SIX

There were many coloured lights as we took our vests and guns. Mark of course removed his tuxedo shirt first.

We were in the green team and met our three partners.

I didn't last a second and I was shot.

Mark was frowning deeply as I went behind the glass wall. He stood still as the other team members were shot one by one.

A person appeared and held him at gunpoint... laser point.

"Freeze or I'll shoot...nah, I'll just shoot."

Before the person's finger pulled the trigger, Mark turned back, held his hand and twisted it up, making the person miss, then shot him with his own laser.

Two people from the yellow team came at opposite sides and their first instinct on seeing a green was to shoot.

The lasers missed as the formally dressed man b- aerialed and shot them both. They furiously left the room and more people entered. He sprinted as they shot and safety rolled over a table, knocking it over in the process.

He used the wooden object as a shield then the people shot while closing in. They got there to see he was gone and looked up, left and right...

Out of nowhere, one was shot and she left, infuriated.

They spotted him and began shooting in succession, but he did a triple windmill turn and dodged all the beams, hand stood on one hand and shot the two closest to him with the other.

The others hid behind obstacles and kept shooting as he ran straight up a wall and did a back barani flip, passing over their obstacles and shooting them.

He landed with a split and rolled on the floor to get closer to the last person who was pathetically missing all her shots.

Mark got close enough to her to intimidate her with the look on his face.

She was both scared and enchanted by his perfect features.

"Please don't shoot me..."

"You shot my little brother.", He said coldly.

Before she could twitch, he had shot her in the heart and she was out.

When he got out, he collided with a short, black haired twelve year-old who was moving at great speeds.

"Mark, you are the coolest little brother ever!"

"Big brother."

"I'm still older than you...how did you do that? With all the jumping and flipping and...you were like freaking Batman!"

"I have been doing parkour for fifteen years now."

"Can you teach me?"

He smirked and said,"It's not easy."

"I can do it."

"Takes a lot of hard work."

"Nothing beats the perseverance of a child."

"You may break some bones."

"You break a leg for good luck."

"Okay, you moved me."

"Yes!!"

We went to the food court after that, I just wondered why they called it that.

As I slurped my Chinese noodles, I asked,"Why do you think they call it a food court?"

"Maybe because this is the place you get sued for eating."

I almost brought noodles from my nose and laughed, though he didn't laugh at his own joke.

I fetched some more of the white ribbons with the chopsticks when he looked at his watch and widened his eyes.

I knew I was delaying him as he had other things to do, so I suggested we left, even without finishing my food.

To my surprise, he didn't get back to work immediately we got home.

The game of chess was intense, half of my pawns were gone, so as a knight and my queen. He took another pawn and it was my turn.

I smiled widely and made a good move, but it played a lot better in my head...

"You can't take a player right in front of a pawn."

"...how about this?!"

"That's not how a knight moves."

"Then this?"

"...are you sure?"

"..."

He might be trying to trick me...

"Yes."

I moved a castle thingy forward and he also moved then said,"Check mate."

I yelled and scattered the board but he lay back in his chair with a goofy smile on his face. Proud of his achievement, beating a kid in chess.

I realized that I had homework to do so got excused.

In my room, the questions lay on the paper and I went through my usual routine of spinning the pencil in my hand before beginning.

I wrote the answers and smiled to myself at how easy they were, till...

2x²-6x+3=8

I scratched my head and looked at the question for some seconds.

Then I gasped and looked at my fingers in horror...that was the first time I had ever done that and I didn't like it.

I ran to Mark's study and timidly said,"Little brother...can you help me with my homework?"

"Okay."

I was mind blown as in this situation, my parents would have said I was becoming lazy and not studying, but not Mark, hoho, he was more mild.

He took a pencil and tried solving it as your average quadratic equation but then stopped.

"I knew it! It's too hard! Child right abuse! It's disgusting, it's..."

"Done."

"H-h-how?"

"Just use the almighty formula."

Almighty formula?

In my mind, it was like some kind of king equation with a sceptre of a long stick with a plus at the top, sitting on a multiplication throne, with a division footstool and a subtraction crown.

"Almighty what?"

"It's just negative B plus and minus the square root of B squared plus four multiplied by A multiplied by C over two multiplied by A..."

It sounded like a whole new language to me.

"...I'm surprised they haven't taught you that yet."

I stiffly nodded as he taught me.

Though I loved him, I was jealous of my little brother. He was a lot cooler, better looking, richer and more fit than I was, and also smarter...