Leo

As soon as I made my way out of the crowded City Hall building, I made a bee-line for my room. I didn't even think about telling anyone where I was going. All I wanted to do was get away from everyone right now and sleep it off. My mind was fixing to explode from thoughts about Linus. After what I learned about him, I now understood how good he was at driving people crazy. It was in his sick nature.

I bolted straight into my room. (Literally, I didn't even open the door. I just walked right through it, forgetting my strength again.) The only thing I was worried about was Linus coming back to torture me again while I was sleeping. Sighing, I went over to the now broken door, opened it the correct way, and went across my room to Hazel and Maxine's. Crap, I thought, realizing that Hazel and Maxine were probably hanging around at City Hall. I didn't care though; my spinning head had other plans. So I broke the doorknob, shoved the door open, and made my way over to Hazel's bed. I didn't think about any of my worries anymore as soon as my body fell onto the mattress.

~

"Leo, get up," a voice called. I didn't respond right away. My head was swimming as I began to wake up.

"Leo, I said get up," the voice repeated, sounding more urgent. This time, I groaned, but didn't move. Whoever this was needed to leave.

I heard the voice sigh impatiently, then it yelled in my face, "Leo, get UP!" As soon as the voice said that, I felt something hard hit me straight in the face. My eyes popped open to see, of course, Hazel, standing by the bed. She was holding what looked like a very thick magazine in her hands, and looked quite angry.

"Dude, what was that for?" I asked, rubbing my nose from where she hit me. Then I remembered that I was in her room, and in her bed. Also, my eyes glanced past Hazel to the door I broke to get in. Of course she'd be mad that I came in here without asking.

"Well, let's see, you broke into my room, which gave me a heart attack when I saw the door was shattered. Then I see you asleep in my bed, when you didn't ask me if you could do that. And even if you asked me, I'd still say no!" Hazel took a deep, irritated breath, then said more calmly. "Don't you remember we have a meeting to go to tonight at nine? Well, it's 8:55. Get up and let's go."

I couldn't help but stare blankly at her. Did I really sleep for that long? Why didn't anyone wake me up? Maybe Hazel was out all day doing stuff with the colony, and didn't find me until now. I secretly felt jealous that she got to explore today and I didn't. But I quickly pushed that thought aside in my head and got up out of her bed. I already had clothes on, so I brushed them off to unwrinkle them a bit, and I ran my fingers through my tangled hair as we headed over to the field Dr. Baker told us to go to.

The field Dr. Baker was referring to from the meeting this morning was a small, deserted patch of land on the far side of the colony. There were no lights to see anything, except for the artificial moonlight and stars in the fake sky. I was surprised that we found our way over here. Even though I could barely see them, I heard many others who were here also. I heard the familiar, high-pitched voice of Maxine talking to someone. Linus's cocky voice spoke back to her, which made my face burn in anger. I had to control my emotions.

Then, we all heard a voice say, "Zoe, lights on," and immediately following that, the whole field was covered in bright, neon blue light. I discovered there were more people here than I expected. The girl named Zoe, who I assumed turned the lights on, was standing close by. The luminous blue light was coming from her hair, providing everyone with visibility out in the field. Zoe, an average-sized girl with glowing blue hair as her mutation, looked around sheepishly, blushing almost as bright as her hair.

Everyone then started moving in bunches, creating a small path as if someone royal were approaching. Dr. Baker and Sergeant Hammond made their way over to us, each carrying large guns over their shoulders. I couldn't help but gulp loudly. What kind of meeting was this going to be? Were we going back outside?

"Alright everyone! Gather around! You'll be wanting to hear this!" Dr. Baker said, and immediately everyone huddled around her, listening intently. She seemed more tense tonight than usual. Everyone around us was so curious and silent that we could hear everyone inhaling the humid air.

Dr. Baker hesitated for a second, forced a big smile, then said, "Welcome, Mutant Army. Okay, so this meeting tonight will be the first one out of many for the next few weeks. Like I said in our previous meeting, we are at war with our enemy, Dr. Evansby. And he's not going to stop until he gets what he wants." Her smile turned into a frown, clearly she was thinking of Evansby. "Anyways, with that situation currently happening, we must be prepared. So, we will begin our training. To make us stronger, smarter, and more understanding of how our powers work. If we're going to win this battle against Evansby, then we need to be able to fight. So, with that said, Sergeant Hammond and I will help you train over the next few weeks."

She stopped talking and scanned the crowd and their reactions. Mostly, everyone was either nodding in agreement or in deep thought. Hazel and I glanced at each other, and were were clearly thinking of the same thing. This war between us and Evansby was real, and it was happening as we spoke. We had to learn to fight and defeat him and his army. And all the training was starting tonight, whether we liked it or not.

