A/N: Hey peeps! Thanks soo very much for the reviews last chapter. Sooo here's another. Nothing special in this one, unfortunately, but I (think) the next one is pretty fluffy.
Disclaimer: I do not own HXH.
. . .
Chapter 13: Glitch a Game
Fern stumbled out of the airship at the last minute before the ramp retreated back into the ship and the door closed. She let out a big, long sigh of relief as she bent over her knees, breathing heavy and panting. "Oh god…" she breathed. "Barely…made…it." Taking one last heavy breath, she swiped her hand across her forehead before straightening up and taking a glance around her.
They appeared to be on some sort of tall, elevated platform. The sun also seemed to be below them, though that was probably only because it was still early in the morning.
She turned and took in the area they had been dropped off at. They were at the top of a tower, on the flat platform of a roof. There were no stairs going down. They were basically trapped here, if they didn't want to rock climb down the sides. But perhaps there were exits elsewhere?
Hearing the sound of someone clearing his throat, Fern lifted her head. A small, egg-headed man stood outside of the blimp. "The place where the Third Exam with take place will be here—Trick Tower," the man announced. "The rules are simple. Get off the tower alive! The time limit is 72 hours! Okay, start!"
Well, crap, that was one long shitload of rules.
It didn't take very long for Fern to figure out what was going on. The first thing she noticed was the candidates disappearing one by one. There had originally been about forty of them, but now, there were only thirty five. That meant there was an entrance into the tower somewhere. And likely, that entrance was…
Fern smirked as she tapped her foot against the rectangular tile in front of her. A hollow sound echoed back.
…through the floor tiles.
Kneeling on her knee, Fern reached forward, wiggled her fingers into the space between the tiles, and lifted it slowly. She grimaced. It was heavy, and Fern was definitely neither built like a weight-lifted nor trained like a weight-lifter, and in strength tests like this, it definitely showed. Still, she used the rest of her body weight to pull the slab up until it was at a ninety-degree angle, and…
Fern's smirk grew. And lo-and-behold, she whispered in her mind. I've found my entrance. She let a low whistle at the black, tunnel- like hole in the ground. It was big enough to fit…three of her. Or her and some fat person. Fancy.
Fern leaned forward. She started to slide her small body into the big hole. Footsteps echoed toward her, getting louder by the second. Someone's coming. And quickly.
She looked up and gaped. "What the—Tompa?" The heavy man with the box-shaped nose was barreling towards her like he was a Great Stamp, his strides long and his movements quick. "What do you wa—"
Tompa ripping her hand away from the slab. He rammed his large shoulder into her rib. She stumbled, clutching her stomach in pain.
"Shit!" she swore, gasping for breath.
"Sorry, kid," Tompa chuckled. "Entrance's mine now." He kneeled where Fern was before and lifted the slab again, preparing to wiggle his way in.
There was no way she was going to let him get away with this. She'd found the entrance, and she was going to use it. He was not going to steal it from her. Because Fern was a thief, and thieves steal, not get stolen from.
Bam!
Fern tackled him, throwing her whole body at the larger man. He stumbled and fell forward, tumbling head-first into the tunnel. Fern fell through with him, her skinny body sliding right in next to his fat one.
One second in the air. Two seconds in the air. Three seconds coming down. Four seconds-
Fern shrieked. "OH MY GOD! I'M FALLING! I'M GONNA DIE! BUT I'M TOO FREAKING YOUNG TO DIEEEEE—"
She stopped screaming for a second to look down. "Oh shit." Bricks, bricks, she saw bricks. She was going to fall and land on bricks and crack her head open and die.
Thump.
Fern's eyes snapped open. The fall had stopped. She'd landed. Her back had fallen first, but it hadn't cracked. The landing was quite soft, in fact. She blinked again. She was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling in shock.
She couldn't believe it. She'd landed, and she was still alive. Fern blinked again, still in shock. "Oh," she breathed. "That wasn't too bad."
Fern smiled down at the man she had landed on, patting his flubbery belly. "Well, at least you're good for something."
Tompa just groaned in pain.
. . .
Path of Majority Rule.
The name of the path said it all. It was a game of voting, and Fern and Tompa would not be alone (thank god). Four others would be sharing this fate with them. Originally, there were only supposed to be five candidates, but with Fern and Tompa taking one door together, there would be six.
