Second Adventure (AWC Sequel)

Good Team

The journey out of the mirror maze continued, and it had come until half an hour already and there were still not anyone coming near the end, but there were mostly in the middle.

"Hey! How dare you, George!" Hera screamed upon feeling a surge of pain hit her back and a color blue paint painted the white cloth for the first time after a while. "You- come back here!"

Hera was fuming, but George was still a little out of himself, he didn't know what he was doing. He didn't even know that he hit Hera, he just straightly fired the g*n expecting it to splash on the mirror, like what had been happened for the past minutes, but he didn't expect Hera to be in the same place as him.

He was scared, to say the least, he could see a lot of fuming Hera, and all he could do was to step back and crouch because Hera was like a sweet girl turning into her competitive self then eventually a monster with how she shouted while never taking her hand out of the trigger. She was shooting every side of the mirrors, hoping it would hit George even in his face or any part of his body because yes, he wanted revenge.

"Stop, Hera! I'm sorry!" George shrieked, covering his head, Hera got him and was only focusing on him. "We were taught to control our emotions! What are you doing?"

Upon hearing that, Hera stopped, "I know that, fool! But this isn't about that. It's war!"

George continuedly shouted, turning his back as Hera even targeted his face behind the clear shield so he had no other choice but to turn his back and so the white cloth was painted with red paint.

Hera triumphantly chuckled, and mocked, "Got you, George the great. Bye!"

She hopped on her way to the open path, feeling the mirrors and carefully not letting her face bumped onto it again.

Lance and Mikael were together, working together instead of going against each other. They were also the ones in advance more than anyone. Andrea was just near behind on the other side. Lance was tasked to look out for anyone that would fire them with their guns while Mikael was busy looking for their way, didn't care if he would hit on the mirror multiple times.

"Yow!" Lance exclaimed a little surprised upon having one more person seen in their reflection into the mirror. It was Andrea, her back was turned onto them, so Lance sneaked on it and fired her with his g*n, only to fail miserably as it only hit the mirror.

Mikael looked at Lance because of his voice, but his eyes widened upon seeing Andrea's grinning face with her g*n darted toward his back. She was standing next to a mirror, the way that Mikael had been looking for earlier.

"Nice to see you," she uttered playfully before shooting Mikael on his back which made him pushed forward in his frantic move to avoid the pain which made him hit his shield on the mirror. He fell on the ground, trying his best to hide the white cloth but Andrea was too smart to shoot the ground as well so when he fell, he fell right onto the pool of paint and painted almost half of his white cloth.

Lance tried shooting her either, but the girl knew already the nook and corner of the maze so she just hid herself behind the mirror and ran to the other open side and shot him from there, catching Lance off guard.

"You're no fair!" Lance complained, wiping the paint that got on his clear shield.

"At what point?" Andrea asked, stifling her laugh, "There are already paints at your backs before I could shoot you. Lance has pink, Mikael has violet, and by that, it means..."

She watched as the two stares at their guns then shifted to each other. She wanted to laugh at their faces, and as soon as they screamed how traitor they were to the both of them, she vanished, continuing her journey out of the maze.

That was one of the reasons why she didn't want anyone to come along with her. There were other trainees who tried sneaking and following her but eventually lost her because of how sneaky she was and how she immediately picked up how to find the ways. She was kind of had an issue when it comes to trust, she lived without anyone but her foster parents who seemed to not care about her so she had nothing but herself, she believed everyone would just turn her down.

But thankfully, she managed to open up to Hera and soon to Leira, they were the only ones feasible in this place that she could trust. They were being themselves, she couldn't see any pretentious characteristics in them. She once saw Hera cried because of the frustration of couldn't do the task properly that she was the last to finish their task, and Leira was there to comfort her even with just her presence, even though the latter was one to finish the task earlier, she still chose to eat the vegetables for the lasts.

But other than the two, there was no one else. She was still trying to be friendly with the others though, there was nothing wrong with being acquainted with them, but she was just choosing those whom she could trust with all of her beings.

Leira was lost, but she was still calm, she had bumped on the mirror multiple times, embarrassingly, but a good thing, no one had seen her aside from those top agents at the top that she didn't know were there until at least five minutes ago. She had also got paint on her white cloth, she really believed now that she was naturally attracted to skirmish as she was accidentally involved with one of the battles in the maze with the other trainees aggressively shot each other.

