The Loner Read online

  “Aiden, you’re out of formation! Aiden!” I continue to run, occasionally looking back as Tristen chases me from above in hot pursuit. Summer tries to counter him, but Kaci blocks it at close-range, temporarily blinding her with a sheet of ice.

  “Summer, look out!” I scream it, but by the time she realizes what’s happening, it’s too late. Tristen slams through her ice with a brutish wave of flame, flooring her, truly leaving me on my own.

  Crap. Erik should have found Kaci by now. What’s taking him so long? I can’t stop to assist Summer even though she might need it—if I do, it’ll give Tristen’s team time to regroup.

  I pick up my pace, dodging Tristen’s flames as best as I can while relying on my suit’s temperature regulation system to keep me as safe as possible. He’s still above me and using Kaci to form panels to step on. She’s even stronger than I thought—just how far is her range?

  “Where you running, punk?” Tristen taunts me as a fireball crashes in front of me and spreads into a wall of flames. I shield myself from the flames and pivot to my right, still sticking to the plan. Kaci should be to the left, so even if we aren’t heading straight, I’m still putting distance between them and possibly messing with her line of sight. Another ball of fire cuts off my escape, but I press through it, enduring the embers as the cost for freedom. I look over my shoulder while I run and Tristen jumps forward, fire brewing in his hand. It looks like he intended to land on a panel, but one doesn’t materialize, causing him to fall to the ground from about ten feet. He manages to roll to mitigate the damage, and I greet him by running towards him to swing my branch across his face. I connect and hit him flush, but he simultaneously manages to summon enough strength to blast me from point-blank range with a fireball that has enough velocity behind it to send me flying into the nearest tree. My vison blurs while my back slides down the base of the bark, my body, numb with shock. In the distance, I can see Tristen walking towards me with a limp, pissed that we’d given him more trouble than he originally thought. The plan was perfect, but I failed. I wasn’t strong enough. If Erik would have hit him instead of me, Tristen wouldn’t be standing right now. I scan the area for Erik and Summer, but I don’t see them anywhere. Tristen’s flames are surrounding us—something he must have done while I was still shaking off the effects of his attack. Did he make his flames move or did he shoot more? A ball of fire flares up in Tristen’s hand and he points it at me while he’s only a foot or so away from me. “Not so tough now, are you?” My body runs cold at the sound of his voice. This whole time I thought I was going to do something, that I had more in me, but nothing’s changed. Sure, I’d outsmarted him, but that didn’t mean I could beat him. I’m powerless just like I’ve always been.

  No strategy can erase that.

  I’d provoked Tristen, and now I was going to pay the price.

  Tristen’s fire grows in intensity so I raise my arms to protect my face. “Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?” Tristen shoots the ball of fire from his hand, and I rush to close my eyes before it hits. I hear a scream, but it isn’t my own. It’s Tristen’s...and that’s when I see it. I open my eyes to see my hands glowing with that same dark energy I saw the day my parents died, the dark flames alive and well, if not stronger than before.

  My power fades and I see Tristen grounded at the base of a nearby tree opposite of me, the torso portion of his battle suit clearly damaged and the bottom half of his helmet, destroyed. I let out a sigh of relief, but I notice that the match hasn’t been called yet. Tristen didn’t submit and his condition hasn’t been deemed critical.

  Tristen stands using the base of the tree as support and begins to gather fire into his palm, but before he can release it, a beam of ice collides with him, knocking him out.

  “Summer?” She walks up from behind me, holding her left arm, which had apparently been injured somehow—the attack from Tristen most likely—the one I set her up to take. She must have used the forest to her advantage until she could recover enough to fight, that or she was waiting for the perfect time to strike.

  She doesn’t acknowledge me, but instead begins to ready another blast of ice if need be.

  “This concludes the exercise. Tristen is unable to continue. Well done, students.”

  Summer’s shoulders relax and the ice forming around her hand dissipates into the air, she then turns to me with a smile and gives me a thumbs up. “Good job, captain. We freaking did it.”

