Mexico (Brain vs Brawn vs Beauty) - Ponderosa
Chapter 4 - Juror 4
Hello, everyone. Time for another chapter for this sidefic here. Now, if you have been keeping up with the main story, you already know who the winner is at this point. Congrats to the winner, but of course I'm not gonna spoil here, since not everybody reads a fic when the chapters first come out.
However, if you are reading this, you should definitely know who's just been eliminated, or else you would be spoiling yourself right now lol. But anyways, Specter Knight, after playing a direct part of causing the biggest blindside in the history of my series thus far, has finally been eliminated. You'd think he'd been eliminated immediately after, but after there were bigger fish to fry, lying and manipulating others, and coming up with plans to get through tribal by tribal, he managed to get lucky and survived a couple more rounds. He wasn't even set to go home this episode but Chica accidentally found out that Panther was being targeted and it all went downhill from there.
I guess this goes to show that this is really "real" lol. You actually have to watch out for your surroundings 24/7 since you never know who could be around at any point. Kinda funny of how Plague Knight accidentally found out he was a target at the final eleven, and after approaching Specter to save him, this is exactly how Specter went home now that I think about it. How poetic.
Let's see how one of the most dangerous players of my series reacts to being voted off...
~KF
"Hello. I am Specter Knight, juror number four, and this is my Ponderosa."
Night 32
With disappointment, Survivor's latest victim was seen with his head down low making his way to Master Hand's brother's medical tent for a check up.
"I do not know if someone mouthed out the plan or not..." The scythe wielder mumbled. "There was no way Panther would have found out about the plan if everyone kept quiet. So now I am going to be puzzled until Panther goes himself... if he gets voted off in the future, which he should, since all of the Beauty members are still in the game..."
"I was not supposed to go home tonight. I was supposed to actually get away with it once again. Me and Plague were two targets because of what happened at Espio's Tribal Council, but since three is bigger than two, I managed to convince most of the tribe that one of the three remaining Beauty members needed to go since they were the underdog tribe coming into the merge and that all three of them were still here. Why did the plan not go through, I have yet to find out..."
"Plague is probably throwing another hissing fit right about now like a two year old having a tantrum." He predicted. "Though this time, since I have been eliminated, for once, he has every right to do so. I should still be in the competition."
Even though he was not trying to be bitter, since he was no sore loser, at the same time, all he wanted to figure out was why his Panther plan was never properly executed.
"Just who would have told him about the plan...? I doubt it was Panther himself, nor do I believe it was Daisy or Chica. But then again, I do not know if anyone else had anything going on with Panther..."
Into the tent he went.
"Greeting, Specter Knight! It sure is a fine day today!"
"It is nighttime, first of all..."
Unsurprisingly, by the tone of his voice, Specter Knight and Crazy Hand's personalities never seemed to mix. Sure, opposites attracted at times, but that usually only applied to couples, and clearly those two were not one of them.
Regardless, Crazy Hand never got that vibe from Specter that he never seemed to care for him that much. "How are you feeling? Now that you've been out here, do you feel better about yourself?"
"I just lost. I'm going to save the reflection for later. Let us just get right down to business." He made his way over to the chair. Yes, this was the time for Crazy Hand to get his blood pressure. Even though Specter was in fact a skeleton,... he was rather... abnormal to say the least.
He decided to take the time to address it himself. "I'm nothing but bone... mostly... There is part of me that is still human... That is pretty much all I have to say, just in case someone felt rather frightened..."
He was now staring at the number on the scale. Again, as he said himself, there was apparently a bit of human left in him. And humans did always either lose or gain weight. But in Specter's point of view, not wanting to disturb potential viewers on SmashTube when his Ponderosa episode is published, he decided that it was going to be a story for another time.
"...98.2..."
"Hmm... And you never really weighed that much to begin with..." Crazy Hand noted, taking a brief look at the mens height and weight chart. "You only weighed 103.2 when we first started, so you literally only lost five pounds."
"Great..." Specter sighed out loud. "So I'm even further close to being anorexic... Without question I need to eat something..."
"How can you even..." Master's brother trailed off.
The knight sighed yet again, just wanting to get the show on the road already. "Look, with all due respect, I am really not in the mood for questions right now. I prefer to already be on my way out of here. This game has already gave me a great headache, and I'd rather not have anything else to add to it."
"Alrighty, then!" Yet Crazy's happy-go-lucky character was not fazed in any way. "Let's send you off!"
