03/03/2018

Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park

State of Washington, Newcastle

9:00 AM

 

Danny Sparks felt that something was wrong, she opened her eyes and rose as though she was still in her thermal sleeping bag with the Academy logo on it. The blonde girl tried to listen to the noises around her to know if there was someone moving in the camp. All she got was animals noises and the grinding of trees against each other. 

*Nothing. But the air around me feels colder... no, frigid!* 

The blonde girl put herself on guard, she had seen how ones of the examinee used ice to control the terrain and render her opponent helpless. Danny focused on her senses and looked at the electric fields around her. 

*There! There is someone here!* 

Through her electric field manipulation power, Danny Sparks could see Electric fields that may exist as the bio-electric fields that form the aura of a person that flow through their nervous system and as an intrinsic field. That golden aura that she could see wasn’t from any of her teammates. Danny prepared herself for a confrontation and got out of her sleeping bag and put on her boots. The young girl deliberated in wanting to awaken her friends, preservation and competitivity won out on any pride she felt and Danny decided to get help. She woke up Carolyn first and pinched Erika who was resisting her attempt at waking her up by batting Danny’s hand out. 

“Rika, wake up! Danger!” 

The mousy girl woke up and sat while being in her sleeping bag and scanned around her with her eyes and power. Her eyes opened wide and she got out of the sleeping bag and put on her boots and gloves.  

“She’s here!” Erika said between her teeth. 

“Who?!” Carolyne was panicking. 

“Elissa, I know you are here girl!” Danny shouted. 

“Oh shit!” Carolyne swore. 

The three teammates went outside their tents and looked around, near the remains of their fire was the silhouette of someone who seemed to wait for them. It was a redhead in the same blue field uniform and armor as them. Elissa Von Braun, the female examinee that made this entire exam lively. When the three girls appeared from their shelter Elissa smiled at them and made them sign with her arms to come to join her. 

“You better go Danny, and please don’t piss her off.” Erika pleaded her leader and the mousy girl pushed her friend on the shoulders toward the dangerous redhead. 

Danny looked excited and apprehensive at the same time, the girl facing her has already taken a member of her group; certainly, she sacrificed him because he pissed her off. But still, she whittled them down and where were her teammates? Danny asked herself if they will attack them from behind, it would be a good plan. 

*But this girl doesn’t strike me as the underhanded sort.* Danny thought. 

***

 As for her, Elissa was waiting for team two to wake up; she had already killed the fire of their camp and buried the other team's junk in a hole in the ground as a courtesy. Crowy and Ravi looked from afar in a tree far from the camp, expecting a good show from their mistress. Elissa looked at the time on her CLO; it was already nine AM and she wasn’t patient enough, and as those girls were having a long lie in she unleashed her cold aura that generated cold air that lowered the temperature in the area, but not enough to freeze things around her, it would be considered an attack, after all. Finally, she saw the girls getting out of their tents and hesitantly coming out and looking really afraid. Elissa didn’t move and tried to appear non-threatening. The shortest girl in the team pushed Danny the leader toward her, Elissa looked at her.  

*Erika is her name, right? Why is she looking at me warily? As if I am a snake or another venomous animal…* 

“Hey, Von Braun.” Danny greeted her rival. 

“Sparks.” Elissa acknowledged the blonde girl with a careful little nod. 

“Why are you here?” It stumped Danny, Von Braun should be well ahead of them; why was she losing time on her team? It picked the young girl’s interest. 

“I like that, you are direct. Let’s say I came with a proposition for you and your team.” The redhead made a beautiful smile and pointed at her CLO to Danny. Elissa liked frank people, she had noticed that people were used to turning around the subject a lot and it had always stumped her that they would do that. This was one of the reasons she didn’t have a lot of friends. 

“Mhm, what might it be?” Intrigued, Danny put her arm around her. 

From head to toe she gazed at the redhead, Danny wasn’t used to thinking that someone was stronger than her beyond her mother who is a team member in the supergroup called the Misfits. Danny did not want to acknowledge it but Elissa’s mannerism, her way of carrying herself and language intimidated her; she was someone that would always attract attention to herself. The blonde girl hides her feelings with a jovial smile and continued to listen to the redhead. 

“I discovered a function on the 3D map of my CLO. Call the map and touch the dot that shows the position of your team.” Elissa explained. 

