The stitching of the wounds took about ten minutes as Kanaya pushed the needle through Eridan's skin in neat little lines, with Feferi holding his hand and stroking his face to distract him from the pain. Kanaya told him that he was lucky, that the first stab had avoided his organs by a massive stroke of luck… but the second had gotten him in the kidney by the looks of it. Somehow, he stayed awake, pain written across his face as the metal pierced his skin and the thread was drawn through.

Once she had sewn up the stab wounds on his sides, Kanaya dipped her fingers into the salve and applied it to the wounds generously, noting the immediate relaxing of his face as the balm eased Eridan's pain. The salve seemed to fizz slightly as it made contact with his wounds, and both females quickly realised why: nanobots.

"They've spared nanobots for him?" Feferi gasped, although they both knew why they had. He was royalty for a start, but also there was the glaring fact that if he died, Feferi died too, and they could not allow that. Feferi Peixes, against all odds, was going to survive. And there was nothing anyone could do about that. Well. The girl was not about to complain… but then it did leave the other candidates a little out of luck. Even Vriska, despite her claims of having 'all the luck'. Please.

Waves of pity washed over Kanaya, however, as she thought of the other teams. While she was prepared to severely injure and quite possibly kill when it came to it, she could not say she took particular pleasure from it, or at least not if she had not been previously provoked.

Once Eridan was done, they moved back up to the observatory, wanting the safety that came with it while they licked their wounds and recovered.

Yet while she unravelled another lot of thread from her spools, preparing to sew up Feferi, a voice echoed around the room, telling them how they would need to kill someone before they could advance onwards in safety. Feferi's expression was hard at the woman's words, but she seemed to be holding up well. As long as she did not have a mental breakdown, they would be fine. Kanaya gave her a comforting pat on the knee before ordering to see her foot. It was now time for Feferi's stitching…

== Be the blind chick

You are now Terezi Pyrope, and an insensitive dumbass for calling her that. Gosh.

The first twenty-four hours of the blindness was the worst, and after waking without vision spent the remainder of the day walking into things and scraping her palms and knees. The following day was not spectacular either. And after the announcement from the head of T.R.O.L.L, Terezi was all for smashing her head into a wall.

Karkat and Gamzee had left her alone, for they could tell that she needed to just sit with her thoughts for a bit. Honestly, for a couple of minutes she sobbed into her palms, not wanting to accept her blindness, or how either Gamzee or Karkat were going to have to kill someone, because hell if she was going to do anything in this state.

'Terezi?' a voice whispered, sounding as if they were right behind her. The girl bolted upright, confused at the word she had just head.

"Hello? Who are you?"

'Hello, my lovely!' Oh, it was her mum. No one else called her 'lovely'… although how the heck she was talking to her inside her mind, she had not the foggiest. 'Try and speak in your head though, flower, else wise all of your friends will think you quite insane.'

'What, like this?'

'Yes. Exactly like that, lovely. Now then. I've been trying to get through to you for quite a while now in your sleep, but it seems that someone has been blocking me? Anyway, I'm speaking to you now and that is what counts,' As always, her mother spoke in an exited tone of voice as if conveying the new found cure for aging. 'How are you?'

'I'm blind now. Someone poured some chemicals in my eyes while I slept.' Terezi tried to think bluntly, but the mind is a tricky thing, and although her words (or thoughts rather) were emotionless, an entire plethora of emotions were transmitted to her mum that showed just how stressed and upset she was feeling.

'Oh Tezzi!' she cried, using the pet name she had given to her daughter when she was a baby, and a wave of soothing feelings passed through the girl, almost as good as a hug.

'How are you even speaking like this to me anyway?' Terezi asked, as she probably should have a while ago. 'Are you a mutant too?'

'Yes. But mine is not obvious in the same way that your mutation is. I'm telepathic.'

'I think I'd worked that bit out, mum, he he.'

