04-04-2010, 05:59 PM
Blistering heat radiated from the sun as it glowed brightly overhead, and the first thing that Juno could feel as he came to his senses was a bead of sweat forming on his temples. He lay on his side, comfortably curled up in something resembling the fetal position. He groaned from lethargy as his muscles began to tense up once again. One of his hands lay with his palm to the ground, and as he slowly began to regain consciousness, he slowly clenched his fingers into a fist to relax them, surprised to feel sand filling the cavity.
His eyes popped open. Lifting his fist, he watched in a startled shock as the sediment slipped through the cracks in between his fingers, and slowly opened his hand, letting all of it fall back onto the desert surface. He shook his head—maybe this was all a dream. When that didn’t work, he placed his hand to his forehead, but felt no semblance of a fever.
The ex-fortuneteller rolled over onto his back, looking up at the blazing star that hung in the sky. He brought an arm up to shield his eyes from the blinding light, and as he did so, he suddenly realized what was so different about where he was: it was daytime. In the carnival, he had always known it to be stuck in perpetual twilight, but now, in this new place, he found that day was just breaking.
According to the position of the sun, it was just minutes before noon—the sphere of fire floated almost directly above him. He blinked twice, stretching the miniscule muscles in his eyelids, and then slowly brought the hand in front of his face to his forehead. He scowled as the hand’s backside pressed against his temples; he felt no fever—which meant that he wasn’t hallucinating—and from the crick he had in his neck, he was almost completely certain that he wasn’t dreaming. That meant, as hesitant as he was to believe it, that this was, in some way, real.
In one fluid motion, he wiped the fledgling beads of sweat from his brow and shut his eyes, swallowing nervously. If he wasn’t in the carnival, then that could only mean that he was in prison. He’d been eliminated.
His fist flew to the ground, crashing into the sand. Dammit, he thought to himself as he realized what had occurred. He faintly remembered his last event—the Reaper, for one thing, and the Harbinger. Now, however, he was viciously reminded of the distinct loss in strength he’d suffered over the last several months. He shouldn’t have let that huge metal skeleton beat him—losing wasn’t something that he was fond of doing. Kill Town had beaten him—Gamer had beaten him. He could barely stand the thought that now he wasn’t fighting to survive, but was trapped in a hopeless void, one that he remembered Xenia refer to, quite affectionately, as “prison.”
He opened his eyes again as he made a vital connection. Xenia and Sage were here, he knew. Maybe there were others here, too, but he knew that at least the two sisters had been trapped here early on. He could only hope that they lasted this long. He needed to see a familiar face in the middle of this desert.
As he began to sit up, he felt a throbbing in the back of his head. He touched the spot, and a small spot in his mane of black hair felt wet. He brought his fingers to his sight and saw a bit of crimson blood staining them, and cursed under his breath as he tried to stand up. It wasn’t as difficult as he imagined it might be, actually, and within seconds he was on his feet, leaning over and clutching his upper legs for support.
While he struggled to regain his focus, he thought for a moment on Belle. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the last moments of the event they’d shared, so the last time he remembered seeing her for certain was when she had thrown herself after the Reaper into the abyss. He could only hope, he supposed, that she had made it out—that she would live to fight one more day against Gamer. He would find out soon enough, he assumed; if she had joined him here in prison, they he knew it probably wouldn’t be long until he found her and the others that populated this segment of the evil teenager’s world.
His eyes darted around as familiar memories began to flood into his consciousness, but fortunately, there were no giant, man-eating scorpions waiting to burst out of the ground. Finally, he found himself staring straight ahead into the yellow sky. Something was odd, though; there was something out-of-place. Breaking through the blurry heat-waves was a flash of grey.
Juno focused on the sight in front of him, and slowly, the splotch of grey bled outward into the golden void, transforming from a single, nearly translucent blob into a tower. The tower seemed to almost expand outwards into buildings, rickety old things made out of junk, and slowly, the buildings turned into a small town. Juno glared ahead, knowing full well that this must’ve been a mirage. Who could’ve possibly lived out here? Nevertheless, the town eventually developed into something large enough that it seemed to stretch almost to him. Since it was so close, the half-saiyan figured that it wouldn’t hurt to go and check it out—if it was real, maybe he’d find some familiar faces there.
