𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 : 4.6k

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𝐂𝐎𝐘𝐎𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐊 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐀𝐍 𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐕𝐄 stretch of land in the middle of a secluded, wooded area. Gwen was actually struggling to find the creek in Coyote Creek. They were still in California, so there was no telling how long ago it may have dried up. But still, she was curious; this is what Sensei Lawrence had been so worried about? The worst part had been the hike up and that was only because a briar had snagged the edge of her favorite LuluLemon leggings.

"Gentlemen..." Kreese started, parting the group in order to walk to the very front. From the back of the group, Gwen loudly cleared her throat. "... ladies." Every pair of eyes followed him, including Sensei Lawrence's wary stare. When he came to a halt, the clusters of red and black headbands in his hands became the star of the show. Gwen's eyebrow ticked upwards in intrigue. "Welcome to Coyote Creek."

Again, Gwen looked around with a disappointed sneer on her face. All she could see were mushy leaves, dead tree trunks that threatened to snap under someone's body weight, and the occasional squirrel darting in and out of view. The curb appeal of this place was underwhelming to say the very least.

"In just a moment, you will sort yourselves into two teams: Red and Black," he continued. "But first, we need team captains."

Four hands shot into the air before he could utter another word.

Kreese's smirk was a little too knowing for Gwen's taste—like he had foreseen this exact situation down to the finest details. She knew she wouldn't dare, but it made her want to lower her hand. And yet, it twitched higher. Eager and desperate, like a kid begging for a chance to answer the teacher's question. "Nichols, Hawk, Diaz, and Villanueva," he noted with a thinly-veiled edge to his voice. But there was just enough genuine pride in it to throw Gwen off slightly. "We've got to go with seniority rules today. Maybe next time, ladies."

Gwen and Tory exchanged annoyed glares across the group, their grumbling thoughts echoes of one another's. Gwen's arm dropped just so she could cross it tightly across her chest in the bristly way she loved so much. Kreese's voice picked up again, bouncing off of each of the nearby trees. "First pick will go to the winner of a coin toss!"

The look that Eli and Miguel shared was abnormally tense, unheard of when it came to those two. Gwen wasn't even sure she could pinpoint what it was that was different about this look specifically—a gleam in their eyes or a charge in the air, maybe? Pretty soon, she found that she was holding her breath, unable to pull a full lungful in until it was resolved.

"Heads or tails?" It was Miguel's voice that filled the forest.

Eli lifted his chin, looking down his nose at his friend. "Heads," he replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

An uncharacteristic hush fell over the group of teenagers as Kreese pulled a quarter from his pocket and flicked it into the air. It landed back on his arm with a ceremonious slap, and when he lifted his hand, he proudly announced to the crowd, "Heads, it is!"

Eli's hungry gaze drifted across the faces in front of him, doing his best to pretend like he was really taking everyone into consideration. But he had already made his choice. And while it might not have been the one that would win Capture The Flag, it would push him ahead in the long-game. "I choose Gwen."

A shard of excitement and shock burst through her chest, freezing her in place. Had Eli really chosen her first or was she just daydreaming again? It wasn't until he theatrically waved her up that she settled into the fact that this really was her reality. Her limbs felt all tingly as she bounced up to stand beside him, her extra-long ponytail swinging. She pressed her lips tightly against one another, doing everything to smother the giddy smile that had shown up unannounced on her face.

It was like Gwen's head was underwater for the rest of the team choices. They could have called the whole thing off and left without another word for all she cared; she was far too aware of every movement from the boy beside her to even notice anything else. She had to fight to keep herself facing forward, every nerve in her body calling for her to look at him, to see if he was looking at her too. She knew it didn't really make sense logistically for him to pick her over everyone else, but somehow, that just made it so much better.

Well, until she came out of her mohawk-induced haze and found out that she was on a team with Aisha, Mikey, a few randos she never bothered to learn the names of, and Chubs—who kept referring to himself as... Shark Fin? Or was it Squid Boy? Maybe it was Sea Otter for some reason? Whatever the case, Eli handed her a bunch of suspiciously-stained, red headbands that matched the one he had looped around his forehead. She reluctantly plucked one from the bunch and passed them on to Aisha. Unwilling to let anything ruin her ten-step skincare routine, Gwen instead chose to loop the red band around her wrist.

