First Impressions

First Impressions

“The new regulation formulated by Superior Clint Lumen states that all teenagers from ages thirteen to eighteen have to undergo training in new patnas to fight back the cynox or Contique if their name is chosen from the crystoplasm. These patnas are arranged by the rarity of essences.” Camille Rogers, the news reporter, said.  “This was caused because of the war between Roxen and has already engaged in action all over our beautiful planet, Paramut and has taken hundreds of teens from their families and put them onto various islands where they’re said to live on until they’re required to leave. Some reports say that the cynoxes have been attacking these islands and-”
“And it’s been getting harder and harder to fight them off without the right patnas!” Roy blurts out as he shuts down his crystoplasm, an object that can be a source of entertainment. “Clint, you have got to get the special params into one patna. We’ve been getting our asses creamed!” Roy was pacing in the entertainment center of the manor while Clint was sitting down comfortably on the black leather couch. Params were people with essences or what earthlings call super powers and a patna is a group of params or the params in the group.
“Calm down. I’ve already gotten a patna together.” Roy was practically pulling out his caramel blond tousled hair and his ocean blue eyes shone with panic. Clint stood up and smoothed back his carefully styled black hair back while his eyes were pure black pits. Clint stood up and walked towards the crystoplasm placed on the coffee table. He took it and threw it towards the wall. The wall was plastered with a computer screen. While Clint touched the screen many times Roy was pacing back and forth around the room. “Look at the patna yourself.” Clint grabbed the tips of the screen to shrink it down while passing it to Roy. Roy swiped his finger from side to side, absorbing the information and murmuring words as he swiped through.
“Charles really does have quite a special essence but are you sure he can work with a group?” He turned to Clint as he shrugged in reply to Roy’s question. Roy swiped his finger across the screen again. “This is my sister.”
“Yes, she has a very rare and special essence and you have been training her. She’ll do perfectly fine in the group.”
“Yes, but I don’t want my sister ending up to be a complete ass. I mean I have to live with her.” Roy set the crystoplasm down and finally relaxed on the couch.
“Don’t get you panties in a twist Roy.” Liana said with a British accent as she entered the room. Her big brown hair was shiny and her black eye shadow complemented her brown eyes.
“How nice of you to join us from Earth. Seems that you’ve gotten yourself a little accent there,” Roy said without expression. “We were just talking about how we we’re getting our asses creamed.”
“As much as I want to say the opposite, I agree with Rory the Whale.” She said smugly.
“Don’t worry pogo face, he says he’s gotten a group put together for the special ones.” Liana took the crystoplasm from the table and studied the new faces.
“My, my, your son does have quite the look but do you think he could work in a group?”
“That’s what I said.” They both looked at Clint.
“My boy can handle it if I tell him to,” Clint said with a shrug.
“He almost burned your house down because his hair stylist showed up late.” Liana said. She set the crystoplasm on the table and sighed. “Anyways, the patna is not a bad one. I would be happy to train them myself. Honestly though, Alicia needs to get away from all that hideousness and be with someone that has style for once.”
“I’ve assigned you both to be the instructors.” Clint said.
“What!” Liana and Roy said simultaneously.
“I can’t work with him. He’s completely immature.” Liana said.
“And she’s a horror contraption.” Roy said.
“Well, we’re all going to have to deal with our problems, now won’t we?” They both crossed their arms. “Stop acting like babies. I’ve already gotten enough problems with the press and the Contique. You two just have to suck it up and work together.”
“Fine, when do we meet them?” Liana asked.
“Both of you will meet them today at one and you’ll end at six.” Clint said in a demanding tone.
“What if we don’t show up?” Roy asked.
“What if Xavier tears you apart.”
“That dog loves me.” Roy stated.
“He doesn’t care. As long as I’m his master, I can tell him to rip your heart out if I wanted to.”
“Oh, fine. But I swear if my sister turns out to be something horrifying like Liana, I’m out of this place.”
“Shut your pot hole already. No one cares what you think.” Liana said.
“Like everyone loves-”
“If you two don’t mind, I have to attend to my duties as a superior.” Clint walked away from the two as they started arguing with each other again. “Oh, and you better tell Kiara and Alicia to get ready to go to the dome. Be sure to give them the crystogems. We need to test those out. Liana, come with me. Tell me how the trading went with the earthlings.”
