Chapter Text
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaahh-” Grian screamed as Joel’s sword forced him forward, dooming him to fall. His body hit the ground with a sickening crunch, cut short with a sudden yet familiar flash, thundering down. Joel peered through the leaves, down the jagged mountain side that once protected Lizzie’s base. The body was gone.
A cruel smile slides across his face. He’d won. “Wooo!” He cheered, even though no one's around to hear it. He takes a moment to rest against the tree. Who could blame him for being tired? He just fought nearly the whole server, and Grian…. Is this how Scott feels every season? Never mind that, now is not the time to be thinking about him. Joel wants to relax for a moment. So that’s what he does. Joel doesn’t bother sheathing his sword and hops from the tree, landing in a crouch. The fall hurt. He can feel the stinging in his legs as he lands, but Joel brushed it off. Enjoying the feeling of the cool grass under his hands, coated in pink petals. They remind him of her.
The whimsy feeling that filled him up quickly faded. He could see the pinks were stained red. In fact, the entire area was littered with blood where he and Grians opponents fell. He looks down at his sword, seeing his mangled reflection staring back at him. Joel felt his smile falter. The bamboozler's home was in tatters.
“Well… what to do now.” He wondered to himself as he stood. There’s no one left but him now. He could check to see if his trap worked, but then what? Is he just supposed to wait! Alone in a worl— no, an arena full of carriage. He should have asked Grian what he did when he won before he pushed him off, but what’s done is done.
“Player…” a raspy voice whispers in Joel’s ear, causing him to whip around and tighten his grip on his sword as he comes to face…. The Secret Keeper? What?!
“I think you're in the wrong season buddy.” Joel snarks, lowering himself into a fighting stance.
“Well you're certainly a brash one,” what was maybe The Secret Keeper snapped. Voice speaking as if annoyed, but its face remained the same, an unfeeling and neutral expression fixed on the parts that weren’t covered in white and purple fabrics. “Lay down your sword, I mean you no harm.”
“Don’t you work for the Watchers, Secret Keeper?” Joel questioned.
“Secret Keeper? No you fool, I am a Watcher!” It snapped, voice laced with barely hidden agitation.
“That makes me trust you even less.” Joel droned on, raising his sword even higher out of nothing but pure spite.
“I don't come seeking your trust, Jupiter , but that matters not. We have business to attend to. With your compliance or not.”
“Jupiter?” Joel muttered. The name was clearly directed at him, but this guy was clearly confused, his name may start with a J but he sure ain’t named after a gas giant. “I think you got the wrong guy, buddy.”
“I’m your… buddy.” The watcher gags on the word as if it were poison. “Nevertheless, understanding will come with time, Jupiter. ”
“Still not my name!” Joel shouts as he rushes forward, leaping up to land a crit on the Watcher. Only to watch (ha he’s doing the watching now) as the ground fell away into a void. He was now completely incapable of stopping, as he fell head first into the gaping hole. He desperately searches for something to grab hold of, to keep himself from falling. A ledge pokes out, and Joel reaches for it.
Please.
He falls short. His hand just barely misses, he feels the tips of the grass as he falls past it.
Well, guess this is how he dies. Slowly, as he continues to fall for what feels like forever, he begins losing consciousness, and mentally starts to prepare himself for whatever the next game may be.
*******************
“j—”
.
.
.
“J-el!”
.
.
.
“Joel, wake up!”
A shout pierces his skull as his eyes snap open and he bolts up, smacking his head straight into a mess of strawberry blonde hair.
“Ow!” Joel cries, attempting to let his eyes fully focus as he cradles his pounding head.
“Ah, you're not dead, that’s good.” A familiar voice perks up.
“Hi, Grian.” Joel says, unable to stop a small smile from forming. Grian had been his murder buddy of the past game, and a good friend. “I’m happy to see you're still kickin’ too, but I coulda sworn I killed you.”
“Yeah I know… I'm not too mad about that though. Kind of had it coming, after I blew up your wife.” Grian sighed.
“True.” Joel nods, “By the way, don’t you ever do that again.” He says, face darkening a little at the thought of Lizzie’s fate.
“I won’t as long as you stop knocking me off of high places.” Grian smirks as he pulls Joel to his feet.
“You say that like I’ve doomed you to fall more than once.” Joel laughed.
“Well yeah, in Last life you shot me off—“ Grian started but weirdly cutting himself off. “Never mind, here, follow me.” Grian gestured for him to follow.
Grian leads him through the, uh, place. That’s the best way he could describe it, an endless void of white, seemingly stretching on forever. There wasn’t a floor in sight, but there was still something solid to walk on, weirdly enough.
The rest of the walk is quiet, and there’s not much to look at, aside from the initial things. The walls don’t change as they walk, and neither does the floor.
Grian’s pace starts slowing, and Joel notices the four other little figures in the rapidly approaching distance.
“The other winners are here too?” He turns to Grian as they keep moving forward.
“Yup, the watchers said they need to have an ‘important discussion’—” Grian says, doing little air quotes. “—with all of us. We were just waiting on you.” He doesn’t make an effort to hide his hatred.
