"ARES IS THE BEST! HE IS BETTER THAN ME IN ANYWAY POSSIBLE!" Scorpio ran around the training room holding a sign displaying those exact words, and a shirt with Ares' face.

Based off her facial expression, she looked like she wanted to jump into an active volcano.

Ares observed Scorpio as he did pull-ups on a pull-up bar.

"How long does she have to scream that for?" asked Taurus who was doing arm stretched beside some yoga mats.

"Until Ares lets her stop," replied Leon who stretched with Taurus because he doesn't like exercise. Today he wore a fabulous all pink work out outfit, with his hair tied back in a messy bun.

"I can't do much training in my wheelchair, so I think I'll just observe a bit." Taurus relaxed her arms, giving them a break. "I'll ask Aquarius to help me use a pull-up bar later."

Leon began doing yoga poses. "I HATE training. I'll observe with you after I finish a few more poses."

The only zodiacs in the training room right now were class B zodiacs, Ares and Scorpio. The training room was only available at certain times to certain classes. Class A could use the training room whenever they wanted, class B could use it between six am two pm, while class F could only use it from twelve am to six am. Classless zodiacs were no longer allowed in the training room.

It was currently eight am, two days after the first trial.

Taurus observed the others, finding Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius using workout equipement, Libra, Pie and Cancy were swinging across the monkey bars, Gemini, Pisces and Cancer were climbing the rock wall, while Scor ran laps around the room. Ares and Scorpio were now arguing again as they did pull-ups side by side.

***

"... I woke up with two beady eyes staring at me. It was that fucking Shomari," ranted Leo from her stationary bike.

"How did he get in your room?" asked Sagittarius who peddled on a second bike.

"You should have heard her scream," laughed Aries from a third bike. "It woke everyone on our floor."

"There's only one person who can get in through a locked door..." Leo trailed off, looking around the training arena for Vinn.

"I feel bad for Virgo and Gem." Sagittarius pouted. "I wish they were at least class B."

"But at least Lee was second last place," smiled Aries. "Cancy won't heal his leg either. She says it would use too much magic."

Leo's eyes widened as she remembered something. "Did Taurus ask Cancy about her spine?"

Sagittarius nodded. "Cancy said she'll try, but there's a low chance of fully healing her spine."

"She'll probably do it after the trials," thought Aries outloud. "When she can afford to become sick again."

Sagittarius placed a hand over her heart. The heart that failed and almost killed her. "I think she might be able to do it. She's a skilled healer if she could just heal my heart the way she did."

"The spinal cord will be more complicated than a heart." Aries moved to a weight machine where she had to pull a bar downwards. "But I hope Taurus can be healed."

Leo's brow furrowed in concentration. "I wonder if we can sneak Shomari into a pet store."

Sagittarius rolled her eyes. "Give it a break Leo."

"Yeah..." panted Aries who was halfway through her set. "He's... kinda... cute."

Leo turned to look at Aries in disbelief. "You screamed when you saw him yesterday."

"He's growing on me. As long as he doesn't bite me, it'll be okay."

"Why does she want a snake if her country is literally underwater?" asked Sagittarius rhetorically.

"I thought the alternates were all mean, but I'm actually starting to like some of them," admitted Aries.

Leo left her stationary bike to use a weight machine for doing crunches. "Cancy and Leon are actually two of the most precious people I know. Vinn is on my good side after she helped us drain Ophiuchus' bank account, Capri seems really nice. Lee can rot in his wheelchair."

"It's funny how he said Taurus would lose, but she was ranked in class B while Lee is class F," smirked Aries.

"That's what happens when you make fun of others for things they can't help," shrugged Sagittarius. "Now he's stuck in a wheelchair too."

***

"Would you catch me if I fell?" smirked Cancer while glancing at Pisces.

"You're tied to a harness," replied Pisces. "You wouldn't fall to your death."

"You'd be a bad boyfriend. I pity your future girlfriend."

"I'd save one girl."

"One girl? One singular girl? Who could that be? Is her name S-"

"I wouldn't save you now, even if you weren't attached to a harness."

"Nooo! Save me!" Cancer let go of the rock wall and slowly fell downwards.

Pisces sighed and grabbed Cancer's hand at the last minute. "I saved you."

Cancer made kissy faces at Pisces. "Thanks Pisceo!"

"I changed my mind." Pisces released Cancer's hand, letting the harness slowly lower him to the ground.

"NOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooo!" dramatically screamed Cancer as he slowly fell towards the ground.

Gemini rolled his eyes. "You guys are more dramatic than Ares and Scorpio."

"That's an exaggeration," argued Pisces.

"Would you save Capricorn?" asked Cancer.

Gemini sighed. "Why are you bringing Capricorn into this?"

"Because he's at the bottom of the rock wall."

Gemini looked down to see Capricorn smiling and waving to him. He held a smoothie in his hands.

"What does that loser want?" Gemini untied himself from his harness. He fell to the ground, using air currents to break his fall. "Do you want to climb with us? I can help you into a harness."

Capricorn shook his head. "I'm going swimming with Aquarius and Aquari soon. We went to this nice dining hall for breakfast in the class A section, and they served these really good smoothies. I pretended to spill mine to get another smoothie because I wanted you to try it." He handed the smoothie to Gemini.

Gemini's eyes widened as he took a sip. "This is really good. Thank you Cappy."

Capricorn smiled and gave Gemini a quick kiss before happily leaving the training room.

"Share the smoothie!" teased Pisces.

Gemini decided to take a break to drink his smoothie, not trusting the others not to drink it if he put it down.

***

Scor's lungs burned and his legs felt like they were on fire. He pushed himself though another lap, seeing how far he could get before his body forced him to stop.

Scor fell, having tripped over something that wasn't there a few seconds ago.

"At least give me a few minutes before trying to kill me." Vinn smirked from in under him.

Scor sighed and stood up, offering Vinn a hand. "You appeared out of thin air. I didn't know you were there until after I fell on top of you."

"A hug will make it better!" Vinn hugged Scor, holding on to him for longer than normal.

"Vinn likes Scor," thought Taurus out loud.

Leon nodded. "Vinn and Scor are really close. Everyone suspects that they secretly like each other, but they just keep being friends. They also enjoy skin contact like hugging each other a lot more than normal. They'll probably start dating eventually."

Taurus thought back to when she discovered that Taur liked Vinn. "Oh no."

"What's that oh no for? There's many possible options."

"Is it a love square?"

"More like love hexagon at this point."

"How?"

"I can't tell you. See if you can figure it out."

Taurus looked around the room. She didn't bother looking at the reaction of the original zodiacs, focusing instead on the alternates. Pie was sitting on top of a set of monkey bars, spying on everyone else, while Cancy...

Cancy watched Scor and Vinn, nervously playing with the ends of her hair.

"Cancy likes Scor."

"How do you know?" asked Leon.

"She looks jealous. Her expression changes every time Vinn gets close to Scor."

"Cancy likes Scor, but she respects that Vinn also likes him. She's too shy to say anything, but she'd never try to take Scor from Vinn anyway. Pie is trying to help her get over him."

"Does Vinn know that Cancy likes him?"

"Yes. She encourages Cancy to try to talk to him. She wants Cancy to have a fair shot with him."

"Taur, Vinn, Scor and Cancy. That's four people, you said it was a love hexagon. Who's the other two people?"

"You'd have to look a little closer to find the other two people in the equation. I'm not going to give you hints either."

"Somehow I get the feeling you're involved."

"How so?"

"I don't know yet."

"I don't get involved in drama. Love hexagons aren't my thing."

"You're known for being one of the most dramatic people ever."

"I still don't like getting involved in love drama."

"I'll figure out who you like eventually. Is it Vinn? She's really cool with all her powers and speaking like thirty languages."

"I am no longer interested in this conversation." Leon left to go hang out with the original fire signs.

"Wait! We can talk about something else! Come back!'

Leon turned around and continued his yoga poses. "So... now you have to tell me original zodiac drama."

"There's not a lot of drama since Aries, me, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra and Capricorn are all in relationships already."

"I'm still surprised Virgo and Libra got together. Did they get sick of talking about how they're noting more than friends despite flirting with each other?"

"It's bad when your stalker feels your pain."

"I'm not a stalker anymore. You guys make it seem like I'm a bad guy."

"You poisoned Gemini to make him sick. Then you cornered us in an alley and pointed a gun at us."

"I didn't want to disobey Pie. I didn't want to hurt you guys, but now I'm trying to be your friend to make up for it."

"I suppose I can forgive you. But only if you tell me where you buy your clothes. I saw you wearing these really cool boots yesterday, and you wore this really nice shirt a few days ago."

