Team Up With Me!

Eligh calmed down the second Mara ‘swam’ away, her giggle he’d heard through the speakers in his headset lingering in his mind. By now, he recognized her personality and sense of humor and knew she was mostly teasing him. Of course, there were ways to like someone without being into them romantically.

He, in fact, liked Patrice a whole lot and wanted to meet her again after the Games!

Eligh fist pumped in his mind and sliced through the water not a second later, anxious to make up for the time he’d lost racing for and losing Oliver. For one, he hoped Patrice had been among the fifty sucked underwater with the opening of that sinkhole earlier, as bad as that sounded. Secondly, he wasn’t sure who’d be in the queue to recruit Patrice to their team, but he wasn’t taking any chances getting to her too slowly.

On his way to find her, he thought that maybe Patrice and May would like to meet each other and wondered what it would be like for the outspoken but kind lady and his gentle mother to meet. He was sure Patrice would fit right in. She had, after all, reminded him of home. He could almost smell his mother’s cinnamon on her whenever they spoke and had imagined Patrice, more than once, being the godmother he never had.

On top of that, Yuu and May had already adjusted their understanding of ‘family’ more than seventeen years ago when they adopted two sons from their fatally injured friends, Eligh and Oliver’s birth parents. The boys had been no more than six and almost three.

Eligh still remembered his mom and dad. He spoke to their pictures in photo albums from time to time and thought about things they’d told him, things he’d written down so he would never forget, even after their voices were gone.

His favorite was, “Family is love and love is forever.” It was usually followed by, “So, be nice to your brother.” He smiled at the memory. He sometimes wondered if they’d been instilling that belief in him knowing that they had little time left to live.

Now, he cherished old Yuu and May, who, with the hearts they had, would take to Patrice like a glove. The thought made him super excited.

Well, maybe not Old Yuu, but I’m sure May’s gonna love her. He backtracked just as he spotted Patrice— with the luck of the universe! —in a pod.

Patrice was left alone in her pod, no one trying to win her camaraderie, so it was a simple maneuver for Eligh to release her.

“Eligh!” She said when she was free and wearing the same gear. “You came to get me! You good boy, you.”

Eligh smiled wide at that. “Can’t let my favorite person sit around in here, now can I?”

“Favorite person, am I? Does that mean I’ll get that foot massage from you?”

Eligh retched. He couldn’t help it. “When did I promise that?!” He cried.

“Oh no, not you. Oliver promised it for you. Haha!” Patrice cackled at the look on Oliver’s face and Eligh spent a second wondering why he thought this evil lady reminded him of his cinnamon-smelling mother at home.

Then, she winked at him and Eligh laughed, realizing who she reminded him of most was Mara. I have some interesting women in my life, he thought to himself.

Just then, his second prompt came in over the speakers in his headgear. “Find someone you need practice getting along with.”

Eligh sighed. What does this world want from me? Why me? He asked in silence, looking up to the surface for answers and turned to Patrice. “You think Jordan’s in one of these pods?”

“You’re gonna pick Jordan? Man, I wonder that task you got is.”

The older woman seemed to be about to say more but was interrupted by the sound and feeling of a deep, heavy rumble. All around them, contestants looked frantically for the source of the phenomenon, and panic set in when the ever-dark ocean below started to exhibit a red glow.

“Don’t tell me…” Eligh said as the red glowed brighter. Instinctively, he grabbed Patrice’s hand.

An announcement came in through the contestants’ speakers. “How could this phase be called Obstacle Course Mayhem… without the ‘mayhem’!? Hurry up, find your teammates, and get out of the water! It’s going to get hot down there!”

“I repeat. How is this a game?!” Eligh cried and pulled Patrice along with him. “We have to find Jordan!” He yelled over the sound of the rumbling.

“You don’t think that’s a real undersea volcano down there, do you?” Patrice wondered.

Eligh didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure if it was, but he didn’t want to take the chance to find out.

Bodies were moving faster than ever now, creating a whirlpool of bubbles and limiting visibility to almost zero. Eligh crashed into other contestants twice, losing Patrice once in the mix of it.