“I swear if my sister turns to be anything like you, I’ll kick her out of the house,” The three adults left the room, one after another.

Alicia, Roy’s sister, and Kiara walked into Ali’s large bedroom in the manor. “I can’t believe they’re going to instruct us today. It’s late already.” Kiara moaned.
“It’s twelve o’clock Kiara, stop being such a drama queen. Besides, it should be a blast!” Ali said sarcastically. They both sat on the bed and started removing their heels. Ali stood and went to the large dressing room located to the left of the bed. She closed the door behind her as Kiara started to moan again. There was a small crystal necklace placed on the bathroom counter. It had a sort of button on the hilt that could be flipped open. Taking it, she pressed the button and it transformed into a silver dagger with a shiny hilt. In surprise, she dropped the dagger on the ground.
“Hey, are you okay?” Kiara shouted through the doors.
“Yeah, maybe you should start changing yourself. Okay, I’ll meet you in five!” Ali replied. The hilt of dagger shone like a million diamonds were placed into it. Picking it up, she studied it carefully and squeezed the hilt. When she reopened her hand the crystal necklace took the daggers place. “Thank you Clint.” She wore the crystal around her neck and started looking through her clothes. In the end, she wore sneakers, a plain white T-shirt, and black training shorts. Closing her bedroom door behind her, she found Kiara wearing ripped jeans, heeled boots, and a tight T-shirt, with a crystal around her neck. “Really Kiara?”
“Don’t you want to make a good impression on the newbies?”
“I doubt their newbies.”
“We were training way before they were though. Wait. I just sounded old.” Kiara shivered. They walked down the hall and down a flight of stairs. They walked down another corridor and came to a pair of double doors that led to the dome. “Are we late?” Kiara looked nervous.
“We’re early. I’ve never seen you nervous before.” Ali giggled.
“I’m not nervous, I just don’t want to look like a fool to everyone when we get there.”
“At least we’re in the same group. Oh, and my brother is our instructor.”
“Yeah, I like your brother.” Kiara said quietly, twirling her hair.
“I really can’t believe why you would think that guy is hot.” Ali hissed the word out with a shiver.
“Let’s just go inside please.” Kiara giggled. They opened the double doors and saw Ali’s brother, Roy, and Liana bickering with each other again.
“You’ve finally made it.” Roy said, walking towards her and giving her a hug. Ali knew this was just an excuse to get away from Liana so she played along because she hated Liana just as much as Roy hated her.
“Did you put this in our rooms?” Ali held the crystal up for Roy to see and he nodded.
“Did you try it yet?” Ali nodded in reply. “Great!” Roy said.
“It is supposed to turn into weapons, right?” Ali asked curiously.
“Yes, they’re called crystogems. If you press the button on the top it’ll turn into the weapon you’re thinking of.”
“I wasn’t thinking of a dagger though.” Ali stated.
“It just randomly chooses a weapon for you if you can’t think of any weapon at the moment.” Roy put his arm around her shoulder and led her to Kiara, who was already perched on a platform near the agility course, and Liana who looked frustrated. Ali joined Kiara on the platform.
“Where are the newbies?” Kiara asked.
“They were supposed-” Roy was interrupted by people who were walking into the room. Two boys were talking to each other contently followed by a black girl. It wasn’t till they were in front of them did Ali get a closer look. The black girl had big black hair with chocolate brown eyes. Ali still couldn’t get a good glance at the two boys but all of them looked around Ali’s age, seventeen or eighteen. “How nice of you to join us Charles, you too Drake.” Roy pointed out the two boys who had stopped talking to respond.
“My father forced me to go.” Charles said blankly.
“Is that Charles Lumen, you know, Superior Clint’s son?” Kiara whispered. Ali turned and looked back at the two boys. Charles had dirty blonde spiky tangled hair and bronze eyes while the other boy had black messy hair and hazel green eyes. Charles Lumen had quite a reputation stating that he was a spoiled brat and a horrible person or at least that’s what Ali thought.
“I don’t know why you even need to train. You can obviously handle yourself well.” Liana said.
“Whatever.” Charles replied neutrally.
