All's Out in Free
Summary: Minutes before the final bell, eighteen students are called to detention. Their punishment: they must compete in a game in which they are to encase one another in crystal until only one remains. Paranoia gives way to unlikely alliances, and even the most insignificant people are not who they seem. Side character-centric. Post-series.
Chapter 1 — "Picking Teams"
An unseen light overhead blanched the room from black to white. The object at center-screen had a boxy frame reminiscent of a hairdryer. In place of the hammer and sights was a clear chamber filled with a bright, slime-colored liquid.
"For over a century, we've upheld our promise of elegance coupled with reliability. This year, we've partnered with Karl Von Wurst to bring you an innovative product free from unnecessary bulk. No more toys."
A smoky-eyed supermodel bedecked in chunky jewelry gave a sly smile before knocking aside the gun with a flippant wave of her fingers. It slid to the floor in slow motion.
"Introducing our new Lattice line, the latest in pseudocrystalline technology. Brilliant, compact, with sinfully smooth handling – crowd control has never felt so seductive."
Various weapons slithered with dull light as the camera view slowly rolled across their matte chrome finishes.
"We've also improved on the design of our luxury mêlée pieces. Each blade is crafted using our newly patented Splatallic™ plasma-alloy technology, ensuring a clean and intimate incapacitation with just a touch. Now available in rose gold."
She beckoned the viewer with a stare, her dark hair brushed back by a city breeze. She tapped her cheekbone with a nail tipped in polish that appeared to shift colors, but a closer look revealed it to be the drawn blade of a sleek-handled pocket knife.
"For a flawless, million-carat performance, every time."
A lace formation spidered across her cheek, shimmering white like the diamonds in her necklace. She remained posed with a sultry smile on her face, even as the spreading channels in her skin began to scab over with crystal.
"Mann and Webber Firearms."
Nothing in the room had changed other than the addition of an old-fashioned box television on a wheeled stand positioned at the head of the room. Seeing the trusty piece of equipment usually indicated an easy class period spent watching a movie and filling out a worksheet, yet it awakened a sense of unease in him.
Chaz slurred to life in the desk next to him, raising his drool-streaked chin from the sticky tabletop. He met eyes with Stepak. "I can't believe I, Chaz Monorainian, fell asleep on camera. That's never happened before."
Right then, Stepak's memory returned to him. They had been filming a report on the largest mass incarceration in A. Nigma High's history. Sixteen students had been called in for detention suddenly, not including themselves. Rumor was that the school had been secretly keeping tabs on some habitual troublemakers and chose to call all of them in at once to serve as a head on a pike for the student body. A televised police sting, only for crimes such as breaking the dress code one too many times or using the lockers a little too liberally.
The junior anchor, Tina, had wanted to take the story. Her sister was among the names called for detention minutes before the final bell rang. Chaz just happened to be quicker on his feet. With his tall, slender stature, he was more suited for jumping hurdles rather than news reporting, but his dedication to his hair ended his track career before it even began.
"Are you all right?" asked Stepak, watching Chaz rub the crumbs from his eyes.
"No, I passed out on camera! So embarrassing. My blood sugar must have been dangerously low from how bored I was. Edit that out later, would you?" Chaz gave an overt yawn, stretching his arms over his head. "What time is it? Are we still in detention?"
"This is the detention room." The camera view panned over their dazed classmates in similar states of confusion. Moans fluttered in the air as students primed their vocal chords in response to the dull pain behind their temples. "Look at everyone. I think we've been gassed."
"Hey, you're the cameraman – I'm the reporter. Let me do the reporting. Are we on?" Chaz ran his tongue over the damp film stuck to his front teeth. He practiced his smile, the corners of his lips moving up and down like the ends of a flying javelin, before freezing in the camera's view. "Hey, Chaz Monorainian here, bringing you a special report from the afterschool detention room. Judging from the utter bedlam surrounding me, it appears that everyone here has been gassed. You heard me! Gassed!"
Instead of getting out of his seat, Chaz gripped the sides of his desk and scraped closer to a serious-looking girl named Nadine. Her oval sunglasses sat disheveled on the bridge of her nose as she swiped through her phone. "Nardwina, right? How are you feeling? Scared? Like you're about to puke? Brace your barf bags, folks!"
She shoved the head of his microphone back in his face. "What are you doing?! Check your phone! See if you can call for help!"
"No reception. Typical," said Stepak from off-camera, the view tilting as he slipped his phone back into the pocket of his shorts. "Think we're in lockdown."
Chaz gasped. "You heard it from me first, people! Gassed students, no cell phone reception, the entire school in lockdown! What could it mean?"
"I— It means they've forgotten about us!" shrieked Deuce Markowitz, an outcast boy. A crescent sat on his tongue, the end of his chewed-off fingernail. He swallowed nervously, and it disappeared. "We're the leftovers!" His face deadpanned, and he briefly smiled. "Mmm, leftovers."