He spotted her several meters away, waving at him, her mouth moving but unable to hear her. Quick as a sailfish, he started in her direction but stopped when she crossed her arms in front of her body and then jutted her finger out at her three o’clock. Eligh looked in that direction.

She’d found Jordan who was, thankfully, in a pod!

And apparently, in all the confusion and desperation to get the hell out, so had someone else! A pair of contestants were shooting toward Jordan from about one hundred meters away. Eligh was closer, but just barely.

“I will not lose again!” He grumbled and used Speed Burst in his feet and air cannons in his hands to torpedo himself forward at a terrifying speed. He crashed into Jordan’s pod, his hand bouncing off the release button as he flipped atop of it and sailed away several feet.

Ungraceful, but successful, Jordan’s pod popped open and water began to spill in like the others.

“Aw, come on!!” The pair Eligh had beaten whined and immediately darted away for another target.

Meanwhile, Eligh was beginning to sweat. The water was becoming redder, hotter, and emptier as several other contestants had formed teams and were heading to the surface for the next leg of the course. He hurried back over to where Patrice had joined up with Jordan and moved within talking distance of them.

“Hey, my friend!” Jordan began, “You came for me—”

“We’re gonna be boiled lobsters if we don’t leave now.” Eligh said, cutting him off.

Patrice agreed. Eligh grabbed Jordan’s arm and Patrice’s hand, summoning a burst through his gear. “Let’s go!”

The trio rose to the surface and was high in the air in a matter of five seconds.

Having just cleared the first leg after a few setbacks, they were behind the leading team by quite a bit.

Jordan said, “We have to catch up!”

It always felt weird to Eligh when he agreed with him. He nodded and the three of them flew fast over the island until they reached the behemoth sports arena at its center. The arena was not only extremely large but was also very technologically advanced and eye-catching. The arena’s clear bleachers were flashing through a sequence of colors, equipped with LED lights that played in time with disorientating techno music coming from hidden speakers.

The bleachers were full of spectators who had taken the shuttle from the beach to the center of the jungle, ready to follow the fourth phase through every leg of the obstacle course race. Their excited cheers added to the ruckus assaulting Eligh’s ears as he and his team descended into the arena, behind about twenty teams who were already there.

He spotted Oliver’s team far ahead, already on the large contraption covering much of the sparkling white field space. He looked around for Mara’s team, but no luck.

What he did notice, though, was a “jumbotron” the size of an apple hovering inches from the faces of another team that had gotten there before them. “Aw, a mini jumbotron. That’s cute.” He thought out loud. And then his team touched down on the clear, lined track and white field, and his opinion quickly reversed.

Their own apple-sized jumbotron was delivered to them on a silver platter that sat atop a circular bar table which rose through the clear track below. It came to life with the words, “Greetings, Team of the loser, Eligh.”

“Ugh, Kaien!! You actual bastard. Tell me how they keep hiring you!” Eligh shook his fist at the minitron and let out a string of colorful language for the voice he now would be hearing in his nightmares chanting, “Loser team, Team Eligh!”

“Because I’m brilliant, you zero. They’re paying me to help do the announcements this time, so can it! Let’s see here… Ah. Team Eligh. The second leg of this race has a simple name: Egg-and-Spoon Relay Race. Your objective is to grab a fresh egg from within the crate beside you and carry it across the finish line, and back, with the wooden spoon inside the crate. It’ll be a relay, so each person must go ‘there and back’ to count for a lap and to ultimately succeed.

“Drop the egg at any moment—though, I don’t see how Mr. Loser Stats won’t drop the egg—and you’ll have to return to the start—thank your weak captain if you both get stuck here forever—”

“Can’t you just finish the announcement?!”

“Whatever. So glad Mara’s not on his team this time,” Eligh heard Kaien mumble and continue in a louder, more professional voice. “Use whenever means you can to protect the egg. Game on!”

Kaien dropped the connection immediately and the minitron plunked back into the crate, breaking an egg with it. Eligh groaned. Now they had one less chance.

“…I really hate that guy.” He said.