Selection (Book 2 of P.O.E. chronicles)

Chapter 13 Not today

“Did you hear? We are going on a big expedition today.” Kailey popped up next to me and exclaimed excitedly, making my left eardrum popped. It was early morning and everyone was dismantling their tent and getting ready to go.

“Really?” I asked offhandedly, earning a light slap on the shoulder by Kailey who wasn’t impressed by my lack of enthusiasm.

“Come on! It’s going to be super fun.” She said brightly; I sighed inwardly. Kailey thought everything was fun, and her power to control people’s emotion swayed them to think that way too. She was doing it to me now. I could feel it.

“Kailey.” I said pointedly and she pouted and stopped. Good, I like feeling bored and miserable. I thought as I shoved parts of the tent into my bag. My shoulders ached from carrying the heavy bag everyday but having a tent to sleep in beat the months of sleeping on branches or leaves. It was a price I was willing to pay.

“What are we going to do?” I asked Kailey after a while, humoring her; she smiled and helped me packed the rest of the tent.

“Apparently they found a herd of Felixia blanc about twenty km from here.” She told me, her eyes sparkled with anticipation. Felixia. I gulped, remembering the Legre that appeared that fateful day that got me into POE Academy. It was also a Felixia, but a higher class than a blanc. Blanc evolved from snow leopards; they were famous for being fast and wee a notoriously sneaky predators. They were also a Class C. which was way above the Class which we were capable of handling. This made me wondered; how on Earth did we found them?

When I said way above our grade, I meant we will probably die after thirty seconds. Probably less. I could still see Kailey’s excited face next to me and I wondered if she was born with a missing nerve.

“Apparently half of them were already hurt, so we are going to go after them. I think they are going over the game plan when we gather.” She said, bouncing up and down next to me.

“How do you know?” I asked her, hoisting the backpack onto my shoulder and looked at my watch. It was nearly time for us to gather up at the central point. Something about a pack of hurt Felixia blanc sounded off to me, but if the higher up didn’t find any problems with that, I supposed I was just being over sensitive.

“I er, overheard Ho and Steven talking.” She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. I raised my eyebrow at her. She probably eavesdropped.She feigned an innocent look at me and I shook my head at her. This girl was out of control.

“Shall we get going?” I asked my fellow group mates and we set off together like we did every morning. Even though we were warned that things can potentially get out of hand, our trip had been uneventful so far. The only exciting thing that had happened was the herd of deer that we caught. Everyone else mainly brought back the mutated deer type or some kind of poultry. We break camp every morning, walk, stop for quick lunch, walk, gather some herbs whenever we find them and make camp.

It’s sort of a chore now really.

Occasionally we will see Class D Legres, but they usually avoid us because we were in such a large number. Ho told us that unless they are particularly aggressive, otherwise Class Ds are clever enough to avoid such a large group.

As usual we filed into the left column. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw Tom was already there with his teammates as well. I looked out for anything out of the ordinary to confirm Kailey’s information and saw the Hunters gathered around with the group leaders talking animatedly. It wasn’t exactly a rare sight but it only happened when they are making an important decision.

“Attention everyone.” Trevor shouted above the roaring noise of the camp and everyone fell silent swiftly, their attention focused on him. The rumour must have spread as well.