Chapter 5
A Hundred Laps
The moment we entered the conference room for our second training, Sasuke went up to Sir Albion—who, like yesterday, was looking out the window—and stopped right behind him. “Return my passport,” he demanded. “Or I’ll file a lost report and get a permit to return to Japan all the same.”
“You’re still thinking about going back to Japan after I went through all that trouble explaining the situation?” said Sir Albion without turning around. “Don’t be stubborn. Think—”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Sasuke let out a soft sigh, and Sir Albion swivelled around, a flicker of surprise in his eyes. “If what you said is true, going back now could be dangerous. It’s just that I was unpacking yesterday and realised my passport was gone.” Sasuke narrowed his eyes at Sir Albion, who stared back stonily. “Now, it can only be you, Sir Albion. It’s ridiculous for us to even be having this conversation. I won’t act recklessly. I’m not a child.”
Sir Albion patted Sasuke on his shoulder. “That’s reassuring to hear.” He emitted the blue light, vanished into air, and materialised in front of us again within half a minute.
“That is so handy,” I said in awe. Especially if you’re late for school or you’ve forgotten something somewhere, I didn’t add.
I shut my eyes firmly and called upon Aries. A long moment passed, but nothing happened, so I gave up in frustration. Opening my eyes, I found Sir Albion and Sasuke watching me. “How do you guys do it?” I sighed.
“Simply call the hosted zodiac by name. As for teleporting, picture the desired location after summoning the zodiac. It will provide the spiritual energy required for teleportation,” explained Sir Albion, matter-of-factly. “You’ll only be successful if you can visualise the place in detail.”
By now, I was seething with annoyance. He made things sound so simple, but I’d been calling Aries endlessly with no luck.
“How did you know where we were?” Sasuke asked suddenly. “You just appeared out of nowhere the first time we met. There was no way you could’ve visualised our homes if you’d never seen them.”
Sir Albion gave Sasuke an approving nod. “Whenever a zodiac leaves or enters a body, the other zodiacs have a vision of it. These visions revealed your locations, which is also how we realised that Lucifer had extracted the Gemini from Jamila Green, killed her, and become Gemini’s new host.” Sir Albion handed Sasuke his passport. “All right, let’s get down to business.”
Discomfort rammed us over as Sir Albion gripped our hands (like we were little kids) then we were wobbling on foreign ground (I was glad Sir Albion was holding on my hand now), jumping as a cold breeze whizzed by—the air here was significantly fresher and chillier despite the dazzling beams of sunshine. I was standing in a sports stadium.
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
“To get things started,” announced Sir Albion with a straight face, “we’ll first do a hundred laps.”
A hundred—what?
My eyes went wide with shock. This training was really turning out to be a major pain in the neck. “H-hundred laps?”
Sir Albion regarded me squarely. “You have your sports gear with you?”
While I muttered a reluctant yes, digging for the school tee shirt I’d worn for PE earlier in the day, Sasuke already had the shirt of his uniform peeled off, revealing a white undershirt beneath. Quickly, I excused myself to head to the girls’ bathroom as the boy started shedding his pants in broad daylight.
Hoping to delay the dreaded run, I took my time changing. I was actually decently good at running, sports, and just about everything physical although I hardly exercised outside school, but a hundred laps around this Olympic-sized track? Even the best sportsperson in the world would be intimidated, I was sure. And as for me, I wouldn’t even make it halfway through.
Fifteen minutes later, I decided it wasn’t advisable to drag this changing session out any longer so I made my way back to the running track. Slowly. Something on the notice board caught my eyes as I strolled outside—an Olympic poster that said London 2012.
Sir Albion brought us all the way to London just to run laps?
“Averie, hurry up!” Sir Albion’s deep, solid voice sounded through the brief hallway leading to the field, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Sasuke is running already.”
I quickly stepped out into the open and moved toward where Sir Albion waited at the third row of the heart of the spectator area. “Why did you bring us to London?” I asked, chucking my uniform in a heap next to the backpacks.
“We won’t be disturbed here,” said Sir Albion without looking at me—he was watching Sasuke intently.
“Why?”
“I own this place,” he said. “Anyway, this isn’t London, it’s Inverness, my hometown.” He looked down at me, and I stiffened. “Now, go.” He pointed at the track.
I took a deep breath and, moments later, I was on the track—jogging. I waited for Sir Albion to tell me off but, to my surprise—and monumental relief—he didn’t.
