~ Before the Clock Struck One ~

Chapter 10

Luke looked up as if he hadn't noticed the sudden gloom until Cody mentioned it. "Oh, that's just Sophia playing around with the weather. It's against game rules for her to produce lightning – it's too dangerous."

"Is it against game rules for her to produce rain?" Cody inquired, as a large drop of water landed on his upturned face.

"Sadly, no."

Aaron cursed when rain began to flood down from the heavens, soaking him to the bone in mere seconds. Running around in ankle-deep muck wasn't exactly his idea of "fun".

"You fight dirty, Sophia," Scott muttered under his breath.

"Literally," Aaron added, lifting his boots out of the sticky mud.

"Don't worry about it," Peter said. "I can fix this." There was a bright burst of flames from his hands, which he set down on a stone in front of them. They gathered around the rock to keep as warm and dry as possible, still keeping a close eye on their surroundings in case of intruders.

Luke and Cody suddenly saw a burst of light in the forest ahead of them and slightly on their right. They crept as close to the small clearing as they dared, and saw a group of three guys huddled around a burning rock.

Behind the group, they could see the flag.

"So what's the plan?" Cody asked quietly.

"Leave it to me," Luke replied.

Aaron started for his paintball rifle the moment he saw movement in the bushes.

"Don't shoot!" a female voice called out. "It's me, Carmen." She stepped into the light of the fire and circled around the rock to stand beside Aaron. "Sheesh," she continued. "Someone is trigger happy."

"Sorry," Aaron said, "I couldn't see who you were at first. Did you find any other teams?"

"Yeah, Technicia's team is over there," she said, gesturing in a general direction ahead of them. "But she has the whole perimeter locked down with motion sensing equipment."

"That doesn't seem fair," Aaron commented.

"None of us play completely fair," Scott replied absentmindedly.

"What's the matter, Scott?" Peter asked him.

Scott, though engaged in the conversation, was still staring at the spot where Carmen had come in.

"There's someone there," he answered slowly. "But it's not a presence I'm familiar with. It's probably that new kid..."

"Cody?" Aaron offered less than enthusiastically.

"Yeah, that's it! Cody. I recognized the vibe – it has a sort of unique probing feel surrounding it – I'm just not familiar with it yet."

Since the other boys weren't watching her anymore, Carmen made her move. She tiptoed back towards the flag, hoping Scott was so preoccupied with Cody's presence that he wouldn't detect the flaw in hers. It was when she got to the flag that she discovered a new problem.

Someone had driven the flag pole in so far that there was no way she could pull it out – she wasn't strong enough in this form.

There was a snapping and a shouting off to the left and suddenly Carmen came bounding into the clearing, carrying a flag high and shrieking jovially, "I got one! I got Felix's team flag!"

This new Carmen stopped cold when she saw herself already standing in the clearing – trying to pull her own team flag from the ground.

Aaron, confused by seeing two Carmens, shot at the one who had just come into the clearing. The paintball went right through her body and smacked into the tree behind her.