117

In gym, they were assigned to new groups. The groupings were more varied than the previous week’s, but other than a deliberate mixing of classes and ranks in each set of ten students, Alden couldn’t tell if there was any reason behind it.

His group had three S’s, six A’s, and him.

Maricel, Jeffy, and a very quiet Strength Brute named Lucille were their S’s. Njeri the Water Shaper, Reinhard the Bow Meister, Everly, Astrid, Haoyu, and Lexi were their A’s.

This is a significantly more intimidating collection of people to have gym with than last week.

It was exciting, too. He’d wanted to see his roommates and Maricel working up close. He’d seen all of Everly’s tricks now, but her freezing spells tended to make class a lot more interesting. And chasing Klein just wouldn’t be the same without Astrid throwing herself wildly in unexpected directions.

“This is great!” Haoyu said, jogging across the gym between Alden and Lexi toward their first session. “I thought we might go all semester without getting to be in the same group!”

To Alden’s surprise, Instructor Marion’s hide and seek maze was making a reappearance. Though it looked like it was in a new configuration.

“I was just thinking I was happy about it, too.”

“I’m glad we’re getting the maze out of the way to start with.” Lexi had Writher in a cross-body holster over his unitard today. “It’s my least favorite.”

“Because you don’t like memorizing everyone else’s position?” Alden asked. “Or because you can’t use Writher?”

“It’s because it’s a team game,” Haoyu whispered loudly.

Lexi didn’t deny it.

“Sorry to bring out the maze again so soon, everyone,” Instructor Marion said when they’d all gathered. “It wasn’t supposed to reappear for two more weeks, but we’ve had a change of plans that makes introducing a new activity today less practical. Big Sna—Instructor Waker is going to be leaving for the Triplanets tomorrow, and he’ll be gone for at least a week.”

Astrid made an unhappy sound. She seemed to like Big Snake’s teaching style a lot for someone who took just as many tennis balls to the face as anyone else.

“I understand,” said Marion. “But Principal Saleh will be his replacement. She thinks it would be fun for you all to go ahead and take a crack at the obstacle course race we’ve put together for the first year classes who are ahead of yours. We’ll be using my usual section of the gym and Instructor Waker’s for it. And I know you’ll all be excited to hear that it’s a team event!”

Alden accidentally caught Lexi’s eye at exactly that moment, and he couldn’t help but smile.

Marion went on to explain that the obstacle course would be run by two competing groups at the same time. And “strategic interference” with other runners would be allowed.

“We get to duel!” Jeffy sounded energized.

“Strategic interference isn’t really dueling.” Instructor Marion examined Jeffy. “We’ll talk about it on Wednesday! That way the rules will be fresh in your mind. For now let’s divide you into teams. Same rules as last time. And remember! No using targeting abilities no matter how tempting it might be.”

The hide and seek maze was a different experience with this group than it had been with Alden’s old one. For one thing, half of these people had very superhuman endurance. And they were almost all on the other team, looking chipper and well oxygenated, while Alden and several other teammates were starting to pant from all the sprinting.

Maricel, Jeffy, Lucille, Haoyu, and Reinhard were the hunted in the green vests.

And Alden had somehow become the shot-caller for the hunters in the red vests. I do know how this happened. I’m just surprised that it did.

Astrid had volunteered him for it. “Because you’re always bossing people around in this game! Like Max! You’re good at it!”

“That’s not really true,” Alden had said. “I’m just faster at text messaging than the rest of you, so I end up outputting a lot more information to the group.”

“Coms are important,” said Njeri, pulling one of her legs back in a thigh stretch. “I want to win.”

“When I’m focused on hunting a particular person, I forget where everyone else is,” Everly said.

“Lexi, what do you think?” Alden asked.

“I don’t give other people instructions for this kind of thing unless I’m a hundred percent sure about them, so if I tell any of you to do something, I expect you to do it.”

The other three looked irritated.

How would a good roommate translate that for him?

“I think what Lexi means, in his heart, is that he would rather not take a strong advice-giving position on the team, but when he does give advice, he hopes we’ll trust his judgment.”

“That’s what I said.”

“So we’re all in it together!” Alden had announced. “I’ll try to keep the other team’s positioning in mind. Please take a couple of seconds to text when you change your own positions or you spot a green vest.”

