Chapter 10 – Fight Club

When I get to 640 the next day it’s almost full. I pick out a desk towards the back and feel grateful it’s single desks so I don’t have to worry about a partner. I notice them all sneaking glances at me – some more obviously than others. I keep my head down and ignore them. The classroom goes completely quiet when the door bursts open and professor Holt steps in.

“Everyone here? Everyone here. Good. As most of you have realized we have a new student in our ranks, so for her sake let’s go over what we do here. First of all, I don’t run my classes ability specific, so you’ll meet all sorts of people here. We work with general tools to help you perform better in any type of situation. And secondly, I am in charge of all level four classes on this floor, so it’s wise to not get on my bad side. Now, who can name the list of level 4 classes for me?” He doesn’t pick anyone, he just turns around and writes 640 on the blackboard behind him.

“Homeroom. Every day starts here, and we decide what we want to do for the day,” a girl calls to him. He writes that next to 640 and writes 641 on a line beneath it.

“Familiarity,” a guy in my row says.

“Explain,” the teacher demands.

“We do exercises to strengthen familiarity, or sometimes in unfamiliar surroundings to become better at quickly familiarizing ourselves.”

“Good. Next.”

 “Blind,” someone else says. “Practicing doing things without the use of sight.”

 “Movement Free. Most people use hand movements or something similar when using their ability, in this class, we practice not doing that in order to strengthen precision and to be less obvious.”

“Speed – we sometimes do that in pairs and old western style – who can draw the fastest.”

“Brain Gym. Exercises designed to strengthen the brain as a muscle, it’s basically puzzles and such, nothing to do with powers – but if by the end of the month we haven’t chosen it at least twice he’ll make us spend a week in there, and anyone who doesn’t show up… I don’t actually know what he does, but they never miss a class again.”

“You cannot depend on your muscles if you don’t train them,” the professor states. “If you are unwilling to train simply because there are more interesting things you could do with your time you don’t belong in this class.” The sergeant spend most of his career being a soldier, and still, this man looks healthier and in better shape than him. I wonder if they have an actual gym around here somewhere. “Room 646,” he says and lets the matter rest.

“Out of the hat. Students have the chance to come up with their own scenarios and place them in a hat; when in room 646 a scenario is picked from the hat and every student has to go through that scenario. In the end, we discuss the different tactics, and the person who wrote the scenario fesses up.”

“War room. Our equivalent of dodgeball stratego. The room is only opened where there are at least three teachers present to prevent injuries. We basically divide into teams and fight using only abilities. It’s not as harmful as it sounds, we have goals to complete and only try to misdirect or incapacitate members of the other team.”

“Fight Club. The room is only used when a student volunteers. Unlike war room with teams, the fight club is one student against all the others. No one has won the Fight Club in ages, and it’s quite a big deal. You get to write your name on the wall if you win it.”

“Students use it to prove their worth or test themselves. It is solely for your purpose, we don’t teach anything in there,” professor Holt tells me. “And who can give me room 649?”

“Scenario room. A mix of gifts go into creating a believable scene within the room, and the student then has to make his or her way through it with whatever obstacles have been constructed to highlight the student’s weakness.”

“To let the student overcome their weaknesses,” the Professor corrects. “The scenario room is as close as you will come to an exam in my classes. All of these are extracurriculars, none of you are required to be here – and therefore I expect you to bring your best every day or stay away. We meet up here, in 640, every day and decide as a group where we want to spend the day.”

 “I volunteer miss Langdale for the Fight Club,” a guy two rows in front of me says with a laugh.

“We don’t volunteer others,” professor Holt reminds him. “But if Lizzy wants to, she’s welcome to prove herself.” He looks at me.

“Why should I?” I ask.

“To preserve the glory of the Langdale name!” the guy mocks. I turn and face my challenger.

“Our glory doesn’t lie in accepting petty challenges or constantly proving that we’re the best. Our glory lies in picking our battles and not letting people dictate our moves. Why does everyone think we’re so violent?”

