Chapter Six: Mr. Brightside
But it's just the price I pay; destiny is calling me, open up my eager eyes
'Cause I'm Mr. Brightside
He woke up.
The first thing he noticed was that it was very dark.
He checked the time in the back of his mind, but it didn't help him: his little internal clock had been reset.
Instead, he began exploring his shadowed surroundings. He couldn't see very clearly – the darkness was nearly impenetrable.
First, he checked to see if he could move. Arms, legs, head, hands, fingertips. Nothing seemed to be too out-of-the-ordinary, other than an unusual clinking sound – something like metal-on-metal that he couldn't identify – and a strange heaviness in his arms near his hands or wrists.
He blindly felt his arms for anything unusual and quickly found a strange round shape – a shackle? He was shackled? – connected to the source of the clinking: a metal chain (most likely made of hardened stainless steel, or so he judged from its weight).
His right hand felt back along the left chain, searching to see if it was attached to anything. After standing up to increase the range he could explore, he found that it was. He felt around the attachment point and quickly determined that it was attached to a wall, and that another chain anchored about two feet away from the first was attached to his right wrist.
He backed up so that he was standing right next to the wall, held his wrists level with the attachment points, and started walking straight out from the wall to estimate the length of the chains.
"You really can't see anything, can you?"
The chains wouldn't let him move forward anymore, but he stopped anyway. He blindly turned toward the voice just as he saw a very pale blue glow spread through an area some distance away. After a moment, two glowing pink eyes blinked at him where they appeared out of nothing.
Combined with the voice, it was more than enough for him to recognize.
"Pythor," he said.
"There's no reason to use that tone with me, Zane," Pythor retaliated from his own corner. "We're in the same situation here. We are equals."
"How can I trust you?" Zane asked, backing up a bit so the chain would let him turn toward Pythor. "Where are we?"
"We're in a prison complex, most likely underground," Pythor replied. "I thought you would have figured that out already. Perhaps I overestimated you?"
Zane said nothing. Pythor continued talking instead.
"If you're curious about why it's so dark, I think it's night-time. There's a light somewhere outside this room that's on a timer; it's going to turn back on in about an hour or so," he said. "You'll get bored enough to join me counting the seconds after a few days, although, it should be noted that you'll have the pleasure of a cellmate that isn't comatose the entire time. Go ahead, thank me for my kindest presence and alertness."
"You're lying," Zane said. "Where are we?"
"I don't think you understand: I'm not lying," Pythor hissed. "I am chained up over here; you are chained up over there. We've been on opposite sides before, but if we can't get over that then we're never getting out of here."
"Give me a reason to trust you," Zane said angrily.
"You can't see. I can't escape," Pythor said. "The light I mentioned before won't help you – it's very dim, not nearly bright enough for you to see by. If we have any hope of escaping, it's only by working together."
Zane frowned. "How can I escape?"
"You've probably got some sort of gizmo inside you that'll let you break those chains," Pythor suggested. "Don't make that face; you know what I'm talking about. You're certainly not very subtle about it."
"Fine," Zane said. "What is your plan?"
"I act as your eyes," Pythor explained. "I make sure that you don't hurt yourself trying to break those chains, help you navigate around the tripwire on the floor, and then make sure that you don't hurt me trying to break my chains. After I am free, I gracefully guide us both to the exit, where you'll most likely have to break a lock to let us out."
Zane considered the situation carefully. He really didn't like the idea of working with Pythor of all the Serpentine, but he wasn't sure he had much of a choice. Unless if Pythor was lying about the trip-wire, he wouldn't be able to escape without help.
"…I agree," he said finally. He grabbed blindly before he found one of the chains. "Help me find where to cut this."
"No, not yet," Pythor told him. "Maybe tomorrow night, but no earlier."
"Why not?" Zane asked.
"You wouldn't understand – you're not a Serpentine," Pythor said dismissively.
"Give me a better reason," Zane pushed.
Pythor's eyes jerked away from Zane to look at something – perhaps a sound that he couldn't hear. "The guards," he whispered. "They've been checking in more frequently – I think they've been expecting you to wake up. They're going to come by again before too long. If they see that you've woken up, they might start leaving us alone more. I'd like to wait a few days before we try anything, if you don't mind."
"Fine," Zane said. "Tell me when you're ready."
And then they waited.