  “Yeah,” I muse weakly, “we did. Now, can you help me up?”

  “Sure.” Summer jogs over to me and helps me to my feet and gives me a hug, the pain from her arm no longer seeming relevant to her current state of being. “We freaking did it!” she repeats to me, giddily. She looks at me, and I look past her to see the aftermath of what we did to Tristen...how he’s still on the ground against the tree. The teachers have a read on all of our biometrics, right? He should be okay. Kaci emerges from the foreground and uses her power to peel away the thin layer of ice that Summer used, obviously concerned with his wellbeing. “Are you listening, Aiden? We freaking did it and your powers activated! That’s amazing! Aren’t you excited?” I deactivate my cowl and smile weakly after a long sigh.

  “I’m just trying to see if Tristen’s okay...” The last time my powers activated, I killed two people. I mean, yeah, it was self-defense, but still. I could have killed Tristen. Hell, I probably would have if it wasn’t for the suits.

  “He’ll be fine,” Summer assures me. “He deserves it, anyway. Trust me.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Summer’s burst of happiness fades once Mr. Hoover shows up to heal Tristen’s wounds. He heals him and checks on us to make sure we’re okay. We both say that we are, but he gives us both a simple touch to alleviate the soreness. He does the same for Kaci, and when he left, I assume he went to tend to Erik and Wayne.

  “Hey, Aiden?” Summer asks.

  “Yeah?” Summer freezes her fist and punches me in the gut as hard as she can, making me keel over.

  “What was that for?” I ask after I catch my breath.

  “For someone who’s so nice, you’re such an asshole, you know that? I caught on to your plan, you know? The one where you led Tristen away from Kaci while simultaneously almost getting me killed. It sucked, but it was crazy enough to actually work.”

  “You knew?”

  “Not at first, but I figured it out after a bit. You’re a guy and everything, but you’re not that dumb. It was genius to disorganize their formation while making it look like you were on the ropes.”

  “Yeah, I couldn’t have done it without Erik. He’s the one who threw the rock. I made it look like me because Tristen had a grudge. Has a grudge,” I say correcting myself between pained breaths.

  “Well, I sealed the deal when Tristen attacked me,” Summer smugly replies.

  “You mean that fireball he threw at you that knocked you out? You did that on purpose?” I ask, scrunching my face.

  “No, but yeah, kinda.” She shrugs. “I figured you were up to something, so I did what I could. Turns out that Kaci’s barrier made my ice into a barrier against Tristen’s attack. I knew it wasn’t going to hold, so I let it go through. The moment before it hit, I curbed most of the impact by making another shield—an intentional one that I was sure Kaci wouldn’t be able to see. I kept in the background and shadowed you guys just in case you needed me. I was going to hit him before you did, but I saw your powers come into play. I didn’t know if that’s what you were planning all along, but it sure as hell worked. Well, actually, judging by the way you reacted, I guess you didn’t know and it was blind luck... But who cares? We won and they lost—and apparently your powers are badass. It took me, like, three days to learn how to perfectly chill a can of soda and you’re out here blasting assholes into trees and shit. Solid,” she says with just the right hint of cool.

  I take a moment to look at the palm of my hands, still somewhat numb from the use of my power. “Yeah... I guess so.”

  “We sh
ould celebrate,” Summer says and deactivates her cowl.

  “Yeah?”

  “Like...tonight.” She runs her fingers through her hair before messing it up the way she likes it.

  “Really? I mean, we have class and everything. And we’re definitely going to be sore in the morning. I got slammed into a tree.”

  “Ugh.” Summer tilts her head back and sighs into the air. “You’re so lame. You’re coming out, Aiden. You’ve got to celebrate things like this. It’s no wonder you’re still single.”

  “Wait, what? Hey!” Before I can say anything else, Kaci shows up to join our conversation. This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder, and also, did Summer just ask me out on a date?