“Because you’re supposedly the most powerful family on the planet, and you come in here and just rush through all the classes we’ve spend years getting through,” a blond girl towards the front of the class explains.

“So you want to see the great house of Langdale fail at something? Would that make you feel better?” The door to the classroom opens again and a tall, thin guy with long-ish, messy hair steps through it.

“You’re late,” the professor comments. “I didn’t think you’d be joining us today.”

“It’s Thursday,” he comments as if that was some kind of excuse.

“I want you to go back to bed,” the teacher tells him.

“And I want you to stick it,” he says and dumps himself in a chair in the corner with his head in his hands.

“I think we’ll save the Fight Club for another day,” the professor says.

“What, someone volunteered?” the scrawny guy says. “Who?”

“No one,” the professor says.

“It was her, wasn’t it? The Langdale girl is here to prove us all fools and dazzle us with her talents.” And that’s it. All it takes is that last comment from a scrawny boy who can’t even show up on time for a class he takes voluntarily. I’m sick of them talking to me like that, and I’m going to make it stop.

“I’ll accept the challenge,” I say loudly. “If everyone stops challenging me to fights, everyone stops assuming I’m proud and conceited and here to make everyone else look bad. I do this and you all stop acting like you know anything at all about my family.”

“I can’t stop you from volunteering,” the professor remarks. “But I will remind you that you don’t even know what abilities are out there.”

“When I get my ass kicked they can stop thinking I’m invincible or infallible. That’s all I need for now.” If I’m going to humiliate myself in this class I might as well get something out of it. Of course, I don’t know if I’ll actually get them to stop like this. Who cares, I’m angry, and I want an outlet.

“Some victory you guys will have today,” he says and opens the door. Some of my classmates get up eagerly, others are more hesitant. All of them get up though. I follow as the last one – or second to last, the tardy boy makes up the tail of the group dragging his feet as if he couldn’t care less. We make our way across the floor to a door marked 648. Professor Holt looks past the others till he catches my eye. I have two older brothers, this won’t be the first time I’ve gotten my ass kicked. Hale could always make the couch swallow me, the stairs throw me off, or the vacuum eat my hair. And Criss could hear mother and the sergeant’s car from miles away – when he was 6 he stuffed legos in there somewhere, the sound is quite distinctive – so they never got in trouble with the sergeant. Mother, of course, could read their guilty consciences like an open book, but since the sergeant encouraged the use of gifts at the house, she would comfort me instead of scolding them.

“What are the rules?” I ask.

“There’s only one rule in fight club,” someone besides me says with an air of mischief and humor.

“Don’t tell the other teachers I let you do this,” professor Holt says.

“Okay then.” I go in and position myself in the middle of the room. It’s decorated like a living room, with couches and a table and bookshelves, plenty of ammo to throw with. The others follow in. I do my best to imprint every single one of them in my mind. Challenge boy is wearing a tank top, the really loose kind. Tardy boy is so thin I’ll easily recognize him. One girl has a braid down to her knees, one has short hair and a nose piercing, one guy has a chain hanging from his pants, another is wearing shorts. I find identifying features for as many as I can in as short a time span as I can.

“What happens here stays here,” the professor says. I listen with half an ear, still focused on mapping out my surroundings. “And I am not allowed to get involved. I would, however, say that anyone with any decency would allow her a few minutes to prepare herself.” He steps back to a corner, and they all form a circle around me.

“I do this,” I say. “And no more challenges. No rooftop fights, no fight clubs, nothing. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” my challenger says and a few others nod. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Tank top boy moves behind me, braid girl moves more to the front, earing guy moves back, thin, tardy guy moves to a corner and leans against the wall. I can sense them looking around at each other, none of them willing to throw the first stone.

