Intense Struggle Season 2! (Round 4: Deathball Championship)

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

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A young woman with alien toxins running through her body had been only too happy to fill her new god on exactly what it was the bird woman had meant when she had mentioned a death game. When he had asked for further information on exactly what this Deathball was and what it entailed, she had felt it odd that her god had had no concept of something that was practically omnipresent throughout her world, but attempting to pursue that train of thought was like trying to wade through a river of treacle with legs made of stone. It was not unpleasant as such, but trying to do or think anything that her god had not requested was just so much of a hardship that it was not worth it. It was just better to do as she was told and enjoy this blissful stupor. It was okay, she thought as she climbed into one of the abandoned vans at her new god’s behest, he would not allow anything to happen to her right? The girl put the van into gear and started to drive.

In the back of the van the girl’s new god, the Viridiofloran Reudic Otsaceae, rested. His mind was now clear of the influence of the Darkness that had made him want to pose as the god of these pathetic mortals, but he could not deny that having a dedicated follower like… whatever her name was, the girl, was useful. Survival was the highest good and throwing away a potentially useful tool just because she believed in something that he thought was foolish was not only foolish in of itself but also against what he believed in, no not what he believed in, what he knew to be true. He already regretted not killing Sarika when she had been standing there in front of him, vulnerable. He’d had the advantage, she was weak and vulnerable and so so stupid to come to the assistance of a competitor as she had done. He was thankful, but still, she ought to be dead. He contemplated taking a special interest in her, working to ensure that natural selection did not skip over her as in the manner it had so often with Lillian. But that could wait for now, he had something he wanted to do before their environs shifted once again.

The girl was not really in any fit state to be in charge of a motorised vehicle. She drove the van as though there were no other cars on the road, in fact it could probably be said that she drove the van as though there were no other things in the world. Large lazy arcs took them within inches of crashing into trees and at one point straight through someone’s front garden. It was only the fact that the drivers in the city routinely cave recruiters’ vans a little extra space and sheer luck that stopped them from being involved in a number of crashes. When they eventually reached their destination, a little shaken but essentially unharmed and without major incident you could have described such a feat as nothing short of miraculous, if of course you believed in that kind of thing. Reudic emerged from the van and looked up at the building that loomed over him; the Deathball stadium, but he had not come to compete.

Upon the surface the concept of Deathball had seemed to be something that Reudic could appreciate. It had appeared to be a forum in which natural selection was honoured, an arena where the strong would survive and the weak would perish and where all would perish eventually. The mere fact of its existence had, for a scant few minutes caused him to re-evaluate the people of this world, to contemplate that perhaps they did have an understanding of the brutal nature of the world they lived in after all. However the more he thought about it, the more the concept irked him. He came to realise it was not an altar built to their harsh world but a pantomime made of it. These humans had taken the fundamental nature of the world and tried to make a show of it, a piece of entertainment to appease the masses. It was beyond that what he had thought these people capable of, where he had simply thought them ignorant, here they made a mockery of life and death itself.

Reudic and the girl approached one of the many side doors that lead into the stadium and were stopped by a security guard demanding to know who they were and where they thought they were going. The girl replied that she was a recruiter who had just recruited this interesting and potentially very entertaining recruit and stand aside and let me get him processed and they were promptly let through. Or, well that was the plan. In actuality the girl could do nothing but sing Reudic’s praises, enthusing wildly about how he was their new god and he had come down to their world to spread his glorious word to the public at large. Reudic was forced to quickly grasp the security guard with one of his vines and inject a not inconsiderable dose of his toxin into the man before he could respond.

It wasn’t quite the stealthy infiltration that Reudic had intended but at least it got him into the building, and with a menacing if slightly groggy looking security guard following him around he figured people would be less likely to question his presence here. It was a reasonably successful strategy, helped in no small part by the fact that Reudic had seen fit to dispose of the girl after she had outlived her usefulness. She had sobbed so pathetically as he had squeezed the life from her. Such things don’t deserve the gift of life. The corridors of the stadium were mostly empty with most of the players being on the pitch or in the competitor lounges and fans and spectators crowded into the stands above. It was possible to get a not unreasonable idea of how the game was going from down here, just by listening to the cheers from the crowd as another player was brutally killed or some lucky participant managed to actually score a goal.

Even with the corridors as clear as they were it took some time to navigate through the stadium. If he had just been looking for a way down onto the pitch, a way to get into the thick of the action and show these humans how it was done, that wouldn’t have been a problem, there were after all multiple sections where new recruits were processed dependant upon their team affiliations and of course there was the volunteers. Reudic however had ambitions other than mindless slaughter. He intended a demonstration, a way to make his point and to show these people just what it was that they were mocking with their Deathball.

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On the pitch above Marcus was adapting reasonably well to Deathball. He didn’t make much of an effort to grab the ball or make an attack upon the opposing team’s goal; his focus was simply on keeping his teammates, and himself, alive against the vicious onslaught of the other teams. Any downtime he had, when the other teams were focusing upon each other or when a momentary cessation of play had been called to bring on a new squad of volunteers, was spent scrutinising the security of this place. If the announcers were anything to go by he figured he was doing a pretty good job, not just at keeping himself alive but at the game itself, but despite this the words of Sonorznik rung in his ears. If he did not find a way out of his own making he would likely do this until he died.

It was during a brief lull, a momentary pause while the other teams fought over the ball, that Marcus noticed multiple gates opening around the edge of the pitch. A number of Teamless charged out onto the field, whooping and hollering firing their rifles up into the air in anticipation of the bloodshed that was yet to come. From one of the doors that was opening sauntered a pack of creatures that seemed to resemble some kind of cross between a tiger and a hyena with razor sharp claws and a hungry look in their eyes.

“Woah I didn’t realise we’d gone into Bonus Time already!” The surprised voice of one of the announcers echoed across the stadium and kick-started a confused murmuring from the crowd.

“Well Dave… the fact is that we haven’t…?” The other announcer replied dumbly. “Folks I think we’re having some technical issues down at the match control centre. If you could just bear with us while the problem is rectified.”

Less than a minute after they opened the doors all slammed shut behind the new opponents that they had released. Even the doors that had remained open throughout the match, those that allowed the referees and security guards to access the pitch, slammed shut, much to the surprise of the guards that stood guard in front of them.

“All you Deathball fans are in for a treat today.” A voice that was unmistakably Reudic’s was broadcast across the stadium. “Today we are going to premiere the all new Survival Mode. This is as tough as it gets. If you think it’s been hard so far you might as well lie down and die. Only the strongest will survive. There are no rules, no teams, no goals to score. Your objective is simply to survive as long as you can.”

In the confusion nobody had noticed the poles that rose from the ground, at regular intervals along the edge of the pitch. Suddenly they burst into life and a deadly red laser wall formed between each one, confining the contestants to the pitch and burning alive one security guard who had been attempting to force open the door he had until very recently been guarding.

“You’re only delaying the inevitable but, unfortunately for you and for all of us in life, it is your only option.”