🌸 Main Chat 13 (Nov, 25)
BZZZZT!!!
As he opens his eyes, all he can see are bright lights all around. Blinded by them and the loud noises, Briar sits up and rubs his eyes to look around.
“Wha—”
A loud voice speaks from all around, as if through a microphone announcing to the people.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the CITADEL Arena Games begin now!” the announcer screams at the top of his lungs.
“What the…” Briar is left speechless. He stands up only to be blasted by the loud, deafening cheers of the energetic crowd. Lying around him are several others coming to consciousness as well.
No time to think why and what… Better think of how… and with whom, Briar thinks to himself. He approaches the person closest to him, sitting on the arena floor lit dimly by a faint light underneath the surface.
“What’s your name?”
The girl looks around to make sure he is talking to her.
“Yes, you. I’m talking to you.”
“Oh. My name’s Reim. And you ought to address me with respect. I definitely look older than you.”
“Yeah, whatever. None of that matters now. You wanna team up?”
***
The announcer screams into his mic,
“Looks like our contestants are confused, hahaha! My advice is to lock in and rush to the armory!”
Gigantic curtains drop from the walls, revealing not walls but a pile of weapons. The whole arena goes crazy with cheers and shouts. The flashlights from phones glare into the eyes of the contestants like fireflies.
“FIGHT!!!”
With no countdown or proper warning, the announcer starts the game and the loud buzzer goes nuclear alongside the nonstop cheering of the crowd.
He puts the mic down on the table.
“I paid good money to organize all this. Hope it’s fun.”
The grin of the man shrouded in darkness is the only other noticeable thing, along with the large K on the right chest of his blazer.
***
“This is bullshit!”
One of the contestants exclaims.
“I didn’t sign up for any of this!”
Another guy notices him and laughs,
“Haha! I’m pretty sure none of us did. I mean, look at everyone’s face.”
He looks around. “You’re right… But… What do I do…?”
Looking at his miserable condition, he smirks as he gets a fun idea. He extends his hand to the distraught man.
“My name’s Watcher. What’s yours?”
“Huh?”
“Your name! What is it?”
“Oh… D-Dist0rt3d Reality…” he says as he shakes Watcher’s hand.
“Nice to meet you. Let’s team up.”
“Huh… Team…?”
“Are you half-asleep or what? This!”
He moves his hand around to show what he’s talking about.
“I’m talking about this! Wanna team up?”
“Sure… Y-yeah, why not?”
“Just what I wanted to hear.”
“Fuck this!!! FUCK YOU ALL!” one of the contestants rushes towards the armory.
“Shit,” Watcher says under his breath. “Let’s go, it’s about to start!”
—
“What’s the name of that contestant, Gullsea?” the man in the announcement booth asks his assistant.
“The one running towards the armory? I believe it is Sc0pin, sir.” The man sitting beside the announcer responds in a professional and stern voice.
“Hmm~”
—
The guy, or rather the kid, unsheathes a sword from one of the sword stands. Just then, one of the contestants jumps on him while shouting.
“Kami doesn’t lose!!! I am Kami, I am God!!! Kneel or DIE—” the guy exclaims, speaking his own name. Sc0pin swiftly swings his sword without looking. He closes his eyes as the thought of striking someone with a deadly weapon is jarring for him.
SPLAT!
Something warm and liquid splatters all over Sc0pin’s face. He opens his eyes to find Kami’s beheaded body lying in front of him. He looks to his right to find the head laying on the floor. The eyes of the beheaded slowly roll and look at Sc0pin. It creeps the hell out of him; he screams at the top of his lungs.
“Haha! Nice!! That’s what I want to see!” K shouts in the booth. Gullsea gives an irritated look at the loud voice.
—
“How in the world… did I end up here…?” Seeker seeks an answer as he observes everything happening around him: the loud crowd, the announcer in his booth way up at the top of the large arena, the bloodshed happening at the other end.
“Compared to that side, it is quite calm here—“ He jinxed it.
