-Tag-

Darin led us through the alleys toward an abandoned warehouse.

"Are you sure this is alright?" I asked, noticing the condemned sign on the window.

"Sure. Perfectly fine" he said as he walked through the main door.

I had my doubts, but went inside anyway. We walked through a few corridors until we reached what appeared to be a locker room with a bunch of large wooden crates inside.

When all the troopers were inside, Darin said "Both platoons are going to need to work together and trust each other in a battle situation. So we're going to split up into random teams with troopers from each side." He pulled out a fancy looking pyramid. "Seth here has all your names in a list. He's gonna put you into two equal teams. On each team, you will also be put into five-man squads that are also randomly chosen. That doesn't mean that you can only work with them. You can arrange your squads however you want. If you want three squads pushing up, one squad acting as reconnaissance, or put all on defense or offense, that's fine. You guys will have to make decisions in the field. This will give me a much better understanding of who you are and what you do best."

"This is highly insulting. I am meant to be used for so much more."

Did the pyramid just talk?

"Well, you're going to be used for this today."

"Why can't you leave me out of this?"

Yep. The pyramid was talking.

"Would you rather be a doorstop?"

The pyramid huffed and two large lists popped up.

"Thanks Seth. Troopers, find your names. Red team to my right, Blue team to my left."

We moved towards the lists in an orderly fashion. Quickly, the two sides started filling up. When I got to the list, I skimmed through the names as I tried to find mine.

There. Red team, squad eight. I was paired with Brick, Mouse, Stan, and Toby. Toby was the only one I knew. I jogged over to the rest of my group.

"Captain! Glad you're here!"

I nodded at the freshie and we quickly got introductions out of the way.

When all the troopers were sorted, Darin continued. "Now that we are all sorted out, let's get into what we're doing. We're going to have a battle. Red versus blue. Out there is an arena. It is going to change each game. Your job is to beat the other team. You all will need to rely on each other to win. You need to come up with a strategy on your own." He opened a box and pulled out some buckets. "Lastly, we will be playing dyeball. I have equipment for each team and enough ammunition to lay siege to a planet. I've got a lot of different weapons here, so when choosing your weapons, just do whatever feels right." The crates behind him all flew into the air, opened, and came to us. "What are you waiting for? Get suited up."

The armor covered our entire bodies. Well, armor may be a bit strong of a word. It was more like a really light suit meant to keep us from getting dye all over us and that seemed to have some electrical gizmos connected to it. The helmets looked like normal helmets. Probably imitation helmets people used for dyeballing. After donning some gear, I went to arm myself. My choices seemed to be a repeating blaster, blaster pistol, blaster rifle, scattershot, and a range rifle. Most of these weapons I have never used, but since they are options here I'm assuming that we will be using them in future battles. Since we could have two weapons, I opted for the blaster rifle and a scattershot. I don't know what it is exactly but it looks cool. If I had to guess, it would fire a bunch of stuff at once and the shots would scatter, making it powerful at close range. I then went to another crate and found some dye nades and what looked like a brush that was in a sheath that had red dye in it. I tried to figure out what it was until it hit me. It was a knife. I've never used a knife in a combat situation, but figured what the heck. Why not try something new. Stan was to my right. He was holding the range rifle, which looked to me like a sniper's rifle, and had a blaster pistol holstered. Past Stan I could see Brick. He had blaster pistols and instead of getting a second gun or a knife he decided to carry as many nades as he possibly could. To my left was Toby, who held a scattershot and a range rifle. Past him was Mouse. Mouse carried a repeating blaster and got as much ammo for it as possible. Together, we probably looked like a ragtag group of civs who've never seen a day of real combat in their life.

When everybody was ready, Darin opened the door. In front of us, I could see what looked like a city block. There were roads with vehicles on them and buildings that you could go into. These buildings had what appeared like three floors, and each floor had what appeared to be ways to cross across to other buildings over the roads. There also seemed to be some construction equipment that looked to be on the brink of falling and crushing us. Fun.

"Alright. Red, to the right corner. Blue, to the left corner. When everybody gets there, I'll sound an alarm and you guys will begin. Sound good?"

We all nodded and went our separate ways.

I got to our corner with Brick, Stan, Toby, and Mouse and looked around. The corner had paths to the left, right, and stairs to go up.

As I tried to think of what was the best way, a loud horn went off and most of Red team ran in random directions. Squad 8 was one of only two squads that stayed put, the other being Squad 3. All eyes turned to me, as if expecting me to make a decision.

"I say we go upstairs." Nobody argued with me, so I ran up the stairs and the other men followed me, like sheep to a shephard. I decided to go all the way up because there was already a team on the second floor bridges. As we were in the stairwell, I could make out the distant sound of guns going off. I ran the rest of the way up in an effort to see if I could see what's going on. When I got to the top, I found that the arena was much bigger than I thought. Each of the buildings seemed to have an exterior color scheme. I couldn't see the source of the firing through any openings.

