There were murmurs of agreement from Denny, David, Salem and Reuben.
“Plus, you got a great body and I’m starting to get sexually confused being around guys all the time,” said Damien, appreciating my navy jeans and pink top that came attached to a white vest so covered my cleavage a little better. Needless to say, I’d picked this when Fletcher and I went shopping. He had begged me not to buy it.
“And you were right,” said Butch, “we let ourselves get caught up in the high of being picked for the legion and thought we were the best thing since sliced bread.”
“So, where do you want us and what do you want us to do?” asked Stuart.
I snorted. “Well first of all the lot of you can stop the friendliness and flirting. I’m not your mate, I’m not here for you to ogle at, and I’m not here to joke with you. I’m here to coach you.”
They all nodded and, in unison, said, “Yes, Commander.” Was I dreaming?
“Oh no, you can drop the ‘Commander’, I can’t stand it.” But I wasn’t going to let them call me by the first name either.
“How about Coach?” suggested Denny. The others seemed to approve of that.
I considered that for a moment. In terms of being someone who people would listen to, it was kind of the middle ground. People tended to respect coaches or trainers and have better relationships with them than what they did with people who marched around and barked orders.
“Coach, it is,” I decided. “I won’t be sending you off doing cross country or any physical exercises – that’s Commander Michaels’ department. All I will be concentrating on is aiding you with your gifts. Now...considering that you’re all lazy sods it’d be stupid of me to assume any of you have been practicing on your own time.” They didn’t deny it. “Right then, let’s deal with all that excess energy because until you learn to channel it I can’t teach you how to use your full potential and make use of it in combat.”
They reminded me of a rugby team getting ready to play the way they were getting rid of any cricks in their necks and bouncing a little on the spot.
“I’m going to give you all individual coaching, but do not at all mistake this as an insinuation that you only look out for number one. The point is to all become stronger as a squad, but you can only do this by first improving yourselves individually.
“Also you will need to know each other’s gifts inside and out – there might be a situation one of you can’t handle but another can by, for instance, paralysing an enemy’s senses or by mimicking a certain animal. It’ll also mean that if you see one of you in deep shit with an enemy you’ll know whether their gift will mean they can protect themselves or whether someone needs to intervene. What’s more, you’ll know exactly who is the best person to intervene. All of that clear to you?”
“Yes, Coach,” they all said.
God their compliance was weird. “Just to be sure that having your eyes almost glued to my cleavage isn’t making everything I’ve said fly right over your heads, someone tell me the first goal you all have.”
Max immediately said, “To work out how to channel all the energy so there’s none leaking out.”
I nodded. “Good. Someone give me the next one.”
“To improve our use of our powers so we can improve as a squad,” shouted Butch.
“Good. One more...”
“To know each other’s powers in and out,” offered Reuben.
“Well what do you know, you lot actually do listen,” I said, smiling wide. “After you’ve reached all those goals we can start looking at formations. But for now, let’s tackle the first goal. Denny?”
Instantly the animal mimic stepped forward. His baby face made me want to take it easy on him – it wouldn’t have the same effect on an enemy but it might very well make them underestimate him. Hopefully he was the type not to be estimated.
I stood opposite him, arms folded over my chest. “Right, what animal-like tricks have you got?”
“Well, um, I’ve got a sting. At will, I can make a poisonous needle appear out of the top of my right index finger.”
“Okay, what effect does that have?”
“It doesn’t really cause much harm but it can make you itch like crazy. And I mean crazy.”
“So in combat it would be distracting, would you say?”
“Definitely,” he assured me, widening his eyes to emphasise his answer. “All you can think about is the itching.”
“That’s good. What else?”
“I can make my body go as soft as liquid, and then obviously back to hard again. Like the sea cucumber. So I can be mush and wiggle through little cracks or anything like that.”
“Interesting,” I drawled. “So it’s slightly similar to how Stuart can shred into molecules and then reassemble himself.”
