Conscious, Conscientious

Despite the four people occupying it, the training room was dead quiet.

Pang sat lounging on one of the benches off to the side.

“Ooh…beluga caviar sounds so good right now,” echoed Irma’s voice from all the way across the room. She paced back and forth aimlessly, scrolling through her SquadScreen. “Or we could go Horror Country with demon-bison stew…what do you think, Pang? Craving anything for tonight?”

“Ssh!”

Benton’s hush came from the other far corner. The weights he lifted clinked as he placed them down.

“He could strike at any second,” he urged. “We’re like a herd a’ doe gettin’ a sip in the clearin’, and he’s lurkin’ with the barrel on our butts.”

“I have no idea what you just said,” retorted Irma.

Pang shrugged. “He’s right, though,” she admitted, stretching her arms.

She lifted her head to glance over at the fighting platform. Aoi stood in the center, perfectly in position.

Any second…

Then, it started—but not in a way Pang could have anticipated.

A jarring buzz suddenly shattered the silence. Head vibrating and ears ringing, Pang sprung up unevenly and did her best to prepare a defense.

But she found no enemy—instead, a round device was stuck in the floor by her feet. Its speaker blared the noise, and persisted even when Pang gave it a hearty stomp. She slammed her hands against her ears.

Is this really necessary?!

Struggling to gather herself, Pang darted her attention to the others. Benton and Irma were in identical predicaments, slow to regain their footing. But their focus seemed just as unsteady as hers.

He’s going for her.

Pang forced her squinting eyes to turn to the fighting platform where Aoi remained standing. Sure enough, the music started, and he appeared.

Danek swooped in, hands ready to strike. Pang could hear his booming laughter of self-satisfaction even through the noisemakers. In fact, it was the main reason she could follow his movement: he’d closed in almost faster than her eyes could follow.

Pang understood immediately: he’d cut the rest of them off with his tech. Now, he could attack the uninstructed Aoi without issue.

But as Pang understood just as well: it didn’t matter.

Not anymore.

Heh. He’s screwed.

Just as fast as he’d appeared, Danek stopped. His whole body smashed against an unseen wall mere steps from Aoi.

Then, she watched on completely unfazed, as another force yanked him high into the ai, and rocketed him straight into the floor just beyond the fighting platform.

“WHY?!” he boomed hoarsely. “HOW ARE YOU—“

He floated back up, and then slammed against the floor again and again.

Aoi watched blankly for a moment.

She slammed him three more times before leaving him twisted on the ground.

“Alright, alright!” Danek pleaded. “I’ll stop. I’m done. You win again.”

Aoi searched around until she spotted a teammate. This time, it happened to be Pang. She lifted her hand and sent her a sleeve-covered thumbs-up.

Pang burst out laughing, which rang louder as Danek’s devices turned off.

“Nice one, Aoi!” she cheered.

“Atta girl!”

“You so showed him who’s boss!”

“Ugh…” groaned Danek from the floor. He forced his sorry form to sit up. “I don’t get it…since my blocking Aoi’s hearing stopped working yesterday, I figured you were sneaking her sign language or something. So how come when I isolated you guys from her instead, she still attacked?! Are you guys telling her in advance to fight me, or what? That’s against my training rules!”

He checked his bent leg, confirming it was broken. Pang predicted he’d need a few extra minutes in the healing chamber after this one.

“Oh, we ain’t cheatin’,” Benton denied. “Wouldn’t be against it though, since you keep tryna kill us!”

“Yeah. It’s just that Aoi really doesn’t like you,” Pang said plainly. “It’s that simple.”

Danek spat. “Come on. That’s not possible. This freak never acts on things like that.”

“That was true a couple days ago, but like, not anymore,” said Irma, her eyes already glued on holograms of recipes again. “You can thank Pang for that.”

“And she’s not a freak,” added Pang flatly. “…Alright, she is, but you don’t get to call her that.”

“Big mouth for a noob…” muttered Danek.

“Sore loser for a Rank-S. And you can’t beat us anymore, so I’ll say what I want.”

