“Better!” I told him as I held up a hand as a gesture of the exercise having ended. We both then came out from behind our bolder.

“Oh Coach, I was just getting into it,” he complained.

“Sorry, but I’ve got nine other people to get through before we can move onto the next exercise. Did you not want to get out of the session early tonight...?”

His frown was replaced by a grin. “You’ll really let us?”

“I already told you I will – if you all do good. David, you’re next.”

As I expected, David did excellently. He waited patiently for his chance, and then peeked out and sent a psionic blast from his finger tips – my shield stopped the blast before it got to me. He was extremely pleased with himself because the nervousness that he had originally felt while handling his gift, not knowing exactly how to control the strength of the blast, had all but gone. I knew that because he was the youngest and had done well at the exercise all the other recruits would now try harder; not wanting the youngest to do better than them.

I then challenged Salem. His psychic punch wasn’t all that dissimilar from David’s blast, however Salem didn’t wait for an opening as David had; he didn’t have David’s patience. Instead, violence-lover Salem repeatedly tried penetrating my shield. Ballsy, but stupid. The psychic punch ricocheted both times and he narrowly avoided it each time, cursing ‘Fucker’ at the punch each time. His fumbling around gave me the opening I needed and pretty soon a gush of water sent him sliding backwards toward the wall. He didn’t care – the adrenalin was pumping so he was happy. Learning from his mistake however he took a leaf out of David’s book and waited for his chance, and got his opening. My shield protected me, of course, or I’d have been unconscious on the floor.

Damien did a lot better at the task than I’d been expecting. He peeped out one side, then the other and then above, but it turned out that he was only misleading me into thinking that was where he was. In fact, it was his astral self that had peeped out – meaning that his physical body was safe and sound. If he did that during an attack, he could keep his body safe while still baiting the enemy.

Next was Chico. As his aim still needed to be improved on, he couldn’t emit the thorns from his hands without actually having a visual of where I was. It took a few tries but he eventually got his opening – again my shield came in handy. He wasn’t too pleased when I used a teensy bolt of fire to singe his moustache, but it got a few laughs from the others of course and it served to make him concentrate better on me rather than on the fact that everyone was watching him – his fear was exhibiting weakness because he was kind of like the alpha of the squad. I could empathise slightly.

Denny farted some musk at me, the sod. But not before I zapped his butt with an energy blast. After that he decided that taking his eyes off me was a bad idea and took to becoming mush every time I attacked. This aggravated me because he wasn’t using his full potential; he needed to realise that attacking was just as important as defending himself, so I sent his mushy form swirling around using a nice gush of water. He got the point that being mush wouldn’t necessarily protect him and then began spraying ooze at me.

As Reuben’s gift depended on physical contact, I allowed him to leave his bolder and try to reach me. Even with my taking it easy on him he didn’t get the hang of it because he was too busy concentrating on dodging my gifts to concentrate on my movements and pre-empt where I was going. As he believed that it wasn’t possible for him to pre-empt me and reach me, I absorbed some of his energy to temporarily give me his gift and asked Denny to repeatedly spray ooze at me so that I could show Reuben how focusing on an enemy’s movements would both help him pre-empt their movements and notice when an enemy was about to attack with their gift. It took under thirty seconds for me to physically touch Denny, which made Reuben more optimistic. I also suggested that maybe he could tie back his lovely brown shoulder-length hair so it did not disturb his vision.

Butch did well with negating anything I flung at him, however when he got a little cocky and kept flashing that crooked grin of his and challenging me with those unbelievably dark eyes I put more force behind one of my fire blasts to illustrate to him that he couldn’t negate everything and would need to learn to bring up his shield better. We had practiced this last session, but Butch had only managed to do this the once. Not because he wasn’t a capable person or in very good control of his power, but because Butch was only just getting used to the idea that he can use his defensive negating power in different ways.

