Apex Legends
By Mr. Hood
Liberation from the IMC brought chaos to the outlands and the revival of an old blood sport. They call it the "Apex Games" and the competitors "Legends". Some fight for fortune, others answers. In the end, it doesn't matter. In the end it boils down to survival. Plain and simple. You can fight for whatever you want, but we shall all be forged in the glorious realm...
"Mirage! Quiet."
Mirage stands nonchalantly as he responses with a sarcastic tone.
"What? I'm just, you know, setting the mood."
The woman with a very gothic appearance looks at him disapprovingly and tad annoyed. She would be the unofficial leader of their group of three. Confident, focused and above all, deadly.
"Path, are we clear?"
She says as she turns her head to their robotic companion. It stares out of the glassless, barred window into the green woodland area, holding his Longbow sniper rifle between the bars. Through his scope he sees a one from the tracker race.
"I spy a tracker!" He exclaims.
Wraith looks at him concerned "Is it Bloodhound?
"I do not believe so. Should I eliminate him?"
She nods, "Fire away." Pathfinder aims directly at the trackers head. "This is my favorite part" just as he locks on, the tracker turns their head, spotting Pathfinder. Before they can react ,he fires at the tracker before they could avoid him. The bullet rips through the air, through trees and through the trackers skull.
Wraith feeling uneasy decides to survey the area through the other windows. The crew falls silent for a second before becoming startled by Mirage.
"Loot Crate! Let's see what we got." As per usual, Mirage takes advantage of the situation and tries to take the gear for himself. As he opens the crate a burst of golden light sweeps the room. "Jackpot. Well don't mind if I do." He reaches down into the light once again to pilfer the loot before anyone notices. This time Wraith was too quick for him. Before he could lay claim to the treasure, Wraith grabs his hand with an authoritative grip. "Back off."
Mirage stumbles with his words, try to think of a good reason why he should have it. "Aw, guys come on. I'm a Legend in this thing. If anyone can make use of it, it's definitely yours truly."
"A legend?" She Scoffs. "Legends don't choke under pressure. Which seems to be your go to move. So unless you want me to take it off your dead corpse when that new guy makes you go comatose again, it's mine."
He chuckles in disbelief. "Yours? If it wasn't for me you'd still be laying down on the job and that hotshot gunner chick would've taken you out. With a Mozambique of all things. And...and by the way, isn't sneaking your specialty?" The room falls silent as the two stare each other down. You can feel the struggle for dominance in the air. Before it comes to a screaming 'it's mine; no it's mine' match, Pathfinder speaks up.
"Well, if we are basing the ownership of the item on usefulness and number of kills per match, then I believe with 10 kills the loot should be mine." If it wasn't tense before, it is now. They both turn to him with daggers in their eyes. Pathfinder never felt so threatened by these two until now. Mirage tries to refute the claim. "Thats gotta be a made up number."
"No." he says with a concerned tone. "The number is correct. The three from skull town, the four from water treatment, the three when we landed at the bridge and the tracker just now." The two just stand there with lackluster looks. He tries to break the tension with a show of friendship.
"High Five?"
Both look at Pathfinder as if he is speaking more nonsense than the drunk who invented the games. Mirage sizes him up with a glance and Wraith just shakes her head disapprovingly. He emotes a frowny face on his chest screen and lowers his hand. "Right so we're all in agreement that I..."
As Mirage babbles on about his vein needs, Wraith hears voices in her conscious calling from the beyond, overlapping in her mind
"They know where you are. You've been spotted. Grenade." With that, Wraith looks towards the doorway. Seeing a black orb in the air makes its way inside. Mirage sees it in front of him, but it's too late. Pathfinder reacts immediately and tries to move but before anyone can move, Wraith already created a portal and jumps into it before the explosive goes off. As the smoke clears you can hear heavy footsteps approaching. Those footsteps turn into more as figures step out of the smoke.
When the dust settles, we see Kodai Squad walk into the building. The big man, Gibralter gloats, "Kodai Squad wins again". The powerful and fear inducing Bloodhound inspects the kill "their deaths still have honor." The caring (yet sadistic) Lifeline gloats alongside Gibraltar. "Poor Bastards. Didn't even see us coming." Gibraltar spys the loot in the box. "Look at the loot they left Gibraltar!", he shouts as he claims it for himself, but the circle of greed and ego continues with them as Lifeline stops him before he can take it. As their squabbling is about to begin, Bloodhound senses senses something off. They scan the room as the other two argue and realize one is missing. As they turns his head slightly towards the window, a shot rings out and hits Bloodhound in the skull and Gibraltar in the knee. Both fall to the floor hard as Lifeline backs away. She tries to stay out of the line of sight but another shot rings out. It hits Gibraltar in the chest causing massive bleeding. He dies looking right at her, trying to warn his teammate, but ends before he could relay Waiths position.