Danek mumbled retorts to himself that he must not have felt confident enough to say out loud, given his lingering threat on the fighting platform.

Pang stood from the bench and stretched her back, satisfied with another instant victory against Danek. She would never have guessed they’d gain an edge during his assaults so soon—or at all, for that matter, considering he almost killed them two days ago.

But something clearly clicked in Aoi’s mysterious head.

When Danek attacked for his second session yesterday, he’d used nearly the same method as the first time: aiming to take her out of the equation first. But Aoi had him dented in the wall before he could swing his first fist, and without anybody prompting her to strike.

It was so quick, in fact, that he added an unannounced third ‘session’ while the team was walking back from lunch. Aoi sent him flipping over the distant buildings without as much as a glance his way, and his quest for redemption fell apart.

Pang and the others hadn’t had to move a single muscle since the first ambush, and she lost no sleep over it: after all, she’d managed to get through to Aoi. She earned their right to survive.

“I guess we’re done here,” Irma declared. “Tennis, anyone?”

Her teammates expressed their agreement.

A laugh emerged from the middle of the room. As it increased, everyone turned to find Danek with a booming smile despite his mangled state.

“Excellent, guys. Excellent,” he said. Though his smile was a bit crooked, the bloodlust on his face was absent for once. “Okay, I’m done here. No more sessions with me.”

“Finally had enough?” teased Pang.

“No. It’s that you guys finished the curriculum,” he explained. “I’m sure you missed it, so I’ll explain: this outcome was the whole point. A guy stronger than your whole team was trying to kill you, so you had to find a way to overcome if you wanted to live. Out on missions, there might be times where you’ll face this exact thing. You’ll need to find a way to get stronger in the moment.”

Everyone paused to listen.

“And you figured it out. You got Aoi to improve, and that saved your whole team,” finished Danek. “That was why my course was designed this way, guys. And congrats: you actually got through it. We’re done here.”

For a moment, the training room fell silent once more.

Pang exchanged glances with Irma and Benton, and she knew they all took away the same insight:

“Yeah right,” Irma chuckled. “Sounds like you just made that up right now.”

Danek stiffened. “Uh…no, really—”

“Yep. He did,” confirmed a voice from the entrance.

Pang would have suspected Pyper—but this tone was a bit lower, and much coarser.

The man set foot into the gym, his footsteps almost as hushed as his words. And yet, both demanded everyone’s attention.

“Gage? You know Pyper said I’d tell you when it’s your turn, right?” Danek checked.

“I know. I got curious.”

Gage? Pang thought. So there’s a third Rank-S?

His movements were like a stream. Gage sunk his hands into the pockets of his cloudy denim jacket as he stepped closer to the center of the room to join them all.

At the cost of her self-awareness, Pang’s eyes surrendered to his every step.

His stature was like Deon’s—lean, solid—but the overcast of grays and blacks in his jacket and ripped jeans were much more akin to Phillip’s style. While his hair was a deep gray, it was healthy and full, perfectly sculpted around his face to compliment the smoke rising from his cigarette.

The only real color he emitted was from the maroon hood hanging out from underneath his jacket.

But there was something else to him.

Though colorless, he radiated under Pang’s gaze.

“Hey.”

Pang’s eyes darted away even as his greeting rang out. Apparently, his gaze was on her, too.

Finally associating with her memory, like remembering a dream, Pang realized it had been on her since the moment he stepped in the room.

Her cheeks flushed.

Unbothered by her silence, Gage stopped in the middle of the gym. He faced Aoi and simply raised his chin at her to beckon her.

Dutifully, she exited the platform to greet him, her oversized hood bobbing up and down. Irma and Benton followed, so Pang did, as well.

Gage raised his arms out once Aoi was close, and she sunk into them for a hug.

“Hey kid,” Gage uttered. “Missed you.”

When they released, Gage ruffled her bangs and smiled. “They’re still treating you okay in this team, right?”

Aoi nodded.

“Good.”

