"Alright, maggots! Line up!"

Oscar cringed at the sound of Agent Strong's abrasive voice. "Jeez, Ashley. Do you ever use your inside voice?"

The man jabbed a large finger at him menacingly. "How many times do I have to tell you, Jimenez. It's Agent Strong or Coach to you."

"Right," Oscar quickly said. He straightened up and saluted the man. "My apologies, sir!"

Agent Strong scowled and shook his head before returning his attention to the rest of the teenagers standing before him. Despite the surprise meeting with Director Shaw earlier that morning, they were still being subjected to inhumane practice that was early morning training.

A game of capture the flag had been planned for the group. There only nine of them participating, as Chase, Stella, and Andre were completing their recovery sessions in the infirmary. That just left Oscar, Emily, Theo, and the rest of the new recruits to terrorize Agent Strong without being told off by Chase or Stella—much to Oscar's delight.

They were great leaders and upstanding citizens and all, but they could be buzzkills. It was always "pay attention" and "stop messing around", along with the occasional "quit picking your nose". 

However, it didn't seem like anyone was in the mood to terrorize Agent Strong. In fact, everyone besides Oscar was struggling to keep their eyes open. A few of them were even having trouble standing upright.

"Wake up, maggots!"

Agent Strong pushed his sunglasses up his nose and blew the whistle hanging around his neck. The shrill noise jolted everyone as if they'd been zapped by lightning. Angus, who had a streak of drool lining his square chin, jumped and accidentally elbowed Lucky in the stomach. The long-haired boy fell to his knees and groaned in pain. Beside them, Emily simply facepalmed while the others laughed.

Agent Strong wasn't amused.

"If you lot don't get your act together, you'll be running laps for the rest of training."

"I actually don't mind running," Zach quipped. "Running is rad." He vanished in a burst of neon green only to reappear a second later—except now his blond hair was slightly disheveled and he was breathing heavier than before. "Wanna see me do it again?"

"No," everyone else said in unison.

Oscar stepped in front of the line of young Primes and faced them. "Hey guys, cut it out. Ashley...I mean Coach Strong is trying to help us become the best superheroes we can be."

"Thank you, Os—"

"If you guys keep messing with him, he'll blow a fuse. I mean look at him." He glanced at the hulking, retired agent over his shoulder. "He's already in shambles."

"Why you little..." Agent Strong swiped at Oscar, but the pyro was expecting it. He sidestepped just in time to dodge the man's hand. A chorus of laughter sounded throughout the group.

Grinning triumphantly, he put his hands up and took a step backward. "Oops?"

"Keep messing around and you'll be running laps until your legs fall off, kid."

"Alright, alright. I'm done."

Agent Strong grunted in reply. "Just hurry up and pick your teams. Head over to The Battlefield when you're done." Without waiting for any sort of acknowledgment, he stomped out of The Gym and into the nearby simulation room.

Still smiling, Oscar turned to his peers. "Who's ready to play capture the flag?"

#

Oscar clapped his hands together as he waited for countdown blaring through the speakers hidden throughout The Battlefield to finish.

The lines on his training suit flashed red as he let a few coils of smoke roll from his shoulders. Bouncing on the balls of his feet, he scanned the dense, fabricated forest in front of him. The temperature gauge attached to his shoulder beeped as it alerted him that he slightly went over his safe zone.

It usually only happened when he was excited or nervous.

In this case, it was both.

"For a simulation, this sure does look real," he mumbled. He shuddered as the sound of animals screeching and leaves rustling filled his ears. "Where'd they even find these noises from?"

"Oscar, remember. You're playing defense," Emily told him. She already had an arrow notched in her bow.

"Aye, aye, Reverb." He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Wait, what are you doing?"

"Me and Kai are on offense." Emily pointed at Theo, who was currently zipping around trees nearby. "Theo will be scouting the perimeter to see who is approaching."

Oscar nodded slowly before frowning. "I never get to do anything fun. How come I gotta be back here?"

"No offense," Kai said while placing a hand on his shoulder, "but you're kinda slow."

"Gee thanks."

