10
Six wakes up in a sweat. He's been feeling more and more strange as the days pass, he talked to Lily about it and she said she saw nothing, Angel checked him out and said there's something wrong, but in a good way, she was very excited too. Either than that he was just told to power through it.
~
Lily wakes up when she can somehow feel Angel's presence in her room. She sits up and just reactively smiles when she catches Angel smiling at her as if she's been watching for a while, she has.
"I know it feels like hell, but I heard it gets better. We have classes to attend and you need the lessons. It gets worse before it gets better and soon enough you'll be walking on sunshine like the rest of us, if you still feel like crap after a week let me know, but I swear you'll understand what the pain is for once we arrive at camp." Angel says caringly giving Lily a comforting hug squeezing her a little, and rubbing her back gently.
Lily drags herself out of bed getting ready and joining the others for lessons on how to repair an M34 shuttle. Angel takes notes while her teammates sleep. She'll explain it later to them.
After that its combat practice lessons, other teams will chase one team down, scattered in a field. The targeted team members must find each other while hiding and dodging attacks from the other teams. This is to train each member to recognise their individual weaknesses and improve the odds of making it alone.
~
"Sometimes you will be sent out on a solo excursion, hence why everyone has their own shuttle. When you arrive at the camp you will not be given keys at random like you were here. You get to choose what type of shuttle you want, but sometimes yours might still be in repairs and you need to use a teammates shuttle, so getting acquainted with all types of shuttles is the best option.
"We will help you discover which shuttle you're most compatible with, some of you already know, so this is the perfect time to perfect your skill mastering a second or even third shuttle." Ox says motivating everyone for training when they walk into the training room exhausted.
~
Day 6 training.
Lily climbs a tree testing out the new Anti-gravity boots she bought online. If everyone is on the ground she'll stay where there aren't any people. She looks towards the east and heads in that direction.
Rider volunteered to test out the new masks Angel is working on and he feels better wearing one. He bumps into Ranger and Xavier aiming guns at his head.
"Where's your weapon?!" Xavier asks narrowing his eyes at Rider.
"I asked for a knife, I'm a bad aim."
Ranger lowers her weapon moving east.
Six and Owen bump into each other since Six was escaping an ambush from the team Aces members and Owen was just day dreaming in the middle of nowhere not that very interested in participating.
Angel finds Six caught between a rock and a hard place, finding himself no match for Owens inhumane strength, she punches Owen in the face grabbing Six and running away, "Let's go, the others are close."
When all 8 members of team Jones find each the game ends.
"Not bad Captain, I almost forgot we could never find you during hide and seek." Xavier pats Ryan on the shoulder.
He revealed his location by starting a small forest fire to signal his teammates his location and hid, the rest of the team went east because he was in the west and any normal person will assume that east is where they'll meet, but they were running in the opposite direction.
"Owen knows all our tricks and codes, we need to come up with new codes and remember the three editions to the team, I bumped into Ghost running the wrong way." Xavier points.
"Actually, Six was holding his own against Owen, I underestimated you, not even the Martian class stand a chance against him. I'm proud of you dude, keep that up." Angel pats Six on the back laughing when he's caught of guard by everyone praising him so much.
He still has no idea what's so special about Owen.
Rider huffs, "I've been working on something and I think it might come in handy." He takes his mask off, "I can't rely on this forever, because if I rely on head gear to handle my air sickness I might become a liability without one. It works great, but it gets hot and stuffy when it expands."
Angel takes the mask back and smiles, "Thanks, you did me a big favour I had forgotten about those. Lily's jet wing had me preoccupied. I'll brief you guys on what they said in class later. After this we have a 3-hour break, what do we do?"
Xavier points a finger at his flight students, "We're getting extra lessons, maybe it's the shuttles so we'll exchange shuttles and see what happens."
Ranger points towards the captain of the Aces, "He promised to teach team Joey some basic Mechanics, since Angel has her hands full I will be joining them."
Ryan moves along preparing to chase Team Joey that is next as the target team. The other teams are surprised he's going at it alone. The rest of the Team Jones members turned facing the exit ready to go.
Angel and Xavier find a good spot and fall asleep under a tree.
~
Ghost looks around before wondering off and sneaking away towards Team Aces base, the teams are set far away from each actually needing to fly from one base to the other. The current training facility is right next to Team Aces base, so he's on a mission to gather information.
He stops behind a tree across the street from the building, "Rider, can you hear me?" He asks taking in his surroundings memorising minor details while he can.
Rider shuts down all the camera's in the Aces building immediately, "I can hear you, and you have 10 minutes to get in there and get out."
"Roger that."
Ghost circles the building until he finds an open window in the showers. He hops in and ignores the female voice humming sweetly in the shower. He quickly sneaks towards the bathroom door gaining access into the building.
He looks around taking whatever can fit into his pocket along, and taking good memory notes.
He checks his watch and his ten minutes are up so he leaves the same way he came in and joins Xavier and Angel under the tree.
~
"Did you find anything?" Xavier asks watching Ranger chase down Joey, "Well, I'll be. Team Joey didn't make it this far out of luck, their giving our top member a run for her money." He says keeping his eyes on Ranger catching up like a cheetah.
Ghost sits down next to the still sleeping Angel, "I have the layout of the building mapped out I didn't find much except for Martian fruit.
Angel wakes up with her eyes red and drowsy with sleep, "Did I hear you right?" Ghost nods looking around for Rider, "How many?" Angel asks sitting up.
Ghost takes out 9.
Angel takes two, "You can share the rest since I'm at rehab."