—
“That is uh… TOUYA, sir. If I’m not wrong,” Gullsea tells K while fixing his glasses and squinting at the sheets in his hands.
“TOUYA, huh?”
—
Seeker couldn’t finish his sentence before he heard a man screaming and rushing towards him from behind.
“AHHHHHH!!!”
He looks back immediately and raises his hands to calm him down.
“Wait, man! Don’t do this, there must be some other way!”
But he doesn’t listen. TOUYA goes airborne with a kick from his left foot. The air around his leg is cut through by the immense speed with which he approaches Seeker, almost sending a sharp, cutting sound to his ears.
“Shit!”
Seeker blocks with his hands, but the impact is so great that it sends him flying. However, he lands on his feet and slides for a couple of seconds, his hands cupped in front of his head as he regains his footing.
“You piece of shit, that hurt,” he mutters to himself.
TOUYA knows no chill as he rushes again towards Seeker. Only this time—
“You should have listened to me,” Seeker says in a cold voice.
Everyone close by couldn’t see what happened, even though nobody blinked. TOUYA crashes on the floor, unmoving and breathless. Eyes stay on his motionless body for a while, and then everyone looks at each other.
Seeker’s face radiates nothing but darkness.
“Who’s next?”
—
“Wait, wait, wait, wait. What the… What just happened?”
“I believe it was fast enough for our eyes to not catch it, sir.”
“What...?”
Gullsea turns to the tablet device in his hand. He shows a replay of the showdown captured by the arena cameras. K looks at the recording; it’s the same. Nothing.
“What? What are you trying to show?”
“Look closely, sir.”
At 0.001x speed of the recording, only a slight afterimage of Seeker’s hand can be seen. Smudged, but it looks like the fist is touching TOUYA’s Adam’s apple.
“…”
“You have got some very fine specimens here, I must say.”
—
Erkhes clenches his fist.
“What the fuck was that?”
Yorifant looks at him over his shoulder.
“You asking me?”
He doesn’t respond, his eyes still on the dead body lying far ahead and the cold-blooded killer.
Yorifant doesn’t let this chance go. He rushes at Erkhes and, with no sound or hesitation, lands a direct hit on his face, sending him to the floor. Erkhes rubs his mouth and sees blood smeared on his hand.
“What the fuck, dude? Why’d you do that?”
“Seriously? You’re asking me why?”
At first anger, then fear slowly takes over Erkhes. He doesn’t say another word and gets to his feet.
“Oh? Finally getting it?”
Without a word, he runs towards the armory. Erkhes doesn’t even look back; he runs for his life.
“Ooh, that’s definitely clever… and foolish at the same time.”
***
“What a disaster…”
“Well, survival of the fittest. We have to get to work too,” Reim replies to Briar.
“So, you’re on my team now?”
“For now,” she says before running towards the weapons. In the middle of the armory there are a lot of explosives. She picks up a dynamite stick.
“Come on, how are you going to use that?” Briar asks her.
“Like this,” she says, throwing the explosive at him. Briar’s eyes grow wide as he dodges it. The stick lands on a girl who was trying to sneak up on him.
“What?!”
“Bye, bitch!” Reim says, waving her hand. Without a moment lost, the dynamite explodes, sending bits and pieces of body parts scattering all around.
“ARE YOU INSANE? WHY DID YOU THROW THAT AT ME?”
“Are you blind? Didn’t you see what happened?”
“Jesus! Screw you!”
“Ha, I get that a lot. Thanks.”
—
From the large digital player board hung on one of the walls of the arena, the name Broccoli is removed. The player is eliminated.
“Well, this is going fast. Was expecting a bit of… you know…”
“Hesitation? From the contestants?” Gullsea asks.
“Yeah… kinda.”
—
Two guys were standing idle the whole time. They nodded to each other and started walking towards the man.
“Hey, man. Calm down, we just wanna talk.”
