For a long time after their discussion, the supervisors had sat around the desk silently. They did discuss certain topics, but none of them had been as prolonged as their evaluations on the six remaining contestants. Discussions mainly arose straight after more deaths had been announced, but their attention hadn't been as dedicated, up until recently.
During one of their silent interludes, there was a sudden gasp from one of the grunts. The supervisors glanced over at where the sound had come from. Then, the grunt in charge of Platinum's collar stood up, removing her headphones as she did so.
"Platinum just passed away. That means there's only two left, right?" she inquired.
Ghetsis nodded, but the other men sat there, not even bringing themselves to give a verbal confirmation. However, it was impossible to miss the way Giovanni's eyes widened upon hearing that Green had survived against Platinum. The other men didn't need to guess why he had reacted so suddenly. After N and Yellow had killed each other, the majority of them had predicted that it would come down to this lineup.
"This must be difficult for you to call, Giovanni! The boy who inherited your gym versus your own son. Who would've guessed?" Charon commented. He was one of the few who had expected Platinum to be in the final two.
"I did suspect Silver would make it this far", Pryce said.
Giovanni still gave no verbal response. For a few moments, the room was silent. Then, the silence was broken by the sound of Giovanni's chair scratching against the floor as he pulled it back. It was enough to catch the grunts' attention. He stood up, and walked quietly towards one of the computers.
The grunt sitting at the computer was one of the few that didn't turn around. He kept his eyes firmly set on the computer, watching the progress of the game. To get his attention, Giovanni lightly tapped on his shoulder, causing the young man to flinch.
"I'll take your place now. You may move", he told the grunt. He glanced over helplessly towards his respective boss, Ghetsis.
"Go on, let him sit there. That is the computer controlling Silver's collar, right?" he questioned.
The grunt nodded, and stood up. Giovanni quickly slipped past him and sat himself down in the shoddy little seat, and placed headphones over his ears. As his full attention became focused on the screen in front of him, the grunt stood there awkwardly for a moment, and then started to walk over to the door. Ghetsis stared at him as he did so, but then raised his eyebrows slightly.
"Wait a minute", he called out.
The grunt came to a stop and looked over at his boss. As Ghetsis squinted at him, he felt as if his intuition was correct. Barely sticking out from underneath the grunt's hood were a few strands dyed blue hair. It didn't take him a second to guess who it was.
"Colress, weren't you busy adjusting the collar settings?" Ghetsis asked.
Giving a slightly awkward laugh, the younger man nodded. He then pulled down his hood, revealing Ghetsis' suspicions. Reaching into his coat pocket, Colress pulled out his glasses and placed them on once more. As he adjusted his glasses, he began to speak.
"Sorry, sir! After the last grunt took their break, I got curious about how this game was progressing. I wanted to see the game where the collars I made were being used. It's natural for a scientist to be curious about such a thing", he explained.
"The collars you helped to make", Charon grumbled.
"Understandable. Just as long as you adjusted the collars to detonate at midnight. You did do that, didn't you?" Ghetsis questioned. A look of surprise came over Colress' face, and he nodded quickly, causing the blue streak in his hair to bob up and down.
"Of course, sir! You know I would never go against your wishes!" he exclaimed, sounding a little offended at the accusation.
Ghetsis showed a hint of a smile, and then glanced over at Giovanni. He figured the man would stay there until the game ended, given how much he would be invested in the final battle. Once again, he turned toward Colress.
"Take a seat, then. As manufacturer of those collars, you do have a right to partake in any discussions we have", he offered, patting the empty seat near him.
Letting a look of relief cross over his face upon seeing that Ghetsis allowed him to do such a thing, Colress strode over towards the other men, and took a seat. Once he was seated, the five men looked over at Giovanni, who was tracking his son's movements carefully. Ghetsis smirked. If you get so worried about your son, it's only going to break you in the end. How can he feel such attachment for the boy after years of separation?, he wondered, but didn't bring it up.
"If I may ask, why did you request me to adjust the collar settings? The twenty-four hour time limit seemed perfectly fine. Did something happen to cause you to change your minds about that?" Colress asked curiously. The other men at the table frowned. A few seconds of silence passed, but Pryce decided to take the initiative.
