Abbra sat on the edge of the warthog, being rudely awoken and shoved into a off-roading vehicle was not her idea of a good morning. She yawned and rubbed eyes to look at the ships. She nodded it was fine as long as she wasn't being tussled around, and it wasn't driven by a six year old. She shoved herself off the edge of the warthog and onto the ground. Abbra groaned and tightened the elastic band holding her pony tail in. 'Best getting it over with.' She said while walking onto the second Pelican. She cast a look at Axel and caught what he was saying even though it wasn't directed toward her. 'How does your brain work so well in the morning?' She asked him with a smile and stepped in.
"I don't know." Axel said, "I may be smart but I'm still only a child. I didn't study a human brain before." He shrugged, "My mind is my most powerful tool I guess. All my other natural abilities flow outward and originate from my mind." He paused, "Like my style of talking." He promptly leaned to the side, on Abbra's shoulder and fell to sleep.
Raevynn looked at Camilla. "Maybe we're going on a vacation." She said in a hopefull voice.
The troop bay rumbled as the Pelicans engines fired up. The tail that had been opened was now sealing shut.
Raevynn gripped onto the edge of the seat as the pelican started to lift off the ground. She could feel the movement in her stomach. "I sure hope this thing doesn't fly upside down. I hate roller coasters."
Once the dropship had gained the proper altitude, it jolted forward, nearly knocking some of the children out of their seats.
Raevynn peered out the window at the horizon. Ice crystals had started to encrust around the edges of the windows. Things must have been really cold up here.
Moments later a trained stepped into the troop bay with a stack of white papers. Without saying a word he started passing one out to each of the children. Once everyone had a piece of paper in their hands, he returned to the cockpit.
Raevynn stared at her piece of paper. It was some kind of map. But there was no key. Just a compass rose in the bottom right hand corner. Raevynn glanced at Camillas paper. It was a different section of the map.
"Alright trainees." Came Mendez's voice from the intercom. "Here's the plan. Each of you have been handed a section of the map of this area. On that map is marked the extraction point, and more importantly..." He paused before continuing. "The flag. That's right, today we're playing a game of capture the flag. Capture the flag like you've never played before. Each and every one of you is to be dropped off at a separate location, armed only with a compass and your portion of the map. You are to regroup, find and retrieve the flag, then haul ass back to the extraction point."
Everyone looked around at each other with looks of confusing. Raevynn closed her eyes as she felt her stomach leap into her throat. The ship was landing. She looked out the window, getting a glimpse at the area below. It was a huge pine forest with snow scattered here and there. A big river winded through the middle of it. Huge snow covered mountains surrounded the region.
"110! You're up first!" Mendez screamed. "Get out there!"
Minutes later, the pelican's ramp lowered, and freezing cold air filled the inside of the ship.
Raevynn watched Camilla, wishing she could go with her. The poor girl was going to be alone done there. She sighed, remembering that soon it would be her turn.
[]If your not in the same dropship as Camilla and I.. Go ahead and post your character being dropped off []
Camilla walked out of the dropship and turned to Rae as she had a concerned look on her face. But Camilla only smiled at her.
- "I'll be fine, I will find you I promise!" - Camilla said trying to make her new friend feel a little better but she was in over her head. She now had to keep a promise that she might not be able to keep. After all she was a girl and how could she hope to find her way in such a big place. But she took a deep breath and looked forward as the dropship took off. She looked around, the place was ice cold and she was freezing. The attire they had given her wasn't as nearly as warm as it should be but she looked at the pice of paper and started to walk, her compas pointed northeast, but she had to go southwest so she turned around until the compas read southeast and she started walking in that direction.
