restraining itself waiting for a moment where it agreed to be used.
In the meantime, Willem had just been training him on the basics of using axes in actual battle, which was pretty useful, all things considered. Ajax had only been chopping at trees for years, so it’s not like he had any form or structure, so getting a run down in really basic fighting stances had been eye opening all by itself.
Ajax walked into the cafeteria after the end of training for the day, pulling out his chair at their table and entrusting his sizable weight to the surprisingly sturdy chairs. Despite the general progress he was seeing, he was still frustrated.
He was frustrated with all sorts of things. His team being distant, his link being fickle, the sleep that he’d been struggling to get. But something that he had realised over the past few days, was that he was mourning the loss of his simple life, living out in the woods.
At the time, the random woman who had shown up and followed him into the woods had seemed like she was offering a new life and opportunity. But as he sat alone in the cafeteria of this strange place, filled with people of indeterminate power, he had never felt more alone. That was, before a relaxed voice broke Ajax’s reverie.
“Hey there.” A voice called, Ajax’s eyes flicked up from his hands resting on the table, to see a slim man with a pasty white complexion and long brown hair tied up in a bud, stray hairs on the side of his head giving him an almost roguish look. Ajax put on an amiable smile.
“How’s it going?” Ajax asked the man, who was making himself at home in the seat opposite him, slouching and grinning, and he offered his hand, “Ajax.”
The man took his large hand and shook it lightly. Definitely not a strength-based link, or very good at controlling it.
“Dean. Good to see another group in here. Sorry it took me so long to get around you.” He pulled back from Ajax’s handshake and lifted a foot onto his own chair, hugging it close to his body before he continued.
“I’m from the most advanced group here at the moment, it’s a tradition that the most senior team leader will greet the newest team leader.” Dean grinned warmly at Ajax’s slight confusion.
“Team leaders? We haven’t heard anything about that yet.” Ajax said, concerned. Dean just shrugged.
“And you won’t, not for a little while anyways. Team leaders are ‘chosen’,” he wiggled two fingers up and down in the air with a look on his face, “a bit later on. But it’s almost always clear who is going to end up as a team leader.”
“How so?” Ajax’s booming voice lowered to a private hush.
“Most commanding presence, or the quiet one,” he shrugged again, “never seems to deviate from that particular trope. It’s funny how much our realities are linked to those silly tropes. Always used to read comics about this sort of stuff, and lots of what I learned there has turned out to be way more useful here that I’d ever expected.” The slim man gave a dry chuckle, and Ajax couldn’t help but be more confused. He hadn’t exactly been a comic buff as a kid, so he was behind the curve, apparently.
“Really?” Dean exclaimed in amusement, “Reyah the Silver Goddess? Filmore Sparks, Inventor Extraordinaire?” His hands came up into a distinctive pose, but the reference went entirely over Ajax’s head, he almost wished that Walter was here to explain. He’d probably get it.
“Man, you’re really missing out dude, that was so much fun as a kid.” Dean looked up at the ceiling with a fond look in his face but managed to refocus when Ajax asked a question.
“Anyway… how’re you so sure I’m going to be my team’s team leader?” Ajax asked, a healthy scepticism adorning his face. Dean just laughed with a helpless expression.
“I don’t, not really. It could be any one of your team, you all seem to have the whole team leader spark in you somewhere, but you’re slightly different than the rest of your team.” Ajax rose an eyebrow, but Dean waved him off.
“I mean, sure. You are all in your fledgling states and you guys barely know your own links, but team leaders can only be enhanced in capability by their links, not made by them. Except if your personality changed with your link, but that type is kinda scary.” Dean involuntarily shivered, remembering a past experience with a particularly… dispassionate man.
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“But why am I team leader? Walter or Aaliyah could easily be team–” A short bark of laughter stopped Ajax mid-sentence, forcing a frown onto his face.
“Don’t give me that, Ajax. Walter, the Asian guy I assume, can barely hold himself together, let alone a team as well. He seems like the sort that’ll figure himself out but won’t ever truly be fit to lead.” Dean paused to soak in Ajax’s expression, which was stuck somewhere between a disapproving frown and begrudging agreement.
“Aaliyah definitely could.” Ajax grumbled. Dean thought for a moment.
“The spunky blonde?” Ajax nodded and Dean sighed, “Yeah, she probably could. But she’d also be the one to see it burn to the ground after all is said and done. She knows how to lead, probably better than I do, but she’s got skeletons in her closet, man. Like, T-Rex sized skeletons.” He waved his hands around emphatically, and Ajax’s eyes narrowed.
“And how to do know this, exactly?” Dean grinned.
“Info link. Handy dandy for prying into other people’s business without their consent and always having job security.” Ajax seized up, worried that Dean was trawling through his deepest and darkest secrets. Dean just rolled his eyes.
“Nah man, not quite that intense. I can intuit a fair amount of information, like a subconscious filing system, and as the datapoints roll in, I can make some pretty out there predictions super accurately-ish.” Ajax raised a thick eyebrow.