While Kreese rattled on about the very simple rules of Capture the Flag, Gwen's eyes met Miguel's from across the narrow, unofficial divide that had formed between the two teams. Aptly, the old man said, "Today, the people across from you are not your friends. They're not your brothers. They are the enemy."

Gwen's lips lifted at the corners, all half-taunting-smirk, half-genuinely-amused-smile. "You are going down," she mouthed, securing the headband around her wrist. His lips pursed like he was trying to contain a grin of his own, his head shaking so subtly she could barely see it.

Then, his eyes dropped. He was studying her, like he was working through every possible scenario in his head, figuring out ways to best her in a fight. Loud enough for the senseis to hear, he asked, "How do we get the headbands?"

"By any means possible. No rules."

Johnny finally spoke up from behind Kreese's shoulder. "Use your judgment. This is just a training exercise."

"Correct, but remember..." Kreese trailed off, tightly clutching one of the leftover red headbands in his grip. "... this is your life. You lose it... you die."

And all of a sudden, Gwen was very sure that she had never played a game of Capture the Flag quite like this one.

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The overhang of branches masked the heat of the day only slightly. Gwen could feel beads of sweat roll between her sharp shoulder blades as she and Aisha trudged through the woods. It was rare for the two of them to get a moment alone. While it may have just been naturally happening that way, sometimes it felt very intentional. The air was heavy and crackling between them, full of words unspoken. Gwen kept her head held high, entirely unwilling to be the first to break the very metaphorical ice. Aisha, on the other hand, was more ballsy than she was.

"So, what changed?" The question would have seemed out of the blue to anyone else, but Gwen had been expecting it in some form or another for weeks. Still, she played dumb before giving anything away.

"Huh?"

Aisha sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes behind her thick-rimmed glasses. "You know how horrible you and your friends were to me at the start of the year," she stated, plainly. "What changed between now and then? Like, why are you in a karate class and walking with me through the woods right now?"

Gwen pondered this for a second, roughly kicking a rock a few feet in front of them. "I dunno. Not that much, actually," she shrugged. "I mean... I'm still in cheer, I'm still friends with Yasmine and Moon, I'm still"—she motioned from head-to-toe as if it went without saying—"like this."

She spotted the way Aisha's upper lip curled in a minor amount of disgust and tried her best not to internalize it. "If anything, I think you probably changed more than I did," she confessed, the sheer honesty scraping at the inside of her throat.

Aisha scoffed, a sound Gwen hadn't been expecting. "Yeah, okay," she shot back, sarcastically.

Instinctively, Gwen's arms crossed over her chest, all tight and curled up despite the overbearing heat. "No, I'm serious. You're... kind of a bad bitch now or whatever," she said with a short chuckle. She stole a peek at Aisha and saw a hint of a smile on her lips. "And like, not to take credit or anything, but... you're welcome. I mean, who knows what could have happened if I never called you Fuglisha?"

The sideways look Aisha spared was dubious, yet mildly amused. "That was mean, y'know?"

"Yeah, I know," she said with a breathy chuckle. "That's why I said it."

Behind them, they heard the rustle of leaves, effectively cutting their conversation short. Merely a few feet away stood Tory, the black headband stark against her light hair. "I was wondering when I was gonna run into you two," she smirked. "You ready to show us what'cha got, Villanueva?"

Anticipation thundered through her chest, her fingers flexing at her sides before curling into tight fists. She glanced at Aisha for a speck of reassurance, only to find that she had already jolted into the fighting position. When she turned back to Tory to deliver a snarky remark, she was just in time to see her foot flying towards her abdomen. It landed solidly, sending Gwen stumbling backwards onto the forest floor.

She could feel the leaves poking her through the thin fabric of her leggings, her big brown eyes looking up at Tory with some level of betrayal in them. Even though she knew this was, like, the whole point of the exercise, she still didn't expect her friend to actually hit her. "Okay, what the hell?" she snapped.

"Are you just gonna lay there or are you gonna actually get up and fight me?"

More disgruntled than anything, Gwen pursed her lips, blew out a hot puff of air, and swung a leg under Tory's feet. With her center of balance completely compromised, she landed in front of Gwen with an ugly thud, hissing through gritted teeth as she rushed to push herself up onto an elbow. "Are you just gonna lay there or are you actually gonna get up and fight me?" Gwen echoed with an added tinge of acidity to it.

