POP!
Nada pulled out her pin again and popped a plastic ball in front of Ryan. A card floated down to the floor near Nada's feet. Ryan's mouth hung open. He just saw a ball disappear in front of him. Out of everything he would've thought that would happen this wasn't one of them.
Nada saw the shock on Ryan's face.
"I told you not to move", Nada commented in an 'I told you so' tone.
Ryan stared at Nada with his mouth still open. He was trying to process what happened.
"Now, let me leave with what I found", Nada continued.
After hearing what she said, Ryan closed his mouth and furrowed his eyebrows.
"No", he said, taking a step forward.
POP!
Nada popped another plastic ball, and another card dropped to the floor.
"What did I say about moving?" Nada asked, tilting her head. "Your locker is behind me. I can pop every ball you here".
Ryan's facial expression turned to desperation.
"Please don't", Ryan begged. "You already have three balls".
"This one isn't yours. I found it before I came here", Nada replied, waving the only plastic ball in her hand.
"Okay, but you took two, and you've popped two. That's enough", Ryan said, trying to reason with her.
"Hmmmm".
Nada walked backwards towards the locker and kept her eyes on Ryan. She quickly and messily picked up two plastic balls from the locker and nestled them in her left arm. Her left arm had two plastic balls, and her left hand held one while her right hand had her sharp pin. Ready to be used when needed.
"Stop!" Ryan raised his voice, showing his desperation and annoyance. He still hasn't moved from the spot. He didn't want to move and see another ball get popped.
"I want to see how many balls are left in the locker, but I need to keep my eyes on you", Nada said. "Maybe I'll keep fishing them out like thi-. Oh, my hands are full".
Ryan was too scared to move forward. He desperately didn't want to see more balls pop. Ryan barely knew anything about Nada, so he couldn't have predicted this. All he knew was that she was friends with Malakai. It was clear she was friends with Malakai. His influence on her was evident because this was something Malakai would do.
"What do I do?" Ryan thought. "I can't go forward because she'll pop the balls. Shit! I should've checked the tracker before coming back. I came back because my hands were full. Fuck! I could've been more prepared. Okay, calm down. You can sort this out. She isn't Malakai. Malakai would've tried to run past me by now or worse. Why am I thinking about Malakai? Fuck! She reminds me of Malakai, that's why!".
The pure existence of Malakai lived rent-free in Ryan's head. Anything associated with him pissed him off.
"Ryan, run towards her. You need to chase her out of the room", Owen told him.
Ryan hesitated. Unlike before, he didn't instantly move when he was told to. He was overthinking everything.
"Ryan, do it!" Owen urged him. "She's in 1-E, and she said they have sixteen balls. Look how much we have!".
"If I move, she's going to pop them. It doesn't matter how fast I am. I'm not going to make it to her", Ryan thought.
"Ryan, we don't have time!" Owen pressured him.
"Fuck sake!".
Ryan grit his teeth and charged forward.
POP!
POP!
Nada popped two of the plastic balls on her left arm as soon as she saw the slightest movement from Ryan. After popping the plastic balls, she ran away from the locker to the two plastic balls she threw across the room earlier.
Ryan ran to the locker and faced away from it so his back faced it to defend it. He watched as Nada picked up the two plastic balls on the floor. He could still chase her but wanted to keep the locker safe.
Nada had three plastic balls in her arms and two under her shirt. She put her pin back in her pocket and looked up to examine the situation. Ryan was positioned near the locker, and she was further away from the door. If she ran towards the door, Ryan could cut her off. If she wasn't holding anything, she would back herself to outrun him, but if she ran like this, she would get caught.
Nada kept her eyes on Ryan to make sure he didn't move.
"If I run and he chases after me, what will happen?" Nada thought. "He'll probably snatch two balls from me or more. If he comes too close, I can't pop any of the balls because I'll be running", she analysed the situation in her head. "I've come this far. I can't lose everything now by doing something silly".
Nada got no help from her classmates. Marcus had been telling her to run out of the room way before she popped the plastic balls in front of Ryan, but Nada did her own thing. Right now, Marcus was silent because he didn't know what to tell her. All he was going to do was watch what was going to happen. Whatever Nada did, he would accept it.
Nada moved her eyes from Ryan to the door and then back to Ryan.
"Hmmmmm. Yolo".
