4I own no characters organizations, etc.
Artemis watched the army doing it's practice skirmishes until the end of free time, it gave him time to analyze what he had heard, the boy had clearly been trying to get a reaction from him; calling his group 'puppies' and his aggressive way of speaking. Artemis took some silent pleasure knowing that the boy had probably left frustrated by Artemis' calm composure when he had likely fantasized about more grim reactions.
Standing there also more importantly gave Artemis enough time to wipe any emotion from his face, he had toyed with the idea of telling Kurt and Holly about the conversation with the older boy, but in the end he knew it would only bring unnecessary stress on the group if it were found out that the bullying would only stop if Artemis left. In fact, his desire to confess to his two friends was entirely selfish of Artemis, he simply did not want to shoulder the burden alone. Artemis wondered what would happen if Gregory Finch, with whom he had just recently created a delicate alliance, would react if he learned of this conversation. Artemis had the image of being thrown out into space head-first, flash through his head. Artemis smiled, the older boy was wrong, he may be the group leader, but his group certainly did not treat him like a king!
Which only brought up more unanswered questions to Artemis' mind; should he leave the battle station? He certainly had no desires to leave and return to his family a failure, but he did feel a twinge of... was it guilt?.. dissatisfaction he decided, over the pain his group would suffer if he stayed. He briefly considered going to the teachers for help but dismissed the notion after some consideration. They knew, they had to know, and yet they did nothing meaning that they would have to deal with this on their own. It made a weird sort of sense really, they were being trained for war after all, and on the battlefield there would be no teachers, no rules. For all Artemis knew this was a common occurrence, the older launchies picking off the younger ones that glanced at them the wrong way. Artemis wondered if the marines down on earth treated their new recruits this way too, they had been kind to him, but he was six, hardly a new recruit and more like a novelty really.
Artemis suddenly noticed he was no longer in the Observation room, his feet had started moving on their own as he was pondering his situation. He recognized where he was as being close to the cafeteria where they ate, so he went in and sat down in the near-empty room. Eventually his eyes fell on the large Screen that was the center of the room, it was positioned so that you would look at it at least once every time you entered the room. Artemis allowed his eyes to scan the board, tracing the names of the best soldiers in every category, Artemis didn't recognize any of them, but he wouldn't being a launchie. His name wouldn't go up there for a few more years if at all, and Artemis found he didn't really care if it ever went up. Did that mean he wasn't fit for the competition of Battle School? No, He just didn't care for recognition... Unless it was from his father.
Artemis shook his head and stood up, his thoughts were just going in circles, like a bug that buzzes by your ear and comes back no matter how many times you swat at it. With a sigh of defeat Artemis went to look for His group, hoping that maybe he might find distraction along with them.
It didn't take long to find them, they were where he expected them to be, up in the games room. Artemis hadn't come to the games room for a few months, the lessened gravity was still a little disorienting, but it wasn't as bad as he had remembered. He wondered if the training in "nullo" or no gravity had anything to do with it. The entire group was together as normal, but it still only took a moment for Artemis to pick out Iris and Kurt from the small crowd. Iris was playing someone in that favorite game of hers, she was winning too by the looks of it. Kurt was spectating a game that the older children played, something fancy with ships and lines of light drawn in the air.
Artemis made his way through the crowd and began approaching his group when a member of the group spotted him and waved him down shouting to the rest "Oh look! Our fearless leader decided to visit us today!" Artemis ignored the mock cheer that arose from the assembled dozen or so boys and studied the face of the boy who had called him out. He was an American boy named James Pinual, there was nothing particular that Artemis remembered about him, he was smart but so was everyone else, he did alright in the battle room but nothing spectacular. James had never really been close to any of the boys in their group and as Artemis studied his grinning face, he detected no malice from the boy and so dismissed his outburst quickly.
It didn't take Artemis long to establish himself among his friends, as he watched his team mates play various games. Doing so, Artemis found the distraction he was looking as he studied his team mates and learned about them by what and how they played in the game room. Bruno for instance; played almost exclusively single player games and rarely would choose to be confrontational in them. Gregory was more inclined to play games that did not have many complicated pieces and would master the use of a few pieces to try and win. James, Artemis learned, was very competitive in the games he played, and was also very good. If given a few moments to study his opponents pieces he almost always came up with a near perfect counter strategy.
