I want to thank you all for being here and apologize if I ever forget to reply to anyone's review. Know that they always make my day and encourage me to keep posting.
I'm trying my best to keep a decent updating schedule so that you don't forget what this story is about.
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Previously:
Kol and some friends invited a few of the Mystic Falls Gang to join them crashing a party. But the party turns out to be a front for something much darker. Soon, they all find themselves thrown into a large pool known as The Pit. That's when a game is announced: they are to be split in groups and fight each other. To underscore how serious they are, one of Kol's friends is already killed...
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[Two days earlier]
…
The first thing you do when someone tells you there is no escape is, of course, you try to escape.
Lexi was rubbing her face, assessing her situation. How she had gotten into this mess was the most stupid misjudgment she had made in a long time.
Wanting to surprise Stefan, she had come to Mystic Falls before his own impending departure and had waited at this silly little graduation party for him. (She hadn't even gone to her own…)
And then he hadn't even shown up. For a moment she had contemplated messaging, revealing herself, but then she had stumbled upon Caroline, and things had gone in a different direction altogether. To say that she had felt awkward and awful seeing Stefan's ex-girlfriend so heartbroken pretty much summed it up.
Kol Mikaelson's appearance out of nowhere had actually come as a relief, a rescue from an uncomfortable situation in which Lexi had basically watched as Caroline's level of intoxication rose. She had been unable to persuade the girl that it was time to stop, until the blond kid had shown up to take her home. Lexi had been left somehow feeling responsible (she doubted that poor Caroline ever did believe her that Stefan was a platonic friend…).
Then Kol had swaggered over, all grand gestures and big mouth, and even though she had felt the need to roll her eyes, she had still gladly accepted his offer to leave the lake together. He and his little entourage of bored friends that, just like her, really had no business being at this party had finally decided to move on. It had sounded like a good idea.
If only she had known back then that that decision would lead her here, into this horrible horrible mess.
"Groups are almost complete! Last players to be chosen are… girl in the black dress and Kol!" The innocent looking surfer boy was just calling out and part of her had difficulty aligning his looks and his chill attitude with what he was talking about. They were choosing players for their sick game, Kol the only one they at least knew the name of. The rest of them were not even asked theirs, just got called by what they were wearing, or - in Damon's case - by their loud mouths. Although he had kept pretty quiet after one of them had already been clobbered to death. Lexi swallowed, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, trying to forget the sound the body had made upon falling.
Girl in the black dress, that was her name, and not a minute after she had been called, she was shoved over to where Vicky, Mazzy, Casey, Joel, and Enzo were already being dragged down into the pool.
Big, too bright lights had been turned on to illuminate the stage where she was supposed to fight for her life, but she still couldn't believe that this was really happening.
Until it was.
For a moment, they all just stared at each other, like deer in headlights, frozen, and unsure of what to do.
"You got two hours before we start intervening. Two hours to figure out who dies, and how…" Gosh, she was so tired of the surfer's voice. She was hugging herself, sidling over to the people she knew best, Vicky and Enzo.
They had been told everyone would die if they refused to fight. But… what if they were just trying to mess with them? Maybe they'd proclaim it all a big giant fucked up joke in a minute, and then she would be sorry she ever even started attacking anyone.
They didn't, though.
Seconds and minutes ticked by and nothing happened. Lexi saw the other "group" wait their turn up top, Kol, Damon, Bonnie, Jeremy, Rebekah, Martin. They looked so small from down where she was, so unreal. Suddenly, an alarm rang, jolting her back to reality; a blaring sound that made them all put their hands to their ears.
"One hour is up. One more to go. You better start making a move before the time runs out."
The alarm hurt her ears, her brain. She needed it to stop. But when it finally did, she half wished for it to turn back on, to drown out her wild thoughts.
Exchanging a glance with Vicky, then Enzo, she grimaced. Vicky was shaking in her tiny blue dress, a girl too pretty to be standing in a dirty old pool. Lexi's gaze wandered down to her shoes, to Vicky's. She sighed. Stilettos wouldn't do either of them any favors, no matter how this ended.
