Chapter 77. Hey what are you doing?

“Hey what are you doing?” Boulder leaned over to Boss who was engrossed in watching the robed individuals.

“Hm? Oh, nothing.” Boss quickly removed the portal and looked up at Boulder and responded. He moved away and showed the 12-year-old boy some bugs crawling across the ground.

Boulder raised an eyebrow and returned his attention to watching the trainees try to tag Gran. That was their objective for training today, to tag Gran as he hurled objects at them.

It may sound easy at glance, but with Gran’s ability to use telekinesis and his immense strength it was incredibly difficult to dodge anything thrown at them. The scariest part was that Gran cheats, any kid who got close would be caught by their clothes and hurled away using telekinesis.

“Are you ready, kids?” Things around Gran started to levitate off the ground. Rocks, twigs, blankets, anything that was brought out from inside the home this morning was gently floating around him. “Tag me if you can.” Gran smirked as the levitating objects started to rotate around him.

The revolving objects began to spin faster around Gran. If one listened closely, they could hear the objects cutting through the air. The trainees couldn’t believe their eyes, balls of blankets, rocks, twigs, anything that was larger than the size of a fist was circling around the man at the center.

“Dad is getting serious.” Boulder commented. He continued to say, “He didn’t do this to me until almost after a year of training.”

“Seems to me, he’s just showing off.” Boss replied as he looked at the trainees standing still, intimidated by the tornado that formed around Gran. The expression on their face clearly showed their loss about how they were to tag Gran in this situation.

“I’m guessing you never managed to tag him until he formed this carousel of objects around him huh?” Boss asked Boulder standing beside him.

“Carousel…? I call it a tornado.” Boulder replied, he had no idea what a carousel was. “But you are right, we could only tag dad when he did this.” Boulder was perplexed how Boss would know this. It was true that during training, other times when he and Poe would try to tag his dad he would always fail. It wasn’t until the tornado that allowed for them to tag Gran.

“It’s simple, a carousel, ahem, tornado like this requires a lot more control and energy than just flinging people around when they get close.” Boss answered.

“Th-then how would you tag him?” Boulder asked.

He wanted to know, the last time he managed to tag his father he just kept running up and getting blown back by the spinning objects within the tornado until he managed to touch an article of his dad’s clothing with the combined efforts Poe, Krystal and Carson.

“I’d just tag him.” Boss replied.

“How?” Boulder wanted to know.

“I’ll show you a way later. Let’s see how they will do it.” Boss answered.

Most of the trainees were intimidated as they looked at the tornado encapsulating Gran. The tornado was around 20 meters in diameters, about half a football field in size filled with objects spinning about. Gran stood in the center as hundreds of objects spun around him.

“Ahaha, are you guys scared?” Gran laughed at the trainees who were unmoving.

“If you don’t move, I’ll move you, myself.” Gran continued to laugh with a hoarse voice, he hadn’t completely recovered from the incident yesterday, yet.

The moment Gran finished his sentence, the collar on Seth’s shirt was tugged through telekinesis, pulling the struggling young man forward. The heel of his training shoes buried into the ground as he protests the pull.

“He-help!” Seth tried to pull away from the force exerted on his clothes, his hands clinging to the stretched-out collar.

The rest of the trainees immediately ran up and pulled on Seth’s shirt. It was a battle between one man and five trainees as they tugged on Seth.

“Wait-wait stop!” Seth exclaimed, but it was too late.

Riiiiip

The four who were tugging onto him, managed to tear him away from Gran’s telekinesis but at the cost of Seth being half naked from the waist up.

“Ahaha! What will you do if I pulled your pants?” Gran laughed. He continued to say, “Are you going to move now, or do you want me to continue?”

“We’ll move, we’ll move!” Seth exclaimed in embarrassment. He saw the smirk on Gran’s face and knew if they remained still it was going to be him who gets his pants removed.

Seth took a hesitant step forward. He honestly did not want to walk into the spinning objects in front of them. They were moving at a pace that wasn’t too fast, but if he wasn’t careful in avoiding them, then he was going to get pummeled.

Gran rolled his eyes at how scared Seth was. “Did the boy not know this was training, why on Tierra would I do what he’s thinking? I’ll have to control myself less I want angry parents at my doorsteps.” Gran thought to himself as he waited with a smirk on his face.

“Looks like they’ve fallen for your dad’s trick.” Boss commented off on the side beside Boulder.

Boulder wanted to ask what he meant by that, but Boss just pointed at Gran and told him to watch.

The boys shared glances and nodded their head. They all begun to sprint at Gran who revealed a smirk.

Bam bam bam!

Three rocks the size of a fist collided with their body throwing them out of the periphery of the tornado.

Cough cough!

“Ow, ow, ow!” Arthur shouted.

“What the hell!” Seth exclaimed and winced in pain. The moment he and the other two were hit by the rocks, it felt as if it knocked the wind out of them.

“How the heck are we supposed to get through that!?” Seth continued to shout and complain.

“We have to dodge it.” Michael answered. He continued to say, “It seems like the Chief is paying attention, the three rocks smacked us only in the stomach and only pushed us out when we got it.”

“You are right, if he wanted to, you three would’ve been pierced right through.” Shelly calmly spoke up as she made it to them. Both she and Julie acted as observer and the boys as testers. It made sense in their mind that it was better for the girls to observe due to them having better control of energy compared to them.

