Globe Tracers 3: Heritage of Triad

Chapter 14: Be Unknowable

J-Star:

Hours went by again. The boys eventually walked away to talk about- something.

They came back when the sun was setting in the sky.

They found me quasi napping under the cleft. Kyle came over and nudged me with his foot. I mumbled about wanting a few more minutes when he decided to go ahead and kick my behind.

I jumped up. "What's the big idea? Thought we were on the same side."

Kyle folded his arms. "Did it hurt?"

"Well not especially- you're not very strong- still there's the idea," I said.

"If I wanted to hurt you I would," he said plainly. "Xao and I talked and we agreed."

"On what?"

"You can't come with us," Kyle said.

"Excuse me? You still need a diversion," I said.

Kyle nodded. "Yes, we do. But then remote noisemakers of some kind are surprisingly easy to make. We're not keeping you around just to use you. The fact is you don't know the first thing about fighting- or do you?" Kyle cocked his head to the right. "First performance wasn't promising."

"But I took down a leprechaun... whatever that thing was."

"Hunter. Easy for a pharaoh to kill, but still dangerous themselves," Xao said. "Hence, Kyle spoke out of turn."

"No, I didn't. This is a dumb idea and we're just playing it out until you realize that," Kyle replied. I raised an eyebrow as Kyle turned back to me. "You're getting trained."

"How much time do we have exactly?" I asked.

"Not much," Kyle replied. "But we can't risk getting close enough to the enemy to get an accurate lay of the land around them. I wasn't just dealing with my emotional issues when we had our chat. I was drawing theoretical battle plans. Plans we're going to drill, but only if you can prove yourself to Xao." He grumbled something to himself about likely still needing to risk someone for a scouting mission.

"Won't running drills and training get attention?" I asked.

"Maybe, maybe not," Kyle said. "Look anything's a risk but not any riskier than going in with a player that's completely green." He held up his wrist device. "I'm moving closer to the camp- by a couple hundred feet. I'll be making sure they don't notice and send scouts. They do, we'll just have to move. Not like we have much to move anyway, so that won't be hard."

"I mean, they come out here they could see evidence of our camp." I pointed out.

"And unless we leave behind pharaoh tech, for all they know we're just a bunch of human campers- which they regard about the same as local wildlife." Kyle gave me a two-fingered salute and walked away.

I looked over at Xao, slack-jawed. "Kyle and I were both trained at least a little before our first fight- not that we're not gonna have to expedite the process here a little," he said. "Ready?"

"Give me a minute alright?" I asked raising my hands. In a blink, he went from several meters away to right in front of my face. Before I was able to process that, he had already grabbed my right arm and slung me over his back, and thrown me straight into the dirt.

I coughed, staggering to my hands and knees. "I said I wasn't ready..." I said.

"Lesson one, the enemy doesn't care." Xao folded his arms. "Neither do I."