4 years ago

'Get out of our town, stranger.'

Being thrown out of her hometown accompanied by a mouthful of Korean abuse was not what K-C had expected. Sure, being unceremoniously chucked out by a burly warrior hurt, but being called a stranger…

It hurt more.

But what was she supposed to do? Stand there and cry? The doors to the town were closed to her, just like they were to any normal visiting tourist. Not much to weep about. She could come back and visit her relatives with the other travelers and maybe they'd accept her.

Yeah, and maybe assassins would finally stop obsessing over being ninjas.

Sighing, she picked up her battered red Sonata and headed back the way she came- up Eos tower. She rummaged around for an Eos tower scroll and swore in several languages when she realised the lack of them. It wasn't turning out to be a good day.

'Maybe I shouldn't have left the village…?' Unbidden tears began to form and she wiped them away before they threatened to overflow. 'If I stayed, maybe I wouldn't be like this.'

'Maybe I shouldn't have become a bandit after all. Everyone looks down on bandits. If I went to the Dark Lord maybe he would-'

She then realised that she was practically drowning in self-pity. She giggled hysterically to herself for a moment- purely out of tension and… sadness. 'Sides, the Dark Lord doing something for her? Not involving mesos?

The thought was insane.

'Yo, you got an Eos scroll?'

The brusque tone came from somewhere behind her. Not even bothering to look, K-C continued scrambling ungracefully up the tacky plastic ladder.

'If I did, would I be clambering up like an idiot?'

There was a pause.

'All right, no need to get snappy with me.'

The sound of a staff clattered against the plastic blocks that happened to be Eos tower, bringing a sneer to K-C's face.

Magicians.

She didn't have the time or energy to deal with one right now. Unfortunately for her, the mage continued yelling on after her.

'Umm, hi. My name's Richard. Richard Walker. Do you think you could haste me?'

K-C rolled her eyes as the mage teleported through a mini army of trixters and black rats. Eos tower got more infested as the days went on, but no one really cared. Unless they were climbing up Eos like she was.

'Whaddya think I am? A haste machine?' She glowered at the mage. Her expression didn't soften as she realised that he was a kid. After all, she reasoned with herself, she was a kid as well.

The mage looked up at her with pleading eyes.

'Please, it'd really help me get up faster and uh… jump over rats and stuff.' The mage's puppy dog eyes had no effect whatsoever on K-C, who leapt nimbly to the next plastic ladder. She grimaced as the mage continued to keep up with her with his teleport.

'Please please please plea-'

K-C snapped. The pressure of being chucked out of her home town, the feeling of unworthiness, the sheer annoyingness of the noob mage… It piled up and exploded right in her face.

'Get lost, noob!' She screamed and swiped at the younger mage with her Reef Claw, sharp metal connecting with the back of his hand. The mage lost his balance and fell. Fast. He was swiped by numerous screw-like objects which left him battered and cut up, drops of blood trickling onto the plastic. Without even looking down, the bandit continued making her way up the tower.

Tears came. Spilled over his eyelids. But there was a rage that soothed all the pain, an anger that over time transformed him into an unrecognizable, unstable excuse for a human being.

Richard Walker pictured the bandit in his mind- the murderous expression that may or may not have been slightly exaggerated, the crimson eyes that may or may not had been imagined- who had red eyes anyway? - and the long, black hair.

He pictured the bandit again as a mutilated corpse, hanging dead from a tree in Ellinia, gashes trailing from her head to her feet and slowly being taken apart by the crows that occasionally flew over from Mushroom Town. What was left of her carcass swung back and fro gently with the breeze.

Richard smiled to himself.

The image was appealing.

Very appealing.

10 minutes into the Games.
Monday morning.

Xemira Feonix.

Scared.

Terrified.

Petrified, even.

I tore through the woods, a Doombringer in the grasp of my right hand. A blue backpack was clutched in my left. I could hear cawing of crows and the annoying rustle of leaves and the twigs I snapped as I ran for my life, away from the killings and the battles and the blood.

