Their wicked Game

Stronger

For the next few days, Mia dedicated herself to training and ensuring she avoided any distractions.

But of course, I couldn't get any peace and quiet.

Jake kept an eye on me; any chance he got, he would make sure he knew that if he got the opportunity, he would have me burned alive.

And for Luke, I saw him every now and then, but he was in a different league than me. He was ranking up faster, and I was here taking it slow.

"Everyone report to the main hall."

It was time. Another challenge was going to form.

As I headed towards the center we found the guy that had announced the announcement again standing on the podium.

"Welcome, welcome, I can see that the leaderboard has already shrunken. 184 of you are still alive, and sixteen of you have fallen. It still seems like too many, so we will need to change that. Today, we will give you all quests, making you have to leave the safe zone. It will involve being in pairs, you will partner up and find a specific color flag inside the forest. There will be 92 teams, and 20 teams will have the same flag as the others, meaning there will be 40 people eliminated. You have until the end of the day to capture your flag and bring it back here."

Mia glanced down at her watch, noticing that it had paired her up with a guy named Blake. His level was #64, and his element was air. The flag that we needed to capture was pink.

Wait. The timer has already started. We had six hours and fifty-nine minutes before the time was up.

"You can leave the safe zone whenever you want, but the longer you stay, the more likely someone will get your flag. Remember, if you capture another person's flag, it can earn you bonus points." He grinned pointing that out

Everyone hurried to find their partners so they could start quickly, I guess I should do the same.

"I'm guessing you're with me."

A guy approached Mia who seemed like a decent teammate. Air and fire were the most ranked after all.

"I'm actually glad you're with me for this round since we're going to be in the forest. We can use that to our advantage."

Mia shrugged. "Sure. We should probably camp it out and let most of the teams leave first so we don't get into a bad situation-"

"If we wait, they will camp edges, leaving us at a greater disadvantage. We need to leave now and take that risk."

"And if we do, we could die for being reckless-"

"Do whatever you want, but I'm not going to get behind you because you want to play it safe. If we have to engage, we will engage. and this particular challenge we have to."

As he made his way toward the barrier, he muttered those words in an annoyed tone. Mia swiftly followed closely behind.

"Of course, I was paired up with someone stupid."

Mia mumbled.

Blake chuckled. "You're welcome to just wait for me here until I come back with the flag."

"So you can get all the credit? Funny."

Mia stepped out from the barrier raising her hands at Blake. "Coming?"

He gave a cheesy smirk, following after her.

For the following hour, we didn't run into any trouble. It was quiet, but looking for this stupid flag was nearly impossible.

"So why did you join this competition?"

Mia just glanced at him not really wanting to do small talk.

"Okay, not much of a talker are you?"

She shrugged. "I'm not looking for friends. Either way, you'll probably just die, so what's the point of getting to know you?"

He chuckled. "That's fair."

"Mhm," Mia mumbled.

Three more hours passed, leaving only two hours and 59 minutes before it was over. Gosh, we really did need to hurry. I didn't like how far behind we were.

They had stopped by some hidden part of the trees where Mia used her vines to search around the forest to see if she could find it like that. Blake was to be on guard in case of an attack were to happen.

As her vines slithered around the forest, they approached exactly what they were looking for—the pink flag. Before Mia could get closer, someone got behind the vines and burned them.

She opened her eyes quickly.

"Someone's guarding it. But I know where it is."

"Let's go then.-"

"They are fire, and I don't know what the other teammate is."

"Trust me, I got it. Let's go."

They began to approach where the flag was, and as they did, they immediately saw it just hanging on a tree, dangling there like nothing.

"They're around here. I can feel it." Mia silently said. 

"Here, I'll be the distraction. You get the flag."

"What-"

Before Mia could even agree to the plan, Blake jumped out from behind the bushes. "Oh, look here, I found the flag, " Blake said excitedly, winking at Mia.

She gave him an annoyed look but she had no choice now. She had to find a way to get around without being noticed.

"I sure hope there's no one around to-"

Before Blake could grab the flag, a girl came out, blocking him from it. "Oh, aren't you a cutie? " she replied as flames circled around her.

He smirks. "You aren't too bad yourself."

Before any more words could be said, a fight broke out between them. Mia took that as her opportunity to slowly creep towards the flag. However, she knew she wasn't alone; her teammate had to be close. Mia listened to the ground carefully. If she concentrated enough, she would be able to determine the exact location of-

Mia quickly threw herself to the ground, just missing the attack by an inch. His attack. His moves... he was air.