New mini story!

Paint Ball

I was sitting on the couch watching a Moonlight recording on our DVR when I heard Bianca pull in to our garage in her F1- 50. I shut it off and scooped up my army green duffle bag packed with artillery and other stuff for the game. "Hay Dag!" I yelled down the hallway "going out with Bianca and J.T for a few rounds of Paint ball capture the flag. I should be back around 8:00." I hooked my house keys on to my jeans and headed for the door.
"I'm not your mom! Why ya tellin’ me?" He asked from the fridge in the kitchen. I could hear “Call of duty 4” running in his room on his heavy duty speakers.
"Just in case if a bounty comes up, call me on the radio if you need any thing." I said
"Jess you coming?" Bianca's voice roared over the sound of her trucks engine.
"Hold your horses just setting my bag in. Hay, we still up for roof runnin' later to night?" I said getting in to the cab.
"Can’t project in engineering to finish, can we do it this weekend...”She picked up her C.B.C receiver. “Starla get ready we’re coming to pick you up next!"
"Got an inspection this Saturday on the house."
"WHAT INSPECTION?!?!?!"
"Senior prank ticked off Mr. Turner Thursday, so we're going to try to be prepared if he drops by." I said.
"Lovely... I'll be back on this channel after I call Makala and Sara and tell them about this." She said in to the receiver to Starla.
After we picked up Starla it was a short time before we pulled up on the field of doom our usual paint ball location. It consisted of a canyon, a few barricades from earlier this year a stream and a collapsing building. There is a lot of random junk around the canyon like a few rusted over cars, wire, plastic sheets, sheets of plywood, amongst other things. Anyway, Bianca and Starla were already down in the canyon when a sniper shot came out from behind the boulders. Nailing my right shoulder pad with a blue splatter.
"Hey!" I yelled thinking Joie or Thomas had wandered up to the rim, and desided to take a joking shot. "No shots outside the field of doom, you know that!"
I had out my pistol by now and it was pointed at the direction of the shots. "Get your butt out here!" I ordered doing my best to sound mad. A kid I didn’t recognize stepped out from the rocks. He had his hands behind his head in a strict military prisoner of war style. His armor was forest green. "Whats your name kid" I asked stowing my fire arm.
"Quint. Look I’m sorry for intruding on your game...but I thought it looked fun, I would have asked but no one was around so I thought I'd wait and then you and your friends showed up and I decided that I would wait then ask until I thought you would be more impressed by a rouge and...I'm REALY SORRY I didn't know you had rules..." He groveled still in the stance with his back turned to me.
"Stop right there. First off never give your first name with us, second know when you have the upper hand, and third what kind of name is Quint?" I asked wiping off the blue paint.
"Wha?" He asked dropping his arms and turning to face me
"Well you said you wanted to play didn't you?" I said putting the towel back in to my bag.
"YOU’RE A GIRL?"
"Last time I checked. You got a problem with that?" I asked sarcastically.
"N-n-no mam I just thought that girls didn't play paint ball."
"I don’t know about all girls but I do, and stop apologizing all the time." I waited to see if he answered or stood there flabbergasted. He did the latter."Ug Ok look go by... Archer, Call me Lynx, watch my back, shoot only people wearing gray camo arm bands, untill next round. Then, if you decide to stick around, I'll introduce you to the others. Clear?"
“Uh ya I think so."
"Oi vay. Come on lets go. Attention hawk squadron. Lynx bringin' in an allied bogie. Copy."
"Yo Scorpion here, your Bogies got tags and chain?"
"Tags Archer" I said then looking over at him I went in to one of the barricades he fallowed "your gona have to confirm or deny the other one Scorpion, can tell you this though, we're gona have to work on him, kid's got no edge at all. Pretty good shot though nearly took my head off on the brim."
"Lynx quit your jawin. Scorpion’s headed up to him so get your but down here leave the kid there." Starla’s voice crackled over the radio in my hand.
