Young Writers Society

“Today you will be evaluated on your ability to work together,” Hutena had said. “The purpose of this exercise is to see just how well you function as teams. You’re in teams for a reason, so you must learn to work with them. A lone elemental can be dangerous, but a good team is unstoppable.”

The instructions had seemed simple enough, Josh thought. After a quick breakfast that morning, they had been marched into the nearby forested valley for an exercise in teamwork. It wasn’t anything to extreme, just a simple game of capture the flag. There were two teams in this valley, and the goal was to take the opposing group’s flag and return it safely to the home base.

The valley itself was covered in trees. There was a small ravine running through the middle, with only a few narrow areas to cross. The trees made it hard to see movement by either team, and they obscured both sides’ “bases.”

Kara had Zach and herself run offense, leaving Ian, Laura, and Josh to guard their flag. Also simple instructions.

Sadly, Ian had trouble following simple instructions.

The ice elemental yawned. “So, see anything yet?”

Josh shook his head. “No, nothing yet.”

Ian was slumped against a tree, half asleep. He had been there since the game had started, and showed no signs of moving. “Can this get any more boring?” he asked. “I was promised something more from this place.”

“Kara said to stay here and guard the flag,” Josh replied, although he too was becoming rather bored. They had done nothing for the last twenty minutes, and the other team showed no signs of advance. At least, none that they could see.

Plus, the “flag” wasn’t much to look at, either. It was simply a blue scrap of fabric that hung from a fallen tree limb they had found. Plus, their base was just a ramshackle clearing open on all sides. Not exactly professional conditions.

Ian chuckled, his eyes rolling underneath his shades. “Kara. The leader? You realize we’re elementals, right? We don’t need a leader. We’re each one man armies.” He snapped his finger, freezing water vapor in the air and making a crystalline puff of smoke. “Besides, most ‘leaders’ I’ve encountered don’t run offense.”

Josh turned to Laura, who was quietly watching the ravine, her pale blue eyes staring into the forest.

“So what do you think?” he asked the girl.

Silence.

“This is too dull. I’m going for a walk,” Ian spat. “If I see anyone from the other team, I’ll stop them.”

With that, he got up and walked into the woods, disappearing into the underbrush.

Josh sighed. He hoped that following orders didn’t count as any kind of grade. Otherwise, Blue Team would probably fail.

“See anything?” he asked Laura.

She shook her head.

“How many do you think they’ll send after us?”

The girl shrugged and pulled her black cloak tighter around her as a breeze blew through the valley.

Josh turned his gaze back towards the ravine.

“Let me know if you see anything, then,” he said.

-[|]-

Kara crawled up the side of the ridge that overlooked the opposite team’s makeshift base. There were only two people defending the green piece of fabric that was their flag. Kara guessed right. They had sent out three of their number to attack her team’s base, leaving only two guards. It was good she had left three defenders.

The two guarding the flag were not much. One was a girl in her mid-teens. She wore composite plate armor made from a flexible material. She patrolled the camp with a basic short sword, and looked relatively easy to take down. The other guard was the team’s leader. Kara recognized him from last night. He was a short, lightly armored earth elemental who wielded a mace. He sat next to the flag, dozing. Which meant Kara would, at most, have to deal with one true fighter.

Now it was up to Zach. She had sent the fire elemental to make a distraction in the nearby woods. What the distraction was - a forest fire, an explosion, or just a thrown rock - it didn’t matter to her. She had planned for any surprise he could come up with.

A male scream sounded from the forest. Zach had evidently done his job, and incapacitated one of Green team’s members as well. Their leader suddenly woke up, his eyes darting around in a worried, half-awake haze. He clamored to his feet.

“You should go check it out,” he ordered his fellow teammate. She shrugged and ran in the direction of the scream.

Kara continued observing her opponent. Now it was only them. She waited, watching as he slowly patrolled the flag. He was paranoid now, which could be counted as both an advantage and hindrance for Kara. On the one hand, he was more likely to mistake even the most mundane sound for an attack. On the other, he was more alert and may hear Kara when she decided to strike.

He turned his back towards her. That was when she decided to make her move. She drew one of her swords and pointed it at the bushes in front of the green team leader. Channeling her elemental powers through the blade, she caused a breeze to rustle the bush. This distracted the earth elemental long enough for her to attack. She leapt into the air, using her air powers to land her mere feet behind the distracted teen. She wrapped one arm across his chest and placed her sword across his throat. Luckily for him, she had a rubberized case placed on the sharp edge of her weapon, making it non-lethal.

“Stay quiet, and you don’t get hurt,” she said. Her prisoner nodded and dropped his weapon.

Zach burst from a nearby grove of trees, his longsword still sheathed on his back. “What’d I miss?” he asked breathlessly.

“Didn’t you cause the distraction?” Kara demanded. “You should be leading people away from here!” The green leader squirmed. She tightened her grasp.

The blonde haired teen shrugged. “The scream? That wasn’t me. I think Ian got ahold of one of their teammates.”

“Ian?” Kara cursed under her breath and rammed the hilt of her sword into her prisoner’s forehead. He fell to the ground, unconscious. She grabbed the green team’s flag and began walking to the forest.

“What’s going on?” Zach asked.

“Plan ‘B,’” Kara replied.

-[|]-

Josh was lying amongst the dead leaves of the forest floor, no longer caring for this exercise. If it wasn’t for the fact that he had technically been “ordered” to stay with the flag by Kara, he would have left long ago.

Suddenly, Laura pointed. “Look,” she said.

Josh sat up in time to see something move along the side of the ravine.

“Do you think they’re coming here?”

