Behind her, Ember heard the sound of wood splintering as the branch gave way to the elephant’s strength, but she knew that he had no chance of catching her. Now that the navigator had shown her the path between the bases, there was nothing to stop her as she sprinted over the uneven terrain, calling upon her experience training in the forest with the reptiles and the agility gifted to her by her mutations. 

She burned with adrenaline, the pain of her injuries left somewhere behind her. The cold stung her face and branches clutched at her uniform, but she was an unstoppable force, her footfalls punctuated by the flag snapping wildly in the wind. Lance appeared by her side, the bottom half of the broken flagpole held in his arms like a pike. They fed into each other’s energy, sprinting over fallen trees, rolling roots, and frigid streams with perfect synergy.  

They were halfway to the base when Ember’s infrared detected a group of Linnaeans ahead. She almost shouted a warning to Lance, but his nose was already pointed in their direction, twitching furiously. 

They plowed into the group at full tilt. The members of the Blue Team were deep in some sort of dispute, and Ember and Lance took them by surprise—by the time they caught on, Lance had dispatched two of them, duel-wielding the broken end of the flagpole and his knife. 

Ember was already halfway past the group when she spotted Jisu in its center, the orange flag grasped in her fist. She was favoring one leg, no doubt Gunther’s doing. Not bad, Ember acknowledged.  

Ember evaded an attempt to grab her, keeping an eye on Jisu and watching as her face took on a furious expression. The panther shoved the orange flag into her teammate’s hand, shouting at him to run for the base, and took off after Ember. 

Ember sped up, glancing around for Lance, but the other offensive members of the Blue Team had collected themselves enough to keep him occupied. Meanwhile, Jisu was bearing down on her, the advantage of her leg injury nullified by the fact that Ember had to run carrying the flag. Still, Jisu was first and foremost her friend, and Ember couldn’t resist adding fuel to the fire. “Must’ve hurt you to give that up, huh?” she yelled as she ducked underneath a leaning tree.

“Looks like Craig did a number on you,” Jisu shot back, presumably talking about her team’s defender. 

“H-hardly,” Ember panted, no longer needing to yell—they were neck and neck, now, and Jisu made an exasperated noise as Ember evaded her grasp. But barely a second later, the tip of the flag caught in a net of hanging vines, stopping her dead in her tracks. 

“Oof!” she exclaimed as Jisu tackled her bodily to the ground. They rolled in a tangle of limbs, the flag caught up between them. Jisu extracted herself first, snatching up the flag, but Ember yanked her back down by her shirt. 

A melee followed. Ember was the better grappler by far, but she couldn’t manage Jisu and the flag at the same time, and the panther’s only objective was to stall for time. She had gone feral, writhing underneath Ember’s grasp, sharp claws puncturing scale and skin. 

Ember struggled to create space between herself and Jisu. Sensing her intention, Jisu threw herself forward, her head connecting painfully with Ember’s nose. Her face dripping with blood, Ember bucked her hips and swung her legs around Jisu’s neck in a triangle choke. Jisu sank her teeth into Ember’s calf, and Ember felt a warm spurt of blood beneath her pant leg. 

Ember tightened her grip. The panther’s attempts to stand up were negated by Ember’s weight advantage, and she was rapidly turning red in the face “Stop… struggling!” Ember panted, “It’ll be over in a second!”

With characteristic stubbornness, Jisu fought until the very end. Then, finally, her eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped onto Ember. 

Ember dragged herself out from underneath her friend, staggered to her feet, and collected the flag. She repositioned the unconscious Jisu into a more comfortable position, then took off toward the base with a limp. 

The Orange Team’s base was in disarray when she arrived. Several planks of the platform had snapped in half, and various blood-stained personal effects were strewn about the clearing. Gunther sat slumped against a tree, but the others were gone, a trail of blood leading back to the neutral zone. 

With a huff, Ember stabbed the broken flagpole into the center of the platform. She folded over with her hands on her knees, the pain returning in full force. She had half-expected something to happen—some firecrackers, or at least a shout of acknowledgment—but there was no such fanfare. What now?