"On my way, Ok look Archer stay here Scorpion is gona be here soon and he can tell you if you make the cut." I ran out, He started after me."What part of STAY DO YOU NOT COMPREHIND?!? If you want to play that badly snipe a few people. And no head or cheap shots either!" He went back in the barricade and set up shop. I headed down in to the canyon.
I was weaving in and around a couple mesquite trees when I saw Shrimp Boy. He hadn’t seen me yet so I dropped low and threw a paint grenade in his direction. It hit his arm dead on. He turned and fired voile of shots in my general direction. By that time I was up and moving 3 shots got through though one on my chest and the other two on my thies. I landed on all fours behind some shrubs and tall grass. A Mesquite tree branch that needed to be trimmed snared me on my arms. It stung for a few seconds, but I was fine the scrapes and busses disappeared after a few seconds. I crawled military style as Thomas nosed around in the grass and shrubs with the barrel of his gun. I came from behind and fired. He turned and charged. We were laughing like maniacs when we came to the slanting part of the canyon that went down further. I jumped from rock to rock trying to slow my inertia. Thomas went back for something. What that something soon became apparent because Thomas came flying off the top of the decline with a four wheeler.
"Cheater!" I laughed from the bottom. Several shots flew towards me from above as he sailed over. When he landed I returned fire and ducked in to a cave system that had many entrances and exits in the canyon wall.
"Nice of you to show up. So did I hear right, you brought a bogie in the game without knowing if he had powers first?" He asked turning on his guns barrel light.
"Ya ya, but I do recall someone inviting a certain meat-sack-cousin once." I answered leaning against a wall that kept me out of his light line.
"Hay I said I was sorry for that." He said moving closer.
"I know, but we told you then you’re never going to hear the end of it.” I saw an opportunity to run and took advantage of it. “See ya!" I said jumping up and out of a sealing hole in to the sun light temporarily blinded. Thomas came out a few feet away from another exit and started after me. I took a dive for the stream at the base of the caves; it was over flowing because of some unusually heavy rain that we had received recently. I jumped over the fast pace creak with ease. Thomas stopped short, nearly slipping in to the stream on some slippery rocks at the bank and said something in to his head set. I didn’t catch his exact words and didn’t care to find out what they were.
I arrived at one of the Barricades in a clearing at the bottom of the canyon without many detours. I rolled out a black and silver recreational arctic cat that had a special order paint ball gun mounted in the bed, courtesy of Bianca's metal shop teacher, a solar power engine, and a professional radio, both contributed by Dag, from inside. Thomas had an A.T.V so why couldn’t I pull out some wheels? I’m no Girl Scout and I have no problem with stooping to someone else’s level if it benefits me, so in my book if they get to cheat then so do I. Don’t like it? I have one thing to say to you, BITE ME!
Bianca and a small group of our team were holding up against Joie and Garrard accompanied by a couple of people from school.
“Glad you could make it. But we agreed on not using vehicles today.” Bianca said when I pulled up with the cat.
“You might want to remind Thomas that. He pulled out an A.T.V on me when pulled a shoot-n -run down the north mid-ridge.” I said motioning for her to jump on the gun. She gave me a look that said “I really don’t approve.” I shrugged. Seeing as I was not going to show remorse for breaking the circumstantial rule Bianca gave in and motioned for Spike to come over. She explained and gave Spike directions and authority. Spike nodded and turned to returned to the front lines
“Well okay then.” Bianca threw a rather large paint ball ammunition carton at me to install on the guns firing chamber when we were in the clear. She climbed up in to the bed and strapped her feet in to place with the Velcro bands bolted to an adjustable board
You know how everyone acquires a strange hobby at some point or another that they never grow out of? Well mine is guns. I own not only paint ball guns, but a modified sniper rifle with a silencer, a pair of inherited, antique Cobalt pistols circa World War 2 (that I restored myself, thank you) And a few others.
Once we were far enough from the firing It took only me a few minutes to modify the gun’s ammunition chamber to use the larger canister instead of the regular size.
