Battling the Invisible

By 1 p.m. Sunday afternoon, the whole student body was packed into the stands of the arena. The freshmen were sitting in the stands closest to the front, with the faculty next to them. The Dean of Students, Dr. Holmes, took the microphone once everyone was there. “Welcome, students!” he boomed. “I hope your first few weeks back have been satisfactory. To our new students, you are now about to pass your first test as an undergraduate. Unless of course, you’re in one of Dr. Corvin’s classes,” he added with a chuckle. “Now, we’ll begin Showcase. When I call your name, you may come into the pitch and show us your Powers. We’ll start with Connor Marcus Avery.”

Axi watched as his classmates showed off their talents. Particularly impressive, he thought, was one of the boys from his African Civ. class. The boy’s name was Max Hawthorne, and he was a spirit caller. Axi had watched, open mouthed, as Max summoned the ghosts of the schools past Academic Deans. Finally, after about thirty more students had gone, he heard his name being called.

“Jeffery Anaximander Phillips!”

Axi walked slowly into the pitch, taking off his shirt. There were catcalls and whistles. He closed his eyes and tried to make himself angry. He’d found (in the two days he’d had to experiment) that his weather control was triggered by his emotions. The only one he could control without an emotional link was sunlight. With a deep breath, he remembered a fight he’d gotten into the first week at Blueloch…

Axi dodged a thrown Twinkie as he walked to class. A boy he’d never met before came toward him. “What’s your damage, man?” he asked, glaring.

“You’re Sebastian’s queer baby brother, right?”

Axi just scowled at him.

“My little brother Carey’s starting this year too. If he tells me you’ve been bothering him—“

“If he looks anything like you, I’m definitely not interested,” Axi snarled, pushing his way past the creep.

Axi could feel the rain pouring onto his face. He could feel the thunder rolling in his mind, and raised his hands to summon the lightning bolts to himself. When they struck, he saw his classmates through a burst of white light. He walked back to his seat, particularly pleased with himself, and tossed a rainbow over the pitch for effect as the next student was called down.

“Show off,” Drake said, grinning, as Brittany Poller changed into an Emu and chased Dr. Holmes around the pitch. “But why didn’t you—“

Axi put a finger to his lips and leaned in to mutter, “I can only stop time at night.” He didn’t know why, but he didn’t really want anyone else to know about his conditional Power just yet. After a few more hypnotizers, telekinetics, hydrokinetics, shapeshifters, flyers, and students with more strength than the Hulk, it was finally Drake’s turn. As Axi watched him go invisible and hurl a few fireballs at practice targets, he had an idea on how his friend could make good on their bet….
***

“You’re making it snow, bruh!” Drake said over dinner.

“Oh, sorry,” Axi said, absentmindedly nibbling his gyro.

“Something on your mind?” Jackson asked.

“Uhh, naw. Just thinking about lacrosse tryouts.”

“You’ll be fine,” Drake said. “Quit worrying.”

By the time dinner was over and they were back in the room, Axi knew Drake was worried about him. The younger man was looking at him out of the corner of his eye, which probably wasn’t a good sign. Never one for planning, Axi launched right into what he’d been thinking about. “Remember our bet?”

“Yeah?”

“I have an idea about your half. Be my training partner for the arena battles. I’ll teach you the lacrosse workout to get you in shape, and we’ll train together with our Powers.”

“I dunno…” Drake said slowly.

“Look at it this way: You’ve been able to keep up the secret so far, but when you start competing it’s gonna be a lot harder. Your body’s different, and you have to be ready. I’m the only one who knows, right?”

“Right.”

“Then I’ll help you. We’ll be awesome together. I’ve got the physical edge, but you’ve got way more control over your powers. We’d even each other out. How about it?”

Drake was quiet for a moment, and Axi could practically see him weighing the pros and cons in his head. “All right,” he
said finally. “Let’s do it.”

“Badass!”

“One thing though. You’re not going to make me try out for lacrosse, are you?”

“Naw dude. I know you don’t want to, and even if you did want to I think that would be pushing our luck.”
Drake laughed and nodded.
***
The week passed calmly. Drake strutted in Tuesday afternoon, full of himself for declaring an Engineering major. Axi finally pulled himself together and picked History, and he made it onto the JV team as a midfield player.
The first three days of workouts and dieting were hell on Drake, but Axi got him through the worst of it—sometimes with praise, sometimes with threats, and sometimes only the promise of a massage would keep Drake in the game. Axi was impressed out of his mind at the way Drake was keeping up actually. However, by the time Friday rolled around, he knew that Drake was at a breaking point.

“What are we doing today?” Drake asked after breakfast.

“I think we can call it a week after our run this morning,” Axi said. The workout they did consisted of a run before breakfast, weights before lunch, Arena training, and a run after dinner. “It’s Friday.”

“Fine by me.”

“I want to do something tonight.”

“What?”

“Anything. We can go get into some trouble in the city.”

“Let’s go get tattoos!”

Axi looked up from his oatmeal, quirking an eye at his roommate.

“For real, bruh!” Drake said excitedly.

“Okay,” Axi said chuckling. “Of what?”

“We could get our spirit guides.”

“Our who?”

“Spirit guides. Our animal that symbolizes our connection to the earth.”

“You do know my family’s Catholic, right? I’ll probably be beaten for coming home with that.”

“Just tell them it’s about your respect for nature,” Drake said, shrugging. “It’s not like you’re worshipping your animal.”

“So what animal am I?”

Drake chuckled. “You’re not the animal. It’s just a…coexisting presence?”

“You’ve lost me.”

“Err… Have you seen the movie ‘The Golden Compass’? You know how they all had daemons? That kind of idea only better.”

“Gotcha. But you still didn’t answer my question.”

“Your birthday’s when?”

“April 13th.”

“You’ve got the falcon.”

“Sweet!”

“I’ve got the wolf. Shit, I’ve got to get to class. I’ll see you this afternoon.”
***

Ten hours later, Axi was really regretting going along with Drake’s idea. They’d driven two hours away from campus to find a tattoo parlor that didn’t look sketch. When they got there his roommate had somehow talked him into getting their tribal tattoos across their backs, so that they looked connected in the middle. Axi’s falcon’s head was on his right shoulder blade, and the body stretched diagonally across his back to his left hip. Drake’s wolf’s head would be on his left shoulder, with the body stretching diagonally to his right hip. They were both about halfway done, but Axi didn’t know if he could make it. “Tell me more about my falcon,” he said through gritted teeth, hoping Drake’s voice would distract him.

“Your stone is the Fire Opal, and people with the falcon are supposed to be natural leaders—quick thinking and graceful. They can be jackasses though because of the whole take-charge attitude.”

Axi smiled a bit, even though his back was killing him. That definitely sounded like him. “So when’s your birthday? What are wolves like?”

“February 19th,” Drake said, gasping quietly as the tattoo artist began to fill in a section. “We like independence, but we’re loving and gentle.”

“Cool,” Axi muttered.

What seemed like five hours later, they were done. They walked into the mirror room and stood to look.

“Badass,” Drake said, nodding.

“My mom’s gonna kill me.” Axi grinned as he and Drake walked to the front of the building to pay.