Second Adventure (AWC Sequel)

Obstacles

"Wake up! The last to be out would not eat breakfast!"

Upon hearing that loud voice coming from the intercom connected in every room, the trainees almost turned to be like the superhero 'Flash' because of how fast they moved and scurried out of their rooms without even properly washing their faces and fully waking their whole selves up.

They couldn't mind themselves especially if in times like this. They meant breakfast. It didn't entirely mean that they wouldn't have breakfast if they came late, but it was near to that. The food that they would give would just a bottle of water and a single sandwich while those trainees who were on time would get the whole package of breakfast with different choices, and it really envious at the same time inspiring to be diligent the day after.

Luckily, Hera hadn't experienced that ever since, perhaps it was a perk of having a responsible roommate. She kind of regretting that she begged Leira to be her roommate when Andrea was even better than her. She knew if Leira was her roommate, she would just let her sleep until everyone was already done with what was asked of them and let Hera experience the consequence alone because she believed she would learn from her mistake by experiencing the consequence.

But Andrea was a whole different one, she would wake her up before the bell could even ring, then they would run together outside that would even have them the first ones among the trainees.

They had been in the agency for three days, had been trainees, and were suffering from body ache for three consecutive days, but no one was reported to be giving up, all were still alive and participative, probably because the agency was taking good care of them even though they were making them do impossible things and basically breaking their body in half, but still they were alive and pursuing their dreams now of becoming agents.

As time passed by as well, the late trainees became lesser, until everyone had to get used to it and were all coming on time all at the same time while forming lines as what they were assigned to do. Then the early routine would begin at five in the morning when the sun hadn't come up and the skies were still painted with glittery stars, but they were already working hard.

Their routine was to jog from their dorm to the agency then back to the dorm for three rounds, it wasn't easy, especially that the distance wasn't a joke. They were already exhausted in the early morning, but they were even more exhausted as the day went by.

After the jogging, they would be eating their breakfast, they would be lent an hour for rest and taking a bath, then at around nine in the morning, they should be lining up once again to all come to the training room and should all be ready for the things that might be waiting for them inside.

"I wonder what's with this one again," Mikael spoke beside George and Lance who happened to be on the same line with him on the way to the training ground.

"What did we do yesterday?" Lance asked, but with the bruises on his arm, he was reminded, "Ah, taekwondo lessons. I didn't know the agency is into this kind of offense technique."

"What do you know? Later they could be asking us to do some ridiculous techniques or lessons that only were possible in comics. Everything is possible in this agency, after all," George replied, being one geek about the Themis Agency that he had been following and observing, even forming theories every time he could see the agents in action.

They arrived at the training room with agents outside and already waiting for them. Two of them opened the door and urged them to enter. Even they weren't fully inside yet, they could see already what they were going to do, and now, they wanted to go back to their dorm and just hide under their beds.

"Today will be fun," one agent said, one of those who were assigned to train them because Hermes and the other top agents would be able to handle them because of their busy schedules.

"Fun? Where's the fun in that scary obstacles?" one girl asked through a groan, which surely would be once again a long day for them.

The wide training room was almost filled with the obstacle right now. It looked like they were on a game and the only fittest and strongest would survive.

"The agents now, especially the top agents had mastered this obstacle now, don't be scared because there would be no pressure upon taking this test. This will measure your strength and agility, we will try to assess if the exercises you did this past few days were effective, and affected or improved your previous stamina," he explained, hands on his waist, he was a buff man, clean head or to say simply, bald, but contradicting to what the common bald people had, he had no hair on his face.

One thing that was always upheld by the agency was the cleanliness, so even Hermes himself was clean with his face, he didn't have hair on his face because he believed, that facial hair only tended to be a distraction sometimes.