"And you can't fight."

"Wow. You got any more?"

Kai tapped her chin for a second before replying. "Your powers are wildly unpredictable."

He deadpanned. "Yeah, well, you control water and talk to fish."

"You say that like it's a bad thing." Kai smirked. "It's better than setting things on fire."

Behind her, Emily snickered and gave her a high-five. Oscar simply rolled his eyes and refocused his attention on the forest ahead of them.

I'll show them, he told himself. I'm gonna win this game.

"Begin!" PAI, the artificial intelligence system that silently ran most of The Acropolis' operations, announced through the speakers.

Oscar's eyes lit up as a brief siren blared through the trees around him. He stood rooted to his spot as he watched Emily and Kai dart off into the foliage.

Theo turned to him and grinned. "Catch you later, dude!" He disappeared into the trees in a flash of silver.

Sighing, he continued guarding the flag sticking out from the ground behind him. A silver ring with red, pulsating lights surrounded the pole—indicating that the flag was still secure. As long as Oscar stayed close to the circle and made sure no one grabbed it, his team would surely win.

All he had to do was stay alert.

But that was easier said than done.

After a while, he could hear the sounds of battle deep in the simulation room's generated setting. Oscar yearned to dart off towards the noises, but he stayed put. He was given a job and he intended to do it to the best of his ability.

But it was so boring.

Ten minutes had passed, and he hadn't seen a single piece of action. Eventually, he found himself juggling a few balls of fire as he waited for something to happen. An uninterested expression had settled upon his face like a leaf on the ground during the fall.

As he tossed his fiery spheres into the air, he heard something rustle behind him. Immediately straightening up, he spun on his heel and extinguished the flame balls. He charged his fists with orange fire and narrowed his gaze. 

"I know you're there!" He deepened his voice and took a threatening step forward.

A bush shook to his left. Without thinking, he chucked a fireball at it. The entire thing went up in flames before the image deteriorated, leaving behind a reflective cube.

"Oops."

As he observed the decommissioned bush, he noticed a trail of green, phosphorescent particles floating nearby. They hung in the air like snowflakes in Chernobyl. His eyes widened.

"Aw shit."

A force collided into him, sending him sprawling to the ground. All the air left his lung as if they'd been several months late on their rent payments. Groaning, and possibly seeing stars, Oscar propped himself up onto his elbows.

In front of him stood a laughing Zach.

"You should've seen the look on your face!" The teenager doubled over. "You really should've seen that coming, Fuego. Though, my move was pretty rad."

Who the hell says rad? Was this kid born in the eighties?

Oscar climbed back to his feet. A scowl decorated his mouth. "Yeah, well, you should've seen this coming."

"Wha—"

A fireball hurtled towards the boy's chest. He yelped before zipping out the way. Oscar had anticipated the dodge. In fact, he had been counting on it. Guessing where the boy would run, he peppered the ground with a few specs of fire and raised his hands as if conducting a grand orchestra.

A fiery wall rose from the dirt and formed a circle around the speeding Zach. He shouted over the crackling flames and billowing smoke as he tried to find a way out.

"Beat that, Greeny," Oscar mused.

"It's Neon!"

  He stood in front of his flaming creation wielding nothing but a wicked grin and a twinkle in his eyes. Folding his arms across his chest, he admired his handiwork. He watched as Zach futilely darted around inside the ring of fire.

"It's no use," he told him. "Unless you want to get burned. The fire is clocking in at six hundred degrees, so I'd advise against it."

"This isn't very rad of you."

"Stop saying rad, man," Oscar said. "It's lame."

"Not as lame as getting your flag stolen," Zach quipped.

Oscar furrowed his brows at him. "Was that supposed to be a joke? You don't have my flag. You're stuck in—" He froze as he felt sweat trickling down his skin. Considering he was immune to intense temperatures, he knew it wasn't because of his fire.

Uh oh.

He turned around to see Holly yanking his team's flag out of the ground. Her wild mane of red hair flailed behind her as she made a break for the dark embrace of the forest. Cursing loudly, Oscar chased after her.

