Chapter 4: Part 4: A New Leaf, POV: Sam

“I’ll take you to Quinn if you work with me here.” An FBI agent said to me in the center of Battery Park late at night. 

I put my hands up, “I’ve changed my mind and want to speak with him, preferably in private.” 

The agent said nothing more to me and just signaled for me to follow him. As expected he was much taller than me I’d have to say like six to seven inches and much bulkier too. I just followed him into an SUV and he started to drive, “If he’s a kidnapper, I'll burn up this car… or at least try too.” I thought in my head. The car was silent, no music or anything, just the humming of the tires on the road and the loud ambiance of New York City at night. 

Time felt slow in the SUV. There were no clocks, at least from my line of sight, the windows were tinted black so it was a bit harder to see everything. Not to mention everything else in the SUV was either black or a dark spruce shade so it was even more dark in here. After many times of the car slowing then stopping then going again over and over, we finally arrived at the same office building as a few days ago. We got out and walked into a regular office room with tons of cubicles and stuff. The agent ignored all of the regular cubicle corporate business stuff on the first floor and just walked me to an elevator in the back of the building. 

“This isn’t the same elevator as last time?” I pointed out to him when I got in.

He sighed, “It's a back entrance.” 

“This is hella sketchy,” I thought in my head and I calmed myself down to only think of a fire I could make in my hand really quickly. 

The Agent did the same as Quinn had days ago, taking off the metal cover of the buttons then inserting a keycard instead of a phone into a scanner and the elevator started to descend. It actually wasn’t a kidnapping and we really did end up in the same labs but on the other side of the corridor, “Told ya it was a back entrance.” The Agent grinned. 

“Yeah yeah, let’s just see him already.” I walked past him and nodded my head inward as a signal to get going. 

He walked me to a door and said, “This is it. Have fun.” He opened the door and pushed me in. 

And there he was, Quinn, with the orange visors and big white lab coat. His desk was facing the door to see whoever entered but he didn’t look off of his computer the whole time. After a few seconds he said, “Come take a seat Sam.” He didn’t look off of his screens and just signaled with his hands to the chair in front of his desk.  

I grabbed the chair and sat down. I then awkwardly asked, “You know my name?” 

“Of course. You’re on our danger list and interest list so obviously we have to know some stuff about you.” 

“How much stuff?”

“Classified.” He answered declaratively, “So you changed your mind and you’re willing to learn from Xeno? That’s Great!” He didn’t even give me a chance to answer.

“Uhh yeah I guess so, I just want to be able to control my flames.” I meekly stated. 

“Oh Xeno can teach you that, my team & I have been working with him for the past few days to learn more about magic and developed many formulas for alloys and such to be used in combat.” He looked off from his computer for the first time, “In fact, here’s some examples.” And he swiped his monitor to the right vigorously. 

I thought he would turn around the monitor too fast so I shut my eyes in case anything fell, but I heard no crashing so I looked up. The screen was empty but still glowing, but now the rooms were lit in the same glowing neon blue like the screen. It was a hologram projector, I then mouthed but didn’t say, “What the hell?”

Surrounding me were tabs of drawings, blueprints and texts about metals from space and stuff to be done with them… and even stencils of Zack, Sheila & I, “What's with those?” I pointed at it. 

Quinn got out of his chair and walked to those tabs, “A 3D rendering I had my AIs do from photos of you guys. I need to know your physique just in case if y’all would ever change your mind, clearly YOU did,” He snarkily commented after explaining. 

He grabbed another tab from under a bunch and dragged it over to me, “But the main purpose is so I can create suits for you guys, y’know just in case.”

“You made us suits for combat even if we would never join you!?” I was surprised by the efforts made. 

“Well, you always need contingencies. Oh and this is the prototype, it wasn't even produced yet so I’m open to opinions, but the most important thing is,” Quinn sat down onto his desk and looked to the ground, “Can you recruit the other two?” 

“I- I could try, b-but I don’t know if I can.” 