And now he was stuck as the leader. But because he wasn’t great at remembering where all the other players were at any given second, he was focusing particularly hard on a weakness they had discovered in the other team.

Jeffy would follow bait.

Alden almost couldn’t believe it when Njeri had said she’d made the Aqua Brute go down a corridor by leaving a trail of water drops on the floor.

[He followed them? He didn’t run away from them?]

When one of the hunted got spotted, Alden’s team stole one of their points. If Jeffy thought Njeri was in an area, he should’ve fled, not headed toward her.

Doing the brain work meant Alden wasn’t running quite as much himself. At the moment, he was occupying a spot beside a pyramidal obstacle. Haoyu should be in the area, and from here, Alden might catch a glimpse of him.

[He followed,] Njeri confirmed. [I had left the water there because I didn’t want him to use that path. I was planning to catch him somewhere else. But then he didn’t show up in the place I expected and Lexi got that point from him instead.]

A minute ago, Lexi had spotted Jeffy trying to hide between two cube-shaped obstacles on the other side of the maze.

[Does anyone have ears on him right now?] Alden asked.

That nobody had eyes on him was a given. Their point tally would’ve gone up, and the spotter would have reported the location.

[I have ears on someone who walks heavy,] said Everly. [We’re both in Column Forest right now. It’s probably one of the boys if it’s not a trick of some kind.]

Column Forest had become its name at some point. It was a small area full of tall body-wide columns with just enough space in between them for a person to pass through. It was a favorite hiding spot for the hunted and an annoying portion of the maze for the hunters.

[Haoyu should be near me. He and Reinhard both have their shoes off and they know to sneak when they’re in tight spots instead of corridors,] Alden said. [If you can hear them clearly, it’s got to be Jeffy.]

[It’s him then.]

All right, thought Alden. What’s the most efficient way to use him before the other team realizes we’re using him?

After the hunters spotted someone, they had to close their eyes and count down to give the person they’d caught repositioning time. And whenever someone was in countdown mode, Alden’s team had a blind spot on the map that the other team could use. Multiple people counting down at the same time meant they lost control of too much territory and their prey ran wild. So all of them just converging on Jeffy in a trap was no good.

Why did he follow the water?

[He must want to help his team out by location reporting on someone,] Alden texted.

It was what made the most sense. Jeffy wanted to sneak up on a hunter without being spotted in return so that he could tell his teammates where the enemy was. The hunted earned points passively by running away and not being seen. Jeffy probably didn’t like the role as much as the more proactive-feeling hunter position.

A point came in suddenly, and a moment later Astrid inflicted one of her mental texts on the group.

[I caught! Dirt Girl! Counting counting! Edge! Hear fast! Think trees.]

Alden had gotten so used to translating for her last week that he just did it without waiting to find out if people had understood or not. [She spotted Maricel near the perimeter of her zone, and hears her running away fast. She’s counting now. She thinks Maricel is going toward Column Forest with you, Everly.]

[Yes!] Astrid agreed.

[Lexi, can you cover your zone and Njeri’s?] Alden asked.

[Not perfectly.]

Alden rolled his eyes. Lexi’s approach to hunting was aggressive, effective, and very like him. He had memorized several different routes through his section that would provide him with full visibility, assigned them numbers, and he had a randomizer website pulled up on his interface telling him which route to run next when he completed one so that there wouldn’t be a pattern for the hunted to pick up on.

He’d been running constantly since the beginning of class, and nobody left his zone alive, which meant nobody had hidden in his zone for most of the game.

[I think it would be okay if you were a little less perfect while you covered a larger area. Njeri, could you go pick up Jeffy and lead him around for us? We’ll take turns stealing points from him until he gives up on chasing you. If we stagger it out enough the other team might think it’s bad luck that he keeps getting caught instead of realizing it’s a scheme.]

A point came in.

Njeri replied, [Counting down. Lucille. Toward you, Lexi. I’ll get Jeffy next.]

They gained another point as Lucille was spotted by Lexi.

A flicker of movement on the periphery of Alden’s vision caught his attention, and he spun around just in time to see Haoyu trying to creep out from behind the pyramid.

Alden pointed at him triumphantly, and Haoyu winced.

[You’re so mean,] Haoyu texted him a few seconds later while he was counting down.