Ghost looks towards Xavier for an explanation he's confused.
"She can turn anything into a psychedelic, she super heats the Martian fruit, while it's still a round fruit, in the oven at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, than takes two packs of Aeration, the 20 pack pills, she crushes all that and mashes it in the blender as a mixture with sq. specific cough syrup.
"She blends it all until it's juice than she adds a gallon of milk, mixes it all up, and puts the milk into containers and back into the fridge. After a week she'll start eating cereal out of that shit and with just one bowl she'll be high for 2 days."
"Woah, is she always high?"
"Always." Xavier and Angel say at the same time.
~
Volks stands next to Night crossing his arms with a smirk on his face, "Your team of slackers are at it again, my team is getting extra training therefore levelling up faster than your team."
Night smirks back, "Team Joey are our allies, they're not slacking off they are being strategic, your team of buffoons can afford to go all out since they have a day off tomorrow unlike the other teams who have none stop training up ahead."
Volks scowls turning back to the screen.
~
Lily is fighting one on one with Joe from team Joey.
Xavier and Angel are pretending it's a video game, Lily is Angel's avatar and Joe is Xavier's avatar.
Lily spinning back kicks Joe on the side of the head using her hover boots to change trajectory mid-air.
Joe passes out and Xavier raises his hands in disappointment.
Angel cheers laughing, "Go Lily! Wooooo."
Ghost adjusts his sitting position next to Angel, "Hey Dee, care to share a little about yourself?"
Angel turns to Ghost and smiles, "Sure."
Ghost flutters in shock he did not expect a yes so easily.
"Well, I was born and raised in SA obviously, when I was a child my parents signed me up for an experimentation program to pay of a debt, everyone knows the human experimentations programs pay well, but too bad parents are too scared to do it themselves, they let their kids do it.
"The program was working on intelligence boosting chips in humans, but the program got shut down when the research was stolen, after that I went back home to live with my parents, but I guess my parents didn't miss me as much as I thought because I barely saw them.
"Throughout high school they were barely there, when I joined the military and actually got a job I was on their radar again and things were cool, but I got fired and they ghosted. I've been doing pretty well selling my inventions though, I make a lot in fact, I don't get why my parents want me to get a solid job, this is what I love."
Xavier rolls his eyes budding in, "Maybe it's because you need to be sober to keep one." He comments hiding his dragon fruit, "She forgot to mention the part about South Africa being the first country to perfect nano bots that help people breath in out of space.
"About the same time the program in SA was shut down a similar program was started by PUMP in Mars, they stole our research and that's how we have Ryan and Ranger, but fun fact, South Africa still has the more superior bots.
"The reason she's against joining other countries is because working with the military she noticed that other countries have only ever come here to exploit us, once they got what they wanted, suddenly the company shuts down and people are jobless again.
"If we actually make it to the RTF camp and make a good impression investors will come running and maybe people can get jobs in this god forsaken country.
"She knew joining BSA would mean she skips out on doing all these camp things, she'll be joining an Alpha Level team who receive special permits to be Rangers, a special team of Alpha Level status who are granted permission to be freelance space travellers with a special permit granting her independence and she can start her own team."
Angel turns around with utter shock on her face she absolutely did not know that, "For real?" She asks in a high pitch scream with a disappointed look on her face. Xavier nods and she walks towards him for a hug crying, "What have I done Mage, ohhh."
Xavier rubs her on the back, "There there, sometimes you do stupid things it's probably because you are sober."
"Wait! She's sober right now?" Ghost asks not sure what to say he never thought he'd ever see the two of them touching because of their constant fighting.
They always stay 3 to 5 feet apart from each other, they are always watching over their shoulders and plotting against each other, and they always have bruises that Lily has to patch up from fighting each other.
"Yes." Angel replies while Xavier rubs her back comforting her as she cries, she hates being here and she has to wait for some time for her Martian fruit milk to get ready.
Xavier said she's allowed to get high but she's not allowed to smoke, or be around any sort of toxic air, because when she is out in space and her suit runs out of air the nano bots will start supplying her body with the stored-up oxygen, but if she's constantly smoking it will be smoke supplied to her body.
"I've been sober this entire year dude, occasionally smoking with him and his girlfriend. He just likes to make people think I'm some crazy addict and I play along because it always works out well for us in the end. You'll see what I mean soon. Nice work on spying for us, keep it up and you might just take Riders spot. I'll be done with Lily's suit in 3 hours than I'll be starting with yours."
Xavier looks down at Angel, "You've already started with the suits?"
Angel nods.
Xavier gasps, "I'll give you 30 Martian fruit for you to make my suit next." He negotiates because unlike everyone else who can ask her for almost anything and she will happily do it of her own free will, Xavier has to pay for her services for anything he asks her to do.
"I want 90."
Xavier glares and Angel smirks making it very clear she's not changing her mind, "Alright, fine. 90 by tonight coming up."
Angel nods, "Suit by tonight coming up." She already knows he is just testing her, if she does not have his suit ready by tonight she does not get her Martian fruit.
They both slowly back away from each other hands already holding weapons, gripped tightly and ready for anything that might happen at this very moment.
~
Angel goes back to her place and grabs Xavier's suit adding the finishing touches to the design.
The other teams are already getting comfortable with their suits and getting upgrades, she wanted them to first experience what being out there without a suit is like. Some might appreciate lighter armour unlike Rider who bulked up.
Ghost goes online and requests for a Martian fruit dealer to bribe Angel with. He still wants to know what she does with it. He doubts she would need so much just to get high.