The Turn: Chapter Nine

The Turn

Chapter Nine

~In the same Boat~

Three Years before the Turn

Zara nervously stood on the street corner, waiting with a large bag over her shoulder. The day had finally come and the whole Island was buzzed about the event. It was the most important moment in a trainee’s life. It was the time for them show off their powers to the Other representatives of the world. The Coliseum was where it was all to be held. They would go up against one team and hopefully they would win and impress the representatives. You didn’t necessarily have to win your round, though it helped, because the representatives usually go in knowing exactly what they want and if you’ve got it you would find out a few days later if you were chosen.

Galaxy in his reign, if you care to say, over the Tower had managed to spread its reach to other countries. That way, if there was an immediate threat, the Agents assigned there could act quickly. Of course the buildings didn’t look like the Tower itself and they weren’t called the Tower II and so on but they were there if you looked hard enough.

Today, if her team did well enough, they would be chosen by one of the leaders to go to their country. But if they weren’t chosen….Zara swallowed, her mouth suddenly became dry. They already had a low score with her not doing the individual assessment and Chaud failing miserably. Yes, the score mattered in the sense that it might peak or dampen the interest people had in you. But then again, the score represented you as an individual and not as a group.

Zara’s breathing started coming in harsh breaths. She was thinking about the rest of her life; what if she didn’t get chosen, what if the other team was too strong, what if, what if, what if… She jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, what’s up?” Chaud said with a smile.

“You have to stop doing that!” Zara glared at him.

He looked at her curiously, “Doing what?

Zara flailed her arms in the air, “This! Sneaking up on people! You can give someone a heart attack!”

Chaud stepped back a pace, “Okay, someone is stressing out.”

“Of course I’m stressing out!” Zara had practically snapped, “We’re talking about the rest of our lives here! You might have a rich papa to run home to but I don’t! This is everything I’ve got! If I fail, I’ve failed at life!”

Chaud stood there a moment, “You need ice cream.”

Zara stared at him in disbelief, “Ice cream? I’m talking about the end of my life as I know it and all you can think about is ice cream?”

“Yeah,” Chaud stated, “There’s a stand two blocks down. You’re two hours early. We’ve got time.”

He started walking away. Zara, open mouthed and shocked, followed after him. They found the little ice cream stand and Chaud ordered them two cones. He passed one on to Zara; it was vanilla with pink swirls in it. She looked at her ice cream for a moment.

“What is this?” she asked.

“It’s called ice cream,” Chaud stated as he licked his vanilla cone, “We humans eat sugar to drown out problems. Well, that and alcohol. Either way, it’s a bad habit really.”

Zara liked it and it tasted like strawberries. It didn’t taste bad. In confession, she hadn’t had ice cream since she had come to the Island. It was good, surprisingly good.

“What are you doing here?” Zara asked, “I know I was two hours early but why were you two hours early.”

Chaud shrugged, “You were here two hours early so I decided to keep you company.”

“Were you watching me?” Zara glared a cautious eye at him.

“More like staking the place out. You can’t be careful you know. We wouldn’t want something bad to happen before the assessment,” he noticed Zara tense up, “I mean before the ice cream cart rolls away. Yeah, that’s what I meant. I didn’t say anything about an assessment…what assessment. In fact, why are we here again?”

After their ice creams they walked back to the corner where they were all about to meet. Naru and Hina came on off the bus and hour later. After that Vicky came thirty minutes later while Deontay was pushing it with a minute to spare.

They all walked toward the Coliseum together. The roads leading up to it were packed with cars and news vans; only adding to Zara’s stress already. As they walked on, they started running into other groups who too were making their way to the Coliseum. They rounded a corner and the streets opened up to a large circular building, similar to the Coliseum in Rome.

Windows replaced the arches and the building was made of a white stone. The Island Coliseum was slightly larger than the one in Rome, much newer as well. In the front entrance there was a statue in the center of a fountain of Sage Tariq, the founder and creator of the Tower. The Tower had seen two rulers before its current one.

Vicky ran up to the fountain with something clasped tightly in her hands. She stood at the rim of the fountain and stood there a moment. Then she reached in her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper and quickly folded into a paper boat. She opened her hand to expose six pennies. She lined her boat with pennies, three on each side, and placed the boat in the water. It floated off around the circular fountain. She ran back to the others and smiled.