[You’re not even breathing hard,] Alden told him. [Run faster.]

Not long after that, their first Jeffy point came in as Njeri lured him to Astrid.

[Excited! Bloodhound!] Astrid said.

Alden, racing through his zone on what he hoped would be a surprise course for any hiding green vests, had no idea what that meant. [Astrid, if it’s important information, using your fingers to text is good. It doesn’t have to be mental all the time. I finger text sometimes.]

Rarely.

[Jeffy looks really excited. Like a bloodhound chasing a scent trail!] said Astrid.

That’s good, thought Alden. [Great work, Njeri!]

She didn’t answer. But a second later he heard footsteps, and the Water Shaper dashed through the intersection he was approaching with a look of concentration on her face. Their eyes barely met as she spilled a little water out of the drinking bottles she’d carried into the maze “just in case I think of something to do with them.”

Maricel had brought in the big bag of potting soil she liked to work with in class, too. It would make it possible for her to move through the air with zero footsteps, but hauling it around, even telekinetically, must have been too slow. She’d abandoned it.

Alden had wondered how useful the water bottle would be, since Njeri couldn’t levitate herself with it and they weren’t allowed to attack other players. Baiting someone with it had never occurred to him.

He tried to give her a thumbs up but she was already rushing away.

Isn’t she going a little fast? he wondered as he hid behind a corner to wait for his Shaper-delivered victim to appear.

It wasn’t like Jeffy would be running after her. He was trying to sneak up on—

Pounding footsteps interrupted his thoughts, and a mohawk-sporting Aqua Brute appeared, jogging with his eyes fixed on the ground. Jeffy was grinning. As he spotted the water splatter Njeri had left, his face brightened even more. And his pace picked up.

Alden took a point for his team, and…

He didn’t see me.

Jeffy’s jog was approaching a run. The lost point didn’t seem to phase him at all. Alden didn’t think he even knew he was the one who’d lost his team the point.

[Njeri! Go faster! He’s gaining on you!]

Alden closed his eyes for the required number of seconds.

[What do you mean he’s gaining on her?] Lexi asked.

[You guys, Jeffy’s focused on chasing Njeri. He might have forgotten he’s not a hunter. Don’t let him see you when you take your point from him.]

[He can’t be that—]

Another point.

[Never mind. He’s definitely forgotten,] Lexi said. [Astrid, come this way a little.]

Everly got a point from Maricel finally in the Column Forest. [Can I have some Jeffy points?]

The next time Alden saw Njeri she was sprinting flat out, and she only paused for long enough to pick up the water she’d left behind last time so that she could throw it in a slightly different location.

The highlight of the whole game, in his opinion, came two minutes and quite a few points later when he heard Reinhard bellow, “What do you mean you caught her!? You’re not supposed to be catching anyone!!”

Another point.

[Me!] Astrid texted. [Loud shout! I found!]

******

In Rescue, Instructor Fragment had them excavating water balloons from an impressive mound of wood, rubble, and broken appliances. It required concentration and careful application of powers, since mistakes would lead to collapses that crushed the victims.

They were allowed to work alone or in groups today. Alden was saving poor injured balloons left and right.

“Lexi, tell me to pick up that piece of particle board,” he said, indicating the one he’d chosen.

Lexi was looking down at his third smashed balloon. He used Mind Writher very well when he was slicing something down to size so that he could move it more easily, or when he was pulling sturdy, medium-sized objects out of the pile. But it wasn’t good for heavy lifting, and when he tried to pluck trapped balloons out of the mess directly, they always popped. He kept trying, though. He seemed very concerned about his delicacy with the tool.

“Grab the particle board,” Astrid said helpfully. She was extracting what looked like half of a recliner.

Alden changed targets. “Tell me again, please, Astrid.”

“Take the board!”

The board was underneath a mound of bricks. Checking his footing to make sure he wasn’t standing on anything too precarious, Alden grabbed the board by the edge, preserved it, and lifted. The bricks all came with it, riding on top. He walked backward, careful not to tilt the heavy load.

It was satisfying to dump it all in his personal rubble mound, then dive back in to save the balloon he’d uncovered. It was barely visible, still trapped in a crevice under a heavy slab of concrete with twisted pieces of rebar sticking out.

“Astrid, do you mind—?”

