Fight or Flight (7)

Elliott and Lucas thought that they had the complete advantage when they went towards the direction of the arrow, since they were the only people who knew that the other team was going there as well. However, not long after they started running, they had already fell into quite a problem.

Since the team had decided that they would regularly contact each other to inform of each other's wellbeing during the match, Elliott wanted to initiate a roll call with the other teammates. However, when he spoke to the earpiece, he found that nothing was happening except for a static noise that sounded out. Elliott immediately frowned and gave Lucas a look.

Lucas, who was also on the earpiece, noticed Elliott's gaze and immediately shook his head.

"I couldn't contact the others either. Someone must have jammed our signal. Since we did not find any jammers on the boxes of equipment when we arrived, along with the fact that we were told by the teacher that both teams would have the same weapons for the entire duration of the match, it would mean either someone in our opponent's team have an esper ability that can interfere with these signals, or there are more conventional weapons located somewhere outside of the starting points of both team." Lucas analyzed immediately after given only such little information.

Elliott's frown did not ease when Lucas gave his opinion. Instead, he felt like things had become much more complicated. Luckily, Lucas and Elliott had informed the other team members beforehand that if something went wrong and they could not come into contact with each other for some reason, every member should head to the designated spot chosen on the map of the entire arena.

Although Elliott thought it was unnecessary, Lucas, at the time of the strategy meeting, said that they needed to set up a back-up plan, since their plans were all contingent on the fact that each member would be able to speak with one another from a distance through the earpiece. If the communication devices will actually become disrupted for whatever reason, none of them would know what to do.

Such foresight on Lucas' part had now become quite useful. Now that this had happened, they would only need to go to the designated spot to find the others. Now they only needed to decided whether to go find their opponent who destroyed their drone with an arrow first, or should they head to the designated meeting spot first.

Elliott awaited Lucas' response to this question. Lucas, who was thinking deeply, finally decided that it would be better to take care of a member of the opponent's team first before going to meet up with the others. This was his explanation, "With the enemies jamming our signal, we would basically have become blind in the happenings of our teammates. However, this goes the same with the opponents. Therefore, if we were to eliminate one of our opponents now, the others on their team would still be oblivious of this fact and continue to strategize at if they had an additional member with them."

"Furthermore, the fact that they had jammed the signals across the area means that they already had a plan to take care of each of us individually before turning on the jamming signal. This would mean that they are already hunting us down using their own methods. If we manage to eliminate one of them first, it would decrease the potency of their attacks and also give us time to breathe on our own." Lucas analyzed carefully, describing his reasonings in detail.

Elliott had a lot of faith in Lucas. Despite his young age, Elliott had already been in a team with Lucas for quite a while now and fully trusts his judgement. Therefore, after hearing that they should chase after their opponent instead of finding their teammates first, he did not hesitate and nodded in acknowledgement, going along with Lucas' plan in full confidence.

Once the plan was settled, they immediately ran towards the direction of the fallen arrow, hoping that they would catch their opponent red-handed. However, just when they were about to leave, someone had attacked them from behind!

*

A rubber bullet had penetrated through the steel beam located behind the two people and immediately impacted against Elliott's shoulder.

"Sh*t!"

Elliott and Lucas had been hiding within a building when they were discussing about what to do next. Therefore, they completely did not expect that someone would be able to manage the feat of sniping them from afar, as the building had the cover of the adjacent buildings. Also, both boys had hid well within the building, which was completely dark due to the lack of lighting inside, and therefore was almost sure that even their opponents would not be able to see through them in the darkness.

Therefore, when the impact of the rubber bullet had completely crushed the bones on his upper arm and shoulder on his left, both him and Lucas were completely surprised by this sudden incident.

Being experienced in combat, both boys immediately jumped up and ran in the opposite direction of the bullet, making twists and turns to prevent the sniper from getting a clear shot. They decided that since the sniper had no problems attacking them when they were indoors, there was no point in hiding anymore and directly rushed outside where they had more space to move about.

As Elliott ran with his left arm limping about, Lucas who was quite a distance at him, shouted, "The sniper must have placed the heat detector into his/her scope!"

Elliott immediately nodded. Since the team had a heat detector with them, which was given to Nick for the use of his own rifle, it made sense that the other team would have such a device as well.

As both members of the team ran as fast as he could, feeding spiritual energy into their ankle and knees in order to support them to move faster, the onslaught of bullets did not stop coming at them. Each bullet landed inches away from their body. They would have been hit and become completely disqualified if they had moved any slower or if they had reacted and later after the first bullet attacked Elliott.

In fact, Elliott was quite surprised that a rubber bullet was able to completely penetrate a steel beam without any problems. The speed of the bullet did not even slow down much as it impacted against Elliott's shoulder. It seemed that if the precision of the sniper that was attacking them had been slightly higher, Elliott would have been tazered unconscious a few times by now.

As both boys ran away from the sniper, the bullets that scattered across the ground seemed less and less accurate, until the sniper and completely stopped shooting. However, even though the sniper stopped, both of them did not stop moving on the account that this might just be a tactic to get them to stop. Therefore, they continued running for another few minutes before finally stopping and hiding inside another building that looked almost the same as the one they hid before.

Elliott's whose left arm was limping about, felt the pain finally kicking in. Due to the adrenaline rush from the danger earlier, he did not feel anything at all even after the impact of the rubber bullet. However, the pain came rushing in at this moment, causing him to release some cold sweat from his brows.

In order to reduce the pain, Elliott had channeled some of his spiritual energy to the injured part of his body in order to not only stimulate the cells to grow back, but also to suppress the nervous system on that part of his body.

Lucas, who stared at his leader with concern, said in a regretful tone, "Sorry. I should have known that our opponent would be able to see us even when we stayed in the dark." He seemed quite down since he was supposed to be the strategist and account for these sorts of dangers.

Elliott simply ruffled Lucas' hair and replied with a smile, "It's not your fault. Even I forgot about this. Besides, even if we had known that they could see in the dark, we still wouldn't have predicted that their bullets can penetrate the steel walls!"

Lucas furrowed his brows and started analyzing again. "It's probably an esper ability of some sort. From calculating the trajectory of the bullet and looking at its speed when it impacted you earlier, the sniper should be at least a kilometer away, camping far from us and with multiple buildings separated between us. The fact that she was still able to hit us from afar along with her skills, I conclude that the person who attacked us must be Natasha."

Elliott nodded in agreement. "Yeah. After all, the other sniper on their team could not shoot from such a far distance. Besides, if it was Alex who shot me, I would have been disqualified instantly considering his precision skills."