There was no time for an answer. From a nearby bush, a blue-armored water elemental rushed into their base, tackling Laura and heading straight for Josh. She swung her sword, narrowly missing him. Josh responded with a blast of wind, sending her to the ground. His opponent then summoned a wealth of water seemingly from nowhere and sent it flying into Josh.

The air elemental was knocked to the ground, heaving. A lightning elemental ran from the woods to join his counterpart, raising his sword which cracked with electricity. Josh rolled, his wet clothes picking up leaves and dirt off of the muddy ground.

Laura had gotten up, but the water elemental forced her to the ground again with a pressurized blast of liquid.

Josh pushed himself on his feet and dodged the lightning elemental’s sword. He wished he had been allowed to get some kind of weapon before this battle.

As he jumped out of the way of another attack, Josh noticed that the lightning-wielder mainly fought using broad slashes with his sword. He dodged another attack and grabbed one of his opponent’s arms. Sadly, he had forgotten his opponent’s element. An electrical shock forced Josh to let go.

When Josh slammed into the dirt, he heard a shout come off to his right. Laura had regained her footing, and brought her arm down in a chopping motion. Extending from it was a thin, suspended sword of water. The weapon crashed into the opposite water elemental and she fell into the mud.

Another elemental joined the fight, fire flying from his fingertips. He caught Laura off guard and punched her in the gut, hard. She screamed and fell to the ground. The fire wielder nodded to his only fighting teammate, who kicked Josh back to the ground as he walked by. The silver armored teen snatched the blue scrap of fabric from the makeshift flagpole and turned around, giving a high-five to his friend.

Josh didn’t want to fight, but he also didn’t want to lose. With the strength he had left, he began pulling air towards himself. The act was not easy, and it felt like his muscles were beginning to constrict his body. When the air pressure made his ears start to ring, Josh relinquished his control. Wind rushed away from him in all directions, blasting into the opposing team members and throwing them to the ground. He pushed himself to his feet, heaving from the effort it took to control that attack.

Sadly, his efforts weren’t entirely successful. The lightning elemental was back on his feet, already charging electrical energy in his hands. Josh ducked as a bolt of electricity struck where he once stood. The lightning elemental grimaced and fired another bolt, blasting the tree in half.

Josh cursed and dropped prone to the ground as another lance of energy shot above his head. He glanced around, hoping to figure out some kind of strategy.

Bam! The sound was his side. The water elemental from the other team had gotten up and was taking her vengeance on the only standing Blue Team member. Josh groaned in pain as the girl’s boot fell on his wrist.

“So what are you going to do now?” she hissed, victory assured. Her teammates were heading back to the forest.

Then, something caught Josh’s eye. Someone was moving swiftly towards their base. He then noticed a fallen oak branch, as long as his arm but not out of reach.

“Even the odds,” he said. He pushed upward, making the water elemental lose her balance. Her foot fell from his arm, allowing him to grab his improvised weapon. He swung, knocking his opponent’s feet out from under her.

The lightning and fire elementals turned in time to see their teammate fall to the ground. They were about to take revenge on Josh when Kara burst from the woods, flying through the air, lofted by her powers. She landed, pivoting on a foot and knocking the fire elemental to the forest floor with a kick to the head. She continued her swipe, her foot connecting with the lightning wielder’s face and sending him to the dirt as well. The fire elemental jumped to his feet, but Kara drew her sword and swiped it across his torso, its hard rubber blade crushing his gut and sending the wind from his lungs. He crumpled to the ground. Kara leveled her broadsword with the lightning elemental’s face.

Zach emerged from the woods next, heaving from exhaustion. “So…did we win?”

A horn blew from somewhere above the valley. A female voice, amplified through a megaphone, announced, “Victory for Blue Team. Both teams may return to campus.”

Kara sighed, lowering her weapon. She then offered her hand to the downed opponent. “Sorry about your head,” she apologized.

He didn’t take it, getting up on his own and eyeing Kara with a venomous gaze. He picked up his fellow teammates and left, heading north out of the valley.

“So what in blazes was all this about?” Kara asked, turning to face her team. Josh leaned against his oaken sword, still exhausted from the fight. Zach, too, was far out of breath. Laura was sprawled out on the dirt, still dazed from the fire elemental’s assault. Ian was nowhere to be seen.

“Hey, we won,” Zach gasped. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

Kara’s piercing green eyes fell on him like daggers. “You realize this wasn’t about who ‘won,’ right? This is a teambuilding exercise. They grade us on how well we work together and follow instructions. Judging by this little game-“ she took in a deep breath to calm herself “-I’d say we scored fairly low.”

Ian emerged from the woods, dusting leaves from his red coat. He looked calm and relaxed, contrast Kara’s tranquil rage.

“And where were you?” Kara demanded. “I wanted you to stay here in case we were attacked!”

“I got bored,” Ian replied, barely acknowledging Kara’s reprimand. “Besides, I disabled one of their teammates. He’s probably still frozen to that tree.” He looked at Laura. “Is she all right.”

“She’ll be fine. Right now I want you to understand the importance of-“

Ian didn’t listen, rushing to Laura’s side and making sure she was unharmed.

Kara palmed her forehead.

“You okay?” Zach asked, approaching her.

“I will be,” she said. “I just need to adjust some plans.” She looked at her team and assessed what she saw. Zach was a decent fighter, from what she could gather. Josh must be good too, as he helped fend off several attackers. Laura, however, was timid and easily taken down. And Ian was a handful.

She sighed, hoping that she could figure them out and get them to work as a team. “I have a feeling it’s going to be a long year.”