“Rescue that pink dying man!”

The balloon was pink. And it was one of the really big ones that had been overfilled so that it would burst more easily.

Alden shoved his arm in, grabbed, and preserved. When he got the balloon to the exit, though, he realized he had a problem.

Pink dying man, you’re too chubby to escape this way. Well…it’s not like you’ll pop. As long as I don’t lose focus on protecting you.

Deliberately hitting things with his preserved burdens could be iffy. He assumed that yanking them through a crack they shouldn’t fit through would be similarly iffy, though he’d never actually tried this particular move.

He closed his eyes and concentrated. I’m willingly bearing the weight of this water balloon. I want to keep it safe from damage. Me dragging it out from under a big pile of heavy stuff and letting it scrape against some things on the top and bottom is part of that.

Moving all the heavy junk on top of it piece by piece would be another option, but it would be a less educational one.

Alden got into a crouch and gave the chubby balloon an experimental pull. His preservation held, but the rubble didn’t budge. It seemed to be wedged tightly together.

Hmm…maybe if I get my hand underneath the balloon and try to use more of a lifting motion to move the stuff on top?

He tried, only to have to stop immediately. The concrete slab had shifted, and its shifting had made a much larger quantity of rubble move and slide than Alden had anticipated. He didn’t know how many balloons he might crush if the pile collapsed.

“Are you really going to use the people you’re saving that way in the future?” Lexi asked.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Alden lied. “Besides, if I was trapped and a hero with my skill came along to save me, I’d be completely fine with them using my preserved body as a lever or a carrying device…”

“Maybe he’s going to go for one of those dark hero personas!” Reinhard called from the other side of the pile. “He’ll rescue you from the villain and then turn around and block the villain’s spells with your face.”

“Is that real?” Maricel asked. She was working with Lucille, moving ground element obstacles with her telekinesis while the quiet girl moved everything else. Their collection of saved balloons was growing fast. “People being heroes like that?”

“They’re not very common,” said Njeri. “Too controversial.”

“I noticed this last week. You don’t actually know much about superheroes, do you, Maricel?” Reinhard said.

The large, pale stone she was moving dropped suddenly, and Lucille caught it with a grunt before it could hit the cache of balloons they were trying to save. One handed.

Fine, thought Alden, raising an eyebrow at the girl as Maricel frantically apologized. Be epic like that.

He wasn’t sure he could have even made a boulder that size wobble without getting something coated in his magic underneath it. He wondered how she compared to Heloísa, a rank below her.

Lexi had come over to examine Alden’s problem rescue from closer up. His whip was in his hand.

“Do you want me to try to cut a wider opening?”

“That sounds like a good plan. I can keep the balloon preserved so if anything falls on it it’ll still be safe.”

“I might hit your hand,” Lexi warned.

“That’s what the gym suits are for.”

“I might hit the balloon.”

“That’s what I’m for.”

Writher’s thin chain lengthened and started to glow. Lexi backed up a few steps.

He’s backing up? Alden had assumed they were going for a close-range, delicate operation.

“Hold still,” said Lexi.

He’s going to really swing it. Alden tensed. Even though the pain setting on the gym was low again today, he still remembered what it felt like to be grabbed around the waist and stabbed through the leg by that thing during combat assessment. And that hadn’t been its full potency either.

Lexi moved. Alden’s eyes weren’t fast enough to make out the whip as anything but a blur of light, but there was a loud crack and some of the concrete around his hands crumbled. Writher phased out.

A thin slice of concrete and iron fell forward onto Alden’s forearms. It was heavy, but not enough to injure him.

His whip cut right through all of that, Alden thought as he lifted the water balloon free of the expanded gap. Well that’s neat.

Once again, he was convinced that the gym group he’d been assigned to last time had been made up of the least scary members of the class.

During the brief mid-class break, Alden set himself up for defense.

“Is that the shield of the day?” Haoyu asked, leaning over him curiously.

“Yep.”

Alden had learned last week that if he tried to shield his whole body, Big Snake just threw more balls at him harder. It fatigued him faster so that he couldn’t try out as many things in the next sessions, and hiding behind a magic wall for thirty minutes was lazy anyway. So his shield was going to be a more sporting size today. Shoulder-to-hip coverage was what he was going for.