I, Xemira Feonix, was scared.

I never exactly realised how sheltered I was until now. Killing another human had never occurred to me, but it was me or them. And everyone had a primal instinct to survive.

I prayed that Scania wouldn't damn my soul.

Oh, I would injure, maim, kill. When it finally came down to it, everyone would. But when I thought about it several days before, I had visions of people calling it off, saying it was too barbaric.

But they were actually going through with it.

And I had heard the screams of some poor soul already, not like the archer who had died swiftly and soundlessly in the first few minutes.

There was someone ready to kill in this game. Someone not like me who was afraid to kill. Someone who was pretty comfortable with the idea of destroying another for survival.

There was a killer loose in this arena.

And I was locked in here with him. My eyes frantically ran over anything that could come in handy. Any hidden glint of metal? No, just green, green, green and a red ball, more green and guess what, more gre-

Wait. What?

A red ball?

I smiled, despite my fears. It resembled those teleporters in Henesys that transferred you to the other side of the towns. I remembered my younger self bouncing to and fro from each of the town just for kicks.

Gingerly, I made my way over to it. Clutching my prizes tightly, I stretched out a tentative finger and let the nauseous sensation take over.

Nic [[13 minutes into the game]]
Priest
Level: 103

Magicians were never trained to climb trees. But we managed anyway, what with Ellinia actually being a giant tree and all. So that was what I did. I scrambled up a one with branches I thought would support my weight and settled into the familiar lushness of the fauna.

Maybe too familiar.

My eyes began to water and there was a tingly feeling in my nose. The urge to splutter and cough began to take over.

I cursed.

Damn you, hay fever.

This was when things started to get seriously, seriously bad.

In a coughing fit that could've woken up half of Ellinia, I fell off the branch. I fell off the freaking branch.

Sweet mother of Grendel, why now?!

But I had no time to ponder on my misfortune. That time slot was entirely devoted to spluttering and wiping tears away from my eyes.

Sitting there wandless while having attracted the attention of every single person in the arena was the worst thing I could've done.

But when I saw a trigger-happy hermit about 5 meters away from me, I had to admit I was pretty surprised.

He grinned at me the way a predator smiles when he knows he's got a victim by their neck.

'Hello, little mage.'

He leapt at me with a pointy-looking claw, made even more dangerous by the projectiles inside that cruelly glinted in the sunlight.

He was going to attack me.

He was going to kill me.

My eyes widened as I clutched at the ground unconsciously in my fear. He smirked, slowly taking out a throwing star. I mentally assessed it.

Crystal ilbi throwing star, edges sharp, not blunt. Diamond coated, will penetrate through anything. 100 percent fatality rate if used properly. I looked at the hermit. No doubt he would use it properly.

I clenched my teeth.

No doubt that I was going to die, then.

He smiled again, eyes creasing as he tossed the star up and down in his clawed hand. Before I could even blink, he attacked.

He clenched his fist tightly, grasping his stars and launched them. The projectiles embedded itself into the branch above me, splinters showering me like a rain of death. I crossed my arms over my face, letting my arms and head take the brunt of the damage.

A branch fell to the ground, split neatly into half. I slowly looked up into his eyes, brown eyes the colour of sludge and mud. A feral grin lit up his face.

'Ready to play, little mage?'

My eyes widened.

MOVE!

Jakiro
13 minutes into the game

Bandit-sin
Level: 92

Maybe it wasn't strictly allowed, but Felicite had shown us the blueprints for the thing. I couldn't remember much of it- she had only given us an unofficial discreet glance. But help was help, and it could come in handy some time.

From what I could remember, this was the forest area if the trees were any indication. I probably wasn't even in the main forest yet, just somewhere along the trail.

I wasn't claustrophobic per se, but being close to so much green after living in a box of metal and concrete for most of my life…

It felt weird.

And weird did not feel good.