"Take off your shoes," she whispered over to the other girl, who looked at her a little confused but then did as she was told.
"What do we do?" The shaky voice of the other girl, the redhead, asked a question neither of them wanted to answer. Nobody wanted to be the first one to make a move, the first one to give up, to give these assholes what they wanted.
Lexi was just trying to get her brain to work and come up with something to say, when she saw Enzo shake his head, half turning away from them all, scoffing. "Fuck this," he cursed, "I'm not—"
With an unexpected and fast movement, Joel abruptly hit him against the side of his head, making Lexi gasp, and Vicky yelp out. He was holding a large piece of piping that he must have picked up off the ground at some point, even though she couldn't recall having seen him bend down for anything.
"What the fuck?!" (Had she said that? Someone else?)
Enzo was trying to regain his bearings, Lexi trying to hold onto him to keep him from falling to his knees. The blow had been bad. Blood was pouring freely from what looked like a large gash that had appeared where the metal had connected with the side of his face.
"I'm sorry, man," Joel hissed out, his face contorted into a pained mask, "I just can't die down here. They're gonna kill us all if we don't. . . They're gonna kill us!"
He was aiming to hit again. Out of instinct, Lexi reacted. Pulling at Enzo, she made him duck down with her. Searching for something, anything to block Joel's attack, she found a hammer and reached for it, then quickly aimed for him. Shooting up, she whirled around, blocking his attack, if barely. Enzo stared up at her in shock. Under other circumstances she would have laughed at his expression. But this wasn't funny at all. None of it.
There was no time to think. Swinging the hammer again, she rotated forward, feeling the tool connect with shocking precision, its sharp end getting embedded in Joel's temple, cracking open his skull at its weakest point.
She gasped as his features went slack, a look of surprise and disbelief appearing on his face before his eyes glazed over way too quickly, the life seeping out of him almost instantly. She hadn't expected him to die. She hadn't expected herself to… to kill him.
It had been so easy, so horribly, awfully easy.
Someone was screaming. Maybe it was her.
Things went crazy after that. It was as if she and Joel had opened Pandora's box, had pulled the trigger. Now the boy's friends came at her at once, Mazzy, the pretty girl, and Casey, the solemn looking black headed kid that she had barely exchanged a word with all evening. She better not start now because what she would have to try to do was… kill them, too.
They were six people, three of whom had to die. And while she knew neither Vicky nor Enzo very well, at least she did know them. She couldn't say the same about the other three.
Casey was a force to be reckoned with, however. Strong, with a bulky muscled body, his movements were surprisingly lithe. He and Lexi danced around each other while elsewhere, Vicky was trying to gain the upper hand on a feral looking Mazzy. Out of the corner of her eye, Lexi saw Enzo standing up, shaking his head as if to clear his vision, half tumbling toward where she and Casey were now engaged in a vicious fight, trying to dodge and attack each other simultaneously.
The guy was going for her throat with a small knife, almost getting her, when Enzo rammed into him from the side, making him topple over and cut Lexi's cheek instead of a more vital part.
She hissed in pain, exchanging a wild glance with Enzo, when they both noticed Mazzy strangling a struggling Vicky.
"Go," she told Enzo, "help her." Then she sprang to her feet again, moving quickly to hold Casey down, and preventing him from getting the upper hand again. It wasn't easy. He was just so bulky, so strong.
She was dimly aware of Enzo pulling Mazzy off of a heavily panting Vicky, saw him smash the girl's head against the ground so hard her body went completely limp. Then, grimacing, closing his eyes, he did it again, and again, as if to make sure...
A sudden searing pain brought her back to her own problems. Casey was towering over her, his face bloody and dangerous. He had brought down a hammer on her shoulder in one quick violent move, crashing her clavicle in the process. It was the same stupid hammer that must have slipped her grip earlier. She went down heavily under the blow, yelling out in agony.