[Knock Knock Knock]

Someone knocked on the door, “Come in if it’s important.” Quinn said into an intercom device. 

It was Xeno, with Zack & Sheila, “I think it’s pretty important.” Xeno commented.

“Hey Sam.” Sheila said, waving her hand, “Awkward time and place to see ya, hehe.” 

Zack just said a simple, “Sup” then his eyes lit up, “What's all this tech?” He saw the holograms. 

“Well it's my 3D Projection of my screen in this room, come, come I’ll show you how it works.” Quinn’s eyes gleamed. Both Zack and Quinn were just talking on and on about the hologram projection. I was still marveled by all the tabs about the metals from the asteroids. 

Sheila stood beside me and whispered, “This is how I see you and Sam about Game programming.” 

“Aren’t you also in the comp sci department!?” I whispered back.

“Well no not really, I’m in both the art and comp sci departments, just less comp sci.” 

[Clang!]  Xeno hit the bottom of his spear on the ground, “Must we hurry on and get to the real point: Training these adolescents to become wizards!” 

“Alright alright,” Quinn stood up right again from showing Zack the projector, “Okay so, what we’ve determined is that using magic is similar to controlling your stamina. So to test that, how far can y’all run at a consistent-ish speed?” 

“Not far.” All three of us said in tandem. We’re all indoor kids working with computers all day so… exercise isn’t really our thing. 

“Inconvenient, tomorrow when are you all released from your uh place of brainwashing or learning?” Xeno asked. 

“Number one: it's called School. Number two: Around 3pm.” I answered. 

“That’ll work,” Quinn went back to a secondary and a tertiary monitor, “I already siphoned your emails and phone numbers off of your phones so I’ll just send any information needed to relay for you guys. Oh and also probably set up a few firewalls preventing your phones from being hacked into by anyone other than me of course.” 

In a matter of seconds we all got notifications on our phone for information on magic, “Use those to study up, you got homework, I’ll be sending a follow-up on the metals we have to work with for your weaponry arsenal and your suits.” 

“Woah woah woah, slow down!” Zack exclaimed, “Can we at least learn how to not leak any magic so I can start using computers again!” He looked at Xeno. 

“Oh that one’s as simple as drinking water! Just focus on your own mind and meditate a bit, it’ll feel like an off on switch and overtime it’ll be as easy as breathing!” Xeno brushed it over like it was nothing. 

“Ah…” The three of us thought about it for a second, “HEHHHHHHHHHHH!?!?” 

The three of us started to ramble starting with Zack, “So all we had to do was meditate and calm our mind, THAT’S IT!?” 

Then Sheila, “Why couldn’t we have figured that out before? Were we just too stressed from the turn of events!? What’s wrong that we couldn’t.”

“I think it's because we were too busy trying to force our bodies to stop our powers and not just relaxing to move with our powers. I don’t know I’m just spitballing,” I shrugged. 

“Likely because of the stress of learning that you possess magic so late in your life. People on my home-world learned when they were born or can start to remember important events.” Xeno tacked on to get us to stop talking.

We just went silent for a minute, until Quinn broke down the silence, “It’s been a long night for y’all. I’ll get my agents to send you home and tomorrow we can start your training afterschool. Buckle up, you’re gonna get tired.” 

“What about our homework and studying for school?” Sheila asked. 

“I don’t know, sleep less and work more,” Quinn shrugged, “If worse comes to worse. I’ll hack into your school’s database and uh adjust the numbers.” Very unethical but sure as long as my grades get better, I thought.

“That’s unhonorable of a decision to carry out Mr. Quinn.” Xeno pointed out. 

“I don’t care, whatever it takes to keep this world alive and what's stopping it is numbers that judge teenager’s academics… I don’t care, I'll change em. Anyway I’ve already sent a message to my agents to your specific addresses to send y’all home so get going,” he pulled back the holograms into his screens again and he sat back down, “I still have lots to design and much to search for.” 

“What’re you looking for?” Sheila asked. 

“Classified.” 