I slung the black pack over my shoulder, making mental note to go over the stuff later. First, I had to find a place to hide out. And with about half of Ellinia in here, I was pretty much spoilt for choice.

But that didn't mean I shouldn't be cautious.

'Killer, murderer, I'll kill you…'

I pushed the thoughts away from my mind. I'd deal with the angsty emotions later. As for now…

'You can run, but you can't hide, mage,' My ears pricked up. It was the strange hermit that scared the shit out of me. What was his name… Fion Zarkandas? Fading swiftly into Dark Sight, I ran lightly over in his general direction.

'Aww, man. Just leave me the hell alone, why can't you?'

Nic.

I pushed my body into the small clearing to witness Zarkandas leaping around with flash jump while chucking pointy objects at Nic. A stray star shot near me and I caught it between my fingers, wincing when it created a nick in my index finger. The action alone was enough to make me lose the concentration needed to maintain Dark Sight, making me poof back into visibility.

'Hello, Fion,' I greeted him politely, twirling the star neatly in my hand. He stared at it, transfixed at the spinning metal. 'Been up to much?'

He tore his eyes away from the throwing star and smirked. 'I was just getting along quite well with this mage over here,' he nodded towards Nic, smiling. 'I'm not sharing though Jakiro,' he paused, making a throwing star appear quickly In his hand. 'So I'm afraid you'll have to find your own little mage.'

'Is that so, Fion?' I raised an eyebrow as I pocked the throwing star and began twirling a lightweight dagger that I had managed to snag on my way. 'You know what they say- stars are exhaustible but daggers never tarnish.'

Zarkandas regarded me silently for a moment, head cocked to one side.

'Aah, fine,' he pocketed his throwing star and lifted his hand as a farewell. 'But mark my words, bandit sin. I'll be back for you… For you and the mage.'

Then he flash jumped off, leaving Nic and I in the Awkward Zone.

Nic and I looked at each other, shrugging simultaneously at his odd behaviour. I quickly stopped- it reminded me too much about the old days. But maybe, maybe we could… I didn't know.

'Soooo…' I fumbled awkwardly around with my words. 'Uh. It might not be that wise for you to go around with a wand and all-'

She interrupted me quickly with a finger to my lips. 'Alliance?' She stuck out a hand, smiling. Without even thinking, I took it and pulled her into a hug, mussing up her hair in the process. I tried to put most of what I was feeling into the embrace, fearing I wouldn't get it right with words.

'Sorry, Jak,' she whispered as I released her from the bear hug. I smiled at her.

'There's nothing to be sorry about, Nic,' I ran my hands through my hair, staring away through the trees. 'We need to get back on the move. Who knows who else might be out here…'

Knowing the hackers, they probably thought up several nasty surprises for us just for kicks. But hey, this was too soon to be launching any… right?

Lupercalia
Level: unknown
Fire poison mage.
20 minutes into the game.

'Jeez, this is taking freakin' ages. Are you sure we should've followed this path?'

Okay, so maybe I sounded like a whiny little bitch. But the sun was scorching, the road was dusty, plus Red wasn't the most sociable of guys. Sure, he was easily likable with his adorable stoic nature and all, but the antisocial attitude didn't help my boredom. I fiddled with my dark ritual irritably, waiting for some form of smart-ass reply.

'The others mostly took the forest path,' Ah, there came to smart-ass reply. 'I assumed it would be more convenient for us to take another path.'

I shrugged. After all, he was the smart one. An unbidden thought crept into my mind- another one of Grendel's useless quotes.

'A fool's mistake is usually small, but a wise man's error may be grave.'

Well, whatever. The worst we could do was to die.

'Where do you think this is leading to?'

He shrugged, shifting the weight of his hugeass spear to his other shoulder. How he managed to snag something that big, I do not know.

'I have no idea. There weren't exactly any maps of the arena lying around- I apologise.' He muttered dryly, grimacing as the sweat poured down his face. I rolled my eyes. If the spear was too much for him, why the hell did he take it?