Both girls leapt to their feet at once, immediately sending themselves headfirst into a competitive tangle of thrown punches and powerful kicks. It wasn't long before her knuckles were throbbing and her ribs ached with every breath in. Gwen wasn't sure how anyone did this without back-up. Aisha was everywhere she needed her to be, both of them filling in for each other's weak spots. And yet, Tory was still able to hold her own. She threw stinging jabs and kept up a pace that never seemed to falter. Her fierceness was something more than impressive. Inspiring probably would have been the better adjective.

For only an instant, Gwen bounced back on the balls of her feet in order to catch her breath. This movement just so happened to coincide with Aisha lunging forward to snag Tory's headband. But it was like everything was happening in slow-motion; because right as she was in reach to grab it, Tory took the opportunity to rip at the red band that adorned Aisha's head.

An abrupt and stunned silence fell over the three girls as the two of them catapulted away from each other and realized what exactly had happened. They peered between one another in confusion, a black headband in one hand, and a red one in the other. Gwen's, simply by luck of the draw, was still wrapped securely around her wrist. "Holy shit," she giggled in disbelief.

Tory's hands scrubbed over her face as she joined Gwen in her laughter. "I think we literally just canceled ourselves out," she groaned, her head lolling back on her shoulders.

"Dictionary definition of a truce, I guess," Aisha snorted, still catching her breath.

Tory peeked at her out of one squinty eye, illuminated by the mid-afternoon sun. "You wanna walk back to homebase together, at least?"

Aisha shrugged in a carefree kind of way, a gentle smile still on her lips. The two girls threw their arms around one another and spared a glance over their shoulders as they strolled off. "Good luck, Gwennie!" Tory called out, using her nickname teasingly.

"Win it for us!" Aisha shouted back.

"I'm pretty sure you just jinxed me!" Gwen huffed, playfully. "Isn't there, like, a karate version of 'break a leg' or something?"

"Nope!" they replied in unison. She listened to the fading sound of their tittering through the constant rush of the forest, watched as they disappeared down a hill she couldn't quite see from her perspective.

Gwen turned and let out a definitive, yet self-soothing, sigh. She still didn't know how people won these fights on their own, but she was left with no choice but to figure it out. She brushed the bits of leaves from her clothes and hiked onwards into the woods, simultaneously hoping to run into someone and no one at all. As she wandered along one of the well-worn paths, every sound had her checking anxiously over her shoulder; the shift of her own shadow even startled her once. Her next opponent hardly crept up on her, though.

Gwen let out a yelp and hopped back a few paces as someone literally rolled out onto the trail, but quickly regained her posture once she saw the red-headedness of the crumpled pile in front of her. One of the Ginger Twins—the taller, less coordinated one—had tumbled face-first down the path-framing hillside. She thought he might have been trying to sneak up on her, but his approach was... perplexing.

"Are... Are you okay?" she called out, mostly as a formality.

His voice was strained. "Yep! Just a second."

"Are you sure you're–" she started, warily.

"I said give me a second," he snapped, his head drooped as he paused. Gwen's hands lifted defensively, her lips sloping into a frown.

Finally, Tall Ginger Twin hauled himself up onto his feet. It was then that Gwen could see the twigs in his hair and the smudges of dirt along his freckled face. His black headband had been all jostled and was smushing his eye down on one side, but she did not dare to mention it. "Prepare to face the fury of the Red Panda," he warned, a failed attempt at replicating Eli.

Her eyebrows scrunched together, a full-body cringe rolling over her. "Ew! Anything but that," she grimaced. This made it even easier for her to snap into fighting mode, her fists rising and her center of balance steadying. She waved him towards her tauntingly, a tight-lipped smirk on her lips. "Come and get it, Fregley."

When his fist came flying at her face, she was ready for it this time. Her head dipped and she used his proximity against him, jabbing a very sharp elbow against his stomach. His gurgly cough and backwards stumble brought an elated giggle from her lips. "Holy shit!" she exclaimed, nearly bouncing up and down in excitement. She was actually doing it! She was fighting someone all by herself and not doing half-bad!

Jolting herself back into the serious technicality of the fight, Gwen remembered the advantage she had with the distance between them. She swung her leg through the air, her foot connecting with the side of his head. The rest of his body moved along with the force of the kick, returning to its crumpled position on the woodland floor.

Gwen stood awkwardly a few feet away, her fists still primed and ready in front of her. But Ginger Twin wasn't exactly rushing to get up.

"Aren't you gonna–" she started.

