I head to the corner of the arena that has a yellow flag. Three other people joined me. My first sparring partner who seems to have done well for
himself, he doesn’t look like he sustained many injuries. A poor guy who looks like he has been a human punching bag for everyone stumbles over.
He has acut across his right eyebrow that is bleeding into his eye, his nose is for sure broken and his lip is split and bleeding.
His whole face is going to be bruised soon, I hope his eyes don’t swell shut while we are trying to complete this course. The girl is one of the last
opponents I had and she was giving me a run for my money. None of them look to be current students so maybe in the 20-30 group.
I start to wonder why I was put with a group of people actually competing for a training spot when Warrior Nickolas announces, “You have five
minutes to strategize and tend to wounds, then the horn will blow. From then you will have 30 minutes to complete your task.”
“What task?” The girl asks as we all do the obvious and put on our team shirts.I dump my bag and so does my first fighter. Where I have a first aid kit
he has rope.
“Check your bags, we all have different things and come here,” I gestured to the injured guy, “ Let me reset your nose so it can at least start to heal.”
The girl dumps her bag and a card falls out. The only thing on it is “Capture The Flag.’ My eyes light up, yes!
“What’s got you looking so happy?” First guy asks.
“It’s my favorite game. Looks like this is a team effort. You are the tallest, can you see where they may have hung the yellow flag?” I ask while I am
still tending to injured guy. “My name is Sky.”
Injured guy looks at me, “I’m Jeff, how’d you learn to do this?”
“You can flirt with her later, I see it, I’m Lillian, can he move yet?” The girl rapidly fires at me.
“He should be good, everyone eat and sip water so you don’t get acramp or throw up, it will slow us down.” I turn to see where Lillian is pointing. “I
see it too, he should be good to go. Let’s assume that we have to get it and return it as ateam. Who’s the best scout?” I look at Lilian and First Guy. I
don’t even
bother with Jeff for now, once I see him move I’l decide if I trust him to help.
“I’m a good scout, once we get over there I can keep anyone away who may try to intercept you guys.”
First guy shrugs. “Name’s Wyatt.”
“Okay, you’re pretty fast so we should work together to get to our flag.” I look at Lilian and she nods. “Jeff, can you be on the lookout for other team
flags as we move?”
“Sure can, then I can help Wyatt with scouting.”
“Alright, Lilian lead us out, I’ll cover your back, Jeff, follow me and Wyatt can bring up the rear. Our flag is on top of the rope climb, but it looks like
they took the ropes off completely, so we are going to have to scale the obstacle course.”
I point out to Lilian, “the best spot is there to the right. The cargo net bracing is the most direct route and we should be able to jump from there, as
long as we aren’t intercepted. I do have a couple back up ideas, but let’s hope we don’t have to use them.” I smile at her, and surprisingly she smiles
back. Perfect someone else just as crazy as me.
We line up and the horn blows. The four of us take off behind Lilian and she follows the path I gave her perfectly. There is so much debris on this
portion of the arena, it looks like a paintball field. I can hear others shouting directions to each other, but we stay as quiet as possible.
I figure we can rest up a bit if we don’t have to fight our way to the flag. She follows a path that takes us around the outer edge, Poor Wyatt is so big
he barely fits, but he squeezes through and we come around to one side of the cargo net.
“Alright, this is where we let go of our cover, Wyatt, Jeff? You guys ready?” I whisper over my shoulder.
“Yes.” They replied together.
“Keep track of the other teams, we don’t know how big they are, assume we are outnumbered and fight like we are. Let’s go.”