After watching for a few minutes, it occurred to Artemis that James didn't play very often and when he did it was almost never with members of his group. Artemis assumed this was because the members of the group already knew better than to go against him. This was confirmed by Kurt when he asked him about it "Ya, I play him every now and then to practice, and while I can guess what he is going to do accurately, I can't figure out a way to prevent it." Artemis and Kurt watched as James finished off his opponent's last piece. "Why don't you give him a try Artemis?" Kurt suggested nudging Artemis with his elbow. Artemis didn't think it was a good idea, but Iris soon got into it as well and Artemis ended up being herded into the seat across from James.
Because Artemis wasn't familiar with the game, James took a few minutes to explain the game mechanics to Artemis. It was basically a chess-like version of the battle room, where the holo-board was 10x10x10 giving a total of 1000 spaces where pieces could occupy. Each player was then given 40 identical pieces to surround their "goal" which took up the four spaces in the center of the side closest to them. The players would then take turns moving their pieces around the board and attacking each other with the goal to fill the four squares of your opponents goal with four of your own pieces while preventing the opponent from doing the same to you.
In the beginning of the game it was simply a competition of attrition as they both lost pieces quickly in their struggle to gain the upper hand. The game soon slowed down to the point of taking a few minutes between each move and Artemis began understanding what Kurt had meant by not knowing how to prevent James' moves, so Artemis didn't try to, every turn Artemis would change his strategy and James would adapt to counter it. This in itself proved to be very effective as Artemis slowly gained an upper hand when James' pieces began to be spread too thin. James seemingly realizing this, began suicide missions into Artemis' territory, until each player was left with only three pieces each. A tie.
There was a collective sigh released from the audience that Artemis only now realized they had watching them. From the murmurs in the crowd Artemis could tell that most of the group were disappointed that Artemis hadn't won, but they didn't really understand. Artemis glanced towards James who still had his face down turned studying the holo-board; Artemis had won, he had forced James to use a move that guaranteed neither person would win. If the game had continued how it had before Artemis would have been victorious.
Kurt approached Artemis with a silly grin across his face and gave Artemis a hand up before clapping his hand on his shoulder in congratulation. He at least had been able to keep up with what had happened in the game. The rest of the room had begun emptying out as free time was almost over, Artemis and Kurt joined Iris who was impatiently waiting for them by the door before going to class. As Artemis walked to class with his friends and team-mates surrounding him, his mind only once wandered to his problems with the older boys. It was a rest he would find rare in the coming weeks.
As promised the bullying from the older boys did not go away, but it didn't increase either which was a silent blessing on Artemis' mind. Only Artemis himself seemed immune to the bullying as even Iris would mention having her computer hacked into or lunch tray being knocked out of her hands, nothing too direct of course, she was too intimidating for that. Artemis would try to help where he could setting up computer security for his teammates and whatnot, but it did little to ease the guilt that he felt. He was so preoccupied by it that even his studies started to suffer as he fell behind in some of the more challenging classes; star maps and whatnot. On various occasions his teachers had even asked him to stay extra time to recover some material or talk about his performance on a test. It was after one of these "talks" that Greg approached him alone in the hallway.
He was waiting outside the classroom leaning against a wall, which he quickly shoved off of to stand up straight when Artemis appeared. "A word sir" Was all he said.
Artemis studied his face but saw no hint of emotion in his features. That in itself was a solid clue when it came to Greg Finch, who normally had his mind written across his face. Combined with the semi-official use of the term 'sir' which Artemis had never required from his launchie group, made Artemis fairly certain that he knew what this conversation would be about. "Of, course" Artemis replied casually turning down a corridor "Walk with me"
Greg silently obeyed as he began walking next to Artemis down the long corridor that curved around the ship. He remained silent for a few moments, which felt like minutes to Artemis, as he gathered his words together. "I was... uhh... asked to deliver a message to you..." He paused a moment to glance over at Artemis who wore no expression. "Some of the older launchies say that you should make up your mind faster" Greg was staring at Artemis now, and his face seemed shocked as Artemis only nodded in response. Because of his shock or perhaps because he was tired of walking Greg suddenly stopped "What does he mean by that?"