“He told me that before,” I shrugged at Sheila, “Just sayin’.” 

Xeno walked us out of Quinn’s office and out to the garages where the agents had an SUV to take us back to our places, “I’ll see you all tomorrow, oh and by all means come in an outfit ready to be drenched in sweat!” And then he told us bye.

We all got in the SUV and I shut the door, Sheila on the left side of the car whispered, “What Xeno said was kinda gross.”

“Can’t blame him, he’s an alien so he doesn’t understand social norms on this Earth.” Zack reasoned.

“Is that really a good enough reason to excuse any weirdness?” Sheila squinted her eyes in a sarcastic manner.

Zack shrugged, “I don’t know, you tell me.” 

“It probably isn’t,” I said without looking directly at them and instead looking out the darkened window. 

I turned around and they both were looking at me, and then Zack reasoned, “It could be, I have no idea what his planet’s like and neither do you.” 

“Should we ask him what his planet is like?” I asked.

“You mean, Was like?” We stared at Sheila, “What? He claimed his planet was attacked, and now he’s here. Just sayin’ it might not be the best idea to ask just in case if there’s any internal trauma.” 

“What if he wants to vent though?” Zack asked. 

“To three ragtag high schoolers with zero combat experience and known him for a combined two hours at best? Probably not.” Sheila pointed out. 

I then commented something out of pocket, “I don’t like the word ragtag for some reason.” 

“Why?” Zack questioned.

“I don’t know, the word just seems kind of weird… RagTag I don’t know, it's weird.” I enunciated ragtag.

“Oh by the way,” Sheila took her phone out of her pocket, “I’ll spam this chat so when Quinn inevitably hacks into our phones, he’ll see this is where we share our info. 

We all just ended up bantering and chatting till one by one we were dropped off at home. First Zack, then Sheila and finally me. It was around one in the morning now, I just just trudged my way to my room dead tired. I almost wanted to slither back to my room, if I could. I sat on my bed and first attempted to meditate and calm the mind.

“Breath in,” I took a breath and closed my eyes, “Breathe out.” I kept taking deep breaths and calming my mind until I could feel the on and off of magic seeping through my body. I ended up getting so tired that I just… 

“Oh shit what time is it?” I looked out of my room and it was that weird day in the winter when New York was sunny and the light was peering into my room from the open curtains in my room. I stared at my clock, “HOLY SHIT IT'S 9:30! I ALREADY MISSED FIRST PERIOD!!!”

I checked my phone and just saw one text, “Sheila” from an unknown number, “So obviously that’s Zack’s number…” Oh god Sheila’s sarcasm is starting to infect me. I typed my name and started to frantically do everything. Frantically brush my teeth, frantically eat my breakfast, frant- Yeah you get the idea. 

I sprinted all the way to the school gates and then just leaned on the pole for a breather. I trudged by way in through the front doors and the main office to file my late attendance. 

“First tardiness of the year.” The teacher at the desk commented. 

“What? Really?” I was surprised, I was sure I'd been late before. 

“Yes, the first of the year, good job.” He sarcastically stated then followed up with, “Now get to class.” 

“Alright I will,”  and the second I step out of the door I-

[RING RING RING] 

Great, now I’m late for second period too…

I just picked myself up and just walked to third period like nothing was weird. I went on like how I normally would for school, I didn’t feel super weird at all throughout the day. After third and fourth period was my lunch period. I sat in the computer lab waiting for Zack and Sheila. I checked the PC that Zack blew up yesterday, Of course it’s not fixed, why did I expect something to happen. At least all the smoke was cleared out and everything was cleaned. In the school email though they spoke about an unclear vandalism in the computer labs… man I know nothing about that-

“Hey Hey!” Sheila burst through the door with a cheery wave with her right hand and her left hand is dragging Zack by his hoodie looking like he’s dead tired, “Oh yeah last period was a free one, so I pestered him with Math questions!”

“How can you NOT do vertical & horizontal asymptotes!?” Zack cried out as he ripped his hood out of her grip. 

