Notes

I own nothing, you will know if that changes as the show will magically come back, from the responses I have gotten people are happy with shorter but quicker chapters so I will keep the chapter a similar length though the updates will still slow slightly due to going back to school and exams.

"Okay, now it's time to partner up." Artie had brought them back into the first room and handed each of the a spare load of paintballs while he spoke. "We are going to have three rounds changing the pairings each time. First round Pete and Claudia vs Myka and Leena." Claudia highfived Pete as she walked over to him already imagining the havoc they could cause together.

After Artie had let them into the area they ran, they had five minutes before a klaxon would sound to announce the start of the game. Artie had told them that there would be various useful items dotted around the course such as more ammo and smaller hand guns, one of which Claudia spotted though didn't mention to Pete as she memorised its location.

"Okay so if we find higher ground then we can try and get them from there." Pete suggested looking at the hill in front of him seeing a couple of areas they could use for cover.

"No think, Myka and Leena will be nothing but tactical. Come on Pete you know Myka better than I do, so you have to know it's true." Pete nodded his head in agreement before looking up and thinking.

"Well how do we beat the most logical person in the world then Claudia?"

"We make logic useless, we go against what we should do and be as spontaneous and sporadic as possible, they can't guess our moves ahead of time if we don't even know them." Claudia smiled thinking of the best ways to cause chaos.

"Claudia you're a genius."

"I know that, that's why I'm here is it not." Before they could start to think of ideas a large klaxon sounded causing Claudia to jump.

"Well if we are being spontaneous I say we hunt them out, they ran in the opposite direction to us and between Myka and Leena one of them would have suggested finding a place with good cover." The two of the started quietly moving through the woods, well as quietly as you could be in the woods. Pete spent half the time standing on branches while Claudia flinched and aimed in his direction every time he did.

"Dude could you walk any louder." She spoke in a harsh wiser while moving towards him.

"Well sorry, not all of us could take ballet lessons, how are you walking so quietly anyways?"

"Years of practice." As Claudia spoke she thought back to when she hadn't been so good at it and shuddered slightly. Suddenly Pete snapping his arm out and catching her as she walked into it he placed her finger in front of her lips and pointed, there was a small cabin in the clearing just in front of them. They stood stock still and watched for a moment when they saw slight movement through the window. Holding her hand to try and tell Pete to stay where he was she quietly moved around the cabin to look for other ways in. Getting back to Pete, who she was relieved to see had stayed where she left him, she crouched down and encouraged him to join her.

"Okay so there is a back door to the cabin as well so if I head round back and you go in through the front we should be able to ambush them."

"Wait, for us to win we just have to have one of us stay paint free right?" Claudia thought for a moment before nodding her head, "Well sending both of us in at the same time seems like a big risk, how about I kick down the door getting their attention and just shoot while you sneak in through the back door and hit both of them before they even notice you're there." She thought carefully about the plan before asking.

"Why am I the one going in through the back? Why not you?" She was already getting nervous about how much of the plan revolved around her, they would loose if she screwed up.

"Well first you're the better shot Miss it's all basic physics and secondly you are much quieter than me so it might actually work." Pete then indicated for her to start to move round before moving himself to find a better position to start from. Claudia was glad that in the back there was only one window so after carefully skirting around the side of the house she ducked under the window before finally reaching the door, quickly checking that it was in fact not locked she stood as quietly as she could waiting for Pete to make his entrance. It only took a second before she heard the crash of a door being kicked down, trust Pete to make a big entrance she thought, quietly as she could she opened the door. As she moved through the small gap she had made she immediately saw Myka and the Leena just to the side both, frantically shooting at Pete who was at this point just stood there taking shot after shot. She quickly brought up her gun shooting Myka in the back before moving slightly to get a better shot at Leena who had started to move after seeing her team mate get shot, she however, was not quick enough as Claudia's bullet caught her dead in the side.

"Suck it." Yelled Pete as he jumped up and down drenched in paint, moving over to high five Claudia who was laughing at the shocked look at the other girls faces . "We win." The two of them were still celebrating as they all made it back to the main building.

Artie watched on as Myka and Claudia together made quick work of Leena and Pete and then Myka and Pete beat Leena and Claudia in a nail bitting match that had taken close to an hour of the two quite evenly matched pairs to catch each other.

Trash talk between Pete and Claudia had continued for five minutes before Artie had managed to get their attention, "Okay, so as you seem to be aware," he looked pointedly at the two still throwing each other looks, "We are playing the free for all game, the last person to be free of paint will win the round and the prize. Same start as before, no shooting until the second klaxon sounds, the klaxon will also sound any time someone is taken out of the game." With that he let them back outside and set them off.