His feet seemed almost bolted to the ground; he struggled through the waves of scorching heat until finally, he forced his foot to move forward. He took a few steps and found himself able to quicken his pace. The town grew closer with each step.
Yuffith stood on the balcony of the tower, leaning over the railing and gazing over the roofs of the junk town into the vast desert beyond. Her eyes struggled against the bright light of the sun, but she refused to blink. What Keith was doing was wrong, she knew, but there was something being done—she had to be thankful for that.
The door to her room creaked, and she looked back inside to see Kepler waddling over towards her, his elf-like body looking slightly comical as he moved past the girl’s bed and onto the balcony. He leapt up and sat on the rail, attempting to shorten the gap between his head and hers.
“This round’s events are over,” Kepler told his friend, glancing over at her, “We’ve got a much larger group of prisoners joining us this round. There’s… there’s only six left up there.” Julia Summers sighed, turning back towards the doors to her room and leaning on the door frame. She glanced over her shoulder and spoke with her eyes. Kepler nodded. “Baller’s still up there.” Julia smiled weakly.
“Who all do we have now, Kepler?” she asked, and the gnome-ish man joined her in her room. “Wolfgang is… dead, and Alura’s recovering. Sage, Xenia, Tamsin, and Kazuya and Zhu are all here still.”
“We’ve got some interesting players this time,” Kepler replied with a slight smirk, “A couple of event winners, in fact. Juno’s coming, as well as Piper and Sophia.” Yuffith’s eyes brightened at the thought of more powerful people to add to their already strong team, and Kepler continued, “Then there’s Ander, and Szar, and Alexander Trafford.” Yuffith smiled, and walked over to the balcony door and glanced out briefly. “They’re all on their way, most—if not all—of them walking alone.”
“Then I guess we should go greet them. What d’you say, Kepler?”
The walk to the junk town wasn’t very long. The buildings that looked as if they were constructed of trash and large sheets of different metals—aluminum, iron, maybe a bit of copper and brass—rose above him, but none rose as large as the tower ahead of him.
The structure erupted from the ground magnificently, a piece of magnificence in the midst of this pile of trash and junk. It was made of stone, and looked almost like something that had been ripped from a medieval videogame. To be completely honest, Juno wouldn’t have been surprised if it was, given Gamer’s previous motifs. For a moment, he simply looked up at it, not exactly sure what to do. The area surrounding him was, by and large, devoid of people. He had hoped that perhaps someone would’ve shown up by now to help him out, to guide him, but he seemed to be alone for the most part.
For some reason, as he stood here devoid of the desire to continue, he felt like this ordeal was almost over—he knew there couldn’t be many super-powered entities left up in the carnival, and now it was all up to them, whoever was left, to make this round count. If they could just get to Gamer… if they could just take him out… then everything would be okay. No one else would have to get hurt.
That was when he saw it—the body of a familiar face. Wolfgang lay in the sand, dead, most of his face ripped off from whatever had given him his demise. Juno broke into a sprint, and rushed over to the young Saiyan boy. He hadn’t know him for very long, but something about the young boy’s death struck a chord inside of him. For whatever reason, he felt himself growing increasingly angry as he slowly lifted up the young thing and cradled his corpse. What the hell was wrong with Gamer? Wolfgang was a boy—no older than ten or eleven. And he had just tossed him aside? He had killed a perfectly innocent kid? What kind of a son of a bitch did that?
His mind was made up. Gamer deserved no mercy.
“I didn’t want any of you to see that,” a girl’s voice muttered from behind him. The ex-fortuneteller glanced over his shoulder at Yuffith, who leaned against the rawd-iron gate that protected the tower. One of the gate’s doors had been opened to allow the new prisoners passage into the tower.