“Blah blah whatever let’s not nitpick those details!” Sheila cut him off though in the background I could still hear Zack ranting stuff like, “I mean seriously, vertical asymptotes, just factor the expressions cancel any extraneous and just-” 

“I ALREADY SAID BLAH BLAH WHATEVER ZACK!!” Sheila told him to shut up without telling him to shut up. 

“Alright whatever,” He crossed his arms, “Don’t bug me again, bug Sam again. He has a higher math grade than me.” 

I felt like Sheila’s eyes gleamed and pierced right at me, “Okay anyway, have y’all figured out how to turn on and off your powers for now?” 

“I have, I can actually walk far distances without getting wobbly.”

Zack’s tone changed wildly, “AND I CAN USE COMPUTERS AGAIN!! SEE!” He touched the monitor and-

[Bzzt Bzzt]

It short circuited, “Ah. I guess I’m still only at 50% chance right now. It's enough for me to use a laptop I stole from my brother for notes.” 

“Oh yeah how’s he doing? Does he know if you can, y'know, electrocute people with your hands?” Sheila raised Zack’s arm. 

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He pulls away from her, “No. No he doesn’t know. No one does but us in this room and the government.”

“That’s good then. Have any of you gotten the email from Quinn yet?” I asked, “Oh also, what do we call him? Quinn? Mr. Quinn? Mr. Whatever his last name is?” 

“He doesn't have a last name.” Sheila said, “...Or he just won’t share it, for now I think Quinn or Mr. Quinn works. I’m going with Quinn cause it's less to say” and then she shrugged. 

Zack sat down on a chair, “Alright then. I’ll just go with Mr. Quinn because it seems polite” 

 “Same,” I said while getting out of my chair and then plopped down on a table. 

“What you just did… wasn’t that polite.” Sheila pointed out.

“What? I’m just sitting on the table.” 

“Well you just sat down where people work so…” Sheila shrugged. 

“Meh it’s fine.” I put it aside, “Anyway, did y’all get an email yet from Mr. Quinn?” 

“Nope, Nadda.” Sheila responded.

And so did Zack, “Didn’t get anything so far.”

[Bing!]

Sheila and my phone just sounded off a custom notification none of us have ever heard so far, “Can he hear us?” Sheila commented on it. 

“I don’t know anymore, just check your phones.” Zack said, “I would check mine if I could consistently use it… and if I didn’t fry it yesterday.” 

I checked my phone and just got a simple email: 

“Meet at this place afterschool :-)” It read with an address linked to it, hmph nice smiley face.

Sheila clicked on the address and we all crowded around her on her phone to see where it was. 

“Wait, that's not the same building!  why is it on a-” 

“Rooftop!?” I exclaimed. I repeated the same question from back in the computer lab… just now on top of a windy rooftop in the middle of Manhattan. 

“I have no idea, but I do not see Mr. Quinn,” Zack said while taking off his sweatshirt.”

“I don’t see the need for you to ask us this, you asked us a few times already back at lunch break and now when we’re actually here? Kinda redundant of you.” Sheila commented while changing out her shoes. 

I just took off my sweatshirt to be in a T-shirt and shorts. 

Suddenly a light peered at all of us, “GREETINGS!” A dark silhouette said in all the light, Is that Xeno?

And then, yeah it was Xeno. 

Sheila scoffed, “What’s with the bright flashy entrance?” 

“The what?” He was confused, “OH I guess I accidentally walked on the path of your star and my suit is a  gleaming white so uh, very reflective of light.” 

“So it was just a coincidence?” Zack questioned. 

“I guess so. Well, it's time to start your first training exercise and since you all have weak stamina's and builds so far,” You didn’t have to backhand comment us like that, “Our first exercise should be free running!” 

“Huh?” We all were dumbfounded. 

“What do you mean Huh? It’ll be fun! Or, perhaps you do not know the concept of free running? Well free running is when you-” 

“We know we know,” Sheila stopped him, “it's when you run along rooftops and stairways and whatever like parkour, we know, but why is this as our first exercise?” 

