Thraka looks up slowly from his architectural monument of pancakes, syrup dripping from his fork in thick, amber rivulets that puddle on his plate like evidence at a crime scene. His eyes meet Chad's with an intensity that I recognize from boardroom negotiations gone nuclear, the kind of look that precedes either violence or extremely uncomfortable HR conversations.
"Paint," he says with a particular resonance that makes it sound less like confirmation and more like a threat wrapped in compliance. A pause, deliberate and weighted with implications that Chad's sales-bro brain is perhaps too underdeveloped to fully process. "Only."
Something in his tone, that careful, almost mocking precision with which he enunciates that single word, makes Chad take a distinctly visible step backward, his confident smirk faltering just enough that I catch the micro-expression of uncertainty crossing his aggressively groomed features. It's the same instinctive retreat a gazelle might make when it realizes the lazy lion isn't actually sleeping.
"Right. Well. May the best team win." Chad retreats to his table of sales bros, all of them already strategizing like they're planning the Normandy invasion instead of a corporate paintball event.
"You're going to absolutely destroy him, aren't you," I say quietly, though part of me already knows the answer. Part of me has known since the moment Chad made that condescending comment about "the green guy."
Thraka's smile is absolutely feral, all tusks and predatory satisfaction. "Completely."
The paintball field is a section of forest marked off with orange tape and dotted with inflatable barriers that look likethey were designed by someone who'd never actually seen combat. Our team gets red armbands. Chad's team gets blue. The yellow team is from accounting and looks terrified.
The instructor, a bored twenty-something who clearly hates corporate groups, drones through the safety rules. "Masks stay on at all times. No physical contact. Paint only. Headshots don't count. If you're hit, raise your hand and walk to the sideline. First team to capture the enemy flag wins."
Thraka isn't listening. He's scanning the terrain with the focus of a predator identifying hunting grounds, noting sight lines and cover points and tactical advantages.
"We should split up," I suggest to our team, trying to sound like I have any tactical knowledge whatsoever. My experience with team-based combat scenarios is limited to that one corporate trust fall exercise I nearly failed. "Cover more ground. Flank them from multiple angles."
"I have a better strategy." Thraka kneels down, his massive frame folding with surprising grace as he scoops mud from the rain-softened ground. The earth is dark and wet from last night's storm, clinging to his fingers in thick clumps.
"What are you doing?" I ask, watching him examine the mud with the same intensity I reserve for quarterly reports. There's a focused quality to his movements that makes me nervous, like he's preparing for something far more serious than a corporate team-building exercise.
He drags two fingers through the mud, then streaks it across his cheekbones in precise lines. War paint. He's applying actual war paint to a corporate paintball game.
"Thraka, that's completely unnecessary?—"
He looks at me, and something shifts in his expression. The playful Orc who ate pancakes twenty minutes ago disappears, replaced by something ancient and dangerous that makes my stomach flip.
"Trust me, Little Manager." He marks another line down his jaw with deliberate precision, the mud dark against his green skin. "I know war."
The whistle blows, sharp and shrill across the paintball arena.
I lose track of Thraka within the first thirty seconds.
One moment he's beside me, the next he's melted into the forest like smoke, moving with a silence that shouldn't be possible for someone his size. I hear paintball guns firing in the distance, shouts of players being eliminated, but no sign of the Orc currently terrorizing the corporate landscape.
I creep behind an inflatable barrier, trying to remember the last time I did anything remotely athletic. My Fitbit is having a panic attack. Sweat pools at the small of my back.
A flash of blue armband catches my eye through the dense cluster of trees ahead. My heart rate spikes, target acquired. I raise my paintball gun with both hands, trying to remember the brief safety demonstration we received. Steady my breathing. Line up the shot. My finger squeezes the trigger.
The paintball goes wide, sailing harmlessly past the sales associate from Marketing who doesn't even notice how close he came to elimination.
"Dammit." I lower the gun, jaw clenched in frustration. My spreadsheet skills apparently don't translate to hand-eye coordination.
The sales bro spots me, grins, and I'm about to get eliminated in the most embarrassing way possible when he suddenly flies backward like he's been hit by a truck.
Thraka emerges from the undergrowth, paintball gun hanging forgotten at his side. He didn't shoot the guy. He just... appeared behind him and the sheer terror made the sales bro fall over and surrender.
"You're supposed to shoot them," I hiss, gesturing with my paintball gun at the prone sales associate who's now scrambling away through the underbrush, leaving a trail of crushed leaves and wounded dignity in his wake. "That's literally the entire point of this exercise. Projectile warfare. Paint-based ammunition. Remember the safety briefing?"
"More efficient this way," Thraka rumbles, his voice a low bass note that seems to vibrate through my sternum in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with... no. Not going there. Not during a corporate team-building exercise. He moves past me with surprising grace for someone his size, a ghost in cheap suit pants that are two inches too short and sporting what appears to be actual mud smeared across his cheekbones like war paint. "Stay behind me, little general. I'll clear the path."
"This isn't supposed to be actual combat," I try to reason with him, my voice catching somewhere between exasperation and something that feels dangerously close to admiration. "You don't need to treat this like a genuine military operation?—"
A war cry erupts from somewhere deep in his chest, splitting the humid afternoon air with a sound so primal, so utterly fierce and completely non-regulation that three nearby squirrels abandon their posts and flee for safer territory. The sound reverberates through the trees, making leaves tremble and my internal risk assessment protocols scream warnings I'm choosing to ignore.
Thraka charges forward like a force of nature in ill-fitting khakis.
