Ch. 591..595: The Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy Chapter 591-595

Chapter 0591

 

"We don't know which is which," Rafe says into my ear, "though obviously knowing which one belongs to Wright is going to be useful. Both teams are going to be sending out runners - scouts - trying to get the lay of the land. Wright will probably use Luca for that. So, if you see Luca coming from the direction of one team or the other, we'll know which camp is which."

"Why do you think he would he use Luca as a scout?" I ask, curious, laying flat on my belly and using the binoculars to attempt to locate the camp that should be to our south, along the line of our canyon.

"Because he's fast as hell," Jackson says into the earpiece, his voice pleased and a bit entertained.

"Hey, where's Jesse?" I ask, bright and interested.

"Could we please cut down on the chatter?" says another voice along the line, making me jump. "Some of us are trying to concentrate."

I grimace a bit. I didn't know the rest of the team was on the line with us.

"Watch it, Miller," Rafe snaps, not liking his tone. A beat passes. "But yes, Clark, please concentrate and keep the questions to a minimum. Cadet Sinclair is out of range by now, out on his own mission."

I smirk but do as my brother says, concentrating and attempting to locate any movement in the area around that southern landing space, wondering a little where Jesse is and hoping he'll be okay.

Unfortunately, despite my excitement this morning, the majority of the Game is...boring as hell. I spend the vast majority of my time just looking through the binoculars, scanning the trees, looking for movement. I find that movement pretty fast on both teams, marking down the location of enemy soldiers on my map with the red pen Jackson left for me and relaying the information to Jackson and the team below.

Jackson uses that information to chart the movement of the enemy troops and give advice to Rafe about how he should move, predicting where the other teams might send their soldiers next and setting Rafe up to be on the defense.

As the hours slip by I listen to the chatter over the earpiece, my elbows starting to hurt because of all the time I spend laying on my belly propping up the binoculars.

War is so boring, I say to my wolf, who is laying on her back in my soul with her paws up in the air, her tail idly swishing back and forth.

Yeah, she replies, snapping her jaws at an imaginary fly, let's get up and bite someone.

I smirk at her, shaking my head, but then flinch and refocus my eyes when the tinny sound of paintball guns shooting breaks the air.

"What's happening?" I whisper, unable to help it, even though I know Rafe and Jacks will tell me what I need to know.

"It's not us," Rafe replies, sounding a little smug. "If the other teams were trying to work together to come for ours, then someone just broke."

More sounds break out and then

shouts as well as a great deal of noise and movement directly across the river. I shift my binoculars and begin to tell Rafe and Jackson precisely what I'm seeing,

but knowing that I'm their eyes in this situation. As I watch, report that the teams seem to be in a heated fight with several soldiers on either side taking hits and thus being marked out of the Game.

knowing a bit into the earpiece

―

As they're hit, the soldiers scowl and slink off into the forest, I guess going back to their bases - I'm not really sure. But by the time the fighting stops, there's only a few left

- and none of them are anyone I know.

UMS

And each and every one of them turns towards us - or, at least towards where our camp is, directly across the river.

"What's next?" I ask quietly when our line goes silent.

l

ง

Rafe and Jackson exchange a few hasty words that I don't understand - speaking in some kind of warrior-track shorthand that I haven't learned. But then Rafe's voice s darkly pleased when he turns his attention back to me.

MS

"What do you think, Clark?" he says. "Can you make the shot?"

A huge grin spreads out over my face as I finally, finally reach for my gun. "Hell yes I can."

 

Chapter 0592

I take a moment to memorize the location of the enemy soldiers before I set my binoculars aside, pulling my gun over to me. When I put myself in position to fire and again look down the scope, I find the soldiers quickly, moving down the ravine towards the river, not bothering to try to be sneaky anymore. I guess since they made a great deal of noise taking out the other team, they know that there's not much point in stealth.

No, speed is much more important.

Still, none of it's going to do them any good at this point.

"Any notes?" I ask Rafe and Jackson, centering my scope on the man in the lead.

"Fire at will, Cadet," Rafe says, pride already ringing in his voice.

I smile, take one final moment to aim, and then pull my trigger.

A bright spot of neon blue appears on the chest of the man in the lead. He skitters to a stop and then curses vehemently, punching a fist down towards the ground in his frustration. The men behind him skid to a stop too, trying to process what happened, but I'm already pulling my trigger before they can figure it out, blue splattering across the second man's chest as well.

The three behind him panic, but I'm ready for them, shifting my gaze and my aim a little higher and taking out the man in the back of the line next as he makes a run for the treeline, paint appearing suddenly across his back. This has the effect I wanted, with the last two men nearly tripping over themselves, not knowing who I'm aiming for next and blocked by the man who stops in front of them.