“Got ya’” Joel nods, looking back to his fellow victors. Fellow victors, ha, wow, does that feel good to say. Scar, Martyn, Pearl, and… the blue one, who will not be named, are all standing in a small semi-circle, nervously twitching and fingering as their eyes dart around before landing on Grian and Joel.
“Welcome!” Scar shouts, closing the now small distance between them and wrapping both him and Grian in a bear hug. “To hell! But we try to keep it as positive as we can.” Scar notes.
“What?” Joel says in amazement, and slight concern.
“I wouldn’t sound so happy if I was you.” Martyn sighs, shaking his head slightly as he follows Scar’s lead and shakes his hand. “He wasn’t kidding, this place is hell adjacent.”
“He’ll probably love it then.” Scott comments to Pearl, but we all still hear him.
“Not really, it’d nicer if it didn’t have a blue cockroach problem.” Joel snapped back, leaning forward, getting right in his face.
Scott doesn’t back down, and follows suit. “Did you just compare me to a cockroach, because I won’t die?” Scott replies, amused, and much to Joel's annoyance, now sporting a smug grin. “Well at least you’ve become self aware.”
“Ok, that’s enough you two.” Pearl smiles, pushing Joel away from Scott. “Let’s not brawl now, we probably gonna need that energy to sit through this Watcher meeting.”
“That’s true,” Grian muttered, slipping into the circle next to Scar. “Where are they anyways, I want to get this over with as quickly as possible.”
Just then a crack of lighting hits the ground as they all watch as a group of Watchers approaches.
“Dramatic much.” Scar hisses.
“Scar, you're the most dramatic person in this room.” Martyn laughs quietly, eyes not leaving the Watchers.
“Victors—“ The voice of the Head Watcher booms as the others file in behind them to form a small triangle. “We come with a proposal for you.”
“Sorry, I’m already married,” Joel says, face stretching into a snarky grin, “And six of you can never equal one Lizzie.”
The Watchers hardly look amused, and if Joel wasn’t Joel, he might’ve wondered if that was the wrong thing to say. After all, he for one, could just get smited, and for two, lose the probably torture-ridden proposal. But, as it stands, he was Joel, and really didn’t care.
“What kind of proposal ” Grian asks, and if Joel knew he didn’t hate these things, he might've thought Grian was interested. But to those who know bird boy here, it was clear to all that he was completely fed up with the purple freaks antics already. In fact, all it took Joel was a quick scan around the room to figure out they all shared the same mindset.
“Well, as you all know, a certain someone.” All the Watchers heads snapped to Grian in sync. Creepy. “Has been messing with the game's formula. At first this was fine, aided our mission even, but he took it too far. Derailing them from their original purpose, more than can be accepted.” The Head Watcher said, looking down at them.
“So we offer you this,” the Watchers start in unison. “We shall send you to another reality, one of heroes and villains. You shall farm us negative emotions from there, and in exchange we will suspend the life series and allow the remaining players to return to their home servers unharmed.”They paused for a moment, “What shall you say?”
A murmur broke out among the six of us as we rolled our thoughts over in our heads. Stop the games? Really stop them! Sounds too good to be true, but if they weren’t lying Lizzie could be free. All the others could be free.
“What’s the catch?” Scott asked warily .
“What do you mean?” The Head Watcher asked.
“You say you’d suspend the games, not end them. So, what happens if we don’t follow through?” Scott challenged.
“Oh, Star… I think you all already know the answer to that question.”
Of course they did, the ultimatum was obvious . Do what we want, or we’ll send you and everyone back to the games.
“We offer this once, and once alone.” Their voices carried an air of finality.
Joel turned to his fellow victors and watched as their faces soured. If they accept this, they become the Watchers meal plan. More than they were before. They become monsters in exchange for their loved ones freedom. But if they don’t accept, they just be brought back into the same cycle of pain and misery as before. Farmed for despair and stripped of their memories unless they win.
Turning them down meant more death for them, accepting meant becoming monsters that hurt the innocent for the gain of demons before them.
But if Joel was being honest with himself, he was already a monster, and a selfish one at that. And the others were no different.
No words needed to be spoken, as the victor's faces all hardened with determination, Grian spoke.
“We accept your proposal.” He declared. “But I have one question, where are you taking to us?”
At that, all the Watchers smiled their creepy grin, in unison. Why must they do everything in unison like some hivemind cult?
“It’s a place called the Capital.” The Head Watcher answers. “I think you all might find its residents quite familiar .”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pearl snapped, but she never received a response as she steps forward and they all watched in horror as the floor, aka the weird white void opened up under her, with gravity doing what it does best and pulling her though.
“PEARL!!!” Scott cried, rushing forward to try and catch her only to get swallowed up by another pit in the void.
“Oh come on!” Martyn hissed as a pit opened under him as well, he fell though without a scream. Just crossed his arms and sent his best death glare at the Watchers.
Next was Scar, who unlike Martyn screams very loudly as he loses the floor beneath him. Grian screamed even louder as he watched Scar disappear into the void.
“SCAR NOOO!” He shrieked, but Joel didn’t get to see what happened next, and felt the floor below vanish, and before he knew it he was falling Into black void for the second time that day, all he could do was scream on the way down.
But if he was going to scream it wouldn’t be in fear. No, the Watchers wouldn’t get that from him. As he fell he yelled as loud as he could,
“Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
Before it all fades to black once again.