The leader of 9 hesitantly stepped from the point where shadow fought against the overpowering pressure of light, looking all up and down the path laid before him and his team. His shaved head gleamed in the sunlight acting as a target large enough for Rudolph to penetrate with confidence.
BANG
The gunshot crackled with the wind as the bullet projected from the barrel and zoomed for the leader, landing at his feet. The man jumped back in fear, falling to the ground and clawing his way back to the safety of the bunker. Rudolph had been positioned further down the trench with his barrel stabilized on a pile of sandbags he'd thrown atop one another.
Priar, was hiding atop the wall, laid prone in no-man's-land beside a patch of barbed wire. He flinched at the shot. When the leader had gotten fully behind cover, Priar leaned his head into the bunker and yelled to the darkness. "We have you surrounded! Surrender the flag as well as your weapons and we will let you leave!" his heart pounded in his chest. He knew they didn't have the flag, it was just context to their little white lie.
It took a long while before he got a response. "W-we don't have the flag!"
Priar let out a sigh of relief, "So we're lying now? Alright then, I'm sure the sergeant doesn't mind if we spend some time together. It's just us left afterall." Priar raised a hand signaling Rudolph.
BANG
He fired another shot into the darkness. He'd been shooting blindly, whether it hit someone it wouldn't matter. Their goal was to keep them in cover and with this plan, they'd sit out for the rest of the "game" too afraid to leave the safety of their bunker. They would find the body, but Priar had hoped the fear of getting shot would overtake their disgust.
9 would continue to plead, saying "We don't have the fucking flag!", but Priar had already left, rendezvousing with the rest of his team who'd awaited patiently nearby. Lance Secured the path ahead making sure that 11 wouldn't ambush them in the middle of their plan.
Slug held up his hand, offering a high five, "That was badass!" Priar obliged with a joyful clap.
Esme raised her brow in confusion. "There's no way that worked."
Priar smiled, "well, lets just hope they don't grow a backbone anytime soon."
Jolie nodded, "agreed, let's get moving." While the others went to meet up with Lance, Jolie put a hand on Priar's chest, stopping him in his tracks. They stared at each other for a moment before she finally spoke. "We should've stuck to my idea."
Priar sighed, "C'mon Jolie, look at what we can do now! We don't have another team to worry about-"
She grimaced. "No, we do. Now they're even more of a threat." Priar held a confused expression, she tilted her head. "We'll have our backs to them when they finally grow a pair and walk out." Priar rolled his eyes. Jolie roughly grabbed him by the shoulder. "Just because you distract them, doesn't make them any less of a enemy!"
He tensed up, putting his hand over hers trying to remove it. "Look, we voted and you lost. It's not my fault that you didn't get your way." he yanked her hand off of his shoulder. "What I'm doing is making sure we all make it to the end of this test safely. You know that half of us have never been in a fight and yet you still think that somehow we'll just know what to do?" she clicked her tongue. All her life she'd been a stubborn little girl, never knowing when to admit defeat. She sure as hell wasn't going to now
"Just do what I say from now on. I'm supposed to be the leader, remember?" she demanded. Priar gave a displeased nod, shaking his head while he walked by. "And I don't want to kick your ass- at least not all the time." she mumbled, speeding past him not leaving time for him to register. He simply grinned, jogging to catch up.
Summer rays of the rainforest beat down on them with an unbreathable pressure. Lance caught himself instinctively reaching to his back pocket, finding nothing but his own behind. Rudolph stuck to the rear acting as the team's guardian angel. Although he was awkward and tightlipped, he was efficient. Priar wouldn't know where they'd be without him and he became all the more thankful for it when remembering his display earlier.
Esme finally broke the silence with a thought that made him uncomfortable. "Sergeant Bright said that this place was all his dream… does that mean the body back there was someone he knew?" no one responded at first,
Slug couldn't stand the air of unease anymore. "Might be onto something there. Could've been his boyfriend," he joked. Esme didn't laugh.
"I hope not. That would be really sad." she admitted.
Jolie barked at them to stay quiet, which they'd taken to heart. Much like when Bright's voice would boom, her voice gave the same presence. Priar, in a heat induced stupor, wondered if they'd been related.
He stuck to Jolie like glue, not wanting to give up this chance. He got beside her and whispered, "So, does that mean you like me?" she didn't respond, keeping her eyes ahead, her mind flooding with thoughts of potential ambushes and ways her team would perish. "I'm gonna take that as a yes." she broke away from her trance to tell him to shut up, then raised her hand signalling for them to stop. They all got low to the ground to hear the faint laughter of a young woman, not more than 40 yards from them. Rudolph bumped into Slug not knowing they'd halted. The path ahead was an intersection. The voice had come from somewhere to their right.
