"It's me".
Malakai furrowed his eyebrows. "Wait. I know that voice", he said. It was a female voice that responded.
"Nada?"
Nada popped up from behind the desk and showed herself.
"Wassup", she said, smiling, holding a plastic ball in each arm.
"Yo", Malakai replied, lowering the paintball gun and smiling after seeing a familiar face. "You got two balls already!? The round just started".
"I got lucky. This room had two balls in it", Nada replied, clearly happy.
"Two?!" Malakai reacted. "Yo David. Is there two dots on the map for this room?" he asked.
David looked at the map piece. "Nope. I don't think every ball is doted on the map pieces, even on the best versions", David replied with a hand on his chin.
"Shit, that kinda makes sense", Malakai said. "Anyways, I don't wanna waste time. Nada, give me one of your balls".
Nada paused for two seconds and looked at the balls in her arms.
"Why?"
"Cuz you have two".
"But I found them fair and square".
"Nada, I'll shoot you, bro".
"No you won't".
Malakai didn't hesitate to raise his arm and point the gun at Nada.
Nada didn't flinch. "I know you're not going to shoot me", she confidently said, smirking.
Malakai stared at Nada for a couple of seconds. He smirked, "Aryt, you got me", he replied, lowering the gun. Nada saw him through his bluff too easily.
"I know you. You wouldn't shoot your friends", Nada said.
"I don't know about that. There's some friends I would shoot", Malakai replied.
William and Lucas glanced at each other. They knew he was talking about them.
"Hehehe", Nada giggled. "Here, you can take it", she said, tossing one ball to Malakai.
"Safe", Malakai thanked her when he caught the ball.
"What are you doing?! You didn't have to give him one", Marcus said, confused in Nada's earpiece. Marcus (Justin's best friend) was on the mic for class 1-E.
"It's fine. Malakai's cool. Our classes have an alliance", Nada calmly replied. "I only did it because I know Malakai would do the same if he were in my position".
The rest of the students in 1-E were unsure about what happened. They didn't like how Nada gave Malakai a ball when she didn't have to. She gave away points. She might've given away a ball that was worth more than a hundred points. Plus, they didn't trust the alliance that Nada had said they had.
Malakai looked into Nada's camera. "Our classes are calm. If your class needs help, I'll help you lot", he said, confirming the alliance. Whether or not class 1-E believed him was up to them. "Is your safe zone on this floor?" Malakai asked, looking at Nada.
"Nu-uh, it's on the floor above. I came to this floor because my class found the map piece for it", Nada replied, pointing up.
"Did it have dots on it?"
"Yeah".
"My class as well", Malakai said. "Aryt, let's not waste time. Let's split the rooms on this floor".
"That's fine by me", Nada replied, walking around the desk.
"My safe zone is on the ninth floor, so if you wanna team up at the start of another round, just go there innit", Malakai said.
"Cool. I think it would be a waste of time going to your floor and asking to team up", Nada replied.
"True. Well, if we see each other again, we can help each other somehow".
"Yeah".
"Aryt safe", Malakai said, putting out his fist.
Nada fist-bumped him, and the two of them raced out of the room. Nada went into the room next door while Malakai went into the room next to that one. The two of them had the entire floor to themselves for now, and they wouldn't get in each other's way. They had no excuse for not producing results.
Meanwhile, on the sixth floor, Alexander was clearing all the rooms. Before the round started, he asked Destiny which rooms she had searched. From that, he knew which rooms to avoid. Each floor had a different number of rooms. The sixth floor had twelve rooms. Destiny checked five of them and got three balls from it. Leaving Alexander with seven rooms to check. Obviously, the higher the number of rooms, the smaller the room sizes would be, leading to quicker searches. Some of the other floors had fewer rooms, but the rooms were bigger. Therefore, no floor had an advantage over the other.
Alexander was efficiently clearing each room. He didn't thoroughly search, but it was good enough. To put it simply, he wouldn't miss a plastic ball in the way he was searching. So far, he'd searched three rooms and obtained one ball. The other two rooms were a bust and had nothing in them. No balls or items. There may have been a small item hidden in them, but Alexander wasn't searching for anything small. Alexander wasn't fussed by it, though. He had four rooms left, and he also remembered that Destiny already found three balls. It was unlikely there would be many balls left on this floor. The most he predicted he was going to find was two, and he already found one. So he might end up with more than he had predicted.