'Might be smart?' She asked and rolled her eyes. 'I think your smarter than Mendez.' She said and sat on her hands waiting for the ship to begin moving. A smile worked it's way in as she looked at Axel who had at the moment fallen asleep on her shoulder. Abbra decided not to disturb him. It was odd how he didn't look so strong when sleeping and at that moment she decided this boy would make good a friend. And no sooner did she make that decision when the children in the pelican began to be briefed on a 'Capture the flag' game. She then gabbed and shook Axel, 'listen up.' She whispered to him out of the corner of her her mouth and accepted a scarp of paper and the man yelled '122 this is your stop!' and a red headed girl left their pressance. Other children also left but Abbra remained a bit of a vegtable until her number 124 was called. 'Bye.' She said to Axel, 'see ya soon.'
Axel looked around, "This is bad." He said, "I bet half these people are city kids." He glanced at his section of the map, a lake, fed by one river coming from the north. Two edges of the map had a black dotted line around them. That meant he also had a bottom corner of the map, and lake, which meant a river, which meant they could organize from a source point. He looked around, "Anyone got a river on their section of the map?"
Abbra got off the pelican and onto what felt like an icy tundra. Her teeth rattled horribly and her arms squeezed her sides. She looked at the section of the map which was in her possession. What looked like a fork in a river traveled through her map along with a cluster of trees at the bottom right corner. She looked around and saw a boy with black short hair and a darker colored skin tone. He was tall and looked to be seven. She worked way over to him. Abbra found out through simple conversation that his name was Duke and he had a patch of the lake. After finding this out the two set out to find the others yelling at the top of their lungs to try and find their team mates.
Camilla looke around once more. The air was getting colder. She looked around and began to walk again in the direction the map told her, there were red dots she was following until she managed to get to a river. She went up to the water and drank a little.
- "How can they expect us to do this without anything to eat" - Camilla said and looked over at a tree that had a familiar fruit, apples. She took a rock and knocked one over. She picked it up and was about to take a bite out of it when she suddenly went back to the lake and soak it in water.
- "Gotta clean it" - Camilla said and then a squirrel came to her, she then ripped a piece and gave it to the squirrel who ate it and ran away. She then took a bite of the apple and looked aroun once more. She knocked two more apples down and went on her way following the border of the river as the map told her.
Raeveynn leapt off the ramp, her feet landing with a soft splash in a patch of snow. She had never been so relieved to hear the number one one six called out. Now she could try and find her friends.
The girl stared at her map for a moment, her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth as she concentrated. A quick look at her compass would confirm she needed to head north to get to the largest land mark: The river. Raevynn stuffed the map and the compass into her pocket and trotted off towards what she had decided was "North."
She had been walking for what seemed like an eternity when she heard someone shouting. She stopped dead in her tracks and shook her head in frustration. The voice was undoubtedly one of her team mates. With a voice that loud, they were going to attract more than fellow Spartans. There might be wolves lurking in these woods, or worse... Mendez's men.
Without another thought, Raevynn ran towards the voice, weaving through bushes, boulders and trees alike. The noise grew louder and louder, untill finally she stumbled into a clearing, facing the girl she had met back in the bunks: Abbra.
Raevynn charged the girl, leaping at her and tackling her to the ground. She threw a hand over a Abbra's mouth, silencing her.
"SHH! We don't know who's out here! You might get killed!" She said into the girls ear, trying to keep her voice down.
Raevynn stared at Abbra for a moment before removing her hand and helping the other girl to her feet. The boy she was with didn't look too happy to see her.
"Maybe, maybe not." Axel said, walking toward them. He brushed some leaves of his shoulder, "I figured most of the people here would head toward the river if it was on thier map." He looked at his own piece, "If there are 75 pieces to the map, that means a lot of us can't see the river. "Anyway, I dont think they would send us to a place where wild animals would get killed, and they certainly wouldn't do it themselves. They want us to become soldiers, not corpses. And if there is anything out there." Axel turned to look at the trees, "I dont think it'll be anything any of us as seen. Different planet, different animals. Like the huge ones I saw..." Axel trailed off and his eyes widened in horror. "We are so dead."