'D'you think there's a stream or a river around? 'Cause we are going to be seriously thirsty soon,' I surveyed my surroundings, hoping that a river would just pop out of the parched ground.

'Talking wastes time and energy. Let's just walk.'

And that was the end of our oh-so-conversational conversation. We trudged in silence for a couple of minutes, but…

'Lu, is it just me or is there a very large mob of something chasing us?'

I raised my head and looked back. And stared for about the whole of 10 seconds. About 30 lumps of birds mounted about fuzzy mountains were headed our way. And they all looked mad.

'What're you waiting for?!' I screamed, lunging desperately forwards, my red pack clattering painfully against my leg.

'RUN!'

Redcrosse
Dark Knight
Level 130
24 minutes into the game

Some people might say that warriors were not exactly God's gift to running. Our cumbersome armour that offered us protection usually hindered any attempts to flee. But here, in the Acer games, dressed in a long white shirt and sandblasted jeans, I was pretty sure I'd survive the Yeti and Pepe rampage by outrunning them.

Yeah, and the fact that we were a quarter of the way up a mountain helped as well. Though I had to admit, having several tonnes of water pounding down a couple of metres away was slightly disheartening.

'RED, MOVE UP HERE!' Lupercalia, or Lu, as I liked to call her, shouted down from halfway up the mountain.

Huh. Who knew magicians were so adept at free scaling. Thank god my newly acquired Pinaka had a leather strap attached to it. I hung it off my neck and grimaced. The effect reminded me of a certain hermit strangling me in the horntail caves. I was pretty sure that my windpipe was going to break.

'Lu, this isn't going to happen.' Tough, the waterfall swept my words away, continuously spraying me with it's clear mountain water. I licked my lips. It tasted surprisingly clear.

Kudos to the hackers for constructing a waterfall.

'WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU.'

The girl had a set of lungs that even the mightiest of boss monsters would admire. I shook my head to get the water out of my eyes.

I yelled about the spear and I could feel her rolling her eyes. There was a rock jutting out into my back and I realised the full effect of hanging around a rocky mountain, complete with waterfall-

It was uncomfortable.

'What're you hanging around for?' Lu tutted, as I almost fell off the mountain in surprise. 'Hang the huge metal stick on that rock peeking out, and jump up.'

I felt offended for the Pinaka- huge metal stick indeed! But hey- mages had all the brains around here. And thus began my ungraceful ascent up the mountain.

'Um, Red. If I were you, I'd hurry it up a bit.' Lupercalia looked down. 'Turns out the Pepes can climb pretty fast as well.'

I slowly cast my eyes down, then felt my body freeze. Less than 20 metres below, a small army of blue was swarming over the rocks. Another 30 metres below, large furry lumps were slowly ascending.

'Crap.'

Lupercalia tutted again.

'Climb. There's a hidden cave in the middle of the waterfall.' She leapt agilely from rock to rock, not at all scared of tumbling off. In a blue flash of teleport, she vanished.

'Hurry up- there's only about 10 metres to go.'

I groaned inwardly but upped the speed. 10 metres was a long way to climb, especially with, as Lu had so aptly dubbed it, a huge metal stick.

Five minutes of strenuous climbing later, I collapsed into a shuddering, damp heap in the middle of the cave. Lupercalia, however, chose to stand beside me laughing her head off.

'I thought warriors were supposed to be fit,' she smirked. 'Never knew how wrong I could be.'

I grunted in dissent, too exhausted to reply. I stumbled to the edge of the cave and heaved my breakfast down the waterfall. My companion wrinkled her nose.

'Charming.' She snorted, shaking her head. 'There are potions in your pack and we have water with traces of puke.' I choked at that and drowned my shame in a power elixir.

'We might as well set up camp for now. The Pepes got washed down the waterfall and the Yetis are probably terrorising someone else by now.' I imagined another bunch of people running away from the terrifying fuzzy lumps and chuckled.