“Yeah if we need to build stamina and physique, shouldn’t cardio and weight training be more optimal?” Zack inquired. 

Xeno walked past us and climbed on the ledge of the rooftop “Maybe, but this is more fun and trains you for real world environments. Besides, what's training without an element of danger!” and he leaned down and fell back. 

“WHAT THE HELL!?” I shouted and we all dashed to the side and looked over. Xeno stood there clenching a clothes line rope that spans between two buildings, “see? We’re fine! You don’t have to do exactly what I do, it’s free running after all! Just as long as you get to the other side by any means I do not care” and he started to move his way down the rope to the next building. 

“This is insane. Are we actually doing this?” Sheila tried to reason with us. 

“Sure,” Zack leaped down to the fire escape in the alley off the side of the building, “Xeno did say we didn’t have to do exactly what he did!” And Zack climbs down the fire escape. 

The alley that Xeno casually climbed over had two fire escape stairwells. One on each side of the buildings that make this alley. I climbed down the side of the building letting myself hang on the side so I could hop less of a distance to the fire escape.

Sheila followed suit soon. By the time I got down to where Zack was, he’d already jumped across the alley to the other side and started climbing up the ladder, “let’s get going! Before we lose Xeno!” He cried down to us. 

We just kept moving and eventually after stepping on the railing of the fire escape to climb up to the rooftop. I could see Xeno’s path he was taking, the buildings in this particular neighborhood were closer to each other so it was easier to jump fire escapes and hop over buildings than we originally thought.  Zack and I made a mad dash to Xeno and he was across another few fire escapes. 

Xeno called out to us, “Magic should be able to boost all your physical senses if you focus on it to do so!” 

I started to pant out, “yeah that’d be nice,” to Zack who was in front of me and Sheila who was a bit behind. Now I’m wishing I exercised more often in the past, all that's carrying me now is adrenaline. 

I stood back up straight and started to dash across rooftops once more. After about an hour of trying to chase Xeno, he stopped so we could catch up to him. When each of us did, we slumped to the ground.

Sheila asked in between each deep breath she took, “Are we done for the day?” 

“Of course not!” Xeno laughed off, “We’re heading back to the labs now and doing physical training!” 

“Then what the hell was this for!?” Zack cried out while using his T-shirt to wipe the sweat off his forehead.

“The first half of the warm-up of course! Now we must head back to finish the warm-up and grab your things so we can go to the lab!” Xeno ran towards us then past us and jumped back the other way where we came from. 

“This is gonna be a long day-” Sheila panted while she grabbed my arm to help her up. 

Zack checked his watch, “It already has been a long day. We’ve been doing this for approximately one hour twelve minutes and fourteen seconds-” he stopped because Sheila and I groaned very loudly. 

“... Yeah okay, at this rate we’ll be back to where we started and it’ll be four almost five pm. And he calls that the “warm up”, he needs to learn that we can’t take this much outside life!” and now Zack groaned. 

I slid behind and pushed him forward and he fell forward but didn’t fall to the ground, “what was that for?” 

“Let’s just get going so we don’t waste another hour~!” I grinned as I ran ahead of him. 

“Yeah let’s just go,” Sheila said, poking her head out from the side of the building. She already began climbing the ladder down to the fire escapes. 

I followed suit and so did Zack. The three of us were running and jumping across rooftops, still at a rackety and uneven pace but halfway it felt a bit easier to run. 

“Has anyone just been having an easier time jumping and running or is it just me?” Sheila asked while jumping mid air,  “Am I on runner’s high or something like that?” She landed on a fire escape and started to run up the steep stairs.  

“Xeno said earlier that your body will have an easier time doing physical activities as long as magic is enhancing your body,” Zack hurdled over an Air conditioning vent, “and yes. I feel much better running with magic now. There’s no way I could’ve jumped over that if I didn’t have magic boosting my body.” 

“Yeah it feels lighter to breathe and my legs don’t feel like they’re splitting!” I commented while leaping off a rooftop and landed on another lower rooftop.

