I woke up the next morning to find the supplies I'd ordered outside my door and a message from the Matriarch on my Connect, reminding me that the dorms would be locked after breakfast that morning. It felt strange to dress in the white Scorpion uniform, stranger still to look down at my Connect and see 'Scorpion' there too, where Orange Team should be. Most of my teammates- not anymore, not for the next two weeks, I reminded myself- looked much as I imagined I did as we made our way to our last guaranteed meal for a while: grim, determined, backpacks of supplies slung over their shoulders. Some wore fearful expressions and carried nothing, mostly the Level Ones. Breakfast was odd, silent and watchful. Ordinarily, teams kept to themselves, but that day we all looked around, wondering which of these strangers would be our allies once our friends became our enemies.
After breakfast, seven AM on the dot, there was the deafening sound of five hundred Connects chiming at once. We were to come to the stadium to find our partners and start the game. As it turned out, that was no easy task. It quickly turned into a mess of people frantically grabbing one another's shirtsleeves, looking for the symbol. This would never work. I could see the Matriarch standing in a corner, watching us all with amusement. Was this the first task already? Suddenly, I had an idea. I shoved my way to the stage and cautiously stepped on it, waiting for some kind of defenses to activate and kick me off. When nothing happened, I stood in the center and cupped my hands, forming a kind of megaphone with my power as I did so.
"IF YOU HAVE A SCORPION, COME HERE!" I yelled. I stood back and watched. At first, it looked like nothing was happening, and then two or three people began to fight their way through the crowd. Eventually, they climbed onto the stage. There was a girl and a boy who looked to be about my age, and one boy who looked much younger, maybe ten or twelve. The girl introduced herself as Sierra, of Yellow Team. The older boy introduced himself as Adrian, of Red Team. The younger boy turned out to be Mark, of Blue Team.
As soon as we climbed down off the stage, other people got up there, apparently having decided that what I did was a good idea. It didn't take long to sort out the teams after that, but I had just enough time to size up my new teammates. Sierra and Adrian carried bags of supplies like I did, and seemed prepared enough, but not Mark. I had a feeling Mark was going to be a bit of a burden. When everyone had finally found their teammates, the Matriarch took to the stage. "You may leave in the order in which you found your teammates, at five minute intervals. Team Scorpion may go first." She announced calmly.
I grinned. I had been right then, she was already testing us. Five minutes wasn't much, it was true, but it was long enough for us to figure out what we were doing. Nothing looked different as we left the stadium, though. "Why don't we go find somewhere we can look and see what's going on?" I suggested. "That will take too long. Let's just pick a direction and start walking. We're bound to run into something eventually." Adrian countered. "But it won't take us nearly as long to find something if we know what we're looking FOR." Sierra pointed out. I liked her already. Mark agreed, and so we headed for the highest point we could think of, the big hill not far from the school building.
Once we got there, where we could see the whole campus, some changes became glaringly obvious. The walls around the practice courts by the school had gotten much higher, as if hiding something. There was some kind of hedge maze- how had she grown hedges overnight?- on the edge of the forest. Those were plain to see. But there were three other challenges out there somewhere, and always the chance that we'd stumble into one. We had to keep our guards up.
"Why don't we go see the hedge one first? It looks interesting." Sierra suggested, a bit more cheerfully than I expected anyone to be in this situation. "Don't be stupid. That's the one farthest away! It'd be wasted time to get there." Adrian argued. "Maybe Mark could teleport us there. Could you, Mark?" Sierra asked. Mark shook his head, looking terrified at the very thought. "N-no. I just got here day before yesterday. I can barely transport myself." He said. I'd been too distracted to notice the newbies, I guessed, but I felt bad for them. Being thrown in the middle of this mess wouldn't make their adjustment period any easier. But at the same time, I couldn't suppress a wave of annoyance at having one on my team. This wasn't going to make life any easier, for any of us.
"Well, I'm going to have to side with Adrian on this one. Our five minutes are almost up, and the practice courts are closest." I said. Mark nodded in agreement. No one seemed to dispute that, so we set off in that direction. It was a quiet walk. I knew they were all wondering, as I was, what sort of trouble we would find when we had arrived. We were all so deep in thought that I almost didn't notice the strange new metal stepping stones that had been laid out. But I did notice the mechanical hum that started up when Adrian's foot touched one of them. "Adrian! Watch out!" I called. He turned and stepped back towards me in the nick of time.
As soon as he stepped away, the 'stepping stone' he had touched rocketed up into the air. So did the others, all around us. They looked like some sort of metal canister. They were bouncing up and down at what appeared to be a set orbit, down to the ground and then up to a certain height and back again, but it was getting faster. "Look!" Sierra said. "A flag!" And she was right. One of the metal canisters was hollow and clear, and you could see a golden flag within it. "You guys get out, I'll get the flag." I said as we all crammed into the tiny space where there were no canisters. "Why you?!" Adrian demanded. "Because I'm the one who can form a shield, I'm least likely to get hurt if I stay!" I snapped. That seemed to satisfy him. Adrian simply ran through the hail of canisters as fast as he could. His powers were no help to him here. Sierra somehow managed to shove most of the canisters in her way aside. And Mark, simplest of all, just teleported out of the range of fire.
I took a deep breath and focused on forming the strongest shield I could. I channeled my fear of dying- which had become very real in this moment, as the canisters had become so fast they were almost blurring and could probably do major damage- and my desire to win, to ask that question. When I had make the strongest shield I could, I ran for the canister with the flag. Canisters hit the shield the whole way, but it only wavered, didn't flicker. I didn't notice it at the moment, but later I would think I really should've earned a promotion for that. Catching the canister with the flag would prove the hard part. I stood there, where I knew it would come down, and formed a net of energy with my power. I wasn't used to making things like this, things that had to have give to them. But if this net was too rigid, I was dead.
I didn't have time to be relieved when the canister sank into the net I had made, not collecting any of my fingers or smashing my feet on the way. I simply bundled it up and ran for safety, dodging canisters as I went. It was somewhat easier, the way they were slowing down. By the time I reached the others, they had stopped altogether, slid back into the ground. I felt almost bad for the next team, who would have to get through all of this with no reward to be found. But we had the flag! I slipped it into my backpack, and left its' canister on the ground, where it rolled back into position. I could see another team coming in the distance. We didn't stop to celebrate, we just ran for the practice courts. This competition was certainly very....lively already.