She mouthed to the team, 11? Which was met with glances and shrugs to one another. She turned back ahead to see Lance creeping up the path, coming close to the intersection and peeking his head out for a good look. Jolie cursed under her breath and made her way behind Lance. The others followed. Rudolph stayed behind, not knowing when they'd left, before glancing back to see he'd been all alone.
The whole team crouched low to the ground, practically hugging their knees, following behind one another as they approached the voices. Eventually the path began to widen as what looked like a turtle shell of a concrete dome had been built into the trench completely out of place from the rest of the wooden huts and bunks they'd seen. Vines hung from the tree overtop of the trench. It fell to the doorway where once again darkness had formed its familiar barrier of protection. Nothing could be seen from within- nothing except for a bright red waving in an endless wind.
The voices grew closer as the blonde twins from team 11 rounded the path ahead of them.
"He was just being nice, you know." Lucy told her brother, he'd put a hand up shooing away her excuses.
"I saw the look in his eyes. I know how guys like him think- only one thing on his mind." Issac reasoned. He wasn't wrong. The rest of team 11 had playfully teased one another acting more like old friends than a squad of soldiers. Lucy unconsciously played with her hair thinking of her brother's words.
He seemed different, she thought.
Jolie yanked Lance back when the full team came into view. One of the members shouted out, finally spotting the flag inside the building.
"What'd you see?" Priar asked,
"11, they just found the flag." Jolie replied.
Lance crept back to the team. "I don't think they even know we're in here with them, but we can't attack now." he sighed
"Why not?" Slug asked.
"The building they just went into, it's an armory. When I was studying history I saw a few old war pictures and it looked just like that."
Jolie watched as the last member of 11 walked into the building and took the chance to act.
"So what do we do?" Esme prodded.
"We could try the same tactic as before. Keep them held in the building for real this time." Slug suggested.
Priar chimed in, "nah wouldn't work. By that time 9 will have probably figured out we were lying and we'd be sandwiched between the two."
Slug clicked his tongue.
Lance switched off the safety to his firearm. "We could ambush them right before they hand it off?"
"Too risky, all it would take is for one of them to rush the turn in point and we'd lose. What we need to do is force them out of hiding and steal it from under their noses." Priar contemplated.
"Like a heist?" Slug sheepishly added.
"How would we do that?" Esme asked. Just then Jolie returned, dropping down from the no-man's land above them.
Priar, confused, asked "Where did you go?!"
"Shut up", she looked to Esme and reached behind her waist band, pulling out a pistol. "It was all I could get."
"I can't take this!" she cried, holding the weapon like it had a disease.
"Yes you can, and you will. I need you to."Jolie demanded. Esme, with an uncomfortable look, carefully put it in her waist like Jolie had. "They're just messing around in there. It wasn't hard to sneak in."
Slug pouted "Where's my gun?"
She ignored him. "They hardly know what to do with themselves, let alone the flag. Just a bunch of idiots." she sighed an angered breath.
"How are we even supposed to get it?" Esme asked, "They have more guns than us now!"
"I have an idea." she revealed a canister clutched in the palm of her hand. "But we need to all work together" Then she noticed the lack of shooters on their team. "Where's Rudolph?"
Rudolph crept around from trench to trench looking for his teammates, but he'd never been good with lefts and rights. It always got messy when he wasn't looking the same direction as the rest of his team. Instead favoring the more commonly used: east and west.
Gripping his rifle tightly he turned another corner, clearing it with the barrel of his gun looking out before he did, only to see the same path they'd walked from the bunker. He'd made one big loop right back to where he started. He sunk his shoulders realizing he was lost. Rudolph hated being alone for that reason.
He turned to retrace his steps like he'd done so many times in the past, but his gaze lingered on the bunker's entrance for only a moment. A flash of light. He needed to catch himself so he could inspect closer. He held up his rifle and pinched one eye closed, looking down the barrel of his gun.
Breaking the veil were all six members from team 9 charging out of the tunnel, roaring a valiant battlecry to what they feared would be their deaths.
BANG
He fired a shot at their feet hoping to scare them back. They did not turn. They pumped their legs even harder. With a rageful expression, the bald headed leader aimed his pistol down the path at Rudolph, and squeezed the trigger.
"Uh oh."