"I agree that detonating the collars after a day without any killing was intimidating, but unfortunately, we need to speed things up. Problems are beginning to arise outside of the island, you see. Platinum's father voiced his concerns to relatives and acquaintances of the other participants, and they've begun to suspect that something's happened to them. Our grunts at sea have been on high alert, and no one has attempted to investigate the island yet, but it's difficult to tell how quickly that could change by tomorrow. People work more efficiently under high levels of stress", he explained, grimacing, "Naturally, we need to speed this game up."
Colress nodded, understanding the explanation given. Since it was the first time they had attempted carrying out the program, there was always going to be the strong possibility of flaws. While he had taken care of the technical side of possible issues, along with Charon, it was up to the other team leaders to deal with all other possible consequences. Adjusting the collars seemed to be the best idea, but he still had his concerns about whether or not it would be enough.
"That's all I wanted to know", he said. After pausing for a moment, he spoke up once more. "Have all of you already thought about the possible outcomes between Green and Silver?"
"Of course we have. Personally, I think Green has more of a chance. That boy was ruthless about killing those two girls!" Charon exclaimed.
"I'm still sticking by my opinion of Silver. He's much stronger than he first appears to be, and when angry, he's a force to be reckoned with", Pryce added, slightly distractedly.
He turned his wheelchair toward the computers, and rolled over. The other men watched him curiously. The closest grunts turned around in their seats, many of them with expressions of slight dread on their face. Even though the supervisors had been relatively satisfied with their tracking, they still felt a twinge of fear every time one of their leaders addressed them.
"Once one of the final participants is dead, I want all the bodies to be collected as quickly as possible. Make finding participant three's body a top priority. If she was tossed into the sea, as assumed, then you shouldn't have too much trouble. Just keep in mind, we would all prefer to leave this island an hour after the game concludes. Don't hesitate in any tasks", Pryce instructed.
The grunts gave each other uncertain looks, but nodded at their superior. Attempting to gather up every body scattered around the island within an hour sounded difficult, but considering they had done an exceptional job thus far, they decided to put aside any hesitance they had towards the task. Ignoring their anxiousness, Pryce rolled back over to the other leaders.
"You're certainly not waiting to sort out last minute matters. If we're preparing for final tasks, shall we carry out our final announcement?" Charon offered, wrapping a hand around the intercom.
Just as he prepared to press a button to activate it, a slimmer hand wrapped around his own. Looking up, he furrowed his brows upon seeing Lysandre staring at him firmly. The man had been quiet for the last while, and Charon had almost forgotten that he still sat there. However, that man was now looking at him with an intimidating degree of firmness.
"In our perfunctory meetings, I believe we agreed that I would be carrying out the final announcement", he said.
"Ah. Must've slipped my mind. Go on, make your announcement", Charon said, and laughed a little. He slid the intercom towards Lysandre.
Briefly, he glanced over at Giovanni. The man barely noticed any of what was going on behind him. All of the men seated around the table knew that the next battle was going to have a major impact on him, no matter what the outcome would be. Lysandre then took his eyes off him, and looked down at the intercom. Our final listing. Time certainly flies, he thought, and then pressed the button. He brought his mouth closer to the device, and began to speak.
"Hello. In the time between this announcement and the last, participant number six, Diamond and participant number fifteen, Platinum, have passed on. Green, Silver, this means you two are the only ones currently listening to me. I will not be adding any danger zones, but I highly recommend you try to find each other soon, given your approaching time limit. The current time is twenty to six. You have six hours to defeat your opponent, and win the program. Good luck from all of us."
Lysandre's calm, nonchalant voice cut off, and the island was cast into silence once more. The only other sounds that could be heard was the gentle rustling of leaves brushes against each other, due to a light breeze, and Silver's footsteps through the tall grass.
He kept his eyes on the ground, barely registering the last announcement. He didn't feel any pride whatsoever for being one of the last two standing. To make it this far, all the others had to die. He didn't exactly feel stronger than them either. It felt as if he had simply lucked out.
The only thing that he had taken from it was the fact that Platinum was dead, and Green was the only other person still alive. He hadn't been certain what the outcome of the match between them would have been, but he didn't even try to think about the possibility of him battling against Green. Even though he knew it was certainly inevitable at that stage, he tried to put it out of his mind for as long as he could. After killing Diamond, the thought of another battle mere minutes later sounded overwhelming.
As he walked further north, it occurred to Silver just how big the island was. When he first left the classroom, he moved with caution, trying to avoid any of the others that might have been roaming the island. With so many of them dead at that stage, he no longer had to think about the possibility of spontaneously running into an enemy. It didn't exactly put his mind at ease, though. Instead, the possibilities of running into a dead body became much higher.
