"Help off the island?" Jacob beat me to the question.
"Yes," Cristal responded, "We've seen that you two and your team, as well as the other 2 teams that were with you, are already capable of completing an orange portal."
I'm pretty sure a third of us would have died that day, I thought, relieved that it didn't happen."
'You mean how I saved them,' Rose transmitted.
'You definitely did help with the stopping time and all, but I was the one who did the heavy lifting and paid the price.'
"Not sure if you heard this," she continued, taking a pause, "but a white gate has recently appeared in California, near the capital."
A white gate??!! I'm pretty sure we went over the white gate in a lesson with Mr. Agric, but. Aaaaaahhhgggg! I can't remember, but I do know it was something serious.
'Could you not shout. It's annoying.'
"If you do decide to join us, which I suggest you do, we'd be operating in the east."
I glanced at Jacob, noticing his concerted expression. Hmm, what is my opinion on this? I don't see a reason to go off the island. This life now is pretty comfy. Why would anyone want to change it? Although, she did say the east, meaning that we'd be going to the pacific islands. But also, why come to us-
"We'll have to speak with the rest of our team about this," Jacob said, snapping me out of my thinking. "Is there a deadline?"
"As soon as possible would be preferred, but you have a week and a half to give me an answer."
Jacob nodded, "thank you."
She nodded back.
"Alright, let's go," she said, smiling to Blaze as she walked past him.
He smiled back and walked back over to us, noticing that more people began to populate the area. "Is it that time already?"
Could he be considering it, I thought as she turned back to the 3 others laughing with Blaze.
I looked around as well, "Looks like today's training has ended," and the song must be attracting them over here.
"The sun's going down as well," Blaze pointed out, remembering that he has to investigate today. "It was fun relaxing with you two, but I have something to do now. See ya."
"Goodbye," we replied, seeing him disappear before our eyes.
"He's right," Jacob said with a puzzled face, "let's go find Ophelia and Stella before it gets too dark."
We headed out of the increasingly crowded area and back past the game room.
"Where do you think we'll find Stella and Ophelia," I asked.
"Not sure, but we'll meet back up again at dinner starting in around 35 minutes. Until that time." He paused to look at me, "do you want to play some Basketball."
The Gameroom's Basketball court was entirely indoors. Light brown wood lay the floor with the first 6-7 feet of the walls patted with caution as the rest of the walls, but one, shine a bright white with animal patterns imprinted on them.
We changed out of our casual clothes and into shorts and a Plain white t-shirt.
"Half-court or full court," he asked.
"It's only us 2, so half-court should be fine."
After around 10 minutes of me blocking and missing some shots, the score was 15 Jacob to 12 myself.
"Hey," we heard a guy's voice come from outside the court, "Mind if I join."
We turned to look at the guy standing behind the fence that outlined one side of the court. It was the same guy that argued with Stella on the boat ride to the island.
He didn't seem like a bad guy, even though I only had a bad experience with him. I'm sure he was just standing for what he believed in.
"Yeah, sure," Jacob invited him.
"I know we started off on the wrong foot," He continued, "but I just saw it as something wrong, you understand, right."
"That's respectable," Jacob Chest passed the ball to him, then turned to me. "Let's play 3 player house, but only with shots past the 3-pointer line."
We both agreed and began the game.
"By the way, I never caught your name," I brought up as I made a backboard shot from the half-court line.
"It's David. Your's?" He dribbled the ball back.
"Max," I said.
"Jacob," He followed.
"Nice to meet you two." He shot and made the same basket.
"Is there a reason why you're here by yourself?" Jacob grabbed the ball.
"Yeah," he sighed, "my other teammates, some beauties, preferred to relax in the park before dinner gets started. Why are you guys here?"
"I wanted to work up an appetite," I said, watching Jacob make a shot with the ball.
"Me too," Jacob added, "We got the day off today, but I don't like being inactive even for a day."
"Ohh, so that's why I didn't see you today."
He got the ball and backed up farther from the half-court line. He launched the ball, causing it to hit the rim, bounding away from the hoop after hitting the backboard.
"So how was it," he continued, "the other side, I mean."
"Eventful," I softly jerked my head.
"Did you guys reach the border limit?"
"I did," Jacob answered, "it was the farthest border of the small town I went to. Remember Max?"
I nodded, and we continued our game until dinner was beginning to be served, after which we washed our sweat off in the showers they had and headed back to the cafeteria.
Once there, David headed to his group table. We grabbed our food and went to ours.
"Why are you two talking to him?" Stella questioned us, clearly frustrated.
"Stella, it isn't a big deal," Ophelia said, reasoning with her, "that happened more than 2 weeks ago."
"Yeah, c'mon Stella," Jacob agreed, "don't hold a grudge over an argument."
"Are you serious? Max, you agree with me?" She looked at me as I took sips of my cinnamon tea.
I ignored her as her stare grew more impatient.
"I order you to agree with me," she whispered in my ear.
"No," I quickly and sarcastically replied, "and don't use cheap tricks to get aahhgg-"
My back began to burn.
"Fine, yes, I agree," I quickly blurted out.
"See," She cheerfully expressed, running her small hands through my hair, "Max agrees with me. Nice baseball hat too."
"Thanks."
"Anyways," Jacob interrupted, "we have an important matter to discuss."
"Go on," she said, biting into a strawberry.
"Earlier, we were approached by a slayer named Cristal, who offered us a position to help off of the island, and I'm assuming onto the pacific islands."
"Did they ask us because we went to the other side," Ophelia asked after swallowing her food.
"That's what I guessed too. What other reason could it be?"
"Our point rankings," Stella added.
"That is true," he continued, "but remember we are only one section of the island. There are 3 more sections that they could have chosen from, so the point ranking alone wouldn't make complete sense, but I can see where you're coming from."
"We weren't the only team, too," I broke my silence, "the others we were with probably got approached as well."
"I didn't want to make a decision without discussing it with the rest of you, so I waited until now, and you can have some time to think about it. The deadline is in a week and a half. I personally am in favor of it."
You can't be serious, I thought. Who would want to disrupt this luxurious life we have.
'I'm in favor of it too,' Rose softly transmitted.
'Did I ask you?' I responded, annoyed by his comment.
'No, but I believe I should have a say in this.'
'And what makes you think that?'
'We share a mind.'
'MYY MIND, ITS MY MIND, YOU'RE RENTING.'
'Relax, calm down, I get it.'
"I think it's best if we take some time on that decision," Stella concluded. "Unlike this island, I have no information on what goes on in the pacific islands."
"Thought so," Jacob looked at Ophelia and me, "either of you needs more time."
Ophelia looked at her food, then answered, "yeah, I'll need more time."
"Same here," I followed up.
After we finished our dinner, we stayed in the cafeteria, watching the news about the white portal appearance on the wall-mounted TVs as chatter and gossip filled the cannery.
Once 8:30 pm rolled around, we headed back up to our room.
"There's a new message here," I pointed out the new paper that came through the messenger shoot, picking it up.
"Well, read it," Stella stated the obvious.
I unrolled the paper and readout, "In just under 2 weeks, I Mr. Zackson will be holding a tournament between the top 3 teams of each section in which each ranked team will battle the group of the same rank in the other branches. An example: a team ranked 2nd will only battle the other teams that are ranked 2nd.