She sits and tries to form a plan of exit with her team's second chance revival banners, but each time she reaches for them a shot would fire. The situation gets heavy and her body begins to shake. She decides to risk it all for her team. Lifeline dives into the bodies and get the banners but when she runs out of the building, she's met with a hail of sniper fire. She tries to avoid Wraith's shots as well as she can before she can bring back her team through the conscious transfer system. This system allows for peoples real bodies to be kept safe in the safe in an orbital base for those taking part of the Apex Games. Their consciousness is put in a cloned body that is easily disposable, but still comes with everything a real body does. Including pain receptors. She runs through the dirt and climbs over hills to try to avoid gun fire. Only she didn't notice that the gunfire stopped. Lifeline could see the beacon not too far off. She rushes with everything she has to get to the beacon, but before she could reach it, Wraith jumps out of the void and slashes her throat with her kunai. Everything becomes still. Neither of them moves. As Wraith cleans her blade, Lifeline falls forward, holding her neck and trying to crawl to the beacon. She steps in front of her and gloats.
"Didn't see that coming?" She says sarcastically before stomping on her head. After she loots the bodies, she goes back to pick up Mirage's recovery banner. She looks at Pathfinder sitting there lifeless. Wraith takes her kunai and stabs his breastplate. She removes his chest piece revealing his wiring and circuits. She cuts the red wire and the yellow wire with a white strip and zaps them together. After a few tries, she finally gets him back online. She looks at him with a smirk. "Welcome back."
Pathfinder seems confused, but in his own automatonic way, thankful. "That was exciting. Thank you!", he says as he grabs her arm to stand. Once they get themselves together, they begin to make their way through the section they named "Bridges". Wraith and Pathfinder make their way over the hillside to the overlook. As she approaches the beacon, Pathfinder grapples to the top of the building, to get a better vantage point. She inserts the recovery banner into the beacon. When inserted, it blasts out a beam of bright green light. Wraith looks up and sees a small dropship comes out of Jump Space. When it begins to hover, they see the ramp drop and Mirage standing on the edge holding on to the ship waiting to drop.
As he stares down on his team, he and Wraith exchange smirks. He lets go of the bar and leans forward. As he drops, you can hear him in the coms exclaiming his return.
"Mirage to the res..." and as he fall from the ship, he's shot multiple times from across the field. Wraith then hears the voices of the void telling her that she's in danger. 'You're in danger' 'what your 6' 'runaway', but it's far too late. She's hit with a Kraber shot in abdomen. Wraith slowly turns around to see the merc Amadeus "Titan" Spellbroke. A former IMC shadow fixer who's responsible for his fair share carnage in the Frontier. As a hired gun, he did what he wanted In the name of IMC and chalk it up to collateral damage. By the time she realized what happened, she began to lose feeling in her legs and she collapses. Wraith hits the ground with a heavy thud. Dust stirs and surrounds her bodies. Pathfinder tries to grapple to Wraith but as he grabs her and tries to get away a, shot hits his chest screen. The screen flashes different emotions and just switches to an 'off air' channel. He drops Wraith on the ground while creating shocking noises and loudly glitching. From the ground, she looks at Pathfinder falling to the ground stiff as a rock. When she leans her head back, she can see the man they call "Caustic", standing over her along with Titan and Erik "Viper" Gurerra. Titan can't help but seem so smug about their defeat. He looks down at her with the Kraber. 50-Cal sniper rifle on his shoulder. Wraith continues to struggle with the constant pain running through her body. Titan stares at her while gloating. "Ah, I bet that hurts. Does it? I shot through your stomach so the acid must be making its way through you." He kneels down in front of her. "Don't worry, you'll live." He says chuckling at his own humor. Titan continues to gloat with his final words being said through sing-song. "Stay Toooned." He's says while putting a P2020 to her head and pulls the trigger. She hears a boom, then sees nothing but darkness.