At first Pang found it odd hearing him call Aoi ‘kid’—she assumed he couldn’t be much older than his early twenties like her. His smile was electric and full of life.

But now that Pang was closer, she could see his eyes: bold and maroon like his hood. They were filled with a deeper maturity; he was likely closer to Irma and Pyper’s age than Aoi’s.

Gage retrieved his cigarette and let out a puff of smoke. When it cleared, Pang found those eyes back on her.

This time, she didn’t glance away.

Or couldn’t.

He was an angel in the shade.

“Hm.”

Gage drew closer to her. And while Pang typically preferred her personal space, she found she couldn’t move an inch. His dispersing cigarette plume wasn’t smoky, but bitter and sweet against her nose.

Still smiling, Gage’s fingers lifted to her hair and brushed through it.

“Look at this red…so bright, and…intense…” he enjoyed.

Pang could practically see the thousands of unspoken thoughts and intentions coursing through him by her reflection in his stare. But she couldn’t possibly fathom them. They were deeper, blacker, than mere admiration.

“And combined with your golden eyes…like two suns…”

Irma butted between them, shooing Gage’s hand away.

“Come on. She’s sixteen, buddy,” she defended, hands on her hips.

“Seventeen in a few weeks, if you check her file,” Gage pointed out. “Right, Pang Pereo?”

“That obviously don’t make it any better,” Benton snapped. “Now back on up.”

Gage didn’t hesitate to oblige, laughing all the while. “You guys have some weird imaginations,” he remarked. “I’m just saying hi to the newbie. She’s filling Wei’s spot, after all. That’s a…well, a big deal.”

When everyone fell silent, Pang was surprised to find Gage’s expression just as somber as the others’.

“Gotta make sure you’ll live up to that,” Gage finally uttered. He breathed out another puff of smoke. “That goes for all of you, by the way. Whether I become your new leader or not, I’m gonna make sure your flame never fades. I won’t take this chance for granted.”

With a cool wave, he turned his back to take his leave.

“Hey wait, man…” Danek called after him. “Mind getting me over to a healing capsule first?”

“We start tomorrow,” Gage announced as if he didn’t hear. “I have a real curriculum in mind—not just intent to kill—so I think I’ll be a little more up your alley. But be ready.”

He disappeared from the room, his last few words echoing from the hall. The Proscious team stood in silence once more.

Pang watched the empty doorway for an extra moment. This strange, invisible pressure faded from her with his departure. She felt like she could move again—think clearly again.

But why didn’t she even notice it was there until now?

There’s something to him…she thought once more. What?

“Guess we’ll have to ‘be ready,’ gang,” Benton reiterated. “Whatever that means.”

“Well when it’s coming from Gage, I don’t really wanna know,” Irma commented.

“Hey, uh…”

The team turned to Danek, who watched them a bit sheepishly from the floor.

“So…I was totally just kidding around with the whole ‘killing you guys’ thing. You know, for effect,” he insisted in a wince. “Think you could get me over to the healing capsule?”

Nobody replied. Without hesitation, they all began their way to the exit.

~

The ball dropped lazily within the lines before Pang.

“He’s a Colorist,” Irma uttered beside her.

Pang frowned. She stored away this sudden fact and swung to return Aoi’s lob of a serve back over the net.

“As in, he gets different powers from seein’ different colors,” Benton defined for her, diving to launch the ball her way again just in time.

Irma closed in. She could’ve used the ball’s ensuing displacement to end the point with her speed and precision, but she opted to tap it back and continue their volley.

“That’s why he looks at you and me so much,” Irma continued, her multicolored hair twirling. “It charges him up.”

“I know what a Colorist is…” Pang muttered. “And I could sense that.”

“Now Irma, you know that’s not the only reason he’s got his eyes glued on you girls…” Benton hinted in discomfort.

“Yeah…” she agreed. “Oh also, his cigarettes are all special, too. They’re not just for smokes; they—”

“Did I ask?” spat Pang at last. Her swing shot crooked, and the ball zipped straight into the net to end the point.