'Don't you use that tone of thought at me, Terezi! Right then. We need to get you back to your old strength. I'm going to teach you how to smell and taste colours.' And although initially apprehensive, because heck, who can smell colours, Terezi indeed learnt how to smell them. It was probably the weirdest thing she had learnt to do, and when Karkat popped in to check up on her, he thought she looked insane, sniffing objects and then saying colours aloud. Or even weirder, once her mother instructed her how to taste them.

This process involved licking objects for maximum clarity, which Terezi disliked at first… until she found out about the wealth of colours that she discovered. The vivid candy apple of reds! The grossness of green apple sours! The smooth chocolate milkshake of brown! Wow, she had been missing out big time here. Why had her mother not taught her this before?

'Do you think you have it now, sweetie?' her mum said after the four hour long tutorial. 'It's a trait you inherited, so it shouldn't be too hard for you to learn, my lovely.'

It was just turning dark when Terezi ended the tutorial, and she could smell the vivid orange creamsicle of the sky from where she stood at the window, with the odd dash of purple ribena juice as the clouds. In the centre of this, hidden just behind peach squash roofs was an orb of pale, banana yellow – the sun.

With a soft click, the door opened once more as Karkat and Gamzee came in. Terezi flicked her tongue over her red glasses, revelling in the taste of candy-apples before sliding them over her destroyed eyes, covering red with red.

"Hey, sis, how are your motherfucking eyes?" Gamzee asked, a concerned look on his face, not that Terezi could tell using only her scent… and she was not about to lick him just to tell that!

"Still blind. But I don't need to worry about that anymore, he he," With a grin, she added, "Pick up something, and I'll tell you what it is. And stop giving each other that look."

In reality, she could not quite see their expressions, but from their general body language, and the way that Gamzee and Karkat turned to each other after her words, she was able to effectively guess what they were doing. Shrugging, they then each picked up an item: Karkat, his two scythes, and Gamzee, a tin of tomato soup. She instructed them to hold the items out in front of her, and she then gave the air a long, slow sniff.

"Karkat, you've got your dumb scythes, and Gamzee some… uh, a red tin?" She grabbed it from him, and licked over the label. "Soup. Tomato."

"The fuck, Terezi?" Karkat exclaimed. "How are you doing that?"

In response, she merely tapped the side of her nose with one long finger while grinning maddeningly.

"Now then. We have work to do. We need to all get weapons, and we need to murder someone, unfortunately."

"Hey, who's the fucking leader here? Guess what, and, like, get the press on this, because it's not you, Terezi. It's me. So I'll be doing the ordering about."

"You're so cute when you think that'll actually work, Karkles!" she cackled, pinching his cheek with a disturbing amount of accuracy.

While she could now see a hell of a lot more than she could before, Terezi's vision, or scent, was still not perfect, and so it was decided that until she was fully able to pick up moving objects in the dark she would not keep watch.

The next morning, Gamzee came up to her during an interesting breakfast of greenery from their garden with a cane in his hands. It was a strange device that split into three attached segments. Terezi hadn't a clue how that could be used in battle, but hey, whatever. It was still nice of Gamzee to find it for her, and so she have him another pat on the head. He had very nice hair for a stoner.

Despite the hunger that filled their bodies as readily as a virus, Terezi and Karkat sparred after breakfast. Canekind versus scythekind. Despite how Karkat had twice as many weapons as she did, and both of which sharp, she managed to beat him. Whether it was due to just his terrible skills with the scythe, or the fact that Terezi had attended fighting classes with Vriska for several years, it was uncertain. Loosing to a (pretty much) blind girl? Wow he had some work to do. But what they both knew for certain is that if someone broke in, it would probably be Gamzee that would do most of the fighting.