“I thought a paracord zigzag would be easy to make fast even in an emergency, so I wanted to try it.”

He laid the cord out on the floor in the zigzag pattern, making sure that it was a little wider than his body and that the gaps were all narrow enough to prevent him from getting hit by Snake’s preferred ammunition, while still providing enough visibility if he raised it in front of his own face. When he was done, he unwound some more of the olive green paracord cord from the spool he was using and tied himself a handle.

“One minute shield!” he announced, lifting it up to show it off.

“It was closer to two minutes,” said Lexi from his seat on the bleachers nearby. “I timed you.”

“That was so helpful of you. Thank you.”

“I bet I could shoot through it,” Reinhard said. He was using some kind of spell on the tips of his arrows before stuffing them back in his quiver.

“You have arrows, not tennis balls. I would make a shield with smaller gaps to handle you.”

Big Snake was in the same boisterous mood he’d been in last week, despite the fact that he’d soon be leaving for some kind of assignment. He did up the difficulty of their game, though. Alden wasn’t sure if the instructor had always planned to increase the challenge, or if being in a higher powered group of classmates was what made the difference. Reinhard’s bow was no good for this, but he had fast reflexes and excellent vision. He was dodging well. Lexi was also great at dodging, though he seemed to have chosen not to. Instead, he was trying to use Writher as a blocking device with his mental control.

He’s totally trying to make his own version of the zigzag shield with the chain, Alden thought as he ducked his head and lifted his paracord to block a ball. He decided he was flattered.

Lexi was getting hit a lot—by balls and also by pieces of balls that had been sliced by the whip as they came in.

Haoyu’s tactic was to slap incoming balls out of the air with hands protected by the Boxing Gloves skill. And Maricel and Njeri both had element shields up. Rather than choosing to use a rock or one of the sandbags, Maricel was focusing on compressing and moving free soil.

At Earthbox earlier this afternoon, she’d seen someone making a wedge shape, and she was trying to use one of her own to redirect the projectiles. It was working well.

A flashing dot at the bottom left of Alden’s vision let him know the timer he’d set had just gone off. They now had around five minutes left in this session.

If I’m going to try it, now’s the time.

He’d wanted to attempt something last week, but he thought it might involve a lot of failure, so he’d elected to wait until Instructor Waker had seen him using his skill in the more obvious way. He was sure now that he wouldn’t look like he was phoning it in, and Big Snake wouldn’t mind him flailing around as long as he seemed to have a plan.

He repelled one ball with his shield, stepped over a dirty one that had just ricocheted off Maricel’s soil wedge, and focused on Snake. The man was smiling and calling out praise to Njeri, who’d finally managed to get enough water in the air in front of a ball to keep it from bursting through and hitting her anyway.

Alden flexed the part of his authority that was in charge of targeting and focused on the instructor. His sense of a pull toward Haoyu, off to the right and behind him, disappeared. His shield collapsed into a tangle of cord at his feet.

He no longer felt his authority protecting his second, secret object—the breath mint he’d been preserving in his stomach to make sure he tired out at a reasonable rate for someone who had a potent level four skill instead of a potent level eight one.

It’s nine now, he corrected himself.

“You hit skill fatigue, Alden?” Big Snake shouted. “Better get ready to run!”

Alden wouldn’t be running.

Just get your hands on the ball.

He’d caught things Joe had thrown. He’d caught things Kibby had thrown. The problem was that Joe and Kibby were throwing those things to him, not at him.

Of course Alden had wondered if he could snatch an incoming projectile. But retargeting meant he was powerless until his target gave him permission to hold something, so it was a risk to drop shields and go for it.

Was someone sending objects his way with intent to injure giving him permission to hold them? Maybe…if he thought about it right.

I promise to keep anything Big Snake throws at me safe until it leaves my protection again.

A tennis ball smashed into his knee before he could get his fingers near it, making the joint ache and sting. Irritated with himself, Alden chased the ball down. Those were the rules for ones that hit his body instead of the shield…the ones that didn’t burst anyway. Not all of the balls were rated for superhuman use, and even though Instructor Waker wasn’t using anything close to his full strength, some of them blew apart at the seams when they impacted. Alden captured the runaway and tossed it back in Snake’s direction. The instructor snatched it out of the air with his left hand while he flung three balls at once toward Lexi with his right.

