BEEP!

"Aryt, let's go".

Malakai and Delilah left their safe zone. As they planned, Delilah ran towards the stairs, and Malakai ran to the other rooms on their floor.

"I keep forgetting how quick Mally is", Benjamin said, watching Malakai's camera angle. The camera was moving frantically from side to side as it was strapped to Malakai's chest.

"What are you lot doing? Go!" David told them off, seeing them standing around.

Benjamin, Lucas, Ray and William were watching the screen. Their eyes were glued to it. It was like they were watching a sports match. They completely forgot they had their own roles to play.

"I want to watch though", William said like a kid.

"Same", Lucas added.

"You can't! You need to help the rest of our classmates", David replied, pointing to the door. "You do realise this is a challenge. Points are on the line".

Lucas, William and Benjamin looked at him straight-faced. They didn't want to move. Watching was more interesting than what they had to do.

"C'mon, guys. We need to help in our own way", Ray said, walking towards the door, urging them to follow him.

Benjamin saw Ray walking out of the door with most of the class.

"Aight. I'm sure we'll get to watch him later", he said, joining Ray.

"Uuughh. Fine", William reluctantly agreed, slowly following behind.

Lucas silently followed with his eyes locked onto the screen while he left. The boys weren't the only ones who wanted to watch. There was someone else who wanted to stay.

"I don't want to miss out on what he does", Maria thought, seeing Malakai's camera angle. "But I can't stay. I have to be useful to the class. If I want to be with him next time, I have to help him".

Maria took her eyes off the screen and walked out of the class determined. Maria was out of the class, but what was she going to do next? She didn't know. She had no plan. She walked out with all this determination but had no clue what to do with it.

"Should we check the library?" Tanisha asked from behind her. She noticed Maria frozen in place, stuck on where to go.

"Yeah, let's go!" Maria replied, determined, quickly latching onto the idea. She swiftly turned on her feet and gracefully but hastily walked to the library.

There were two different libraries. One in the academy building and the other on the campus. The library on campus was much more extensive than the one in the academy building. The campus library allowed anyone to enter, but the academy library was in the academy building, so only students could enter that one. The library where the 'meeting' happened (Chapter 20 - Alliance, Enemies Or Rivals) and where Eric was crying (Chapter 18 - Puffy Red Eyes) were in the campus library. The campus library was more popular due to its bigger space and better aesthetic. Also, because members of the public went there, some of the students liked meeting strangers. Few people went to the academy library because there was nothing really to do there. Of course, if you wanted a quiet place to revise, it was perfect, but otherwise, it was boring. Therefore, major events have yet to happen in the academy library. For now.

Maria and Tanisha made it to the library and found that two of their classmates were already inside searching, which was a good thing because two people alone couldn't search the library.

"Should we split up?" Tanisha asked.

"Yes", Maria quickly replied.

"What about the time? We need to make it back before the bell", Tanisha said.

For the students back at the academy, a bell rang to signal the end of the round. Unlike their representatives, they had something to tell them when the round was over. However, their punishment was much lighter than theirs. If they reach their classrooms after the bell, they will not be penalised unless they have a map piece. If a student has a map piece and arrives late to their classroom, it will be taken away from them. If a student arrives late and they have nothing, no penalty will be given. That's what they've been told.

"Keep checking your phone", Maria replied. "The round ends at 10:55. We should leave three to five minutes before".

Tanisha checked her phone, "That means we've only got seven minutes to search", she said.

"We need to start looking then", Maria excitedly replied with a smile, walking backwards to where she was going to search.

The two dispersed, going in opposite directions. There were two floors to the library. They decided to search the first floor and leave the second floor for later rounds.

Maria wandered the place and instantly felt a block. A mental block. A lot of things were happening. She saw rows of shelves stacked with books, and her mind instantly thought that finding a triangle-shaped laminated piece of paper would be impossible. There were so many places to look, but so little time. She had to think. She couldn't run around like a headless chicken and search for the sake of searching. She had to think strategically and search a place worth searching.

Maria looked at the bookshelves with eagle eyes, "Where would they hide it?"

The bookshelves had four shelves. Maria couldn't reach the top shelf. She needed a step to check properly. However, she could see what books were on the top shelf.

She thought to herself, "How would they hide it?"

Maria knew there was no time to take out individual books and look inside them. That would take too long. They had to be in between the books.

Maria had an idea but didn't think it was a good one. Given the time she had to use it. Good or bad. She entered an aisle and put her hand on the spine of a book on the second lowest shelf. She moved down the aisle with her hand moving along while she looked at the upper two shelves. She kept her hand on the spines of the books to feel if anything stuck out between them. She wasn't paying attention to that shelf with her eyes, so she used her hand to look out for her. If they were to hide a map piece, they might hide it between the books instead of inside. If they were to hide them inside, that would take too much time and would be impossible to find with the limited time. The academy wouldn't go that far. She knew she was missing the bottom shelf, but she was going to go back to check it. She reached the end of the aisle and found nothing. But now she had to go back down the aisle to check the bottom shelf. After quickly doing that she found nothing. She searched one side of the aisle. Now she had to search the other side. If she could, she would've outstretched both arms to feel on both sides, but the aisle was wide. It wasn't narrow like some libraries. She searched the other side using the same technique. Again, she found nothing. She pulled out her phone to check the time.

"10:47".

She had three minutes left to search. It didn't take her long to search the aisle. It took about two minutes or less, so she had time to check one more. She quickly moved to the next aisle and did the same method. Maria did the same thing with more pace. She scanned the shelves up top, and her hand moved along the spines of the book on the lower shelf. Her eyes weren't picking up anything. It looked like the higher shelves had no luck. She was anxious she might've missed something with how quickly she was looking around. But she couldn't stop. There was no time to stop. Her eyes kept moving, and her hand kept moving along.