As if waking from a nightmare, Wraith awakens surrounded by her teammates Mirage & Pathfinder. She finds herself in the med station. The room is covered in a red light shinning from the ceiling. The room looks metallic, bloody and unsanitary. Yggdrasil has it's superficial charms, but it's not the med corps. The smell of chemicals and soap hits her nose like pollen on the breeze. She slowly regains her consciousness. Mirage stands by her trying to calm her down.
"Woah woah woah, take it easy. You just came back. Take it slow."
Wraith becomes impatient. A series of who's, what's and why's fly through her mind. Moving too fast for her to actually get them out. "What happened?" Pathfinder answers her with a simple, yet not untrue, response. "I believe we lost." Wraith still in a daze coming out of consciousness so abruptly, looks at Mirage with a look that says 'can you answer me with pissing me off'. "What happened?" Mirage shrugs his shoulders.
"I don't know. All I saw was you aaannndd then the ground. Apparently it was Spellbroke who got us." Wraith was not satisfied with that answer, even knowing that it was the truth.
"How did he get the drop on us?" She queries. Pathfinder takes his chance to answer her, "The odds that he could have found any one of us is 3 out of 60. We should have taken him to the Respawn Beacon opposite of the Bunker." Wraith gets off the table and tries to shuffle to the counter to get her things. She grabs the small silver reflective bag and pulls out her gloves and puts them on. She looks over to mirage, scanning his ridiculous outfit. His green jacket covered in his signature panels to create his holograms and baggy black leather pants make her roll her eyes in irritation. As she finishes getting ready, the doctor tries to convince her to take it easy.
"Hey! You know that you could have some mental scarring. Maybe even physical side effects from the ruff return."
Wraith, once again, doesn't care. "A lot of things might kill me, my mind isn't one."
The doctor scoffs and retracts his statement. "You know what? Do whatever. Not like you people listen to me anyway." She gets herself together and starts moving towards the door. "Oh yeah, you might want to think about getting another team."
Wraith stops and looks toward the doc with an offended look on her tired face. "What do you mean by that?" The doctor continues to clean his instruments. "I mean... all you three do is argue and piss each other off. Not productive and NOT the way to be the Apex Legend this season." Wraith turns away from him without saying a word. As she exits the room, Mirage follows quickly after her. Pathfinder stays for a moment and stares awkwardly at the doc. Pathfinder has a fascination with trying to process human emotions. So, he has a tendency to try and emote to match the same feelings. "I'm sure she won't try to kill you, even though you upset her. Friend?" He tries to get a high five from the doctor, but is ultimately, rejected.
We rejoin Wraith as she walks furiously towards the market section of Yggdrasil. Mirage follows her like a hyperactive puppy, trying to get her to pay attention to him.
" You know, that dude isn't a 'real' doctor. He probably just has a problem with our talent." Wraith continues to walk away from him. "It's sooo obvious he wants to be a Legend, but can't. It's sad really." Mirage folds his arms and smirks while closing his eyes as if he actually believes the load of baloney he's spewing. Though he maybe a master at convincing people and getting his way, it's never that simple with her. Her powers aren't just controlling the void and matter shift phasing, she can also phase through Mirage's bullshit.
Mirage starts getting more and more concerned at her extended silence. He usually can at least get a response from her. Whether it's a chuckle, a smirk or pure anger, he can do that to her. That's his 'special ability' in a way. "Look we'll get them next time. So, hows about we go get some genzo fuel and...", Wraith interrupts him.
"Elliot..." she stops and turns back to him. Mirage stops in his tracks. His eyes widen and he freezes. He does nothing but stare at her eyes as they change from pure white to her normal blue. "I need to be alone" she said turning to walk into the incredibly large and beautiful market section. It's filled with bright lights, loud noises and a mix of smells from all over the base. Yggdrasil Station is not just home to the Legends, but also home to the most popular shopping center in the Frontier. She walks into a dirty bar named "Storm Shock". The bar has very little customers, but that's why Wraith goes to it. She doesn't like many people and chooses to avoid them.
As Wraith sits at the squeaky stool, Mirage follows right behind. "Did...did i do something wrong here. I mean,I...I've been trying to follow your lead, I just like to add a little flare, you know?" He pleads his case to her, but once again misses the point.
"Look, I just have to think about something and I'd like to think...alone."
With those words, she found Mirage's off switch. "Okay. Just, if you need me, I'll...you know, be at Bennette's."