Gulping in breaths of humid air, she tried to get up and couldn't. Dazed, she watched as Enzo repaid her for her earlier help by warding off another attack on her, tackling Casey to the ground hard.
He went to help her stand up again. Holding onto his arm, feeling his fingers wrap around hers, she got pulled onto her feet. A woosh of air sent chills down her body. Their gazes met, his eyes so full of pain and shock and disgust that she wanted to cry. What this was doing to them, they would never be able to—
"No!"
Enzo's voice was the last thing she heard. Her head seemed to explode with a glaring white red light, almost painless. "Oh…" Her mouth remained in an O-shape as she lifted her hand to touch the back of her head. He was rushing to meet her, falling to his knees in front of her. She felt his arms come around her, saw his mouth move. But she couldn't hear.
Somewhere, the lights went crazy, maybe there was an alarm she also couldn't hear? Was she deaf?
Her hand had come away sticky. Her gaze searched for Enzo's, for someone's. There was blood on her hand. She touched the back of her head again. More blood, flowing freely now. But the worst, the worst were those hard pieces she could peel out of her hair. That gooeyness underneath the tips of her fingers…
A long sigh escaped her as she tried to comprehend and failed. Tried to think of Stefan and her plans to move in with him. But the pull of darkness was so strong. Too strong. She slumped forward, against Enzo, not even aware anymore of him calling out to her, of his desperate touch against her head, as if he could somehow stave the bleeding and make her skin heal over.
It didn't work, of course. Lexi's fight was over.
At least she was out of the pit...
…
They raced down into the pit as soon as it was over, as soon as they had their first three dead. Brandishing tasers, they rounded up the three winners before anything else could happen. Because sometimes these players got a little too crazy. Overzealous. Into a frenzy of blood. Then they wanted to continue fighting and killing even after they had achieved their goal. It kinda took away from the game, made it end too quickly, so they had started to intervene. This way was working better for them.
Such a shame that the little sassy fighter girl was dead. She had been an instant crowd favorite.
They had just barely kept the kid that had killed her from also smashing in the head of the pale dark one. They had almost been a player short, there. Beast coughed into his arm. That wouldn't have been good for ratings. For the entire game, really.
There was more to come after all, and he was sure that having both of these guys still in the game could make for some interesting dynamics in the next round. After group two got a chance to reduce their numbers, of course. (He couldn't wait for Kol and Loud Mouth to get down into the pit, couldn't wait to see how they fared…)
This was the biggest event they had had so far. Up until now, it had been nothing but an elusive circle watching a few bums fight it out. Usually just a group of two against two. But the forgotten creatures of society simply didn't hold the same… excitement as a few fresh and clean faced college kids.
They had gotten to the next level, and this was going to be exhilarating, to say the least. Beast grinned as he looked down to where little naive Kol, who thought of himself as such a black sheep, was rounded up and brought down into the pit.
The kid didn't even see him up here, but it didn't matter anyway. Although Beast was genuinely interested in finding out how far the Mikaelson siblings would make it. Whether either of them would survive.
The thing was, Beast and his people had been making money out of this. For quite a while now. There was a market for everything, and when they had first advertised on 4chan, and other places of the dark web, there had been an astonishing and quite immediate interest. Bum fights had been around for decades, but with the right kind of setting, they had still brought good money, even though that was nothing compared to the numbers they were making now. This, this was truly insane. What a difference it made whether a player was pretty much dead already, with not much to hope for in life anymore as opposed to some privileged kids with their lives ahead of them.
Beast sniffed. Yeah, he thought. This was going to be good. He'd be freaking rich in one fell swoop.
It didn't hurt that he'd also get to land a blow against the stupid rich Mikaelsons living their stupid rich better-than-thou lives. He would hurt those assholes. No matter whether they'd survive (he'd see to it that they didn't…), the damage was already done.
…