Claudia started running in the direction she and Pete had run during the first round quickly finding the small gun before running to a broken car she had seen during the second round. Shortly after she had heard the second klaxon she was content she had gathered what she needed she found a small cave in the cliff face, which worked as a border for part of the arena, and sat down starting to pull apart the smaller gun. It took her almost fifteen minutes during which time the klaxon had sounded once, getting up and carefully placing her new toy in her belt she started to silently move through the forest. Claudia decided to go past the main building so she could see who was still in play, carefully looking through the window while keeping an ear out for any of the others coming close she wasn't unsurprised to see Leena looking back at her, what did surprise her though was to see the other girl point towards and slightly to the left of Claudia. Taking that as the direction of the other pair she started moving down the hill.

She was over halfway down the hill when she heard the familiar sound of breaking branches coming towards her, quickly clambering up the nearest tree, with as much grace as a person carrying a large rifle could, she lay her body on the branch and brought the gun round into her hands pointing it downwards. As she waited she saw Pete moving into her eyesight, choosing to wait till he was closer and therefore an easier shot she watched, then a movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. Myka slowly came into view and at that point Claudia realised she was stuck, if she shot Pete Myka would surely see her and shoot before she had a chance to aim and the same would happen of she shot Myka. Just as she was accepting that she was going to just have to wait for the pair to either shot one another or move on Myka slowly and quietly, though not quite as quietly as Claudia was, started moving towards Pete to guarantee a good shot. Claudia slowly moved her gun back onto her back and removing the toy she made earlier for her belt, waiting until Pete and Myka were almost completely under the tree she saw Myka's gun start to raise to shoot the completely oblivious Pete. Quickly pulling the pin she let the homemade paint grenade drop, both of them tuned to look at it as it hit the floor with a soft thump before it exploded covering the two of them in the paint Claudia had removed from some spare ammo.

"Yes, I win!"

"What the hell!"

What in gods name was that?" All three of them yelled at the same time, the two on the ground looked up to see where the grenade had come from to be greeted by Claudia half dancing half wriggling still lying on her tree branch.

After Claudia removed herself from the tree the three and made it back to the main building, leaving a trail of paint as they went. Leena burst out laughing as the two paint covered kids followed Claudia in telling her to shut it as she sang "we are the champions", Artie on the other land kept his composure as the trio walked in.

"So what on earth happened then?" He demanded unsure to how the pair could have ended up this covered in paint.

"Claudia she dropped this thing," Started Pete,

"And it exploded paint everywhere." Myka finished for him. Artie looked over to Claudia one eyebrow raised.

"Careful there gramps, the caterpillar above your eye may escape if you let it go too far." Claudia tried to avoid the obvious question as although she was proud of winning she knew the consequences to not following peoples rules.

"What did you make?" Claudia looked down at the ground guiltily and murmured, "Sorry I didn't quite catch that." Artie watched as the girl seemed more and more worried.

"I made a paint grenade, you just said the last person to be free of paint, you never said we had to shoot the others." Claudia's speech increased in speed as she spoke, trying to defend herself.

"Impressive, what was it made from?" Claudia looked up in surprise, she wasn't used to being congratulated on her ingenuity.

"I made a small cylinder from some metal from the broken down car and made holes in it which I plugged with dirt, I then filled it with paint and a CO2 canister from a spare handgun I found with a pin at the top to pierce it. The delay was made with some various parts from the car so after I pulled the pin I had a few seconds before the canister burst forcing the paint out of the holes and onto the two of them." She was beaming with pride by the end of the explanation after having watched all of their faces, they had all looked at her with slight awe. "Okay story time over, what do I get." She started bouncing like a puppy as she looked pleadingly at Artie.

"You'll find out next week, now all of your parents are outside so shoo." He pointed to the door and after they had all left he went to get the recordings of the arena curious to see the construction of the device.

It was nine when they got back to Univille, Leena had asked Claudia for her address but was instead told that she wanted to be dropped of on the high street. Getting out of the car Claudia waved goodbye to Leena before walking into the coffee shop not wanting to let go of the high she was still feeling from earlier and knowing that the applause she got from the crowd here would keep it till the end of the night. And it did, Claudia couldn't remember the last time she had gone to sleep this happy.

Please keep reviewing I love hearing feedback from you guys, as I said up top updates will slow but I will try to get at least two a week up at least until exams end when it might speed up again