Gaia's First Challenge

There were only a few of us left to go. I looked around pretending not to notice; I didn't really want to go and was hoping I'd have to be last. Maggie nudged me.

"Go on, you go next!" Encouraging words from the rest of my team broke out.

"An omega level mutant shouldn't have any trouble with this!" Henchman said enthusiastically.

A series of "Yeah" 's could be heard. Many of them wanted to actually see what I could do. This made me feel a little better.

"Alright, alright! I'll go. Uh, Jon, can Fred come with me to the waiting room?"

Jon frowned the said, "Alright, as long as he comes right back here once you're out there, ok?"

I gave him a big smile as Fred jumped into my arms. "Keep an eye on him once he gets back Maggie."

"Sure thing," she winked.

We followed Jon out of the arena audience and into the lower levels of the arena. Once we had weaved our way in and out of the various halls and rooms into the one where I was supposed to wait in Fred spoke.

"You know, we don't know for sure if you're an Omega mutant, you know that?"

I shot him a nasty look, "Thanks for the words of encouragement Fred!"

"Well it's true!"

"Look, I fought the Phoenix and I won. I fought Apocalypse: I won. When I first met Gabriel I fought him and won. I fought Oprah. I won. Therefore I now consider myself Omega."

He raised an eyebrow, "You fought Apocalypse? I don't remember that."

"It was a day when you were with Jean at the store buying him groceries. Amazingly, he found out who I was and tried to take me on. I beat 'em and gave him a quick mind-wipe."

There was a loud bang from around the corner that we both looked over at. Jon shot his head around the corner and gave a bashful smile, "Darn sound equipment!" and disappeared.

"Well thanks for telling me!" Fred said hotly.

"When could I have told you?!? He was watching us night and day and once I got the news of us being related I forgot almost everything that happened there!"

"Hmph," he muttered. "So, do you have an idea of what you're going to do out there?"

I ran my fingers through my hair, "No, not really. I was thinking I could just zap it. If it's a droid that would just send a current through it and then short circuit it, hitting all the censors at once."

"That seems very.... bland."

"Well, I could psychokinetically crush it and that would hit all of the censors too."

*Yawn*

"Well what would you suggest?"

"I dunno," Fred said rolling over, "it's not my challenge."

"Thanks," I said rolling my eyes. We sat there in silence for a few moments while I scratched Fred's belly. The Hudson came strolling around the corner with a clipboard.

"Uh-oh! Quick, pretend we're talking about something!"

"What?" Fred said leaping upright, "Like what?"

"I don't know, something he wouldn't be interested in!"

Fred looked up at me helplessly. Just when Hudson was almost upon us he said:

"So I says to Mabel, I says, that girl's a slut!" The whole arena echoed with those last four words.

Jon put his head around the corner again and grinned, "Got the microphone working!"

Hudson gave a big goofy smile as well. He took a look at me, checked off something off his clipboard and said, "Ok, you're up!"

I rubbed my hands together, "Alright!"

I gave Fred a big squeeze for good luck and put him back down again. "Don't worry, the H-man'll bring ya back little guy." He picked Fred up and slung him over his shoulder. "You look pretty confident," he said.

"Well, I doubt a robot will be match of a match for me."

"I dunno," Hudson said, "Jon made sure that all of these robots were custom made to be able to fight all of yus. Some of them are very advanced." Then he turned and began walking away.
As he was walking away I saw Fred give a big evil smile. As I walked out into the open arena I heard a girly shriek behind me and gave a short giggle.

I stood there for a couple of seconds waiting for the droid to enter. I saw the doors at the other end open slowly and out walked a young woman. She stood several meters away from me un-moving. I gave her a little smile and wave, to which there was no response.

There was a long silence in the audience. "You may begin, Gaia," I heard Jon say from the large speakers.

I looked up at the small booth where he standing, "That's the robot?!?!" I yelled pointing at the woman.

He gave a curt nod.

"Oof!" while I had looked away the robot had decided it was going to charge me. I went flying but recovered quickly. I flew into the air thinking that would be a safe advantage point and brushed some rubble off my shoulders. The girl stared at me, again not moving.

"Well, here's plan A," I said. I did a small pirouette in the air and flung my right arm forwards. Several bolts of electricity protruded from my finger tips and struck down towards the robot. She did a rolling dodge and flew into the air. The bolts hit the ground sending rubble flying everywhere. I caught all of the rocks and such in mid-air and held them there. The girl stared at me.

“They learn as you fight.”


Then I realized what it was doing. Each time I used a different one of my powers it did too. But it was taking a while for it to. That, am guessing was because either it was very hard to teach a robot to bend the fabric of reality or, it was having a difficult time finding where I was getting my power each time. (I reach into a different dimension pocket of power each time).

So, it had to see my using the power to learn it? That gave me an idea. I clenched my fist, crushing all the rocks that were floating in mid-air to dust. I threw it up into the air and blanketed the whole arena in darkness.

I winked turning my vision to infrared and then created a pair of goggles and slipped them on. I dived through the air to the unknowing robot when all of a sudden the dust cleared. She was floating in the middle of the arena with her right arm up in the air. She had learned to use psychokinesis!

I waved away the goggles and infrared vision. Alright, if she knew how to use psychokinesis crushing her wouldn’t work now either. I decided to take a very bleak approach.

I did another spin in the air and teleported behind her and gave her a good hard kick square in the back. There was a red flash that ran over her body.

Good, I got one.

She screamed and fell down to the ground. She lay there groaning. I spun wildly around to look up where Jon was.

“She can feel pain!?!”

He gave a puzzled look and began flipping through some pages on his clipboard.

“Gaia!” I heard Fred scream, “It was a trap!”

Too late. She had flown up and punched me across the face which sent me spinning off through the air. I put my hands out to try and stop. Not a good idea if you’re me.

I accidentally turned several rocks into a vicious pack of sparrows. They, fortunately, went to attack the robot. She waved her hand and they turned into rubber ducks. Or what looked to be rubber ducks. They were still moving. She seemed to be frustrated at this and kept waving her hand over and over again, only to get more half-alive rubber ducks. I chanced a try to read her mind. She was trying to make a pack of eagles to attack me.

I took my chance while she was distracted and made a number of knives materialize in mid-air around me. I snapped my fingers and they all flew towards her. She quickly looked up and changed them all into flowers. I landed on the ground and picked one of the flowers up. It wasn’t real!

That was it, she couldn’t create or destroy life! I had to somehow use that. I looked around at all the fake flowers she had made and got an idea.

“Gotcha…” I smiled. I flicked my wrists and instantly all the flowers sprang to life and took root around the robot. Another flick of the wrist and they began to wrap and twist themselves around her. She motioned her hand as if to wave.

“Oh no you don’t!” I pointed at her hands and several vines wrapped themselves around her them. I winked and more vines wrapped around her head covering her eyes. She couldn’t see, so hoping that she wouldn’t be able to create anything (as she has only just learnt to use these powers) I made my final move. Vines wrapped all around her body and began to squeeze her. A flash of red rippled over her.

“That’s number two…” I said.

The vines gave another strong squeeze and there was another flash.

She was out.