*Parker gulped, wondering if his number would be called next.* 115, I can't get low enough for a safe landing, your gonna need to jump from this altitude and grab onto something. Good luck. *The tail opened slowly. He turned to look at the last bit of Spartans and nodded to them, turning and jumping out, grabing onto a branch of a tree and climbing down. He appeared to be in a misty area, with lots of trees, but no sunlight. The temperature seemed very cold in this area. He shivered and saluted to the Pelican as it left. Soon it was lost to sight through the mist, only the rumbling of it's engines drifting off into the distance. Parker turned and began following the directions on his map*
A sharp scream emitted from Abbra's voice and her muscles braced as Rae rushed her. She fell and the cold snow stung the bare skin it touched. Her eyes widened as she listened. 'Why would they send us off to a freezing place with no proper clothing, or supplies with big, blood seeking animals?' She asked already starting to panic.
Duke frowned. 'You have to be kidding me.' He said and crossed his arms. 'Your just trying to freak her out.' He said glaring at Rae. 'Leave her alone.' He said and helped Abbra to her feet. But his attitude was quickly swayed by Axel's insight. 'We are going to die.' He said his voice cracking.
'No we just gotta stick together.' Abbra said placing her hands on her hips. 'I watched animal planet at home...The lions only killed the zebras that were sick or trailing behind. Why is this any different?' She asked. 'Now that we have this solved lets go find our other team mates before they freeze to death.' She said and spun on her heal expecting the boys to follow.
Axel began to follow Abbra. "OK, I'll follow you for now. But I should tell you, I went to Earth once, and saw an elephant, and it was huge. I saw some other animals back there eating the leaves of trees, about twice the size of an elephant. My logic is, something must hunt those right?" He looked around nervously, "And it can't be that small."
"086 Your numbers up" Jacob wasn't surprised he was the last one on his drop ship. He was really nervous. while he had seen trees and flowers in the small park bio dome. He never saw any amount of trees this big are numerous. He had also never seen snow before he had always been in the air controlled mining station.
He didn't have time though and soon he was pratically being hurled from the ship. He landed hard on his side. So hard in fact it took him a few moments to actually get the air in him.
He looked down at his portion of the map. He saw a whole bunch of trees and a slight blue marker at the right corner of it maybe water. He also saw a very huge rock on his map which he soon saw over a snow covered hill.
It was so cold and even with his eye sight he couldn't see anyone but he did see something a long ways away. Creeping on four legs head hunched. Jacob saw that it wasn't facing him but was going the other way. Jacob hunched over behind a tree though scared to move and so cold he could see his breath. He started to cry and wished his Father was there.
"Number 001" Jisko was the first on his drop ship, and not a minute after he was on board, the last had come on, and the ship flew away. Jisko saw the trees and snow, but barely, not only because of wind blowing the snow, obscuring all vision, but because soon after he had taken it all in, he was thrown off the ship, and into the cold air. He had lost his part of the map! Jisko searched through the snow for five minutes, but thought it no use. He was on the verge of crying, but was too angry. He yelled, which, afterwards, he figured was a bad idea. So, he got up off his hands and knees, and did what he knew best, started running. He heard someone cry behind a tree and walked over and saw a hunched over figure, Jisko said, "Why are you crying?" even though he knew quite well why he was.
'I rode an elephant once.' Abbra said a grin spreading across her face remembering the circus. 'And elephants don't really have natural predators. Maybe those don't ethier.' She said with a shrug. 'But just to be safe we won't venture to far into the forest. And...umm oh!' She said in mid thought and raced ahead, the red headed girl number 122 came into sight and she looked terrorized. Her hands were scraped in many places and she had a cut across her face. Abbra gasped. 'What happened?!' She asked to the girl.
'I- I saw something not to far from where I was dropped off. It was huge and I tried running away but I slipped and fell down.' She said sobbing. Her fingers bled and her cuts were dirty. She passed the crumpled paper to Acantha. Small droplets of blood were across the page although it didn't make a difference. It was all cliff side on her map. And a small dotted line signifying a path.
'Here Axel.' Abbra mumbled. 'you can hold the peices of the map, now we only have 71 more people to find.' She groaned.