It was a worrying transformation, that of the lax stoner into that of a violent sadist. Both had heard the rumours of the lurid liathdaonna, of those mutants so violent that they tended to destroy themselves before they were even born. Besides, it was said that the indigo bloods could also have genes related those particular mutants… and, well, Gamzee was quite clearly an indigo-blood. So far, they had not seen him completely lose control, although he was definitely not the same boy that had sung songs about cockatoos to Karkat on the plane ride down to New Mexico, accompanied only by the tapping of his finger-nails, and the occasional honk from some weird clown horn, the item he had intended to take, but had left behind on the plane.

"Well, motherfuckers, I'm off to go look for some more motherfucking food. Look after Karkat will you, Terezi?" Gamzee winked before heading out. Quite besides the bat-like ears they had all received, Terezi's hearing had also improved since the loss of her sight, and so she heard the Aussie mutter something under his breath as he descended downstairs. "Although it'll be a fucking miracle if I find anything."

As soon as they heard the click of the door, Terezi turned back to Karkat with a big grin on her face. "Come on, crabbyface. We need to get you trained up in case anyone finds us here."

== Be Group One

You cannot be Group One, for we do not know anything about them. But you can be a sort of creepy stalker like narrative following them around. You are now a creepy stalker like narrative following Group One around.

If there was one thing Group One were full of, other than themselves for some odd reason, it was an unhealthy mixture of bravado and brains. The leader of their team was a slight girl of the name Yuuqui Verita, who had been a fifteen year old chemistry prodigy prior her mutation. It had not only taken everything away from her, but landed her in a group supplemented with a pair of womanising dumbasses that had no qualms about trying to hit on members of the opposing teams. This had supplied her with a disturbing lack of empathy for her fellow human beings, and so she hadn't any issues with the killing and maiming of others. The brawn of their team were both American football players with buzz cuts and a ridiculous amount of muscle on their arms. And yet, after one of them had tried slapping some poor thirteen year old on the butt, her team mate, an oddly… well, not slender, per se, but certainly not a bulky looking young boy, had hit him back so hard he ended up being thrown across the central plaza, dislocating his arm. It hadn't been a great day for Group One, needless to say, and because of this, the boy, Lenuit, had formed a grudge against what they found to be called Group Seven; in particular Equius Zahhak.

When the woman had announced that they would all have to kill at least one other mutant before their team would be allowed to survive, Lenuit knew just which group he wanted to target. But before they could do that, they had to finish their current business, which was taking over control of the shop from the foolish Group Three. Sure, the third group had control over almost all of the provisions for the game, which brought them a degree of security, but that made them a delicious target. And that was something that Group One just could not resist.

With the strength of Lenuit and Essair controlled and distilled into a flawless action plan by Yuuqui, Group Three had not stood a chance and were quickly defeated by two snapped necks and a punctured lung. Although the boy with the punctured lung disintegrated due to the death of his team mates before he could actually die on his own terms. They allowed themselves a brief feast before packing up anything useful and hauling it off to their shelter, with Lenuit and Essair as pack horses.

Yuuqui provided a brief motivational speech on how they were going so far, and what they would need to do next to ensure the best chances of survival before leaving for her lair once more. The next day, she laid out the plans for their removal of Group Four. One of them had insulted her while they were being sorted into groups, and her twisted purple-blooded mind wanted revenge. The kind of revenge that ended in deaths.

From what she could gather from the third group before they were silenced, they were in a sort of partnership with Group Four, with the fourth group shooting any who tried to get into the shop. Well, lucky they had snuck in under the cover of darkness then. They had been doing a lot of that, sneaking around in the dark, getting the low down on the other teams and causing a bit of havoc. Just a day or so prior, Yuuqui had found the shelter of Group Nine and blinded someone in their team. As they had not done anything in particular against her, she decided to be merciful and let them live with only a warning. Besides, one of the guys in their group was cute.

Unlike Three, Group Four had proved to be somewhat more challenging with one member handy with a rifle, and another with a vicious spear. Except that the spear snapped in half easily after it was lodged in the wielder's chest, and although one bullet clipped of half of Essair's ear, a similar bullet clipped of half of the rifle-wielder's cranium. It was only fair, after all, that the strongest survived, no?

