One Half Radiant

Chapter 2

 "And!" I scream as I see the word, determining that I've started the game and now winning. "Ahead!" Leonardo says, noting that we can't both use the same word for when we get to that letter. "Before" Leonardo says, "Hey I didn't see that word anywhere you made that up" I accuse him. "No, you just weren't paying attention", I look at him accusingly, "no way that's not what happened, you are cheating" I hastily point my finger at him in disgust. "You're just jealous" he says as he turns toward me, making his dark hair move across his forehead. I roll my eyes and I shake my head in disbelief.

The game continues, even if he didn't cheat. We near the base and get into the main building. The rebel base is in this old dilapidated and abandoned university. It has many buildings, dorms for our soldiers and higher ups, dining centers for our mess halls, and a rec center where we can train. There's nothing this place doesn't have that we need. We get to the main building and head to the leader's office. We were in charge of the latest mission and it's our job to report to her.

"Anty, we're back from safe house duty," I say as I enter Antoinette's office. Everyone here calls her Anty since she thinks her name is too long. "Well, that's good Peyton, did anything go awry?" she says as she gets up from her desk to greet me, "No, everything went swimmingly. Did you hear about what Nate Morse got from intel?" I ask. "Yes, I did, but that's not our concern for the moment, there is nothing we can do about it until we hear more,"

I frown, "Yeah I understand but I'm a bit concerned, we plan to fight them eventually, what if they're too powerful?"

"We'll get there when we get there, Peyton, for now, I actually have a mission for you. It's in a few days. Come see me again on Friday and I'll fill you in on the mission."

"Okay, I'll see you then Anty," I walk out of the office and to the rec, it's late, but it's never too late to train. I told Leonardo to meet me there for training. I pull my brown leather jacket around me as I walk outside to the rec. It's late and the stars are out. With no light pollution in the area you can see the night sky perfectly. It's one of the good things about this whole situation.

Most people are making their way home from their duties. I enter the rec center and find me and Lee's usual room. "Peytie, how was Anty?" he asks as I enter the room. "She was good, she wasn't even concerned about Morse's news" I implore him as I get ready. He tries to make me feel better about it by saying, "She's a good leader, she probably knows what's best. Or she just doesn't want us worrying about it."

"Yea, you're probably right," I finish getting ready for our session. "Let's just get started, shall we?" Lee says as he waves his arm to lead me to the boxing mat. We both step on and get in position. I put my hands up in a fighting pose, Lee does the same. His job is to mostly deflect my punches. I pull my left hand back as I punch with my right at his shoulder. He tried to deflect a punch from the left because I pulled my left back, so my punch comes as a surprise. I take my left and punch him in his jaw. "Aye, what was that for?" I punch him again in the stomach, "For being a wuss today in that building."

"I was not a wuss, I was," he spats recouping from my blow, "I was just sentimental about the situation."

"Okay, okay, fine. But you know the situation we're in and we're working to fix it." I tell him. I understand where he comes from but there's not much we can do but work for the goal.

"That might take years, wars usually takes years. And it's already been a few years since it all started." Lee puts his hands back up and we start sparring against each other as we discuss.

"We're working with what we got, and we are doing what we can, Lee. We're not really close to being ready to fight the whole Envisioned army. They're anticipating to fight the whole world, so our little army has little chance at this moment" I begin, "to be honest even with them having a project to make the army even better, we are gonna need a miracle to fight them."

"Yea, lets just hope we can get one..." he stops, me and Leonardo are good friends, just friends though to be honest. We're just someone to take care of you and for you to take care of. In this world you need a friend like Leonardo. If you don't have a good friend you might get lost and lose purpose in this fight.

This fight, this fight against the Envisioned, hasn't really started. They've sent small amount soldiers to take us out but they never send enough. I guess they're just keeping us at bay. They know we are down here plotting their demise, but they know they're much more powerful than us. We'll get them though. The rebels will win. We have to. The underdogs always win. We just have to find a way to.

Me and Lee finish our late night session. Both of us bruised but getting more skilled. We switched from fists to small knives and evasion techniques. You never know what skills you will need in this fight.

I get to the dorms. I ride the elevator to the top. Get to my room and shove my stuff down on my side of the room. It's not luxury living, but it's a living. "Hey, Elena, how was your day?" I ask my dorm mate as I walk in. "It was fine Pey, just boring and repetitive, same thing everyday." Being a lower tier soldier means they don't go on missions like I do. I've been apart of this cause since almost the beginning. But she's not any less. She probably just took care of the younger rebels here.

War is not the place for kids, but we can't exactly turn them away. So we take care of them. If they are old enough then we start training them to help our cause. That's Elena's job. She has a thing for kids and she knows a good amount of skills to teach the young. "I understand, but doesn't someone have to teach these kids to fight?" I turn to her from the chair I am sitting in behind my desk. "I mean they'll be useful to us eventually," I finish. She turns in her chair and looks at me.

"Yea but at what cost. They're just kids." I frown as I look at her. "Then give them some fun, let them enjoy the time they have." I say hoping to make her feel better.

"I can try, but hey did you hear about Jimmy today?" she asks. "No I've been gone all day, what did he do this time." I drag out wondering what trouble he got himself in this time. "Is it any worse than last time when he tried to do a flip in the quad and somehow headbutted a tree and then fell into a split. I swear that was impossible before I saw him do that." I laugh as I recall the memory of Jimmy boy.

"Okay, yeah, you're right I don't think he can beat that. He proclaims that was the epitome of his life in the rebellion. But he was running in the dining center," she starts but starts laughing, she can't seem to finish the story. I begin to help her get the story out, "okay, calm down, what did he do?"

"Okay, okay," she calms herself for a second, "He was running right? And he was holding his food and he didn't see the spill on the floor and he straight up did a 180 in the air and he dropped his food and he flipped so much his face ended up in his food." We start laughing in sync, "oh my god, did he really, like flip around himself to do that?" I ask in laughter. She answers, "yes I'm serious the whole dining center saw it and laughed. He had mashed potatoes all over his face."

We begin to discuss the legend that is Jimmy, he's what we call the class clown. He does whatever he wants and if it backfires he encourages and goes with it, egging everyone on to laugh at him. He was a light in the dark for this base. And we encourage him. He brightens everyone's day and makes everyone better.

Everyone is not so happy about this war and sometimes little things like Jimmy are what keeps us going.