Elijah joined back in on the athleticism testing at the shuttle run, quickly grabbing the top time in that event as well, using Longstrider to jump to one end and back quickly using side jumps. Then, he was quickly off to the dead lift. This was the first one Elijah was worried about how he'd perform.
He got into line behind a skinny boy who glanced back over his shoulder and up at Elijah, giving him a polite nod before turning back around. He watched a kid who was shaped like a beach ball up there at the bar. It was just the bar, in fact, with two cables attached at each end retracting down into a metal plate beneath his feet. He watched the kid struggle up to an 860 dead lift before nearly passing out, trying to pick up 900.
"Next up!" The skinny kid in front of him climbed the three steps up to the bar as the other kid walked off the other side and grabbed a bottle of water before moving on to the next event huffing and puffing.
"What weight would you like to start with?" The kid stopped at the bar and set his feet extra wide apart.
He pondered for half a second. "Start at 1500, go up by 250 every rep until I start to struggle." The student holding the tablet that controlled the tension on the bar looked up at the scrawny kid with the thought. "Are you sure?" Obviously playing through his mind. He shrugged and did as the kid asked.
Elijah watched as the small kid took about 10 seconds to morph from a frail little child to a giant lizard man of sorts with a long face snout with a stubby rhino like horn and a long tail crawling out of the top of his pants. He leaned over, grabbing the bar, his feet positioning now making more sense. He had set his feet to the width of his transformed body.
He started lifting making it look easy all the way up to 3250 lbs but instead of giving up when it got hard the scaly giant gave it his all living over and over again until he finally hit a wall he couldn't lift at 3780. The last kid looked like he would faint, but the scaley kid did faint, falling flat on his snout and quickly transformed back into a small pasty kid, his body losing all of its mass.
"Another fainter!" Called the girl holding the tablet. A couple of exasperated young adults came out, one with a backpack that had a sprayer attachment and the other with a sheet. They grabbed him and drug him over to where 3 other kids were laid out with a white sheet covering each of them, looking like dead bodies laid out at the morgue. They laid him with them and covered him. The guy with the sprayer went to work misting his entire body with a fine white mist that soaked into the sheet. He then went back over to the other bodies, misting them aswell.
"What's in the container?" Elijah said, now standing at the bar rubbing chalk on his hands.
"Huh?" The brunette girl looked up from her tablet where she was lowering the weight back down.
"Why is that guy watering them like they'll sprout later?" He gestured to the side with all the fainted people.
"Oh, them? That's what happens when you run out of chaos. Now that it's a part of us, it's like a vital function for operating, I guess. Our brains can't take the strain of our enhanced bodies without chaos to fuel it or something. Soooo" BINK! She smacked her hand on the table next to her to mime someone passing out. "I'm pretty sure that's what the Alien dude said. And they have some like chaos water that we have to spray. He said it's kinda like a mana potion in video games. Anyhow, there's a line forming what weight you want to start with?"
"Start with 1000, I think. The world record before the Alaxid was somewhere around there." Elijah leaned down and gripped the bar, lifting the handle until the cables were taut. He set himself and prepared to struggle and then pulled.
To his surprise, the bar came up with relative ease. It wasn't easy, but it felt more like 200 than a 1000. "Bump it up by 500." Elijah waited for the numbers to read right and gave it another heave. The 500 made an impact on the lift but not a large one. He was able to go up and down a couple of times fairly easily before placing the bar back down.
"Another 350" Elijah took a step back and grabbed a little chalk and got his hands recoated before stepping back into the lifting box. He reached down and grabbed the bar. Took a couple of deep breaths before pulling the bar up and completing the dead lift with a struggle, the bar wanting to drag him back down to the ground. He released the bar, and it rapidly retracted into the ground, slamming into the metal plate that the cables came out of. He took another step back, chalking his hands again, using it as a moment to let the blood flow back into his brain and take a couple of breaths.
"Raise it 150 this time, please." He saddled back up to the bar and wrapped his fingers tightly around the bar, touching his palm around the bar. He set he feet and pulled his back strained. His muscles were starting to ache as he powered it over his knee, dragging the bar with everything he had. His joints creaked as his muscles threatened to shatter his bones. He kept pulling, dragging the bar up and over his over flexed quads. His breaths came out in short and controlled puffs. He got it all the way up and locked it in and held for what felt like eternity but was only a couple of seconds before letting it slam back home.
He took a step back, his vision swam for a moment, and everything sounded muffled. Everything cleared as he focused on his hands and the skin that tore away on the last lift when he dropped the bar. He ripped off the skin tags that came open and grabbed the chalk block. It stung as he rubbed it into fresh open wounds.