Danny, did as she asked while being on her guard. The young girl called her map and the interactive hologram appeared, the red dot showing team two’s location in the wildland park was there. Danny put her finger on it and other dots appeared. It showed to her two of them merged as the two teams were being close to each other. The young girl looked at Elissa that smiled at her confidently, her arms on her hips. 

“Where is your team?” Danny looked around, in the meadow where they have pitched their tent. 

“There.” Elissa threw a thumb behind her. 

The blonde examinee could see fifteen meters behind Elissa two people hid behind a sequoia rendered bare with a crackled trunk because of the low temperature. The two teammates of Elissa watched the two face off with barely undisguised curiosity. They had a plan if things turned sour, when Elissa told them that she will hire the services of team two instead of fighting them they had looked at the redhead as if she had two heads; but Elissa had told them that using the team of girls because she would be weak when she catches up to team three. Dawn wanted to fight, Donovan wanted to avoid it and they had argued vehemently on this point until Elissa broke it off and said that she had a plan and here they are now. 

Coming back to the situation, Danny Sparks didn’t see any special new thing on the map, just their relative positions. 

“What is it you want to show me?” She asked Elissa. 

The redhead crossed her arm under her breastplate and rolled her eyes at Danny, it was obvious to her, why couldn’t she see it. 

“Sparks, look at team three.” Elissa finally said. 

“Huh, team three?” The blonde girl raised a well-groomed eyebrow. 

Danny looked for another dot on the map and zoomed out by using her free hand. What she saw surprised her and she looked at Elissa in urgency, her eyes wide. 

“Why are they so near the goal already?!” Danny shouted. 

The superhuman girl’s eyes went to her teammates and to team two; she trembled in panic, or maybe the cold air wasn’t agreeing with her. Elissa remembered that her cold aura was activated and retracted it, the temperature gradually became better as much as it could, but it was still winter. Erika and Carolyn looked at the map on their CLO and their face suddenly echoed Danny’s. 

“Well, those four ran all night and are now taking a break from what I could see with my scrying.” Elissa explained. 

Unfortunately, Danny looked at her as if she was talking in Chinese with a troubled face. 

“Scrying?” 

Elissa was shocked that this girl didn’t understand the concept, but stopped herself from thinking that she was stupid. Scrying was both an arcane and divine magic spell that allowed the caster to view a subject at a great distance and possibly across the planes of existence. Danny Sparks didn’t seem to be the kind of young girl into fantasy books to Elissa, more like a muscle brain. 

“You know, remote viewing like with drones? But with magic.” The redhead tried to explain. 

It was as if a light was ON in Danny’s eyes, she now understood. “Ah, sure. So you know where they are, they might win this exam.” 

Elissa squinted her eyes and said, “Eh, I don’t think so.” 

Danny nodded at that and made an appreciative smile at the redhead, as she guessed that Elissa girl was a firecracker; she was not the kind of girl at giving an inch when others wanted to take a mile. The blonde girl put a hand on her hips and looked at the red dot on the map showing the location of team three, her eyes grew menacing. 

“What do you want to propose us, then?” Danny asked, excited. 

“First, my team and I will take you on our flying sled and you will be in the position of being number two to reach the light pillar. But I want you to take care of team three beforehand. Secondly, I wanna have a good spar with you before catching up to the other team. Deal?”  

The redhead smiled and looked at Danny. Certainly she wasn’t telling her a number of things when she put her card on the tables but she expected her to take the deal; after all, she would take number two and Elissa’s team won’t hinder her anymore and would have a common goal. Elissa couldn’t fly her team and then fight right after that, her mana and stamina will be depleted and she wasn’t keen on relying too much on her new friends. Still, they will play a role. Last night Elissa got an idea of Dawn’s strength and weaknesses, as for Donovan he was a tank while absorbing the power of kinetic energy coming at him; even moving around powered him up. There was, of course, a plan B if team two refused but Elissa hoped she didn’t have to do it. 

“I’m interested, but I smell something fishy as if you aren’t telling me something.” 

Elissa thought that this girl wasn’t as muscle brained as she thought. In fact, both of them have been sizing up each other for weaknesses since they met. 

“Take it or leave it, I could easily take them but those people aren’t like the guy I took out from your team yesterday. They are good people and there seems to be another mage with them.” Elissa told the blonde girl. 

Yes, she didn’t want to have done something too drastic to those four who outplayed them. 

“Oh, so you aren’t quite the raging bull I thought you were Von Braun. You are cunning and ruthless, admirable qualities that I like.” Danny said, surprised after hearing Elissa’s reason. 