“Seems pretty intense to me.” Dean just shrugged
“If I examine someone for a really long time I get to know a lot about them. Basically how I found out my mum and dad were both cheating on each other, and that my sister had three different boyfriends and a girlfriend, in only a week of my Awakening.” Dean laughed, though Ajax wasn’t sure how funny he was supposed to find that. Ajax sat and thought for a few seconds, trying to think about how to tentatively bring up the question he wanted to ask, but sighed and decided to just go for it.
“Wouldn’t your link be considered undefined? There isn’t really much reason behind it…” Dean just shrugged, not even flinching at what could be considered a grave insult.
“Oh yeah, for sure. It makes no fucking sense at all, aside from it being as simple as ‘monkey see, monkey think’. Most links don’t, when you get down to the nitty gritty of it. But being classified as an undefined has almost nothing to do with how explainable by science your power is, but how understandable it is to the suits.” Ajax’s eyebrows furrowed, a mix of confusion and frustration with the idea.
“Why would they even have the classification if it doesn’t make any sense?” Ajax hadn’t exactly been victim to any discrimination based on his link, but there was a reason he didn’t bother coming back to society to ‘use his link for good’.
“Honestly, mate? Someone has to get the short end of the stick. The suits that run all this bullshit love the idea that they can put all our capabilities down on a piece of paper and run bogus calculations on what we can and cannot theoretically do, as well as what we can and cannot theoretically provide them.” He stopped to pull his hair out of his messy bun, letting the hair fall to his shoulder casually and slipping the hairband onto his wrist in one motion.
“So we can’t provide services well enough for them?” Ajax asked bitterly, but Dean just shook his head.
“No. They just don’t know what you can provide, when you can you provide it and how well you’ll provide it. Take yourself. You swing your axe three times in fifteen minutes, one seems to do little more than an axe would against concrete, the next you blow a small crater into the wall, and the one after that your axe sinks into the wall enough that you have trouble getting it back out again for a second or two.” Ajax recognised this from his training only a few hours ago. He reluctantly nodded.
“So, they want consistency? Then Walter would be fine, he can produce a consistent output of—”
“Sure, but he’s a fabled magic type. The sort that can grow and grow until they can tear the land apart with a mere thought. Or something, they don’t do enough research on them from what I hear.” Ajax gave the interrupting man a glare, but it seemed to slide right off of Dean. Ajax sighed, but gave the topic some more thought, humouring the man eagerly awaiting his answer.
“Control?” Dean clapped his hands together loudly, drawing the attention of a few other trainees, quietly eating food, before they rolled their eyes at the sight and went back to eating.
“Exactly! We have a winner folks. They want control. As much of it as they can muster, even if it means breaking their own rules.” He winked as he pointed to himself. Ajax sighed, grudgingly accepting that answer as the best he’ll get for a while.
“Anyway, so why do you think I am going to be the team leader in then end?”
“Well because it was between you and the quiet girl with the crazy rad facial scar that may or may not be a huge soft spot, so please don’t tell her I called it that.” He stopped talking to giggle to himself softly before continuing, “Also, you’re a hell of a lot more approachable, seeing as you actually leave your room when not training.”
“Mirah? Why was it between me and her?” Ajax asked, somewhat dumbfounded. Mirah was the last person he’d pick as a team leader. She basically never talked, and the most he actually knew about the girl was her name and that she knew nothing about the world as it was, not that she ever asked about anything other than time she’d asked what an undefined was.
“Well,” Dean leaned back in his chair wearing a thoughtful mask, “I can’t say that I really know much more about her, but I can tell that her life was… simple, in a survivalist sort of way. Aaliyah has a similar feel to her, but less refined. She’s used to a place of power, whereas Mirah is from the flipside. Honestly, if you guys end up staying as a team after training, or even working with her on a job, listen to her instincts, they are razor sharp. Maybe even better than mine.” Dean leaned back forwards and looked Ajax in the eye with a knowing grin.
“But you’ve got the team spirit in you. You can talk to people, listen to people, and are willing to put your best foot forward for your team. Sure, they might have defaulted to Aaliyah’s cunning or Mirah’s intuition without you there, but you are the machine oiler. You’re the one that makes sure the teeth of the cogs are turning the other cogs and not chewing each other up, adding undue stress.” Ajax scratched at his face with a look of consternation.
“I get what you mean, man. But the team isn’t really coming together at all, and I don’t think it will for a while. Walter has been talking to Aaliyah a bit, but other than that It’s been pretty radio silent.” Ajax sighed.
“Gotta say, mate. Welcome to the club. You think a bunch of historically abused, battered and downright neglected kids are going to get along? We all know that kids that have difficulties in early childhood are more likely to become Linked. What’s the surprise?” Ajax hadn’t known that. Though honestly, it made sense. He was almost sure that Mirah and Aaliyah had dealt with some pretty heavy stuff, and he had himself. Whether Walter had or not was almost irrelevant. Three out of four was significant enough for Ajax.
“Well, when you put it like that.” Dean laughed at Ajax’s slight embarrassment, and got up from the table, reaching over and patting the big man on the shoulder jovially.
“You’ll be just fine, man. Just… give it a bit, yeah? Like a long while. It’ll take something pretty big to really get you all on the same page. That’s what happened with my group, anyway.” Ajax nodded and watched the other man saunter off, receding further into the crush of the early evening crowd, leaving Ajax to sit by himself for a while.
“Team leader, huh?”