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Poke!

Maria felt something stick out. Her eyes latched onto her hand, and she saw a shiny piece of paper sticking out. She pulled it out, and it was a laminated piece of paper shaped like a triangle. It was a map piece. The way she was holding it showed the back, which showed a number. The number was eleven, meaning this was a piece of floor eleven. She turned it over, and the map piece showed seven rooms, and five of them had dots in them. Maria found a map piece that showed where the plastic balls were. She found the best version of that piece.

"Maria!"

She heard a familiar voice call her name. It was Tanisha's voice.

"We need to get back to class! We have to go now!"

Maria didn't realise but time was flying. She pulled out her phone and checked the time.

"10:51".

Four minutes to make it back. Which was fine. The walk back to the classroom is three minutes, which is three minutes at an average walking speed. It would be less if they ran. They had nothing to worry about, but they still had to go, just in case.

Maria held the map piece tightly in her right hand and skipped down the aisle with a gleaming smile. As she skipped, she looked up towards the ceiling. While she did that, she noticed something sticking out on a higher shelf. It looked like another map piece. Maria quickly went over to the shelf and tiptoed to reach it. Luckily, it was on the second-highest bookshelf and not the top shelf. If it was on the top shelf, she wouldn't be able to reach it. On her tiptoes, she just barely pinched the paper sticking out. She managed to pull it out without any complications. Another map piece was acquired. This time, it had no dots, meaning it was the worst version of the map piece. Maria checked the number on the back, and it was three. She had two map pieces, one for floor eleven and another for floor three. A very successful round. Maria helped Malakai and Delilah a lot. They wouldn't know about it unless someone told them, but knowing she helped was enough for her. And this was only the start. There were more rounds to come.

"Maria, hurry! We really need to go!"

"Coming!" Maria replied, getting a move on.

While 1-C's round was coming to an end, let's see what Malakai was doing in his round.

"This room better have something good".

Malakai had searched two rooms so far. The first one had nothing. It was a bland room with a lot of chairs and desks. Malakai ravaged the room. Knocking all the chairs over and moving the tables everywhere. There were a few cupboards, but they were empty. In the second room, however, he found a plastic ball. The room was similar to the first as it was next door. The main difference was the lower amount of chairs and tables. After climbing on a chair, he found a ball on top of a tall steel cupboard. Now, he was going into his third room.

Malakai opened the door and stepped in. This room was different from the previous two. This room was an office. An office for one person. This room was much smaller than the other two. The room had a long wooden desk with a computer on it. The desk also had other things like a lamp, plants and a pen pot, but those things were irrelevant right now. The things that were important were the big things. The things where you could hide something. However, this room didn't have much of that either. All it had was a single metal locker and open shelves showcasing nothing but accessories you would put in an office.

There was nothing Malakai could really do in this room. The only thing was to check the desk and what was inside the locker. Malakai walked over to the desk and looked at the computer screen. It was switched off, so it was just a black screen. He turned around to look at the locker, which had a padlock.

Malakai kissed his teeth in mild frustration and shook his head. He knew if he wanted to get into the locker, he would have to find the code, which was definitely on the computer. He couldn't be bothered to put in all that effort. Nevertheless, he pulled out the chair to get started.

Drop!

Malakai peered over the chair and looked at what dropped under the desk. It was a plastic ball.

"Wot"

Malakai was confused. Why was a ball on the chair? Wasn't it supposed to be in the locker? He turned his head to look at the locker again. After realising what just happened, he smiled.

"There must be something good in that locker".

Malakai collected the plastic ball from the floor and sat on the chair. He moved the mouse to wake the computer up. When the screen turned on, obviously, a password was needed. But something was weird, the user of the computer was called.

"5284".

Malakai smiled with his teeth out.

"That was easy".

Malakai got out of the chair and went to the locker. He quickly went to the padlock and unlocked it using the numbers he found. After hastily sliding the numbers in, the padlock unlocked. Malakai removed the padlock, opened the locker, and saw what was inside.

He started giggling.

"Attention everyone. Malakai Junior has found an item. The item he has found is a paintball gun. Malakai Junior has a paintball gun".

"HE'S GOT A WHAT!? WHY HAS HE GOT THAT!?" Destiny reacted in shock at what she just heard.

Alexander looked down at his item with disgust.

"The worst person to get that", Ryan quietly said, clenching his right fist.

"A paintball gun..." Akari said in disbelief, scared with dilated eyes.

"Of course, he would be the one to find that", Delilah smirked, running around.

"For fuck sake. We haven't had a chance to search", Dillon furiously said.

Kayla stayed silent.

"I wish I could've found that", Nada wishfully said, tying her hair up.

"I hope I don't bump into him", Justin thought, biting his nails.

"I pray for whoever comes across Mally", David thought, seeing the paintball gun through Malakai's camera angle.

Malakai hadn't even picked up the paintball gun yet, and that announcement by Mr White was made. The paintball gun was at the bottom of the locker, sitting upright. The only thing in the locker was the black paintball gun, nothing else. No helmet, no gloves, no protective vest, no bullets, nothing. Just the gun.

Malakai crouched down and took the paintball gun out of the locker. He held it by the handle and gripped it. It was perfect. It fit like a glove in his hand. He stood back up and held the paintball gun up to look at it from a side angle. Malakai looked at the paintball and smirked,

"I've got a weapon on me".