Elissa giggled. “No, I just have… a temper, sorry if I gave you a bad first impression. But usually, I prefer to not go half-cocked in any kind of action normally.”  

“Fair enough, I believe you. That loser from yesterday didn’t deserve any sympathy, anyway.” Danny answered, with a wave of her hand. 

The young girl really didn’t like people like that YOD guy, demeaning and that felt superior to others for no reasons whatsoever. 

“Do you want to fight?” Elissa offered, her body already relaxing, her gaze making itself predatory. 

This change of behavior was mirrored by Danny who smoothed out the wrinkles on her pants. 

“Sure,” Danny answered after shrugging her shoulders.

***  

Erika calmed down when she realized that she didn’t get any flash of danger from her ability. Nothing untoward was going to happen, she felt it; when she thought that, she saw Danny send a bolt of electricity toward Elissa that deflected it with an arm encased in ice. The redhead was encased in a blue and chilly aura that formed ice on her body. Elissa looked straight at her, her body coiling has she prepared to propel herself with her ice manipulation power.

The precog panicked but foresaw that bad thing™ would happen if they intervened, so she put an arm around Carolyn’s waist to stop her from interfering in Danny’s fight. Erika saw Elissa launch toward her friend by passing two jets of ice in the opposite direction with her arms and with her momentum, punch Danny in the guts sending her crashing in a tree ten meters behind. A forcefield of crackling electricity cushioned Danny’s fall. The blonde girl looked at Elissa and smiled crazily as she felt the adrenaline coursing through her body; Erika knew that face, her friend was having the time of her life. The mousy blonde girl asked herself how she became friends with a battle junky.  

Danny rocketed with her electromagnetic charge toward Elissa who avoided her tackle and caught her by the ankle and tried to punch her in the body again; but being wise to her tricks, Danny stopped her blows with timed short duration forcefields, then she attacked by discharging electricity around herself. Elissa who was brought to a knee by the electrical shock released Danny’s ankle and retreated back using the same continuous ice jet propulsion technique she used at the start of the confrontation. 

The two girls stopped moving and gazed at each other, their blood pumping as they are ready to fight; each of the girls looking for weaknesses in each others as they were not even sweating or panting yet as their superhuman constitution gave them tremendous durability and stamina. Elissa didn’t spend her time being idle, she deployed her cold generation in the space between Danny and her; sharp pointy icicles sprang from the ground, the air and humidity above the icicles formed more of them in the air and they suddenly began to rain down toward Danny. The blonde girl, with her electrically enhanced reflex and reaction speed, avoided most of them. It was a shame that this delayed her from noticing Elissa immobilize her right foot in a freeze hold making her unable to avoid the icicle that charged toward her in her blind spot. Fortunately, the shield of her armor stopped the impact of the ice pike from stabbing her throat. 

Danny looked at Elissa with fright as she perspired and was left panting with ragged breaths. The blonde girl never had a more intense fight in her life even as short as it was, for the first time the will to fight a superior foe vanished and she said words she didn’t believe she would have said one day. 

“I yield.” 

As Elissa walked toward her, Danny thought that she didn’t want to stop and beat her up some more but those thoughts were dashed when the redhead held out her hand before her, waiting for the blonde girl to take it. After a long moment, Danny took the redheads hand and she was put on her feet and she began to wipe the snow from her bottom pants.  

Elissa smiled at her. 

“You are good.” The redhead said sincerely. 

Elissa combed her hair with her left hand as they were in disarray because of the fight, briefly closing her eyes and opening them to look at a smiling Danny who was as disheveled as her. Danny and the redhead’s field uniform was stained by mud and snow; Elissa waved her hand and a golden light covered them, the earthen dirt came off of them in clumps on the ground. Their uniform and armor were now pristine. Danny looked at Elissa in awe, touching her uniform to check if it was really clean; once satisfied she told to Elissa, “Not as good as you…” 

“Sparks, I mean Danny, I can call you that right?” Elissa came beside the girl and passed an arm around her shoulders. 

Danny felt awkward for an instant and calculated what she should do, should she reject the friendly overtures of Elissa or accept them. Pride dictated that she should, but it the blonde girl felt the warmness of the redhead and remembered how she helped her get on her feet after the fight.  

“Be my guest.” Danny grinned at her after finally deciding to open up to Elissa. 