It was irritating at first, but she just chose to get out of there within a second. She couldn't do anything though so she just let it go instead of taking revenge. She was lost though, she didn't know where the path she found was leading her, but she could hear voices, on the other side, so she was merely following those, but she bet, she wasn't even in the middle yet.

"I don't know where I am now. Leira just left me, that tough girl " She heard someone spoke, rather through a mutter but she still heard it as it was only on the other side.

"I heard you, Hera," she spoke, stopping on her track as she looked around, looking for the path to go to Hera but it seemed that it was not needed anymore as Hera herself showed in front of her, or at her back, or at her side, she wasn't quite sure which was the real Hera surrounding her now.

"Look behind, I'm here!" Hera enthusiastically said, jumping onto Leira's back in happiness. But she immediately detached herself and shot her white cloth, which shocked the girl, "That's for leaving me. Don't be mad!"

Leira just rolled her eyes at her, they moved to where Hera was earlier and looked around for more ways to be out of the place together.

"They're going to meet," Dale said, looking at the three directions where five people were about to meet in one place.

The other top agents looked down, watching the occurrence in front of them where Andrea, who was still alone, Hera and Leira, who was figuring out where the other open path was, Mikael and Lance, who were still bickering about cheating with each other when they thought they could trust each other, and George, who was now calm from shooting his g*n.

As what they expected, the five of them really had found each other. It was Andrea who found Mikael and Lance first, again, because they were near. Then it was George who rained them with another paint because of being frantic about seeing people, pissing the other three on the process as they ganged up on him and fired him with their own guns. Then Leira was once again in the middle of the chaos along with Hera, and now they were firing each other until they were all soaked with their paints.

"That's enough!" Andrea yelled, waving her hands violently that almost hit Lance's face if he just didn't move in reflex. "This is childish, I will go."

"Yow, chill out!" Lance chuckled, putting his g*n up indicating his surrender. The others did it as well, watching as Andrea looked down to look for the way, and when she found it, she went that way.

"Oh! Andrea, wait for me!" Hera said and followed the girl, and the others seemed to be thinking the same as they all followed the two.

"Stop following me, you cheaters," Andrea told them, huffing but she didn't turn back and just continued looking for the way. "I won't lead you out, don't expect something from me."

"Yeah, no, Andrea, an hour had passed already and we're still stuck inside in the middle of the mirror maze. We don't want a last place with the last task, do we?" Mikael asked, grinning from his ear to ear as he nodded proudly at Andre who in turn rolled her eyes at him.

He got a point though, the deliberation would happen this week, and she wanted to be under Dale's care so she had to have a good reputation until the end. After all, she knew how Dale would choose the top students because she literally was the busiest person and a lacking trainee wouldn't be suitable for her.

Andrea didn't answer anymore and just let them follow her. Though she had told them to use their eyes and do the same strategy as what she was doing, their journey out of the maze had become easier.

There were times that they were forming groups or teams in training, and never had been they were in one team. All of them were disseminated to one group and were often opponents because they were often made as leaders since they were dominating the ranking of the trainees. And now was the only time that they were in together, though not entirely as a team, but since they were coordinating and communicating well with each other they seemed to be one

They weren't close, maybe acquainted, or friends perhaps, since they knew each other and were often joking around, but there was deep within them, especially Hera who was observing them, she knew there was a connection between all of them.

As expected, they reached the end with an hour and a half of time passed. They were congratulated by the agent at the other end and were escorted to the shower room.

"Thanks, Andrea, we'll pay you back someday," Mikael told her, draping his hand on her shoulder and ruffled her hair which earned a groan from the latter.

"Whatever."

On their way to the shower room which was on the second floor, they came across the top agents, no masks, not in their usual coats, just their casual clothing, and they were awestruck was an understatement, they literally froze upon seeing their faces up close. Breath hitched, paled, butterflies in their abdomen as if they fell in love.

They were overwhelmed.

Dale chuckled at their stunned reaction, then her eyes met Andrea's, but her next words were for all of them.

"You'll make a good team."