Max was absolutely delighted when I called him up. He was extremely chuffed with his gift and kept promising me that one day he’d rob me of my senses and then kiss me hard to which he received a small punch in the gut. Each time I felt him reaching out I popped my shield up, however I was impressed by how well he was able to dodge my gift – his agility really had improved, which he owed to Jared’s training.

God, Jared. I hadn’t once forgotten that he was up there. I couldn’t. Not when those eyes were drilling into me. I daren’t look up at him in case my brain shut off for a second; that’s what it felt like would happen if we made proper eye contact for the first time in days.

Out of all of the recruits, Stuart was the least enthusiastic. Mainly because he was still sore about not being able to do much else other than shred. He was able to explode into molecules almost each time before my gift hit him. But the almost part pissed him off. As did the fact that he was finding it extremely difficult to move from place to place as molecules. But he did move a step. Progress.

“You all did good,” I told them as they recreated the line. “Good enough to move onto the second exercise. I’m going to ask you all to line up; five of you against the eastern wall, the other five at the western wall. I want at least three-car spaces between each of you.”

“Yes, Coach,” was said in unison.

Without delay they found themselves a spot. Chico, Butch, David, Denny and Stuart lined up against the eastern wall while the others stood against the western wall; Damien was facing Chico, Salem was facing Butch, Reuben was facing David, Harvey was facing Denny, and Max was facing Stuart.

“Space yourselves out a bit more.” Pacing between the lines of blokes, I spoke, “Take a good look at who’s opposite you. Remember everything you can about their gifts, because in a moment those gifts will be heading right at you.” There was some discomfort in the lines; I’d never set them against each other before. “I’ll shout your names individually. As soon as you hear it, I want you to do your thing. And I want you to do it fast. Because that’s what it will be like out there: me barking your name or an order, and you acting without hesitation. If you panic now, if you buckle under this pressure, then you know you’ve got some learning left to do. Do not turn this into a spar. Only when I shout your name do you act. Those who have a gift coming at you, block it if you can, or dodge it. But do not retaliate. That all understood?”

“Yes, Coach.”

Turning and pacing back the way I came, I added, “You’ll remember that your second goal was to memorise as much as you can about the gifts of the rest of your squad; this exercise should therefore also give you an idea of just how near or far you are to that goal. Right, first I need you, Reuben, to weaken Max, Chico and Salem’s powers.”

“Coach,” obeyed Reuben. He touched each of them for only three seconds. Then his face twisted in confusion. “Coach, what about David?”

“Well David’s who you’re facing in the line up. You’ll get your chance to weaken him when I call you – but you’re going to need to do it in quicker than three seconds. An enemy won’t let you hold onto their shoulder and wait. For anyone who can move in vampire speed, three seconds is more like ten.”

“Coach,” he said, bowing his head, before then scooting back to his spot.

Once I was back at my own spot against the northern wall I let a moment of silence drag on. This served two purposes. One: it created a hint of the suspense that they could expect during an attack. Two: my call would sound exceptionally louder against the heavy silence. I could see some of them stood tall and still while others shuffled their weight from one foot to the other and others were balling their hands up into fists. I was terribly proud to see that each and every one of them was doing the one thing that I had instructed them to in past sessions: keep their eyes on their opponent.

“Chico!”

At the sound of his name Chico abruptly lifted one hand and shot out several thorns from his palm which embedded themselves in Damien’s chest, which would have made him cry out in pain at the sting had he not astral projected a few feet away in less than the time it took to blink – a handy way to dodge.

Without missing a beat, I called out, “Salem!”

Fixed where he stood, the blonde vampire threw an uppercut toward Butch. I could almost see the ripple in the air that the psychic energy had produced as it flew from Salem and headed toward Butch. More determined than I had ever seen him, Butch placed his hands in front of his chest, palms out. The effect was like watching the sun shine on glass. The boom hit the flat, glass-like shield and collapsed to the ground.