“Who are you?” Juno asked, slightly intrigued by the newcomer. He slowly knelt down and laid Wolfgang back in the sand. Yuffith walked over and sat down beside the half-Saiyan.
“My name’s Yuffith,” she told him, “I’m trapped here, just like you are. Only I’ve been here a lot longer than you could probably imagine.” Juno looked over at her. She was attractive, definitely, and wore a schoolgirl’s uniform. Under normal circumstances, that might’ve enticed Juno—after all, screwing a schoolgirl was every teenage guy’s fantasy—but the situation was different now, and for once, the hybrid stopped himself from getting distracted by her beauty, instead focusing on Wolfgang.
Slowly, he placed his hand in the dirt and scooped up a clump of sand, tossing it on the body of the young boy who had been so brutally robbed of his innocence. He took another handful, and then another, and silently trickled them onto Wolfgang’s body until his chest was almost completely covered. In time, Yuffith joined him.
The young pair sat in an understanding silence for a long while, slowly burying Wolfgang beneath the sand of Gamer’s prison. After what seemed like forever, the young Saiyan boy’s body was completely covered, no longer visible beneath the sands of time. Yuffith placed a hand on Juno’s shoulder, and he didn’t resist the comforting gesture. After a few more minutes of silent contemplation, the half-saiyan stood up, and walked toward the gate. He turned to face the schoolgirl. “I’m Juno,” he finally said, “Are we going in?”
She smiled meekly. “Yeah,” she replied, “Head on inside.”
He turned back inside, but was met with the sight of a miniature man, slightly chubby—Kepler, the Keebler Elf wannabe. “So this is the first one, huh? Juno?” The half-saiyan nodded, and almost spoke, but the elf continued, “I’m Kepler. And I’m not really a Keebler Elf, I promise.”
Juno chuckled inwardly, reminded of Belle and her consistent denial of the brutally obvious. Perhaps, though, with this coincidental second occurrence, it was possible that the reports were true, and Gamer had, in fact, used his “omniscient powers” to transform these people—most notably Belle and Kepler—into something that they were not. It was possible, he guessed. He supposed that anything was possible in this game.
“I’m Juno,” the half-saiyan introduced himself to the little man, and Kepler stuck out a miniature hand, ready and willing to shake the ex-fortuneteller’s. Eventually, Juno accepted, and was quite surprised as Kepler’s small hand shook his vigorously. This was a strong-willed man, the hybrid supposed.
For the first time, Juno looked around at the courtyard of the tower—it was filled with plants, plants that were colored such a luscious green. It was a distinctly stark difference from the exterior of the compound, and as Yuffith came in, Juno turned around for one last glance outside. The blonde-haired schoolgirl gestured for Kepler to head outside and watch for the other prisoners—Juno felt slightly more comforted knowing that he wasn’t the only one who was going to be joining the pair.
“Congratulations on making it so far,” Yuffith mustered, attempting to break the silence. Juno looked from the desert to her. Once again, there was a stark difference in the two sights—one was ugly and hot, and the other was very pretty and… hot.
“I don’t think it matters now, Yuffith,” Juno scoffed, turning around and walking toward the staircase that led up to the door. He stopped, and turned to face the blonde, who had followed him up the steps, standing a few steps down from where he was. “We’re trapped here,” he continued to reason, “What are we supposed to do about defeating this guy now?”
“It’s not his fault,” she whispered. Juno looked at her in confusion, and then she supposed she should explain why she didn’t feel the same resentment as her prison’s new tenant. “He’s… Gamer’s my brother. His real name’s Keith. He wasn’t like this before.”
She slowly began to cry, and Juno stepped down as she collapsed into his chest. “It’s okay, Yuffith,” he comforted her, and she slowly regained her composure. “Listen, we’ll find some way to stop him, alright? And… I’ll try not to hurt him too much.” He smiled, signaling that the last part of the sentence was a joke, and she chuckled a bit as she wiped tears from her eyes. With that, Juno turned and went to place his hand on the door. However, before his fingers reached the metal, it turned to ice before his eyes. “…what the hell?” he said under his breath. The door opened.