“She’s showing off, she’s going to do it blindly,” tardy guy says. Tank top guy holds out his hand to his side, and I feel heat rising there. Fire. Like Andy, except hand controlled. Easy enough to handle. I sense him lifting it up and preparing to throw, but then braid girl makes a sudden movement and a gust of wind throws me off my balance. I just manage to throw myself inelegantly to the ground to avoid the heat flying over my head. I stay down and wait for the next attempt. It comes from a pair of hoop earrings to my right sending a table at me. I catch it in the air and send it to my right towards my challenger. I hear an odd sort of breaking sound, and the boy with the chain is suddenly no longer a there. I slowly get to my feet, and in my mind, I feel the long mane and the hot breath of a lion. Easy, easy does it. I think to myself. Another hand gesture from braid girl sends another gust of wind coming my way, but this time I’m prepared and send myself flying to the ceiling instead.

“What the…” someone says.

“It’s a blind challenge, neither side knows what they’re up against,” professor Holt says. The lion circles beneath me. Cousin Luke transforms into a bear cup. The cup has the same personality traits as Luke but is a being unto itself. It doesn’t matter if you’re Luke’s favorite cousin you have to make the bear like you too, it’s a whole big deal whenever we see a new animal in the family. I reach up to the kitchen and grab what I hope is some bacon. I grab a hold of the lion’s jaws as well, holding them open. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as if something is creeping up on me. I can’t feel anything mentally, there’s nothing physical there I can grab hold of or avoid. I feel a slight pressure on my head, like a tight helmet. It somehow reminds me of mother. Mind reading. I scream as loud as I mentally can and notice someone on my 5 o’clock crouch down in pain with their hands to their head. A book flies at my head and I fall down to avoid it. Another one flies at my legs and I jump like I used to with Marie and the jumping rope. A third one has me flat on my stomach, and the fourth one sends me rolling across the carpet until that suddenly becomes a pool of mud instead, and I’m sinking through it. I do a quick mental search for the bottom of it, but don’t manage to find it fast enough. I reach for the ceiling instead and pull myself towards it. As soon as I’m up I hover over the ground to avoid that kind of treachery again. Heat at my 8 lets me know another fireball is cooking up, and a flick of braid girl’s hand right next to it warns me it’s going to be a line rather than a ball. I throw myself to the ceiling and hover around until I’m behind them and they can no longer reach me without hurting all their classmates.

“Keep going,” I hear someone shout, and I feel the world turn to slow motion and a hand clasp around my ankle and drag me back toward the path of the fire. What would the sergeant do here? I can’t trip her, she would see that coming long before I could do anything. I can’t do anything to the flames, she can move me quicker than I can them… I can do nothing. That’s what I’ll do then, nothing. I will stop hovering and let myself fall down, any damage the fire can do will be minimal, and I can move braid girl’s hand to blow on me instead of the fire as soon as time girl lets go of time, and she can’t hold me there, the heat will be too much. She has to set me on the right trajectory and get me as close to the flames as she can, she can’t position me in them without getting burned. I feel around, and as soon as I’m close enough to the fire and time girl lets go, I let go too and fall to the ground with a bang. I hear an odd sound from my arm, but if that’s all… I force braid girl’s hand to blow on my back. I roll over before quicksand boy can get any good ideas.

Keep the bacon coming. Keep the lion’s jaws open. Steer clear of the floor. Don’t get set on fire. Don’t get hit. Don’t get blown over. Don’t stop moving. I open the door to the classroom. The bacon comes through the door. I unwrap it in the air and send some to a corner and some to the lion’s mouth to give him a taste. I let go of his jaws and hope sincerely this will work.

“Enough,” the blond girl who didn’t like me skipping classes says. I feel something new in the room, something I can’t identify. It’s long and flexible, and it’s growing exceedingly fast. I lift myself up again, up to the ceiling. It follows me. I fly into the midst of the others, it grabs hold of my foot and drags me out. I kick as hard as I mentally can, it doesn’t budge. I kick it both physically and mentally, it doesn’t budge. I set off hard and it follows me. I fly around it and tie it into a knot, it keeps going. I feel around for something sharp but can’t find anything. I send the books cascading down on it. It slows down but doesn’t stop. I yank off my belt and send it around the thing to strangle it, but four more come at me. I feel the heat of the sun on my face and the moisture in the air rise. I open my eyes. It’s a giant plant taking up almost all of the room now. I close my eyes again and look mentally instead. Sun and moisture means it still needs those things to grow. If I can just… But the plant has hold of both my legs now, and both my hands. It pulls me down and lays me out flat on the ground. I can’t move.