Their goods were collected, and another group was officially slashed from the list of survivors. Now, there were only five groups. One more would have to be destroyed, but even if that occurred then only three could pass through to the next stage of the T.R.O.L.L facility, as each group must have murdered at least one other group…

Well, Yuuqui was done with the brawn of the group for the evening, and so the brawn were free to do what they wished. Each picked up a club and headed for the door. Essair and Lenuit had taken down the easy prey, and now wished for something with a little more… bite.

She was okay with that. The moronic duo made a lot of noise, so it was good to let them out now and again, to let off steam and what not. Besides, Yuuqui needed to work.

It was known that occasionally children were just born with twisted personalities. Yuuqui Verita was one of these children. It was simply the way she was, and although if she'd had amazing parents that worked hard on turning her into a decent member of society, she could have turned out to be a nice person, but the fact was that her family were snobs meant that the time of reform was too late. Having been home schooled by her parents from birth, essentially, she had never really had much in the way of contact with anyone her own age. Then, there was the fact that she was of the same blood caste as Eridan Ampora, and so she should have been able to afford anything her little heart desired… but that was one thing she would not have, as her parents had denied her this inheritance as it was deemed 'character building', not until she was eighteen anyway. Since she would be living with her parents until this age anyway, most could not see the problem with this. But her friends, all other purple-bloods only fuelled her opinion that this was a great injustice by going on vast shopping sprees every other weekend which she could not attend, lest she get jealous and smash something. So when someone did something that annoyed her, the grudge was held until she rectified their action with something of a worse nature.

Being a chemist, Yuuqui knew a fair amount about making things go BOOM. And from what she had gathered from the mutterings of an asleep Terezi, Vriska had a love for a certain object, and what luck Yuuqui had! Just the other day she had stumbled across one in the attic, and so with a few minor alterations, the trap was set.

Vriska, well Group Eight really, had stolen a certain house from her clutches. Damn. It would have been the perfect shelter from them and they had been planning to sneak in, back when they were not so comfortable about murder, but Vriska had gotten there first. Well, Yuuqui would not let such a thing slip.

With a grin, she slid out of the door and disappeared into the night. She had an important package to deliver.

== OH MY GOD what even happened to Tavros? Be him

You cannot be Tavros Nitram, for he is unconscious.

== Fine. Then Vriska, hurry up with the bucket filling already so you can swoop in to Tavros's aid.

You guess you can acquiesce to that, although… there is something incredibly awkward about buckets all of a sudden…

== People are dying. YOU FILL THAT BUCKET THIS INSTANT

You are now Vriska Serket and you are filling that bucket this instant

Someone was calling her, she was certain of it, but it was all but drowned out over the sound of water gushing into the bucket she had found under one of the sinks in the kitchen. No sooner had Vriska fixed her eyes upon it had she felt a flush rise onto her face. Odd. She would have to come to terms with this sudden embarrassment at buckets later. Right now there were fires to put out, damsels to save and what not. Well… damsel anyway. And a male damsel at that.

Upon seeing Tavros's passed out form on the floor, she all but hurled the water at the painting, and tugging the bottom of the boiler-suit up over her face, dragged him out of the room. She was not about to see her team get destroyed simply because Tavros inhaled too much smoke.

"Sollux, take him while I get more water. We need to put that fire out." she gasped, coughing out the smoke between sentences as she passed Tavros to the geek. "Jesus, I wonder if any of the other groups are having this crazy amount of fun. It's unfair to be hogging it all like this."

After three buckets of water, the fire died out and the group shut the door on the smoke, wondering what to do with it.

"We can't just release it outside." Vriska argued. "It'll be a pretty clear signal to where we are."

"How about when night fallth? The other teams thouldn't be able to thee it then."

Sollux made a good case, and so it was decided that they would wait for the skies to darken more before the smoke would be let out. In the mean time, however, they focused on their fallen team mate.