As she waves him away, the bartender serves her a dark yellowish drink. When she finally has some time to think about herself, the doctor walks in and approaches the bar. Without missing a step, he waives his hand towards the bartender. "Get me something strong, thanks", he says as if he's getting a drink with a buddy. The tension between Wraith and the good doctor was heavy. He takes a drink and looks at Wraith as if he was concerned for her.
"Look, I'm sorry for what i said" he says with sincerity. "I don't mean to upset you. I was just thinking about your reason for being here and..." He stops himself from finishing his sentence.
"I'm just sorry."
Wraith swirls here drink, looking deep into the counter while listening to what he has to say. It's like the brown drink and the bright counter top make a combination that puts her into a trance. She leans forward holding her drink closer. "Henry, do you really think I need a new team?" She turns to him and sees his shocked expression. He takes a deep breath and speaks his mind.
"Well..." he pauses to choose his words carefully. "I understand why you choose Pathfinder. You two have a lot of similarities. He woke up in an old, run down laboratory with no memory, no identity and no one. Basically a blank slate. A lot like you." He took another sip of his drink finishing it off. "But Elliot..."
"Elliot got us here." She says in defense of the absent Mirage.
"No, you got them here. He just gave you the in." He leans over more and faces her directly. "He uses your skill to get closer and closer to Apex Legend status. You carry him, you protect him and he just drags you down."
She looks back at her drink reflecting on their past games together. Mirage always tries to draw attention and put on a show. Which, almost always works for a distraction, but his showboating always goes too far.
"At least Pathfinder is self sufficient. Elliot finds a the spotlight everywhere you go and always, hurts the team."
Wraith, once again tries to defend his status on the team. "He gets kills and he watches our back. That's all I ask." He scoffs at the idea of Mirage actually being useful.
"All he does is get lucky. Look," he says trying to regain traction of the conversation. "I'm not here to just talk about him. What about your goal? You want to find out what happened before you came back from the void. Why that other version of you was in that lab and saved you and who you are, but Elliot isn't helping anything. He's holding you back from looking for any sign of the place you escaped."
He moves in closer to Wraith. She leans away a bit, probably do to the smell of chemicals and strong liquor. "Did you find anything on that?" she says trying to keep him from losing his train of thought again.
"Actually there's been a development. I hear their opening the closed off section of the island. You could check there for sure." He asks for another, but before he could raise his hand she puts it down for him.
He stares at her for some time. Long enough to be noticeable by both of them. "Look, just think about what I said. You should know by now, people like him are temporary. Their useless to your goal." He pushes himself up and off the bar. "Good luck tomorrow, Wraith." he says before turning to walk out of the bar.
Wraith, once again, is alone. With all the noise and people bothering her, she can't even finish her drink. She lightly push the glass away and puts the money on the counter. She walks out of the bar with no idea what she'll be doing for the games and what she needs to decide.
As Wraith reflects on her future, Pathfinder decided to go to the mechanic shop. Having troubles with understanding humans, he thinks that it could be a mechanical error. He doesn't understand that robots aren't supposed to understand emotion or the human mind, yet he still tries to find ways in connecting with them. The mechanic finishes his work and reattached his scene with a strong thump of his palm. " Okay, that should do her. Try to use the new emotes."
"Okay" he says as he powers up his screen. The system starts up normally and goes to a blank screen.
"Good, now think confused."
Pathfinder's screen turns to a confused yellow face.
"Awesome! Now give me the new angry face."
"Alright." Pathfinder changes his screen from the blue face to the angry red face.
"Nice, everything checks out." He says while putting away his tools.
"Excellent. Thank you!"
"Hey Path, don't take offense, but why do you even have this screen. Not like you actually feel these emotions. Is it a comfort thing?"
Pathfinder turns his head in confusion, triggering the new emote that he demonstrated. "Haha, ok you got me. Alright enjoy the new gear."
Pathfinder walks out of the room with new gear and a readiness for the games, but what the mechanic said upset him in a way. Although he may not understand or even have a lot of ways to show them, Pathfinder has emotions. No one knows except for the Henry the doctor and Wraith. He doesn't really want it to be known because he doesn't fully understand why he has these strange, feeling at all.
The day that the entire new frontier has been waiting for has arrived. The first day of the new season has arrived and everyone is ready for the battles. It seems like the only ones not excited are the Legends who know about the carnage of the games. Most of the first timers, and even some returning losers are on edge. Most are ex military and guns for hire, so they know what to expect. Doesn't make it any less tense for them all.
