I put the blade back in place and grasped Crest’s hand to help him up. We walked over to the Arc and I got my barrier repaired.

                “Ha ha, he took out quite a bit of this barrier, did he?”

                “You think? I’m glad you’re here Arc, or else I would have had my entire body crushed; probably would’ve died.”

                “Well that is why I am here, hide the base with shadow, find divers with pulse, help divers discover their abilities, and protect them with barrier when they are training seriously.”

                “I’ve fought with Lynx and Crest before, but never Hex. Any advice?”

                “Not allowed to tell you anything, you have to figure it out on your own. But even if I could tell you, I would not know what you should do against him; he is a master with his technique.”

                “So I’ve been set to fail.”

                “Who knows Wesley, maybe you will figure it out and come out on top, and maybe you’ll crash, burn, and fail miserably.” Arc finished with my barrier and as I walked away I said “You sure know how to motivate a guy Arc.” to which he just chuckled. Hex walked lazily over to the center, there was no glow around him.

                “What, no barrier?”

                “Don’t need it, kid. Call it Arc.” Hex said, as he took out another cigarette and a put it in his mouth, he took out his lighter and lit it just as Arc called to start the fight. I dashed at Hex, who just put his lighter and his hands in his pockets., and slashed at him with my knife. He lazily stepped out of the way and put his foot out to trip me. He just stood there and waited for me to get up with an apathetic look on his face. I got up and got on my board, taking out my handgun and shot at him and he easily dodged out of the way of the bullets. Then a shining crescent shaped gray light flew at me at an amazing speed, hitting me off the board. As I crashed to the ground I realized why they call him Hex, he uses wave. I shot at him some more but some waves more dull than before, probably because he put less power in them as they were almost completely transparent. I sprinted at him again, getting knocked back by waves each time and my barrier kept diminishing until it was just shredded to little tiny bits.

                “Give, kid?” Hex mused at me.

                “Not a damned chance.” I said as I flew at him, the wave came at me and I was ready as I swerved to the side. I threw a throwing knife at him as he shot a light wave to knock it away.

                “That ain’t gonna work kid, you should learn when to give up.”

                “Look down.” As Hex looked down he saw what I threw along with the knife on the floor, a smoke bomb I hid in the belt. The bomb blew up and enveloped Hex in smoke. The smoke moved around and I entered it to attack Hex.

                “Smoke? Nice try, but no dice. I know where you’ll attack from!” Hex yelled out as he threw a wave behind him. When he found that I wasn’t there he turned around and guess what, he found Waldo, and Waldo was in front of him ready to attack.

                “No dice.” I said as I swung my knife at him, and all for naught, Hex dodged the blow and sent me flying with a wave. He sent waves of gray from his body in numerous directions to disperse the smoke.

                “You did pretty good, Wesley. But you’re a long way from being able to hit me.”

                I got up and just laughed a little bit as I pointed to the ground near him, smoke was gently floating into the air and the source of it was the end of a cigarette. Hex looked down at his cigarette and saw that it was no longer lit and he was missing half of it. A small drop of blood fell from his nose where a small cut was made.

                “Ha ha, well I’ll be damned. Looks like I spoke a little to soon doesn’t it? You pass.” He smiled as he took out his lighter to light what was left of his cigarette “Best to not let the rest go to waste.”

                “Been awhile since someone gave you a scratch even that big, hasn’t it Hex?” Crest yelled out.

                “Gotta admit,” Hex started as he scratched the back of his head “kid’s got talent. Not a lot of divers who have learned this quick.”

                “On to the next part of his initiation?” Arc asked.

                “Yeah, guess it is. Alright Wesley follow us to my office.”

                We walked through the halls as we went towards Hex’s office. When we got there, Hex picked up a couple of papers from his desk and motioned for me to come over there.

                “Here’s the deal Wesley. It’s time for your ride along, you take a more experienced member with you on an assassination. You bring along an experienced member of this organization, called an overseer , they don’t do anything but observe you, and if you screw up they’re there to fix the problem. In the case that they have to clean up your mess, you have to go back into training for maybe two or three years before we do another ride along. You got all that?”

                “Yeah. By the way, you still haven’t told me the name of the organization.”

                “You don’t get to know until you’re a full member. On to the mission, Arc?”

                “Your target’s name is Steve Crowley, a diver for the enemy. We do not regularly have divers fight the enemy as their initiation; fighting other divers is what the first part is for. However, he recently assassinated one of our funders and you seem like a good choice for the job. Your overseer will be Lynx, she will be the one who assists you if the situation gets out of hand.”

                “Ok, where do I find Crowley?”

                “He has got himself locked up in a building the enemy owns. There are several guards on patrol, none of them are actual divers so it won’t be too much trouble as far as they go. Crowley, on the other hand, is an expert sprinter who is adept in hiding himself with shadow, however his ability with pulse is rather poor so if you see a chance to sneak attack then execute it. He is rather decent with dexterity, but you won’t have to worry about that because he is nowhere near on par with you. That is all the information that we have obtained on him thus far.”

                When Arc finished, Hex walked over to me and handed me a couple of papers  “Here’s the information on the hole our little rat is cowering in, look over it and find a route to sneak in if you can. If not you can just bust your way through there.”

                “When do I start the assassination?”

                “You should start leaving around twelve o’ clock or twelve thirty, come in around eleven to get you weapons and go over what you’re going to do with Lynx.”