"Poor Tavroth. He'th taking the bulk of the thit at the moment."

"A meat shield, you mean?"

"Yeth, I gueth you could thay that."

"Urg, come oooooooon. Wake up, Tavros." she crooned over his face, lightly slapping his cheeks. He had been laid out on one of the sofas in the living room, his small form hidden beneath a duvet as Sollux tried to make the boy somewhat comfortable. Vriska imagined that he could not wait for the growth spurt that would doubtless come soon to accompany its good friend 'wavy, breaking voice'. At her words, he stirred a little, and with a little more encouragement (face slapping) he woke and was greeted with a bottle of water being shoved in his face. "Drink this."

"That's what I, uh, tend to do with water."

"So witty. You know, maybe if you put some of that bravado attitude into getting the hell better, we wouldn't be in this situation." she smirked, then ruffled his hair, messing it up more than before… if possible.

Night soon fell and Sollux volunteered to be the one to let out the smoke, as he was the one who had caused it in the first place. Once it was all gone, Tavros and Vriska entered the room once more, the former being wheeled in on the wheelie-chair, as hell, they may as well use it at some point.

Their stuff reeked of smoke, but did not seem to be ill affected by it. Vriska's dice were kept safe, nestled in the velvet of the casing, with Tinkerbull whiffing a little and Sollux's iPhone not looking worse for the wear, due to it being in his pocket the whole time, as always.

"Well. It could, uhh, be worse I guess."

"It could almost always be worse, squirt." she said, pursing her lips. "Anyway, where will we sleep tonight? We can't sleep in here, we'll hack up our lungs the next morning or whatever."

So they slept in the living room, with the two sleepers sharing the sofa, and the person keeping watch sitting on the armchair. Sometime in the early hours of the morning, Vriska sat up alert in the chair. She could hear something, or rather someone. Creaking echoed down the corridor that went past the living room.

It was probably just the house settling… yeah.

Another creak. Well, it seemed that this house had oddly regular settling boards… but it was not as if there was heating in this house; the fact that she could see her breath was evidence enough of that. So it was not that things were expanding as they heated…

As silently as possible, she stood, padding over to where Sollux and Tavros lay sleeping with the knife gripped firmly in her hand. Should she wake them? If it was a false alarm then a shit storm would doubtlessly be released from Sollux who really likes his sleep, and Tavros wouldn't exactly be an issue. But what if they made a noise as they woke, and gave away the fact that they were awake? Was she thinking too hard about this?

A thud sounded just outside the door to the living room, and the footsteps then receded once more. But Vriska did not collect whatever had been left outside, for it could be a trap, and they could still be just outside the door for all she knew. So she waited… and waited… and waited until morning, when the sun shot its irritatingly perky rays through the window. Yet despite her annoyed metaphors, relief flooded through her body at the appearance of the sun… even if it was fake.

The boys woke a couple of hours after sunrise, as Vriska could not contain the curiosity at what lay outside the door. It could potentially kill or maim her, and hey, curiosity killed the cat, but hell, she was nosy and was not getting any younger.

"." Vriska splurged as an explanation before dashing to the door and finding an innocent looking box. She gave a quick look down either side of the corridors before gently picking it up and carrying it inside.

She sat on the armchair, the box cradled between her crossed legs with Tavros and Sollux on the sofa opposite. Feeling like Pandora, she lifted the lid up, expecting perhaps a bomb, or a venomous snake or something, but instead her eyes widened, for nestled in the fabric of the box was a pure white magic-8-ball.

"Oh." she gasped and pulled it from the box delicately, clutching it between her outstretched fingers. Kicking the box onto the floor, she swapped to her usual magic-8-ball pose, with the orb held in her left hand, the right resting on her leg and said a silent vow that she would never smash this one ever. But then again, addiction is a powerful thing, and so she would have to be careful. "What to ask? Hmm… how about, 'is Group Eight going to get through to the next level?'"