Artemis stopped as well a few steps away from Greg, he didn't turn to face him though, he didn't want to be watching Greg's face right now. "I think you already know" Artemis felt like a rubber band was being stretched inside his chest, he was hoping that this conversation would happen with Kurt or Iris, but not with Greg. Of course he knew that it would be impossible to keep everything a secret but he had expected to at least make some plan to solve the problem before anything else happened. With Kurt or Iris that would be enough, but with Greg... he didn't know what to expect from the large boy with whom his alliance was shaky at best.
Artemis heard a sigh come from behind him and he pictured Greg looking down at the floor "Yeah, we guessed it was something like that." Artemis turned to look at Greg, his voice sounded sad as if he had just heard some really bad news. He was leaning against the wall with his arms folded and his brow furrowed. "Me 'n Kurt have been talking and we figured that there must be a reason why they weren't targeting you, after all you are the smallest member of our group neh?" Artemis was surprised by the information, he hadn't known that Greg and Kurt were so close, it made sense though, Kurt was close to everyone. "I figured that the only reason for that was that they were actually targeting you through us" Greg chuckled a strange knowing laugh. Finally he looked up at Artemis, his face quite calm "So what is it they want then?"
Moment of truth then; "They want to me to ice myself" Artemis prepared for the response that was sure to follow, the push to do as they say, the rejection.
It didn't come, Greg looked back down at the floor and furrowed his brow again, Artemis realized that he must furrow his brow like that when he was trying to concentrate. Finally after several moments of silence Greg spoke "Well we can't have that" Artemis' shock must have spread to his face, because Greg laughed and in a few strides put his arm around Artemis' shoulders "What? You didn't expect us to push you off into space did you? Wasn't it you who said 'we are a team'?" Artemis remembered the statement from several months past but he hadn't expected Greg to. "So what are you going to do?"
Artemis shrugged, the weight of Greg's arm across his shoulders was strangely comfortable. "To be honest I have been wondering if I shouldn't just leave, there isn't much I can do here anyway."
Greg's face went serious and his brow furrowed again as he seemed to seriously consider the option. "Do you know why I didn't like you when we first got here?" He said suddenly, Artemis hadn't really thought much about it. "Back home... on earth, I mean. I'm a third, got two older brothers both as brilliant as all heck, then the government comes and tells my parents to have me as well. Being a third isn't a whole lot of fun I think, but no matter how much people at school bugged me about it, my brothers were always worse, ya'know?" Greg smiled at Artemis as if it was funny "O'course they were clever about it, they would do things like bang on the walls at night so I couldn't sleep, or force me to do things I didn't want to right in front of everybody. So when I got here I figured it was a new life ya'know? Where everyone was like me, and no one was better than me neither." Greg let out a sigh "Then you came along, and I know it's silly, but I saw you as being just like my brothers. But it was different this time because I was the bigger one so..." He let that sentence just die off but Artemis understood what he meant.
"But then you stood up for me and I realized that just because you're my leader, doesn't mean you're my enemy." Greg had a huge smile on his face as he made this last revelation "In hindsight I don't really think I would want to be the leader, I wouldn't even know what to do." This time it was Artemis' turn to laugh.
"You think I do?"
Greg shrugged in response. "You got no complaints here" A silence past between them as a new understanding passed between them, sometimes Artemis forgot that they were all just kids. Though he doubted regular kids down on earth talked about things like this. "So... what are you going to do?" Greg finally ventured. Artemis still didn't know so he just shrugged in response, which incited another chuckle from Greg. "Well why don't we go talk to Kurt and everyone? I think they will all be a little more understanding than you give them credit." Greg turned Artemis towards their room and began walking back with him.
"I guess miracles happen" Artemis grinned his vampiric smile, after all one had just happened right? They made their way back towards the room their group shared, but didn't manage to make it all the way back when They spotted Kurt running towards them a serious look on his face and a piece of paper in his hand. He wasn't out of breath when he got there which was a credit to the good shape he was in. No words were exchanged between them as he silently handed the small paper to Artemis.
The paper had Artemis' name across the top and a single line written on it. Report to my office immediately. -Col Graff
Chapter End
Hey everyone! Long time no see... let's not talk about that.
So here is the new chapter. It actually has been done for almost two months so... sorry. However the next chapter WILL be up within the next two weeks. so stay tuned!