As the sun began to set on Holyland, Arno and I were the first ones to arrive at the scene. It’s a shame that we won’t be able to wear those outfits, but I understand. We’ve got a job to do.

“I can’t wait to try out all the games! Woah what’s that game for?! It has a huge mallet!” Like a dog, Arno was getting excited over the smallest things…

That cotton candy machine looks promising though.

As we waited by the entrance for the rest of our group to come, we scanned the area that was considered the “entrance plaza” of Holyland.

It was a large field of grass with stone walkways leading down countless aisles. Down these aisles were different vendors for food and games setting up for the incoming festivities. On the left of it all was a big stage with a girl happily directing people on what to do. Now that I’m paying closer attention to her, she isn’t just any girl…that’s Stella.

She’s part of this new wave of Acupos musicians called “idols.” They’re not really my style of music and they seem way too happy all the time. Almost like they’re putting up an image for their fans to latch onto. Or maybe they’re genuinely like that. I should know better than anyone not to judge a book by its cover, after all.

“Wooooooow! Look, Ori! I can see the rides from here! Do you think they’ll let us go on some of them?!” Arno was starry-eyed as he looked at the roller coasters in the distance.

“There’s a good chance they won’t let us during the festival, but maybe we can ask for free passes so we can come back sometime.”

“Wait, so no rides?!”

“No rides.”

As Arno slumped over in despair, Rono was surprisingly one of the first people to make it onto the scene. Not only that, he seemed disturbingly happy to be here.

“How’s it going, everyone~”

“Hey Rono! You’re in a pretty good mood today! I thought we’d have to drag you around through the night.” Arno noticed Rono’s change in demeanor too.

“Well think about it~! We’re doing one of the easiest jobs of our career! Not to mention, the ladies love a big strong CT that can protect them. Lady fate is speaking to me! And she wants me to score tonight!”

“Oh you’re planning on playing some of the games tonight, Rono? I hope you score high too!”

Oh Arno…

As Arno did a little celebratory dance with Rono, the next to arrive was Derris. He looked at the three of us that were already here and just sighed. As soon as he got his glance of all of us, he began walking towards the entrance of the theme park without even talking to us.

“Hey!” I ran over to him and put my hand on his arm.

“What’s your problem? I’m going to my post.”

“Since you’re so impatient, I’ll just give you this now.”

I handed him an earpiece that had a small crystal in it. It was a stemata. Instructor Matthews gave them to me to hand out to everyone. Any other stemata would conflict with our main one and explode, but these earpiece ones use such a low amount of energy that they don’t conflict.

Derris took the earpiece and pointed over to Rono. “You coming or what?”

“Sure, Sure! We’ll probably have time to pick up some cuties!” Rono took an earpiece from me and skipped along to Derris’s side. He’s in such a good mood, it’s almost scary.

While we waited for the rest to come, I thought about possibly making a move on Arno. I could totally pull it off! After all, I have womanly charms! I could definitely seduce men if needed! Rono, for example—

Ok that’s not anything to brag about…

But I'll do it! Here’s the beginning of my ultimate seduction strategy! Here I go!

Once I psyched myself up, I looked over to Arno to attempt to try something and realized that he was already trying to play a shooting game at one of the stalls that got ready early.

“Damn…”

“Oi, short stuff.” I turned around to see Jack holding his hand out to me.

“Give me an earpiece.”

“Short stuff?! We’re the same height!”

“Wrong. You’re one inch shorter than me. I looked at your sheet when we did our mandatory physicals.”

“That’s not even that wide of a margin!”

“Are you gonna give me my earpiece or…”

“FINE!” I aggressively handed Jack his earpiece to get him away from me as quickly as possible.

Next to arrive was Gollie and Anna. He probably picked her up from her house and walked her over here. The both of them looked like they were having such a deep conversation, with all their laughing and instances of slight physical contact. They already looked like a couple. Ahhhhh I envy them so much! I’m so jealous!

While I watched them from afar, Anna noticed me and ran up to me.

“Hey Ori! I was talking with Gollie and he told me about…” Anna looked over to Arno for a brief moment and leaned to whisper into my ear. “He told me about your crush on Arno.”

My entire world went gray. The only thing I could bother to register was Gollie in the background mouthing off the words “I'm sorry” over and over while bowing his head repeatedly.

I mouthed off “I will kill you” in return.

Anna noticed my deathly glare and tried to pacify my anger.