As for the redhead she was gauging Danny’s fitness when she put her arm amicably around the blonde girl’s shoulder. Danny was a fit young woman, taller than Elissa and the way she moved while fighting her reminded the redhead of the Amazon combat form she had personally experienced. Elissa took her arm off Danny’s shoulders and began to ponder about the fight and how each of them moved. 

Elissa’s eyes found Danny’s, they were full of uncertainty, the redhead felt that she wanted to clear a path for her newfound rival. It was clear that the blonde girl was now doubting herself now that Elissa had defeated her. The redhead desired to erase any misconception the young woman has made. 

“Danny, you’ve had excellent training. You’re strong and deceitfully fast. But the way you used your powers doesn’t seem efficient at all. Do you have any knowledge about how electricity works?” Elissa lectured. 

Danny shook her head. Since she was little the blonde girl has been more interested in looking pretty and fighting. Her school grades could be said to be average and she tanked chemistry and physics. The young girl felt more like a failure suddenly, and her gaze lowered. Elissa took Danny’s chin between her thumb and index and made her look at her. 

“So that is the problem… Danny if you had total control of your abilities you would have wiped the floor with me.” 

The other members of team two approached them and listened to Elissa review their battle with Danny. The members of team one did the same. The blonde girl didn’t notice anyone as her eyes lost themselves in the emerald green orb of Elissa’s eyes. She could feel the honesty in the redheads gaze, but self-doubt engulfed her yet again as she remembered at how helpless she felt when Elissa took her down savagely.  

The girl before her was powerful, brutal and efficient. 

“I can’t see it, you were overwhelming.” Danny murmured. 

Elissa heard her and her shoulders slumped; maybe she did go to strong in their sparring. The redhead sighed. “Danny, your powers are electrical manipulation right?”  

Danny nodded. 

“You should be able to feel the flow of electrons and protons all around you to control electrical fields, all charge carriers, and electromagnetic forces.” Elissa shaped an atom model with her ice with the electrons orbiting around it as an example. “See that? You should be able to shape your lightning like I do, make constructs of lightning.” The redhead formed a different shape with her ice; a sword, a shield and the statue of a bird. 

Danny opened her eyes wide, scarcely believing what the redhead was trying to tell her. She approached Elissa and took her wrist in her hand and looked at her feverishly. There was a gleam of fervent interest in her blue eyes. 

“I can do that?” Danny asked. “I mean, I know how to create forcefield, lightning bolts, buff my body or detect people using a bioelectric field and boost my reflexes but I didn’t try to do more…” 

Elissa laughed at her and rolled her eyes, she flipped her hair behind her. Elissa remembered how hellish her training had been to learn how ice worked four years ago; Malicia crammed as much science and magical physics into her brain as she could. One month ago she couldn’t reach sub-zero, and now she could do it effortlessly because of a trip into space her mother made her undergo by opening a portal to space. Malicia had truly tested her daughter's immunity to the extreme cold, and Elissa didn’t die but became stronger after this experience where she almost suffocated.  

The redhead shivered just by thinking about it. 

“Danny that’s really short-sighted of you, you should study electricity more and try to apply what you learn to your power. Honestly, you could be upper Alpha rank if you knew more.”

Danny had never liked to study too much, but now her world was shaken by this girl. Raw strength wasn’t enough, but knowledge on how to best use your strength is required. The blonde girl realized that if she had continued as she had she would have hit a wall anyway; she’s lucky that she found someone like Elissa to ‘gently’ show her the way. 

*Gently, huh?* Danny thought.

“Now that’s interesting! So that’s how you are so strong, you know everything about ice?!” The blonde girl approached Elissa a bit more, it made the redhead step back a bit as Danny was being a bother by entering her personal space. 

“Indeed, magical and scientific knowledge. Danny, I am not that great. In fact, I am weak. I realized that long ago! I know people who would wipe the floor with me, I struggled in this fight. If you knew more about electricity I would have lost. From now on, I will train even more.” Elissa continued to explain to the girl. 

Danny Sparks came to a decision in her heart, she nodded at Elissa and made a happy grin. 

“Me too, I will learn! Huh, oh hey girls you are here!” Danny finally noticed Erika and Carolyn. 

Erika and Carolyn rolled their eyes in unison, they were used to their friend being super oblivious; but here she was really distracted after her fight. It was the first time that the two girls had seen their leader lose a super fight and they worried that she might take it badly. However, she was her cheerful self and was getting cozy with the magic redhead, who against all odds didn’t seem like such a bitch after all. She was coaching and gave pieces of advice to Danny. 