Nada dashed to the door and didn't look back. She didn't want to look back. She kept running. She couldn't tell if she was fast or not, but she was going as fast as she could. Nada made it out of the door and continued to run a few feet down the corridor. After feeling like she had run far enough, she finally turned her head to look behind her.
"He... didn't chase me?" Nada said, bamboozled, expecting to see Ryan in the distance. "Guys, what happened? Did he chase me?" she asked her class.
"How are we supposed to know? We can only see in front of you", Marcus replied.
Nada looked down at her camera vest,
"Oh yeah", she said, realising. "I kinda wanna go back and check what he's doing".
"Don't! Just go back to our safe zone and drop off what you've got", Marcus quickly intervened. He was worried Nada would actually do that if she wasn't stopped.
"Right. I should do that", Nada replied, fighting her curiosity.
She speed-walked towards the stairs and thought,
"If I find Malakai, I should tell him about this. Then we can both raid that safe zone and take everything. Ryan can't stop us? Malakai has a paintball gun".
Nada couldn't contain her smile at the exciting thought of the two of them raiding 1-B's safe zone.
"This is too fun".
Ryan, on the other hand, wasn't having that much fun.
Four of his class's plastic balls popped in front of his eyes. They had eleven plastic balls in their safe zone, and he bought back four plastic balls, but Nada popped four. Not only that, she took four plastic balls. Therefore, the calculations ended with 1-B having seven plastic balls in their safe zone at this time.
Ryan stared at the near-empty locker. Seven plastic balls in the final round. Ryan felt like they'd already lost. This felt unrecoverable. He'd been defeated by a girl in 1-E. Ryan thought they'd get first place because they had the tracker, but now getting first place was a joke.
"How did I mess up so badly…" Ryan thought. "How? How? She's in 1-E. If I can't handle someone from 1-E, then how am I supposed to compete with 'them'? Why? Why is this happening? I thought I was good. I thought I was talented... But with every challenge, someone showed me up. It's like back then".
"Ryan, Akari is bringing back three balls", Owen said. "You need to keep going. Staring at the locker isn't going to fill it up. We can come back from this. Just focus".
Owen had to say this because he was on the mic. Whether he meant it or not didn't matter. Some words have to be said for someone to listen. Owen, this whole challenge, has thought Ryan has played the game wrong. He often wanted to say something on the mic and tell him to do something different, but he trusted Ryan. Everyone trusted Ryan. It worked out, too, until Ryan was faced with a challenge head-on.
(Being chased by Malakai doesn't count).
Everyone in the class was dejected, but none of them blamed Ryan. It hurt knowing that they couldn't get first place. It was still possible but highly unlikely, so everyone wrote that possibility off. The thing everyone in the class was worried about was getting last place and the least amount of points. At this point, they didn't mind third place. Overall, this challenge didn't go the way the class thought it would. On paper, Ryan and Akari looked like the second strongest before knowing the challenge, but now they were the second weakest. It wouldn't be ridiculous to say they are the weakest.
"Is this what you meant by this challenge is too much for him?" Luke asked, slightly turning his head to Lorenzo.
Lorenzo nodded.
Luke could see that Lorenzo's gaze was fixated on the screen. He was leaning forward in his seat with his left elbow on the desk and his left hand covering his mouth. He started focusing when Ryan came face-to-face with Nada. Before then, he was lazily watching because he thought Ryan had control over things until he didn't.
"Yawn. Do you still think we're not coming last?" Luke asked, remembering what Lorenzo had said earlier.
"We won't. Ryan's got this", Lorenzo replied, sounding like he usually does and not looking at Luke.
Luke yawned.
"He doesn't look or sound like it, but he does care about his friend. I'll stop asking him questions. He probably doesn't want to talk to me right now", Luke thought.
"Yawwwnn".
"I'm tired". Luke smiled. "But, I want to watch what happens next. I want to see if Ryan's got this".
Lorenzo was barely blinking. That's how hard he was watching the screen.
"This isn't good, but he can come back from this", Lorenzo thought. "I don't even want to know what he's thinking right now. It can't be anything positive. I don't blame him. Everyone at this academy is amazing..".
That thought alone made Lorenzo a little depressed. Just thinking about everyone he's seen and comparing them to himself. It was a reminder of how pathetic he thought he was.