As if he had read her mind, one of Ophelia’s assistants emerged from between the trees, a clipboard in one hand and a bird of prey perched on his shoulder. Ember’s head jerked up—she hadn’t detected a trace of him, and she chastised herself for not scanning the area with her infrared first. 

“Well done,” the TA said, addressing both her and Gunther. He checked his pocket watch, scribbled down the time on a scrap of parchment, and attached it to the bird’s leg with a piece of twine. It took flight, winging north. “I sent the other students back to the neutral zone,” he explained. “Ophelia will do her debriefing there. Ready?”

Ember nodded, dazed but anxious to know who had won. She offered her hand to Gunther, and he begrudgingly took it, allowing her to haul him to his feet. They started the arduous hike back to the ranked complex in silence, Ember’s shirt held firmly to her nose to staunch the bleeding. 

Most of the other students were already accounted for when the three arrived back at the neutral zone. Some sat sprawled on the platform, clutching their canteens as though they were their lifeblood. The medic was treating several injured students, but none of the wounds seemed grievous, especially from a Linnaean perspective. 

Ember waved at Lance, whose shirt was pulled up halfway as the medic bound his ribs with cloth. “Didya get the flag?” he slurred. 

“Thanks to you,” she said, sending him a wary smile.

The last stragglers entered the clearing as Ember took a long draught from her canteen. She sputtered, expelling half of the water—Ophelia’s TA led the group, carrying an irate Jisu piggyback-style. 

The panther said something in his ear, and he deposited her next to Ember. “You should see the medic-” he started, but Jisu held up a hand, looking murderous enough to dispose of him despite the onlookers. He shrugged his shoulders in surrender, retreating to assist with the treatment of the other injured students. 

Jisu sat with her legs stretched in front of her, her arms firmly crossed and a don’t you dare expression on her face. 

Unable to resist, Ember wiggled her eyebrows. “He insisted,” Jisu scoffed, sending a rude gesture in Ember’s direction. “Said my ligament’s probably torn and he’ll take off points if I don’t agree. Self-righteous bastard.” She tilted her head as if seeing Ember for the first time. “Hey, did I break your nose?”

Ember felt up the line of cartilage, but the tissue was too swollen to tell for certain. “Not sure.”

Jisu shrugged. “My bad. Did they say who won?”

“Not yet.” She pointed her chin toward Ophelia, who was examining two slips of parchment. “Soon, though, I think.”

Sure enough, only a handful of minutes passed before Ophelia called for the class’s attention. “I’ll skip the speech on how well you all did,” she said, “I know you’re eager to know who won.” She turned the slips toward them, which Ember now saw displayed two times. “Each TA was present when the flags were planted at their respective bases, so I know these are accurate. Our winner is-” there was a collective intake of breath- “Team Orange, by a small margin.”

The cheer that went up was so loud that if Ember had not seen her team’s wounds with her own eyes, she would have thought they were uninjured. Ember added her own shout to the mix, celebrating both the win and the end of the first round of exams. 

The debriefing devolved into chaos. The Blue Team groaned, asking about their grades, while a couple of Ember’s teammates had taken up chanting her name. “Can I keep the flag?” someone was asking.

“Quiet!” Ophelia shouted, and the voices quickly died down. “Really, now,” she sighed. “No, Billy, you may not keep the flag. To answer the better question, the losing team’s grades will be evaluated on an individual basis depending on participation, strategy, and skill. I have a general idea of what transpired, but rest assured, the TAs and I will be speaking with everyone one-on-one before you leave to record your account of the game.” Her voice softened. “In general, though, you all did very well.”

The drop in morale was palpable as a grumble went up from the students, who were annoyed about their well-earned rest being delayed. 

 “Let’s get a fire going,” Lance suggested after a moment. 

“I’ve got tea leaves,” someone else chimed in. 

“Biscuits, anyone?”

Ophelia seemed to have no issue with them getting comfortable, so tinder was quickly located, a match struck, and biscuits evenly distributed. The classmates gathered together around the small fire, moving only to eat or join the instructors for their interviews, team feuds forgotten. 

Ember sighed, scotting up against a tree trunk and putting her hands behind her head like a pillow. Lance sat next to her, his eyelids quickly falling shut, and Jisu’s shoulder rested against her own.

You know, Ember thought, this isn’t such a bad end to winter, really.