"Just take my headband," he groaned, flopping onto his back. "Spare me whatever dignity I have left."

One of her eyebrows quirked, rather unimpressed. "Okay, Drama Queen..." she muttered, cautiously walking over to stoop down and snatch the back piece of fabric from his head. Gwen nimbly hopped over his body, happy to get some space between them before he could change his mind.

She was in a world of her own as she ambled through the forest, gazing down at the black headband like a new mother. She stretched it and flipped it around and picked little orange hairs off of it, filled with a smug satisfaction. "I did it," she whispered to herself, still in disbelief. Her heart was still racing, loud and fuzzy in her ears, from the excitement of it all. She'd like to think that that was why she didn't hear Miguel emerge in her periphery, but maybe he was actually just that good.

"What'cha got there?" he asked, so close that it nearly made Gwen jump out of her skin.

She leapt back a few paces, clutching her prize tightly against her chest. If she thought her heart had been racing before, it was thundering now that she was faced with her most untouchable opponent. "Oh, nothing, really. Just the headband from one of your teammates I defeated," she shrugged, feigning nonchalance with only a slight waver in her voice. The corner of her lips tilted into an overly confident smirk just to compensate for it.

Gwen started to knot the black band around her other wrist. She kept her gaze downward and disinterested when she continued. "So, did you want to just hand over yours now or...?"

Miguel's eyes rolled, a scoff resonating from his throat. "Yeah, I bet you'd–"

The sound of a swift cinch of fabric, followed by a rough kick to his chest, stole the words out of his mouth. He just barely managed to regain his balance before he hit the thick layer of crunchy leaves that covered the ground. Gwen saw something change in his face as he straightened his posture and poised his fists in between them, charged with potential energy. He didn't seem angry... it looked like something else entirely, with no clear name for the concoction of emotions rushing through him.

"C'mon, Diaz. At least try and keep up."

She couldn't tell if his chuckle in reply was genuinely amused or completely humorless. She didn't have much time to really consider it before there were punches being thrown in her direction. Gwen hadn't really accounted for Miguel's skill level, which forced her into defensive moves the whole time. Her arms and legs ached from blocking, while her fists felt annoyingly good as new.

"Are we actually gonna fight?" Miguel huffed. "Or are we just gonna keep doing this little dance?"

Instead of blocking his next punch, Gwen darted out of reach, spinning around behind him in the process. She swooped downward and looped her legs around one of his, effectively tugging it out from beneath him. He landed on his face with an unbecoming grunt and the knot of his headband on display. Gwen did her best to untangle their legs in time in order to lunge forward and grab it, but that was also just enough time for Miguel to flip onto his back.

Her knees propped on either side of him, causing her to loom over him for once. He grabbed her by the wrists, keeping her prying fingers away from his head. "If you think this is what dancing looks like, I pity your girlfriend," she gritted, as she fought to overpower him.

"You are my girlfriend," he said through clenched teeth.

This momentarily broke her razor-sharp focus on snatching his headband, the reality of the situation missing her by millimeters in lieu of total dumbfoundedness. And without her fighting back so viciously, Miguel's hands were able to drag the red headband right off of her wrist.

Gwen didn't even notice it was gone at first, the second band around her other wrist causing her to misread the situation. She just kept trying to claw at him until he was finally able to wave her team's headband in front of her face like a flag of forcible surrender.

"Damn it!" she snapped, dropping back so that her weight rested on his stomach. Her shoulders drooped as she glared down at the remaining shred of black fabric still wrapped securely around her other wrist. "I almost had it, too. Until you threw me off my game like that."

Miguel's dark eyes lit with humor. "Oh, so it's my fault?"

"Yeah. Don't talk to me when I'm in the zone like that. I'm obviously not gonna fight my best if I'm also trying to have a full-on conversation," she fussed, while Miguel absentmindedly picked leaves out of her hair with his free hand. But his nods in response were slow and disconnected from the words leaving her mouth. "And now you're not even listening to me," she muttered, rolling her eyes and swatting his hand away from her.

She stood to her full height once more and reached out a hand to help him up. He was in no better shape than she was, dirt and leaves all over his back and in his hair. She spun his back towards her and started dusting him off, far more roughly than when he had been plucking the debris off of her.

"Alright, you're all clean."

Miguel slowly turned back around to face her, a small smirk on his lips as he stared down at her. "Are you gonna wish me luck?"