After a night of light drinking and planning, Wraith makes her way through the wide hall to meet with the others for briefing. Through the halls you can see the participants standing around. Scanning all who pass, trying to figure out the contender's from the corpses. She strode down the hallway with such confidence, as if to let everyone know that she is to absolutely be considered a threat. The others stand analyzing her every move as she makes her way to the open double doors at the end of the hallway. From the way she puts her heel to the ground to the rhythm of her steps, they notice everything about her. They know she's not too be underestimated. You can hear the whispers from onlookers. To Wraith, it's like gnats in her ears.
The tension in the hallways lifts as everyone hears a man bellow from across the hall.
"All contestants may now enter the War Room!" he yells filling the place with his deep bass filled voice. It echoes through the hall causing everyone to rush to the doors in a stampeding fashion. As they all rush in, we see the good doctor Henry pushes his way out of the room and through the crowd. Wraith sees him and slows down to a stop. Nor noticing her yet, he steadily approaches with worry written all over his face. She notices it once he raises his gaze to meet her's. He stops in front of her in silence for a few seconds.
"Henry, you ok?" She says concerningly.
Something is obviously upsetting and it's putting him on edge. "No, not really and I don't have time to explain. Look whatever happens, say no." He says confusing Wraith. Shocked at what she's been told, she had trouble coming up with anything else but "What?" Before he could go into detail, a big man with a medic uniform rushes pass them.
"Come on. We're gotta go now." The man says anxiously as he passes him, tapping his shoulder.
"I'm coming." He says as he tries too wave of the man away. "Just hold on."
"Okay, don't forget what they said."
"I'm not. Now go." The fellow medic rushes off down the hall to go to a small ship that's ready to leave. "Wraith just, don't do it alright. Don't." He clumsy rushes around the crowd leaves Wraith confused and dumbfounded. She watches him leave and begins looking around as if she's missed something obvious. Before she could chase him down, she feels a tap her shoulder. Wraith turns quickly ready for an attack, but comes to realize it's Mirage.
"Woahhoho. It's just me. Jeez the games haven't even started and your already jump…" She cuts him off before he can finish.
"Henry was acting weird."
"Well… he's Henry so…"
Before Elliott could go on making jokes, Wraith interrupts him. "I think we should find MRVN. Now." Then, as if he could feel the burning in his nonexistent ears, they hear Pathfinder call from across the hall. "Friends! I've been waiting for you. Come, we're about to start!" Before Wraith could suggest they wait, Mirage starts walking to him. Wraith follows not long after, but acts suspiciously towards everything she sees.
When they enter the room they see a crowd of people standing all around a stage suspended mid air. It's a dark room filled with small traces of light neon colors. Wraith begins to scan the room her paranoia not letting up. Soon she finds Pathfinder and Mirage standing side-by-side. Her and her team meet up just a few spaces from the stage. The room is full of teams conversing between each other.
As the room fills with loud voices and obnoxious laughter, a man steps up to the platform. As a man steps onto the center of the platform, the room begins to get quiet. He even gets the full attention Wraith, who was busy scanning the room to find what made her feel so off. As if whatever was setting her off would be obvious and stick out. Her attention turns towards the man as he addresses the entire room.
"Hello potential Legends!" he says in an explosive and entertaining tone. He gets the crowd riled up with anticipation. "Welcome to a new season of the Frontiers craziest most intense program of all time, Apex Legends!" The crowd cheer and applaud in excitement as the light dim down and bright neon colors cover the stage. "This season will have the most exciting twists and turns like no season has ever had. This season, we've made a few changes to Kings Canyon." He lifts his hands up to the ring of metal and lights above him. The ring lifts up high above the stage as the small projectors on the ring being too light up and turn. The ring then creates a 3D hologram of Kings Canyon appears above his head. "This season's we've decided that not only will you be able to take advantage of familiar locations, but we have officially finished construction and now the entire island is open!" They cheer even louder knowing that this could mean there are more opportunities for the taking.
"Yeah! And now I'd like to introduce you to our new loot system." The 3D construct turns from different locations of Kings Canyon to three squares. White, blue and purple. "These are representative colors showing you what is worth taking and what's not. Armors are greatly affected by this system. White can last against a few rounds from a P2020 or a G7 Scout, but our new Longbow sniper rifle or Spitfire light machine gun will tear through that like a blade through paper. So just remember to plan your attack accordingly."