Against the wall of the room was a podium with a sign on top of it. The sign read 'Path of Majority Rule' (which was how Fern figured that out), and the podium held five different watches. That's right, five. Five watches for five people.
Except there would probably be six.
Tompa and Fern, by going down the same trap door, had glitched the game.
"How long have we been waiting for?" Tompa asked again.
Fern rolled her eyes. "Two hours and two minutes. And you asked that same question one minute and twenty four seconds ago." She rolled her eyes. "I hope you realize that these four people might not even turn up. And we fail. Just like that."
Tompa's face darkened. "They better. I'm not going to fail because some other idiot couldn't find a stupid square on the ground."
She eyed him dully. "You're one to talk. You didn't even find your own square-you tried to steal mine." Fern watched with half-lidded eyes as Tompa grew angrier and angrier. God, he's such an idiot, she thought to herself.
Tap.
Fern blinked and raised her eyes to the ceiling. What's that noise?
Tap. Tap.
She frowned. From the ceiling? What-
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Fern jumped to her feet. "Yes!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms up into the air. "Yes, yes, yes!"
"What?" Tompa snarled.
Fern turned and shot him a grin. "They're here!"
Four tiles flipped. Four people.
Hm.
Um.
What?
"Gon, Kurapika, Leorio, Killua?" Fern exclaimed in disbelief.
Killua gaped. "Blondie?" His face twisted. "You again?"
The others grinned at each other and laugh. "Hey," they said. "Long time no see."
Kurapika and Leorio and Gon smiled, and she smiled back at them—
-before turning around to smirk at Killua. "Ha, see, they all like me."
"Well, they're obviously crazy!" he replied dismayed.
"That's why they all say," Fern sighed overdramatically. "You're just jealous of me. And all my smarts. And beauty. And grace."
"What grace?" Killua grumbled.
"But anyway…" She straightened up and faced the group. "Let's start the exam."
Fern smirked and uncrossed her arms from her chest. She jabbed her thumb towards the podium with the five watches on it. "Get one of those things on and let's go."
"But there's only five," Kurapika remarked.
Fern shrugged. "I don't want one." Seriously. What if it was a bomb trigger? And X? O? For yes and no probably, but did they have to make it the signs for hugs and kisses? Hugs and Kisses signs in a Hunter Exam when people got killed. Sickos.
She wasn't going to touch those things.
. . .
The tower turned out to be a voting ballot. The first questions were stupid. 'Right or Left', 'Open the door or not', or 'Go up the stairs or stay'. Because of course they were just going to pick stay. And wait in the room forever. That made sense. Not.
Fern halted in her stride. "What's that?" she asked, raising her arm to point.
They had been walking for only a little while now—probably only an hour at most. Leorio glared at Tompa, Kurapika sighed fifty-six times (she counted), Killua kept pulling her hair and tugging it and messing it up and then insulting her about it for no apparent reason. And Gon wouldn't stop smiling. But nothing had really happened yet.
So what was that bright light in the distance?
The rest of the group stopped and turned to squint at the direction she was pointed. "That?" Leorio asked. "The bright light?"
Nooo, the light behind it. The one that means your schizophrenic. Fern nodded, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Not the time for sarcasm, she reminded herself. "I think I see some people, or at least, things shaped like people."
Kurapika nodded. "I see them too. We'll see when we get there."
"Aw damn," she complained. "I was hoping we could just stick to the lame yes or no questions."
Killua shrugged from beside her. "We're probably gonna have to fight them. But it should be fine," he said. A smirk came upon his face. "They'll probably be easy, for me, anyway." He snickered. "Prob'ly not for you."
Fern rolled her eyes. "You are such a show-off."
"What, is Blondie scared?" He grinned teasingly. "I'll fight in your place if you are."
"I'm not scared, dumbass." She looked up at the ceiling. "Just a bit…" she trailed off and frowned slightly, not knowing what to say.
"Scared?" he snickered.
She gave him a flat look. "No."
. . .
As Fern stepped out of the dark tunnel and into the brightly lit room, she realized immediately it was some type of stadium. Large brick walls closed them in. A square, raised platform stood in the center of the room.
Across from where Fern was, there was another ledge. Five people stood on it. Thick brown handcuffs were wrapped around their wrists as restraints. Prisoners.
"You will have to fight the five of us," a prisoner announced, throwing off his gray cloak. He was bald and ugly. Wow. What a shocker. Hanzo looked like a little girl next this steroid-abusing giant.