Silver lost track of how long he had been walking. All he knew was that Green was somewhere north. After a while, he contemplated pulling out his map to try and get a rough estimate of where his ex-ally might have been. He reached into his pocket for the map, still in a slight trance-like state. Nothing he did felt like it was of major concern anymore; he just had to keep moving onwards.
As he pulled his map out of his pocket and continued walking, he suddenly heard a beeping sound. Instinctively, he touched his collar, feeling momentary fear that he had accidentally walked into a danger zone. When he looked up, though, he realized that the beeping wasn't coming from the collar.
Green stood some distance away, holding his tracker. Upon seeing a nearby dot, besides Platinum's, he looked up, and toward his old ally. Fifteen minutes had passed since his fight against Platinum, who was still laying nearby. After hearing the final announcement, he contemplated following his tracker to find Silver, only to see he had arrived moments after he checked his tracker.
He looked up. Silver didn't look back right away. His eyes were peeled on the body near Green. Slowly, he approached it, details becoming more visible. From a distance, it seemed like nothing was wrong, as it appeared there weren't any visible injuries on her body. As he came closer, he could see that the back of her head had been bashed in, and her dark hair was matted with her own blood. After staring down at her for a moment, he finally gazed over at Green.
"I said goodbye to you twice, and yet we somehow keep finding each other", Green said.
Silver gave a single nod, barely registering Green's words. He wasn't too surprised by the fact that his final opponent was his ex-ally, but it was beginning to occur to him that he would have to fight against him sooner rather than later. The reality of it was beginning to settle in his mind, and he had no idea how to deal with it. Instead of trying to think further into it, he looked downwards once more. Noticing something was wrong, Green walked over and shook his shoulder lightly.
"What's wrong?" he asked, and then followed Silver's eyes downwards. "Surely you knew I killed her after that announcement."
"I'm not judging you over that.", Silver replied, but then another thought came to him. "Diamond didn't kill Blue. I don't think he was lying, either. If Blue's killer really was one of the final four, there's only one possibility. Was she the one that did it?"
"Platinum? No. I'm certain she was allied with Diamond up until recently. They're both innocent."
"So, we're never going to know who did it. I don't care if they're already dead, I just wanted to know who-"
"I know. I ran into her killer already", Green confessed.
Silver's eyes grew wide, and he felt several emotions run through him at once. The first was anger, as Green had blatantly lied to him up until this point. The second was guilt, considering he ran after Diamond without a second thought, under the belief he might be guilty. I can't let guilt take over now. What's done is done.
"How do you know?" he asked quietly, his voice shaking.
"When I was looking for weapons, I ran into this girl. She fit the description of Red's killer, and I attacked. I found out that she didn't kill Red, but she confessed to killing Blue. Then, I killed her. I could hardly drag her back to the sector you were hiding so you could personally kill her", Green explained, his tone becoming increasingly more impatient.
"Who was she?!" Silver demanded to know. His sudden increase in volume made Green flinch.
"Y. She was one of the Kalos Dexholders."
Silver took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself. The brief image he had of Y reappeared in his mind. He barely heard anything about the Kalos Dexholders, but he did recall seeing her in the classroom, even if it was brief. Throughout their time in the classroom, he recalled her having a hostile, yet intimidated, look on her face. Despite the fact that she was a stranger, Silver felt absolute hatred towards her.
"Silver, don't think too much about it. She's dead too. At least you won't have to spend any more time wondering who did it", Green attempted to reassure him.
He frowned a little at his own last sentence. While he was satisfied to know one of his best friends' killers, it frustrated him to no end to still be in the dark about Red's killer. He had hoped to avenge Red personally, but in the end, someone must have gotten to his killer first. The faces of all the other young blondes flashed through his mind, but he couldn't place a finger on who it could have been. In the end, he remained completely in the dark. Too many regrets about Red had built up throughout the course of the program.
As Green brooded over Red, Silver was attempting to calm himself down. Once he had gotten over the initial shock, he had to feel a little grateful that Green had gotten justice for Blue. Besides, he felt this was hardly the time to focus on the past events on the island. As difficult as it was, he had to put aside any time he needed to mourn Blue. If he spent too much time focused on past events, he would lose out on any chance of winning.