  “Great work out there, guys. It was a good match, but we’ll get you next time. The way that you divided us was smart. I thought my idea of a surprise attack would be enough. It obviously wasn’t. Maybe I’ll get one of you on my team next time instead of Tristen.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I respond, which is completely lame, but right about now, it’s all I got. It’s hard enough making eye contact with her, but with Summer literally two feet away from me shooting hate-lasers from her eyes, things are a lot more complicated. She did ask me out on a date, right? Or is she just being nice? I’m so bad with women. I honestly have no idea about what’s going on right now. Do I even like Summer? I mean, she’s cute, fierce, and her personality is hilarious, but do I?

  Oh, crap... I think I do...

  “Cool, well, I don’t want to interrupt your team chat, so I’ll see you guys around. Bye.”

  “Bye,” I say with a quick wave and nervous chuckle. “See you around.” Geez. See you around? What’s wrong with me? I watch her as she leaves and shake my head, disturbed by my lack of game. I’m pretty sure I just blew my chance at getting her number.

  “Ahem.” Summer coughs and I glance her way.

  “Sorry.”

  “As I was saying, we should celebrate. Meet me at the park on North Campus at ten, tonight.”

  “Okay, yeah. Cool, I guess.”

  “Chill out, I’m not going to kidnap you. What do you think people do at this academy all day? Study?”

  “Um, yeah...? As opposed to?”

  “Wow, you’re completely hopeless.” Summer face-palms and begins to laugh. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the only people who do that are probably you and like, five other people. Just relax, okay? It’ll be fun to get out of your dorm for once.”

  “For once?”

  “Yeah, for once.” She smiles. Tristen walks by the two of us, and I hold my tongue, refusing to say another word as he glares at me. Mr. Hoover may have healed his body, but his healing can’t do a thing for his pride. I blasted the hell out of him, and he doesn’t know that I can’t do it again if I wanted to. My powers coming out like they did was a fluke, but at least now there’s some information on them from my suit recording the readings of my body. With some practice, maybe I can get some help and learn to control them better. “Well, since we’re done here, I’m going to change and go do that thing I told you about, you know, living. I’ll see you tonight, and don’t wuss out.” Summer turns on her heel and makes her exit, leaving me alone in the forest amidst the destruction of our training exercise. I never really spoke to her before, but after being on her team, I realize that she’s not that bad.

  Who knew that the ice queen actually had a fun side?

  “Aiden?”

  “Yes?” I turn to find Mr. Hoover walking my way through the forest.

  “Congratulations on activating your powers. It was quite the showing.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I’m sure you have a lot of questions, and I’ll be happy to answer them. Your team goes in for their review tomorrow at the start of class. From there, we’ll talk about your team’s overall performance, and I’ll give you each individual feedback in private.”

  “Yes, sir.” I nod.

  “I’m impressed, Aiden. You did well, today. Now go get some rest.”

  “Will do, sir.”

  I take my time walking back to the lockers solely for the sake of avoiding Tristen. We won, but changing in the same room as him would be awkward, and I didn’t want anything to do with that. Instead, I thought about everything that had just transpired. My powers activating again, the field exercise, the upcoming review. Summer... Kaci. Well, everything. Things kind of went from zero to a hundred out of nowhere.

  When I get to the locker room, Tristen isn’t there, but Wayne is. We don’t say much, if anything at all. I never really had a chance to fight him, but I guess I didn’t have to. Erik took care of him, but I think Kaci found a way to take care of Erik. I didn’t bother to ask him about the details, because at the time, there was too much on my mind, and that same fog carried over even on the way back to my room.

  “So, how did it go?” my roommate asks as soon as I step into our living space.

  “Huh? What?” I ask, his question not quite registering in my mind.

  “They murked y’all that bad? My condolences. Better luck next time.”

  “Oh, no,” I respond, snapping to my senses. “We won.” I walk over to the frame of his door and lean against it, ready to engage in the questions that are sure to follow.

  “Aye, way to go, Aiden! How did you manage? Who were you up against? You gotta give me the deets. I mean, I knew you had it in you, but—”

  “Right, right,” I kid.