Sergeant Hammond cleared his throat and stepped forward. His hard, serious face was visible through the blue light radiating off of Zoe's hair. Then he spoke in an authoritative tone, "Okay, you heard Dr. Baker. We will begin training you every day, at certain times that we tell you. Training won't be every night at 9 like it is tonight. Most likely, we'll train during the day. I'll give you a schedule to follow. Now, with all that said, I want everyone to divide into pairs. Go."

People stared at him like he was speaking in another language for a second, then they obeyed his order. I, of course, grabbed Hazel's arm to claim her as my partner before Maxine could come and grab her. I really didn't want to deal with people I wasn't familiar with tonight, or even Linus. Luckily, Maxine and blue-haired Zoe were paired together, while Linus was stuck with a scary-looking boy who could make his entire body turn into a fireball. I grinned at the thought of the boy accidentally setting Linus's clothes on fire.

Sergeant Hammond explained to us what we were doing with our partners. It was a simple dueling exercise, and our goal was to use our powers to defeat our opponents. Hazel grinned at me, obviously excited that she might get a chance to beat me up. I wanted to show her that I could easily beat her, but I knew in my mind that Hazel was more capable of beating me with her powers. Maybe she'd go easy on me...

But I was wrong. Within the first few minutes, Hazel already levitated me into the air and has had me dangling in the air upside-down for 5 minutes. The biggest advantage she had was that she had the power to control you with her mind. I tried to use my speed to zoom out of the way, but she caught me off guard. Her mind sent force fields from all directions to knock me down, and then I'd end up in the air again. I couldn't help but smile at how much I was making her laugh.

"Hazel, I don't know about this," I told her nervously. She asked me to lift her up by her legs for some reason. This was probably one of her crazy ideas.

"I swear, I'll be fine!" She said, giggling. "Now on the count of 3, I want you to throw me as hard as you can into the air and-"

"No, I'm not doing that! You don't know how strong I am! I don't want you to go that high up there!" I really didn't want Hazel to get her way, but I was really thinking of how epic it would be for her to fly into the air....

"Leo, trust me. I can control my powers. I can levitate my own body and control how fast I'm falling. Just hold me up and when I say 3, throw me as hard as you can in the air. Please?" She begged, making a hurt face. I prayed I wasn't going to kill her.

"Okay, 1..." Hazel said in a sing-song voice. People around us overheard us and had gathered around to watch. I had a bad feeling about this. "2...." I braced myself to throw her body as hard as I could. "3!"

I bent my knees slightly, then I launched Hazel into the sky. I heard her screaming with joy as she disappeared into the dark and artificial sky, and into the artificial clouds. Everyone was cheering and chanting for her, and were clearly amazed. I glanced over at Dr. Baker and Sergeant Hammond, who looked annoyed that I interrupted their training session. My cheeks turned hot and I quickly gazed into the sky again. Hazel was nowhere in sight yet. Then...

Hazel

As soon as I was launched into the air by Leo, all thoughts left me. No stress, worry, or fear. I was just in my own little world, flying in the sky. Never would I have thought that in my life, I'd be levitating my body into the air. It was like some extreme version of skydiving, where I have complete control. I've never felt such a rush in my life, feeling the cool, humid air hit my face and being thousands of feet in the air.

Then I see the top of the underground, rocky ceiling. It was easy to forget that we were underground. If you looked up at the sky from the ground down here, you'd see a normal, perfect sky. Thanks to Dr. Baker's technology, she created the sky for us to remember what it was like before the mutation outbreak happened. I missed those days so much...

I wondered where my parents and siblings were. They could be dead for all I knew. My curiosity about them grew everyday, and I kept telling myself they were okay. Maybe they developed mutations like me and were safe in an underground colony somewhere else. If only I could connect with their minds somehow. I've never tried mind reading at long distances before. I'd have to ask Dr. Baker about it...

I was too busy thinking about my powers and my family that I almost flew full-force into the rocky ceiling of the underground colony. Luckily, I thrust a force field in front of me just before I made impact. Because I stopped so suddenly, my head banged against a pointy rock sticking out of the ceiling. I winced at the pain, and saw some of my blood smeared on the surface of the rock. Great, I'd never get to do this again when Leo saw my wound on my forehead.

I re-positioned myself so my back laid against the rock, and so I was looking straight down into the colony. The height scared me when I first glanced down, but then I found it to be kind of peaceful. Then, I started to slowly glide downwards, through the clouds, and back towards the ground. I felt like a bird, with no worry and no care. All I was doing was gently falling and guiding myself back to the grassy clearing again.