"Hey!" Zach yelled after him. "You can't just leave me in this thing! I'll run out of air!"

"You'll be fine!" Oscar told him. Once he got far away enough, the flames would be reduced to pathetic embers before dying out entirely.

Whether or not Zach was still trapped in his ring of fire was the least of his worries, though. He needed to stop Holly from getting back to her team's base with his team's flag. It was his fault that she had it in the first place. If she returned the flag to her side, it would only solidify what Kai had said about him.

He knew she wasn't trying to hurt his confidence, but her words pierced it like the tridents she fought with.

Everything she had said was true, but that didn't mean he wanted to be reminded of it. It didn't help that every time he went out on a mission, the public only wanted to see the others. They almost never asked him for a picture or an autograph.

And he was always messing up.

This game of capture the flag was his chance to prove them wrong, even if it only was in training.

Gritting his teeth, he forced his leg muscles into overdrive. He started gaining on Holly, who had begun to slow down. However, they were steadily approaching her team's base. They were just a few yards away.

He had to stop her.

Charging his fist with fire, he pointed it at her and directed a torrent of low-temperature flames in her direction. She dove to the side, causing the flag to fly from her hands. As if his legs were rubber bands, he sprung from the ground and collapsed on top of the flag. Quickly scrambling to his feet, he took a look at Holly.

She was still on the ground, though, she didn't look hurt. In fact, she was just looking up at him with a strange look in her eyes.

She's probably tired, he told himself. He did just chase her down through the fake forest.

Seeing that she was planning on getting up, he took a glance at her team's base. No one was defending their flag, and he already had possession of his own. If he could manage to steal theirs and make it back to his base, the game would be over.

He'd be the hero.

He set his jaw and took off for the flag. Surprisingly, no one challenged him for it. It was almost too easy. In fact, it was.

Just as he ripped their flag out the ground, he spotted someone emerge from the trees to his left. He turned to face them, but it was already too late.

Angus—equipped with his metal baseball bat, Slugger—tossed a baseball crackling with blue energy and smacked it like a home run towards Oscar. The crack tore through the air, seemingly breaking the sound barrier as it hurtled at him.

Before he knew it, his chest had erupted in pain and he was flat on his back staring up at the white-paneled ceiling of The Battlefield. He wheezed for air as his abdomen felt like someone had just poured liquid fire into it.

His fingers loosed around the metal poles of both flags as large spots dotted his vision. He coughed twice as the pain inside his chest amplified with each passing second.

In front of him, he heard two sets of footsteps approaching.

"Ah think ye killed him, Angus," Holly exclaimed.

"Nah..." Angus hovered over Oscar and waved a fat hand over his face. "He's fine...I think." He patted the boy's chest. "Sorry, fella. Didn't mean to hit ya' so hard."

He tried coughing out a witty response, but he couldn't even do that. Instead, he just blinked angrily at the heavy-set Prime.

A baseball? He hit me with a baseball?!

Angus retrieved both flags from the ground and sauntered over to his team's base. Seconds later, PAI revealed his team had won the game. It wasn't too long before everyone else arrived on the scene.

Emily and Kai, both breathing heavily and wet with sweat, glared down at Oscar.

"What happened? Why aren't you back at our base?" Emily interrogated. "You just lost us the game, you dimwit."

Kai urged her to calm down.

"Hey, go easy on 'em," Angus told her. "He didn't see me coming."

Still wheezing, he managed to sit up on his elbows. "I...saw an opportunity...and I took it."

Kai facepalmed. "You were supposed to be on defense. Their team outnumbered us by one. That's why we needed you back there to protect us."

He snorted. "You just wanted me back there so I couldn't mess up." He dropped back down to the ground. "Well, looks like I managed to do that anyways."

Everyone exchanged looks of confusion.

"Oscar—"

He slowly got back to his feet and dusted himself off. The pain in his chest hadn't subsided, by the hurt in his heart was much greater. The skin on his neck felt hotter than a volcanoes surface as he rubbed it.

"Sorry for losing you the game, Emily."

With that, he turned away from them all and limped towards the exit of the simulation room.

_____________

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