“Dammit!”
Xenia’s voice was easily recognizable as the half-Saiyan saw her turn around in frustration. The blonde turned and started walking back towards the living room (of sorts) that they had been sitting in before they heard the commotion outside. Juno smiled slightly at Xenia’s outburst—yeah, he hadn’t fulfilled his promise and that was kind of depressing, but there was just a bit of overreaction with the blonde bombshell—and then turned to the source of the frozen door handle.
“H-hey, Juno,” Sage muttered. Her coral eyes looked up at him, and her blue hair cascaded down her back as she attempted to put a smile on her face.
“Hey, Sage!” Juno said excitedly. He smiled broadly—the sight of familiar faces had definitely improved his mood. He pulled Sage into a forceful bear hug, and she fought against it for a second before realizing that he wasn’t about to let her go. Eventually, he released the girl, and she retreated back into the living room, slightly embarrassed.
Juno followed them into the living room and slid onto the couch next to Xenia, disappointed that Sage had retreated to a chair for one. He supposed, though, that was to be expected—he hadn’t really given her reason yet to think that he had anything else in mind but screwing her. Of course, Juno knew for certain that he didn’t, but there was no telling what Sage thought—not unless the blue-haired girl decided to voice her opinion, which, in his experience with her, hadn’t happened much.
She looked up, however, and shot him a smile, and he took that kindly; perhaps she was past her slight fear of his intentions. He sure hoped so; besides, if he tried anything, she could always just encase him in a block of ice.
“How the hell did you lose?” Xenia started the conversation, and Juno laughed.
“It’s a long story,” he began, “And I’m not sure I even remember all of it.”
“We want to hear,” Sage said without stuttering, and Juno glanced over at her. “Tell us everything you r-remember, Juno—please?” The black-haired half-Saiyan smiled at the two women. Sage’s coral eyes turned into something resembling a puppy dog begging, and he just couldn’t resist sharing his exploits with the girls.
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,” he said pridefully, and Xenia scoffed; Sage giggled a bit, sliding back into her chair. Yuffith sidled over and leaned over the back of Sage’s chair, content to listen, and with that, Juno launched into a tale of his escapades since the girls’ elimination.
His eyes popped open. Lifting his fist, he watched in a startled shock as the sediment slipped through the cracks in between his fingers, and slowly opened his hand, letting all of it fall back onto the desert surface. He shook his head—maybe this was all a dream. When that didn’t work, he placed his hand to his forehead, but felt no semblance of a fever.
The ex-fortuneteller rolled over onto his back, looking up at the blazing star that hung in the sky. He brought an arm up to shield his eyes from the blinding light, and as he did so, he suddenly realized what was so different about where he was: it was daytime. In the carnival, he had always known it to be stuck in perpetual twilight, but now, in this new place, he found that day was just breaking.
According to the position of the sun, it was just minutes before noon—the sphere of fire floated almost directly above him. He blinked twice, stretching the miniscule muscles in his eyelids, and then slowly brought the hand in front of his face to his forehead. He scowled as the hand’s backside pressed against his temples; he felt no fever—which meant that he wasn’t hallucinating—and from the crick he had in his neck, he was almost completely certain that he wasn’t dreaming. That meant, as hesitant as he was to believe it, that this was, in some way, real.
In one fluid motion, he wiped the fledgling beads of sweat from his brow and shut his eyes, swallowing nervously. If he wasn’t in the carnival, then that could only mean that he was in prison. He’d been eliminated.
His fist flew to the ground, crashing into the sand. Dammit, he thought to himself as he realized what had occurred. He faintly remembered his last event—the Reaper, for one thing, and the Harbinger. Now, however, he was viciously reminded of the distinct loss in strength he’d suffered over the last several months. He shouldn’t have let that huge metal skeleton beat him—losing wasn’t something that he was fond of doing. Kill Town had beaten him—Gamer had beaten him. He could barely stand the thought that now he wasn’t fighting to survive, but was trapped in a hopeless void, one that he remembered Xenia refer to, quite affectionately, as “prison.”