"My experience playing this game with seventeen other people was... well, I suppose it depends on who exactly was relevant to my game in general. Currently, Ryu is the only one at Ponderosa that I have to live with, and even with that, we hardly know anything about each other. On the other hand, if I actually missed anyone,... it would be Tifa Lockhart... Such a shame that she never even made it to the merge. Would have been a great help for me personally."
He sighed and faced the reality of it all. "But instead, I had to work with Plague. And he actually outlasted me..."
Getting off the boat, he took his time making his way down the dock with the three other jurors awaiting his arrival.
"Specter..." Golden sounded first. "'Sup?"
"Remember us?" Ryu giggled, watching the scythe wielder walk closer.
"You were quite the competitor." Espio commented.
"Thank you." was all he said upon meeting the three of them face-to-face.
"So, based on what the votes were, Panther was supposed to go home tonight?" Golden Fazbear asked.
"Yes..."
...
No other words were spoken from anyone else, the first three members of the jury simply letting Specter Knight walk right into the cafe to have a look at himself.
"Now, I usually find it rather easy and simple to approach different types of people." Golden commented. "However,... Specter Knight is a rather rare exception. Nobody really knows anything about him, and... I personally don't think he really cares about us too much, haha! But hey, we all had to say something. He was a huge player out there and kinda smart. But when he did show up, it was rather awkward. All he cared about was getting food on his plate and just continuing on while dealing with the fact that he just lost..."
Ignoring the fact that he basically had a digestive system knowing that he was mostly bone, everyone eyed him, wondering what in the world was he thinking.
Yet, since Specter was set to call all of them out for simply staring, somebody had to break the silence. And Golden decided to get a decent conversation going.
"So... Panther was apparently supposed to go home tonight?"
"One hundred and ten percent." He nodded almost immediately, not lifting his head from his food. "I knew that I was still in deep trouble for what I did, but the thing was, all three Beauty members that made it to the merge were still in the game. They have just been pushed to the side for multiple reasons. Both Chica and Daisy have been on the bottom for quite a bit and Panther flew under the radar within the Strong Guys Alliance. However, since he was the biggest physical threat of the three, as well as him having the biggest story of all the Beauties left, he was targeted. ...However, I should have known that he was also the most likely to have an idol. Word somehow got around and I paid the price for that..."
"Ya think someone spilled the beans?"
"That would be likely." He answered Ryu. "Though I do not know what one would have gained from it. The only competitor that I can cross out is Plague Knight. I am highly confident that he did not mouth out the plan to anyone. He was the only one I trusted completely at that point, since we both knew that we needed each other. I was planning on taking him to the end, while he needed to get to the end."
"Ugh..." Ryu hunched his shoulders and began eating himself. "Well, who knows what's gonna happen with Plague at this point. That dude's been all over the place..."
"I have a question, though." Golden thought of something else to discuss with Specter. "Back when I was eliminated, did Funky Kong ever tell you why exactly did he want me out? You are the first person that has been voted out since me, so I kinda want closure, you know?"
"To put it simply, that was all a lie."
"!"
"Incineorar won immunity, so me and Plague had no other option but to try and pit the Brains against each other." He was straightforward with his honesty. "I would have left otherwise, and the Brains were still in control for the most part. Funky Kong was spared since the tribe felt that you were the bigger threat. Thus, we sent you here right after Ryu."
"..."
Fazbear suddenly felt so foolish, he slapped his own hand against his face rather hard. No, he never exactly wanted to hurt himself. But in his own mind, he felt he deserved it to an extent after being enlightened of the truth.
"So Funky never turned on me... I should have known..."
Espio's eyes were widened a little upon realization. "So that means if Funky never turned on him,... and if Golden is already here,..."
"then that means that Funky Kong is probably still thinking that Golden turned on him." Ryu finished for him. "He likely told him the same thing just so he could get the target off of him."
"Close..." Espio shook his head. "But Funky Kong and Isabelle most likely communicated with each other of what went down and they probably put the puzzle together themselves on what really occurred."
"Specter Knight has completely effected this season for the past few rounds..." Espio claimed. "He is turning out to be the major villain at the moment. I am literally face to face with the person who caused me to idol my own self out of the competition. Sort of an awkward feeling, but I do know that this is just a game. Hopefully neither of us have any hard feelings towards each other.
Golden sighed at all of this and brought both of his hands to face.