Sc0pin is dripping with blood. His clothes, his head, his hands—everything. Blood drips profusely as if it’s sweat. Not his blood.
“You want some? Come get some! Come on! COME ON!”
“Hey… calm down. We’re friendlies.”
“Oh yeah? OH YEAH?! IS THIS YOUR TRICK?”
“No, just listen. I think it’ll be a great idea to team up, no? You’re clearly one of the strongest here.”
“Strongest?”
“Yeah, strongest. So, how about it? Wanna try teaming up?”
Sc0pin scans the two men standing in front of him with his eyes. He breathes heavily from the toll the fighting has taken on him.
“My name is Malicious Vortex.”
“My name’s Door-kun,” both men reply, introducing themselves.
Sc0pin stares at the broken sword in his hand, blood dripping from it. “A team, huh?”
Vortex and Door-kun look at each other and smile, thinking their plan worked.
“If I’m the strongest, why do I need to team up?”
They both look at him with confused expressions.
“More importantly, why do I need you?”
“Hey, man. Look… Just… Look, man, just listen to us for a second.”
Sc0pin slowly walks towards both of them; he isn’t listening. Vortex and Door-kun glance at each other and start backing off.
“Bro, we just want to help you, you know? Nothing more, okay?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Door-kun reinforces what Vortex said. “We just want to help.”
Sc0pin stops. His eyes stare deep into the souls of the two. “I…” he looks down at the floor.
Vortex and Door-kun lean in to listen to what he’s trying to say.
“I DON’T NEED YOUR FUCKING HELP!!!”
He impales Door-kun right in the stomach.
“You bastard!” Vortex pulls out his gun to shoot, but Sc0pin pulls his sword from Door-kun’s stomach and places it in the bullet's trajectory.
The sword slices the bullet in half. Vortex can’t believe his eyes. Then the sword breaks into pieces, leaving only the hilt intact. This, however, doesn’t stop Sc0pin. He runs towards Vortex bare-handed,
“AHHHH!!!”
Vortex empties the entire magazine of the magnum .45 revolver, most of the bullets hitting Sc0pin. Still, he lunges at Vortex and starts punching him relentlessly in the face as they both crash to the floor. But slowly, the strength behind the punches dies down.
Sc0pin’s vision goes blurry; he falls to his side, leaving Vortex unmoving. His vision goes dark.
—
Slowly, one by one, the names on the leaderboard are fading away.
His fists drip with blood.
“So… [cough cough] you are actually hitting your opponents, huh?” Ryaxx says with a labored voice.
“What do you mean?”
“Haha… I could barely see you moving… Suddenly your hands are all bloody…” Ryaxx scoffs. “Thought you were using some kind of magic spell… haha [cough cough]”
Blood comes out of his mouth as he coughs. Seeker stands and stares coldly at the dying man lying at his feet. Soon another name will fade away from the leaderboard, putting Seeker at the top.
He hears someone walking up to him.
“I’ll be your next opponent.” A tall, sturdy man stops behind him. “I’m the next player after you on the leaderboard.”
Seeker looks at the second name on the leaderboard.
“Geppetto…” he mutters to himself.
“I hope you are ready.”
Seeker remains silent, his eyes still on the large screen above. But he hears them—
THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD!
Footsteps of someone running at them. Seeker doesn’t even bat an eye, thinking this will just be another dead body in a few seconds. But then the sound of the footsteps stops all of a sudden. This confuses him. He looks around but can’t seem to find Geppetto anywhere.
A shadow grows beneath his feet. Big, then bigger, even bigger—it keeps getting bigger. He looks at it but then realizes instantly.
“Shit!” He looks up as the loud cheers sink into his ears.
Geppetto is holding a large cargo ship in his hands with absolute ease. The ship is brought down rapidly, and then he lets go, jumping far away from the large marine vessel.
The other contestants can’t believe their eyes. They all stop mid-fight to see the unbelievable unfold in front of them. Seeker stands motionless in his spot, his mind goes blank, and the ship soon strikes the ground.
