Devil's Knot

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The blackness swirled around me, dizzying and calming all at once. The heavy blackness surrounding me was an ocean, there was no feeling in my limbs, no emotion in my mind. The black slowly faded to gray and the light stung behind my eyes.
Gradually I opened my eyes. The world was a blur, and my legs and arms were too tired to move. Everything I saw was a blurry mess of red and gray, with splotches of brown and black. I saw a large oval descending over me in slow motion. I blinked and blinked. But nothing would clear enough for me to identify who it was. But I squinted and saw their lips move.
I was pulled into a sitting position, still entirely unfeeling. My head fell against my chest, and I lifted it.
But it was a lead weight versus a frail stick. A battle with an obvious outcome.
I couldn't keep my head up.
Soft, yet strong arms scooped me up after that, and the feeling of being held calmed my frayed nerves. The strong arms holding me felt farmiliar, but I was too worn out to see just who it was holding me. I fell asleep as they carried me out, and into the bright, bright sunlight.

When I woke up, my head was pounding. Rin came in to see me just after I sat up painfully.
"Hey." He said, smiling softly.
"Hi." We talked together for a while, and eventually Rin told me that we had to meet with Group One in a few minutes. I let him help me out if bed, although I really didn't need him too.
He walked me to my room, and on the way there I remembered something important.
"Hey, Rin, did you happen to see someone at the, uh, Dak's base?"
"Like, just in public or, what?"
"Well, their agender, so I can't say he or she but they're young looking, really skinny, and they had dirty blonde hair and bright green eyes." I told Rin, my heart beating in my chest.
"Yeah, yeah I know who your talking about."
"You do?" I ask animatedly.
"Yeah, they're in the infirmary. You can probably visit them after the meeting." I tell him great and he leaves me at my room, warning me not to be late.

I changed out of my old dirty clothes and left to go see everyone. Since it's they day before the war, I figure about a day had passed since Rin found me in the rubble.
Once Group One got together, every body had a ton of questions to ask. They were mostly about the war and battle plans, but in the beginning they only asked questions aimed at me.

In the middle of Oakre telling us a new attack strategy, our names were called on the loudspeaker.
"Would group one, consisting of Kenta Jesse, Rin Huff, Cier Ranch, Doe Kenta, Aron Dre, Emise Dre, Jasper Frill, and Oakre Sera report to the command center, Group One." I push up out of my chair and start out of the room after Rin. The hallways are almost empty as it's early afternoon and everyone is doing something in preparation for war.

When we arrive I find the room almost empty, save for two people.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't famous Ms. Cier, nice to meet you, I am Kesslyn, the principal of Clandestine, and I'm sure you all know General Bob here." We nod and all shake hands with her. She stands up but barely reaches my forehead, and I thought I was short. I'm five one, so she must be around four eleven or something near there. General Bob pats the desk.
"Have a seat." We sit down in the eight chairs that are there.
"There has been a slight change of plans." My stomach twists, but I keep a straight face.
"And that is?" Cier asks.
"Well, the attack strategy we made isn't going to work." My jaw almost drops to the floor. But luckily I keep myself in check.
"So we need a whole new plan?" Cier says with anger behind her voice that only good friends would be able to detect.
"Yes, but we have it already." I hear everyone in Group One sight in relief.
"So what is it?" I ask, impatient.
"Well, first, were gonna need a map for this." Kesslyn taps a few button on his side of the table and it lights up, showing a map of the whole entire game world. He circles an area with his finger and zooms in on it.
"This is where the fighting will happen." Nothing's changed so far, that's good. I think to myself.
"And here's where things get different." I sigh inwardly, knowing that my luck couldn't last long.

We go over the plan and spend the rest of the night memorizing it. Four of us, me, Emise, Doe, and Jasper are all going to separate and tell the rest of the groups the plan, and have them memorize it too. We split up, with copies of the battlefield in hand. My job is to talk with group four. The leader is named Auxesia.

A/N pronounced ahf-keh-see-ah, it's Greek FYI.

I come up to a door and knock three times. I hear voice yell, "come in!" I open the door and come face to face with her, her bright brown hair and two different colored eyes startling me. One is gray and the other is almost gold.
"Hi, I'm Kenta, and I have some news, but I need your whole group to be here." She nods before responding.
"Okay. I'm Auxesia, although I'm sure you know that already." Her voice is deeper than most, but I kinda like it.

A few minutes later, all eight of them were gathered in the room, sitting on the floor in front of me.
I handed all of them a map, and started telling them about the change of plans.
"Okay, so what's going to happen, is a couple of you in the group are going to have a specific role to play. Now, just so you know, you're not going to be with any other group, so it's just you eight." They all nod, soaking in the plan.

It took us a really long time to decide not to have all sixty of us together, and to keep all the groups desperate from each other. General Bob told us that he sent in NPC spies to gather information on Dak's war strategies, and that he was going to have three rows of people, all lined up, waiting for us to attack. He figured that if it was an all out battle with everyone, we would get nowhere. He also said that Dak had almost sixty people on his side. All thanks to NPC's that he bought into the game.
In order for us to win, we would have to use our gamer smarts and split up, taking his army in small sections. This gave Clandestine much higher rate of success. Also, since Dak had only twenty of the top sixty, and Clandestine had the top ten, it would be easy for us to get them to come to our side. Hopefully.

As I started talking to them again I noticed how incredible it is seeing the mind of a gamer at work, processing and working out strategies and problems within seconds.
"Now what you're going to have to decide is roles, because I'm sure you know each other well enough. Now, the first role is one of the most important." I pause, making sure that I have their attention.
"One of you is going to be a messenger. You will send updates back and forth between groups. You are the most crucial to the success of the war.
"The next person is the Head of the group, the person leading everyone else. You make sure your comrades know what they're up against. The rest of you are going to be soldiers. You follow the command of the Head, and fight the enemies, and also, one of you is going to accompany the messenger when they relay messages, just in case." I leave the after a minute or so, letting them ask me a few questions and clarification.
When I return to my group, Cier has been voted head soldier, and now all that's left is to decide the messenger, and who comes with them.

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Hey guys. So I know I just got back and everything, but this story has been going on so long, and I really feel like I want to wrap it up, so there will only be a few chapters left. I really want to focus more on my art and animation rather than writing. I'll keep you guys updated.
Bye friends, love you