The passage of time was quite fast, and there were no significant events that occurred during the time that they were staying inside the cave. The rain persisted without any indication of letting up or slowing down until the afternoon of the seventh day, or if one considers the tablet's clock, until the morning of the seventh day.
Mako and the rest of the group had really gotten to know each other in the past two days as they had nothing better to do than to just huddle around the campfire while the cold winds continued to blow and share stories about each other while also enjoying some delicious food.
Bill and Leon were still quite shy to open stories from their past since both of their pasts had many horrible things that they didn't wish to share with the group just yet. Mako and the girls respected their choice and didn't try to force them to participate more.
Mako shared some of his stories from the time when his grandmother was still alive but it was Erin and Iris who did the majority of the talking and story-sharing. Being typical girls, they quite enjoyed gossiping about each other's embarrassing moments in a friendly manner and made the mood quite nice and relaxed.
After the first feast, Mako made some wood chips from some oak wood that he cut from the trees nearby. He asked Bill to make him a makeshift smoker using his earth ability and he used it to smoke the remaining meat. The meat was smoked throughout the day, and as night fell, the group was able to enjoy another delectable meal, especially the smoked duck which was insane.
Erin and Iris had taken care of the water situation as they could control the freshwater that was being poured down in the form of rain and use it to fill their water bottles whenever they ran low.
Overall, everyone had a decent time, and for the first time since landing on this island, everyone felt relaxed and happy to not be living in constant fear for their lives.
The rain finally looked like it would stop soon and the scene of the west island was one beyond imagination as the forests looked like swaps due to the large amount of water that created puddles everywhere and completely waterlogged the soil. It would be quite a pain to trek over this kind of terrain, but Mako and the group had no other choice as they had to locate Andrew, Sven, and Finn.
However, as soon as the rain had finally come to a stop, everyone could hear weird sucking noises coming from outside the cave. They rushed over to have a look and were bewildered by what they saw. A pipe had emerged from underground and opened right in the middle of the big puddle that was right outside the cave entrance.
The pipe began draining the water at an astonishing rate and within minutes, all of the water was gone. The same phenomenon was happening all over the west island as the pipes removed all evidence that a major and deadly thunderstorm had taken place there, all except the waterlogged soil which blatantly showed that a large amount of water had washed over the area.
Once the pipe was done draining all the water, the attachment at the top of its end switched from what was initially a drain to a sprinkler. The pipe then began to sprinkle a white powder onto the soil and it looked like a thin sheet of snow had covered the ground.
After it was done sprinkling the powder all over the ground, the pipe began lowering itself back into the ground and out of the group's sight. The hole from which the pipe had emerged closed behind it by a metal door that closed shut.
The white powder quickly got to work as it was quickly absorbed into the ground as well, but now the ground didn't look wet at all. It looked exactly the same as before. Mako even ran out of the cave to test and see if the ground would be hard like before or soft and squishy as it had been the past two days and to his surprise, the ground was hard as a rock (literally!).
Everyone was shocked to see that there were indeed secret compartments built on the island and not only that, these compartments could release pipes that not only drain two days' worth of thunderstorm rainwater in under fifteen minutes but also restabilize and solidify the ground the cadets won't face any kind of hindrance during the remainder of their test.
*************
[At the military headquarters]
"Project Clean Up has been executed perfectly on the west island." An officer reported as he observed the last pipe sprinkling the white powder on the ground.
"The west island had been returned back to its prior state with 94% accuracy. Initiating phase two of Shower Shakedown, the estimated time before StormWielder is in position on the east side of the island is 4 hours." The officer added.
The thunderstorm that had been up for almost 48 hours straight was one that wasn't actually natural but one that was man-made. This whole thing was also a hurdle to test and see how the cadets would react and prepare in response.
The terrifying storm generator or the "StormWielder" was a satellite that was fixed in place in space and could manipulate the climate and air pressure to induce different weather effects over a specific area.
The StormWielder currently had a setting on level 2 and on that level, it was able to generate an insane thunderstorm so violent that cadets wouldn't survive if they were without a shelter for an extended period of time.
Since this was a mini-test created by the military, they had to include measures to resolve all the issues that came with excessive rain so that the cadets could continue with their test without any problem. It was quite easy to install all the infrastructure on the island to counter it since it was man-made.
*************
The sunshine parted through the clouds and a slow light breeze continued to blow on the west island. Mako and the rest group had wasted no time as they were rested, healed, and ready to resume their journey and find Andrew's shelter as soon as possible so that they could figure out their game plan from there and focus on finding a place to build their permanent shelter for the remaining half of the test.
They first trekked back to the stream where Mako had made the decision to deviate from their original plan and seek shelter someplace else. As everyone was walking past that spot, they realized how good Mako's intuition was as they were able to safely hide inside the cave just as the winds became super fierce.
The group walked forward following their original direction upstream. Leon was the one at the front of the group since he had the speed ability and could react the fastest if they were ambushed from the front. Mako and Bill walked at the back guarding their rear in the same way while the girls were sandwiched in between.
Leon was holding onto the Dark Wing shiv that Mako had gifted him while they were staying inside the cave. Mako remembered Leon playing with a similar-sized knife when he went to meet his father for the first time and he showed great skill in handling it, so Mako decided that it would be best that Leon would have a weapon to defend himself too.
Mako still didn't understand why Paul hadn't just given Leon some overpowered armor and weapons from the start, and upon asking Leon simply replied that it was complicated and that he didn't wish to discuss it at that time. Mako respected Leon's wish and dropped the topic, but that didn't stop him from giving him the shiv he found in an effort to improve their friendship.
The group made rapid progress and managed to emerge from the forest by evening, almost approaching the stream's origin. As they left the forest behind, they entered a wide clearing where nothing but dense, tall grass swayed with the wind.
Mako and Bill had made it quite deep into the island at this point and were now in the more centralized area where there were many hills and mountains. The group walked through the open field where cool winds continued to blow and create a refreshing environment.
However, the peace didn't last as Leon noticed something wrong up ahead. He signaled to the rest of them that he thought there was danger ahead and started bolting forward. Mako was next to observe what was going on as he also quickly started sprinting after Leon.
Bill, Iris, and Erin followed behind but didn't actually know what was happening until they made it a bit closer to the source of the stream. They could see several massive long boulders stacked naturally against each other as slanted pieces of Jenga and at the base of the boulders was a small hut made out of earth and it was currently engulfed in flames.
"ANDREW!" Erin shouted as she bolted toward the burning hut in the distance as fast as she could, with Bill and Iris right behind her.
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