KRA-KOOOOOOM!!!
The ground convulses as a CRUNNNNCH-SHATTER of steel drowns out all other sound.
The loud cheers of the audience die down. In fact, everyone is terrified and worried for their safety now.
“Sir… What in the world was that…?”
“You’re asking me?” K replies to his assistant.
A fire starts from beneath the large ship, soon reaching the top of the hull. Without a second to lose, the ship explodes.
KABOOOOOOOM!!!!
Geppetto stands unfazed at the top of the titanic entrance door-sill of the arena.
“I know that didn’t even scratch you. Stop wasting my time.”
True to his words, the ship’s body cracks and falls to bits and pieces, revealing nothing but flames.
A pitch-black silhouette can be seen standing in the flames. A dark figure in the midst of all the bright fire.
“I still don’t get how and where you got this… fucking ship from…”
“I’d call it magic,” Geppetto says as he blows on his nails nonchalantly.
—
Some of the contestants decided to do themselves a favor. Kiera80, Helldiver, Tacoman_, and KING went ahead and shot themselves in the head. Seeing a catastrophe that could only be imagined in a nightmare unfold in reality erased all their hope of winning this fight.
Saki’s eyes were still wide open from watching such an event. She looked beside her and saw a guy holding a sword. She grew paranoid.
“YOU’RE LIKE THEM, AREN’T YOU?”
“No, no… You’re wrong. I’m not,” he said, dropping the sword and raising both hands.
“YOU ARE LIKE THEM!!! I KNOW!!!”
“No, lol. I’m human.”
She pulled the trigger, shooting the guy straight in the head, right between the eyes, turning it into a bloody flower.
—
“Oh well, it’s terrifying, but it’s surely entertaining.”
“Having second thoughts, sir?”
“W-What? No… No, lol.”
He turned on the mic.
“Well, now would you look at all this mess! I wasn’t expecting supernatural beings in all this! Now, aren’t we all lucky to witness such a thing!” K blasted his words through the mic.
The crowd had become frightened, and the cheers had died down severely.
—
“Aww, look at what you did. The whole crowd has gone silent because of you. They are scared,” Geppetto said to Seeker.
“Because of me, huh? Sure,” he said, stepping out of the blazing flames and standing in front of the horrible shipwreck in the middle of the arena.
His skin had been burnt beyond repair, but something happened to the charcoal-black flesh. It started swirling. Soon, the burnt skin became new, and the black color disappeared.
“That’s so convenient, I must say,” Geppetto commented.
“Maybe.”
***
[Heavy panting]
Two men stood with guns pointed at each other. Their faces and bodies were bloody, limbs broken and organs failing.
“You gonna pull the trigger or what?”
“What about you?”
“Aren’t you trying to get yourself out of this the easy way?”
“I could say the same thing to you,” Yorifant responded to Erkhes.
The hot flames from the exploded ship made the inside of the arena warm. In fact, too warm. The blood and sweat of the two men mixed together.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Erkhes… why?”
“I want to know the name of the man who is going to end my life in a few moments.”
“You say that as if it’s a given.”
“Haha… hahaha…” he laughed to himself. “Well, it was fun, kid.”
‘Fun?! What do you mean fu—“
POP! POP! POP!
THUD!
Erkhes lay on the ground. Yorifant dropped to his knees. He peeked through the hand holding pressure on his stomach wound—a bullet hole.
“It sure was fun…”
Two names faded away from the leaderboard.
—
Watcher looks at the two standing in front of him. He glances at the leaderboard.
“So, you guys are Reim and Briar, if I’m not wrong.”
Briar clenches his fist.
“Yeah, so?” Reim responds.
“Just making sure.”
“Names will be irrelevant once we all turn into lumps of protein.”
“Ah, ah!” Watcher raises a finger to correct her. “Not ‘all,’ just you two. You see, ‘lumps of protein’ is too long; I’d rather call your bodies by the names you have. It would be much easier for the cleanup guys.”
