Hands down, the best part about his gym was the water pressure. Gendry didn't understand how the water pressure in his own shower could be so abysmal when compared to that at his gym when the buildings were only a few blocks away from each other. The showers alone made the price of his membership worth it.

Gendry ran a hand through his still damp hair before waving goodbye to Podrick at the welcome desk. Podrick returned the wave before turning back to his book. That was another good part about his gym, it was never very crowded.

He was busy debating if he wanted to stop for food before making his way back to his apartment or if he had anything there that he could scrounge up a decent meal with. Gendry was pretty sure he had a box of mac and cheese in one of his cupboards. He was just deciding to go and get food just to be safe when he pushed open the door to the gym and there was a sharp sound like someone throwing rocks at a steel door.

Gendry started in surprise at the sound and if his gym bag had not been strapped over his chest, he would have dropped it in shock.

He turned to see a petite woman glaring at him behind clear plastic glasses. She was dressed in all black workout gear like she was about to play a game of nighttime hide and seek or complete an assassination. The clothing was not out of place considering she was standing in front of a gym but the reason Gendry kept staring at her was because of the large paintball gun in her hands.

She looked at him disdainfully for a moment before looking past him to snap, "Careful with that! Civilian shots cost ammo."

Gendry turned to look at the person she was addressing and found a teenage boy with wild brown hair smiling at him sheepishly, a large paintball gun in hand.

"Sorry. Thought you were Theon."

The girl to his left snorted and Gendry turned back to look at her in time to see her roll her eyes. "Yeah because they look so much alike."

Gendry was just opening his mouth to tell them it was okay or to ask them what the hell they were doing he wasn't honestly sure, when he caught sight of people creeping towards them around the cars in the parking lot. He could make out another paintball gun in a red headed girl's hands.

"That lot with you too?" Gendry asked, nodding with his head towards the parking lot. He did not miss the brief look of excitement and fear that crossed the boy's face as the woman spared one quick glance out at the parking lot half full of cars. As she did so the people among the cars began to run towards them.

The two next to Gendry took off at a sprint down the sidewalk, heading towards the end of the shops in the row. He wanted to shout after them that there was nowhere to go in that direction but he assumed that they wouldn't want the people currently chasing them to hear him.

Cursing Gendry sprinted after them, not even sure why he was bothering. He had no idea what the hell these people were up too but he was currently the only one of them not armed. They might have just been paintball guns but still. Those could hurt.

He darted around the last building and yelped when a hand closed around his wrist and pulled him down behind the recycling cans. The woman from before glared at him and put a finger to her lips, motioning for him to keep quiet. She did not let go of her hold on his arm until he nodded.

Gendry nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden sounds of a paintball gun being fired and he braced himself for the sting of the bullets. He had been paintballing only once, for his half-brother Eddric's 17th birthday party. That had been a few years ago but Gendry still remembered the welts he'd had up and down his back when a group of his half siblings decided to corner him.

Looking back over his shoulder he saw a different red-head than the one he had seen in the parking lot. She was firing at the others who were now ducked behind the wall of the building, sticking their guns around the corner to shoot at her. She avoided their shots with ease.

"Don't just sit there. Get movin'!" the redhead snapped, the boy moved quickly at her voice and the woman beside Gendry made to move as well.

Gendry reached out and grabbed her wrist before she had stood fully.

She tore her arm away from him before his fingers had even closed. "What do you want? Can't you see we're busy?"

Gendry chose to ignore her rude tone. He didn't know why he was even bothering trying to get involved with, well whatever in the Seven Hells this was, but he couldn't stop the words from coming out of his mouth. "I know somewhere you can hide. It's close by."

"We can't take outside help." the redhead called softly as the shots coming in her direction stopped. She stopped firing as well but she did not lower her weapon. The boy stood beside her, the gun in his arms raised too.

"We are one short." the boy mused but Gendry didn't take his eyes away from the woman crouched in front of him. Up close he realized that her eyes were a deep stormy gray. He tried to shake thoughts of how pretty her eyes were away, now did not seem to be the time.

She huffed out a breath of annoyance before nodding and raising to her feet. She pulled Gendry up with her as well. "Take us there. Quickly."

Gendry couldn't remember a time he had run through the city at such speed. He took them behind the buildings they had been hiding behind and then across another parking lot. They darted across a busy street looking over their shoulder more than watching for cars. Finally, Gendry turned and led them down a narrow alleyway, the tall walls on either side making it dark even though it was still early afternoon.

"Is your plan to kill us all?" the gray eyed woman asked causing Gendry to roll his eyes at her.

"In case you haven't noticed I'm the only one not armed." he retorted trying to pretend he didn't notice how she was pointing her gun at him.

He cast one last look down the alley to make sure they weren't followed before opening the door under the small wooden sign proclaiming, The Holdfast.

It was thankfully empty save for a few regulars inside but if Gendry was being honest it was always this empty no matter what time he came there. It was why he had thought to bring them there. Daavos looked up from the glass he was wiping down to wave at him. He didn't even blink an eye at the paintball gun toting trio with him.