Overall, class 1-A was doing decent. I'm saying decent because their map pieces were lacking, but not lacking in the way you think. 1-A found eight map pieces, which is a lot. However, six of those map pieces were blank. Only two of them had dots. Even though they pieced together one floor and found out which floor had a lot of rooms, they didn't have the advantage of knowing if those rooms had balls or not. At the start, you would've thought that class 1-A would've had an advantage by going first and searching for the map pieces, and you're not wrong. But by going first it meant that they found the pieces that were in the most obvious spaces, and the pieces in the most obvious spaces would be the worst version of those map pieces. Obviously, at the time, the students didn't think of that as they were in a hurry to collect map pieces, but the realisation after the round ended hit them. The adrenaline clouded their thought. What else could they do? Leave the pieces? That would be stupid. They had to take the pieces. It was just annoying for the students, knowing they took the worst version of the pieces, leading to the better versions for the other classes. So, overall class 1-A was doing decent.
I'd love to say class 1-B were in a similar boat, but they weren't. Their map pieces were bland. No dots. And their representatives in the first round could have done better. In the first round, Ryan and Akari only found one plastic ball and one item. So far, this challenge hasn't been going too well for them. From this perspective, it's clear to us they're not doing too well, but Ryan and Akari thought they were doing well. After the first round, Ryan was composed. He liked the position they were in. He found a useful item, and Akari found a ball. In his books, this was good enough. But, if he heard what the other teams accomplished, his opinion would probably change.
It doesn't matter, though, because this is the second round. In this round, Ryan was searching the floor his safe zone was on. The fifteenth floor. Compared to Alexander's floor, there were only a few rooms. However, the rooms that were on this floor were spacious. In the first round Ryan and Akari only searched one room each. This floor had five rooms, and they only searched two in fifteen minutes. By hearing that information, you can tell they searched the rooms thoroughly, which was a massive waste of time. Ryan acknowledged this fact and, for this round, improved his speed, but he was only in his second room, and he only found one ball.
"Ryan, I think you should move on to the next room. You can't be looking through everything you have no time", Owen told him.
"You think so?" Ryan asked.
"Yeah, you need to get points. The only way to do that is to find plastic balls", Owen replied.
Ryan didn't like how he was being told what to do.
"You're right. I'll be quicker", Ryan said, masking his annoyance. After that, he left the room and went to the last room on the floor.
Everyone in the 1-B classroom was watching the screen eagerly. Okay, not everyone. One guy was sitting on the side of the room on his phone.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"You're not going to join everyone?" Luke asked, covering his mouth because he was a mid-yawn.
Lorenzo looked up from his phone.
"Join what? There's nothing I can do except watch", he replied.
"You've got a point", Luke tiredly said, pulling out a chair and taking a seat next to him. "What do you think?"
Lorenzo looked up at his classmates, watching the screen and helping Owen to communicate ideas to Ryan.
"Don't know", Lorenzo shrugged.
Luke saw that answer coming. He was talking to Lorenzo, after all. A lot of people would give up on Lorenzo after the countless dull replies, but not Luke. He didn't mind. Luke had a lazy personality. An incredibly lazy personality. However, he was talented in whatever he did. Luke had a natural gift for being good at most things. The only thing he didn't have was the drive to put in that extra effort. As Luke was lazy, he didn't like interacting that much. Not because he didn't want to, but because he found it exhausting to keep someone entertained for so long. This is why he stuck around Lorenzo. Luke didn't need to think too hard or waste that much energy when he was around Lorenzo. The conversations were mainly a question, an answer, and then a silent pause until the next question. Another reason Luke stayed around Lorenzo was because he found him interesting in a way. He's Ryan's best friend, but even though he is, no one cares. Ryan was THAT guy for 1-B, and this guy was his best friend, but no one cared about him. Plus, Lorenzo didn't have any other friends. It made Luke question why Lorenzo and Ryan were best friends. He could ask Lorenzo or Ryan, but he couldn't be bothered. He wanted to see the answer for himself, and the only way to do that was to stay close to them and observe.
"I feel sorry for him".
Luke swiftly looked at Lorenzo.
"What?" Luke was kinda shocked. Lorenzo randomly spoke.
"Owen. I feel sorry for him", Lorenzo repeated.
"...Why?"
"If Ryan wasn't in this class, he would be the figurehead of this class", Lorenzo replied, surprisingly, with his phone face down on the table.
Owen was a tall white boy with long, fluffy blonde hair with a taper fade and a sharp jawline.
"Does that even matter? Who cares who's the figurehead of the class?" Luke asked, interested in this conversation.
"Believe me, it's important", Lorenzo said. "In a regular school, no one would care, but here it's different. Every class needs that one person to represent and lead them. Everyone wants points, and a good leader will get them points".
"Why can't they both represent the class?" Luke asked, surprisingly not yawning again.
"They can't. Someone has to be number one. And unfortunately for Owen, Ryan is just better than him", Lorenzo said, slyly looking at Owen.
Luke observed Owen for a few seconds, "Do you think he cares?"