“Did you notice anything Shelly?” Julie asked.

“We’ll need a few more tries, can you three keep trying to get through?” Shelly asks.

The three boys gulped and nodded their head.

“Go!”

The three boys dashed forward dodging and weaving through the gaps within the attacks coming from the tornado.

Bam!

An object slammed into Seth flinging him out of the tornado and crashing onto the ground.

Woosh!

Michael managed to do better, but it wasn’t enough, a blanket covered his entire body and threw him out of the tornado completely.

Bam!

Arthur made it the furthest, but even then, he couldn’t make it more than a meter in before an object smashed into him flinging him completely out.

The boys got up and looked towards Shelly and Julie furrowed their brows as they gazed upon Gran who was barely visible at the epicenter of this dust tornado. Julie and Shelly conversed for a short moment before Julie looked over to the boy and spoke up.

“Again, this time one of you charge in from behind him.” Shelly calmly spoke out.

The three boys signaled each other with their eye and Michael decided to be the one to enter from behind.

Dauntless, they were as they rushed forward into the tornado with little to no game plan besides listening to Shelly’s orders.

The three were inside longer this time as the girls waited outside trying to sense and see everything so that there wouldn’t be a third time for failure.

Shelly squinted her eyes and pulled out her bow, she steadied her arm, locked the bowstring and released an arrow. It whistled through the air heading straight for Gran at the center.

Bam

The shaft of the arrow was smashed in half by a rock, breaking it into pieces.

Shelly continued to observe the situation, not going for a second attempt with the bow still in her hand. A short moment afterwards Seth was flung out of the tornado, followed by Arthur and then Michael last.

The boys were covered in dirt and debris picked up by the spin of the objects around Gran, however besides from the initial impact from objects within they were in better condition than the first attempt.

“Have you two noticed anything?” Michael asked. “I went from behind, and I came out last, maybe we can sneak up from him from behind?”

Shelly shook her head. “Chief Gran can still move in there.”

“Damn it, how do we get close to him then? I feel like even if we all go, we would still not reach him before getting tossed out!” Seth complained.

“Shelly, that rock, I think it sped up when you shot at Gran.” Julie spoke up her speculation.

“Chief Gran is controlling all the objects in there, of course he can speed it up!” Seth exclaimed. “He’s playing with us, he will just throw us out if we got closer, there’s no way we can do it.”

Shelly closed her eyes and replayed the entire scene again in her mind. Their first attempt the boys were flung out as they entered by objects under Gran’s control. The second attempt it was the same, even when she shot an arrow. No, something was different, not the speed, but something else. What was it? Replay. Again. Again. Again.

“Shelly?” The other four noticed Shelly wasn’t responding and suddenly felt a tug on their clothes.

Gran didn’t want them to wait, they had to keep going. The boys realized Shelly needed more time and turned to Gran, they rushed back into the tornado to buy time for her.

A short moment later the same situation occurred, Arthur, Seth, Michael were flung out one by one as they were inside.

The boys were walking over, their expression… exasperated as they stood before the girls. Michael shook his head. “I got closer this time, but no good.”

“I don’t wanna go in there again.” Arthur complained, the moment they enter they had to dodge every object flying at them, one mistake and it was over.

“Maybe if we just keep running in over and over, we’ll get closer bit by bit? Maybe he just wants us to persevere until we tag him?” Julie asked.

Shelly’s eyes opened slowly and looked off at Gran who was standing calmly in the center. She looked at where she had shot her arrow, where was it…? There. On the ground.

“Shelly! Did you figure it out?” Arthur asked, the moment Shelly opened her eyes he felt hopeful that they could get out of this situation.

“A little bit.” Shelly answered. “What he is controlling right now is the most he can control, he didn’t throw you guys out by pulling on you, he hit you with what he was controlling and pushed you out. When I shot my arrow, I saw it, a rock fell to the ground and another one sped up to collide with the that arrow that he stopped. There’s a limit to how many he can have spinning around.”

“So…what you’re trying to tell us is if we threw a bunch of stuff at him first and ran in, we can make it through?” Michael asked. Everyone else’s thought was the same, they wondered if that was the case.

“It could work.” Seth agreed with what Michael said.

“Should we do it?” Julie asked.

“It’ll only work once and we’ll have to control what we throw at him, too much for him to handle will only backfire on us.” Shelly answered. “If we fail to get through this time, we’re going to have to think of another way.

“What if we blind him?” Arthur asks. “If he can’t see us we can probably tag him…?”

“If he can’t see us, it’ll get dangerous, do you want to take the full brunt of these objects?” Seth asked. “I sure don’t.”

Arthur nodded his head in agreement, he too didn’t want to get brutally hammered by the flying objects swirling around Gran.

“Maybe I can stop them for a bit?” Julie asks. “They’re not too fast that I can’t see them, I could try stopping some of Gran’s attacks that gets close?”

Her suggestion caused everyone’s eyes to brighten up. “Let’s try that.”

“Uh oh, what are you kids plotting?” Gran noticed the change in their expressions and remarked. He calmly remained at the center waiting for what’s to come.

Let’s go.” The trainees all nodded and spread out around the tornado.

“We have one attempt at this! If we fail, we’ll have to think of something else! On my count!” Seth shouted as everyone got into position.

“Three!”

“Two!”

“One!”

“Go!”