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“Remember. Today’s mission involves bonding with at-risk teenagers, so they’re not inclined to go rouge on society as a whole.”
“Perhaps we shouldn’t say it that way in front of the at-risk teenagers, Heavy Duty?” Scarlett shook her head in disbelief, far from impressed by the larger soldier’s slip of the tongue. Of course, said slip of the tongue should have forewarned Lance just how aggravating playing paintballs with the Joes in their makeshift paintball battlefield, but then his concerns should have started when Toad bounced on him that morning, preventing him from sleeping in on Saturday as he wanted.
Why a bunch of adults decided to finally take an interest in any of them was definitely beyond Lance.
The five teens – the four members of the Brotherhood and one Scott Abernathy who was definitely not an at-risk teen – now stood on their side of the field, bunkered down behind some cover, waiting for Heavy Duty to give the signal the paintball match started. Lance heard Pietro chuckle. “This is going to be easy.”
“Easy?” Despite Heavy Duty’s insistence of things evening out with no ban on the use of powers and two of their opponents being ninja who didn’t use guns, something told Lance things weren’t equal at all.
“I just need to speed in there once the word…”
“Go!” Heavy Duty shouted through the intercom almost as if he’d overheard the conversation. Pietro dashed out from behind cover and then they heard the sound of paintball guns sounding off. “Quicksilver is taken out by Scarlett!”
Lance rolled his eyes, feeling quite frustrated at his teammate’s stupidity. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Wanna bet Blob’s the next because he’s too huge to miss.”
Now Lance glared at Toad, taking in the wide smirk on his face while Blob seemed completely unphased by the comment. “No.”
“Because you’re afraid you’ll lose?”
“No. The fact I know I’d likely lose has nothing to do with it. It has to do with the fact that bet’s not very…”
“So, somebody go and shoot me already!”
Lance’s eyes blinked, peering out past the barrier. He saw Tunnel Rat standing there, his hands up to surrender. He also saw Snake Eyes in plain view making some kind of signal. Testing a theory, he lifted his gun and shot one of the paintballs off.
“Hey!” Tunnel Rat’s mouth twisted into a frown. “You’re supposed to shoot me and get me out!” The man turned and looked in the direction Lance actually shot the bullet. “Wait? You were shooting at Snake Eyes?” Obviously, he saw the splotch of paint behind where Snake Eyes just dodged the bullet. “Seriously, no fair.”
A rain of shots went off and Heavy Duty said,” Tunnel Rat is taken out by his own team!”
Toad called out. “Wait? You can be taken out by your own team?”
“Call it friendly fire little dude!”
Lance let out a sigh, his eyes narrowing. Snake Eyes returned to being visible, signaling to his other team members using his hands, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Toad motion for the rest of the team to move away from their current hiding spots and find other places of hiding. “Scarlett – Avalanche is reaming put.”
“Thank god for having a foster sibling who used sign language – not that I’d want the other members of the Brotherhood to know that.” Taking a deep breath, he moved locations, yet found himself carefully watching both Snake Eyes and the spot he once was. He wasn’t surprised when he heard, “Blob taken out by Jinx and Kamakura.”
After all, right before Snake-Eyes signaled that Lance stayed in the same position he’d said, “’ Jinx and’ some word Lance couldn’t make out but assumed meant Kamakura, head to the right and take out the Blob.” This was followed by instructions which pretty much, “Toad taken out by Jinx – try not to fall for a woman’s charms next time. Scott taken out by Kamakura.”
Lance let out a sigh, knowing full well Snake Eyes gave the order to take Toad and Scott out, giving away their locations. He didn’t know if the ninja heard their movement, or if he made an educated guess where a bunch of bumbling teens might head off to – particularly if he’d seen some kind of moment. Of course – he might have smelled Toad’s location, what with how bad Toad often smelled.
Peeking around the corner, he saw Scarlett appear, then sign back to Snake Eyes. “He’s not here.”
“Behind you.”
Lance moved quickly, shooting the person on the team who was supposed to be the most skilled at guns, increasing his chances. That said, he didn’t expect his chances to be good in regards to going up against three trained ninja either. He did see Snake Eyes signal, wondering if the man kept in plain view to mock the fact he didn’t expect most of the team members to actually. In fact, he sent Jinx and Kamakura around.
Taking advantage of this, he headed towards the one who didn’t have to circle around the most, bunkering how he could, still glancing up to see if Snake Eyes gave a signal of some kind with his hands changing the instructions. Nothing came, yet he found himself shooting Kamakura squarely in the chest, the ninja letting out a groan. He heard a voice coming from behind and turned in time to see Jinx speaking. “You know Kamakura’s not had as much training as me.”
Of course, that gave him time to shoot off a few rounds, meaning he’d managed to take out three of their team members. He saw out in the field that Pietro lay on the ground, pretending to be dead – sprawled in a rather strange pose with his tongue hanging out and his eyes rolled back. Lance shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t know if the others are doing the same.”
His eyes drifted over to Kamakura who – yup. The ninja slouched down, pretending to be dead while the paintball markings remained on his chest. He glanced over at Jinx. She shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah. Not going to play dead. You’d better get moving before sensei catches you.”
Lance flinched, his head turning and looking at the spot Snake Eyes was, yet he no longer saw the trained ninja. Letting out a curse, he headed away, turning to look at Jinx. “Don’t tell him which way I’m going.”
“Don’t have to, but he wouldn’t’ want me too anyway.”
He certainly didn’t know what to think of that, but barely a few moments later dodged a paintball flying past him. His eyes widened before he dodged out of the way. Soon, he came to a spot and hoped he’d managed to barricade himself. Only, Snake Eyes appeared out of nowhere, using two guns. “Avalanche taken out by Snake-Eyes.”
Lance looked down at the spots of paintball, wondering how he’d get that out of his clothing. He then looked up at Snake-Eyes. “That was fun.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
“So you can read what I sign?”
Lance watched the hands carefully. “What?”
A hand – one belonging to Scarlett – reached out, grabbing Snake-Eye’s hand. “Of course he doesn’t. It’s rather easy to guess you had fun without you saying it, but it is also obvious he’s not enjoying it. Next time, we find a different activity to do with the kids.”
Lance looked at the ground. “Was it really that obvious that he was having fun? I mean, I didn’t.”
He shook his head, glad they’d finished, yet when they gathered in the center something was obviously missing. “Where’s Toad?”
Heavy Duty’s voice boomed over the speaker system. “Oh, the little dudes said something about going and looking for bugs to eat.”
“Gross!” Jinx said what he honestly thought, but the grimace on his face said a lot as well. Scarlett shook her head while Snake Eyes – Snake eyes said nothing, nothing like he usually did.