Over the next few days I slept, ate, and trained aboard the Champion-Ship(That's what I decided to call it. Behemoth didn't like it, but I'm supposed to be the leader, so I decided the name would stay.)

Blur ran laps around the training room, and occasionally did little competitions with Retina. She'd shoot a beam of energy at the wall, and Blur would attempt to race the laser beam. At first, he was marginally slower; but by the third day, he'd managed to surpass the speed of her laser. It was pretty impressive.

I would usually eat lunch with Retina, where I'd learn a lot about where she came from, how she got her powers, and what that helmet was. Apparently, she'd had Lasik Surgery done a few years ago, and it worked a little too well. The laser accidentally activated some kind of protein that was present in her eye, and it gave her the ability to amplify light rays, and give them different effects depending on the color of that ray.

If she looked through a blue visor, she could produce a beam that would rapidly freeze things. An orange visor made it a heat ray. Red was a concussive blast.. and well, that's about all I remember. There were a lot, alright? But that helmet was apparently just a device that would change out whatever visor she was looking through. She also revealed that she had some sort of illness.. but we'll get into that later.

As for me, I had been spending most of my free time(If you can even call it that) training with Justin. I got my ass handed to me more times than I care to admit, but by the third day, I had finally got to a place where I could almost knock him down.

We were in the training room. I stood across from him, my spear in-hand, staring him down. He was still smoking a random cigarette. Today was the last day of training we were going to get, before we'd be off to recruit a couple new members into our squad. This was my chance to show the old man everything I'd learned- and I was determined not to squander this opportunity.

I darted toward him, the training room becoming a blur as I closed in on the fisherman. As I approached him, I began to swing my spear around me- creating two broad strokes. The first stroke was just to build momentum, so the second stroke would hit him and ideally send him flying.

Before my spear could connect, he leapt into the air with surprising agility, clean over my swing. His foot shot out into a powerful kick, which I managed to catch with my other hand.

This was one of the only times I ever put him in a compromising position- and in that split second, I thought all I'd have to do was throw him to the ground. Finally, I could feel the satisfaction of beating him- proving that I'd learned something substantial even after the brief time I'd spent with him.

But he kicked my arm with his other leg, almost as swiftly as I grabbed his foot. This gave him the momentum he needed to pull his foot out of the shoe I had grabbed, and land safely in front of me, as if nothing happened.

He still seemed impressed, however. "Aight, Imma give you a li'l advice brother. Focus in on my movements, and try ta' predict what I'm gonna do. Be proactive."

I closed my eyes, and again the "Universal Awareness" thing happened. I'd started to do that without thinking, whenever I'd focused- although I doubted the old man meant for me to do this. Still, for some reason, it did feel as if I had an odd sense about the way he was going to counter my next move; like a premonition.

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I envisioned him sidestepping my fist, and throwing a punch at my lower jaw. I thought anticipating these moves was worth a shot, after all, my Universal Awareness hadn't failed me yet.

I threw a punch at him, and just as my powers had shown me, he sidestepped. He didn't usually block my attacks anyway, which I assume is because he didn't want to risk me putting my super-strength into the attack and shattering his arm.

Also, as I'd predicted, he aimed a punch at my jaw. But, just as he had thrown his punch, I twisted just barely out of the way, and kicked the back of his leg.

Hard.

Finally, he fell onto the ground. He looked up at me, visibly impressed. "Well well... looks like ye had it in ye after all."

Just then, I realized Behemoth had been slowly approaching us as we sparred. I looked back, and he was looking at me as if I'd finally done something worth a little bit of recognition. "Nice job, even I would have had trouble tripping Angler. You're really coming along nicely."

"Angler? Who's that?" I asked.

"Oh, right. That's Justin, over there. The world's greatest Fisherman.. and our new champion. But I wouldn't give him orders just yet, you'll have to earn his respect, like me."

Angler looked at me, and winked. "Naw, kid. You already got my respect. Call me anytime, and I'll be here for ya."

"Oh, great! Well, you see, we've got this mission coming up today, and..-"

Behemoth interrupted me. "He's got to do some.. odd jobs, with Blur for a little while." At this, Angler really did look a little disappointed. He took a breathed a little bit of his cigar before answering.

"Ah.. right, sorry about that. The speedster is going to need my help, and vice versa."

I was beginning to get frustrated at all this secrecy. They said I was the leader, why couldn't I be told anything?

"When do I get to know what's going on? I thought that this was supposed to be my team." I said.

Behemoth looked at me, and I could tell he was kind of annoyed by the expression on his face. But when he replied, his tone held a lot of understanding, like he sympathized with the way I was feeling.

"I want to tell you, Starlight. But we aren't yet sure if it's worth your attention. Plus, you've got a little ways to go before you're really able to take charge... you don't really know anything about the universe yet. We'll take this one step at a time- recruit a couple more people, and then we'll see how much responsibility you can handle. Part of being a leader is recognizing when you're out of your depth."

I was still pretty mad, but I could tell he wasn't going to budge on this. "Fine... when do we leave on this mission, anyway?" I asked.

"Right now. Meet me in the cockpit." There was a flash of light, and Behemoth was gone. Of course, he couldn't do me the courtesy of teleporting me as well.

Angler put a hand on my shoulder. "You ain't got nothin' to worry about. We got yer back, that's all that matters."

"..Right." I replied, as I trudged out of the training room, and made the long trek over to the cockpit.

Retina was already there, and Behemoth was messing with some of the buttons on the console.

"Ah great, finally here. You two's objective is a man named Gary Forbes. He is a powerful pyrokinetic, and our little squad could really use someone like him. I assume you two are familiar with the Junk Block?"

Retina nodded, but I had no clue what that was. "Uh, what?"

"She'll explain. Even if she doesn't, I'm sure you'll figure it out when you get there." There was a bright flash of light, and within seconds we'd teleported. We were in the middle of what looked like a massive junkyard. There was one difference between this, and an ordinary junkyard, apart from the size- homeless people had literally made little huts everywhere, out of various pieces of trash. It was like some kind of weird metropolis.

I could tell that we'd have our work cut out for us.. part of me was just glad I wasn't completely alone, like when I was tasked with finding Blur.

And I guess it was pretty reassuring that I never had to be alone like that again.