He just never expected Specter Knight to unintentionally rub salt on the wound. "To be honest, I was quite surprised myself. Throughout that entire tribal, I was rather... frightened that you would have been onto us, and I would have gotten blindsided. You seemed to be a highly intelligent player, so I have to admit: I was surprised myself that the plan actually worked."
Ryu snickered. "Well,... the dinner was rather quiet when it started. Specter then spilled the beans of how he was basically the reason to why all three of us were on the jury, and then silence once again... Probably because of Golden being upset of the real reason to why he was voted out, but dang... He really got all three of us, didn't he? None of us are bitter about since we all signed up for this, but man... I should have taken the time to check on him more. Judging by his character alone, he was gonna be rather hard to manage. I blame myself for not going the extra mile with him to make him feel comfortable."
"Alright. I suppose I am done here. I will be leaving now." Specter Knight promptly stood up from his chair and turned on his heel to leave the cafe.
"You sure you don't wanna talk about your game a little more with us?" Ryu raised an eyebrow.
"I am exhausted." He sounded. "Let me rest for the night, and we shall continue in the morning."
"I just wanted some time alone and allow myself to rest my body and soul. I have been putting up with these people for the past four weeks. It is about time I have some peace and quiet..."
He closed the door rather hard in front of the camera, not wanting to be bothered by anyone for the rest of the night.
Day 33
The next morning, Ryu Hoshi was seen eating at the table with Golden, with the camera zooming in on the former's breakfast.
"Breakfast of champions today." He pointed so that the audience had a closer look. "I haven't ate this much since I first came here after being eliminated. I'm over here having french toast, bacon, hashbrowns, eggs,... basically a little bit of everything. I'm still trying to recover from all that time I spent at camp starving to death."
Upon footsteps sounding, he cocked his head to his right to see Specter Knight approaching the scene.
"Morning, Specter." He greeted, Golden waving in his direction. "Espio's probably meditating at the moment. Come join us."
He was seen simply walking towards the food after a brief look at the other two contestants. Yet the moment he was out of view, both Hoshi and Fredbear began snickering to themselves.
"I'm surprised he even looked right this way." The latter commented.
"So now that I'm not as irritated as I was yesterday, I figured at breakfast would be the perfect time for a bit more self-reflecting. Come to think of it, perhaps it was a good idea for me to be with the other jurors. Everyone had a different game plan, so why not take advantage of the opportunity to learn of a few things I was rather unaware of at the camp?"
He sat down in the same chair as the night before.
"So..." And to the other two's surprise, the knight was actually the conversation starter. "Was there anything that I might have been unaware of? Any possible secrets that I could not have found out about?"
"Well,..." replied Golden. "like I told Ryu, the other Brains did plan on getting rid of him at some point. So by the time he left, it did not negatively affect their games at all. But for Funky Kong and I, it was bad for us since we still felt like we needed Ryu, as well as Incineroar, since we were the big four challenge threats. But I had to stick with the majority since I didn't have the numbers."
"So if you did in fact have the numbers, Plague would have been eliminated two rounds ago, since the final ten was when I won immunity." Specter Knight concluded. "I suppose winning was in fact important. Not as important as it may have sounded, but if I was vulnerable, I would have been sent here right after Espio. ...Anything else?"
"For most part actually, I was rather unsatisfied. Except for minor situations such as anything other than strategy talk, these two did not offer much..."
"I think Incineroar called you a bit moody when we first started back on the Brawn beach." Ryu brought up a conversation with the Pokemon from day two. "He said that you were too quiet and that you had such a negative energy out there."
He rolled his eyes. "Look who's talking. At least I'm not loud and obnoxious with no self-awareness whatsoever... What about the others? Did my name ever came up at any point before we swapped?"
"No. The plan was to vote out Katt because getting rid of her would have done the least amount of damage to the team..." The street fighter confirmed. "We had the Strong Guys alliance, Incineorar and Jet would not have suspected anything, especially since Jet was on the outs, and no one was really close to her."
"Specter went from being the most quiet last night to suddenly being the most talkative with all that strategy talk." Golden pointed out with a laugh. "Sure, he wants closure, but of course he of all people is not one of those that is generally concerned with how others are doing. Now in his world, it's not a bad thing. He's just one of those people that is out here for all business. I mean, the goal is to Outwit, Outplay, and Outlast. So I guess there's nothing really wrong with it."