"Aww, are you little wimps actually afraid of the dark?" Chopper's voice grated his ears even from the back of the classroom. He rested against his seat, his hairy forearms hanging lazily at his sides. "Weird stuff happens here all the time. They probably just blew a fuse, and we all took a nap or somethin'."
Chaz jumped up. "No, they're holding us prisoner, and now we're going to be forced to fight to the death! I knew this day wou—" A spurt of dense, olive-colored gas left a turret mounted on the ceiling and struck Chaz in the face. His knees buckled as he hunched over his desk to cough violently.
"Sit down and shut up. If any of you attempt to leave your seats, an electric grid in the floor will fry you like a peanut butter and Splat sandwich before you even reach the door." At once, the class fell silent, and their heads snapped towards the intercom. Despite the menacing tone, there was a smarmy quality to the voice, as if it were meant for a nerdy ice cream salesman rather than a potential kidnapper.
Common consensus ruled that most of Chaz's opinions were nothing more than fearmongering, but it pained him more than usual to admit that he might even be right this time. The Galloping Man, The Starvation Games, Battle Roulette – he had slouched through too many dystopian gladiator films, too many banal meta commentaries about mankind's natural, voyeuristic fascination with violence and vain fixation on self-continuation at the expense of others. But those were just corny movies.
"Listen like good children, and I guarantee you will remain unharmed. For the moment."
He could hear Deuce working on detaching another fingernail, the sound of his gnashing teeth like a large cockroach scurrying around in the dark.
"I will read to you the following rules pertaining to your punishment…"
Even Chopper McNeal and his two cronies remained speechless, though he thought he heard a nervous giggle slip from Stinky, the stocky one in overalls.
"One, you are all here because you are being punished."
"For what?" snapped Goob. Like Nadine, he was seldom seen with the hood of his sweatshirt down. The legs of his desk scraped as he stood, but another blast from the ceiling-mounted turret returned him to his seat.
"Don't interrupt again, Mr. Clark, or you will be disqualified. Two, students are to crystalize one another until one remains. Weapons will be available after orientation."
He could hear his neighbors breathe in a collective gasp. Maybe he did, too, even if his expertise in celluloid primed him for this. They were in a movie now, in actuality as long as his camera kept rolling. People always sat in theatres watching and silently planning for the hypothetical – what would I do if I had to kill (well, crystalize) my classmates? People I've known since childhood? My friends? Could I really run or fight or hide for that long? Could I really survive?
He had forgotten all his plans. All he could do was stare at Chaz's trembling legs, which shook the entirety of his desk.
"Three, all students that are crystalized will be taken for a little vacation. The survivor may go home after the completion of the punishment."
Tears striped Giuseppe Stern's gaunt cheeks, nearly unnoticeable against his talcum-colored complexion. Curiously, none of his heavy eye make-up melted off. He considered asking him for primer recommendations later. It was growing tiresome, having to wipe Chaz's too-light foundation off the equipment. (What was the point of scheduling his tanning appointments, then? he thought.)
"Furthermore, each of you is in possession of one Lattice line –" The voice was interrupted by what sounded like a pre-recording for an old-fashioned radio commercial. "Property of Mann & Webber Firearms © All Rights Reserved." Beat. "—handcuff."
Simultaneously, sleeves rolled up and eyes traveled to wrists. A silver band was cinched tightly as to not allow any space between skin and metal. It possessed a small, green light, which Stepak guessed was for monitoring purposes.
"Please direct your attention to this short presentation," the Ice Cream Man continued, referring to the television on stilts. "Trespass into any forbidden zones such as the principal's office, and you will receive an intramuscular dose of pseudocrystalline."
A crude, sepia-tinted animation showed a ballcapped child wandering precariously close to a large door with a sign labeled "Principal's Office – Keep Away" in capital letters.
"Readin' signs is fa sqwares," said the child in a contrived Brooklyn accent before he held up his little four-fingered hand and found a craggy stump in its place. His terrified screams went uninterrupted by the class, quieting only after the encroaching crystal rolled over his mouth and nose, capping his final breaths.
"The injection itself is painless, but the crystallization is especially uncomfortable. Do be careful when traversing the map."
An overhead map of the school blew up on screen. Large swaths were stained pink, and a bright red dot pimpled a single room. It was almost like looking at a weather forecast, the red signifying a tornado.
"The school yards, parking lot, football field, and other areas that are not an immediate part of the campus building are transitory forbidden zones. From the moment you step past the limit, you have sixty seconds to re-enter the school before auto-injection is activated. This is to prevent any students from attempting to climb the fence."