Kai still wasn't very happy with what they had decided to do about the tunnel.
Namely: nothing, until the end of Round One. Cole had given some sort of shallow reasoning about learning their enemies' strengths and weaknesses, and Kai was very certain that the comment had only been intended to preserve Jay's state of mind.
Kai had decided that it was certainly a good idea to keep Jay from flipping out again like he had two nights before.
But he had also decided that he didn't have to be happy about the waiting game, and he wanted to make sure that everyone knew that.
"Why couldn't I have shown you where the tunnel was yesterday?" he whispered ferociously to the others on the way to the unofficial-official meeting place. "We don't know what Chen's brackets look like. If he has us fight each other, it's game over."
"We'll make do with what we get, Kai," Cole said sternly. "Chen said it himself: only one can remain. We're going to have to fight each other at some point. It's not ideal to do it in the first few rounds, but we have no choice in what Chen does."
"The bigger concern should be learning our competitors' weaknesses," Lloyd said. Jay nodded along uncertainly in the background.
Kai gave Lloyd a cocky grin. "If you think I'm going to let them beat me up, then you've got another thing coming."
They arrived in the entrance hall with most of the other competitors. Chen was already waiting for them, leaning tiredly against something large covered with a deep-purple felt curtain. He barely acknowledged their presence as the competitors all filed in, and only waited for the doors to close before launching into another of his already somewhat-legendary speeches.
"We have a lot to do today, everyone!" Chen said in a pleasant yet sinister fashion, like a parent speaking to disobedient children. "So I'm just going to dive right into this madness: we have fourteen remaining competitors, and only seven of them are going to be left by the end of Round One. Here are your fights."
Chen grabbed the curtain shrouding the object and pulled it off, leaving it to fall to the floor behind him. It revealed a golden board displaying pictures of each of the contestants. Kai found his picture and saw that his challenger was some strange guy with a turban.
"Now, what some of you may notice is that this is a sixteen-slot tournament… and there are only fourteen of you now," Chen hissed, grinning. "So, I have a special prize for the end of Round One: Whoever has the best, most interesting fight will be able to skip Round Two. Consider it to be a potential reward for a job potentially well done."
Chen tapped the board with the back of his hand. "Today's matchups will be as follows: the Master of Power versus the Master of Shadow; the Master of Light versus the Master of Amber; the Master of Fire versus the Master of Gravity; and, last but not least, the Master of Sound versus the Master of Water."
"So far, so good," Lloyd mumbled.
"Tomorrow will have three fights among the remaining six competitors," Chen said. "The Master of Mind versus the Master of Metal; the Master of Smoke versus the Master of Nature; and the Master of Lightning versus the Master of Earth."
Jay froze.
"Let's begin, shall we?" Chen invited. "Everyone can follow my servants to the first arena; if the Master of Power and the Master of Shadow would please go to the front of the group – thank you."
Lloyd looked back over his shoulder at the three of them while he walked to the front of the procession. Kai knew from the look on Lloyd's face that he wanted to stay and help, but it didn't make any difference. Kai was left feeling lost as Cole began to deal with Jay's nerves.
"Jay, it's okay! Remember what we said about surviving the ro–"
"But one of us has to die and I don't want to die but I'm not a killer but I –"
"Nobody's going to die, Jay. We just have to fight, and –"
"Kai knows he killed that green-haired girl even though he claimed he didn't and then Chen left somebody out in the woods and it's been like three da–"
"Jay," Cole said forcefully, grabbing the redhead by his shoulders and holding him perfectly still. "That isn't helping right now. You're freaking yourself out. Calm. Down."
Kai hadn't known what was wrong with Jay at that meeting two nights before. They'd talked all about everything long through the night, and Jay either hadn't wanted to – or simply hadn't been able to – explain himself.
But something in the way he was acting again now struck something in Kai, and for half a moment, he thought he understood.
Something had already gone wrong.
Cole and Jay weren't supposed to fight each other this early. It was bad. They should call Nya tonight, probably.
Kai knew enough about superstition to not say that it could get worse.
Lloyd had won his fight in the morning easily enough – one shot of his green light had blown back the grey-skinned competitor, and then Lloyd had been able to grab the Jade Blade to declare himself the winner. Chen had said nothing about it, though Kai did see him glare in Lloyd's direction when Lloyd wasn't looking.