-/-
Later on in the day, the knight was simply sitting in the hammock, his eyes staring right down on a relic that he was holding in his hands. It was apparent one of his items that was in his belongings before he left Ponderosa for the first time to make his way to meet Master Hand for the first time. And now that it was in his hands once again, judging by the was he was glancing at it (even though he was wearing a helmet over his skeletal face), it was as if there was some sort of history behind it.
Suddenly, Espio the Chameleon showed up and interrupted Specter's peace and quiet.
"What do you think of this so far?" Him giving away his presence somewhat startled Specter Knight, resulting in him being slightly annoyed at his arrival. Yet he tolerated it at the end of the day."
"Being here at Ponderosa?" He figured. "Calm and relaxing. Perfect opportunity to reflect on everything before I leave here."
"Exactly my thoughts." The chameleon was in agreement on the matter. "Long story short, feels nice to be here, feels nice to leave... But the only that is nicer is if I was still in the competition. There are only seven players left now, as you know."
"And I was supposed to be a part of that." He reminded him. "I would set to be in the final seven, had Panther not play that idol. He received the majority of the votes for a reason."
"Well,..." He trailed off for a bit. "let us just say that I know the feeling... all too well..."
That was when Specter blinked and was actually giving the Team Chaotix member his full attention. He knew very well what he was referring to. So out of curiosity, he decided to ask away. "...If you do not mind... How did you feel when I basically blindsided you by your own idol?"
"I do admit, I felt rather ashamed within the first several minutes." He told the truth. "I still feel a bit embarrassed as we speak if I were to be honest with you. However, like you would think, it is only just a game. And besides, you were the one that pulled off the idea of casting two votes my way. It was a brilliant move and I simply never saw it coming. ...I try to not take things too personally, especially when I am playing a game like Survivor."
"...That is something we probably have in common, then." The scythe wielder found something similar about himself and Espio, just like he and Tifa were conversing with each other back at the Toro camp. "I suppose neither of us were selected to be the chosen one, here."
"You mean the Sole Survivor..."
"Same thing." He replied. "We both were eliminated, and now there are seven more individuals left that is set to win it all... And it is beyond me that people like Incineroar and Chica are still in the game at this point. Now I know that I should at least still be in it over them of all people. Even Plague Knight is more deserving than they are and that's a downright tragedy."
In a rare moment, Espio the Chameleon let out a laugh. From Specter Knight of all people. A truly rare moment indeed.
"Well, I hate to sound rude here, but... I've been thinking about the both of them as well. Perhaps it is simply the fact that there were other fish to fry at the time. And Incineroar was actually supposed to go home at final nine according to you, but he won immunity. And that is what made you pit Golden and Funky Kong against each other."
"No matter what, those two should have been the first couple boots this season. They are completely out of touch with the reality of the show. That is their problem in a nutshell. One has no self-awareness, and the other is floating right along while the rest of us were all gasping for air to stay in it."
"Specter might be a little condescending at times, but I actually do not mind him that much." said Espio. "Me and him surprisingly think in a similar way. We both tend to not let emotions get the best of us, and we both seem to have a good understanding of the game. It was just that we were both outplayed. It was jsut as if Survivor Gods desired this all to happen just so that we could have this time to understand each other. And I've got to say, he really isn't that bad of a person. Just a bit more aggressive than I am."
Later on in the evening as the sun was starting to set, Specter Knight was see eyeing the locket once again.
"I've no regrets coming out here. Even though I did not win, at least I played a direct part in causing arguably the biggest blindside in the history of Survivor to occur. That alone is a rather huge accomplishment that will be talked about much down the line. Thus, I believe the mark has already been made.'
He was seen pulling the hood of his cloak back, the camera getting a view of the back of Specter's head. And yes, it was basically the back of a skull. However, his helmet was not removed. Looks like now was not a good time for the warrior to reveal his face.
"I believe that this game is probably the best competition one would participate in. It is right up my alley, and I believe aside from being victorious, I did get what I wanted from it. This was strictly done just to test my skill. And now that is all over for me, I believe I can say that during my time out there, there is not a thing I would change. So, yes... I am satisfied. Maybe I should give the master my thanks."
My lazy butt has FINALLY got another Ponderosa chapter done. Thank you all for waiting patiently. Five down, now I have three more to go. The main story might be over, but this era will not be until the final Ponderosa chapter is done.
Hope you all enjoyed Specter Knight. Dangerous, cold-blooded player, but with that move, he's definitely made his mark and it is only season three!
I will try to be even quicker with next chapter. Hopefully I'm not too lazy next time lol