Chapter 6

"Oh," was all I said when we got to the gym. I wonder how I haven't fainted again, but I knew I was on the verge of passing out.

I could see why they called it the "big gym". It had to be over five hundred yards in length, with a swimming pool (including a diving board, with the, at least twenty treadmills, three gyroscopes (for some bizarre reason), a sand pit (presumably for long jumps), an archery range, about a hundred barbells with too many weight sizes to count, a popcorn machine, including other things. All within the Space Base.

I noticed that each person was also drawn to each part of the big gym. Samantha was drawn to the treadmills, Lily to the gyroscopes, James to the popcorn machine (obviously), Link to the barbells, Aileen to the archery range, Rachel to the swimming pool, and Peter to the diving board. There was something strange about Peter, though I couldn't place it. It was like I saw him before, and his name…

But first, I had to ask Link something. I saw him bench-pressing 100 pounds, and decided to wait until he was done, because, well, 100 pounds. The way he did it was fascinating. He somehow managed to move the barbell up and down, flawlessly, with no breaks, and with those scrawny arms of his.

When Link reached 50, I decided to make my move. I walked towards him (I was watching from a distance), and when he saw me, he stopped and got up. He wasn't even breathing hard! How?!

"So, what are you doing here? Need girlfriend advice?" he teased, pointing to Aileen. I could feel myself blushing hard, but I somehow managed to speak.

"N-no, I was wondering about how you managed to do that all by yourself. Also, I saw someone do the impossible. How can I do that?"

"What, she never told you that?" he asked. When I shook my head no, he sighed. "Allow me."

He raised his hand, and the barbell suddenly started to rise on its own. My jaw dropped as he lifted the barbell up, then down, then up again, while his hand was repeating the motions. Needless to say, I was shocked.

"It's called levitating. I can do this by manipulating the energy around me and forcing the air to collect under the barbell, where I can make it rise and fall if I wished. But hey, this isn't the weirdest thing right now." He spread his other hand around the room, and I could see that he was in fact true.

Samantha was running on the treadmills, but as I watched, she began to run faster than I thought was possible for any human to run. After only about five seconds, her legs were just a blur, yet she wasn't sweating or gasping for breath. Lily wasn't even on the gyroscopes, but she was rotating in the air curled up, with absolutely nothing lifting her up. I looked at Peter, who was at the highest diving board. He jumped off, managed to do several flips, and landed, feet first, onto the surface of the water. He didn't go under, but he just stood there, on the water, like a teenage version of Jesus Christ. James was first eating the popcorn, but after a while, he got bored and started to raise all of the popcorn inside of the machine, and used the popcorn to make a castle inside of the machine. Rachel was literally running on water, like a teenage ninja from Naruto. Aileen-

What the…

Across the room, Aileen was firing arrows with her bow faster than the eye could see, yet the arrows were hitting the bulls-eye, every time, and splitting the previous arrow in half.

"How?"

"You should be able to levitate things too, in a few days, and when you do, it'll take another month to master just the basics. I think you can push objects, though. Here, let's try to see if you can create compressed air around you. That's the basics for pretty much everything we can do," he said.

Then, abruptly changing the subject, he said, "Try to punch me."

"What?"

"You heard me. Punch me," he said. I shrugged as if to say, "Not gonna be my fault then," and then tried to punch him right in the face.

Key word: tried. A few inches before I socked him in the face, I encountered some kind of resistance that stopped my punch cold. Link then looked at me with a smirk, and then I felt the resistance begin to push me back fast-and hard. I flew back and landed in the pool, where I skidded on the surface for a second before I went under. I waved around for a moment before getting my bearings and swam up, sputtering for air as I surfaced. I heard giggles and turned to see Aileen covering her mouth, barely containing her laughter. I turned beet red and made a beeline for the boy's locker room.

After I dried off (thankfully, there were insta-dryers in the locker rooms) and changed, I walked over to Link, all the while ignoring the rest of the group's quiet laughter. "So, can you teach me that?"

"Sure," he replied, barely holding in a laugh himself. "The key to making the compressed air is to imagine it on the place you want it to be at. For example, I created the compressed air on my face right before you hit. If you were to keep a hold on the air for an extended amount of time, you would be extremely tired, so we don't usually hold it for extended periods of time. You getting this?"

Just barely, but I nodded as if I knew.

"Alright. Another thing is that you're not invincible with the compressed air protection. None of this will help against bullets, as we're not powerful enough to stop bullets in midair. Redirect them, yeah, but not directly in front. Also, you can only generate the compression to about a meter in front of you. That's another flaw in the system, but it makes up for it big-time."

Again, I nodded as if I knew what he was talking about, but there were too many things to commit to memory that I would have a migraine if he said anything more.

"Here, try this," He dropped a 10-pound weight onto the floor, then lifted the weight using only compressed air. "Try to push and pull the weight. Here's a tip: Make sure it follows with Newton's 3 laws of physics."

Okay, then, so it's simple (Note the sarcasm). I raised my hand, imagined energy from the air collecting at my side of the weight, and pushed. To my surprise, the weight started to move forward in the direction I wanted it to go, but just barely.

"Nice!" exclaimed Lily, who saw us and went her way over to us while I was practicing pushing and pulling it. Link was also pleased with the results. "Very good. Keep going like this and you'll master it in no time!"

That's when I got a dumb idea. I steadied myself, feet firm on the ground, and pushed forward as hard as I could. The weight shot forward, and when I lost my grip on the air, it still went pretty fast. And by fast, I meant that it bounced off the wall, almost decapitated James (who was busy stuffing himself with popcorn and didn't even notice the flying projectile that nearly ended his life), and broke through a window.

Oh, yeah, did I mention that we were twenty stories high?

That push tired me out completely and utterly. I could barely stand on my legs, so I wobbled for a few steps, found that I couldn't balance myself properly now, and fell into the pool again, where I promptly passed out for the second time in one day.

...

I woke up at another hospital bed, with the concerned faces of the group looking at me, except for Rachel. She was gone for some reason, but I decided not to say anything about it. When they saw me wake up, they began to surround my bed and started bombarding me with questions and comments even before I figured out who was who.

"Are you okay?" (Aileen)

"Can you see how many fingers am I holding up?" (Lily)

"Finally, look who's back from the dead" (Samantha)

"Can you walk? I'm starving, and the squad says that we can't eat until you're good to go." (James)

Nothing. (Peter, though he looked at me sympathetically like he knew what I was going through)

"I should've made sure you were ready…" (Link)

The bombardment was too much for my head, which was starting to get a migraine. I mean, I just woke up! Finally annoyed with all of the chatter. I eventually put my hand up in a stop sign and yelled, "Enough! Please, stop!"

Suddenly, my hand glowed, and everybody stopped talking. In fact, everything stopped. James' mouth was wide open like he was about to yawn (or eat a Big Mac, whatever works), but the yawn never came out. The heart monitor froze, all sound stopped, and when I threw my blanket out of my way, got out of my bed, and looked outside, cars were frozen. Also, since it was raining, I could see individual droplets in the air. At that moment, I figured out what was happening. I swore under my breath.

"Ah, I'm such a craphole," I muttered.