One spins, looking for me across the river, while the other makes a mad dash to the left -

But it's too late. Before either can really process what has happened, I've hit them too.

"Five down," I say, pleasure sweeping through me at my accomplishment and my wolf pouncing victoriously inside me, emitting vicious little yips of joy.

“Nicely done, trouble," Rafe growls. Jackson doesn't say anything, but inwardly I hear his wolf howl his pride. It makes me break into a ridiculous smile, even though I know our job isn't done.

I set my rifle aside, marking the KO of the men on the map before picking up my binoculars again, scanning for more movement.

My earpiece beeps and then Rafe's voice comes back on. "Ariel, what are you seeing?"

"Rafe!" I gasp, horrified at the use of my real name, my binoculars fumbling from my hand.

"I'm alone, dummy, and it's a private channel - just me you and Jacks - just...tell me what you're seeing."

I scowl, thinking that he probably could have divulged that information as soon as he switched, but I scan the treeline ahead of me and report what I see. "Honestly it's quiet, Rafe. Why? What's up?"

"It's just fucking weird," Rafe says, thoughtful. "Jacks? Do you feel like this is.....”

"No, you're right, Rafe," Jackson says, his voice deep and wary. "It has been way too quiet. There should have been much more action so far." "What do you think is happening?" I ask, suddenly wary myself.

"No clue. Just...keep us abreast of anything unique you see, Ariel. And if Jackson tells you to get down to the base you go - fast, all right?" "You got it."

"Switching back to the main terminal," Rafe murmurs, and then the earpiece beeps again.

The time passes slowly after that;

and as Rafe said, not much

happens. The most interesting bit is when a whole troop of Ambassador cadets appear at the riverside, carrying white flags of peace,

1

moving forward towards us. Lwatch them curiously down my scope as Rafe and Jackson discuss how the third team, captained by two Cadets whose names I don't recognize - invested in a large Ambassador contingent as part of their strategy.

My mouth falls open when, after a short bit of discussion, Rafe orders me to take them all out.

"What!?" I gasp, horrified. "Rafe! I can't kill the ambassadors!"

"It's not real, Ari," he counters, growling. "Follow your damn orders -"

"But they might come with good terms!"

“We haven't lost a single soldier, Clark,” Jackson cuts in, smooth. "They don't have any prisoners and we don't need any supplies. There's nothing to negotiate. Take 'em out."

"But -"

"It's an order, Clark," my mate snarls. I smirk a little, liking that tone a little too much for...maybe the wrong reasons, in a battle scenario.

"Yes, sir," I sigh, refocusing my sight

and then quickly taking out all eight

of the ambassadors before me with

as

many shots. They groan,

frustrated and angry before turning

away, back towards their base.

UMS

I sigh, reporting my kills before setting my gun aside and picking up my binoculars, listening to Jackson and Rafe talk over the earphones as I scan the walls of the ravine across from me. The earpiece beeps once, letting me know that we're back on the private channel.

"What's that full count, Jacks?" Rafe asks, sounding worried.

“Ariel's taken out thirteen, including...I think every ambassador except Ben and our guy," he murmurs. “Your team took out three more...” he

hesitates, and I can tell that something's wrong.

Chapter 0593

"Numbers are...fucking off." Rafe growls. "And not a single person from Wright and Blythe's team has made an appearance, except those few across the river that the other team took out."

"What are you thinking?" Jacks murmurs.

"I think they're trying to lure us forward," Rafe sighs. "And that if we don't do it, we're going to be out here for hours. They're waiting for night - when Ari's sight and accuracy are going to be way down."

"Wait, seriously?" I ask, going a bit stiff. "We stay out here all night if someone doesn't win?"

"We stay out here until it's done," Jackson informs me, cold.

"Shit," I whisper. But then movement catches my eye, down by the river, and I curse again, going stiff. "Shit, shit!"

“What?” Rafe asks, his voice tense. "Report, Cadet.”

“It's fucking Luca," I breathe, refocusing the binoculars and watching as my mate comes to the edge of the river and then – nimble as a leaf on the wind begins to dodge across it, his feet barely touching rocks and logs before he leaps, about halfway across, into the river itself and begins to wade the rest of the way across.

"Can you get him!?" Rafe barks out.

"I can't shoot Luca!"

"It's a fucking game!"

I snarl but grab my gun, whipping it around so that I peer through the sight, taking aim as fast as I can - but by the time I focus on the area of river that he crossed, all I see is his boot disappearing back between the trees - on our side.