After that, some guy who could turn invisible fought against a person who most decidedly could not, and that fight was over pretty quickly as well. When Kai had glanced at Chen, he appeared to be losing his composure, where his jaw was clenched and at least one hand was balled in a fist.
Now it was time for Kai's fight against the man with the turban. They were going to fight in an open-air circular space filled with tall grass up to nearly his shoulders. The Jade Blade was tied to a tall pole in the center. Kai didn't have much of an advantage here – even burning the grass wouldn't give him a definite advantage.
The wind whistled through Kai's hair as he waited, his spine prickling. It should be time for him to fight another competitor, but there was only silence around him.
Where are they?
He glanced up at the sky, and suddenly noticed a rapidly growing speck, dark against the blue. Drawing his sword, Kai ran from the impact site as the other man plunged out of the sky towards him.
Dark robes, a turban, and wide, smiling eyes. Kai didn't like this competitor any more now than when he had last seen him a few hours before. The man spun as he landed, keeping his feet a little off the ground and blowing the grass flat to the ground in a wide radius around the impact. The ground below him shook, and a series of boulders wrenched themselves out of the ground and whipped through the air towards Kai.
Gritting his teeth in concentration, the fire ninja rolled under the first boulder and got a running start toward the turban-wearing man as he dodged the other rocks. Chuckling, the Master of Gravity floated backwards, and Kai's movements slowed. His feet sank into the dirt, and he could hear his spine crack. The sword was pulled out of his hands.
"Why – why don't you fight fair?" Kai gasped. The pressure on his spine eased slightly as the turban-wearing man looked at him in surprise.
"Nobody here does. What'll you do, burn me to a cinder? That fair?"
"No," Kai gasped, wrenching himself forwards. As he punched out of the gravity bubble, he could stand again. "But… I'll do what I have to do."
Lunging forwards, he grabbed the man's arms. The universe around him whirled out of control as the gravity twisted, but Kai hung on grimly, twisting the older man's arms backwards. A flicker of fire danced down his arms, and the man screamed, his eyes widening as he twisted backwards.
Kai let him go, a warning glint of red shining in his eyes. The man fell to the ground, his eyes bloodshot with pain, and did nothing as Kai turned and ran for the Jade Blade.
He climbed the pole as quickly as he could. As soon as the golden handle slipped into his hand –
"The Master of Fire wins!" Chen announced. The ringleader smiled and nodded at someone behind Kai, and he saw the servants rush in and take his unfortunate opponent somewhere else.
The man looked up at Kai in a half-aware daze before he was taken out of sight, but Chen was already begging them to move on to the next fight in some other far-away arena.
Kai couldn't get that stare out of his mind.
(A/N): Oh my god I almost forgot to do this before I went back to bed but anyway. A lot of that last POV was by froststrix from Tumblr again mostly because I was too sick to plan out a battle myself. It's on my writing Tumblr somewhere, tagged 'froststrix' if you want to find it.
Kai got two thirds of this chapter because I was an idiot. And then I didn't want to move Zane's POV to fix things because it would make things worse. So yeah, I'm dumb.
I am also very very sick, which is why this chapter is... four days late now, is this? I think it is. I dunno how you'd count it I guess. I give up. Anyway I have the flu and mr flu is a big meanie who makes me very sleepy and only able to eat peanut butter and pasta. For the past week. I am so tired. So anyway basically this chapter is as good as you're going to get it and now I'm going back to bed I am so tired.
Anyway this is finished now. This chapter is Mr. Brightside by The Killers, and the next chapter is The Last Goodbye by Billy Boyd. (I've updated the YouTube playlist~)
Did any of you cringe at that song title there? Anyone? Because really, it should put the fear of God in you, or in this case, the fear of me. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Oh come on, I've been saying for how many chapters that Seven is the one where stuff starts getting really scary, and nobody is going to admit that I picked a song where I'm literally using the entire first stanza for the chapter's lines and everybody has to be afraid of that because dear god look at that song's lyrics. I mean, come on, it was in the last Hobbit movie for God's sake, the one where half of the cast dies off because they don't appear in the rest of the series.
Expect bad things in, like, one and a half weeks. And then you'll get things that are so many times worse. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
also thank u to that very kind dear anon who reviewed again :) sweetie i am probably going to hurt ur babies and i am sorry about that but i am also very very extremely nOT SORRY