"I don't know if Gold told you this", Silver said. Green looked up, quickly snapping out of his thoughts. "On the first night, I immediately went to a cliffside. He found me, and thought I was going to kill myself. The truth was, I had no idea what I was going to do. I thought I'd be able to figure it out as the game went on, but I still don't know what I want to do, even now. Have you given any thought about what path you'd like to take?"
"Honestly? I'm not pushed either way. If I live, I'll be able to carry out my revenge, and see my family again. If I die here and now, I won't have to spend the rest of my life thinking about everything that happened here. I'm screwed either way, so why should it bother me?" Green answered, and gave a small sigh.
"If you live, you'll have family to return to, and that's a pretty huge reason to live. My family? Blue was my family ever since we met. My so-called father is the reason everyone's dead, and I refuse to acknowledge him as my family after everything that happened here. You and I have something in common; if I live, I'm going to do everything I can to get revenge as well."
Unexpectedly, Green laughed a little. Silver furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, but before he could ask what was so funny, his senior became somber once more, and looked him in the eye.
"You know, Platinum told me wanted to find a way to escape with her ally. She was hoping that they could get out together, revive everyone with the help of a legendary, and find a way out. She had good intentions. No offense, but I think in terms of morality, she deserved to live much more than either of us. She had obviously suffered too, but she continued to hope for the best. Revenge was only a secondary goal for her.
But while I say that, she couldn't live. That was her downfall; she cared too much. The winner always had to be someone like us. Whichever one of us comes out alive, we need to be ruthless and get revenge. If we allow ourselves to get deluded with thoughts of escape and revival now, we won't achieve anything. You're not going to let yourself get lost in those kind of thoughts, are you?" he asked firmly.
Silver contemplated telling Green about how Diamond sacrificed himself so Platinum could live, making her plan of more than one escaping null and void. At this late point, though, he figured such information would be useless to share.
"Of course not. My mind's set on revenge too", he replied.
Green looked content with the answer he received, and glanced down at Platinum's body once more. He began to wonder if her mind had been set on revenge, or at least on a more definitive plan, if she would have fought harder to stay alive. Then again, he figured he couldn't exactly question how much she wanted to live, given that he had taken the most narrow opening he could find to kill her.
"So, you're keen on battling it out to see who'll be the winner?" Silver asked, causing Green to look up at him once more.
"Yeah. I'm going to be honest, I did think you and Gold were good allies to have. Getting attached in this game is a major fault, though. In the end, it was always going to come down to this, no matter who the final two were. I've been through a lot, but there are things I can do once I leave this island. I'm going to fight until the end", he replied.
"I understand. So will I. My future mightn't look so bright from this point onwards, but I have my own reasons for wanting to get off this island."
Although he had no intentions of mentioning it to Green, a memory suddenly hit Silver. It was during Gold's final moments, when he told Silver that he wanted him to win, above everyone else. There was little he could do for Gold at that point, but at the very least, he wanted to fight to carry out his last wish. Even if he didn't achieve it, he would be able to say that he did fight to do so.
"You haven't lost your will to fight? Good for you. What about all that talk about not being not knowing what you want earlier?" Green asked.
"I said I wasn't pushed either way. Whatever happens at this point just happens. We both know what's going to happen if either of us get off the island, so it doesn't matter. Besides, I have reasons to keep going as well. All because I have no family to return to doesn't mean I want to live any less than you do", Silver explained.
Nodding once, Green then took a step forward. Silver watched him curiously, unsure of what to expect. Then, unexpectedly, the older of the two held his hand out. For a moment, Silver stared down at his hand uncertainly.
"I meant it when I said you and Gold have been good allies to me. If it wasn't for you two, I wouldn't have made it this far", he said, and hesitated for a moment. Looking away, he quietly murmured, "Thanks for everything."
Finally understanding what Green meant, Silver clasped his hand and shook it lightly. Then, he lowered his hand, trying to think of what to say in return. Before he could, though, the other boy spoke once more.
"That doesn't mean I'm going to treat you differently. I'll treat you in the same way I treated Platinum. Understood?" he said, pointing at the nearby body.
"Understood. I won't go easy on you either", Silver told him.
"That's what I wanted to hear. Well... I guess that's all. Let's begin."
The two boys took several steps backwards. They stared at each other for several seconds, their stares unwavering. Apart from a light breeze causing faint leave rustling, the island was completely silent.
2 Remaining.