"You should be safe here. It's pretty far off the beaten path." Gendry said as he motioned them towards an empty booth in the back.

"Set a timer." the redhead reminded the boy as she slid into the booth. "I think we lost the others but we should wait a moment to regroup."

"What the hell are you guys doing anyway?" Gendry could no longer keep himself from asking.

"None of your business." the gray eyed woman snapped as she fell into the booth across from him.

"Arya play nice." the redhead reminded her. She turned to Gendry with an apologetic grin. "I'm Ygritte. That's Rickon. This is Arya, I promise her bite is worse than her bark."

The woman, Arya, merely rolled her eyes in response.

"Why'd you help us?" the boy asked curiously as he began to fidget nervously.

"Don't really know." Gendry admitted with a shrug. He didn't have the faintest idea what was going on but he didn't really want to tell them it was because he didn't have anything else to do today but wonder whether or not he still had a box of mac and cheese at home.

The others accepted that and turned back to whispering to each other. Gendry tried hard not to listen and was debating going to buy a beer since it seemed his time with their strange trio was growing to a close.

"Fine!" Arya finally cried, throwing her hands up in exasperation.

"It evens the playing field; it will give us a better chance." Rickon reminded her calmly.

"Playing field is plenty even already," Arya huffed as she glared at Gendry. Gendry stared back at her in wonder, why was she acting like he'd done something wrong?

"If we want to add him, we have to do it now." Ygritte nudged Arya lightly with her elbow causing Arya to let out a long-suffering sigh before she pulled her cell phone from her pocket.

"For the record I don't think we need another body. Especially not a newbie who is just going to slow us down." Arya said hotly glaring at her friends.

"Noted. Send the damn text." Ygritte sighed as Arya grumbled and began to type rapidly on her phone. As she put it down on the table after hitting send Gendry was able to read the message she had sent, although it did take him a moment to make it out since it was upside down.

We're invoking our right to an addition.

Gendry's brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of the words. He had no idea what was going on with these three and he was just about to ask again when a message popped up on her phone.

It's too late in the game for that.

"Jon's complaining." Arya said as if that ended whatever it was they were trying to do.

"Give me your phone." Rickon demanded even though he was already reaching for it. Gendry read over his shoulder curiously as he replied.

No one is out yet. We are well within our rights to even our numbers.

Gendry shook his head in confusion as he watched three dots appear on the screen as someone typed out a response.

Team One agrees.

Almost immediately another text came through Team Two agrees. Although this one was accompanied by several little red angry face emojis.

Gendry could feel his brow furrowed and he looked up as Arya snatched her phone from Rickon's hand and pointed it at him. He heard the click of a photo being taken and before he could protest her phone swooshed letting him know she had just sent his photo to who even knew at this point.

"What is going on?" Gendry finally asked, more confused then he'd felt in a long time. Maybe he should have just gone home after all.

"What's your name?" Arya asked, peering up at him curiously through the hair that had fallen out of her short ponytail.

"Gendry." he was so bewildered even his own name sounded unsure coming out of his mouth.

"Put your phone number in." Arya said, spinning her phone to face his direction, open to the group text where his photo and name were the last things sent.

Gendry did as he was told while he wondered just what in Seven Hells he had just signed himself up for.

XxX

To say that she was unhappy at having a fourth person in their group, especially a person who knew none of their rules, was more than an understatement. Arya was pissed.

This was an important year for her. She had to settle the score with Theon and prove to him (and everyone else) once and for all that last year had been luck on his part or simply a fluke. It was not going to happen again and he could stop lording it over her any time now.

Having some new kid to babysit was just going to hold them up.

They had less than ten minutes left on the timer so Arya let Rickon explain to their new team member just what the hell they were doing. He still looked confused after the explanation and Arya wasn't sure if it was because it was a lot to take in or if that was his permanent expression.

Once a year every summer all of the Stark siblings (and now their significant others) met up and for twenty-four hours they became mortal enemies. Well to anyone who wasn't on the same team as they were. It was a game of paintball that had been going back far into Arya's childhood. She could remember playing when they were only allowed to use Nerf guns, keeping score had been much harder back then as Jon was prone to pretending he didn't get hit.

They had played every year for as long as she could remember. Even when she was studying abroad in Braavos she always made sure to come home in time to play the game. The games contained some of her favorite memories of her siblings, like the time Sansa jumped in front of a paintball for her because she knew Arya was the better shot and even when Robb had picked her up to use as a human shield to defeat Bran. The bruises and welts she'd had from that were worth it when she thought back of Robb roaring in her ear like they were on a real battlefield.

Arya was not fond of the idea of having to share this game with a stranger, it was hard enough for her to accept that her siblings' partners were playing now too. She had been the one to come up with the rule that couples could not be on the same team. She claimed it was because she didn't want anyone to have an unfair advantage but really it was because she didn't like having to share the game with anyone that wasn't a Stark; Theon being the only expectation as he was practically a Stark anyway and he'd been playing with them since the game's creation.