“Whatever.”
Dist0rt3d Reality looks at Watcher with panicked eyes.
“Dude, what are you waiting for? Shoot them!” He aims his submachine gun- at the two.
Briar takes a stance. Reim raises her hand to stop them.
“You guys aren’t smart, are you?”
“What do you mean?” Watcher puts his hand beneath his chin, pondering her words.
She looks at Geppetto and Seeker in the distance.
“We surely can’t take those two out. How about it? Wanna team up?”
“Aha… Ahahaha… Ahahahahaha!” Reality starts laughing hysterically.
“What’s so funny, bitch?” Briar is almost ready to throw hands.
“Sure, let’s do that,” Watcher replies.
Reality’s laughter stops almost immediately. He comes close to Watcher.
“Bro, you can’t be serious… YOU REALLY WANT TO—“
POP!
Followed by a THUD!
“Shut up,” Watcher says to the unmoving Reality as the barrel of his rifle smokes, his voice cold.
Briar looks at the dead body with wide eyes.
“Well, that makes us three,” Reim says as she readies her bow.
“Nope, just one less idiot. So what’s the plan?”
—
CRASH!!!
The people in the crowd scream and start rushing to the exit as Seeker crashes into the audience seats.
“I think you’re not putting in any effort here.”
“You think so?”
“I mean, where’s all that badassery that you were exhibiting a few moments ago? Don’t tell me your plan is to bore me to death.”
“Hah! If it were that easy.”
Geppetto yawns.
“Well, it’s definitely working. But I’ve got things to do. I don’t want to be stuck here forever.”
Seeker blinks, and the next moment he is watching Geppetto come down with a roundhouse kick. He tries to block with his hands, but the force is too great—so great that his feet dig through the concrete of the seating area and break into the exit hall beneath.
—
“What? Hurry, show me the footage from the CCTVs there. I need eyes on this!” K panics.
“One moment, sir,” Gullsea says, turning on the live camera feed. K looks closely.
—
“You are taking this way too seriously, aren’t you?”
“They’ll kill me if I don’t do what they want.”
“Kill you? Brother, you crashed a cargo ship in the middle of a large stadium. Who’s gonna kill you?”
Geppetto shrugs with his eyes. He just needed an excuse to let loose, no matter how nonsensical it is.
“Now!” A loud scream from a woman can be heard from the end of the hallway.
Seeker and Geppetto both look toward where the sound came from. Three contestants are rushing toward their location.
Reim pulls out her bow and shoots an arrow at Geppetto.
SHREEEEE!
But he catches it with his palm.
“Hah! Gotcha!”
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP! BOOM!
The arrow explodes.
“Nice!” Briar rejoices. He brings down his battleaxe on Seeker, hoping to sever his head while he lays on the floor. He strikes and—
CLANG!
The large battleaxe strikes Seeker’s Adam’s apple with a clean hit, but instead, the metal cracks and soon breaks, leaving only the handle in his hand.
“Motherfu—“
Before he could finish his sentence, Seeker sends a sucker punch to Briar’s face, exploding his head like a water balloon. Blood splatters all over the place.
The smoke from the exploded arrow clears, and Geppetto looks right into the eyes of the woman at the end of the hallway.
“Nice toys you have there.”
ZZZIP!
Watcher wraps a garrote wire around Geppetto’s neck and pulls it aggressively to choke him. But alas!
Geppetto tugs on Watcher’s jacket and slams him right onto the floor in a somersault.
“ARGH!!!” he shrieks in pain as he pulls out his knife to strike Geppetto. But before he can do so, Geppetto stomps on his neck, flattening it like a tortilla. His eyes almost pop out of their sockets, but the only thing that pops out is blood from his nose and the corners of his eyes.
“Shit…” Reim mutters and turns back to run, but just then—
SHHH-THUK-CHK!
Geppetto throws the blade that Watcher was holding. Reim’s body crashes to the ground with a loud thud.