“Ready to go.” I said swinging in to the driver’s seat from the back. I picked up the radio as I started the engine. “Hay Scorpion what’s the hold up? Excalibur and I are about to storm the castle and you’re gona miss out on it if you don’t get your butt down here!”
“The hold up’s Shrimp Boy’s raising Cain for us up here! A little assistance on your part would be nice!” He said.
“Wait a second, we? Archers got an ability? What kind?” I asked intently. I could see Bianca from the corner of my eye giving me a similar look to the one I had on my own face.
“Kid’s a gambit. Yah, I’m as shocked as you. Now about that assistance?”
Why are we shocked? Simply put a gambit is hard to come by, an undiscovered gambit well you can imagine…
“How about it? Should we help them out or not?” I asked Bianca. Spotting movement a quarter of a mile away in the brush.
I looked back more to get my riffle than at her. “Your car, your call.” Was her reply as she cocked the gun.
“Your post, your problem as I recall Coach Roal saying.” I said taking a lazy shot at Joie who just stepped out of the bushes and cacti, missing him by a mile I watched the ball of paint sail through the air and hit a dugout. The red paint stained the sandy dirt it came in contact with.
“Ok then, what’s the range on this thing?” Bianca asked after strapping back in to the foot holds.
“Without the close range safety on, 15 miles, but I’ve got to warn you it’s got one heck of a kick without the close range on, like jerk this thing a good 6 feet in the opposite direction kind of kick. I really don’t want to pay for frame realignment on a recreation vehicle.”
“Can’t you fix it without messing with the range?” She asked, lining up her shot on Joie.
“Not without dismantling the gun completely, that would take too long and besides that, I don’t have the parts to do it, otherwise, I’d have fixed the problem a long time ago.” I said getting ready to put the cat in to drive.
“I Think I can manage, line her up.” Bianca said after firing the single shot she had set, nailing him dead center of his chest plate and knocking him back half a yard.
“It’s your Advil.” I said shaking my head and pressing on the gas.
“Just do it.” She demanded not putting even a hint of an open statement in her voice.
“Okay, Okay, but if the frame of this thing gets out of line you’re helping pay for repairs.” She nodded as I moved the Arctic cat in to a more strategic position for sniping out of an arctic cats bed. She scoped out Thomas while I laid down a blanket of fire to keep Joie and his first responders busy. I picked up the receiver once more as my rifle emptied. “MOVE IT!” I yelled in to the radio.
“On our way.” I heard J.T’s voice just barley over the deafening sound of the modified gun firing off round after round in quick succession and the bang of its recoil.
“CRAP! TAKE COVER!” Bianca screamed, barley having time to unhook her boots and dive under the Cat for cover as 3 twin sets of paint bombs hit the ground around and on the cat .
I watched as three enormous R.C modified bomber planes roared over and circled back for a second attack. Wider this time as if doing a sweep. I dove in to a nearby den in the cliff side for cover just before the plane had time to drop a bomb on me. The next set of bombs came too close for comfort for me, but there was no were for me to go. With 3 of those things out there I would have been knocked out in the blink of an eye. And I was what Thomas was gunning his planes for.
Something you need to relies is that I regenerate quickly not rouse out of a knocked out state quickly. There is a big difference between being out cold and being injured to a potentially lethal point. With that said, something else that needs to be addressed is that Thomas is the kina guy that is funny to see get beat on a computer game but in the real world games, He starts to lose. He comes back with a goal of reaping more than due vengeance on his opponents. The A.T.V, the bombers, yah that’s vengeance Shrimp style. Put in to mind how mad I made him with my version of retaliation. (yes, he knew I was the only person on the field able to modify a paint ball gun to shoot at that long of a range.) and I could tell, if he had put in, and planned to use those programmable targeting missiles he had been bragging about for the past couple of months, This would without a doubt going to hurt, and you know what? He did, and it did. Quite badly too, with shrapnel from the missiles not disintegrating like they should have, but I survived. No gore no grudge. Now that’s not saying, that if he wasn’t my friend, he would be dead in the literal sense, but he is so what ya gona do?