“Nonono don’t get angry at him! I could tell that something was on his mind so when I kept pressing him about it, he gave up the info!”

I see…so when his back was against the wall, instead of derailing his plan, he decided to risk the exposure of my plan. So that’s the type of man you are, Gollie Themis.

“Hey Oriiiiii.” I looked over to Anna to see her giving me a smug expression.

“Yes?”

“Don’t worry. You and Arno were a big help during Bountfest, so I’ll give you some advice. It’ll be a quick heart to heart between us girls, okay?” Anna put her arm around me and pulled me close.

Now that I think about it, letting her in on my secret might work out in my favor. Anna’s an attractive girl that can surely get any guy she wants. If she can teach me the weapons and strategies at her disposal, I could easily pull Arno.

“Here’s what you gotta do: ask him out, but don’t ask him out.”

Wait…huh?

“You have to be as subtle as possible while also making it very obvious what you want.”

What she’s describing is very contradictory. Why would I want to play games like that? Wouldn’t it be easier to just be as direct as possible?

“Trust me. By the time you’re finished, it’s gonna be impossible for him to ignore his feelings for you!”

Anna then went on to explain her various weapons in flirtation and I listened intently. As she did, it got later and later into the night and all the vendors were set up and ready to go.

“Five minutes until we open the gates!” One of the security guards called out. Have we seriously been chatting for that long?

“Well, I’m gonna get going! Give it your all, Ori! I believe in you!” Anna slapped my back and started to run back over to Gollie. She knows all that stuff about social cues but she can’t pick up on the ones that Gollie’s giving her. It’s kind of ironic, in a sense.

“Oh wait! Your earpieces!” I handed Anna an earpiece for herself and Gollie before sending them off. Regardless of Gollie’s betrayal, I honestly do hope the best for them.

“Oriiiiiiiiii.” Arno dragged his feet and slouched as he walked over to me. “I spent some of my money on the stall over there. Can I have some of yours?”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Oh, sure. How much money do you need?” I reached into my purse and began to sift through the Dol I brought with me. I still have about 200. Not bad, considering how we’re only given 700 Dol a month each by Terrance.

“Everything you have might be enough.”

I stopped looking through my purse.

“Might be enough?”

“Yeah…I’ve been trying that one stall over there, but I haven’t had as much luck. If I just had a bit more, I’d be able to win it all!”

I looked over to the vendor Arno was pointing at to see a minigame with a plastic rifle and various targets moving about at different distances from where you’re supposed to stand and shoot at. It’s essentially a shooting range.

“Arno, it’s best if we just take our losses and move to another stall—”

But that’s when I saw it. The owner of the stall had the biggest grin on his face as he flipped through Arno’s bills. Our money. He must be having the time of his life over there. He must be thinking that he had a real sucker on his hands. I could easily let it go and just go with Anna’s plan, but screw that. We’re getting our money back and thensome.

“Come on, Arno.” I grabbed his hand and led him back over to the stall.

Once we stepped into the vendor’s vicinity, the man immediately saw my sniper-like stemata and began to scowl. He knew as much as I did that I was actually going to give him a challenge. Regardless, he put on a smile.

“Hey ma’am! It’s a fine night tonight! A perfect night to go shooting! Be careful though, you’re partner didn’t have as much luck—”

“What prize do you want Arno?” I ignored the man as I scanned the prizes that he had lined up on his shelves. There were three tiers you could pick from depending on the difficulty you cleared. For easy difficulty, Small plushies of Stella and other celebrities. For normal, there were some Holy Power Force figures. For hard, plushies of different CTs with titles. And for the impossible difficulty, a plush of the Terror Crusher himself hung right above the shooting range. It’s almost as big as me.

“That one.” Arno of course wanted the Terror Crusher plush.

“Hold my stemata, Arno.” I handed my sniper to Arno as I kicked the rifle up from the floor and caught it in one swift motion.

Feeling the weight of the provided weapon, I can tell that it was stripped of everything and left with just the bare essentials. It could barely be called a gun. But for some reason it feels…bottom heavy. It’s like the stock is purposefully the heaviest part of the weapon. Probably to exaggerate recoil. If the weight in the gun is all on the back, the opposite end is probably gonna go flying.

“Uh…ma’am?”

“I’ll be doing your impossible setting.” I handed him the money necessary to play and he gave a grin as he explained the rules.