He opened his eyes again as he made a vital connection. Xenia and Sage were here, he knew. Maybe there were others here, too, but he knew that at least the two sisters had been trapped here early on. He could only hope that they lasted this long. He needed to see a familiar face in the middle of this desert.
As he began to sit up, he felt a throbbing in the back of his head. He touched the spot, and a small spot in his mane of black hair felt wet. He brought his fingers to his sight and saw a bit of crimson blood staining them, and cursed under his breath as he tried to stand up. It wasn’t as difficult as he imagined it might be, actually, and within seconds he was on his feet, leaning over and clutching his upper legs for support.
While he struggled to regain his focus, he thought for a moment on Belle. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the last moments of the event they’d shared, so the last time he remembered seeing her for certain was when she had thrown herself after the Reaper into the abyss. He could only hope, he supposed, that she had made it out—that she would live to fight one more day against Gamer. He would find out soon enough, he assumed; if she had joined him here in prison, they he knew it probably wouldn’t be long until he found her and the others that populated this segment of the evil teenager’s world.
His eyes darted around as familiar memories began to flood into his consciousness, but fortunately, there were no giant, man-eating scorpions waiting to burst out of the ground. Finally, he found himself staring straight ahead into the yellow sky. Something was odd, though; there was something out-of-place. Breaking through the blurry heat-waves was a flash of grey.
Juno focused on the sight in front of him, and slowly, the splotch of grey bled outward into the golden void, transforming from a single, nearly translucent blob into a tower. The tower seemed to almost expand outwards into buildings, rickety old things made out of junk, and slowly, the buildings turned into a small town. Juno glared ahead, knowing full well that this must’ve been a mirage. Who could’ve possibly lived out here? Nevertheless, the town eventually developed into something large enough that it seemed to stretch almost to him. Since it was so close, the half-saiyan figured that it wouldn’t hurt to go and check it out—if it was real, maybe he’d find some familiar faces there.
His feet seemed almost bolted to the ground; he struggled through the waves of scorching heat until finally, he forced his foot to move forward. He took a few steps and found himself able to quicken his pace. The town grew closer with each step.
~+~
Yuffith stood on the balcony of the tower, leaning over the railing and gazing over the roofs of the junk town into the vast desert beyond. Her eyes struggled against the bright light of the sun, but she refused to blink. What Keith was doing was wrong, she knew, but there was something being done—she had to be thankful for that.
The door to her room creaked, and she looked back inside to see Kepler waddling over towards her, his elf-like body looking slightly comical as he moved past the girl’s bed and onto the balcony. He leapt up and sat on the rail, attempting to shorten the gap between his head and hers.
“This round’s events are over,” Kepler told his friend, glancing over at her, “We’ve got a much larger group of prisoners joining us this round. There’s… there’s only six left up there.” Julia Summers sighed, turning back towards the doors to her room and leaning on the door frame. She glanced over her shoulder and spoke with her eyes. Kepler nodded. “Baller’s still up there.” Julia smiled weakly.
“Who all do we have now, Kepler?” she asked, and the gnome-ish man joined her in her room. “Wolfgang is… dead, and Alura’s recovering. Sage, Xenia, Tamsin, and Kazuya and Zhu are all here still.”
“We’ve got some interesting players this time,” Kepler replied with a slight smirk, “A couple of event winners, in fact. Juno’s coming, as well as Piper and Sophia.” Yuffith’s eyes brightened at the thought of more powerful people to add to their already strong team, and Kepler continued, “Then there’s Ander, and Szar, and Alexander Trafford.” Yuffith smiled, and walked over to the balcony door and glanced out briefly. “They’re all on their way, most—if not all—of them walking alone.”
“Then I guess we should go greet them. What d’you say, Kepler?”
~+~
The walk to the junk town wasn’t very long. The buildings that looked as if they were constructed of trash and large sheets of different metals—aluminum, iron, maybe a bit of copper and brass—rose above him, but none rose as large as the tower ahead of him.