“Harvey!”

His grin cocky and smug, Harvey made a quick movement that resembled someone throwing a small ball upwards – I guessed he intended on sending poor Denny levitating to the ceiling. Before the impact could hit Denny, he instantly liquidised into green mush. Two seconds later he was himself again. Harvey made an animal tssssk noise in frustration.

“Max!”

He always wore the same tough-bloke expression when he was reaching out to paralyse senses – his eyes would narrow, his mouth would twist, his eyebrows would dip. He had this expression now as he, with the simple gesture of closing his open hand, attempted to temporarily quash Stuart’s senses. But Stuart had literally exploded into molecules – nice dodging! – and then reassembled quickly.

“Reuben!”

Ooh, good ole Reub was nervous. I would be too if I knew that David’s power would be heading for me shortly. God that bloke was fast: vampire speed had him at David in under a second. He touched his shoulder briefly before returning to his spot.

“David!”

Reuben stood still as a statue – there was no way to dodge David’s psionic blast. Reuben could only hope that he had weakened the power enough for it to only feel a split-second pain to the effect of a hammer hitting your head.

David, stood tall and determined, exhaled heavily and then splayed his fingers; the blast streamed from his fingertips and rushed toward Reuben. Every one of us watched intently – if Reuben hadn’t weakened the power well enough, he’d end up unconscious. If Reuben had accidentally strengthened David’s blast...he would die.

I think all of us released a brief sigh of relief when Reuben simply flinched and brought his hand to his head. I didn’t give them time to celebrate though.

“Stuart!”

This was the big test for Stuart. I watched as he stiffened and then, like before, exploded. I continued to watch as the molecules rushed toward the vampire opposite him. Max jerked backwards as Stuart, in under a second, reassembled in front of him. “Hi there,” he said to Max, winking. He had every reason to be chuffed with himself though.

“Denny!”

I wondered if Denny might use his anal musk on Harvey. It wasn’t that he didn’t like him, but Harvey picked on David a lot – who happened to be Denny’s best friend. Instead, Denny flexed his hands, making them appear more like claws, and then sprayed yellowy-green ooze from his thumbs and smallest fingers – the times when he attacked were the only moments that his baby face looked in any way threatening. The ooze was sturdy and stringy, wrapping around Harvey like a web in spite of his telekinetic efforts to divert it – there was just too much of it. Denny’s dimply smile surfaced instantly.

“Butch!”

Knowing what I wanted him to do, Butch placed his hands in front of his chest, palms out, in the same way that he had before. This time, instead of leaving them there he forcefully extended his arms in front of him and then spread them to the side, pushing his invisible shield outwards and all around him.

“Chico, David, Salem – get him now!”

Thorns, a psionic blast, and a psychic punch came at Butch from different directions...but all of it hit the shield.

Last but not least...

“Damien!”

I was very surprised when he didn’t hesitate or lick his lips nervously; this was the first time I had seen him sure of himself. So sure of himself that his dark skin wasn’t shimmering with sweat. He blinked hard and then, suddenly, his astral self was lounging on the floor in front of Chico, giggling in exhilaration.

With that, the eyes of every recruit concentrated on me, all of them keen to jump for joy but desperately wanting my approval first. I made them sweat by keeping silent a few seconds. “Now you can do a sing and a dance,” I said with a smile.

They practically did. Butts wiggled and arms shot up toward the sky, and I heard plenty of whoops and an ‘Oh yeah baby!’ and an ‘Alright!’ as they revelled in their own accomplishment.

Then they were all heading toward me.

“Oh no you don’t,” I warned them, one finger pointing at them. They appeared to be ignoring it as they were still coming at me. “Don’t you dare!” Too late. I was scooped up by Reuben and hung over his shoulder while he bounced. “This is a bit dramatic!”

I ended up with some of Denny’s ooze that had been dripping from Harvey now in my hair. Not so happy about that.