I stopped at my tracks when we saw a decently long alleyway with three perfectly lined clothes line ropes knotted to the top. I took a rest waiting for Zack and Sheila. 

When Sheila got here and saw the ropes she asked, “who wants to try Tarzan swinging to the other side?” 

“I thought you were scared of heights~” I teased her. 

“Not if y’all go first.” 

“I don’t think we should. Besides the obvious reason for this not being safe, wouldn’t this technically be vandalism? Towards whoever put up these ropes?”

“Not being safe is not a valid reason. We’re literally free running on rooftops.” I knelt down to untie the ropes, “Sheila you first” as I tried to hand her one. 

“Rock Paper Scissors to see if you or I go first?” 

“Whatever,” I told her. After two tries of getting the same one, I got paper and she got scissors.

“Hah! You’re first!” She handed me a rope. 

“Alright let’s get this craziness over with” I climbed on top of the ledge, took three deep breaths and… 

“WAHOO!” I lept! My voice echoed throughout the alley and projected around the block.  My hands clenched the rope like my life depended on it, my palms were sweaty and I was about to hit the wall. A second or two before hitting the wall I let go and caught the fire escape with one hand and held on for dear life. 

I climbed onto the fire escape and called out to the other two, “YOUR TURN!” 

Sheila gave a thumbs up and then it was Zack who got on the ledge, I could see him sighing and then he jumped as well, “AHHHHH!” he went down.

Instead of letting go almost at the end, he planted his feet on the brick wall and looked up at me, “Okay that was a little fun.” He started to scale up the wall like he was batman. 

And finally Sheila jumped and cried out… nothing, she said nothing. She just jumped and did the same move I did to grab onto the fire escape, “That was pretty fun. We should do that again.” 

Zack leapt into the fire escape level we were in, “if we come across another one, but I still want to maintain our time and possibly start moving faster.” 

“Then let’s go!” Sheila dragged Zack and I up the stairs. 

“Ow ow ow,” each of us repeated each time we went up a stair and our bodies crashed onto them, “let us go damn it!” I started to pull on Sheila’s arm. 

“Alright if that’s what you want,” Sheila angled herself towards the outside the fire escape, “Here ya go!” and she… threw us out. 

Zack and I caught ourselves on the side barely grasping the railing of the fire escape. The both of us climbed back in, smacked Sheila in the head. And then Zack winked at me. 

I had no idea what he wanted me to do but as soon as he looked up at the stairs… I knew. 

The both of us said something along the lines of “See ya!” and darted up the stairs. And for the funny part, we pulled up the steep stair/ladder leaving Sheila on that floor. 

She smirked at us through the whole floor and jumped out to start climbing the railings then said, “I see how it is now.”

“Yup,” Zack pushed me aside, “Free for all!” He ran up the stairs. I followed suit and jumped past him to the rooftop. 

“This isn’t the finish line isn’t it?” I sarcastically commented. 

Sheila ledged up and said, “Of course not!” and ran past me. 

From then it was a race to the end, a few blocks left and we dashed like madmen. Sweat dripped from our heads and our palms but it didn’t matter. We just bantered, joked, leaped and sprinted!

Finally we made it back to our stuff we left hours ago. Everyone was exhausted, drenched in sweat and heavily breathing. None of us were standing, we were all on the rooftop sitting spread out to feel the cold air. 

We saw someone open the door, “Good Warm-up everyone, now we must go do some real training.” It was Xeno and he was applauding for us.

“What? We aren’t done?” Sheila complained. 

An Agent stepped past Xeno and started grabbing our bags “Nope! There’s an SUV on the ground. We’re going back to the MRF and this kind gentleman is our driver and the one who will be grabbing your bags.” 

The three of us begrudgingly stood up and started to stagger our way down the stairs. 

I whispered to the two of them, “We should not have wasted so much energy trying to race past each other.” 

“Well at least we got here earlier,” Zack reasoned, “but my legs are killing me.”

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