A metallic sound he couldn't place provided ambience to the Ice Cream Man's instructions. Its pitch undulated; and if he covered his ears, it reminded him of some strange machine in pain. Wayne Duncan temporarily halted his wheezing to take two puffs from an inhaler, and the noise ceased.
"Please note that the handcuffs are tamper-resistant. If you attempt to cut them off, they will auto-inject."
"Stop it." Chopper gave a terse whisper, twisting in his seat to swat a larger guy's hand away from his wrist. Having been known around school to punch fist-shaped craters into steel lockers (and sometimes people), Emmett could have easily torn his own bracelet off. Stepak almost wished he would, but the weaker students couldn't be so lucky.
"In a short moment, you will be called up one at a time to retrieve your patented Lattice survival packs – Property of Mann & Webber Firearms © All Rights Reserved. Afterwards, you are to leave the detention room immediately. Failure to do so will result in: one, electrocution via floor grid or two, crystallization. What you do afterwards is up to you. As of this moment, orientation is over. Wait patiently in your seats until your name is called."
He sensed movement in his peripherals, students turning to whisper or discreetly pass notes. Undoubtedly, hurried promises to meet up later.
A group of students who called themselves the Down with Lee Club argued in whispers. Giuseppe Stern, Ed McFenney, and Robin Raven didn't have enough collective cunning among them to survive until the end. He guessed they would be an early nuisance at best before infighting tore the group apart.
Then there were the 15th Graders, the trio of overaged delinquents which included Chopper McNeal, Emmett McKinley, and a guy everyone knew as Stinky. They'd play aggressive from the beginning, and he wouldn't be surprised if they ended up responsible for a bulk of the early eliminations. No potential for endgame survival, though. He predicted that they'd be eradicated mid-to-late game by someone smarter and even more vicious than they were.
Nadine Oliver, Ruby Kwee, and "Tech Nerd" made up the Genius Club, a clique that mostly kept to themselves. Ruby happened to be the younger sister of Tina Kwee, the more competent of A. Nigma's newscasters, and Stepak felt that he liked her more because of it. Too bad she was doomed. Children never survived these types of scenarios. Most likely, she would act as the heart of her team before being coldly taken out.
In the movies, the people who emerged from the wreckage always proved to be either the level-headed hero or the wide-eyed idealist. Nadine and Tech Nerd happened to be both, respectively. Of everyone in the room, the narrative was skewed in their favor, given that none of the independents arose for a dark horse victory.
The remaining students, the independents, faced their desks and gathered sweat in their chairs. They were the classmates who, thanks to some cosmic malfunction, ended up separated from anyone they could safely call an ally.
The most notable was a boy known as Goob, who played bass with the school music idols and could be considered popular if he bothered to socialize outside the band. He could probably weasel his way into any of the groups, but he seemed too proud to do so immediately out the door.
Trevor Mars was all shoulders and arms but little else, which allowed him to coast by on his status as the football team's number two (second to only his best friend, Quarterback Steve). Unlike Goob, his popularity was superficial, concentrated among an insular group of social climbers, jocks, and trust fund babies. He wouldn't survive for long.
Fred Conners was a member of the Skaters, a clique that was so-so in A. Nigma's social hierarchy. With his sun-bleached hair and drowsy-looking eyes, he seemed the epitome of a cute but dumb surfer. His spacey mannerisms would allow him to conveniently evade the other combatants early on, so Stepak banked on a mid-to-late-game elimination.
Deuce Markowitz and Wayne Duncan, an outcast and a mathlete, were goners are far as he was concerned. They were probably going to end up padding someone else's early-game gem count.
In terms of unpopularity, Suzie Elliot was the outlier that should have not been counted, easily able to rival Chopper McNeal for most reviled person in school. Was likely to get herself gemmed, possibly after attempting mass crystallization. (It wouldn't be the first time.)
The brim of Ocho's bucket hat shaded his eyes, and Stepak had to lean and squint to see that they were closed. He appeared as if he hadn't yet stewed off the effects of the gas, but his head raised slowly at the introduction of a paper ball on his desk. Wordlessly, he unfolded it, his hawkish eyes unmoving. He lowered the note and shut his eyes once more like a gargoyle at sunrise. Likely the first to go, yet he somehow seemed privy to his fate.
So where did his predictions leave him and Chaz? He found Chaz staring back at him, as if wondering the same thing.
"Wayne Duncan, step forward."
Author's Note: This is actually a Battle Royale-inspired rewrite of a Detentionaire fic that I had posted back in December. The original had less characters and a lighter concept, but I didn't really have any idea where the plot was heading. Generally, I tried to keep the content silly but kind of dark like the actual show.
Anyway, this story has been marinating in my drafts for a while. I don't know if I'll ever continue it; but it's sitting at fifteen thousand words, so I figured I should post some of the chapters anyway since the Det fandom doesn't receive much fanfiction. (I also love edge and can't get enough.)