"Okay, Stan and… what's your name?" I pointed at another man with a range rifle.

"Thorn" said the freshie.

"Okay, Stan and Thorn, take positions here and here." I pointed at two windows on opposite sides that gave them a view of the streets as well as the buildings around them. "Shoot anything blue."

They nodded and took up positions.

"The rest of you, come with me. We're gonna take the bridge right here to the next building."

When I was halfway across the bridge, a shot whizzed past me, missing my face by a few centimeters.

I yelled "Move!" and sprinted to get off the bridge before the sniper could get another shot.

"Thorn! Got a visual?" These helmets even have the comm channels like regular helmets.

"Yea. Just waiting for him to peek his pretty lil head out again."

As we surveyed the streets from our position, a squeaking noise from downstairs caught my attention. It sounded like someone was walking up the stairs. I reached for a nade and was about to throw it when I thought of something.

"Red team, anybody inside the purple building?"

"Yes. Squad 5 approaching."

I lowered my arm and breathed a sigh of relief. That could have been bad.

"Squad 5, this is Squad 8 and Squad 3. Upstairs is secure. We're coming down." I jogged down the stairs with most of the guys following. Toby stayed back to cover the roads.

When we reached Squad 5, I noticed that there were only two people.

"We got ambushed by some Blues in the yellow building" he said before I could ask. That must have been the gunfire I heard earlier.

"How many were there?"

"At least four squads. They're holed up good. Right across the bridge." He pointed to the bridge on the right, and I noticed a ton of blue dye on the part of the wall that was visible from the bridge.

"Brick, Mouse, you're up. And you." I pointed at a trooper from Squad 3 who had a blaster rifle.

"You're are gonna lay down suppressive fire to let Mouse and Brick go on the bridge. Then you two will clean up the top floor. I'm gonna lead the rest of us with an attack from the bottom. We'll use the vehicles as cover to get across. Then we'll hit them right as they get hit up top. Stan, Thorn, Toby. You hearing me?"

"Yea."

"Is the sniper taken care of?"

"Yes sir. His pretty blue bonnet got a nice red coat."

"Good. I need Stan and Thorn to come to the building with Toby. We need you three to cover for snipers when we are moving across the ground. Then I need you to cover the third floor of the yellow building so that you can take down blues we corner up there."

"Got it."

"Great." I sprinted downstairs and the six remaining troopers followed me. We got to the doorway and were met with a fusillade of dye. One member from squad 3 got hit in the chest. His suit beeped and a big red X appeared. Hands raised, he went back to our corner of the arena.

One of Squad 5's troopers chucked a nade across the street. It didn't make it into the room, but the explosion of red gave us an opportunity to get behind a few vehicles into the road. Dye balls started flying past us at high speed. From their trajectory, I could tell that they were coming from surrounding balconies.

"Thorn, Stan, Toby! We got snipers around us and we're exposed!"

"Toby's down. I got one of them down when they shot at you."

"And the other?"

"I'll keep him occupied so Thorn can get to a better angle. He won't be popping up."

I grabbed a nade and blindly threw it in the general direction of the blues. If I popped my head up, I knew I would get mowed down.

"Brick and Mouse, Now!" I yelled as we ran the final stretch into the room. The room quickly became a slaughterfest. Apparently my nade made it inside so I managed to take out a large portion of the defenses there in one swoop. The rest who took cover were dispatched rather easily. With the downstairs taken, I started to move upstairs. I peeked around the edge of the staircase and almost got hit in the face by a shot from Mouse's repeater blaster. There was cover up here that blue was using to their advantage. When the repeater blaster finally ran out of ammo, the blues started peeking up to return fire. I tried to shoot them before they got their shots off, but I was too late. Mouse and the guy from Squad 3 got hit. The raid on the first floor took the remainder of Squad 5 and one guy from Squad 3. So Including me, we have six guys left.

"Thorn. How're things?"

"Stan got hit, but I got the sniper. And nobody came to floor three."

Make that five guys.

I turned to the two remaining men from Squad 3. "Names?"

One said "Brock" and the other said "Q".

"Got it. Squad 8 and Squad 3, you copy?"

I heard yes from all. "Good. I hear shots in the road behind this building. That's our next target. Thorn, can you get a visual?"

"Just a sec. And… got it. There are a few reds fighting a lot of blues. No snipers that I can see. You guys going in?"

"Yea. Come on." I peeked into the street and quickly assessed the situation. About three squads worth. Most of the blues took a defensive spot behind some vehicles. There was one straggler though who was standing behind a vehicle that was farther back than the others. From the look of things, nobody was aware of our presence. Perfect.

"Stay hidden until I make a move. Thorn, I'm counting on you to protect me."

"On it."

I quietly crept out and over to the straggler. The goal was to knife him so that I could get behind one of their vehicles. There was no cover on the way there, so drawing attention would be suicide. The knife was silent. As soon as I knife, he'll make noise, then the other guys will pop out and distract them. I hope.