“Jess? Yo! Bianca?” I heard a familiar voice yell once the humming from the planes and drumming in my head from the explosions to close to me had for the most part subsided. Took me a minute because the explosions had busted my ear drums, thank you regeneration, but I eventually pined the voice to J.T. I crawled and realized that I would have to morph in to my secondary name sake to move, at least until my body could regenerate the damaged zones on my body far enough to push out the shrapnel too close to my nerves to be able to move naturally or at all for that matter.
“What was that?” Archer asked as the bombers moved in a wide birth back to their point of origin.
“Where?” Bianca asked standing up and flipping the nearly useless and absolutely totaled Arctic cat without realizing it before it was too late. I felt sick as the vehicle hit the ground in a roll destroying anything that could have been salvaged from the wreck.
“In that cave over there…Waa - whoa!” He was staring at Bianca now mouth agape. She had her gargoyle-like wings fully extended to check for damage.
“This the new kid Scorpion?”Bianca asked recoiling her impressive wing span. I jumped out of the small den I had taken refuge in (for all the good it did) at this point.
“No duh, what was your first clue?” J.T just happened to look over in my direction and nearly fell over laughing.”Here kitty, kitty.” He said gasping for air before bursting out in uncontrollable laughter.
“Oh I’ll show you kitty!” I growled lunging at J.T’s throat, Bianca shot out a scaled arm and got in the way of my intended attack on J.T.
This entire time Archers face was getting paler by the second.
“Save it.”She said before I hit the ground. “ J.T, I’m taking command, if you don’t mind.” She added not really caring if J.T objected to her decision or not. “Lynx, how long until you’re at full capacity?” She asked turning her attention back to me.
I morphed back in to my regular self to answer her question “What do you have cookin’ in that tactical mind of yours general?” I saw Archer backing like he was going to cut and run. I moved swiftly to stop him from behind. “Exactly what were you planning on doing?”
“Your all a bunch of freaks!” He screamed. I gave him an “I dare you to try something” look which I hoped he would ignore.
We had all heard it a million times. Once some jerk finds out that you are a little more that you’re regular Joe, Freak is usually the choice of clean word used. Didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt, but not as much as the first time.
“Sorry to break it to you kid, but you’re more of a freak than me.” Archer got a stunned look on his face. “You a Gambit.”J.T said doing his best imitation of a good o’ boy from the deep south. “You know, like the X-man character from Louisiana?” J.T implied.
“No!” He yelled at us. “I’m normal!” Archer turned to run for it when he came face to face with Joie giving him a look that made Archer stand stone still. Garrard was close behind him talking in to a radio.
“I believe it would be best if I were to elaborate.” Bianca said taking a moment to compose herself. “So you’re normal huh? Take off your glove” She instructed picking up a stone by her foot. “and catch this, if you’re normal nothing will happen.” She turned the rock over in her hands. “If you’re a gambit however it will explode 5 seconds after coming in contact with your skin.” She donned a malicious look.”By the way, just a fair warning. Spec here would be thrilled to hunt you down if you decide to run without attempting to help me with my simple science experiment.” She said preparing to toss Archer the stone. A chill went down my spine as these words left her lips. I looked over at Specks A.K.A Joie he had an almost demonic appearance about him then, like a prison dog impatiently awaiting to be released on a runaway prisoner. For those of you who don’t know, Joie has a mean streak 3 knots wide. To be hunted by him like some animal is more than I dare to allow my mind to wander. His taste in pursuit, and completing an assignment particularly one dealing with extermination is little more than imaginative torture of vocal, physiological and physical affliction. for those who have no knowledge about what they observe. For those of us who do, only a handful have the stomach for the on slot of what he does to his target both mentally and physically, and all of us pray we will never fall in to the position of his play thing.
Bianca tossed Archer the rock when he pulled off his right glove. He caught it and it immediately started to glow. He dropped it in amazement more than fear.