“You’re done,” professor Holt says. “But an excellent demonstration of the power that comes with practicing abilities blind. She was able to keep you all going for almost 10 minutes.” I use the time to feel along it for its starting point. Perhaps if it needs sun and water it also has roots. I do manage to find something resembling that at the end of it. I focus all my energy on one spot and manage to move a finger slightly and summon the water from the small bay by the cliffs. I’m not used to carrying liquids, so I drop a lot on the way, but I keep it coming, gallons after gallons. From the bay, around to the front of the fortress, in through the door at the right level, across the hallway. I open my eyes and meet the eyes of the plant girl. She smiles at me a little condescendingly.

“Well done Pam,” the challenger tells her and puts his arm around her shoulder. The smile isn’t condescending, it’s proud. She’s strong, I’ll give her that, but a fight takes more than strength.

The door bursts open and water floods in in the air. Pam doesn’t even look up, she just keeps her eyes locked with mine. I let the first giant scoop of water crash down on both the plant and myself. The giant plant starts discoloring and the leaves start hanging. The grip loosens and I give it another scoop. The force of all the water confined to such as small area creates force enough to break off some of the smaller branches. The ground starts getting icky. I keep eye contact with her and send her a crooked smile. She smiles back. The ground gets still more icky, more than it should. I break eye contact and look down at the floor. Algae is growing all over it and me, and I can hardly lift my arm.

“You should be happy you went for the water, had you gone for the sun it would have hurt more,” she tells me.

“What do you say, Lizzy? Have you had enough?” the professor asks.

“I’m done,” I agree. I hadn’t expected to win anyways. The whole room claps at Pam who reaches out a hand and helps me up.

“No hard feelings?” she asks.

“It’s just a class,” I answer. “I’m impressed though, how did you make that grow with no soil?” She sticks her hand in her pocket and pulls out a handful of small tablets.

“Soil and minerals,” she says and pulls out a handful from the other pocket too. “And water to get the process started.”

“Did you make those yourself?” She nods. “Impressive.”

“There you see,” challenge boy tells me proudly. “You’re not the only one around here who’s strong.”

“She never claimed she was,” Pam says, and I think I’ve been forgiven for skipping classes.

“Don’t take her side,” he tells her off. I raise my eyebrow at her, but she just shakes her head slightly, and he doesn’t notice a thing.

“Yes, well done everyone. It’s nice to see some of you working together, nice job with the flamethrower and the ideal growing conditions for that plant. However, had you been working together from the beginning you might have been able to avoid her getting past 10 minutes. 10 minutes and 48 seconds, that’s the record of the decade,” he tells them. “Lizzy, I hope you realize what lost you this fight was your inability to do anything without physical movement,” he tells me. “Do you know what the groupings of gifts are?”

“You mean like Transporters?”

“Yes, that’s one. What are the others.” I consider it. “If you don’t know, you don’t know,” he tells me. “There are Transporters, like you said, Transformers, Natures, Minders, and Timers.” Hale, Nico and I are all transporters, or maybe Hale has a little bit of Transformer in him with the whole robotic side of his ability. Andy I guess is a Nature since fire is an element, the sergeant is a Timer, and Marie and mother are both Minders. The groupings do make sense, at least as far as putting people in boxes ever can. And then I realize I just mentioned all their abilities in my mind. I need to get better at this.

“Unlimited mind reading is exceedingly rare,” he tells me. “That’s what you keep fearing, isn’t it? Someone reading your mind without your knowledge? You could feel Sue coming, knew what she was doing, didn’t you?”

“No offense, but she’s a student,” I tell them.

“Who finished the advanced classes in Minding and is now taking these until she can finish her project. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone here you couldn’t recognize like that, or defend yourself against.”

“Except for you.” I’ve never felt him move around in my head. The class laughs at me.

“He can’t read minds,” Pam tells me with a smile.