"One hundred per cent. If you've got a lot of good things going for you and put in a lot of effort and, you're still not number one. You're going to care", Lorenzo said.
"You sure?"
"I've been around Ryan for a long time. I know what it looks like when someone envies him", Lorenzo replied. "I know the exact looks and expressions. I've seen it on tons of people. It's always the same".
"He doesn't look envious", Luke yawned while keeping his eyes on Owen.
"He's too focused on the challenge. You won't see it now", Lorenzo replied. "You'll notice him slip from time to time in class when everyone's attention is on Ryan".
Luke wiped his watery eyes from the yawn. "Hmm. I'll believe what you say. I can't be bothered to watch someone else during class", he said. "Besides, I don't think he minds his role right now. Look at him", Luke tiredly pointed. "The class's attention is on him. Everyone's around him. He's like a leader right now".
...
Luke looked at Lorenzo because he didn't respond.
"Do you not think so?" Luke asked.
"Nah. I was just thinking that Ryan should be where Owen is, and Owen should be where Ryan is".
Luke's eyes opened. "You think Owen should've been a representative?" he asked, surprised. Lorenzo just kept on surprising him.
"Yeah. I think this challenge is too much for Ryan".
"Didn't you just say Ryan is better than him?"
Lorenzo looked at Luke like he was an idiot. "I did, but that doesn't mean he's better than him at everything".
After that response, Luke realised he had asked a stupid question. "Why do you think Owen should've been a representative?" he asked, wanting to move on from his question.
"He's too calculated. They both are", Lorenzo replied.
"You mean Akari too?" Luke asked.
"Yeah. We needed someone who could just do stuff without thinking. Every class has got that one person with that little crazy in them", Lorenzo replied. "Ryan and Akari aren't suited for this type of challenge".
"So what you're saying is we're doomed", Luke said, watching his classmates watching the screen excitedly.
"A little. I'll be surprised if we get first or second because I'm expecting third or fourth".
"What about fifth place?"
"No way. Even if Ryan is out of his depth, he wouldn't come last".
Dillon was searching on the fourth floor, which was one floor higher than his safe zone. He had already found two balls and was wanting to find a third. No items had been found yet, but he didn't care about items.
"Dillon, go to the ninth floor. Kayla found something", Sabrina told him.
"Why is she on the ninth floor?" Dillon questioned, not understanding why she was that far up the building.
"She found 1-C's safe zone".
Dillon's eyes widened, and a smile slowly appeared on his face. He stopped what he was doing and exited the room. He charged for the stairs, climbed and kept a mental note of what floor he was on when he reached a new one. He reached the ninth floor and looked left and right. He couldn't see Kayla.
"Go to you're right. It's near the end", Sabrina said.
Dillon listened and ran. It didn't take long for Kayla to come into vision. He saw her standing in front of a closed door.
"What are you doing? Go inside", Dillon told her, pointing to the door.
"I can't. Delilah's blocking it", Kayla nervously replied.
"Tch".
Dillon approached the door. Gripped the handle and pushed. The door budged open and closed again. It was clear Delilah was sitting behind the door. Dillon tried again, but this time, he used more force.
"Okay! Chill out!" Delilah said from behind the door.
She tried her best to keep it closed, but one more push and it would open. It didn't matter if she was sitting behind it. She was getting pushed away. Delilah quickly stood up and allowed the door to be fully opened. She quickly positioned herself in the doorway to block their entrance. She was met with Dillon towering over her and Kayla watching from behind him. Delilah's eyebrows furrowed from seeing two people.
"Why are both of you here? Only one person is allowed this round", Delilah said, confused.
Dillon pulled out a card from his pocket. "I got this", it was his item.
Delilah saw the card's title and quickly figured out what that item's function was.
"Okay? But you can't barge into my safe zone", she said.
Dillon pulled out another card from his pocket and smirked.
Delilah's eyes were screaming, 'Oh shit'. She knew she was in trouble here.
"Well, I'm not letting you in", Delilah said, trying her best to stand tall.
Dillon stayed smirking, not intimidated at all.
"You're not going to hit a girl, are you?" Delilah asked, trying to make him look like the bad guy.
"I'm not", Dillon plainly said. "I'll just walk through".
Delilah looked into Dillon's eyes and could tell he wasn't lying. He would walk through if he wanted. He could walk through if he wanted. Delilah wasn't strong enough. She can't push him away if he just waltzs in.
Dillon saw Delilah's stare. It looked like she wasn't going to back down.
"Are you sure you don't wanna move?" he asked, staring back.
Delilah didn't respond. She kept eye contact and stood tall.
Dillon grinned, "Heh. Your choice", he said, taking a step forward.
"Hands up".