The structure erupted from the ground magnificently, a piece of magnificence in the midst of this pile of trash and junk. It was made of stone, and looked almost like something that had been ripped from a medieval videogame. To be completely honest, Juno wouldn’t have been surprised if it was, given Gamer’s previous motifs. For a moment, he simply looked up at it, not exactly sure what to do. The area surrounding him was, by and large, devoid of people. He had hoped that perhaps someone would’ve shown up by now to help him out, to guide him, but he seemed to be alone for the most part.
For some reason, as he stood here devoid of the desire to continue, he felt like this ordeal was almost over—he knew there couldn’t be many super-powered entities left up in the carnival, and now it was all up to them, whoever was left, to make this round count. If they could just get to Gamer… if they could just take him out… then everything would be okay. No one else would have to get hurt.
That was when he saw it—the body of a familiar face. Wolfgang lay in the sand, dead, most of his face ripped off from whatever had given him his demise. Juno broke into a sprint, and rushed over to the young Saiyan boy. He hadn’t know him for very long, but something about the young boy’s death struck a chord inside of him. For whatever reason, he felt himself growing increasingly angry as he slowly lifted up the young thing and cradled his corpse. What the hell was wrong with Gamer? Wolfgang was a boy—no older than ten or eleven. And he had just tossed him aside? He had killed a perfectly innocent kid? What kind of a son of a bitch did that?
His mind was made up. Gamer deserved no mercy.
“I didn’t want any of you to see that,” a girl’s voice muttered from behind him. The ex-fortuneteller glanced over his shoulder at Yuffith, who leaned against the rawd-iron gate that protected the tower. One of the gate’s doors had been opened to allow the new prisoners passage into the tower.
“Who are you?” Juno asked, slightly intrigued by the newcomer. He slowly knelt down and laid Wolfgang back in the sand. Yuffith walked over and sat down beside the half-Saiyan.
“My name’s Yuffith,” she told him, “I’m trapped here, just like you are. Only I’ve been here a lot longer than you could probably imagine.” Juno looked over at her. She was attractive, definitely, and wore a schoolgirl’s uniform. Under normal circumstances, that might’ve enticed Juno—after all, screwing a schoolgirl was every teenage guy’s fantasy—but the situation was different now, and for once, the hybrid stopped himself from getting distracted by her beauty, instead focusing on Wolfgang.
Slowly, he placed his hand in the dirt and scooped up a clump of sand, tossing it on the body of the young boy who had been so brutally robbed of his innocence. He took another handful, and then another, and silently trickled them onto Wolfgang’s body until his chest was almost completely covered. In time, Yuffith joined him.
The young pair sat in an understanding silence for a long while, slowly burying Wolfgang beneath the sand of Gamer’s prison. After what seemed like forever, the young Saiyan boy’s body was completely covered, no longer visible beneath the sands of time. Yuffith placed a hand on Juno’s shoulder, and he didn’t resist the comforting gesture. After a few more minutes of silent contemplation, the half-saiyan stood up, and walked toward the gate. He turned to face the schoolgirl. “I’m Juno,” he finally said, “Are we going in?”
She smiled meekly. “Yeah,” she replied, “Head on inside.”
He turned back inside, but was met with the sight of a miniature man, slightly chubby—Kepler, the Keebler Elf wannabe. “So this is the first one, huh? Juno?” The half-saiyan nodded, and almost spoke, but the elf continued, “I’m Kepler. And I’m not really a Keebler Elf, I promise.”
Juno chuckled inwardly, reminded of Belle and her consistent denial of the brutally obvious. Perhaps, though, with this coincidental second occurrence, it was possible that the reports were true, and Gamer had, in fact, used his “omniscient powers” to transform these people—most notably Belle and Kepler—into something that they were not. It was possible, he guessed. He supposed that anything was possible in this game.