“Don, Dawn.” Elissa acknowledged her teammates. 

Dawn couldn’t believe how awesome and fast Elissa’s fight was, the exchange was still brutal and the redhead had goaded Danny into fighting on her terms to finally ambush her with her Icicles spells. The Asian girl couldn’t believe how Elissa could mix magic with her natural abilities like this, they acted so seamlessly that you would think it’s just one and the same. But she knew the difference simply because of the flare of mana at each moment she deployed her spell construct. Normally you would see a magical circle form when someone unleashes their spells but you couldn’t with Elissa, it was too fast. 

“This fight was awesome Elissa!” Dawn shouted exuberantly as she hugged her new friend. 

“It was cool.” Donovan agreed by raising his chin at the redhead. 

His gaze fell on Danny, roaming with interest before anyone could see it, but Erika caught it and became amused by the boy. 

“So what are we going to do now?” Carolyn interjected. 

She looked at Donovan with interest herself, he was her type. Danny acquiesced to the same feeling as her friend and turned to Elissa while looking at her expectantly. 

“Well, we are going to fly.” Elissa nodded to her right as she answered confidently. 

Everyone turned themselves in the direction she points, an ice construct materialized near them. It was a bigger sled than the one they arrived on, with thicker support in its construction. 

“Dawn will help me enchant the sled with runes to lighten the sled, Donovan when we arrive near the pillar you will jump and stop team three from reaching the light pillar.” Elissa looked at Danny and her friends. “Team two will engage team three, girls don’t go easy on them; they have a fire mage and a strong man. I don’t know what might be the abilities of the other two girls but expect the worst, Dawn and I will act as support.” 

A plan formed into Elissa’s mind as she was speaking. 

“Huh, you won’t fight?” Erika asked weirded out by Elissa’s plan. 

Elissa shook her head and tilted it as she looked at Erika. “Huhu, nope. I want to see what all of you can do, if you do well I will partner with you for those field mission training for an entire year.” She said extending her carrots. 

“You would?!” Danny jumped toward Elissa putting her hands on her shoulder and looking excitedly at her. 

Tesla Academy organized missions training that counted in the grades, it could range from investigations to capture the flag or other simulations games. First responders, seek and destroy, the Academy was a semi-militaristic entity; the Academy boasted producing a great number of excellent recruits for supergroups all other the US. That’s why they had uniforms already on even though they just joined in the placement exams. 

“I always keep my word,” Elissa answered patting Danny’s head. 

The blond girl reminded her of her little canine familiar Chun-Li. 

“Let’s do this!” Dawn shouted with a fist in the air. 

Ravi and Crowy were sleeping as the entire situation bored them. 

***  

“I knew it, the underdog team is going to win!” The director was almost dancing while looking at team three almost reaching the light pillar that would teleport them to the rest area. The four teammates ran all night and had to take breaks to permit to the fire mage boy, Wayne to rest as he didn’t have their stamina and robust bodies. Their gambit was paying its dividends as they almost were about to win! 

He was worried when he saw team one and team two battle each other, after all that girl Von Braun, might wound the girls in team two. But it didn’t happen as they were discussing something that the drones couldn’t get. It was as if a sound barrier was around them that neutralized vibrations and from any words leaking out. The director knew that it was magic, magic was difficult to pin down and he was a man of science and didn’t know how it worked.  

The director was absorbed in his own thought when the cry of one of the examinator rang out beside him. The older man looked at the female staff and asked what was wrong. 

“Madre de Dios, they are flying!” The young woman said in an astonished voice. 

The director looked at the radar screen and fair enough team one and two were flying and were almost upon the light pillar. The drones captured a sky view of what was happening there was a red line of light deployed between team three and the light pillar. The boy on team one and the girls of team two jumped from the flying contraption they were on and put themselves behind the line. All adopted fighting stances, ready to fight. 

“What?!” The director’s hands tightened into fists. “This is cheating!” 

“Not really sir, this is not against the rules.” The female examiner said after sighing loudly. She took out her wallet and got a 20$ bills from it and handed it to the man beside her. 

“No! Nothing is decided yet! Team Three will win!” The older man chooses to believe in team three, he wasn't willing to accept that this brutal girl might win! 

The fight between all the teams was on.