“I told you,” he says himself. “I just listen, pay attention to people.” He hesitates as if there’s something he wants to say but doesn’t know if he should. “Why don’t the rest of you go back to 640 and discuss what you could have done better. If you finish pair up and practice blind locating. Sue, if you could help Bill.” He indicates to the lion. Pam looks back at me as she leaves, challenge boy’s arm still hanging around her shoulder. Sue picks up Bills clothes and with a stroke of his mane convinces him to return to human form. They too leave, Sue giving Bill an explanation to what happened and why his mouth is full of raw bacon.

Professor Holt closes the door after them.

“That was incredibly impressive,” he tells me. “No one has made it past 10 minutes since I was a student here.”

“What is the longest time anyone has held out, not just in this decade?”

“59 minutes and 59 seconds.”

“That’s a peculiar number. Who managed that record? I’d like to meet anyone who could get through that for just 7 minutes.”

“Pam lasted 9.23,” he tells me with a hint of pride. This one really knows and cares about his students. I suppose people stay in the advanced classes longer, especially the way he does it.

“She was rather disappointed she didn’t beat my record.”

“I thought you said the teachers didn’t know about this?” I find it hard to believe that he would fight his own students.

“When I was a student here it took place in the forest and was unsupervised. I thought this was safer, only having advanced students participate, no newbies, and someone responsible enough to get medical attention to those who need it. We have some excellent healers in the nature department, no injury is permanent,” he assures me with a nod towards my arm. I’d all but forgotten about that in the adrenaline rush. I summon a scarf from my room and fashion a sling out of that.

“So, what was your time?”

“I’ve told you, 59 minutes,” he says.

“The record is yours?” How did not reading minds get him the record? How did he get that high a record?

“I have my tricks,” he assures me. “That’s not what I wanted a chat about though.” He takes a seat on the couch that’s somehow still intact and upright. He indicates at the other couch for me. I sit down hesitantly, I’m not sure I’ll like this very much.

“You seemed to be able to predict what everyone was going to do,” he starts out. “And you could tell that Sue was about to read your mind without any physical indication of it.” Is he about to tell me I’m a freak or something?

“It felt like she was putting a helmet on me,” I explain and hope that’ll satisfy him.

“So you can feel it,” he says and leans back. “Very few people can, but being a Langdale I suppose you have a better starting point.” What is it with these people? Fight Club was supposed to make the Langdale assumptions stop, not make the teacher prejudiced too. I suppose I should have let them take me down within the first 10 minutes, I just didn’t know there was a timer on it.

“How many siblings do you have?” he asks. No way I’m telling… Sasha knows that. “You grew up in a big sibling flock, didn’t you? Each of you with different abilities. That’s the benefit of being a Langdale, you are surrounded by gifts from the day you’re born, you’re encouraged to use them, strengthen them. That’s what sets you apart, gives you an advantage over the others; you were never taught to hide it or that it made you a freak.” We played baseball in the backyard, Hale and I did the dishes and played cards at the same time, Marie cheated in monopoly every chance she got. Of course, we never played monopoly the regular way. Hale and I would move the hotels around randomly, the sergeant would stop time and change the dices, mother would always know what we were going for or hoping to get – and since she’s a big softie she’d give it to whoever was behind in the game.

“How strong is it?” professor Holt asks and pulls me back to the present.

“What?”

“How strong is it? Your feel of other’s energy?” What in the world is he on about? “You’re confused. Okay then, from the beginning. Some people, usually after spending a lot of time around others with gifts, start getting a sense of the energy discharge when someone else uses their ability. If trained it’ll allow them to sense others with gifts or predicts what others will do. From what you’ve just shown me, with a bit of training you’d be able to do that.” Great, something new to learn.

“What is the point of it?”

“Well, first of all, you never know when something might be useful,” he states. Or when a school just wants to keep you there longer. “It’s an offer, that’s all. Think it over and let me know. For now though, I need you to go to room 347 and get professor Milly to take a look at that arm.” He gets up and holds the door open for me. “I know trust won’t come easily to you, but we’re not all out to get you.”