"Basically, you just had to go through these five courses," he pointed the whole obstacle, "You will have to get five flags at the end of every course. First, you have to go through a net through crawling, but here is the catch, there were rolling bowling balls toward you that you have to avoid, if you can't, obviously, you'll be struck. The second course was the high wall that you have to climb onto, without a harness or safety stuff, there are footholds everywhere, but the other side had nothing but the soft pad. The wall is eight feet high. The third one is the monkey bar, as you can see, there are two colors, you only have to hold the yellow bars, meaning, you have to jump to get it, take note that under the monkey bar was a cold, cold pool, and you have to repeat everything if you failed. Then the fourth one is that you have to wreck a pile often of woods in one strike, you can use your arm, but not your whole body, sit on it, and the likes. Then the last would test your aim, you have to shoot five targets using the bow and arrow."

"That's a lot of work, not gonna lie," Leira muttered, clicking her tongue right after they heard the instructions given by the agent. He was walking to the courses one by one and eagerly explaining everything, and as he explained all of those, she couldn't help but huffed as the courses went hard.

"The top agents were just fighting with the time they finish this, and at the moment, Sean holds the record of fifty-second upon finishing this whole obstacle. So, who wants to go first?"

All of the trainees looked around, looking for someone who could have the courage to get through the obstacle first. They remained like that for a while, until one hand raised his hand.

"Yes, you. What's your name?"

"Mikael," he stepped forward and put down his hand and put it back in his pocket. In the eyes of others, he looked really cool for stepping in and volunteering to be the first which had huge pressure aside from being the last.

"Sure, Mikael. Go to the first course and ready yourself, you can start anytime," he looked at the other trainees, "While it isn't your turn yet, do the exercise routine so you can prepare your body.".

Mikael walked toward the starting line, a serious expression plastered on his face as he stared at the courses he had to go through. He was used to this kind of thing, with his years spending stealing and hiding from the people he stole the things from which he had to go through the narrowest space possible and crawling through everything so there was nothing wrong to try with it.

He looked at the agent and nodded at him. The agent took out a timer, counting one to three then pressed the start. Mikael immediately slipped himself into the net, crawling fast in all fours. The bowling balls started rolling, it was quite tricky since it didn't roll straight, it sometimes swerved to the side so he was indecisive of where to go, but nonetheless, he did it without being hit even once, using his hawk eyes to measure where the balls would go.

He pulled the flag on the side and tucked it in his shorts, then immediately jumped on the wall, holding the footholds, and professionally climbed up like a feline. The others who were watching were in awe, yet of course, he knew how to climb on walls like that. He had also stolen things in a house that he needed to climb the walls, and like what he was doing, he took what he needed—the flag that was on the top, and jumped right after.

Gasps were heard, it was high, and the fact that he didn't even double guessed before jumping was even more admirable, he landed with his foot but he rolled on the soft mat to not have his feet get every force from the fall, and that one was applauded by the agent.

He then ran next to the monkey bar. He stopped in front of it for a while, making sure that the flag was secured and his hands weren't sweaty that would cause him to fall and eventually go back from the start which was the worst considering that he was already past a minute, he wondered how the top agent managed to finish everything within just fifty-seconds.

He jumped on the first bar, the next yellow bar was two bars away, and since the gaps were wide, he couldn't reach it with just an arm so he needed to jump. This was where he took his time and got everyone's attention, this course basically was the hardest. He jumped onto the next yellow bars, successfully clasping his hands tight on it, the next was only one bar away and it was reachable, but the other was painfully four bars away.

He clicked his tongue and started swaying his body, swaying front to back, eyes focusing on the yellow bar. He let go when he swayed enough, but he almost let go of it when it shook him when it kind of shook because of the impact. Thankfully, his other hand was still tightly clutching onto it. He gathered back his strength and continued traveling like a monkey. The rest of the trainees had their mouths literally opened.

The last level was just easy for him, he had hold guns before, and he also got good eyes, so as soon as he held the bow and arrow, he shot without a doubt, shooting consecutively without. stop until every target was down.

The timer stopped.

"One minute and fifty-five seconds! Regular Agent level!"