Phase Two: Capture the Flag!

The island coming into view from the window seat of the plane did something special to Eligh that he couldn’t put into words. The island of the world’s greatest Games, the stage where a select few champions became symbols of peace. Eligh was ecstatic to land.

But for more than one reason.

There was a guy on this plane, Jordan, who Eligh could not wait to be free of.

“Yeeeeeeeessss!” Jordan screamed at the top of his lungs, skidding on his bare knees to the front of plane as the aircraft began its descent.

“Sit. Down!!” An attendant shouted. Jordan had been asked twice already.

“Who’s readyyyyyy?” Jordan screamed in response. He had his tongue out and his fingers wagging distastefully in the air.

During the entire flight, the man had bragged about how he had been a top-seven finisher of Phase One in his city, and that he’d helped six others secure a spot through his incredible talent, bravery, (silver tongue), and selflessness. Thanks to him, apparently, countless people—including the supporters of those six helpless contestants watching at home—were able to continue to see another phase of the Games. Thanks to him, the less fortunate were fighting to see another day.

Thanks to him, everyone on the plane was fucking fed up and needed some air. No one had asked for this information.

“Long-winded bastard won’t shut the hell up,” Eligh muttered as he eyed Jordan performing annoying antics in the aisle between the seats. He sort of hoped the guy would be accidentally thrown off the plane, playing around with no seatbelt.

“He is a character, isn’t he?” Mara, who was seated by the grace of all the gods beside Eligh, said.

“Not my kind of character,” Eligh grumbled and then, “Oh hell, he’s coming back.”

Jordan had finished making a fool of himself to return to his assigned seating. As luck would have it, he’d been seated on Mara’s other side. He plopped down and clicked himself into the seatbelt before snapping his attention to the left, trying to lock eyes with Mara and Eligh.

Both stared straight ahead.

“Hey, guys.” He said. They ignored him. “Hey, aren’t you excited about the second phase?”

“Hey, guys.”

“Hey... Hey, guys.”

“Hey hey. Hello? Hell-oo? Guys? Hey guys… Can we be friends?”

The plane jolted violently against some turbulence as if even the flying machine knew the answer to that question.

“Absolutely fuc—”

“Ohmygahd, yes! Thanks, man! We’ll be the best of friends.”

Eligh’s eyes widened with a snap, and he thrust his attention to the right. Mara was looking at Jordan, too. “No, no, no!” Eligh clarified, “I was about to say absolutely not—”

“Nothing to be ashamed of, right? That’s what I think, too. Making friends with strangers half my age might seem like trouble to some people, but I embrace it. Friendship, regardless of age difference, is a beautiful thing. Don’t you think?”

“Oh God, no.” Eligh said.

Jordan continued, “And have you heard about the new rules put into place for the second phase?”

“What new rules?” Mara asked, interest piqued. Eligh couldn’t deny his interest being captured as well.

“The way I hear it…” Jordan started but was stopped by the plane coming to a stop of depositing them with a quiet bump onto the land below, “… we’ve landed! Guess we’ll have to continue this later, new friends.” Jordan held up a fist and pumped it in the air towards Mara and Eligh.

The pair looked at Jordan in despair as he unclipped himself, stood up, and skidded his way to the front of the plane without any direction from the exasperated flight attendant from before. “Sir!” The attendant screamed, unbuckling herself and hurrying after him.

Mara was shaking her head, “I… don’t want to see him again.”

“Ditto.”

The little world they stepped into had Eligh slack jawed. Though this man-made island, whose entirety acted as the arena for the Gear Up! Games, was broadcasted yearly, experiencing it in person was awe inspiring. The island air was crisp and tickled the nose. A cacophony of noises sang to the ears and made the surrounding area appear closer than what one could touch.

But even still, Eligh found his eyes roaming. Among the expansive grassy green area were seven similar aircrafts from which people were spilling out. Hundreds of successful Phase One contestants were making their way to the massive stadium a ways off from the camp of aircrafts.

Within this crowd, Eligh searched for Oliver.

“He’s definitely here,” Mara said suddenly, coming up on Eligh’s right side. He had told her everything after the first phase. To his surprise, she was willing to help him win his little brother back.

“Yeah.” Eligh said. I hope so.

“Champions! May I have your attention, please!” A very tall and bulky man wearing one of the many variations of the white, red, and black polo shirts and standard Gear Up! shorts Eligh and everyone else was wearing called the passengers from Eligh’s plane toward him. He had a strange curly cue mohawk reaching from the tip of his forehead down his back ending in a long, braided tail. His voice was loud, like he’d installed a speakerphone inside himself.

“There is no time to waste!” The man said, “Look around you.”

Eligh did. Of the eight aircrafts that had landed on the island, four had emptied and the passengers were already well on their way to towards that stadium. Meanwhile, the passengers of the remaining four planes stood together before this man. Eligh didn’t see Oliver.

“The contestants you see here will be your teammates.”

“What?!” someone cried immediately. “All of us? That’s insane, there’s like three hundred people here!”

“Four-hundred-fifteen, to be exact.” Said the ringlet mohawk man. “And your objective is to Capture the Flag.”

“Hey, I love that game!” Someone again interjected. A cascade of agreements trickled through the large group.

The large man smiled a broad smile and locked eyes with Eligh for a moment, “Good.” He said. Eligh quirked a brow. “This will be the most exciting game of Capture the Flag you’ve ever played in your life. Gear up.”

A dark cloud of spherical drones took hold of the sky much like they had for Phase One of the Games. Like before, they snapped themselves onto the arms and legs of each contestant on the island like bulky bracelets.

The man, who wore the same bracelets, brought his wrists up in front of his face and clanked the metal together. “Vision,” he said, and the bracelets started piecing themselves into goggles that sat perfectly on the man’s big face.

With the goggles on he looked all around them, often looking high up above the contestants’ heads and waving at the nothing that was there. He was smiling, somehow deviously, when he said, “Phase Two begins now!”

In an instant, a deafening burst of power shook the ground beneath Eligh, Mara, and the other contestants’ feet and heaved upward, throwing everyone and everything in all directions.