I do not own Chaotic nor anything related to it. It belongs to TCDigital.

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The Crystal Truth

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It's the last day, and everyone's feeling the pressure. The time limit turned something that would normally take months into a race less than a week long. With so little time, there really should be more than two candidates still in the running, but it's just the two of us, Frank and me.

Five days ago, before I'd seen Frank campaigning, I didn't want anything to do with this. Now, however, it's a life or death struggle for me to win. A funny thing about that is that life or death is more like Al Mipedim or Underworld City for me now.

What will I do if I end up having to start all over in Underworld City?

Focus, Michael. You can win this thing.

Shouldn't I tell someone about Frank's plan to kill me?

With what proof? Just win and hire a personal guard.

I give myself a mental slap in the face. I need to prepare for the final debates.

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Less final debates than closing statements, it turns out, and for once Frank and I are both at a loss. Neither of us have said much, and the crowd is getting restless.

I glance at Frank. Even with the difficulties we're having today, he looks confident. I have no idea what expression I have on right now, but I doubt it looks as collected as Frank's.

"It seems like you two are having problems coming up with anything," a woman near the front notes.

Frank grins, folds his arms, and rests his elbows on the patio. "I think that's true. Both of us came here prepared to answer questions rather than give a speech."

Gah! I should have been the one to say that!

The woman nods. "Well, then I have a question. What made you decide to campaign, Frank?"

Frank speaks quickly but calmly, "I saw that there was too much indecision about who our ruler should be. We need someone who's sure of himself, who's ready to make tough decisions when the time comes."

Just what I was afraid of. Frank isn't trying to make me look bad, he's just trying to make himself look good.

The woman turns to me. "Your decision to campaign came a little out of left field, Michael. What made you change your mind and decide to campaign?"

...Aw crap. "I've have previous experience with Frank that told me he wouldn't make a good leader."

"Do tell," the woman says as she crosses her legs.

Don't start freaking out, Michael. "Out of respect for my opponent, I'd rather not say."

I don't think that worked well at all. Frank looks over at me and asks, "Are you still hung up over high school, Michael? Is that really the whole reason you're campaigning?"

There's murmuring in the crowd. This is not going well.

There's a man and a woman pushing their way through the crowd. Don't I know them? Ah, they tried to interview my about who I was interested in before all this started. "Excuse me, I have a question for Frank!" the woman calls out.

The woman currently asking questions steps aside, and the pair of reporters take her place. The woman asks, "Frank, how would you describe your past and present relationship with Michael?"

Frank glances over at me. "I'd always thought it was a friendly rivalry," he says. "You know, both of us struggling to be better than the other."

The man asks, "So, nothing to legitimately hate the other about?"

Frank shakes his head. "Nothing that I noticed."

The man glances at the woman, who nods. The man turns to the crowd. "We received a recording of a conversation that occurred last night. You might find some interesting information in it."

Frank pushes his eyebrows together in confusion.

The woman places a crystal on the stage in front of Frank and me and gives it a tap.

Frank's voice comes out of the crystal, "Can Mike and I talk alone, like old friends?"

Frank's eyebrows disappear behind his bangs. I probably look just as surprised.

"I must have missed the part where Michael said you and he were friends," Shasta's voice says.

"Look, lizard, I want to talk with Michael without you hovering over our shoulders." The flesh-and-blood Frank pales as he recognizes his voice. "If you're not going to leave, I'm going to have to find another way to keep you from listening to us."

My voice says, "I'll be fine."

"Okay then..." says Shasta's voice.

There's a bit of silence, during which time Frank looks like he wants to smash the crystal. The his voice comes out of it again. "There." A pause. "Why do you always have to make everything so difficult, Mike?"

"You were the one who made my life difficult," my voice responds.

The crowd can't seem to decide who to stare at between Frank and me.

Frank's voice takes a nasty edge to it. "Psh, don't blame me. You were the one who made it so fun to mess with you." A chuckle. "It was so easy, all I had to do was say 'f***' and you'd freak out like a little wuss."

"Hm," responds my uninterested voice.

As the recording continues, Frank's face grows more and more horrified. The crowd's attention is completely on him now, with more and more murmuring the more they hear.

"Since when did anyone ever care about idiot kids at some idiot school for idiots?" Frank's voice scoffs. "If Brett hadn't looked in my backpack, I could have stopped you and gotten away with it. And now you're making life difficult for me again."

There's silence from the crystal for a few seconds. Then my voice says, ""Have you ever considered, you know, having fun in ways that don't hurt other people?"

There's the sound of a chair toppling over. "How about you add another death to that list in that f***ed up brain of yours: cut into little pieces!" Frank's voice bellows. "I might even hide the pieces in lizard-guy's supply of meat!"

There are shouts of alarm from the crowd, and I hear someone vomiting. The crystal plays the sound of a table crashing against the floor, then my panicked voice trying to stop Frank. Frank's hands are trembling, and he looks as if we wants to smash the crystal.

Eventually the recording finishes with Frank saying, "You're right. I'll wait until after I win, then Shasta can wonder why everyone says his food tastes funny." There's the sound of the door latch opening and someone stomping away.

Everyone stares at Frank, who's staring at the pulpit. "But... I made sure..." he mutters. "There wasn't anyone else there..."

The woman says, "So, Frank, what do you have to say about this?"

Frank hands tremble as he points at the crystal. "That was doctored! I didn't say any of that!"

"You just said, 'There wasn't anyone else there.' It sounds like you did say those things." The woman turns to me. "Did that conversation actually happen?"

I nod. "Exactly."

Frank's grabbing his pulpit with both hands. His voice trembles, "...I don't know how you did it, Michael..." He turns to look at me. His face is twisted with hate and rage, teeth bared and eyes wild. "But you're not going to live long enough to tell me."

Frank steps forward and pulls a long serrated knife out of a pouch at his waist. Someone in the crowd screams.

...And suddenly two Mipedians appear between Frank and me, Maliph and Malvidine. Both are pointing glowing swords at Frank.

Maliph growls, "Put that knife down."

Malvadine spits, "I can't believe someone like you could make a whole tribe trust him."

If they weren't so busy saving my life I'd hug them both.

Frank's eyes flit back and forth between the two Mipedian guards. Then his eyes settle on me. "You had an invisible lizard-guy in there with you," he snarls. "You had someone recording everything."

Malvadine snarls, "We told you to drop the knife!"

Frank shouts, "You're dead, Michael!" He takes a step forward and raises the knife.

Maliph flicks his sword, catching the blade of Frank's knife with its tip and ripping it out of his hands, sending it spinning across the stage. Then he and Malvadine point their swords at Frank's neck. "Don't make this any harder than it needs to be," Maliph warns. "We have you for assault and conspiracy to murder. Unless a Human here objects?"

Nobody objects. The crowd looks a little sick to their stomachs.

Frank's face pales. His eyes glance over to where his knife landed, then back to me. He repeats this a few times, then stares at the Mipedian guards ready to strike him down. "...I give up," he mutters as he seems to deflate.

I let out a breath, then turn back to the crowd as Frank is escorted away. Then it hits me. Sett had to have done all this. He had to have given those reporters the recording, had to have convinced Maliph and Malvadine to stand here invisible for this long time.

Someone in the crowd clears his throat after a while. "Well... should we even bother with a vote now? Unless someone else wants to join the race... at the last minute... after all this..." The man's voice falls silent.

...Well, I guess there's weirder ways to become leader of the Humans...

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Up next: The Royal We

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Like I said before, Chaotic belongs to TCDigital.

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