Alden refocused his attention on his plan.

All right. This might take a lot of tries, and it might not work, and everyone’s going to think I’m weird. Who cares. Get the next one.

He watched the hero closely. Instructor Waker was trying his…Alden didn’t know what to call it. Sometimes he scooped a pile of balls out of the bin with both enormous arms and sent them flying toward the ceiling, then he kicked and punched them all joyfully at his fleeing students.

“Rain of Terror!” Reinhard shouted, lifting his bow and shooting one of the airborne balls.

I guess we could call it that.

Alden crouched and held his hands up in front of his chest. He splayed his fingers wide. He tried to pay attention to Big Snake’s motions and also that sense of something almost like weight that he experienced when he had a target. Like the world tilted slightly in the other person’s direction.

He’s my target. He’s the one who can entrust me with stuff. Anything he throws at me is meant for me.

The balls were coming down.

If Joe’s perception lessons are going to come in handy, now would be a great—

The swing of a massive arm at an angle that his brain said was dangerous.

Where?

And then he was toppling forward, unexpectedly thrown off balance by the sudden motion of his own body, and in his right hand, he was preserving the tennis ball.

His palm didn’t sting at all.

Got the ball! Didn’t kill the momentum! Alden thought excitedly as he knelt on the gym floor. He could feel his skill protecting it.

How did I catch that?

The ball had come in low. It would have struck his ankle. But there had never been an instant where he consciously thought, “It’s going to hit low.”

Just reflex?

Probably. It probably only felt like something mysterious had happened because it had been so fast and not enough thought could take place. And yet…that was a really great catch.

Look what I did!

Literally nobody was looking at him. Not even Big Snake.

Oh, come on!

He was sure it just looked like he’d gotten lucky and stopped a ball with his hands instead of the rest of his body. But this was so much more than that!

A singed chunk of tennis ball bounced off his shoulder from Lexi’s direction, and Alden looked over at his roommate, beaming. Lexi was wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve, and Writher’s gleaming chain was undulating in the air around him.

He caught sight of Alden and blinked. Writher undulated faster.

“Are you okay?” Lexi asked.

“I caught a ball!”

“I see that…why are you on the floor hugging the ball you caught?”

“Did he get hit in the head?” Jeffy called from behind them. He did sound concerned, so Alden couldn’t be too offended.

Dirt spattered them all as Maricel’s wedge took a strong strike directly to the tip. Big Snake’s follow-up shot smashed into her stomach, and she yelped. Leaving her dirt on the floor, she chased after the ball.

“I would be happy, too, if I caught one of these things!” she shouted. “Let him enjoy it.”

Thanks, Maricel.

Alden jumped up. “No. I really caught it,” he said to Lexi, who was still watching him. “Look!”

He considered the ball for a second more, rotating it until it pointed in the direction he wanted, then he let it rest flat on his palm. He stretched out his arm toward the instructor, smiled, and dropped preservation.

The tennis ball shot back toward Big Snake with all the power of the hero’s own throw. Alden’s aim wasn’t the best; it would have gone over Snake’s head if he hadn’t jumped to catch it.

But the speed!

It hit his hand with such a satisfying thwap.

There was a sudden pause in the activity. Lucille, standing as close to the instructor as they were allowed to, looked around to see who had returned the ball that fast. Haoyu, too. Everly, who had been collecting a trio of balls and had missed what happened, started to throw them back then stopped as Big Snake pointed at Alden.

“Hey!” he said in an enthusiastic voice that echoed across the gym. “I think I know what that was! Let’s see that again!”

Alden was thrilled.

And then he was taking a tennis ball to the collar bone.

“Gotta stay alert!” Big Snake called as Alden cursed in his head and ran after it. “If you’re gonna play the game that way outside of the gym it’s not safe to miss one!”

Over the course of the final few minutes of Defense, Alden missed five balls and caught one more that had been aimed directly at his chest. As the signal flashed indicating their session shift, Big Snake waved him over.

“You know you could do that?” the hero asked as he plucked damaged projectiles out of his bin and tossed them with uncanny accuracy into a separate recycling container behind him. “Get ahold of things with that skill of yours that maybe your target didn’t mean for you to keep?”