Denny nodded. “I can ooze slime out of my pores, too. It’s the most amazing slime – I can wrap someone in it and suffocate them. A little like with Hagfish.”
“I’m impressed. Anything else?”
“He can jump higher than you can believe,” Harvey spouted out.
I twirled and raised a brow at Harvey. “I can’t remember asking you anything so pipe down. You’ll get your minute in the spotlight in a sec, big boy.” I had to think of this as a classroom of students; let one get away with something and they’ll all try it, and then before you know it you’re at risk of losing total control of the students. I turned back to Denny. “As you were saying...”
“Yeah I can jump really high. Better than a frog – about as good as a colepod.”
“You can accelerate as fast as five-hundred body-lengths per sec when you jump?” He nodded. “Wow.”
“I’m not too crazy about the last one…” All the blokes started giggling quietly so I knew this had to be embarrassing for Denny. He closed his eyes as he confessed, “I can release an anal musk. Like a skunk.”
I couldn’t help wanting to laugh. Not at Denny, it was just the shock of what he’d said. I didn’t laugh, of course. But the other recruits all did which was a shitty thing to do because they already knew about it so it wasn’t a shock, and they knew just how embarrassed he was. It was hard not to be protective of the baby-faced boy. So I got an idea. “Show me.”
“Pardon?” said Denny.
“I just want to know how bad it is. You can test it on your friends there.”
I heard an ‘Oh hell no’ and a ‘No way’ and a ‘Not a chance’.
I turned to look at them all. “It wasn’t a request. Every one of you has just been giggling like a school girl at Denny here. So why shouldn’t he get to have a good laugh? Tit for tat.”
“Oh, come on, Coach, we were just laughing,” said Damien. “You gotta admit it’s funny.”
“All of you line up by the eastern wall,” I ordered.
“Coach, please, don’t be tight!” begged Max.
“We laugh no more,” promised Reuben.
“Unfortunately for you lot, I am unmoved. Either you walk over there yourselves or I’ll air-blast the lot of you over there.”
Grumbling and whining and holding their noses, they all lined up.
Denny looked at me, giggling, and said quietly, “You’re just kidding, right? You don’t really want me to do it?”
“Oh I do. See, I had a skunk do it to me once and I know it’s bad. I promise you Denny if you do this now they’ll never laugh about this again. Think of it as a learning experience for them.”
“Yeah, a learning experience,” he agreed, working up the nerve to go do it. I think he found it a teensy bit mean. Sucking in a mound of air, he added, “It’s for their own good.”
I nodded. “Exactly.” Then I patted him on the back. “Go, boy, go. And don’t be shy about how much musk you let go.” All the other recruits were sending me pleading expressions, begging for mercy. “I’ll just stand right over here, I think,” I told them all as I backed against the wall opposite them.
“Come on, Coach,” said Max, “we won’t laugh again,
we swear.”
“Too right you won’t,” I assured him. “Not after this.”
Denny was now in front of them but facing me. Smiling, he…well, farted I suppose. And then every single recruit – other than Denny who it seemed could take the smell of his own lethal fart – were on their knees, coughing and balking and scrubbing their eyes. I could get a whiff of it from where I was, but as I hadn’t been in the…line of fire, you could say…I was able to take it standing.
Denny was giddy when he came back to my side. “Cool or what?”
“Very.” We both stared at the grown men on their knees studiously, as though they were a science experiment. “I have to admit that after the way they all behaved toward me I’m really enjoying this.”
“Me, too,” he chuckled. “You know, I really am sorry about the way we were.”
I just smiled at him. Eventually they all recovered and walked dozily back over to myself and Denny. “Hi, welcome back.” Their expressions were priceless. “Now, I think you’re all expertly familiar with what Denny can do. What I want to know, Denny, is which of your gifts you have a problem controlling or you find to be a bit temperamental.”
“I’m okay with the jumping and using the sting and the musk and the ooze, but making my body go soft can be a bit time-consuming. I’m not sure if I’d be able to do it faster, but if it’s possible I’d like to.”
