At the Purple Team base:
She placed her thumb carefully on the trigger, waiting until the beep went off to signal her that it knew who she was. “This is so cool!” Mercy mumbled out under her breath. “Yeah? Just wait until the game starts!” Charlie looked over at his hot-headed friend. Mercy stuffed the gun quickly into her holster, “How much longer until the game starts?” Charlie glanced at his wristwatch, “About 25 minutes. Hey, Madds? You ready?” A girl with short brown hair and a purple cowboy hat walked out of one of the rooms,
“What?”
“Get your jacket on!”
“I don’t wanna!”
“Why?”
“Green doesn’t go well with purple!”
“You’re our captain! Just do it!”
Maddi gave a laugh and walked over to the coat rack by the door, pulling off the one with a patch on the sleeve labeled “captain.”
“Wait, I thought green and purple were complimentary colors!” Mercy sat down on the couch and began to lace up her boots. “Whatever!” Maddi laughed, zipping up. “Hey, where’s everyone else?” Charlie asked. “Getting their stuff.”


At the Green Team base:
“Are we all ready and in position?” Twan pulled his finger off of the small com around his ear, waiting for a reply. “All ready in sector 2.” A first voice responded. “We’re good in sector 5.” A second replied. “Ready in 1 and 4!” A third joined in. “Well, what about sector 3? Sector 3, come in.” Twan pressed the com closer into his ear, trying to listen for anything he might have missed.
There was a quick static break before a fourth voice arose, “Yeah, we might have some complications here in sector 3!” Twan growled, “Like what?”
“We spotted some blue team members advancing toward the base.”
“Well, as soon as the beginning siren goes off, shoot them!”
“But Twan-“
“What, Tara?!”
“There’s- um… - a complication…”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Red team is hot on their trail, and one of them might have spotted us.”


At the Orange Team base:
“Okay, so I just press this little button right here?” Scarlet placed her thumb down on the thumb pad of her paintball-pistol. “That’s what the captain told me, so, it must be true!” Aisling shrugged. “Why is this stuff all so dang complicated?” The two girls both laughed quietly.
“5 minutes until start!” A voice called from the loudspeaker in the corner of the room. “We should probably go take our places.” Scarlet suggested. “Yeah. I’m in sector 1 to start out, what about you?” Aisling asked. “Sector 5, so we’re kind of close!” And with that, the two girls grabbed their team jackets and headed out the door.


Sector 2:
“You ready?” Charlie nudged Mercy with his elbow. “Ready as I’ll ever be…” Mercy nervously replied. “You’ll do fine! The trick is to shoot and run for your life! Do that, and you’ll be fine!”
Suddenly, both of their com-links let out a small buzz, “Guys, you ready over there?”
“Yep.” Charlie replied. “Good, we have 2 minutes until siren. Just try not to be seen or make a ruckus, and get to yellow team base to retrieve their flag first.” There was another small buzz to signal that Maddi had cut off.

Mercy took a deep breath, “And you said no powers allowed, right?” She glanced nervously over to Charlie, who was positioning himself for long range shooting when the game started, “Yeah, it wouldn’t be fair… remember?” Mercy nodded and looked down at her wristwatch to see the time, “14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2,” A loud siren began to blare, along with several loud bangs of paintball guns.