Fern grimaced. "Yaaaay, fighting buffed up men with twelve-packs instead of sick-packs. I always wanted to die of a Shuck Morris body slam!"
"The matches are one-on-one," the man continued. "A person can only fight once. If you win three times, you can go on. How you fight doesn't matter, but there will be no draws. When one gives up, the other is the winner. Vote to accept this match or not!" the prisoner shouted. "If yes 'O'. If no 'X'.
Fern blinked. "Wait. We have six. They have five. Does that mean that one of us won't have to fight?"
Killua dropped his arm from her shoulder to yawn. "Guess so. You shouldn't fight. You're a girl," he sneered. "You'll lose and then you'll cry if you didn't get squashed or something." He pressed a button on his watch.
"Wah, wah, wah," Fern muttered sarcastically. "I'm sooo sooo scared."
"Fine," the large man said. "Four out of five votes…You have accepted the challenge." A smirk curled the corners of his lips up. "I'll be the first one to go." Excitement seemed to practically roll off of him in waves.
"I'll go first," Tompa volunteered.
The others looked at him doubtfully, but Fern just shrugged. "Okay," she said. "Go." She shooed him away.
Tompa nodded firmly and walked onto the platform.
Yes, yes, go ahead…box nose…go ahead…
She raised an a mildly amused eyebrow as she watched the back of Tompa move closer to the prisoner.
Go and get your butt kicked.
. . .
The first match ended with Tompa giving up. It took, literally, five seconds. Steroid-man ran at Tompa. Tompa squealed like a pig. Tompa didn't want to be a pancake. Tompa gave up. Tompa lost.
The End.
The second match was between Gon and some wimpy guy who looked like a drowned, starved raccoon. The wimp had an endless supply of candles stuffed up his butt. Seriously. Where the freak was he pulling those things from? You'd think he was a human birthday cake or something. Then the dude started some mental battle with Gon.
Gon won because he was stupidly smart.
And now, the third match was about to begin: Kurapika against some phony, bat-shit crazy man who tried too hard to look like the Frankenstein monster. He didn't have a nose, he was missing a couple teeth, and he was probably missing a brain too. He was the fugliest thing she'd ever seen, even uglier than Tompa. He looked like a rat with rabies that got mauled by an evil cat and puked up by a snake.
"I've killed nineteen so far," the man spoke slowly. He giggled….or maybe he was hyperventilating. "But the number nineteen is odd, so I was getting a little irritated. But now I'm happy…" His grin widened. "The twentieth has finally appeared!"
Those nineteen people probably dropped dead from the sheer fugliness of your face, she thought to herself, disgusted. And I think I'm about to become the twentieth one. Seriously, what the freak did he do to his face? Can that thing even be called a face?
"Let's have a death match," the man said.
"Fine," Kurapika accepted, unaffected. "Let's go."
Fern froze. What? She took a step backwards, uneasy, and accidently stumbled into Killua. He didn't move, just grabbed her wrist. "Scared?" he taunted.
"Kurapika won't be able to kill him," Fern said with a frown. "He's obviously never killed someone before. What is he thinking?"
Just seconds after the words came out of Fern's mouth, the Imitation-Frankenstein man laughed loudly, and began to charge at Kurapika. "Watch carefully!" the man yelled. He grinned and pulled back his arm, the muscles in his body flexing and straining from the pressure as he tightened his fist. "You'll see how dreadful I am!"
BAM!
His fist slammed into the rock floor.
"No way!" Leorio exclaimed. "He destroyed the floor with his bare hands!"
No, Fern thought. Her eyes narrowed. His hands probably have some kind of metal implanted in them. Or steel. Another bluff.
Kurapika remained unfazed. He drew two wooden sticks and held them out. He was deadly calm.
But the man only grinned.
Slowly, he turned, shifting his body ever so slightly to the left. What first came into view was his bare, muscled shoulder, and then part of his back, and then his shoulder blade, and then—
Fern's eyes widened.
-The Spider Tattoo.
. . .
End of Chapter 13.
Review? Please? O.O Those are my owl eyes, yes owl eyes not puppy eyes, because I am unique and original and crazy like that.
Questions: What do you want to see Fern and Killua doing together? (no not anything dirty you crazy people) What do you think of Killua and Fern's developing relationship?
Review. Because you love me and you know it. If you don't review, it's okay.
You're in denial.
XD