Leon stood up and excitedly grabbed Taurus' hands. "I can show you some really fabulous stores if you want. Let's go change out of our work out clothes and we can get permission from Ophiuchus to go! Wait, we're not allowed to leave until ten. In two hours we'll leave and we'll go on a shopping spree!"

"I think I can spare a few hundred dollars from my bank account."

"The stores will even give you a half off discount since you're with me."

"Leon, I want you to help me become the most fabulous original zodiac."

Leon dramatically wiped fake tears from his eyes. "It's a dream come true!"

***

"Cancy! She's completely spaced out again. CANCY!" Pie shook Cancy's shoulders.

"Ahhhh!" Cancy jumped and fell off the top of the monkey bars.

"What were you thinking about this time?"

"Nothing! I wasn't distracted by anything at all! I was just thinking."

"You drop your stutter when you're hiding something. Spill."

"Th-thats-s n-not tr-true-ue a-at a-all!"

"You purposely stuttered that time. It didn't sound natural at all."

"L-libra save me!" Cancy hid behind Libra, hiding her face in Libra's back.

"What do I do?" muttered a confused Libra.

Pie jumped down from the monkey bars. "Admit that you were staring at him again!"

"NEVER!"

"Staring at him?" repeated a confused Libra.

Cancy blushed. "N-no."

Pie sighed. "I've already told you that you have to get over him. You know he'll end up with her, and you told me yourself that you want me to help you move on!"

"This is more confusing than calculus," muttered Libra.

"I like Scor," admitted Cancy. "But anyone can s-see that Vinn really l-likes him. I think he likes her t-too, so I don't stand a chance. Pie is t-trying to help, help me move on since s-she's my best friend, but it's n-not easy."

Pie glanced at Scor. "He's not even that attractive."

"That doesn't c-count because you don't, don't find a-anyone attractive!"

"I do! Just not him."

"Libra! Do you t-think Scor is attractive?"

"Obviously he's not!"

"Libra, tell her that S-Scor is really attractive and she's jus-just blind!"

"Tell Cancy she'll find someone much better and that he's not even attractive in the first place!"

Libra panicked and ran away. She could see that Scor was a probably the most attractive alternate, but she didn't want to disagree with Pie who owned a pet snake and killed many people. Including Gem's twin sister/alternate Gina, whatever she was.

***

  "I'll come up with something better when I beat you again."

Scorpio's face turned red as she pulled herself up for another pull-up. "You'll recite a poem about me when I beat you next time."

Ares smirked as he did another pull-up. His hands were sweaty, but he refused to drop before Scorpio. "You won't beat me."

"I will when I figure out what you're afraid of."

"How do you know I'm afraid of anything?"

"Every alternate has a phobia. That's why Vinn put the curses on us. You guys were scared that if we discovered your phobias, we'd use them against you to win."

Ares fell from the pull-up bar in surprise. He looked up at Scorpio with a confused yet impressed face. "How did you figure that out?"

Scorpio dropped from her pull-up bar and pulled a small notebook out of her pocket. "I've been observing you guys. It all started when you wanted to know my fear, and didn't believe that I wasn't afraid of anything. When we did the double clown prank on each other, Leon was terrified of the clowns and refused to step foot onto the jet until they were gone. He couldn't even watch the clowns leave or look in the areas where the clowns were. Then Lee started to freak out when he had to get a needle. He wasn't just scared, he started screaming and completely refused to get one, and Vinn had to knock him unconscious."

Ares rolled his eyes. "That proves noth-"

"Lee was physically shaking and looked like he was about to cry. Lee is the kind of person that doesn't cry, because he has nothing to cry over. He doesn't care about anyone or anything except himself. Capri didn't even get halfway through the maze. Cancer is afraid of the dark too, but he said that Capri wouldn't follow them, and she seemed completely terrified of the dark. Her legs were shaking and she curled up in a ball, refusing to continue after it got too dark. Usually if you're scared, you'll tend to stay in a group with other people, but she didn't continue with Cancer and Leon, as if she physically couldn't move. You guys don't just have fears, you all have a phobia. There's something you're all scared of so much, that you were afraid we'd use it against you to win, that's why Vinn put the curses on us."

"You don't know what my phobia is!"

"I'll figure it out eventually."

"I know what Gem's phobia is."

"So do I. Although she's not an alternate, she was still created as one, so it occurred to me that she was given a phobia as well. When we lived together, we always had to comfort Gem during thunder storms. I know Gem, Cancy, Vinn, Leon, Lee, Capri and Aquari's fears. I'll find out the rest eventually."