“Well let’s find out.” I fed off the energy around him, letting my system breathe it in and revel in it. I could then feel Denny’s energy as separate from my own; his was wilder and more potent. I knew immediately how to channel it and control it. I let it travel throughout my body until it filled me, hitting even my extremities, and then I let it go. In the space of a second my body was mush, and then just as quickly I was back to my substantial self. “Yeah, you could do it a lot faster.”
Denny’s mouth was hanging open rather unattractively. “Um…How…How do I do it faster? What am I doing wrong?”
“You’re not doing anything wrong with your gift.” I spoke to them all then. “You’re all making the mistake of thinking that this is the same as physical energy, but it’s not. It’s an unnatural energy that started being produced when your body evolved and you Turned. It’s produced up here” – I poked my head – “and that’s where you have to dig for it.”
“But your power comes from your hands,” said Stuart.
“No, it does not. You have to think of a water tank and a hose.” I poked my head again. “This is the water tank. Your hands, or your breath” – I pointed at Chico – “can be the hose. Whatever hose you want. I even use my feet when I’m drawing energy from the earth beneath me. Denny uses his arsehole sometimes.” Nobody laughed – they didn’t want more skunk musk up their noses. “The outlet and the water tank are two different things.”
I saw a few of the recruits exchanging looks that said this made sense, that they couldn’t believe it was that obvious and yet they had never considered it.
“Commander Michaels never told us that,” griped David, like a kid looking to blame a teacher for his lack of knowledge.
“Don’t worry, you’ll still get your gold star sticker at the end of the session,” I told him patronisingly. He laughed just as the others did.
“What about people like me and David?” said Stuart. “We don’t use outlets, we just will it to happen.”
“And that’s exactly where your problems stem from. You’re limiting yourselves. Vampiric gifts don’t work off will power. You don’t wish it would happen and then it just does. David, you concentrate hard with your eyes when you send out that blast, right?” David nodded. “There’s your outlet you’ve been using without even realising it. Stuart, didn’t it occur to you that when you shred into tiny little molecules that that is how the energy is being released? That it bursts out of you?”
He tilted his head. “Huh.”
“Didn’t it occur to you that shredding could also serve as teleporting you around? That maybe you could learn to shred and then go from place to place as molecules?”
Stuart treble-blinked and then his head seemed to be working away.
“I suppose you didn’t.” I turned back to Denny. “Now, I want you to close your eyes.” He did. “Think about nothing but that water tank – all the water swilling around in there, wanting to get out so more can replace it. All it needs is a hose. Remember I told you that this was similar to Stuart’s gift. He has to feel the water bursting out of him. You have to think of it bursting inside you; filling you and filling you, drowning you into nothing but -” And then he was like a puddle of mushy peas in the space of a second. He even smelt a little like them. “Mush,” I finished. Everyone was clapping for him and wooing. “Now, Denny, you need to think of the water filling you again, stretching you and stretching you until you might burst again. But this time, you don’t burst. You turn off that hose and leave the water in the tank.” It was strange talking to a puddle, and even more strange to think that the puddle could fully understand me. He was mush for a good ten seconds before speedily reforming – I took that as him concentrating on the water/tank metaphor.
Whole again, Denny glared at me with a cocktail of astonishment, gratitude and respect in his eyes. “Oh my God, I did it. For years I’ve been trying to control it. I could just kiss you right now.” His face turned serious. “I won’t.”
All the others reacted in much the same way when I took them aside individually as I had done with Denny. Chico learned that he could in fact use his palms to emit thorns, he just needed to work on emitting more than one thorn at a time and having a better aim. Butch was able to pop up his shield a couple of times, he just needed to learn how to form it at will and how to keep the shield up for the length of time that he wanted. Stuart was now able to shred in the space of three seconds and reform again just as quickly, his goal was to learn how to do it within the space of a second in order to avoid any power directed his way. He also wanted to master how to move around while he was only molecules.
