The Lakeshire Hunt

CHAPTER 10: The Game Plan

After dinner, we had our quick huddle as we always do every day. The weather seemed a bit strange. The wind was pretty strong. And there were no stars… “Oh no! Talk about a bad day to go spying on the enemy.” Michael complained. “It looks like it’s gonna rain.” Santi added. “Oh no!!! I can’t! It will get all muddy and dirty! Oh dear! How could this happen?” Alister exaggerated. “Alister, it hasn’t even rained yet.” Charles interrupted. “I bet all the rain will scare all the critters away, so it’s good!” Hiro cheerfully added. “Guys, we’re just gonna have to make sure all our things are safe from the rain, cuz it definitely looks like it’s gonna rain tonight” Aisha suggested. Edward was still in his tent, our team huddle hadn’t started yet, so everyone agreed to do what Aisha suggested for us to do. As we walked back towards our tent, Dan caught up to me and asked “What took you so long? Where’ve you been?” “Oh uhh…I was looking for some firewood. Like everybody did.” I responded. I think it would be best for no one to know about Stella. I mean she lived in the middle of the forest, right? So I’m pretty sure she didn’t want anyone to know she was there. As soon as we were done organizing our things, Edward walked out of his tent and called for a quick huddle. He looked around and was pretty impressed by what we did. “Oh wow…good job guys. I was about to tell you to organize your things and clear the campsite of unwanted things cuz it’s about to rain but yeah…you guys read my mind.” He said, placing his hands on his side waist. “Oh, it was all Aisha’s suggestion!” Albert insisted. “Good job Aisha, and to all of you.” He greeted. “Well as you know, even if it rains, we still have to do our duties and responsibilities as other teams might use the weather to their advantages. Please do understand.” “No worries Edward, we’re on it.” Hunter assured... “With this, I will leave Mark the responsibility of looking after the campsite, as I will join Dan and his team in spying on the other team. This way we will be able to come up with a perfect strategy to win this game,” Edward announced. The pressure on me definitely builds up as Edward joins our team. Wow…I never had this much responsibility given to me and everyone in the team obviously trusts me, especially Dan.

The rest of the team members stayed and already rested, to prepare for tomorrow's training. Albert, Mark, Hunter and Charles looked after the campsite. They are the look-out for the night. Santi, Edward, Dan, Michael and I started preparing to leave. I made sure that my paintball g*n is ready to use. I have my binoculars too. The enemy's campsite is still a few distances away, so these binoculars should come pretty handy. Edward and the others were also preparing their things as well. As soon as everyone was ready to go, we started leaving the campsite. “Alright Lucas, lead the way.” Edward commanded. I walked ahead of everyone and led the way. “I think we should tie a red ribbon around that tree…that way we won’t get lost.” Michael suggested. That’s a good idea…let’s do that.” Edward agreed. We all stopped and waited while Santi took out some red ribbons from his duffel bag. He passed the ribbon to Dan and he started tying red ribbons around big trees and we all continued to walk. I stopped at a specific area and said, “Here! This is where I saw the gummy bear tracks”. I pointed to the exact area where I found the gummy bear tracks. Good thing I was still able to remember the way in. I continued walking ahead of everyone else, then stopped by the massive tree. “Here we are!” I announced. The area was very quiet, so I thought of trying to climb up the tree to observe the area. I did exactly what I said and as soon as I got to the branches, the others started climbing their way up with me. That’s when we all saw it…Team Apus camp site. That felt absolutely great! The others couldn’t believe their eyes. They saw the exact thing I was seeing from yesterday. There were giant cages for their prisoners and some tents, like ours. As soon as we all saw the prisoners, Edward took out his binoculars and everyone followed him. “Alright team, see that?” he said, pointing in the direction of the cages. “That’s what will happen to us if we allow them to capture us. So we all have to be extra careful,” he warned. We all seriously obeyed. Trust me, no one gets to get out of this camp alive if we get ourselves captured. Using our binoculars, we continued to observe them until it was lights out.

