The area immediately surrounding Sui consisted mostly of the platform that had been raised the least, and, should the situation call for it, she felt she could easily climb over them if she needed. However, just as Sui got her bearings, a bright red shape whipped past her eye. Faster than she could react, the target moved through, and then out of her vision.

Following it with her eyes, Sui saw, that it had flown down a pathway and was peeking out from around the corner of one of the new pillars. Pulling her hand up to aim, Sui was unpleasantly surprised when her feet shifted.

Sui’s right foot was yanked forward. Sui tried to let her weight rest on her left foot but it wasn’t enough and she felt herself falling. Instinctively, all of her spools unwound and threw themselves towards the ground, trying to push off and prevent Sui from falling over.

Sui felt her weight stabilising, and her feet reaffirming their hold on the ground. Just as they did that though. Sui felt like her head had been smashed into a gong. Her ears were ringing and the pain forced her down to her knees negating any good it might have done to keep herself upright.

Sui let out a hacking cough, as she tried not to dry heave. Her arms were shaking as they tried to maintain the slimmest semblance of stability while her mind tried to knit itself back together.

It’s unclear how long Sui took to gather her thoughts once again, but when they did, she wasn’t exactly happy. Hmm, it seems I didn’t take into proper account that I have new instincts now. When my brain screams at me ‘do whatever you can not to fall’ it really does try to take into account everything.

It’s a little weird, as I was able to use them when I was trying not to fall, off of Aife, during the sixth wave but I suspect it is perhaps due to the angle. Part of my weight was being supported by the thread and I wasn’t exactly pulling myself up with it, that was Aife’s job. I was merely holding the string together.

This, was simply pushing off the ground and holding myself suspended. Is it perhaps the fact that I was pushing off myself that caused such a problem? This will require some further testing once I manage to recover.

Sui steadied her arms and pulled herself back up to her feet. Sui noticed her paintball gun had vanished instead of colliding with the floor, and once she was fully upright again, it returned to her hand as if it had never left.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Looking down the corridor, Sui could still see the corner of the target she had been aiming at, with a new friend this time. The target that must have been responsible for tripping her, was sitting innocently at the crossroads in plain view.

Sui stared at it unhappily. Unwilling to bring her weapon against it, lest she be ‘attacked’ again without due cause. Hmm, perhaps this was actually a stronger attack then initially thought. I now fear to take action.

Sui glanced at the score and found that Aife had pulled ahead and was now on 35 points, to Sui and Trina’s twenty-seven. Hmm, it seems like Trina, also didn’t manage to do well if I assume she had a similar encounter. Aife however, is still – Aife’s number ticked up once again, gaining more points I see.

Sui bit down on her cheek and took aim at the corner target before firing. The paintball soared through the air with Sui’s eyes watching the target. As the ball approached, she realised quickly that she’d failed. The ‘bullet’ would hit the wall instead of the target, as intended.

Just as she was about to look away though, the bullet collided with the wall, but the explosion of paint managed to lightly cover the target in question causing it to disappear. Sui’s eyebrows rose in happiness, and looked at her score… only to find it unchanged.

What? Taking aim, Sui easily nailed the shot on the floor hitting it dead centre, before clicking her eyes back to the scoreboard. Her point total was now, twenty-eight. Staring at it for another ten seconds, saw Trina following in her footsteps and achieving the same score.

Ok… surely it isn’t that I can’t be too far away from Trina in scoring? That doesn’t make any sense. I was able to go up to twenty-eight while she was on twenty-seven. That doesn’t make sense at all…

Sui grimaced and started to head towards the area she’d hit the targets from. As she stepped forward the walls rose sporadically in height, sometimes ducking for a pillar or two, but always getting higher overall. Just before she reached the intersection, Sui caught a glimpse of red in the corner of her eye.

Firing at the offending target, Sui quickly looked over at the scoreboard before it hit and waited, for the tick up, and was happy to see her score increase as she was expecting. Ok, so the targets aren’t suddenly worth less points either. One target is worth one point. So why did I get nothing for that shot on the wall. Did the splash not count or something?

Sui rounded the intersection looking for any indication of red and wasn’t disappointed when it rushed straight towards her face. It was a smaller target that seemed primed to smack right into her nose. Dispatching it with a swift shot, Sui turned around to look for any others coming for her and found nothing approaching.

Sui stepped forward, walking down the same path that the attack had come from. With no better idea about where to go, I might as well let this thing chose for me. At least I know there are targets that CAN come from this way worst comes to worst.

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