  “I’m serious. How did you pull it off without your powers? I knew you had potential, but that’s like an academy first. Going toe-to-toe with advanced students without powers and winning. Wild.”

  “Well...”

  “Don’t tell me you finally activated your powers? That’s like some textbook comic book shit, man. You activated them in the nick of time and kicked ass?”

  “Something like that.” I smirk, knowing full and well that things didn’t go quite like that. I hadn’t even thought of it like that until he said it, but yeah, in hindsight, it was some pretty wicked timing. Summer came in clutch, too.

  “Okay.” I sigh. “Where should I start? I guess from the beginning, right? Of course. The beginning, yeah. So, I go over to the gym and Mr. Hoover and Ms. Cosgrove talked to us about what’s going to happen. ABT. I’m scared, but at the same time, I’m wondering if I can get paired up with Kaci.”

  “Did it happen?”

  “Nope. Actually, the worst thing that could possibly happen, happened. So, I’m waiting for the teams to be announced and freaking Tristen asks Ms. Cosgrove about having someone on the team with no powers and if it was a handicap. He was talking about me,” I say flatly. “Ms. Cosgrove said that I have other strengths...which I do...but the fact that Tristen called me out in front of the whole class right before the exercise was a pretty crappy thing to do.”

  “What did she say your other strengths were?”

  “Close combat and tactical thinking,” I summarize, “but I’ll get to that point, later... So, it’s time for the squads to be announced, and not only is Kaci not on my team, but she’s with freaking Tristen, so like, I have to win. I can’t let him clown me in front of her, not after what he said before we broke off into teams.”

  “Right.” Tyler nods. “So, who ended up being on your team?”

  “Summer and some guy named Erik. Summer is like this broody chick with ice powers and Erik can manipulate the mass in his body... So, we get to talking and everything, and Summer is complaining about her existence while we wait to start, but the second it’s time to fight, she has a whole personality change and starts to take command. It was like she was putting on a show, but not really.”

  “She could have been doing it to get the upper hand on your opponents if they were in earshot.”

  “Maybe, but she’s still weird, even without that. Anyway...we come up with a strategy to win, but we end up getting ambushed by Tristen and his squad because Kaci used her powers to make Tristen essentially walk on air.”


  “Right, she makes barriers. Smart.” Tristen nods from his computer chair.

  “We couldn’t shake their strat because the ambush caught us off-guard, so I had to improvise. I told Erik to throw a rock at Tristen to find out where Kaci was—she was hiding.”

  “Looking for blind spots?”

  “Exactly, but that was only part of the plan. Erik hit him with the first rock, so we knew her location. I sent him after Kaci to get her out of range to assist Tristen. She was doing more than just giving him room to maneuver. She was also shielding him from Summer’s attacks. I think Summer and Tristen were about equal, power wise, but it was hard to tell. I had to eliminate that edge, so I provoked Tristen by making it seem like I was the one who hit him with the rock.”

  “Nice.”

  “Tristen chased after me, and I lured him away from Summer as well as his crew. I couldn’t let Summer in on what was happening. I was the leader for the exercise, so she was super confused.”

  “Yeah, I bet. It was all on the fly.”

  “Yup.” I nod. “She was hella angry, but apparently, she caught on. She still was pissed though.” I shrug.

  “So, what happened next?”

  “Kaci’s range gave out, I think, or Erik fought her. Maybe both, but all I know is that Tristen took a steep fall because when he was jumping for the next panel of Kaci’s, he fell. I had a branch in my hand and cracked it across his face when he landed.”

  “Freaking right.”

  “Payback—but he wasn’t down yet. He blasted me with a fireball and it sent me flying. We almost lost it right there, but I held on. Tristen walked up to me to finish the deal, and I put my hands up to shield my face, like this, and then my powers shot out of my hands and sent him flying just like how he did me.”

  “Classic comic book shit. Right at the edge of defeat,” he says and takes a sip of his soda.

  “It put him in a bad spot, but it wasn’t over. He was about to try again, but then Summer nailed him with her ice, and the match was called. So, yeah, we won.”