Sollux had picked up the box and was rummaging about through its contents, looking for a clue as to where it came from. Upon finding a small folded note, cried out, "Vrithka, thtop!" just as she shook the ball forcefully… and then it blew up, and the note tumbled to the ground along with Vriska's left arm.

Landing face up on the ground, Vriska's remaining eye just about picked up the carefully scribed words on the note. 'I am going to blow up in your face.'

== This doesn't look good, be the French chick

You are now Marie Antoinette, on your way to meet the Dauphin of France for the first time-

== Stop messing around! Besides, Marie Antoinette was Austrian, and that was centuries ago. Be Aradia

You are now Aradia Medigo

Well, that was a riveting message to wake up to, Aradia thought as the facility owner's voice left the room. Deciding to have a lie in that morning had proven to be a bad idea, as she had missed most of the message, and it was clear from Nepeta's expression that it had been an important one.

Since the previous evening, Nepeta's condition had improved drastically with the immense pain coming from her temples lasting a couple of hours. In fact, she had woken in the night as relieved Aradia from her guard duty, so convinced was she of the nature of her recovery. Yet Equius was still keeping an eye on her, understandably, in case she suddenly turned bad again. The result of the previous night's pain were the tips of two bright yellow horns poking from the buds on her head. They were not sure whether to be horrified or amazed, in all honesty. While the fact that she, and indeed the rest of them, would be growing horns was fairly astonishing… but then again, there was also the point on how she would never be able to blend into society again now. With the grey skin, one could just about cover it with a thick coat of foundation, and the eyes, covered with dark sunglasses. But horns? Unless one was willing to wear a hat at all times, they guessed, there was little you could do.

"Non! C'est dégoûtant, ça!" Aradia hissed once Nepeta had filled her in on the announcements message. "So… we will have to kill quelqu'un? That is despicable! This is surely about controlling us, no? If we are willing to go as far as, euh, as murdering other human beings simply because they say so, then they can use us however they want! Merde!"

"Well, they may as well put us to some use," Equius shrugges. He had seemed oddly different that morning, as if Aradia's words the night before had had some effect on him. He must want the bow and arrow fairly badly. But still, it was good… albeit a little weird seeing him so pensive. "Yet I doubt the majority of us will provide as even half-decent soldiers. The effect that murder will have on young minds such as our own will be wholly negative."

"Excuse me fur the language, but duh. If we're broken then it'll make us easier fur them to mould us into the shapes they want, which at the moment looks like an army of mutant child soldiers," Nepeta offered, the serious tone to her voice still going strong, and Aradia wondered where the carefree, childish Nepeta had gone. "But one of us is going to have to do the deed, aren't they? Kill someone? And I think it's going to have to be me."

"Non, Nepeta! Pourquoi?"

"Why? Because you're too sweet, and Equius has enough complexes to last him a lifetime, what with the recent… developments in strength going on."

"Nepeta…" he growled at this, not wanting her to divulge his problems.

"Oh come on, Equius, she deserves to know! Besides, it's not like it's super well hidden or anything," she said, rolling her eyes at his expression, which was essentially a pout. "Either way, it's going to be me taking someone down."

"I forbid you from speaking on the matter, Nepeta."

"But!"

"No! I do not want to talk about this." His voice sounded sad, quiet and at right-angles to the strength he seemed to exude. Damn it, why could he not be simple!

"We're all going through, euh, shit at the moment," Aradia smiled in what she hoped was an encouraging way. "But hiding from it will only lead to more pain."

"It does not befit you, that crude language." But it was said with a small smile. Well, it was not exactly a hug, but damn it, it was a start.

"Et bien, how about this. I'll tell you about my problems, and you tell me about yours. D'accord?"

With a nod, they sat opposite each other on the bed, neither noticing that Nepeta had slunk out of the room with a smirk on her face. Aradia told him about her life as a maroon blood, about her tall, French mother who'd had to sleep around to get her high-end job, and her South-Korean father who loved her so much he accepted it. Equius had frowned at this stage, expecting such things as resorting to sex to get jobs when one was a low-blood, but not at how her parents still loved one another still.