“Hope Sage brings us some luck,” she said as she pushed her glasses up her nose.

“Don’t know how a bronze—ow!” Chaud jumped after Zara stepped on his foot.

“We could use all the luck we can get,” she said through gritted teeth.

“But its bronze,” Chaud muttered quietly.

Vicky smiled and ran after Naru and Hina who had gone ahead. Deontay shook his head and sighed.

Chaud looked at him with mock shock, “Bronze doesn’t grant wishes!”

Zara rolled her eyes and headed for the main entrance.

“Okay,” the woman at one of the front desks said, “are you here to participate or watch?”

“Participate,” Zara responded.

“Please go down that hall to the right, a gentle man there will help you.”

“Thanks.”

They did as they were told and walked though scores of people to get to the mouth of the hallway. The hallway was blocked off with a gate and a man sat at a computer typing away at the keyboard. A stronger looking man stood a little further down the table. He looked up as their group approached. With a smile he delved into the matter at hand.

“Leader, name,” he stated,

“Zara Uzek,” the response came.

The man typed the name into his computer, “Weapon.”

“Katana.”

“Power.”

“Fire.”

“Anything else we should know about you?”

“No.”

“Alright then Miss Uzek please continue down the line where your bag with be searched. Second.”

“Chaud Galaxy.”

Zara placed her bag on the table. The man opened it up and dug around inside. He then came around the table and gave her a quick pat down. This event was notoriously known for people bringing in illegal weapons. If you were caught bringing things in, you were kicked off the Island but that enough didn’t stop people from wanting an edge over the competition.

“Please stand over there Miss,” the man muttered, “you can take your bag.”

“Anything else we should know about you?”

“I have wings,” Chaud stated casually.

“Thank you, you can continue down the line.”

Chaud set his weapons on the table the man looked at them and nodded, “You will need to use the bullets we provide for you. Did you already make a note, Frank?”

“Yes, I did,” sighed the man at the computer.

The guard looked at Chaud again, “The boxes will be sent to the room.”

After that exchange, Chaud underwent the same pat down before being allowed to stand near the door next to Zara. Hina pushed ahead of her brother who didn’t put up much of a fight. Deontay, being a gentleman, allowed Vicky to go ahead of him. Naru’s things took the longest to process considering he had so many individual parts: two sai, two dozen or so shuriken, and about a million needles. It was safe to say though that the teams in line behind them stared wide eyed in fear as Naru had to explain what each weapon was used for. Some of them rubbed their muscles as he explained what would happen when a needle hit a curtain area.

“Fine,” the guard said, unfazed, “room 52. Once in your room, the doors will lock and you won’t be able to exit until it is time for your battle. Everything you need should be in the room. If you need something not provided to you knock on the door.”

A buzz sounded as the door opened. Zara walked though first leading the others to find their room. She turned back to make sure everyone was following when she saw something in the crowd. Zara hurried back to the gate just as it closed. Puppetmaster looked at her with his purple eyes. He smiled and raised a hand in a motionless wave. Shuppet was secured underneath his other arm. The small doll even risked a wave itself. Zara waved back.

“Are you coming or what?” Chaud called impatiently.

Zara turned, “Hold on a minute!”

She turned to look for the familiar face only to see people she didn’t know. Her eyes scanned the crowd a while longer. With a sigh, she pulled herself from the gate and walked after the others.

Kaiba stood far enough not to be seen by his younger sibling though he was almost certain that Chaud knew he was there. He saw Zara reaction and made a mental note to write it down when he had the time. A man in a flowing coat and an interesting hat walked past him, brushing his shoulder. Kaiba looked over his shoulder for a moment. The clock in the inner entrance read five minutes to ten. He pulled out his tablet and quickly wrote something and placed it back into his pocket.

Kaiba turned in place and started walking toward the arena entrance. He turned suddenly and walked up some stairs. Many like himself, seconds to their representatives, walked up and down the stairs. He paid them no notice for he had already accomplished what he had been sent out to do.

He reached an upper level guarded by two strong men. They did nothing as Kaiba walked past. He entered another hallway with many rooms spaced fairly apart. A flag hung from each door. He turned left and continued down the curved hallway until he found what he was looking for.