"Add 10." Elijah was already huffing and puffing as he bent down. He steeled his body for one more pull as he white knuckled the bar. He stood there stooped over with the wires taut, breathing in and out slowly and on a deep breath in he began pulling again. He could feel all of his muscles straining, his breathing irregular puffs of air coming out as he tried to breathe around the immense pressure of all of his muscles pushing down at once.
He was able to pull it up to his knees, but the quad bump was an insurmountable mountain at this point. He kept struggling against the bar until he couldn't keep hold of it any longer, his grip breaking before anything else. His fingers just couldn't keep up the bar any longer. It ripped out of his fingers the moment his fingers slipped a little bit. He stumbled backward, landing on his butt and rolling up onto his shoulders.
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"Next up!" The girl behind the tablet yelled as he bounced down off the platform and started slowly walking to the long jump, still trying to catch his breath from maxing out his deadlift. His leaderboard updated with the latest tab as his lift got uploaded to the leader board.
[DEADLIFT LEADERBOARD]
1. ÉTAÍN - 8690
2. UGO EMBOL - 6105
3. NICHOLAS GALLAGHER - 6050
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8. CALEB PARSONS - 3780
9. LILLIAN DAVIS - 3200
10. JASPER BLEDSOE- 2900
11. DAVE CHEVANE - 2480
12. HECTOR MORALES - 2015
13. ELIJAH JAMES - 2000
14. REINA BLACK - 1890
Disappointed he didn't get a top spot this time around, he moped the rest of the way to the long jump. He got in line behind the rotund boy who looked like he'd faint before the scaley kid who actually did pass out. He watched the blonde girl who was walking up to the starting line for the running long jump.
"Begin when you're ready! Just make sure you jump through the poles! If I have another of you try to jump around them, I might start strangling people." The girl gave a concerned nod. She had what looked like the hindlegs of a rabbit, fur, and all instead of a normal human lower body. The way her rabbit tail had a hole cut out to let it hand out like a hand would from a sleeve reminded him of Lola Bunny. She shifted to a line on the ground, indicating the starting position. She sprung forward, taking one step with each leg before swinging them both out in front of her and landing on both paws and crouching down, launching herself forward at a 45-degree angle into the sky.
The sand pit for the long jump spanned the entire length of the inside of the track. Thank Tod, it did because she ended up landing in an explosion of sand about 10 feet from the end of the jump. Elijah felt his jaw drop. It was one thing experiencing flying through the air and making an explosion of sand particles fly up upon landing. But this was his first time watching someone else do it. Maybe that's why Yasmin sounded so concerned after he Wile e coyote'd the wall.
The round boy was up next, and to say that his result wasn't gonna make the top 10 leaderboard is an under statement. Elijah was up next, and the resonix already had a group of students piling tumbling mats at the end of the sand pit. Resonix threw his voice talking to just Elijah. His voice sounded like it was just a couple of feet from him, but he was over 50 feet away. "Let the kid behind you go next. They're still preparing the catchers mitt for you." Elijah was curious but couldn't even ask. What a one-sided way to have a conversation.
Elijah took a step to the side. "You can go ahead." It was the lizard kid back from the freshly unconscious.
"Thanks." He gave Elijah a polite nod as he started his transformation mid walk to the line. This time, he went to the line as a full dinosaur rather than some hybrid killer croc looking thing. The dinosaur looked like a t-rex with a cone shaped rhino horn. He took off running and jumped at the perfect time, his body only getting a couple of feet off the ground, but his good speed carried him forward an impressive 25 feet. Unfortunately, they measure from the first mark in the sand, and his long tail landed behind him, leaving him with a little over 18 foot long jump.
Elijah moved over to the starting line and looked to resonix and gave a shout. "The catchers mitt is you giving me permission to be stupid. Right?" With a resigned look on his face his gave a nod to Elijah.
Elijah forwent the run up to the jump instead of electing on a single controlled burst with the dual activation again. Elijah thought about what it felt like last time when he went flying. Thankfully, he'll be landing in sand this time, so traction from his shoes won't send him tumbling when he lands. He leaned down and thought about the way his body felt after the impact, the feeling of compaction against the wall. Earthen Solidity crawled its way over Elijah from the core of his being. Enveloping him and making him feel infinitely more dense. He turned on Feeling Springy and Longstrider again, felt his muscles bunch in his legs as he gathered as much power as possible, and sprang forward with everything he had.