The Parisian told him of a mutant, one from the old days, where it was not all elegantly grey-tinted skin, and yellow eyes, but one with a tumour in her brain that made her act wild. She said that this mutant had killed her maman's father, and that this mutant was her grandma, and since then her mum had set out to make sure all mutants were locked up… except then the mutations began to change, and it was no longer locking up those that are a danger to themselves and those around them, but locking up children with nothing more than a splotch of grey on their nose. And how when Aradia found out that she was a mutant, that she was terrified that her family would reject her so she desperately tried to hide it, resorting to trying to gouge off the horn nubs, to shave off the grey spots of her skin until she would pass out, and then begin again the next day.

While speaking on this topic, Aradia's fingers unconsciously began to trace over the white ridges of scar tissue dotted here and there over the skin of her arms. Looking at the buds of her horns, Equius noticed that there were still scabs covering the surface of them, with even worse scaring there than on her arms. Although he did not express it, he was concerned for her, whether the self-mutilation was still occurring, and he wondered if the maiming would affect the growth of her horns.

But not once did she cry. She was strong and would not break down in front of this weird Scotsman. No.

There was something oddly… admirable, Equius was finding, in this girl with the wide mouth, and the large, dark eyes and the beginnings of a slight swagger to her walk. Ugh, those gutter-bloods with their powers of seduction! Even as thirteen year olds, it was beginning to show.

"Euh… is it normal for you to sweat so much? Would you like a towel?" she asked, doing her best to conceal a disgusted expression.

"Ah. Yes, but I can get it."

Once he had towelled himself down (although since more sweat was replacing that which he had removed every second, there was little point) he sat down and hesitantly, slowly began to tell her shards of his story. Much of it she had heard from Nepeta, who was more liberal about such things with Aradia who had seemed fine to talk to. What he told her was of his rapidly increasing strength. While he had never been scrawny, recently he had been getting outrageously strong and could easily destroy most objects with nothing more than his fists.

"It is simply a matter of self-control," Aradia had said to him afterwards. "If we were not here, then I would recommend meditation and certain forms of, euh, martial arts, non? You must harness the strength."

But it was then when a voice cried out "Equius!" before being silenced, perhaps with a hand, perhaps with something else and the door was kicked open, Nepeta squirming in some heavily muscled boys arms. He had an arm locked around her neck, and despite her best efforts could not break free. This boy had the makings of a heavyweight boxer, and was soon joined by another with a similar build. Equius looked miniscule compared to the two sixteen year olds, as he was built up mainly of leaner, corded muscle. And as for Aradia, well… if Equius looked small, then she may as well be microscopic.

Her eyes then narrowed as she recognised them. The boy on the left was the one who had slapped her butt in the first few minutes of this fiasco, and presumably that on the right was another from his team.

"Group One." The right said. "Thought you'd like to know the name of the group going to kill you."

"Merci beaucoup, connard," Aradia spat, and then added a few more fairly coarse sentences in French, describing just how ugly his face was, and the various graphic ways she hoped he could impale himself on a rake. "What do you want for the release of Nepeta?"

"Oh!" The right chuckled, mocking her boldness and making a big show and dance of it. He then put on an atrocious French accent and turned to his companion, "Oh! Oh, sacre-bleu, I don't know, Lenuit. What do you think?"

"How about you let us beat up that guy there, and we'll give her back," The left, Lenuit, shrugged. Aradia could have laughed. From what she had seen of Equius's strength, it was pretty insane and not something to be taken lightly. Until, that is, he added, "But I want him tied up, because I'm not gonna misunderestimate him again."

"It's just underestimate, dumbass." Nepeta hissed when Essair's hand slipped a little, for which she was rewarded with a quick jerk of his arm, crushing her windpipe a little and making her hack in pain. She glanced across to where Equius stood, her eyes speaking for her while her mouth could not, and somehow some form of plan was conducted. The blue-blood glanced at Aradia, giving a small nod before stepping forwards.

