Thalia's Tale - Chapter Nine - Parkour

          The next day wasn’t any better. If anything, it was worse. Still incredibly sore from her long run the previous day, Sky and Thalia’s five mile run wasn’t much better than the ten mile one. It was, however, shorter.

          When the two finally stopped their run back in the training hall, it was only around seven. Still no recruits were up.

          Thalia leaned against a wall, panting, while Sky looked around the hall with a smile on his face and his hands on his hips.

    “I thought… You said we were doing… Parkour…” Thalia said.

    Sky looked behind him at her, his expression dead pan. “You callin’ me a liar?” Before Thalia could respond, the Commander turned around to face the training hall. “Ty, you here yet?” He called.

    “Yeah!” The familiar voice replied from above. For a moment, nothing stirred. Then Thalia saw a green flash out of the corner f her eye and looked up.

    Thalia watched as the General Deadlox leapt down from the very top of the parkour course using things in the room that weren’t even meant for parkour. He was agile and fast; he didn’t miss a single jump, landing each one solidly.

    Finally, he leapt the final three meters or so to the ground level, rolling to break his fall. He stood up again like it was nothing and walked over to Sky. “Thought I’d get some early practice.” He said.

    Sky didn’t look impressed either. This was normal for the two. Thalia, on the other hand, was awestruck. She could never do anything even close to that! She prayed to Notch she wouldn’t have to learn. Parkour really wasn’t her thing.

    Ty nodded off in Thalia’s direction. “So this is your new trainee?” When Sky nodded, Ty smirked knowingly. “Good choice.” He said.

    Sky looked at Thalia and gestured to his friend. “Thalia, you’ve obviously met my General. Like I told you before, he’s the leader of the Dead Army. Your friend, Kevin; he’s a member of the Dead Army, right?” As Thalia nodded, Sky went on. “He’s rather good with parkour himself. As are all members of the Dead Army. That’s because Ty focuses on teaching agility and speed over strength and tactics.”

    Ty nodded. “And that’s why the Commander here thought it would be a better idea if I taught you. Because he sucks at parkour. A lot.”

    “Oh shut up, Ty.” Sky rolled his eyes. “He’s right, though, I really suck. Anyway, so basically, since you’re really training to be Sky Army material, you’re only gonna do parkour for today. Most of my recruits don’t learn Parkour at all unless they feel like doing it on their free time. But I felt it would be necessary for you to learn it at least a little bit; just like I did.”

    Thalia nodded. “I understand, sir.”

    Sky and Ty exchanged glances. Then both nodded as if they’d communicated telepathically and Sky left the Training hall. Thalia watched him go with a confused expression on her face, then Ty spoke. “You ready?” He asked.

    Thalia looked at him, then nodded. “Yes, sir.”

    Ty rolled his eyes. “Just call me Deadlox, kid.” He said as he walked over to the Parkour Faction. “Adam may like all this protocol; style – strength in numbers crap, but I prefer a more family-like group of elites. So anyway, I’m just gonna teach you some basics today.”

    He leapt the first jump on the parkour course; onto a platform resting directly on top of water. Almost immediately after his feet touched the first platform, he leapt to the next just as easily. Once he’d reached that one, he paused and looked down at Thalia, now a foot or two above the water. He raised an eyebrow. “Coming?” He asked.

    Thalia blink in surprise, then looked at the jump ahead of her. It looked rather far to her, whereas in actuality it was only a three block jump. She took a deep breath and backed up several feet while Ty watched from above.

    Thalia’s eyes narrowed. This was it. She could do this. One jump. One target. Easy. Just one jump. And then another… And another…

    She shook her head to clear it. She could worry about those later. Thalia bit her bottom lip and sprinted forward as fast as she could.

    She took a flying leap over the water as soon as she reached the edge of the ground level. As soon as she’d taken to the air, she knew she’d screwed up.

    She’d over shot it.

    Her foot caught on the very edge of the platform she’d targeted and she fell into the waist deep water with a loud splash.

    She shot out of it immediately, shaking it from her hair and gasping for breath. It was freezing. Ty rolled his eyes and jumped skillfully back down the ground level as Thalia crawled back to the start.

    As she stood up shivering, he pointed ahead at the jump. “You see that platform?” He asked. Thalia nodded. He nodded back. “It’s easy.” He said. “You just need to figure out the right balance and amount of strength to apply to your jump. Once you do that, you’re good to go.”

    Thalia nodded uncertainly and looked at the jump again. She took a deep breath and tried again. This time, she came up short. With another loud splash, she was surrounded by freezing water. As she climbed back onto the starting platform, Ty smirked at her.

    “I saw you jump off that squid in the fight and smash it into a wall. That counts as Field Parkour.” He said. “Why can’t you do that now?”

    Thalia sighed and shook her head, sitting down on the edge of the platform. “This is different. I do better when adrenaline kicks in.”

    Ty raised an eyebrow. The thought crossed his mind that the Commander was the same way. He smirked as he got an idea. “Alright then, let’s do dis.”

          Thalia looked up at him in confusion as he started to leave the training hall. “Uh… Deadlox?” She asked.

          “Yeah?”    

          “Where are you going?”

          “To play a minigame.” Ty replied, walking backwards so he could face the teen. “Wanna come?”

          Thalia stared at the General in confusion. “I thought we were doing parkour.” She said.

          Ty nodded. “We are.” He said.

          Thalia shrugged and stood up, following after him.

.         .         .

          Thalia_Kal has joined the game

          Deadlox has joined the game

          <SarakuNamikaze>: Holy shit, is that the real Deadlox?!

          <BlueWolfYah123321>: No way! Ish this real!!

          <AKSchweitzher>: Is he recording?

          <CookieTimeFlies>: Faaake!

          <AKSchweitzher>: Hi YouTube!

          Thalia raised her eyes brow at the chat appearing at the bottom of the screen of her eyepiece. “Is it always like this?” She asked Deadlox.

          Ty shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.” He said. “I never pay any attention to it.”

          “Okay, so what are we doing?” Thalia asked.

          “We are playing ‘Run From the Beast’.” Ty said.

          “What’s that?”

          “It’s a minigame where you have to parkour and run from a super overpowered ‘beast’. Your objective is to parkour all the way to the end before the beast catches you and get a whole bunch of armor, then kill the beast yourself.

    “Oh.” Thalia said. “Sounds… fun…”

    Ty rolled his eyes. “You said you do better with adrenaline.” He said. “This is the best we got.”

    <Server>: The game begins in 10 seconds

    There were four people in the game besides Ty and Thalia; all of them complete strangers. One of them was the beast; fully dressed in enchanted diamond armor and a diamond sword.

    Thalia gulped and looked at Ty nervously, who just smirked in response.

    <Server>: Game on! Good luck runners!

    The gate near the runners opened and all of them rushed through, Thalia included.

    .         .         .

    Turns out, both Thalia and Deadlox were right.

    Thalia did better with adrenaline pumping through her veins; and Run From the Beast helped her accomplish that. While she was still an amateur parkourist, she was getting better. By the end of the day, she could at least complete half the course without falling, which was an improvement.

    Learning along the way several techniques from the General on how to make jumps easier and more effectively.

    Thalia was exhausted by the time she finally got to bed. But once again, she had a busy day and an early start.

    But not one she’d been expecting.