“Well then…you got ten seconds to hit ten targets. If you miss a couple, don’t worry. There’s a secret golden target you can hit. If you can find it, you can make up the difference of whatever you missed. Good luck!” He hit the switch and as soon as he did, three red targets sprouted up.

As soon as I trained my sights on the first one and shot, I hit the target but my gun almost knocked me on my ass. How the hell is anyone expected to play this without getting hurt?! This is definitely violating a safety regulation! It has to be!

I cocked the rifle, set my sights on the next target, and fired with precision in the next second, barely making it by the time it went back down. A cocked the gun once more and shot at the third target, but it was too late. It was already down.

“That’s a real shame, ma’am. You’re always free to try again—”

“It’s not over.” I cocked the gun one final time. “I just have to hit the golden target, right?”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhohohohoho! Go Ori!” Arno was cheering me on in the background as I began to tap the side of the gun.

I have to have a completely open mind. These last seven seconds have to be used solely for finding that target. The real question is: where would he hide it? What spot would guarantee that no one would find it? Take in your surroundings, listen to the sound each target makes as it presents itself. Think outside of the box—wait…

Fwip

I heard the sound of the golden target presenting itself. Five o’ clock, at a stall directly diagonally from us. I spun on my heel 170 degrees and shot the target with pinpoint precision. The jaws of both Arno and the vendor dropped as I cocked the gun for the last time and handed it back to the vendor.

“You know what I want.” I pointed to the larger than life plush and the vendor was going to reluctantly bring it down, but Arno stopped him.

“We’ll just come back for it later. It’s gonna be hard to lug that thing around all night.”

“Come on, Arno! Let’s go try more stalls! ” I grabbed his hand and pulled him along as we ran down the aisle of vendors. I don’t even know if what I’m doing is right. I’m probably messing things up for my plans, but right now…I’m having fun. I hope he is too…

Everything was going well until I slipped on a loose panel.

“W-whoa!” I began to fall and because I was still holding Arno’s hand, I was falling with me.

But in a split second, Arno held me close and spun the both of us around so that when we landed, he would take the brunt of the impact and I would land on top of him.

“I’m so sorry. I should’ve watched where I was going!”

Maybe it’s because I was so embarrassed over such a simple mistake, but I wasn’t even bothered about being in such close proximity to him this time. It’s just that…I always feel bad because it seems like Arno is always doing everything he can for me, but I can’t do that much in return.

But as we lay on the floor, I noticed Arno giving me a look. It was a look that I’ve never noticed him give to me or anyone else. He was as still as a statue as he held perfect eye-contact with me—I can’t read him! Is he looking at me that way?! Gahhhh I can’t tell! Abort mission! Abort!

“A-alrighty! Up and at ‘em! We should probably check the perimeter!” I nervously laughed.

“Oh! No problem!” He said as I got off of him as quickly as possible and began speed walking down the aisle while I just followed right behind him attentively. Romance is dumb! Especially with how Anna handles it! All this reading and subtlety is frustrating as all hell! I’ve decided! After I make this lap around the perimeter, I’ll tell Arno exactly how I feel!

===

After three hours and thirty laps have passed, I have still not made my move. Everytime I tried to bring myself to do it, I would calculate my odds of success by playing what happened earlier tonight over in my head. Was I too aggressive in my approach earlier? If that was the case, then why did he make those faces as if he was having fun?

The colorful expressions he made tonight flashed like a slideshow in my head before I was brought back to reality, where I was now looking at his back, striding around the perimeter of the festival grounds.

“Ha…” I couldn’t help but sigh as I activated my earpiece. “How is everyone doing? In terms of the entrance, so far so good.”

“Acuposland is quiet.” Jack was the first to respond.

“Same thing goes for Holia land. Anna and I are probably gonna go on a ride so we won’t be available for another twenty minutes.” Gollie responded.

Oh that’s sooooooooo good for you, Gollie. I’m so happy that you’re happy.

“It’s slow as hell over here. It doesn’t help that the old fart ran off with some chicks an hour ago.” Derris said.

There’s no way in hell. Even Rono of all people is getting some action?!

“Come in, Rono! Can I get a status report?!” I shouted into the earpiece.

“Yup Yup! Just enjoying my time with some fine ladies! Say hi, Twilight. Say hi, Dawn!”

“Hiiiii” Two women said seductively in unison into Rono’s earpiece.