Lupercalia shook her head.

'Not a chance, bub. The Pepes might be indigo splodges on the ground, but if you stretch those ears of yours, you might hear the rumbling of a million unhappy yetis,' she stuck her head out of the cave for a moment and just as quickly pulled back in.

'We have to kill them,' she panted heavily as she looked around the cave with wild eyes. 'There's a freakin' army of them!'

I shrugged confidently, not even considering the possibility of being overrun by the humongous monsters. There were certain advantages to being a close-ranged attacker.

Another 5 minutes later, there was a large supply of yeti horns stacked in one side of the cave, and a large pile of yeti corpses quickly decomposing in another side. Plus we had looted more potions than anyone could drink in a lifetime.

I smirked at Lupercalia.

'You were saying…?'

Nic
Priest
Level 103
45 minutes into the game

'Nic.' A pause. 'Hey, Nic?'

I stumbled out of my stupor quickly with a little shake from Jakiro. I hadn't even noticed that I was all but completely ignoring my partner.

'Sorry- missed what you said,' I apologised, shaking my head. He smiled wryly at me before continuing.

'I was saying that we're going nowhere,' Jak slid his eyes behind us. 'I think pretty much everyone headed in this direction, so it's unsafe. I don't know about you, but one psycho a day is pretty much my limit.'

I rolled my eyes- something that was beginning to become a habit nowadays.

'So you're saying we hike back to the beginning? Like 5 kilometres?' Nic raised an eyebrow. 'Mages can usually survive running around a bit, but this is really pushing it.'

'Sorry.'

Nic sighed, running a hand through her hair in frustration. Then she stopped, her eyes widening.

'Jak…?'

By the tone of her voice, I knew something was wrong. She swallowed and held out her hand.

A crimson sticky liquid slowly dripped from her fingertips.

'If we're going to run to the other end of the arena, we'd better do it quickly,' she cursed as she tried to fix the now visible deep gash on her head. Little trickles of green sparks flowed from her hands. It wasn't enough.

'Jak, head wounds always bleed the most. I need a wand,' Nic started walking briskly, aided by my haste. Blood started to flow freely from her head. She scowled as it stained the blue cloth of her outfit.

'I really, really need a wand.'

That's when we heard the slow thunder of a thousand heavy beings punishing the ground at once. I turned my head slowly, confirming my worst fears.

'Taurospear stampede!'

???
60 minutes into the game

I twisted in agony as I tried to patch up my unhealing wounds. I did not intend to die of blood loss. That'd be an embarrassing way to go. My head hurt. My legs hurt. My body felt warm- too warm.

That bloody ranger…

But enough about that. I needed a cleric, or the next best thing. I was planning to do a lot, lot more than to slowly bleed to death. I grinned.

Time to hunt.

I swear the more I write battle scenes, the more I suck at them. Help, please? Sadly, all spots are filled. Sooo… Yeah.

http ://i127 .photobucket. com/ albums/p139/Annikabelle/ acermapcopy. png

A map of the Acer arena. It'll come in handy… I guess. Remove spaces.

Let's just make a quick summary:

Nic & Jak: Heading out of the Forest Area, towards god-knows-where. Nic is bleeding from a head wound. They're being chased by Taurospears.

Redcrosse & Lupercalia: Are camping in small cave behind the waterfall for now. They're in the Mountain Area and have just slaughtered a small army of Yetis.

Fion Zarkandas: Was last seen in the Forest Area by Jakiro and Nic, but no idea of his current location.

Xemira Feonix: Just got teleported to another location.

I'd appreciate it if the people whose characters I've written about give me some feedback. 'Cause otherwise I don't know whether I'm majorly straying away from the way you want your character to be portrayed. D: There is no romantic-ness in this story. I suck at romance. And battle scenes. Apologies if this is dragging out WAY too long- I'll fix it next chapter.

For now, I'm just happy I have a chapter at all. x.x