As the night gets darker and colder. Team Apus had started turning off all the lights already. We all rushed to go down the tree silently. Dan went down first, followed by Santi, Edward, Michael and, last but not the least, me. They all waited until I got down safely and we left the area and rushed back to our camp before it gets a lot colder and the before it starts to rain. We followed the trees that were tied with red ribbons, for us to get back to the camp. All of us were happily running all the way back to our camp site. We had to rush and run because raindrops had already started to fall. We got back to the campsite before the rain got heavier. We all followed our team leader, Edward, as he led the team all the way to the camp site and then he invited, “Here! Follow me guys!” Which, of course, we all followed. “Phew…that was close,” Santi commented. “Michael bent and placed his hands on top of his knees and panted. “Yeah! Super close.” He agreed. These guys are fast runners. I was left behind. Luckily, I caught up before the heavy rain had started. I squatted down in exhaustion and said nothing. I needed to catch my breath as I panted heavily. “That was so close” I added. Dan stood up from squatting on the ground and was kind enough to grab everyone some water. As soon as he got back, he gave each of us a bottle of water, then Edward started in a low voice. “Alright guys. I know there were a lot of things going on back there. But the important thing is, we have to help each other with training our other members, especially Cassidy, Aisha, and Hiro. Dan! You come up with a great training strategy for them, while the others will start doing shooting practices. Santi, can you create a great target for us tomorrow?” He asked. “Of course! I’m on it.” Santi happily accepted. He looked pretty excited. I think everyone is, because tomorrow’s gonna be the training and practice sessions day! It will be a blast! “I’ll think of a game plan and will discuss this with the team by tomorrow, but for now…All of you should get some rest.” Edward instructed. Without a moment to waste, Edward started planning our team’s game plan for the Lakeshire Hunt game which is coming sooner than we thought. There's 2 weeks to go before the big Lakeshire hunt day, so the pressure is definitely on. We all waited for the rain to stop for us to get back to our tents. The rain is already getting lighter so it shouldn’t take long. As soon as the rain had stopped, Edward said “Have a good rest guys! See you all tomorrow.” We all responded with a light nod and then we all ran towards our tents to get some shut-eye.

Wait…where am I? I turned to look around me. Where is everyone? There’s a really high mountain ahead of me and it appears I’m right at the bottom of it. I see a small house at the top. Oh sorry…are those tents? Or tiny houses? I’m just not sure. There are people at the top. They seemed to be calling someone. Oh wait…are they calling me? As I looked at those people closely, it turned out that I did recognize them…those were Santi and the team! What are they doing there? They just keep calling out to me…I can tell by reading their mouths…but for some reason there are sounds coming out of them…what is going on? But of course…considering that they are calling out to me…I might as well go there. I would need to climb this super steep mountain. There seems to be no obstacles along the way, so it shouldn’t be that hard. As I was climbing the mountain, I stopped in the middle of it to get some rest. I feel so tired. Climbing mountains isn’t that easy, you know. Out of nowhere, someone offered me her hand…well, I said her because she was a girl, only I can’t see her face. Why is that? She helped me up, then suddenly I’m back in the camp. Oh it was a dream…my dreams just keep getting weirder and weirder. It was a lot better than the usual dreams I used to have though…waaay…better. I stood up and stretched. Dan was already up and was getting something from his bag. “Mornin’ sleepy head. Get your a*s out there. We’ll start the training in a bit now.” He enthusiastically said. “Wait what? Training? How about breakfast first?” I responded as I was watching him as he left the tent. I followed him out to find everyone seemed ready for the training. Michael and Mark were preparing breakfast while the others had already started the training. “Come on man! This is some good exercise!” Santi happily invited. He and Hiro seemed to have fun. Well, I think I don’t have any choice at all as Edward was also doing the training. We started with some warm-up exercises…very important, we don’t wanna break anything, right? We did some hands-in-the air exercise, foot-touching exercise, ankle-holding stretch and an arm, leg and torso stretch led by Dan. Dan used to study martial arts, so he had to be the one to train the team. Man! I don’t recall when I did exercises really. I don’t attend P.E classes. Thought they’d be tiring and boring, but dude, Dan’s exercises are extreme. Not only that the warm up exercises are tiring and difficult, but Dan does not make a good coach, he’s brutal. I couldn’t manage to keep up with the positions, they were so difficult. Santi, Hiro and Allister had so much fun while the rest of us struggled for real. “Alright Lou, you’re doing it wrong.” He would say “Do it this way…” then he'd just keep on going…it was a nightmare. As soon as we finished warming up, Michael and Hunter started calling out for breakfast. “Finally!” I reacted. “That was so much fun!” Hiro happily commented. “Ahhh nothing like a perfect warm-up exercise for a perfectly beautiful day!?” Allister added. Santi approached me and boasted “Man! I think I already lost some weight!” “Whatever…” I commented. I thought it was horrible. We all settled down in a circle and waited for our breakfast to be passed on and then we enjoyed our breakfast together. Everyone was really hungry. Santi had over 3 refills. I had 2. But man, nothing beats Albert, he got like 6 refills. After enjoying our sunny side-ups and hotdogs, we had our morning team huddle. “Alright guys! This is very important. I need you guys to listen closely.” We all paid close attention. There was a moment of silence as Edward prepared his plans. “This is still tentative though, but please…consider these for now. We already know that the opposing team is just nearby…so with this, we need to train and equip ourselves with the knowledge of how to defend ourselves, especially our girls…who are much more vulnerable and defenseless to attacks.” He started. “The rest of the guys will continue to look out every night and at least 1 or 2 of us will have to spy…let’s keep each other safe for now guys…until the big day. This morning you’ll be with Dan for training and this afternoon…you’ll be with me for target shooting practices.” He announced. Which obviously everyone agreed to. We always trust Edward. His commands were all relevant and accurate so we’ll follow him with that.