The God's Girl (cancelled)

Tactics

~Thella~

I cussed under my breath. I had lost to Benly, without much difficulty on his part.

"Aw, come on." Lukas chided. "You won against me, twice."

I glared. "That's because knives are my thing, and the the other one I was mad."

Lukas smirked. "Mad? At me?"

I smacked him, face flaming. "Shut up!"

His smirk grew even more pronounced.

"I swear-" I began.

"Thella!" Heather called, jogging over to us. "Thirty minutes are almost up."

I nodded. "Alright." I took a long drink out of my water bottle before standing up. I shot Lukas one last glower before dashing after Heather, although I still heard his low, melodious laugh.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Reyna dismounted Scipio and handed me a folder.

"You have one hour from when you open this." she instructed me. I nodded.

I plopped down in the grass and opened it. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted someone starting the timer.

"PROBLEM:

You are the leader of a large group of soldiers." it read. "one of your powerful colleagues is attempting to usurp your power and use the soldiers for their own gain. Your colleague has many supporters and you fear that you do not have enough influence to prevent his election.

RESOURCES:

You have a league of intangible ghosts, a group of supporters consisting of about thirty people, you are in control of the food and weapon distribution, and a powerful magical item that controls lighting.

ENEMY'S RESOURCES:

Approximately 300 followers, the power of prophesy, an augury, armor, and weapons."

I considered the problem for awhile. The way the problem was written, it seemed to indicate that aggressive action would be the most efficient, but most costly way to go. No, force is not the way to go. Maybe... No. Perhaps that... No. But- no, too many things could go wrong.

After about twenty minutes I had it.

Immediately, I pulled out the piece of paper designated for my plan and began to scribble down my plan.

"Hold a competition for leadership between the colleague and myself. The person who draws first blood wins. Whoever wins becomes the leader, but allow the loser to be able to challenge the winner again.

If there is an objection, have them rebels elect their own leader and hold another competition between the electees and the leader, again of first blood."

"Finished!" I yelled after rereading what I had written.

The girl watching the timer turned it off.

Reyna whispered something the girl. She answered quietly.

"Ten minutes early." Reyna declared.

She, Peder, and Octavian left the crowd of people I hadn't noticed before.

Octavian looked mad, Peder looked indifferent, and Reyna looked irritated.

Brushing grass off my pants, I stood and stretched my stiff muscles.

I handed Reyna the folder.

"We will have your results shortly. To save time, we are started your thirty minute break now."

I nodded in affirmation.

I turned and began jogging to the weaponry tent, where I normally spent my thirty minutes. Lukas followed.

"I must say that that would have been incredibly boring to watch if it wasn't for your facial expressions." he drawled, keeping pace with me easily.

I raised an eyebrow at him. "How so?"

"Well, when you were reading it, your brow was furrowed. Afterwards, your face was scrunched in concentration, occasionally getting a slight light in your eyes when you had an idea, then falling when it didn't work. Your entire face lit up when you came up with you idea and you began to write, excited, absorbed, and deep in thought. Then when you finished you had a profound smirk."

Heat flushed into my face. "I did NOT smirk."

He laughed. "Whatever you say."

We entered the tent and I took a big gulp of water.

"Do you know how many bottles of water you have gone through today?" Lukas asked as he watched my exuberance as I drank.

I gasped for air. "Yes."

He shook his head.

There was a moment of comfortable silence.

"So what's with the fast-growing thing?" Lukas asked offhandedly

I froze. "W-what?"

He rolled his eyes. "I'm not an idiot. You grow too fast."

"Um..." I heard footsteps. "I will tell you later, okay?"

He gave me a hard look.

"I will, I swear!"

Heather came into the tent. "Hey, guys."

"Hey." I smiled, though I could still feel Lukas's gaze on me.

Heather gave us a weird look before turning to me. "How do you think you did?"

I shrugged and fell into a happy chatter with Heather, though I still sensed Lukas staring at me.