The room fills with anticipation. Everyone here is ready for the fight of a lifetime. Everyone that is, except Wraith. She stands there staring at the and in the black suit and grunge t-shirt. As if he is not telling them the complete truth. The continual replay of what Henry said to her runs through her mind like an alarm that just won't stop ringing.
The announcer waits for the crowd to die down before he delivers his final announcement. "And now it is my true honor to Welcome to the stage the man who brought these games back to life. The man behind the curtain, Mr Kuben Blisk!"
The room explodes with applause. The crowd screams and yells as if their Messiah appeared right before their eyes. The room gets quiet as death when the sound of his boots stomping up to the platform pervade the air. He stands on the hovering platform, thumbs holding his belt loops. He stares at the crowd with a cheeky smirk. He puffs out his chest and bellow's out.
"Hello my Legends. Today is the day we've been waiting for." His voice changes from jokingly cocky to a very stern tone.
"I spent the last few months thinking. Thinking about why i'm not satisfied with the way we've conducted these games." He says stoically as the crowd seems confused. "This season I wanted to do something a much MUCH different. I have decided that this season, anyone who participates in the games will have greatest fight of their life." He pauses to let his words sink in.
"This time, there will be no respawn. You only get one life, yours."
Then out of the crowd, we hear Mirage shout out "What are you saying?"
"What I'm saying is, there are no clones. For this season, it's all or nothing."
They all begin to freak out and chatter amongst themselves. Many questioning whether it's all a joke or a fake gimmick. A contestant speaks up, voicing his anger.
"This is unfair. You can't do this." His protesting sparks fierce yelling from almost everyone.
He crosses his arms and begins to yell over them before coming back down to a regular speaking voice. "Now now, I know that comes as a shock, but with this very high risk, comes a very high reward." He says staring at Mirage. This season, if you win, you'll earn the title of Apex Predator and quadruple the normal prize money. And anyone who chooses to not participate, can leave now."
The crowd looks around trying to see who's still there. The contestants are still. No one wants to be the first to leave. The expressions on everyone's face is a mix of anxiety and fear. In all the room there's only one who voices his dislike of this and decides to leave with his life, Mirage.
"Whatever, I'm out." He says turning away from his team and sparking a wave of competitors following behind. "This is…", before he can finish Wraith grabs his arm.
"Elliott, wait." She tries to talk sense into him, but Elliott knows that there's no conversation to be had.
"We need you to stay. You're part of this squad. Don't do this."
"Look," Mirage says before letting out a short, sharp breath. "I signed up to be famous and rich. This was a game and now...now it's all too real for me. I can't just leave my mother without any of her children. Do you understand that?"
He pauses to look in her eyes for some semblance of understanding, but all ye see's is her dark eyes staring blankly back.
"Of course you would. You don't have anyone who gives a shit about you." He knows that's not true, but he knew the only way for her to let him go was to hurt her. "You're just a blank slate hiding behind a goth chick face. You wanna go die in some bullshit game, feel free!" As he speaks he feels every word he says like a knife digging into his side. She let's go of the tight grip on his arm and starts moving her eyes rapidly, trying to process what he says. He mouth slightly opens for a second before she composes herself and focuses all her anger on Mirage.
"You...are...the most self centered, egotistical asshole I've ever met. You are just here because people like to make fun of you. No one actually cares if you are here or not! I know I don't. So go."
He feels like he just lost everything he's been striving for. Everything hes fought for, but the thought of his mother alone, hurts him even more. He stands visibly shocked at her response. Thinking this would be hard, but now realizing this was a long build up shes been holding in, makes all this even worse.
"Whatever. I'm gone." He turns and storms his way out of the hall. Wraith, fighting all of her emotions at once tries to remain strong for her own sake to find out her true self. Pathfinder holds her shoulder. "I'm still here, though." He says trying to put some positivity back in the room. Wraith turns to him with a grateful smirk.
"Thank you, Path."
She turns towards Blisk. Ever the sociopath, he shows no emotion to what looks around the room, now basically cut in half and finishes his speech.
"Those of us still here, are here because they have something worth fighting for, have the strength and bravery of a warrior and have the skills to back up those claims. To you, I salute. Do to this announcement coming as such a shock, we won't depart today, but we will first thing tomorrow. If not to get yourself together, then to get things in order. And remember Legends, if they kill you their better. If you kill them you're better. Simple as that. See you all in the arena."