"How do you know what Cancy, Vinn and Aquari are afraid of?"

"Cancy is friends with Libra and Virgo, so I also spent a lot of time around her when she was Olive. Her phobia is blood. Despite this, she didn't hesitate to put her hands over Libra's chest when she got shot by Pie. I thought that maybe her phobia wasn't blood, but then I realized that blood is her phobia. She was just so afraid for Libra's life that she put her hands in a puddle of blood without hesitation just to save her. I share a floor with Aquari. I also watched Vinn chase Aquari with Shomari yesterday. Aquari doesn't show a lot of emotions, but I saw pure horror in her eyes."

"Vinn's is easy to figure out."

"Elevators. When everyone raced to the elevator the day before the first trial, I noticed Vinn didn't exit the elevator with the few people who managed to get on before Ophiuchus closed the doors. Vinn is a fast runner, so she should have been able to out run a few of the people that did make it. When we brought our stuff to the class A section, Vinn stood behind everyone. The elevator has a mirror on the ceiling. I watched as she teleported away, but teleported back into the elevator when the doors opened again. She also never uses the elevator and instead teleports between floors."

"Anything else, detective?"

"I have a few suspicions for everyone else's phobias, but I'm not going to share anymore with you. I'm pretty sure I know Saggi's phobia, but it could just be a normal fear, so I'll have to keep watching him. You can warn your friends that I'm watching them, but I'll still figure out all your secrets."

Ares didn't consider Scorpio a real threat, but after listening her talk about all the small details nobody else noticed, he now felt intimidated. She was always observing, and she seemed to know everything that was going on around her. Good thing his phobia was something that Scorpio probably wouldn't discover.

***

Warning: Descriptions of Abuse

Gem, Virgo, Saggi, Taur, Lee and Capri ate together in their small dinning room. They discovered that their floors creaked, and their showers barely had any hot water. Class F sucked.

"At least the eggs are mostly warm," said Gem to break the silence.

"We're only allowed in the training room from midnight until six am," growled Lee. "There's no positivity in this shit hole of a situation."

"But at least we're together!" Capri wrapped her arms around Lee. "Isn't that positive?"

"You're not the solution to all my goddamn problems. Unless you can make my shower water hot again, or heal my foot, don't bother trying." Lee threw his plate at the floor and wheeled out of the dinning hall.

The scary part was that Capri looked disappointed. She wasn't upset or afraid, she was disappointed in herself for not doing a better job at making Lee happy.

Whenever Lee got mad at Capri, it was always something she did. Either she talked with Taur for too long, or dressed in clothes that were too revealing in front of the other guys, or she flirted with Leon despite just teasing him, or she didn't respond to Lee's text right away, so he assumed it was because she was cheating on him or something. Every time he got mad at her, it was always because she did something wrong. Lee would tell her that she was a bad girlfriend if she didn't give him all her attention all the time, or if she even looked at another guy for too long. Capri was tired of being a bad girlfriend. Why couldn't she just do the right thing? She tried her best to be a perfect girlfriend but it was never good enough for Lee.

Capri had no idea what she did wrong this time, but she was ashamed of herself and promised to make it up to him later.

"At least he's gone," muttered Virgo.

"Don't talk about him like he's a bad person." Capri felt like it was right to defend Lee. He gets mad when she doesn't.

"Aren't you going to tell him off for snapping at you like that?" asked a concerned Gem.

Capri shook her head. "You guys don't understand. The problem is a bit deeper than that. He is right to be mad at me."

One thing Capri learned was that Lee was always right. She learned that the hard way when she argued with him.

Virgo furrowed his brow in suspicion. "Does he always talk to her like that?"

Yes, mouthed Taur.

"I'll go heat some water on a stove and offer him a warm bath!" Capri stood up and rushed out of the room to make things right.

"That seems abusive," whispered Gem.

"It is," agreed Saggi.

"Why does she stay with him?" thought Virgo out loud.

"Because it's a cycle," replied Taur. "He's paranoid. He'll accuse her of cheating if she takes more than a minute to reply to his texts. He'll blame her for making him mad, and she actually thinks it's her fault he's always mad at her. He'll also take her on little dates and buy treats for her to keep her happy."

"We know there's more going on than what you see on the surface," whispered Saggi. "But we can't say anything without putting her in danger. Not after-" Saggi trailed off, unable to continue.