“I’m Juno,” the half-saiyan introduced himself to the little man, and Kepler stuck out a miniature hand, ready and willing to shake the ex-fortuneteller’s. Eventually, Juno accepted, and was quite surprised as Kepler’s small hand shook his vigorously. This was a strong-willed man, the hybrid supposed.
For the first time, Juno looked around at the courtyard of the tower—it was filled with plants, plants that were colored such a luscious green. It was a distinctly stark difference from the exterior of the compound, and as Yuffith came in, Juno turned around for one last glance outside. The blonde-haired schoolgirl gestured for Kepler to head outside and watch for the other prisoners—Juno felt slightly more comforted knowing that he wasn’t the only one who was going to be joining the pair.
“Congratulations on making it so far,” Yuffith mustered, attempting to break the silence. Juno looked from the desert to her. Once again, there was a stark difference in the two sights—one was ugly and hot, and the other was very pretty and… hot.
“I don’t think it matters now, Yuffith,” Juno scoffed, turning around and walking toward the staircase that led up to the door. He stopped, and turned to face the blonde, who had followed him up the steps, standing a few steps down from where he was. “We’re trapped here,” he continued to reason, “What are we supposed to do about defeating this guy now?”
“It’s not his fault,” she whispered. Juno looked at her in confusion, and then she supposed she should explain why she didn’t feel the same resentment as her prison’s new tenant. “He’s… Gamer’s my brother. His real name’s Keith. He wasn’t like this before.”
She slowly began to cry, and Juno stepped down as she collapsed into his chest. “It’s okay, Yuffith,” he comforted her, and she slowly regained her composure. “Listen, we’ll find some way to stop him, alright? And… I’ll try not to hurt him too much.” He smiled, signaling that the last part of the sentence was a joke, and she chuckled a bit as she wiped tears from her eyes. With that, Juno turned and went to place his hand on the door. However, before his fingers reached the metal, it turned to ice before his eyes. “…what the hell?” he said under his breath. The door opened.
“Dammit!”
Xenia’s voice was easily recognizable as the half-Saiyan saw her turn around in frustration. The blonde turned and started walking back towards the living room (of sorts) that they had been sitting in before they heard the commotion outside. Juno smiled slightly at Xenia’s outburst—yeah, he hadn’t fulfilled his promise and that was kind of depressing, but there was just a bit of overreaction with the blonde bombshell—and then turned to the source of the frozen door handle.
“H-hey, Juno,” Sage muttered. Her coral eyes looked up at him, and her blue hair cascaded down her back as she attempted to put a smile on her face.
“Hey, Sage!” Juno said excitedly. He smiled broadly—the sight of familiar faces had definitely improved his mood. He pulled Sage into a forceful bear hug, and she fought against it for a second before realizing that he wasn’t about to let her go. Eventually, he released the girl, and she retreated back into the living room, slightly embarrassed.
Juno followed them into the living room and slid onto the couch next to Xenia, disappointed that Sage had retreated to a chair for one. He supposed, though, that was to be expected—he hadn’t really given her reason yet to think that he had anything else in mind but screwing her. Of course, Juno knew for certain that he didn’t, but there was no telling what Sage thought—not unless the blue-haired girl decided to voice her opinion, which, in his experience with her, hadn’t happened much.
She looked up, however, and shot him a smile, and he took that kindly; perhaps she was past her slight fear of his intentions. He sure hoped so; besides, if he tried anything, she could always just encase him in a block of ice.
“How the hell did you lose?” Xenia started the conversation, and Juno laughed.
“It’s a long story,” he began, “And I’m not sure I even remember all of it.”
“We want to hear,” Sage said without stuttering, and Juno glanced over at her. “Tell us everything you r-remember, Juno—please?” The black-haired half-Saiyan smiled at the two women. Sage’s coral eyes turned into something resembling a puppy dog begging, and he just couldn’t resist sharing his exploits with the girls.
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,” he said pridefully, and Xenia scoffed; Sage giggled a bit, sliding back into her chair. Yuffith sidled over and leaned over the back of Sage’s chair, content to listen, and with that, Juno launched into a tale of his escapades since the girls’ elimination.