One moment, the world was still, and the murmur of people all around him filled his ears. The next world was a multicolored blur around him, and all he could hear was a vicious wind assaulting his ears. He was gliding low and fast just like the rhino Rex did, but the variation in speed was the difference maker. Elijah pulled his feet out in front of him landing with his heels out infront of him and quickly settling into a slide on his backside that left his buns sandier than spongebobs. He only hit the pad wall going around 130mph this time, able to shed off a significant amount of speed in the sand. It also helped that his shorts weighed an extra 20 lbs right now.
His leaderboard updated, flashing the jump distances for all the finishers so far.
[LONGJUMP LEADERBOARD]
1. REINA BLACK - 237 M
2. ÉTAÍN - 231 M
3. ELIJAH JAMES - 229 M
4. JASON WASHINGTON - 209 M
5. TYRONE WASHINGTON - 209 M
6. NICHOLAS GALLAGHER - 199 M
7. YASMIN PUEBLA - 187 M
8. CHESTER CRABTREE - 177 M
9. TAMMY SEABRING - 159 M
10. JAMIE GRAVES - 157 M
Elijah felt like he cheated himself out of first place in the name of safety. That should have been his spot if he had launched himself like the rabbit lady had he would be in first instead of her. He genuinely thought he'd clear the sand pit with his launch, and had he given himself a better angle, he definitely would have, but he would have also probably missed the pad wall, too.
He walked out of the pad pit seething mad at himself for taking the safer route. The test of strength he could understand, but the rest of these events had felt Tailor made to Elijah, the first spot belonged to him, and he just gave it up for safety when he could have won.
He stalked towards the standing vertical jump, shaking his legs out to the side with each step trying to rid his cheeks of sand. It was hard to be mad and sandy at the same time. The sand just irritated everything and made you all the more pissed off. He got back in line behind Dino boy, who had shifted back into the half humanoid form he had taken for the dead lift.
"Nice jump, man! I'm Caleb, nice to meet you. They screwed me over and counted from my tail and not my feet." Elijah looked up to him and took a deep breath so he didn't take out his self rage on some kid complimenting him.
"Thanks, I could have done better. If I didn't take such a low angle on my jump for safety, I would have taken first. And yeah, I saw that. It was pretty bogus."
"Yeah, man, I think it's stupid. I should definitely complain to someone about Resonix's unfair treatment of me because I'm different."
Elijah studied his face, trying to decide if he was being sarcastic, and much to his chagrin he wasn't. He just stared at him dumbfounded as he continued to prattle on about favoritism in the long jump. Elijah breathed a sigh of relief when it was finally Caleb's turn to do the vertical jump. Taking the moment before the next event to take a couple of deep breaths in and out, centering his mind and letting the angry thoughts wash away.
His body was still tense as he approached the jump, but he was able to slow down the racing thoughts in his head. He moved onto a platform that reminded him of the medical one that scanned him. There's a foot thick metal pole extending from one edge going up what looked to be about 100 feet. He moved to the jumping marker and did a couple of quick squats into small power through hops to prepare his body for the stupidity incoming.
He crouched down and loaded up both of his movement abilities, feeling his chaos energies rushing out. He quickly sprung into the air and turned them off, but he tasted the first hint of energy depletion. As he soared into the air, his vision faded into black as the world swam around him. It felt like when you stood up too fast and it took the blood an extra second to reach your brain. By the time his vision had been restored, he had already crested over the apex of his jump and was now plummeting back down to the earth. Earthen Resistance flared up automatically when he saw where he was headed, and he brought Earthen Solidity up with it. He curled up into the tightest ball he could manage as he slammed back into earth and bounced up. He awkwardly starfished in the air as he tried to make some sort of contact with the ground.
He flopped back down on the ground with the wind knocked out of him. After a couple gasps for air, he was able to get up and move. His leaderboard updated.
[STANDING VERTICAL LEADERBOARD]
1. ÉTAÍN - 100FT - MAXIMUM RESULT POSSIBLE
2. ELIJAH JAMES - 84FT 2IN
3. REINA BLACK- 79FT 9IN
4. TREVOR HARRIS - 68FT 3IN
5. CHESTER CRABTREE - 65FT 6IN
6. NICHOLAS GALLAGHER - 62FT 1IN
7. JASPER BLEDSOE - 59FT
8. TYRONE WASHINGTON - 55FT 11IN
9. JASON WASHINGTON - 54FT 10IN
10. FRANK TAYLOR - 48FT 7IN
Who the fuck is Étaín? And why do half the letters in his name have hats?