“Anyways, we’re going to see if you can handle yourself man to man. We’ll be pairing you up and you have to fight each other without the use of weapons. Liana, train with Jen just until we get someone else.” He pointed off to the target dummies for longhand weapons, bows and spears, and the black girl and Liana, Liana giving him an evil glare, left. “Drake and Kiara, start over there.” He pointed to the weapons area as the guy beside Charles and Kiara left, both smiling and talking to each other. “Last but not least, Charles and Ali, you can start off here.” Roy walked to the center of the room. “You are allowed to use your powers but try not to kill your partner!” He shouted. Ali was still sitting atop of the platform and Charles was just looking at her with no expression. “You may begin.” Ali stood on top of the platform and walked as far from Charles as she could.
“Ali, I presume.” Charles said.
“Call me Alicia, please.”
“Call me Charles.” He got on top of the platform. Ali kicked his feet and he fell onto the platform. He laughed and stood up. Ali grabbed his shoulders and flipped him onto the ground. She grabbed his arms and held them behind his back with her foot. “I guess Liana was wrong because it doesn’t really look like you can handle yourself.” Ali laughed. Ali’s foot was knocked off of his arms and she fell to the ground.
“I can handle myself perfectly fine,” he said standing up. Ali tucked a caramel lock behind her ear as he smirked at her. She tried kicking his jaw but he dodged it and returned it with a back flip. Ali sighed irritably and pranced towards him, intending to knock him off balance but ended up in his arms for some reason. He must have telekinesis, Ali thought “I feel so bad for the guy that’ll end up with you cause they’ll have to keep up with an animal,” Charles said mockingly. Ali smiled at him and leaned forward, trying to seduce him but it didn’t work. He dropped her on the hard surface and she yelped in pain. “Do you really think I would fall for a stupid trick like that?” He crossed his arms and glared at her as she stood up.
“Oh my god, you are a basta-” in that moment he was behind her and was holding her arms firmly so that she wouldn’t get away. Ali turned to her side to look at him but couldn’t.
“It’s not nice to judge people when you’ve just met them,” He breathed down her neck at an alarmingly slow rate. His heart beat was incredibly slow, slow enough that Ali could think he was dead. As much as she disliked him already, she nodded and he let go of her just as a man busted through the doors.
“Cynox are attacking from outside!” The man yelled in alarm. Liana and Roy rushed after the man, grabbing some weapons from the weapons rack, running towards the exit. Kiara and Ali looked at each other, deciding if they should follow and in response to the question, Ali grabbed her necklace and it transformed into two daggers, one for each hand. They ran after the adults and they were followed by their patnas.

It was chaos outside. There were blasts coming from everywhere. The faculties of the manor were fighting guys in trench coats. The weather stormed and rained all over the field. Ali ran into the chaos slicing through men in trench coats who disappeared into golden ash. “Roy!” She yelled over the noise. She looked around and stabbed another man in the gut.
“Ali! Go back inside. Kids aren’t supposed to be here!” Roy shouted from behind, slitting through a man’s throat. Instead of red blood pouring out, golden liquid came from the man’s throat.
“I’m not a kid anymore. I can handle myself!” Ali shouted stabbing another man’s back.
“I know that you can but what about the others? I’m sure they’ve followed you out here!” Ali’s mind rushed and she scanned the surroundings for her fellow params. Charles had just cracked a man’s jaw while Drake punched a man in his stomach and the man coughed up golden blood. Kiara was appearing and disappearing from men’s shoulders, killing each man who was in her way. Jenny was doing fine by herself, she had gotten hold of a gun and was shooting men into the air. Ali sighed, relieved to see that they were doing perfectly fine, and then felt a sharp pain in her left waist. She looked down at where she felt pain and saw a long gash along her waist with golden liquid spurting out of it. She looked behind and saw a familiar boy, not a man, the same age as Ali, in a throwing stance. Charles elbowed the boy and the boy fell to the ground, unconscious.
“Retreat!” One of the men shouted and the rest of the men ran off. Ali fell to her knees from the pain and had trouble breathing.
“ALI!” Roy yelled. People started to crowd her, Roy in front, making it harder for her to breathe. “Poison dagger. Okay, someone help me get her inside!” He yelled. “Everything’s going to be okay Ali.” He tried calming her, though he sounded even more panicked than Ali herself, but her vision got blurry and his voice was distant.
“I don’t feel good, Roy,” she said quietly. She fainted into Roy’s arms. He tried keeping her upright but by that point she had already blacked out.