Falling [completed]

31

The elders gathered the ten and pulled Remmy and another girl to the front. 

"It is time for the last and final test, capture the flag.  Remmy and Kiesha will be the team captains and will pick their teammates.  Who wants to go first?" 

Remmy pointed to the other girl immediately.  Kiesha gave Remmy a wolf's smile and bowed.  She stood back up and called a name.

Remmy tried her best to pick the nerdiest looking kids, but when everyone was picked, she didn't have that bad of a team.

"You have ten minutes to hide your team's flag and discuss tactics before the other team can advance.  Your time starts now."

Remmy didn't want to win, but she couldn't purposely sabotage the whole team and someone else's chance.  Her group headed out into the woods when Remmy stopped and turned to her followers.

"Any ideas?"

"We can hide the flag high in a tree, shoot it up with an arrow?"

Remmy looked around and no one had come up with anything better.  The flag would be in plain sight but unattainable.  It wasn't a bad idea, except no one had volunteered to be the archer. 

"Okay then, pick a tree." 

A girl in the group pointed out a tall, skinny tree that would be hard to climb.

"That one." 

Remmy sighed and took the bow and arrow from a boy who had run back to get it.  She wrapped the flag around an arrow and tied it with her hair tie.  She lined up the shot and relaxed her fingers, letting the arrow loose.  The steel tip punctured deep in the  marrow of the tree and stayed.

"Now how about the other teams flag?"  Remmy asked. 

The boy she went against in hand to hand spoke up.  "We can leave our flag unattended and split into smaller teams.  Scout out the other team's setup and meet back at the stream." 

Normally Remmy would go against leaving their flag unattended, but she wanted to lose and didn't want it to seem like she did on purpose. 

"Good let's go."

They split into two teams, she was with the her new friend and the other three went a separate way.  It didn't take long before they ran into the rivals and Remmy pulled away to quickly hide.  She had to grab the boy who was ready to march into a fight. 

"What are you doing?  We can take them easy," he whispered to her behind a tree.  Remmy didn't want to get into another fight.  Getting beat once was bad enough, even if the pain and marks were gone.

"If we fight them, others will hear us and come."  The boy nodded to her and they sat behind a rotted log and waited for the other team to pass.  They heard shouts and a scuffle not too far away and their adversaries ran towards the noise.  Remmy sighed, it meant her other scouts had been caught.  At least this could buy them time to get closer.  She motioned for the boy to follow her and the slipped out of hiding, creeping further into enemy territory. 

They had been walking for only a few minutes when they heard footsteps not to far away coming up beside them.  Remmy ducked down and pulled her teammate down with her.  To Remmy's shock, it was two of her team members walking straight towards them.

"What happened to the other kid?"  Remmy asked.

The two smiled at her and one spoke up.  "He was captured.  The other team brought him to their head quarters and we followed them.  We saw where they are keeping the flag." 

Now the other spoke up. 

"We can do the same thing again, let one of us get captured, for a diversion.  With all of the yelling their whole team came and left the flag within easy grasp." 

Remmy thought for a second before she spoke. 

"They won't do that again, they have a prisoner now and can't leave him.  Still three against one isn't bad odds."

Just then they heard a thundering noise and looked the way they had came.  Their flag pole of a tree had been chopped down and they had lost.  Remmy sighed in relief but her team didn't have to know that. 

"Next time, make sure the person who gets captured doesn't give away team secrets."  She could hear the other team cheering and they all headed back to the field.

She met up with Mack and they waited on the announcer. 

"Ya did good girl, I'm proud of ya." 

"Thanks Mack, I couldn't have done it without you."  Mack put his arm over her shoulder and pulled her in close.  Mack rarely showed any kind of emotion like this, and it had Remmy all goey on the inside.  She could feel her tears start to prickle at her eyes.  This is something she had never gotten from her parents.  Love. Unconditional love.  Remmy choked back her tears just long enough for the announcer to bellow out over the field. 

"We would like to thank all contestants who attended here today.  Each should be proud of the accomplishments made.  Final scores will be displayed on the screen at the end of the field after the winner is announced.  Break down of individual event's scores are only available to the constants.   One person stood out among the rest, being resourceful and knowledgable.  This person will greatly represent us at the capitol next week.  Without further adea, the winner of the preliminary tournament is Remmy Aldon."

The tears she had choked back came pouring out.  She messed up, even with a hang over she didn't botch the preliminaries and now she was going to the tournament.  She would have to work extra hard not to win.  She wanted to keep Aldric, wanted to keep the jerk of a man standing next to her, and wanted to keep Aurora.

Mack saw the tears flowing down Remmy's face and mistook them for tears of joy. 

"I didn't know ya were uh cryer girl."  He squeezed her close and began walking her across the field to the elders.  "C'mon, let's see how good ya did." 

They walked over and picked up her scores.  She had managed to slow the stream coming down her face to barely a trickle.  She couldn't believe her eyes.  She had gotten an almost perfect score on the test, extra points for ingenuity in weaponry and hand to hand.  The only thing she managed to get an average score on was the battlefield tactics. 

"Even witha hangover ya were amazing."  Mack said to her.  Once the words came out of his mouth they both caught a few stares. 

"Whadaya wanna do now?" 

Remmy thought about those words and she wanted to die.  She needed to get advice on what to do next and only knew of one person who wouldn't be biased. 

"Can you drop me off at the library?  I want to tell Aurora."  Remmy took the score sheet and folded it up and shoved it in her pocket. 

"Anythin' ya want girl"