Gwen leveled him with an incredulous stare, her arms crossed over her chest. "No, I want my team to win, obviously," she answered, plainly. "But, like... Try not to get killed out here, I guess. That'd be a bummer."

He snorted, but knew that she was being at least kind of serious. He watched her saunter away from him, heading back to the base camp with all the other students. And although he wished she would, Gwen didn't look back at him once. He shook his head and finally looked away, doing his best to clear his mind like one of those stupid Etch-A-Sketch toys. He knew that he would need all the focus he could gather in order to pull a win for the Black team and that just wasn't going to happen if he wasted all of his time watching Gwen make her walk of shame.

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There was just something kind of cruel about making all the losers sit together on moldy, old logs out in the setting sun. Gwen thought so, at least. She hadn't stopped playing through her fight with Miguel in her mind, running through all the different moves she could have pulled—offensively and defensively. For some reason, her mistakes felt much larger, much heavier than the moves that had temporarily gotten her ahead. Her teeth tore at the inside of her cheek as she ruminated on all the ways she could improve.

Only a commotion coming from the nearby forest could have severed her from her thoughts. "Is that Miguel and Hawk?" Mikey asked from behind her shoulder. Her and everyone else's ears pricked, their necks craning in curiosity.

Finding the source of all the noise was hardly difficult in the otherwise remote woods. But it wasn't until Gwen pushed her way up to the front of the group that she saw the intensity of the exchange. She recoiled as Miguel's back slammed against a nearby tree, shortly followed by his agonized scream. The adrenaline that thrummed through her kept her eyes fixed on the spectacle, barely able to blink without a fear of missing something.

Even so, she winced when Eli was thrown out onto his back, his head sagging back against the soft ground. Miguel proudly stooped down and snatched both the headband off of his forehead and a chain from around his neck. "That's all I've got," he said, lowly.

This was when Gwen finally saw what hung from the chain Miguel had grabbed: Mr. Miyagi's Medal of Honor. Her back stiffened, her mouth twisting into a soured expression. So, Eli had been the one to trash the Miyagi-Do dojo and he didn't even think to mention this to her? His lack of confidence in her and their friendship made her ribs feel cagey and tight around her lungs. Just when she thought they were headed in the right direction, some stupid shit like this would come up and make her question it all.

Miguel ceremoniously lifted the red headband into the air, a trophy in its own right. This didn't impact the frown that had etched itself into her face, unhappy with her team's performance.

"Finish him," Kreese hissed, his tone of voice sick and malicious.

And Miguel did as he was told, delivering one final blow across Eli's face that had the entire group lurching forward in concern. With his friend in a heap behind him, Miguel stepped up in front of his teammates, lifted the red headband once more, and proudly shouted, "Team Black!" They all erupted into cheers, paying no mind to the boy on the ground.

While they all went to congratulate their team captain, Gwen weaved her way over to Eli. She knelt beside him and gently placed a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay?" she asked, just loud enough for him to hear.

His blue eyes were distant, refusing to meet hers. "I'm fine," he said, clipped.

"I don't believe you," she murmured. She wanted to reach out and brush the dirt away from the gash on his cheek, but instead, she looped her hand through his. "Here, let me help you up."

As they stood, she could see him studying her out of the corner of her eye. "You're not mad at me for–?"

"I... don't really want to talk about it, if I'm being honest," she confessed. Her breaths still felt limited, erratic. She was fairly certain she didn't have the energy to unpack it all right then. "I just want to get the fuck out of this forest. Like, back to the 21st Century and all."

A rustle of leaves and a streak of red and smudges of brown burst from the woodland floor, wrapping itself around Miguel's throat from behind. Gwen and Eli froze, mouths agape as they watched him struggle in Chubs's chokehold. "You know, the thing about stingrays is, they lie in wait for the perfect opportunity... to strike!"

He ripped the headband from Miguel's forehand with a victorious roar before shoving him off into the hands of his shocked teammates. "The red team just won!" Chubs declared with an intensity that demanded respect. Regardless of all the mud and leaves caked on his face.

Gwen spun to Eli with a big laugh, meeting both of his hands in a high five. But instead of them retreating to their own separate bubbles, his fingers caught hers mid-high-five, interlocking and shaking her excitedly. His eyes were wide and glowing, locked on hers and scattering her thoughts into a million different colorful shards. And for just a split second, he felt like he was all hers again and their life was glittery and warm and genuinely intertwined without even having to try.

And god, was it glorious.