"I guess we both need to change. At least I'm not alone with that".
Ryan put the plastic balls in the locker, turned away, and looked at his feet. Four cards were on the floor. Two of them were facing upward. The numbers on them showed,
'46' and '15'.
One decent scoring card and the other low scoring. It could've been worse. One of them could've been a three-digit number. The other two cards could be a three-digit number, but he didn't want to check.
Ryan shook his head. He took the tablet out of his jeans and checked the tracker. He scrolled to each floor and saw which one had the most red dots. He had to go for it. He had to keep going.
"I knew there was a plastic ball here", Malakai said, picking up a plastic ball he found behind a bundle of folders.
So far, Malakai's round has been smooth sailing. He hadn't seen anyone, and he'd already found two plastic balls on his floor. He didn't have them on him now because he had dropped them back in his safe zone. He returned to his safe zone to check if anyone was nearby or if it had been raided while they were gone. Luckily, their safe zone was untouched, thanks to Delilah stopping Dillon at the start of the round.
Malakai went up a floor while Delilah went down, so Malakai was on the tenth floor. He found it weird how no one was around. He heard movement, but he didn't bother investigating or going towards it. Also, he couldn't afford to investigate and mess around. He had to perform this round. And to be fair to him, he was. Just over ten minutes had passed for this round, and he found three plastic balls.
"Aryt", Malakai said, turning around.
He started to move to the exit until someone jogged in.
...
"Malakai".
Malakai looked at the person, confused.
"Yo?" he replied. "Were you looking for me or something?".
"No, but I found you", Kayla replied.
Kayla came into the room. She didn't mean to bump into Malakai, but she did, and this time, she wasn't scared. She had a goal. She knew what she wanted. She wanted revenge.
Kayla was carrying nothing but noticed Malakai was holding something.
"Give me that ball", she ordered, pointing at it.
"What?" Malakai replied, raising his eyebrows.
"You heard me".
Malakai stared at her serious expression for a moment.
"Hahahahahaha".
He started laughing.
"Shuuuushh", Malakai told her. "Get outta here man", he said, quoting a meme.
Kayla's face stayed stern. She didn't care what Malakai had to say.
Kayla waited for silence.
"Are you done?" she coldly asked.
"What do you mean am I done? Why are you still here?" Malakai asked back. "You know I ain't gonna give you this", he said, holding up his plastic ball.
"I don't care. If you're not going to give me it, I'm taking it from you", Kayla replied.
Malakai smiled. "Go on then", he said, unconvinced. "I'll just run past you".
"You're not going to shoot me?" Kayla asked, nodding to his paintball gun. "Heh, no", Malakai replied, smiling ear to ear, not taking her seriously.
"You're not worth a bullet".
Kayla was unfazed by his taunts until that last sentence. That comment ticked her off. Not once this challenge did Malakai take her seriously. He didn't see her as competition.
"Fuck you!" Kayla aggressively said, rushing towards Malakai.
Malakai smiled and moved forward. He quickly walked to the end of the table placed in the middle of the room and waited. Kayla was on the other side of the table.
"What now?" Malakai asked, raising his shoulders.
"You're going to hide around the table?" Kayla asked, making herself big.
The position she was in was good. If she stayed there, Malakai would have to pass her on whatever side he decided to take. However, if Kayla decided to chase Malakai around the table, Malakai would escape. She had to wait at the end of the table to trap him.
"So what? You're going to stay there the whole time?" Kayla asked, trying to aggravate him.
"Don't worry bout me", Malakai replied, smirking, not taking the bait.
"I need to run past her", Malakai thought.
He looked at Kayla and quickly analysed her. Kayla was a little taller than Malakai. She was 5'6 like Malakai, but she was closer to 5'7 than Malakai was. She wasn't overweight, but she was plump. If Malakai had to guess, she probably weighed the same as him or more at around 60kg (132lb). Malakai didn't have many girl friends, but Kayla was different from all of them. Despite the differences, he was still confident.
"She won't do nothing. If she grabs me, I can deffo get out. She won't be able to hold me. I ain't gonna shoot her. She's talking big, but I don't wanna shoot her", he thought.
Malakai was about to move, but someone else walked into the room before he did.
Malakai instantly got an idea,
"Let's try something".
Malakai threw his plastic ball towards the door at the person standing in the doorway.
"Yo, catch!".