“I knew I could take advantage of people being nonspecific when they told me to pick something up, and I can make use of them being clueless about the fact that they’re my entrusters when they hand me objects,” Alden said. “I wasn’t sure about something like this. Weapons heading at you are meant for you but not in the same way…”

“Skills are funny things.” Big Snake was still sorting through the bin. “Gotta learn what they’re meant to be without boxin’ ‘em in. Or that’s my opinion, which I’m supposed to tell you is only my opinion, since everyone figures themselves out differently. Some people are analyzers. Others are feelers. I know a few successful levelers who consider themselves explorers…set out to discover something new about what the System has given them every day.”

He looked down at Alden. “Anyhow, you’ve had your skill longer than the other kids here, and you’ve used it for things more serious than gym class.”

“Yes,” Alden agreed after a brief hesitation. “That’s true.

“Leveled it a few times, too,” Big Snake said. “Can you tell when you’re on the verge of getting the hang of a new trick?”

“I’m not sure. Sometimes?”

“You think half an hour more of me attacking you might help you grab hold of it?”

Alden looked at him in surprise. “I think it might. It definitely couldn’t hurt. Except for my body. And my pride.”

Big Snake laughed so loudly that all other sound in the gym stopped for a second.

Well, now people are wondering what’s going on.

“Yeah!” Instructor Waker said. “I don’t like to send you off when you’re just getting your first look at something. If you’re not dyin’ to go have a stab at Torsten, stay in my section here for another round of defense training. Just join in with the next group.”

That sounded ideal. “Thank you. If you don’t mind.”

“Throwing things at eleven people isn’t any harder than throwing things at ten.” He lifted an arm and waved across the gym at Instructor Klein. Alden assumed the faculty had some mental texting going on, since the wave alone didn’t seem to be enough to convey information.

Klein stared at Alden for a moment, then he nodded stoically at Snake.

“Great!” The huge man grinned at Alden. “Now let’s talk about how to make the most of it.”

******

The new group Alden joined contained Winston, and they had just come from Instructor Marion’s session, which was probably why half of them looked dead on their feet. The hunting game favored fast people; Winston was swaggering a little. Last week, he and Finlay had been in the same group, so Instructor Marion would have been able to split them between the two teams.

Maybe that’s part of the reason Winston’s still got such an issue with him, Alden thought, crossing the floor toward the position Big Snake had told him to take. Direct competition between the two speedsters in the maze would have been just a step below sticking them on a track and watching Finlay lap the A-rank over and over.

Mehdi was a step ahead of Vandy as the group reached Alden. His normally immaculate hair was a mess, and he was holding his side like he had a stitch.

“What are you doing over here?” he asked when he spotted Alden.

“More defense. Big Snake said I should stay to work on something.”

Vandy looked curious. Mehdi brightened. “We’ll get to go head to head! Watch me, and I’ll show you how an Agility Brute can move.”

“Thanks? But I’m going to be kind of busy watching Instructor Waker…”

Mehdi opened his mouth.

“Let’s see which B-rank has to chase the most balls!” Winston interrupted.

Max was bringing up the rear of the group. As always by the end of gym, he was walking like his legs hurt, and he was so drenched, he looked like he’d been swimming.

Alden frowned at Winston. “Max doesn’t have to chase many. He sets up zones to slow or stop them.”

Max glanced at him and shook his head. “Spell impressions are mostly done for the day. I’ve used almost all of my casts.”

“Oh, sorry.”

Max shrugged.

“I guess you and I could compete,” Winston said to Alden. Then he gave one of the girls in his group a smile, as though he’d said something hilarious.

I’m too busy for whatever his issues are, thought Alden. But then again…

“If you want to compete to see who has to chase the most balls, Winston, let’s do it,” Alden said. “Sounds awesome.”

Max raised an eyebrow at him.

“All right!” Big Snake called. “Get ready. You know how this works.”

Winston jogged toward the front.

“What are you doing agreeing to his challenge?” Max asked quietly, taking a position near Alden. “You don’t usually take him seriously.”

“I’m not taking him seriously. You’ll see. He thinks he was being so funny suggesting we compete.”

A dull black line in the shape of a semicircle appeared on the floor around Alden.

