Fight or Flight (6)

"Dominic, what you did just now wasn't really nice. What if you had actually succeeded in killing Arnold here?" The man asked in a playful tone. However, if one were to listen carefully, hostility was hidden underneath his voice. "Although you guys are opponents during this team building exercise, at the end of the day, you two are still students of the same academy."

Dominic acted ignorant and scratched his head, replying with a harmless smile, "I'm sorry. I had no idea that the building that was designed and maintained by the military academy for the purposes of this training course would be so weak that the entire building would fall just after one of its beams fell." Although he seemed to be friendly towards the person still holding Arnold, the tone of voice coming from Dominic sounded like that of a superior looking down on them.

"Anyways, why are you even here, Commander Lewis? I thought Mr. O'Neil was responsible for this course. Aren't you interfering with his role simply by being here?" Dominic continued speaking. He did not even try to hide the hostility from his voice. He gave a smile towards Lewis that was completely cold and devoid of any positive emotions.

"Oh, I was just passing by after a routine patrol and decided that since I was here anyway, I should come over and observe how the new students were doing. However, I did not expect to stumble in right at the moment when my friend here is about to be crushed by a building." Commander Lewis returned with a cold smile.

"You were right about one thing. The training course here is carefully maintained by the staff to prevent from any unnecessary injuries. In fact, you would find that any damaged parts of the stage would be completely replaced right after a match and teams of people would analyze every inch of the place before letting a new team of people to come in and play another round of capture the flag." Commander Lewis explained, even though both Dominic and Arnold was not that interested in hearing Lewis' banter. Arnold was too busy trying to think of a subtle way to get off from the commander, while Dominic was not in the least curious about what Lewis have to say.

"That was why I thought it was quite odd. Why, indeed, did the building fall just now. It was then that I realized, just before Arnold had impacted on the pillar of this building, I saw that the other pillars that was holding up this building seemed to have become quite wobbly. To explain it better, I should say that the pillars seemed to be oscillating with the resonant frequency of the wind. Due to this resonance, the pillars, which had already turned weak from the oscillations, collapsed from the pressure caused by the sudden loss of one of the pillars, causing the building to collapse entirely like a house of cards. But I wonder, how was it that the wind had coincidentally blew in a frequency that was resonant with the building, and it was right before Arnold had impacted the building as well!"

Although Commander Lewis' talk was quite long-winded, Arnold now knew what he was trying to say. At this point, Dominic's face had turned from cold to ugly. "What are you trying to insinuate, Commander Lewis?" He spat, not even caring about how he appeared in fron of others anymore. There seemed to be a vein protruding out from the side of his forehead, proving how irritated he was about the whole situation.

Although the military academy could not prevent certain accidents from happening, they could prevent purposefully man-made incidents that causes injuries or even death. As the perpetrator of attempted murder, Dominic would need to defend himself against a board of committee members from the military academy. Then, if found guilty, he would immediately be exiled, being sent out of the base and never allowed back again. This would mean an instant death sentence to most people within the base.

Lewis had just indirectly accused Dominic of attempted murder, a crime which was as serious as an actual murder. However, he did not directly say it since there was no evidence that Dominic had really caused the "accident". Therefore, he simply threatened the person before him by stating that he knew what had happened, so he should stop, or else...

Dominic really did not know what Lewis would do if he continued acting like he did just now, so he could only retreat for a bit, saying, "Although your theory is quite interesting, Commander, I'm afraid that there was no way to verify if this had actually happened. Why don't we just leave it be and say that it was just an accident?"

"Fine. I won't stop you if you leave right now, but don't let me catch you doing these sorts of things in the future, or else I would not let you off this easy."

Dominic and Lewis departed on weary terms. When Dominic turned his back towards the two people, he inwardly sneered, thinking to himself, "I'm gonna do whatever I want and no one is going to stop me." However, it was at this time that Lewis said towards his back, "Oh, by the way, I was originally quite curious as to why my cell phone signal had suddenly died, so I actually did some investigating and found something quite interesting. It seemed that the jamming came from a signal that was being broadcasted near the center of the stage. Since I needed to speak with my colleagues, I decided that I would stop the signal from being broadcasted so I can make a phone call."

"You!" Dominic turned around and shouted, sounding quite angry.

"Oh? Why are you looking at me like this? Did you have a hand in jamming the signal?" Lewis raised an eyebrow and asked in a nonchalant tone.

Dominic opened his mouth and wanted to say something, but closed his mouth again at the end. His entire body turned stiff from anger, but he still managed to turn around and leave, not wanting to speak with Lewis anymore.

*

After Dominic had completely left Lewis' field of vision, he subconsciously gave out a sigh and finally laid Arnold on the ground. Arnold, who was ignored the entire time by both Lewis and Dominic, gritted his teeth in anger but did not say anything. He simply moved his head away from Lewis, not wanting to see his face at all.

Lewis gave a slight smile and shook his head. Then, he told Arnold in an informative tone, "I've brought a stem cell serum with me. I'm going to inject it into your body so bear with me here."

He took out a syringe from within his chest pocket and reached for Arnold's left arm. After injecting Arnold with the serum, he placed the empty syringe back into his chest pocket and stood up. Then, he told Arnold, "This is the most that I could help you. Since I was only here because Dominic had broken the rules, I can not help you gain an advantage in this match. However, that did not mean I could not lie to Dominic right in front of his face." Lewis gave a hearty smirk, obviously quite proud of what he did just now.

Arnold was too busy bearing with the pain of his bones being repaired at surprising speeds that he did not have the time or the energy to respond to the commander. He simply writhed about on the ground while Lewis babbered at him.

When Arnold had finally returned to normal, his entire body was filled with sweat due to the pain he felt earlier. Lewis, who stood before him to make sure that he was completely healed, left without a sound. It seemed like although he could act however he liked when one of the students did something wrong, he could not interfere with the progress of the match right after the incident was fixed in its entirety. With Arnold being in the state he was before being kicked by Dominic, everything had returned back to its original state.

As Lewis had already left, Arnold did not have the time to say thank you. He decided that after this match, he would go back to the military academy to find Lewis and thank him again personally. However, now was not the time to think about this, as he needed to start thinking of a plan to take advantage of the new information that Lewis had given him during his conversation with Dominic.

Therefore, he walked into one of the buildings close by that was still standing and sat down in order to plan for the future. It was at this time that Arnold saw someone that was running on the street that was perpendicular to the building where he suddenly sat.