Kaiba entered a room it was well furnished with brown carpeting and white furnisher. A large glass window looked out onto the stadium below. The stands were filling up quickly for the first battle to be fought at eleven-o-clock. Sirius and the Mrs. stood at the widow, his arm around her waist and her head on his shoulder. On a chair beside the couch, Lynx sat with Kia in his lap.

Sirius looked over his shoulder and saw Kaiba. He smiled, “So how is he?”

Kaiba looked blankly at his father, “It depends if you want a family decision or a professional one.”

“Let’s go with both this morning,” Mrs. Galaxy said as she walked back to the couch.

“He’ll be fine,” Kaiba stated.

“And professionally?” Sirius probed.

Kaiba pulled out his tablet, “Where do I start?”

Sirius could see line after line though the clear screen, “I get the point, Kaiba.”

“He’s all over the place,” Kaiba placed the tablet away.

“We’ll just have to hope for the best,” Mrs. Galaxy smiled as Kia ran toward her.

“That we will,” Sirius confirmed, “but for now we only have an hour to greet our guests, dear.”

Mrs. Galaxy sighed, “Do we have to? I think Mrs. Russia has it out for me.”

“If it makes you feel better, I’ll do all the talking,” Sirius helped his wife to her feet, “All you’ll have to do is smile and act pretty.”

She laughed “Don’t I always?”

“Exactly, so it won’t be that hard now, will it?” he kissed her lightly on the lips.

“I suppose,” she smiled, “Kaiba, darling, you’re in charge while mommy and daddy are gone. Behave.”

Kaiba’s shoulders sunk at the word ‘darling’, “Yes, mother.”

In the hallway, Sirius leaned into his wife, “He hates it when you talk to him like that, you know.”

A sly smile crept across her face, “I know. Now that he’s annoyed, it’s guaranteed that he won’t allow any funny business.”

Sirius chuckled, “That’s true.”

Zara opened the door and gasped. The ‘room’ that they were provided looked like a high end ritzy apartment. From the door, there were stairs that led down into a kind of living space. There was a large television and many comfortable chairs. On the second floor, where they were now, to the left there was a small series of steps, a landing and more stairs that led up to the third floor.

On the third floor it looked like there were changing rooms, one for the boys and another for the girls. There was also a beautiful bathroom and two other rooms with beds in them, again one for the boys and the other for the girls, both with TV’s in them as well. On the first floor, off of the living space, was a kitchen with a stovetop oven, a refrigerator and all the likes. Most of the floors had a white carpet covering the floor or black tile for contrast. Across the living space was a door with no handle.

To their right there was also a sequence of stairs and landings that led to a small gym both an area for working out and a flat area for practicing battle techniques. The others started walking around to explore their living quarters for the rest of the day. Deontay suggested that he and Vicky practice some of the boxing that he had been teaching her and Vicky readily agreed. Naru went upstairs to put his things in a room. Hina went down into the kitchen to find something to eat. Zara walked over to the television and turned it on.

The television was preset to view the stadium.

“Today is a big day for most of these kids, Ralph! This is the day they show the world what they are made of!”

“Thanks, Steve! We’ll tune in to Rachel at the front entrance. Rachel, are you there?”

“Yes, Ralph. I’m here at the Coliseum statue of Sage Tariq. As you see here, many teens have come by here to throw pennies into the fountain for luck on their way into the Coliseum. If you take a closer look here, there seems to me a small paper boat full of pennies making its rounds around the fountain. As you see, all six pieces of its copper cargo are still inside even as the paper boat gets wet. Hopefully, for the team that set this little boat to sea, this means that they will pull through whatever pours down on them. Back to you, Steve.”

“Thank you, Rachel.”

 Zara looked behind her, sensing that Chaud had snuck up yet again. Sure enough, he was there, at her right side. He saw her glance at him and raised a cautious eye brow.

“Okay, is pretty cool that the little boat is happy and floating around, but I maintain that a copper statue of a guy had nothing to do with that fact.”

“What about the pennies?” Zara smiled.

Chaud walked away in a huff, “I doubt that there is any copper in a penny anymore.”

Zara shrugged, “Whatever. Makes a good story though.”