If I started out running, I would probably be out in ten laps. Period.
Meanwhile, Sasuke was definitely not jogging. By the time I was on my fifth round, he’d already lapped me twice. At the rate he was going, either his stamina was amazing, or he’d been trained enough. Or he was an idiot for sprinting in a long distance run.
It took me close to two hours to reach my fifty-first lap, and I was shocked when I realised I could still go on. I hadn’t tried running—okay, jogging—such a long distance before. The farthest I’d done was the annual 2.4 kilometre run in secondary school and junior college, so I figured I was doing quite well here. However, after another twenty-one laps, my triumph came to an end as I collapsed to the ground, fully understanding the meaning of exhaustion for the first time.
Sir Albion marched over to me, but when it didn’t look like he was going to rebuke me, even though I had no intention of getting back on my feet, I stayed sprawled on the track. Breathing hard, I watched as Sasuke kept going—lap after lap—overwhelmed with envy as his long, strong legs did their magic. The Japanese boy was incredibly lean in his tight dri-fit shirt, but he actually had well-toned muscles.
After his hundredth lap around the track, Sasuke sank to the ground next to me, panting loudly. He yanked his sweaty t-shirt over his head, rolled it into a ball, and used it to dab away the sweat along his face and neck. Being a boy was definitely convenient at times like this. Doing all those laps had made me sweat like a horse, and I didn’t even have a towel or tissue with me. Sasuke removed his school shirt from his backpack, and as he pulled it on, I got a glimpse of his ripped abdomen—he had to be working out a lot.
“Thirty laps…so that’s the difference between Averie and Sasuke.” Sir Albion spoke up suddenly, pissing me off at once.
“Twenty-eight laps!” I snapped. “And of course Sasuke can run better than me, I haven’t done any training. Plus, he’s a boy!”
“Gender doesn’t matter,” Sir Albion countered. “What matters is the state of mind.”
I scowled at the mocking remark. “Why do we have to run laps anyway? I thought you said we were doing spirit training?”
“Keeping your body in top condition enables you to heighten the potential of your spiritual ability. I have to get you in shape before I teach you to handle the spirit within you. You need to be physically ready first. This exercise was just to gauge your current physical competency. Now, stand up and stretch.”
Sasuke leapt to his feet impatiently.
I stood up and stretched unenthusiastically. However, Sir Albion wasn’t satisfied. “You’re doing it all wrong. Look closely. I’ll show you the right way to stretch.”
I sighed. Sir Albion was a difficult man to please.
After I’d copied all the stretches kindly demonstrated by the old man, stretching my every single muscle in my body—including ones I didn’t know I had—he made us go to another part of the stadium to define
our muscles.
“Of course,” he said, “Averie’s body needs a lot more work than yours, Sasuke. How do you train?” Sir Albion glanced over his back at Sasuke as we approached the gym.
“I’ve danced and hit the drums every day since I was eleven,” said Sasuke, and I bit my lip.
Why is life so unfair?
When I was eleven, my mother had disappeared and, since then, I’d been working hard at just keeping my life together. That alone drained all of my energy so I hardly did anything besides the mandatory studying. The thought of joining extra-curricular activities never even crossed my mind since my spare time and attention were all spent trying to get my father back on his feet. I’d tried everything—from coaxing to reasoning to counselling to compelling—but nothing ever worked. Not enough, anyway. Eventually, when he refused to stop drinking no matter what I did, I’d given up and focused my attention on my studies, with the single-minded goal of getting out of Holland Road, Street Thirteen, as quickly as possible.
“A year ago, I started hitting the gym with a personal trainer. Oh, and I’d also received professional training to raise my stamina for—” Sasuke paused. “Erm...from time to time.”
Sir Albion reached the gym first. “How frequent was your stamina training?” He switched on the electrical utilities, and a room about a quarter the size of a football field, crammed with fitness equipments, came into view.
“Two or three a year for one to two weeks.”
Annoyed at how obvious it was that I was the underdog here, I cleared my throat and changed the topic. “So, what are we going to do here?” I asked Sir Albion.
“For the next two hours, Sasuke, you’ll do stamina training by himself, and Averie, I’ll be keeping you with me,” said Sir Albion in that dull, depressing voice of his. “Are we clear?”
“Crystal,” I muttered insolently. I couldn’t help the sarcasm in my voice, but, as usual, Sir Albion took no notice.
“Good. Let’s get started then.”