“Everyone, Alden’s practicing something specific right now. He’s got a barrier behind him so that he doesn’t have to chase after the balls,” Big Snake announced. “It’s transparent so it won’t affect visibility for any of you. Don’t cross the line on the floor or you’ll run into it!”

Winston whipped around to stare at Alden.

“See?” Alden murmured to Max. “I’m funny, too.”

One corner of Max’s mouth turned up. “You know he’ll say that’s not what he meant.”

“I don’t care.” Alden crouched and held his arms up, fingers splayed. He focused his attention on Instructor Waker. “I’ve got things to do.”

******

So many tennis balls pelted Alden so quickly that multiple parts of his body were always stinging from the suit’s pain mimicry.

But there was something here, knocking on the door of his mind, waiting to be understood. Every time another ball flew at him, he grew a little more immersed in what he was doing. With no need to run or dodge, the sights and sounds of the gymnasium faded. He tuned out his classmates. He focused. And focused again.

Deeper.

He was attentive in a way he associated more with spell casting than with using his Avowed powers. He didn’t know how he’d gotten here, but now that he was, he trusted the feeling.

At some point, it stopped mattering altogether that the tennis ball was a weapon aimed at him. Thinking of it that way was wrong. Too complicated.

An object left Morrison Waker’s hand and flew toward Alden Thorn. No, that was still too complicated.

An object flew toward The Bearer of All Burdens from his entruster’s hand.

That was…closer. Not perfect, for some reason, but much closer. And the more Alden tried to hold onto that idea—the more he tried to meet it with himself—the more natural catching the incoming balls became.

They were still too fast. Too hard. Thrown at the most awkward parts of his body with the most awkward timing no matter what position he was in. He couldn’t see them coming properly, and he missed so many of them.

But sometimes his hands would wrap around one before he even realized he’d reached for it. And the more he did it, the more he doubted that it was just reflex.

When it happened, in the instant he captured the ball, the skill felt alive inside him. There was no particular twist or fold of the affixation that he suddenly activated, no burden-catching button he could find. It was both more total and more subtle than that.

And though his body moved without conscious direction, it didn’t feel at all like the robotic takeover that happened whenever he used his Haunting Sphere spell impression.

What is this exactly? What are we doing?

It was a shame his own skill couldn’t talk back to him because this felt really important.

That moment when I’m casting a spell with my auriad—the moment when it feels like reality parts to make way for me. That feeling Boe called self-affirmation and a success high rolled up into one. This feels more like that than using the skill usually does.

He caught. He caught. He caught.

Three in a row.

He was still sending them back to his instructor, but though the high speed return had been so exciting earlier, the catching was more important than the releasing right now.

Then, the pitches stopped coming.

For a long moment, Alden waited, still ready. The sounds of the gymnasium, so loud and startling, intruded on him very suddenly. They were followed by the urgency of his own need for air, his heaving chest, his body…

Did someone change the settings on my gym suit? Why does everything hurt this much?

The ground around his feet was littered with tennis balls. He was supposed to pick them up. He bent in half at the waist, and his back protested.

He straightened with a ball in his hand, feeling like he’d just managed something Herculean by not swearing out loud.

Max was walking back from the ball bin, the expression on his face thoughtful as he regarded Alden. He wasn’t the only one staring. Mehdi was frowning at him. Vandy looked like she was trying to x-ray him with her eyes.

Alden suddenly realized he didn’t have any idea what he’d looked like from the outside. He had no clue how many balls he’d caught or if he’d returned them all properly. He didn’t know how many had hit him.

His aching lungs and strained muscles said he hadn’t been holding still.

I just hope I wasn’t talking to my own skill out loud.

Instructor Waker was waving him over. He went, trying not to stumble over his feet.

“Hated to stop throwing at you when you seemed to be catching on to catching! But class is over, and you looked like you were about to pass out. I’d never hear the end of it from the principal if you did.”

“Thanks,” said Alden, getting the word out between breaths, “for the extra time.”

“I’d ask if you thought it had helped, but I don’t need to.”

“Did I…?” He had more than one question. None of them were easy to ask. Did I look like I was having a meaningful experience with a sense no other human possesses? “Um…did I return the ones I caught in the correct direction?”

The instructor chuckled. “Not sure, huh? I thought not. You were doing good, kid. Lots of improvement. Your footage will be in your inbox, same as always. You should give it a watch.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

*