I tried to stay as quiet as possible as I got to him. I was out in the open, so if anybody turned around I would go down. Thankfully the few reds were doing a great job of distracting them.

I got to the guy and quickly took him down, then dropped to the ground and hugged the vehicle as blue realized I was here and started shooting in my direction. The cacophony of projectiles hitting the vehicle was deafening. I waited for the rest of Squad 8 and 3 to come out, but nothing. Only Thorn was taking shots at them.

"Guys!" I yelled.

That's when Squad 8 and 3 showed up. And that's when I realized how stupid my plan was. I realized that Brock and Q had scattershots, which would be ineffective at that range, and Brick didn't even have a gun. All he could do was lob nades, which would catch me in the blast.

That's fantastic. I took my rifle and blindly started shooting in the general direction, hoping that I wouldn't get hit. My only goal was to buy time so that Brock and Q could move close enough. I ran out of ammo, and the shooting resumed, with Brock and Q both going down.

"I'm out of ammo" Thorn reported.

Oh boy. There was only one hope left.

"Brick, throw a nade. Don't worry about me."

"Yes sir." He reared back and gave a beautiful toss down the street to where everybody was. I watched the red ball arc through the air. When it landed, a huge explosion of red engulfed me and the rest of blue, ending the firefight right there. I shook some red dye off and looked down at the large X on my chest.

Just then, a large horn went off and I heard Darin through the speakers around the arena. "Congrats Red team! You have won the round!"

I spotted Thorn as he jumped down from the building he was in, using the different platforms to parkour his way down.

"Hey. For a freshie, you're not that bad."

He grinned. "You're not too bad yourself, old-timer."

"Hey now."

He laughed. I like this guy.

We all made our way back to the room with the crates where Darin was and got back in the groups we were in.

"Congratulations everyone. I'd say you did pretty well for a first time. We're gonna keep the same squads as before. The environment is changing as we speak, so you guys will have a whole new place to duke it out. Feel free to change the weapons you.." He trailed off and started looking around. "Defensive formation. To the door."

Instinctively, we all turned and dropped down on one knee, with every gun pointed at the door.

We probably look really stupid. What good are all these dyeballing guns against an actual threat? Are we gonna drown them in paint?

Darin ignited his saber and stepped in front of us towards the door. The blue blade would certainly attract the attention of whomever was coming.

A figure dropped down from somewhere up above (which is a terrible strategy but I won't complain), and my finger went right to the trigger, as did everyone else's. The figure was wearing blue and orange armor, and had blasters in hip holsters.

When the figure dropped, Darin raised his saber, ready to strike. Then, he retracted the blue blade and shook his head. "I told you to stay in the room."

A clearly female voice responded. "I got bored."

Darin smiled. "You're wearing your armor again."

"It felt like the right thing to do." She looked behind the General at us. "So this is the welcoming committee?"

"Oh." He turned to us."Stand down."

We got off our knees and put the blasters away. I walked over to where Kravhenn and the flying lady were standing and took off my helmet.

"Sir."

"Oh. Right. Tag, meet Sadie. Sadie, Tag."

Sadie took off her helmet and reached to shake hands. She appeared to be slightly younger than Darin was. And she was attractive. Darin's ladyfriend, perhaps? He did mention a room.

But Jedi weren't allowed to have those kinds of relationships.

"Nice to meet you" she said with a smile.

"And you too ma'am. Sir, how do we get all of this off before the next game?"

"Don't worry. The suit has monitors to tell you if you get hit, and if the amount you got hit is enough to take you down in a real battle. If it is, you get the X."

"Yes sir, I get that. But the dye? Don't these need to be clean?"

"No, they have the X for the-"

"Jeez Darin. You suck at this." She turned to me and said "No. They're yours."

I looked in surprise at Sadie, then at Darin. In my experience, Jedi never took insults from anyone except other Jedi. There was something with these two.

Unfortunate, really. I wouldn't have minded having a shot with her.

I said "Thank you ma'am" before going to the others to get ready for the next match.

-Darin-

"You know, I could have said that" I said as Tag left.

"But you didn't. And you were taking too long."

We stood in silence for a little and watched them horse around before the match. The freshies were already starting to show their distinct personalities. I could sense the differences in the Force.

"So why are you here?"

I could tell this question made her uneasy.

"What would you do if somebody told you to do something as part of their dying words?"

Oof. Her grandpa huh?

"I'd do it."

"What if it goes against everything he's ever said before?"

"It depends on what it is. But maybe they find themselves to be wrong in the end. Why?"

She nodded. A button on a remote in my pocket beeped. I pushed it, the doors opened, and the guys spilled out into the arena. I gave it twenty seconds, then I pushed the button for the horn.

"May I ask what he said?"

She thought about it, and I could tell she was wrestling with whether she should or shouldn't tell me. Finally, she said "He told me that he wanted you to train me. He didn't care if I needed to join. He wanted the best for me. He wanted me safe."

Tentatively, I asked "Are you gonna do it?"

Almost grudgingly, she said "I think so."