I've just got back from watching les mis and I have no idea why it inspired me to write something as unrelated as this. I have a weird mind! Please review it makes my day :)

The paintball arena was the newest and most popular of H.I.V.E's features. Installed barely a week ago the novelty had yet to wear off the excitable streams. In essence, the holographic combat was a far better battle simulation than running around with chunky low tech paintball guns but to the students of H.I.V.E it felt like a connection to the outside world doing something normal kids did for once. The Fab Four about two thirds of the way back in the queue,

"Do you know the best thing about Paint balling is?" she said smiling and leaning against the brushed steel corridor.

"What?" asked Shelby,

"Otto's crap at it"

"am not!" Otto protested.

"Face it geek boy" Shelby chipped in, "anything not of, or relating to computers and your useless." Otto huffed,

"I'm not that bad."

"I have to disagree with you there my friend," said Wing with a smirk, "I believe onlookers described the scene last time as 'an one sided paintball apocalypse'"

"That's not fair, they all ganged up on me." Otto fumed in silence and considered getting H.I. to drop something heavy on them.

The first paintballers were starting to spill into the arena, the most being henchman and alphas with the least being the occasional scitech. They all wore padded suits, not in their stream colours but in their teams. The arena was huge, a kilometre square with mini forts, battlements and even an artificially grown forest to liven up the game. Twenty metres up, carefully measured so it was out of range of the paintball guns was the spectator area. The glass fronted area consisted of mainly students who didn't like paint balling or were studying with some light entertainment, school books spread over their laps and empty chairs. There was also a box with darkened one way glass for privacy which was strictly bound to staff only.

Although the teachers at H.I.V.E always enjoyed watching the students blasting themselves to pieces with guns, most of them had lessons to teach so the only onlookers were Raven and Nero. The staff area was more plush than where the students sat, almost like a living room complete with scattered poufs, armchairs, sofas and highly sort after foreign rugs. Nero had pulled up the most villainous piece of furniture he could find, a high-backed, brown leather arm chair with gleaming brass buttons holding the fabric in place. Raven had opted for a bean bag, sitting cross legged up close to the glass staring at the blackbox in her lap.

"You should go in the next round" Nero encouraged, "It would be hilarious watching you massacre them." Raven sighed,

"I'd love to but unfortunately I don't make a habit of blasting students with paintball guns for your entertainment." she said not looking up, "anyway I'm busy reviewing tactics for the next hunt. Do you think we should hire Visco again, because last time he mucked up my-"

"You know I don't interfere with your preparations for the hunt, remember what happened last ti-"

"Yes I remember" said Raven in voice that suggested she wished she didn't, "Hacking the coordinates for the tracking shrouds so that they went in different directions wasn't funny was it." Nero gulped but struggled to swallow smirk at the memory,

"No, that was very catastrophic." he had laid on a bit too much sarcasm, Raven looked up from the detailed diagram on her blackbox to give him the look of death before looking down again. Nero tried another tack, "Paint balling would be fun" he pleaded, "come on there has to be some students you'd want to blast."

"Oh I can think of many" said Raven with a sadistic smile, "but I bet you have more than I do. Tell you what wouldn't it be 'funny' to watch you running around in a jumpsuit shooting students."

"I'm busy" said Nero quickly, Raven smirked;

"You clearly have so much work to do." Nero changed the subject,

"Lets get the video feed up on the queue and see who's going in the next slot. You never know it might be worth it." Nero got the feed but on his black box, pressing a button to beam the film onto the large flatscreen on the wall. He used the black box to scroll down between the cameras, showing tonnes of hyped up henchman before he stopped when he was almost at the end. "Ah ha" he said triumphantly, "tell me you've never wanted to shoot them." Raven looked up for a moment out of mild curiosity and a huge smile spread over her face,

"Who doesn't?" she said sitting up and pocketing the blackbox, "who doesn't want to shoot the Fab Four?"