"No, I'm sorry,” I say, guilt running through me. “He crossed the river and I lost him in the trees. But he's on our side now."

"All right," Rafe murmurs. "It's something. We'll go and hunt him down. Can you give us a more precise location, Ari?"

I do my best, using the coordinates on the map to report the place where I think Luca went through the trees. Rafe switches back to the main channel and more voices come on as the boys all concentrate on Luca, taking Rafe's advance team down towards the river.

But as they do, something shifts behind me.

I snap up from my position, turning, noting the little rock that's rolling across the ground towards me, perfectly innocent.

I stare at it for a long moment, trying to figure out how it got here.

And then I shift my eyes slowly...upwards. To where shadows move along the ridge above me.

"Shit shit shit," I whisper into my headpiece, using my feet to push myself back into the bushes, grabbing my gun and my binoculars and my map as I go. "Rafe, Jacks - they're above us -"

"What?" Rafe breathes.

"I don't know who it is," I hiss,

els

suddenly desperately afraid as I see the shadows growing larger, closer. "But they must have spent the day going the long way around - crossing the river way north or way south and then trekking along above the top of the ravine."

“Get the fuck down here, Ariel," Jackson snaps, livid. "Right now."

I make to move but my head snaps to the right when suddenly a bright flare of green lights up across the river and to the south, puffing out into a green cloud.

"What's that?" I whisper.

"Get down here!" Jackson barks.

"It's Jesse,” Rafe murmurs, sounding confused. "He must be in Wright's camp - but that signal means...all clear? No one's...there..."

My heart begins to pound as I look again towards the growing shadows coming down the ravine towards me.

"Run, Ari!" Jackson barks into the headset. "Fucking run!"

"It's too late!" I whisper, knowing that they're close enough now that if run they'll hit me easily - and then.... don't know what. If it's Wright, and he really does want to hurt me? "I have to hide."

"Ari!" Jackson gasps, desperate. Then a savage snarl rips down the line. "I'm coming up for you!"

"That little sniper's up here," someone says, not twenty feet from me, making my head snap to the left towards the voice. "He's our first priority - take him out first and we'll take the base next."

My hand shakes a little as I raise my gun to my shoulder, looking down the scope, but realizing as I hear the number of footfalls that it's too much. That even if I do

shoot there's no way I can tool

all of them before they find and

dand

out

swarm me. Because, I mean, if they shoot me it's not like I actually die and slip out of their grasp –

No, I'd still just be a girl that they'd found all alone in the woods.

And if it's Wright...he could do anything to me.

Still, if I can just stay quiet enough...

I exhale slowly, my hands shaking with adrenaline as the first of the enemy troops steps onto my plateau.

Chapter 0594

I do my best to keep my breaths quiet and even as two, then three more enemy soldiers move out onto my plateau. I peer at their faces through the leaves of the bushes in which I'm hiding, trying to see if one of them is Wright, if one of their eyes is lit with the violence I saw in him that day - the desire to kill me -

But I don't recognize any of them.

"This would be the perfect spot," the man in the lead says, frowning around the plateau, "to put that sniper. And the angles from the shots taken suggest that this is around the right height."

"He must be here then," the man next to him says, dropping to one knee and peering around. More troops move onto the plateau behind him, likewise looking around, wary. "Spread out everyone. Search."

I inhale a deep breath through my nose, my heart pounding in my chest like I've just run a marathon, watching as the troops spread out, moving closer and closer to me. God, this must be the entire team - there's more than ten of them here, maybe even fifteen.

They move closer to me, sweeping around the ground with their guns, noting the footsteps that Jackson and I left when we came up here. Their mood picks up then, their chatter revealing tat they realize that I'm here - or at least, I was.

Terribly, the one closest to me raises his nose to the air, taking in a deep sniff. "No, he's still here," he says, a smile breaking out over his face. "Scent's too fresh. He must be...hiding."

Suddenly the man drops to his knee, his gun aimed directly at the bush that covers me.

I gasp in another breath and, absurdly, press my eyes shut, my hands clinging to my gun, wishing desperately that he can't see me - that I'd just disappear – that I could be safe, and that he couldn't touch me – and that I'd survive -

And suddenly quite suddenly -

The world around me...shifts.

The ground beneath me...sags somehow, becoming pliable, stretching like a made of thinner and thinner material as the milliseconds pass, until it snaps and I somehow fall...through.

I gasp as I tumble backwards, only air beneath me and I fall -

Fall!

My eyes fly open as I continue to plummet downwards, though I don't know where, or how -

I wasn't that close to the cliff's edge - it's impossible -

But suddenly my back hits, hard, and all of the air goes out of me.