                “Alright Hex, I’ll go to my room and figure this thing out by then. I guess I’ll see you guys in the arsenal at the training area at eleven.”

                “Yeah, good luck, Wesley.”

                As soon as I got to my room I looked over the layout of the building, about 10 floors up was the room Crowley was staying in, and the building was 12 floors tall. I looked at the different points the guards would be and most of them were stationed around the roof, the 11^th and the 9^th floors with ten or twelve guards and seven guards on the 10^th floor. Going from the roof wasn’t an option and from the bottom up would take too much time, Crowley would be alerted and get away at entrance strategy. I remembered something like this in the papers Arc had me study so I could get used to figuring out how to plan an entrance and exit for an assassination, but in that instance the diver was Hex and he used wave to take out the guards on the building before they could notice it, I don’t have that luxury. It took me forever to figure out how to do this without alerting Crowley.

                “**** it.” I said as I walked out of the room and left the papers there to take a stroll around the base. I walked around for hours until it was about five o’clock and then I heard something that pressed the on switch to the light bulb above my head.

                “How are you going to fix that leak for now then?”

                “Ha ha, duct tape, it’s the solution for everything.”

                “Hex is going to kill you if you keep fixing everything with duct tape, can you actually even do your job?”

                Bingo, duct tape. I ran back to my room and looked at the layout again, the windows were easily breakable if I used enough force, and there was a spot on the 10^th floor where no guards were. I waited until it was around eleven and then went to the armory to meet everyone, but it was just Lynx.

                “Where are the other three?”

                “They were going to see you off, but decided to see you when you get back and congratulate you. So, what’s the plan?”

                “You’ll see, just follow my lead, you already get your weapons?”

                “Yeah, just get yours and we’ll head out.”

                I grabbed a handgun, a knife, and a few other things.

                “Traveling light, huh?”

                “Yeah, let’s get going.” We walked down the halls and all the way to the elevator shaft that I hadn’t seen since I got here. Lynx hit the button to open the door at the top. There isn’t enough room to fly freely in the elevator shaft , which is why we have wall riding. I put my foot against one of the walls of the shaft and Lynx did the same, I sent out my board and lifted my back leg to my board and then flew up the wall until I found the opening and got off my board to land through the opening and Lynx came up after me.

                “This way, Wes. We’re going to head off the roof.” She said as she led me to a stairwell where our footsteps echoed until we finally got to the roof. When I got out I breathed the first fresh air I’ve had in months. The cool night air filled my lungs and was a welcome change from the warm and stale air in the base. I walked to the edge and looked down and around at the city, marveling at the spectacle of lights that I took for granted. It’s been way too long.

                “Ready?” Lynx said as she stood next to me.

                “Yeah” we both turned around and dropped down, flipping after a second or two of falling and started flying with our boards. It felt so different from flying in the base, the cool air hitting my face was refreshing and the lights blurring as they flew by me was a sight to be remembered. We flew towards the building as we made sure that no other divers were around and that no one could see us. We hid ourselves with shadow just in case there was divers around that we couldn’t sense.

                “There it is, so what’s the plan, Wes?”

                “Follow me” I flew towards the building and to the tenth floor at the area where I saw there wouldn’t be any security.

                “You’re going to break through? That’s too loud and reckless.”

                “Not if I use this.” I said as I pulled out a roll of duct tape and stuck it on a large area of the window. When I finished I flew backwards and heard Lynx say “What the hell?” as I flew at the window and bashed through it. The pieces of glass were stuck together and couldn’t make a breaking sound. I stopped just before I hit the wall and retracted the energy of my board back into my body and motioned for Lynx to follow me.

                “What would you have done if that didn’t work?”

                I just mused at her “Shhh, quiet there are guards around, wouldn’t want to alert them would you? Check the other corner I’ll go check this one.” and walked to the corner and checked if there were guards. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven right outside Crowley’s door. The guards were armed with machine guns, obviously ready to kill anyone on sight. I looked over at Lynx and she gave me the signal to say that the hallway over there was clear. I hit the wall just lightly enough so that they could hear it.

                “You hear that?”

                “Probably a mouse or a rat or something.”

                “Big rat, three of you go check it out.”

                I moved down the hallway and got behind the other corner, pulling Lynx with me. The guards walked a little ways down the hall and were about to dismiss it when they saw the window, now. I sprinted at them as fast as I could go and banged two of their heads together hard enough to knock them out and grabbed the other one by the mouth. I slipped a needle with tranquilizer out of my sleeve, injected it into him, and waited a few seconds until he passed out. These men didn’t need to die, only Crowley did. I motioned for Lynx to help me drag their bodies around the corner to where the hallway was clear. When the bodies were out of sight looked around the corner again to see the four guards that were still left. I kept a few tranquilizing darts just in case I had to do this, I took four out from the weapon belt that I pulled my shirt down to cover and looked around the corner again. They weren’t suspicious yet, I put two darts in a hand each and threw all four while they weren’t looking, each hitting their marks right into the guards’ necks. I sprinted as fast and quietly as I could and caught their bodies, two I held on my shoulders and the others I held my their shirts with my hands and let those two down quietly and then grabbed the other two and did the same so I wouldn’t alert Crowley. It’s a good thing I practiced knife and dart throwing as much as I did in these long months. I looked around and noticed a certain something, or rather someone, was missing; where the hell did Lynx go? Oh well, if she’s not here then she’s not here;  it’s time for the finale, Crowley should be just behind this door. I took out my gun and opened the door. No Crowley.