“Oh come on!” I turned off my earpiece, stopped walking, and started to stomp on the floor. Arno noticed my anger and asked if I was okay.

“I’m fine! Perfectly fine! Let’s just keep looking around! That’s what we’re supposed to do anyway!”

As I was barking at Arno, murmurs started to spread around the crowd, but it wasn’t for Arno and I. Two figures came onto the scene and made themselves apparent.

One was a man in a dark cloak with his hoodie down. He was very slim, had a hole in the middle of his right ear, and had a scepter with a blue orb attached to the top of it. With each step he took, he wore a very smug expression as he looked around at the different stalls. One of his most notable features was his short red hair. It’s weird, honestly. I’ve never heard of a Holian with red hair.

Right behind the man was a man twice his size with ten times the muscle. This guy could probably even tower over Arno. He wore a simple tank top and jeans and had wild red hair that fell to his shoulders and back. Even more red hair. Very strange…

“Everyone here seems to be having such a good time! Why don’t we join them, Enyeto?” The man with the scepter said.

“Ori, this has gotta be one of the stage battles! Are you ready?” Arno said as he pointed at the two.

“You can go on ahead. It makes sense for a sniper to stay in the background, anyway.”

The first thing that the villains are supposed to do is exchange names with the CTs they’re doing a stage battle with.

“...”

“...”

“Um…Can I get your names please?” Arno broke the silence that their staredown created.

Figures. Either these guys don’t know how to do their jobs, or…no, Ori. You wouldn’t want to kill anyone off of false pretenses of danger. Don’t be the one to fire the first shot. Gather as much information as possible.

“Oh, but of course! My name is Daniel Rosarian, but people call me Danny. This right here is Enyeto. Us along with a handful of other people have joined forces to create the terrorist organization ‘New Dawn.’ We plan to change the meaning of a new Dawn by tearing down everything Holia has built starting tonight. What about you?”

I slowly started to prepare my stemata. If this really is a stage battle, then they have quite the elaborate story for it.…

“I’m Arno Achebe! I’m a Haustorian that grew up in Holia and I’m in the academy to become a CT and create a paradise for parasites!”

Very straight-forward of you, Arno…

“Arno, was it? Help me understand…” Danny took his face into his palm as he spoke. “After they put you in a glorified cage, treated you like less than human, and gave you a price tag to buy your humanity. With all of that, you still want to fight tooth and nail for these clowns?”

“Well, yeah. I’ll show them just how great of a person I am by saving people and getting everyone out of zone four.”

“So it’s that easy huh? Forgive and forget? Win the favor of the people that spent so much of their time oppressing you? Let’s run a hypothetical.”

“What’s a hypothet-theticle?” Arno tried to pronounce the word Danny used.

“A what-if scenario. Let’s say in some fantasy land, oh so long ago, there were a group of people called the Rosarians. They were adept farmers that ruled over their land with ease. Then one day, the Holian people come and try to conquer these well-meaning people and lose. They leave and lick their wounds a bit while they conquer the rest of the continent and until one fateful day: There’s nothing left to conquer. Well, not until they go out to sea but that’s a story for another time.”

Which shot would be best? Probably the cryo shot.

“Anyway, with nobody left to pillage and steal from, they start dying off because they’ve never made anything for themselves, so dying of starvation is the only option, right? Wrong! They go to the Rosarian people and beg for their forgiveness and aid. The Rosarian people being the kind souls they are, teach the Holians how to grow their own crops and you know what they did in return? They ransacked their lands and told them to move to ‘better pastures’ as if they were doing them a favor! Well I’ll tell you the truth! This land belongs to the Rosarians and we’ll be using Holian blood to fertilize its soil!”

“I’ve heard enough! Arno, don’t hold back! They’re terrorists!”

“Got it!”

Arno donned his stemata and I shot my cryo shot at Danny, but Enyeto blocked it with his forearm, turning it into ice. Arno came charging at the two in his stemata, but Enyeto broke the ice on his forearm by clotheslining Arno onto the floor and knocking the wind out of him. Enyeto thought he killed him with that punch, but Arno would never go down that easy. He recovered by shooting away from him and coming back as fast as a bullet to deliver a blow—

“Agh!”

But was stopped in his tracks by Enyeto latching his hand onto Arno’s face.

“All civilians, leave this area immediately! This is not a drill!” I yelled out to call the attention of anyone that could hear me.

“A terrorist attack is underway!”