Coughing, gasping, I turn to my side, my rifle still clutched against my chest, my face pressed into the dirt as I try to drag air into my lungs.

It takes a second, but soon oxygen fills my chest and I open my eyes, looking around, knowing that the troops will find me now but...

The only thing that greets me now is silence.

And darkness.

My eyes fly wide as I press one hand

down against the sandy dirt, so different from the rocky cliffside that I've been sitting all day. And as press myself up and twist to look

around, horror fills me - completely

takes over my mind.

Because it is instantly clear that I am no longer on that cliffside in southern Moon Valley.

That I'm not in Moon Valley at all.

Because in Moon Valley it is day - and here...here it's night.

I begin to pant in my panic as I whip my head around, taking in the desolate landscape with a few scattered, lonely trees growing on softly rolling hills

And beyond those trees...

My eyes go wide when I see a moon

rising round and huge on the

horizon, so

close that I can count its

Ane

craters. And behind it...another moon, smaller, crescent, its sharp edge lmned in golden light. And curving gently beyond that a third.

Three...three moons...

My wolf pants inside me, confused and disoriented, deep whines of worry echoing from her throat.

The realization that I'm not on earth anymore hits me hard, stealing my breath, but all I can do is stare at those three moons shining above me - the only source of light.

But my eyes widen, unblinking, as a

et

figure slowly unfurls itself from the shadows, turning towards me beyond a copse of trees. All I cam see is is her outline - the curves of her waist and hips, the storm of dark curls that fall around her shoulders...

—

Chapter 0595

But she turns to me, and tilts her head to the side, curious.

My whole body starts to shake as I gasp in a desperate breath and clutch my stupid paintball rifle to my chest, scared and confused and frantic to go back home. Because I have absolutely no idea where I am, or how I got here, or what's happening on the battlefield I just left.

In my heart only one truth echoes - that I want to get out of here - that I want to go home -

Suddenly, it happens again.

The world tilts, and I fall, but my back doesn't hit the ground behind me. I open my mouth to scream but no words come out as I seem to echo through time and space - traveling through the darkness - through the void -

Until suddenly my backside hits the ground, hard, and my eyes fly open, and – panting - I realize that...that I'm back.

That I'm under the bush, with my rifle clutched in my arms.

I whip my head to the left, where voices echo. "Sniper must have gone down," says a man as cadets filter ahead of him down the little path towards our base. "I found this map and these binoculars, though I don't know why he would have left them behind -"

And I don't stop to think as I quickly raise my gun to my shoulder and - not even using the sight, they're too close - pound out two shots at the men standing before me.

Because despite it all - I have not forgotten that Jackson is coming up that path for me right now.

And if they're heading down towards him, I am not going to let him face sixteen men on his own.

The two men gasp as bright blue paint splashes on their uniform, their heads twisting to me.

"How the fuck did he -"

"No, I checked that bush - he wasn't there -"

But I'm already on my feet, pounding past them, ignoring them, stumbling towards the path downwards where shouts are already echoing and the sound of gunfire breaks out.

My breath ragged in my chest, I

push away all thoughts of what just

happened of falling through the

et

fabric of the world, of going somewhere completely else - and

instead focus on the line of enemy troops ahead of me.

Jackson's at the head of them, a dulled blade in one hand and a pistol in the other, getting too close for them to shoot. So I start at the back of the line, taking out eleven men in rapid succession - lined up for me as they are in a neat little row on their way down the cavern face.

When I take aim at the twelfth, he turns towards me with a scowl, the blue paint splashed across his chest revealing that Jackson already got him. Frantic, I spin, looking around for more - .

But the only person I face is the first man I shot, his arms crossed, glaring at me.

"You can give it up," he snaps, his mouth twisted in anger. "You got us all."

"Which is what you would say," I growl, still looking behind him and up and down the cliffside - searching anywhere, everywhere for Wright. "Which team are you on!?"

"You don't even fucking know me!?"

I turn my glare back at the man with the crossed arms. "Why the fuck would I know you?" I growl.

“Because I'm Bill Heggardy," he says, sneering at me and shaking his head. "I tried to fucking draft you - and you don't even know who I am?"

My mouth falls open a bit as I stare at him because...I mean, I don't recognize the name. But Bill Heggardy - it's not Wright, or Blythe. Which means...the third team...

"Ari!" Jackson gasps, stumbling out onto the plateau and rushing to my side. He sends a glance at Bill and the man standing next to him and even though his hands shake at the restraint, he refrains from grabbing me close to his chest like he wants té"Are - are you all right, Clark?"