Irma shrugged, walking over to retrieve it. “No,” she admitted, “but it’s pretty obviously on your mind.”

She tossed the ball to Pang for the next serve.

Pang rolled her eyes.

As if...she wanted to argue—but, hating how transparent she apparently was right now, she knew her roommate was spot-on.

She couldn’t get this man out of her head.

What is it about him…? she pondered still.

Realizing her guise was useless now, Pang caved. After all, she’d need to know more about Gage regardless. Their training with him was less than a day away.

And as long as the others still couldn’t tell what she felt right now, she could play it up as pure curiosity for their looming sessions.

That was for the best, because she wasn’t sure what she felt right now, either.

“So…his cigarettes?” Pang prompted before launching her serve.

“They’re specially-designed by Proscious,” elaborated Benton. “He huffs ‘em, and it makes him a Tolerator type, too.”

The ball came his way, so he paused to swing.

“It’s a prototype, I reckon. Only way they got extra powers to work for him,” he finished.

“Nothing gets to him, just like any Tolerator,” Irma said.

She and Pang won the point, and a new one started. But when nobody bothered to add anything else to this briefing, Pang’s head spun.

That’s it? she wondered. No way that’s it…

Then what is this feeling?

“But…he’s a Persuader too, right?” Pang guessed.

She returned the ball over the net in an uneven swing.

“Nope,” denied Benton, returning it.

“Or…an Emotionizer?” she tried again.

Irma played nice, once again tapping the ball back so Aoi could reach it even with her lack of coordination.

“He doesn’t have any powers to affect people’s feelings,” Irma established. “Why?”

The ball eventually made it’s way back near Pang. But though it should’ve been easy, she flubbed her swing and it went plummeting from the court.

She shook her head. “Never mind,” she uttered as it bounced away and came to a rest against the far fence.

The rest of their evening concluded with a proper match, and luckily for Pang, the lure of competition drew everyone’s minds off of Gage. She even managed to enjoy herself, though her tennis skills were still a far cry from her pro fighting abilities.

And to top it off: Irma’s dinner and dessert would follow once they got back to the apartment. Having finished with Danek so early, they’d have an extra couple hours to whip up something exquisite.

What started as a bleak attempt at survival days ago had ended in celebration, and it was all thanks to Aoi.

So it was only fitting when the night resolved with Aoi’s most glorious serve: a miracle of an ace to win the point against Pang. Everyone dropped their rackets and rushed to surround their unreactive companion in cheers, hopping up and down until she realized she was supposed to join in.

The group dispersed across the courts to collect stray tennis balls and bottles of water. Pang shook her head with a laugh—there was no way Benton and Aoi would’ve made a comeback had they all remembered to finish the match, but she wouldn’t have had it any other way.

These guys are supposed to be horrible killers, she reminded herself. What a bunch of goofballs.

“Hey kiddo.”

Pang turned from the ball she’d just crouched down to retrieve—the one her clouded thoughts caused her to flank earlier.

Benton stood close by, his red-marked face unusually sober.

“Uh…hey. ‘Sup?”

His eyes fell on the general direction of their training facility in the distance, before returning to her.

“If you got anything you wanna talk out…especially about that Gage fella,” he uttered, “well, I’m all ears.”

Pang’s ears tensed at his offer.

“I can take care of myself,” was what blurted out.

She didn’t think up those words, they simply emerged. Benton’s tone, his demeanor right now, was foreign to her. It was a visceral response.

A defense.

Somehow Benton’s pause, and then his gradual sigh, only made it worse.

“I know y’can,” he said. “My offer stands. Great playin’ tonight!”

Pang was stiff, unable to look back after him while he walked away.

Now, she harbored two feelings she couldn’t understand.

A light vibration on her wrist broke her from her frozen mental state. Confused, Pang checked her SquadScreen. All of her teammates were here, so why would anybody need to message her?

A name blinked onto the screen.

Gage.

“Hey Pang, looking forward to the training.

You should wear more red tomorrow, like your hair color. That’s something I’d really like to see.”