—
“D-Damn…” K says to himself while sitting in the booth. No other players are left besides Geppetto and Seeker. No one to witness the end. The whole arena is empty, with a bunch of dead bodies and blood and insides splattered all around the place, and the large cargo shipwreck in the middle. A hellscape.
The next moment, the booth door is burst open. It’s Seeker.
Gullsea stands to protect his boss, but to no avail. Seeker shoves him away, making him crash into the wall like a bug.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, look man. I did none of this, okay? I’m just doing my job, alright?”
“You organized all this, right? Why don’t you see how it ends?”
K gets up from his seat. “Come on, bro. Trust me, none of this is my doing. In fact, none of this is real, okay? Hold on… Hey!” He backs off as Seeker takes steps closer to him. Geppetto flies through the window of the booth, breaking the glass. K is now in deep trouble. And just then—
“It’s Kousei! TNO, pull me out! Turn it off! HURRY!”
***
A mechanical voice speaks into his ears.
[Unplugging the CITANIMUS. Desyncing, please wait. Headgear is now safe to remove.]
He opens his eyes. He can see the reflection of his eyes in the visor. He takes the helmet off.
“What happened, boss?” a person in a lab coat approaches Kousei as he gets up from the bed.
“Sigh…” Kousei puts his hands on his knees and bends forward in exhaustion. He looks at the virtual reality machine, the CITANIMUS, and looks back at the scientist.
“This shit is too fucking real, you hear me? Turn down some of the settings for God’s sake!”
The scientist smiles.
“Glad to hear that my machine is working well.”
“Are you even listening to me???”
—
The scientist and some of his assistants open the door to a large room with 24 beds. Each of them has people connected to the CITANIMUS.
“Okay, unplug them all.”
One by one, all of the virtual headgear is removed. The people then wake up and sit on their beds. Some of them can’t grasp where they are.
“Memory loss?” some of the assistants mutter among themselves.
CLAP! CLAP!
“Attention, please!”
Everyone looks at the man standing in the middle of the room wearing a lab coat.
“If you don’t remember, you all volunteered to be subjects in our new virtual reality program, the CITANIMUS. You’re all currently in Japan, Tokyo to be more exact. The experiment was a huge success, and that’s all thanks to you. My name’s TheNewOutcomer; you can call me TNO. Any questions?”
Everyone looks at each other in silence, some of them remembering the premise.
“I guess that’s a no. Anyway, as thanks, you are all given a free trip around Japan for the next thirty-five days. Enjoy!”
That brings smiles to everyone’s faces. A few cheers can be heard.
***
Kousei: Guys, I gotta say, I really did enjoy that experiment thing.
Geppetto: Me too. It was exciting.
Kousei: ...Uh-huh.
Dist0rted Reality: I got killed too quickly.
Kami: Oh yeah? What about me then?
Watcher laughs in the distance.
LOL I’m Human: Lol.
Saki: I went paranoid for some reason.
Briar: Yeah, that was kinda weird, lol.
Seeker: You really love battleaxes, don’t you, Briar?
Reim: He sure did. I didn’t even know what happened to me at the end.
Keira80, Helldiver, Tacoman_, and KING are still discussing how real it felt and how helpless they were at the end.
Sc0pin: It sure took a dark turn.
Broccoli: It was dark from the beginning, bruh.
Yorifant: True.
Erkhes: And you just wanted to be the protagonist.
Yorifant: Is that so? Hahaha!
Ryaxx: I was outmatched by Seeker.
Gullsea: At least the cargo ship didn’t crash on you.
TOUYA: That’s for sure, man! That shit was terrifying.
Door-kun: Yeah, and it got kinda unrealistic after that.
Vortex: But it still felt real. Seeker had plot armor in an experiment, haha.
Kousei: Anyway, guys—let’s take a picture to commemorate this moment later.
Everyone agrees. He sets the camera, and the shutter goes *click!*
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