"Stop there!" Essair, the brawn on the right, ordered. Without the lust for revenge clouding his vision he could clearly remember the damage the Scotsman had caused with little effort on his part.

"Are you really… so weak that you… need to tie him… up?" Nepeta croaked, squeezing the words out the best she could.

Essair laughed, "I'm not the one beating him up. You can't taunt me into your bullshit, bitch."

It was evident from the earlier attack that Equius did not take well to people calling his morail a bitch, which was understandable really. He lunged forwards and smacked Essair in the jaw with his fist, causing the boy to fly back into the wall with a thud. Quick as a lioness, Nepeta broke free of his grip and pushed away from his body before it hit the wall, her retractable knives ripping forwards, aiming towards his neck. She grabbed him by the front of his boiler suit, the razor-sharp blades of one hand mere millimetres away from the jugular.

Lenuit smirked, deciding that Nepeta's act was a bluff. Pity that it wasn't.

She slowly gouged one of the knives into Essair's arm, making him tightly clench his teeth to stop the curses and cries of pain.

"The mighty huntress saunters over to the fallen boar, her claws out and ready to take it out quickly if it threatens her," Nepeta narrated, keeping the knives at his neck once more, ignoring Equius's small smirk. "She gives it a look of pity, as she would not normally kill such a troubled creature, but times are hard, and she has cubs to feed."

Nepeta paused, giving Essair a look. She felt a little guilt at how she was threatening him, when it was clearly Lenuit who had an issue to settle with Equius, and was likely just dragging the other boy along. But as she had said: times were hard and they had to kill someone to get through to the next round, and it seemed it would be this boy.

"W-wait, wait a second. There's gotta another group you could kill, huh? I mean, what did I do to you?" Essair stammered, avoiding eye contact. Nepeta faltered slightly in her position, just enough for the boy to barrel forwards and knock her to the ground, pummelling her with blows from his fists.

But before Equius could rip the hulking mass from her, another did the deed as a tall, spindly tangle of limbs leapt towards Essair and, after picking up the heavyweight's club from the floor, smacked him around the head hard enough to create a dent.

"Quick," the newcomer said, pointing towards where Lenuit was about to charge. "You've gotta kill the motherfucker before he dies as well, or your group won't get through to the next fucking round."

The olive-blooded girl nodded, prepared to go kill the boy despite how she could barely stand, and so was surprised when an arrow shaft suddenly buried itself into Lenuit's chest, piercing the heart neatly. Essair received another blow around the head, killing him at the same time as a second arrow shot Lenuit in the eye. They were both absorbed into the floor, and on the other side of the village, Yuuqui ended her chuckles of victory as she felt her body bubble over with pain, and she too sank into the tarmac without a trace.

The disembodied woman's voice filled the room for the final time. "Enough. We have our four groups: Group Seven, Group Eight, Group Nine and Group Ten. Congratulations. Return to the plaza, and you may leave the village. Note that any killing of these final groups will result in your own death. That is all."

End of part one.

== Enter The Retainment Organisation for Lucid Liathdaonna.

A/N: ALL the POV switches.

And so, we finish part one! Next up is where I have most of it planned out, and where my original idea stemmed from. But enough about that, you will soon find out about that part! Well, I say soon, it may take another couple months to fully write out that part in full.

When I write, I often try to figure out just which group is the most fun to write as, and I still can't pick one! Although obviously, Group Eight, as the focus of this story, receive more attention than the others! Especially Tavros and Vriska, hehe.

Finally, just saw some fanart of the tavriska sprite thingy on the interwebz. Not that I'm there yet, lol, but WHUT. Whoa, that Hussie is a strange man. Is it weird that I'm looking forwards to getting to that part of the comic just for the lolz that will ensue? :S

And thanks for reading! ^^