“Don’t just stand there kid, unless you have regeneration as well!” I yelled as I was about to duck for cover. He jerked a little but didn’t budge. I groaned, ran over, picked up the glowing rock and hurled it away from us. Joie zapped it in mid air penetrating the core and causing a chain reaction. It exploded like 50 pounds of T.N.T. Showering us with rocks dirt and foliage. Completely covering the ones closest to the epicenter of the explosion. And then bits of the rock that were still glowing hit a rock face and spewed another 5 pounds of rock on all of us. I did my best to cover Archer but it did just about as much good as the den I had used previously for cover.
“Anyone else think that was stupid to give not only a newbie, but a GAMBIT NEWBIE SOMETHING WITH THAT AMOUNT OF MASS TO MINIPULATE? Please raise your hand now.” Garrard said shaking off rubble. Various moans and groans came from corresponding locations.
“Anyone else getting that feeling like we should grab Shrimp Boy and get out of here before the state troopers show up?” J.T asked. “I really don’t want to spend my first 8 hours of Spring Break explaining how we totaled a Arctic cat, with a gun welded on the bed, or paying tickets for driving without a guardian or over 18 year old with a drivers license.”
“I’m less worried about the troupers than I am about what Mr. Turner will do to us if he finds out about this little incident.” I replied. I gagged thinking about what it would be like if I were going to have to tell my mom. If she found out that the mounted gun and cat were both registered to me… “I think I’m gona be sick.” I just barely managed to pull off my helmet while I was running to get behind some rocks so I could puke out my guts without making any one else sick.
“What’s her problem?” Archer asked as I continued to puke and shake.
“Let’s just say, her more protective parent, doesn’t know about her infatuation with projectile launching weapons. And it wouldn’t be very plesent for her if that parent were to find out.” Bianca said going over to pick up my helmet out of the rubble.
“Eh?” Archer was confused. He looked to the ones still standing around him to answer.
“Her mom doesn’t know that Lynx loves, collects, or that she is the best modifier of guns this side of the black market. And it would be better for us all if she never did” J.T said when no one else spoke up.
“How hasn’t she find out yet is beyond me.” Garrard said pointing his thumb back at the big gun. A crackle and voice I didn’t recognize came over his radio, he picked it up.
“That’s one of her chop shop guns that she practically built herself.” Bianca explained she turned her attention to Garrard.
“Okay I’m good, “ I said stranding up, still shaky a little.
“Speak of the devil… let’s start stashing our stuff before the troops get here.” Garrard said putting his radio up.
“What troops?” I asked walking over.
“That was a warning alarm that we programmed if an armed forces vehicle drove in the vicinity of the canyon. The intruder is en root here.” Garrard said switching the frequency of his radio to warn everyone else on his team. J.T had his out at the same time toning to our signals to do the same. We worked quickly to hide everything that we had stashed in the canyon. Once all we had in our grid square hidden we ran like no bodies business to get out of there before the troops arrived .
“So what are you gona do with the kid?” Joie asked as we ran to the brim paths. Thomas caught up to us at this point.
“WE are going to take him to Mrs. York. She can explain to Archer about that… stuff, far better than any of us here can. After all, we were all around when it happened and having other people of the same age around when it gets dumped on you helps. I know that when it first got explained to me I wished I had other people around to let me not feel so alone. Alienated really.” Thomas said falling in to rhythm r between Joie and I.
“Uh-uh, no way! I am not going back to that torture chamber that they call a school for a full week.” J.T stated pulling in next to me so he could be heard clearly “Do whatever you please, but if it involves going to school at all this week you can count me out of it.” He started to slow down again. ”As far as I’m concerned he can blow up the white house if it means that I don’t have to step foot in that building this week and I mean it!” J.T said.
“You’d do it yourself if you got the chance, just because you don’t like the president.” I said choking on a giggle.
“Besides, No one said anything about going to school, we can get a hold of her at her house and meat some were that’s more comfortable.” Thomas said as his group pulled out of the running formation.
Some spring break this is starting to be, It’s the first of high school and already we nearly got ourselves killed, but such is life. You give, you take, and no matter what you do it bites you in the butt.
-----------LYNX OUT,