Arya had never allowed anyone she was dating into the game. Truth be told she had never had a serious boyfriend before but still, no one was ever allowed into this part of her life. She had every intention of keeping it that way.

She had been so happy when the names were drawn that year, she had never been on the same team as Ygritte before and she'd seen how she'd played the last three years. She was as wild as she looked sometimes. Now that they had added a fourth person to their mix Arya was a little annoyed that they weren't already on a four-person team as then she wouldn't have to be sitting here listening to her little brother explain their family game to this stranger. She didn't care if he had helped them out earlier. As far as she was concerned his help had been a waste of his time, they would have gotten away just fine on their own.

They had been playing in teams for as long as they had been playing. The game had started when Arya was seven and Rickon had cried so hard at the thought of being excluded that their parents had demanded they find a way for their two-year-old brother to play with them or no one got to play at all. He was just as bad at realizing being hit with the Nerf bullet meant you were out as Jon was.

As there had been seven of them in the beginning the teams had never been even. It was decided early on that the team with the lesser amount of people would be allowed to invoke a new person into the game as long as they did so before anyone in the game 'died'. There had been several people included in the games over the years, none of whom Arya had been really happy about. She supposed Jon's friend Tormund hadn't been all that bad but the year Sansa had gotten Jenye Poole to play had made her want to tear her hair out. Jenye had been lucky they were only playing with Nerf guns at that point.

Just as the right to include an extra person, it was decided early on that the teams would be chosen at random. Everyone entered their names into a hat and the teams were pulled that way. This got a bit more complicated when Arya made the rule that couples couldn't play on the same team together but they made it work. The teams that had been drawn that year were some of Arya's favorites if only for the fact that her, Ygritte, and Rickon all being on the same team had made the others frightened. They were the most savage players after all.

Team One consisted of Theon, Robb, Bran's boyfriend Jojen and Rickon's girlfriend Shireen. It was Shireen's first year playing and Arya hoped that Rickon wasn't secretly planning on taking it easy on her. Team Two was Sansa, Jon, Bran and Robb's wife Jenye. Arya missed the days before Sansa and Theon were dating, back then if they were on the same team they spent the whole time arguing and flirting and were easy to pick off.

Arya tuned back in to listen to Ygirtte explain to their newest team member the tactical rules of the game.

"You get shot in a limb you cannot use that limb the rest of the game. You get hit in a leg be prepared to hop." Ygritte grinned, probably thinking like Arya was of last year when Ygritte hit Jon in the thigh in the first ten minutes of the game. He had to hop and use crutches for seventeen hours before the game ended.

"You get shot in the head, neck or torso you're dead. Fall where you are when you got shot and once the living players are no longer within twenty feet of you, you can get up again. Text a picture of your wound to the group chat and head to the safe zone." Ygritte continued.

"Safe zone?" Gendry asked wearily, clearly aware of how over his head he was.

"I'll text you the address." Arya sighed, they needed to be plotting not explaining rules the rest of them knew by heart.

"Oh, and if you get shot in a limb you have to text a picture of that to the group chat too. That way everyone knows if you try to cheat." Rickon added quickly. Jon was the reason they'd made that rule five games ago.

"No one is allowed to use cars or buses, anything like that. All travel has to be done on foot. We also can't stay in any building for longer than twenty minutes at a time." Ygritte finished before leaning back satisfied that they had covered all the bases.

Gendry nodded mutely, and Arya felt a brief pang of sympathy for him. She supposed it was a lot to take in. Her sympathy quickly faded to irritation though as she remembered that no one had made him follow after them in the first place. If Rickon wasn't so trigger happy he wouldn't even be with them.

"Our time here is almost up." Arya explained as she stood and began to pull items from her backpack. She placed a pair of clear glasses like the rest of them were wearing in front of Gendry. The last thing they needed was for someone to get shot in the eye. Bran was too fond of hitting people with head shots to risk anything.

She put a walkie in front of him and tapped it with one finger. "Channel three." they used their phones for the group message but Arya wanted to be able to get a hold of her team in tight situations without worrying that a stray ringtone would give them away.

Lastly, she pulled a smaller paintball gun than the ones the rest of them were armed with out and handed it to Gendry. One of the few perks of being on the lesser manned team was the extra gun and ammo. Everyone else had to work off one gun each and a limited supply of ammo. Although, Arya supposed now her team did too. Whatever, she always tried to take the paint from the deads' guns before she ran. "You know how to use it?" she asked, waiting for him to nod in confirmation before taking her hands off it.

Gendry looked at the gun in his hands and the supplies Arya had put in front of him. "Were you always planning on finding a fourth?" he asked curiously.

Arya shrugged as Ygritte stood and Rickon pushed Gendry until he got out of the booth as well. "We weren't but it never hurts to be prepared."

The timer on Rickon's phone went off and Gendry swallowed hard as he looked at Arya. He looked as nervous as if he was about to step out into a real battle. Arya was pleased to see that, maybe that meant he would play seriously. She didn't handle dead weight on her team and if she had to shoot Gendry in the back to get the rest of her team to victory, she would.