Salem, being quite violent, decided that it would be much more fun and dramatic if his outlet for his psychic boom – that could knock you unconscious – could be his fist. After Reuben weakened his gift so that the boom felt more like a slap, I let him practice on Damien seen as he was being a lazy little sod. Damien’s low concentration span meant he was still having trouble with trying to project his astral self any further than a few feet. But after a while of getting psychic slaps from Salem, Damien – in utter desperation – was able to astral project away from the impact. Sometimes learning the hard way was the only way to learn.
David had decided that he wanted his outlet to be his palms, not his eyes, so he was working on that and doing excellently – Reuben had weakened his power in advance to ensure that David’s blast couldn’t do any more than give his victim a minor shock, and he practiced mostly on Denny who said he would happily practice with his own powers in his own time so he could help David today. Denny looked out for David a lot, which was good as I came to realize that David was very nervous of his power and by virtue of his young age.
It turned out that Reuben had a little trouble with controlling whether he strengthened someone’s gift or whether he weakened it, but by the end of the session he had a better hang of it. He was working toward increasing the degree to which he could affect someone’s gift and with being able to affect someone’s gift with minimal bodily contact as opposed to holding onto them for up to eight seconds.
Max and Harvey were hard work because both believed that they had nothing left to learn…So I paired them up, which they soon regretted. I first let Slap-head – he was back to that now that he was being a wanker – explore whether he could choose exactly what senses he wanted to affect (he didn’t believe this was possible until, one by one, I took each of his senses away and then left him to silently whine about it to the wall). It transpired that although cocky Harvey was able to send something zooming away with his telekinesis, he couldn’t make so
mething come toward him, or rotate, or levitate so I allowed him to practice on a practically defenceless Slap-head. Slap-head of course stole every one of Harvey’s senses once he recovered his own just as payback.
Each time the recruits were successful in their attempts, I would give them a nod of approval, but after that would holler, ‘Again!’ And, to their credit, they did it over and over and over. I was tempted to loudly express how pleased I was with their efforts but I couldn’t afford to show any signs of compassion or kindness with these blokes as they would only view this as a weakness and start taking the piss. Coaches needed to have a tough exterior or they’d all end up being wankers again. Besides, as Max had said, they were big boys.
By the end of the night, they were all exhausted…but also optimistic. Proud to be tired because they were proud of their efforts. I was actually proud of them too. I showed this by simply saying in a flat tone, “You did good. You worked hard. But it doesn’t end there. You’ve got goals to hit, don’t lose sight of them.” Then as motivation I made them a promise. “Once you meet those goals and can master the formations that I have in mind for you to learn, I’ll let you practice an attack on one of the other squads.”
Every one of them cheered. I knew that the other squads teased the newest recruits. It was tradition. It was part of the tough love of the place; soldier sense of humour was somewhat different. But it pissed these blokes off all the same, just as it would piss me off.
“Oh yeah I’ll send those shitheads flying through the air,” said Harvey. “Then we’ll see if still they want to throw eggs at my door.”
I smiled evilly. “Or…you could learn to levitate objects properly and levitate some eggs up to their doors…Tit for tat and all that. But you didn’t hear that suggestion from me.”
The recruits were all cooking up revenge plots as they left the arena, each sure to shout “See you tomorrow night, Coach.”
And they did see me tomorrow night. And the next night. And the next. Each time they put in maximum effort, never complained at the constant holler of ‘Again’, and the improvement was immediate. Jared never knew this as he never came to observe. Not even when I took them out to the rainforest to familiarise themselves with it and do some training there. As such, the night of the ‘bet’ came and went. Jared hadn’t mentioned it at all. Nor did he mention Antonio’s order that Jared and I lead the squad together during the attack on The Hollow. Antonio had assured me that Jared was aware of his ‘order’ so I’d decided that I would wait until Jared brought up the subject before we spoke of it. But he didn’t. He had barely mentioned anything to me. Toneless, polite greetings and farewells were all I got now.