Taur nodded. "He's very dangerous. She doesn't say anything, and he doesn't ever touch her in front of anyone, but she always has bruises on her skin. But every time she has a new bruise, she always also has a new pair of shoes or an expensive handbag. I suspect he'll apologize and buy her stuff to make up for it."

"She won't leave him because she still believes he's a good person. She has lots of good memories of Lee, and she still believes he's the same person he was a two years ago. When they started dating, he was very kind to her and they had a lot of fun together. She also thinks his anger and tantrums and all her fault. She thinks she's the bad girlfriend who always screws up and makes her loving boyfriend mad. She thinks his anger is justified, along with everything he does to her."

Gem had her hand to her mouth, shocked at what she just heard. "There's got to be something we can do to help her."

Taur shook his head. "We tried to help her once. It ended badly for her. We're afraid to try again."

"But... we know that this is going on. There's got to be something!" argued Virgo.

Saggi's eyes teared up in memory. "Leave her alone. There's too many risks."

"Capri... what are you doing with that pot of water?"

"Watch," whispered Taur. Everyone turned to look outside the door where Capri faced Lee, holding a pot of water.

"You said I couldn't make your shower water hot, so I decided to start heating some water on the stove to give you a warm bath! Unless you don't want a bath."

Lee took the pot from Capri, and gently put it on the ground. "I'm sorry. It's not your fault we're both class F. I shouldn't have yelled at you. My beautiful Capri, do you forgive me?"

"Of course!" Capri smiled as she hugged Lee.

"Let's go spend some time together. Do you want to watch a movie?"

"That would be great!"

Lee carefully stroked Capri's face. "You're an amazing girlfriend. I love you so much."

"I love you too, so much."

"I don't know what to say to that," whispered Gem. "He completely manipulates her."

Virgo nodded. He couldn't say anything out of fear it would endanger Capri, but he planned on thinking of ways to help. Right now it didn't seem like there was anything he could do. Lee was a king, and Ophiuchus wouldn't care. It would be hard to do anything to someone as powerful as Lee, but there had to be a way to save Capri.

***

"Cannon ball!" Capricorn jumped into the pool, splashing Aquarius and Aquari who were nearby.

The pool room was actually a pool floor. The elevator brought everyone to a small towel/locker room, but beyond that the rest of the fourty third floor was a pool room. There were several hot tubs, but most of the floor was divided into three separate massive pools. All the walls in this room were made of glass, except for the ones around the locker room.

The first pool had a deep end that dropped to at least fifty feet deep. There were a series of platforms at the end of the deep end that got higher and higher with water slides, ropes, and diving boards sticking off of each one.

The second pool that was more shallow and divided into lanes. The third was deeper, but was full of rubber ducks, water noodles, water guns, inflatable obstacle courses, inflated tubes, etc. The zodiacs were currently in the first pool.

"We should go train soon," suggested Aquarius. "I have to help Taurus do some pull-ups."

"I hate not knowing when out next trial is." Aquari pulled herself out of the pool. "I wish Ophiuchus at least told us if it's going to be this week or not."

"Let's go to the pool with the obstacles and stuff." Capricorn used the stairs to exit the pool, followed by Aquarius. "Why are there so many rubber ducks? I can literally count at least thirty rubber ducks."

"Ophiuchus has a rubber duck fetish," shrugged Aquari.

"QUACK!" Aquarius scooped a rubbed duck from the pool and squeezed it beside Capricorn's ear. It made a loud squeaky noise.

Aquari used air currents to blow a inflated boat towards her. She climbed in and pushed herself away before Aquarius or Capricorn could join her.

"Revenge?" asked Aquarius.

"Revenge!" replied Capricorn.

Aquarius and Capricorn both dived into the heated water, and swam towards Aquari. Aquari showed them her middle finger and used air currents to slow them down.

Aquarius managed to catch up to Aquari, and tipped the boat, causing her to fall in.

"It's my boat now." Capricorn climbed in the boat and used his hands to paddle away from both Aquarius zodiacs. He didn't get far before he was trapped by air currents.

They continued playing this game until they decided to join their friends in the training room.

A/N: the Truth or Dare chapter is coming up so anyone with any last questions/dares should comment soon

Also I have a few questions for the readers. What do you guys think of each alternate? Like which ones do you like/hate? What friendships and stuff do you like between the originals and alternates? I'm just really curious.

I also just wanted to make a note that abusive relationships usually aren't as obvious as the one in this book. I had to make it more obvious to let the readers see what Lee and Capri's relationship is really like