The Players: Staring Contest

[Kaden]

While having someone dropped, quite literally, into his face wasn’t the most pleasant thing Kaden had ever experienced, he almost welcomed the excuse to stop staring at Orion. He didn’t have anything against the saiyan, but there were very few people he’d able to stare out for that long. He imagined Orion didn’t really mind, either. With their circumstances changing as quickly as they were, the courier would have plenty to keep his mind occupied.

Despite having doubled its occupants, the white staring-room seemed to have gotten nothing but larger. The two newcomers didn’t seem overly surprised at their surroundings, Kaden guessed they had been previously confined to a similar room. One of them, the pink-haired girl, Kaden recognized as Victoria. They had both been in an event involving a sinking ship. Standing next to victory, though, was someone the courier had never seen before.

“This should be fun,” Victoria commented as she gazed about.

“Fun probably wouldn’t be my first choice of words,” Kaden said, “but at least it should be more interesting than sitting in a white room staring at someone else.”

The walls all around them seemed to be… quivering, as though they were made of nothing more solid than gelatin. With everything the same shade of white, it was difficult to tell exactly what the walls were doing. Orion and Kaden had only been able to discern the wall tentacles that attacked them earlier because whatever mysterious light source that illuminated the room had also cast shadows. With a wall, though, it wasn’t as easy to tell.

Without thinking to consult anyone else present, the courier raised a hand and let a bolt of cerulean ki fly. His thinking was that if he hit the wall with something that was only strong enough to leave a scorch mark, he might be able to better see what was happening in front of him. To everyone’s surprise, the small ball of energy hit the wall and caused a rippled that spread throughout the entire room. In the wake of the ripple, for only a second, the walls seemed to fade, giving way to a completely different landscape beyond.

“What did you do?” the pink-haired woman asked. As she spoke she turned her head to follow the ripple.

“Dunno,” was all the courier had to say. At first.

Taking another step back, he was more interested in the spot he had initially hit than the effect it had caused. There was a small indentation in the wall, which held fast even as the space around it seemed to be barely holding itself together. Running a hand through his hair, Kaden back away from the wall and held his hand aloft.

“Orion. You might want to make a… shield or something,” Kaden advised. Wisps of bright blue energy seeped from his hand, coiling outward, drifting into the air like mist. “I mean… I could do it if you’d prefer, but I think thi—“

“Why?” the saiyan interrupted him.

“You guys saw it, right? There’s something on the other side of that wall. I don’t know about you, but I’m eager to see what’s on the other side. And since there’s no door, I figured we’d just have to make our own.”

“Yeah. I get it. Why the shield?”

“Well… on the off chance that this doesn’t work, the blast won’t really have anywhere to go but back at us. I figure cranking it up to fifty-percent ought to be enough to punch through most walls, but this… isn’t really acting like most walls…”

“You’re kidding, right?” Lance spoke up. “And if this crazy, screwed up wall decides to just… oh I dunno… bounce your little blast back at us, what then?”

“We’ll have a shield,” Orion replied, as though it were obvious.

“Try to keep up, Lance,” Victoria teased.

“Ok, then. On three. One…”

Kaden leveled his hand at the wall in front of him.

“Two…”

Orion stepped between the other three occupants of the room, his energy gathering about him in a swirl of dark blue flames.

“Three!”

A flash of cerulean light enveloped the room, blinding even the person who caused it. As it receded, it seemed to take all light with it. Darkness swept down upon the four with neither rhyme nor reason. Whatever happened to the wall, or the door Kaden intended to blow in it, remained shrouded in both mystery and darkness. All around him, the courier could hear the confused movements and complaints of the other occupants of the previously white room.

He was about to step towards the wall – or what should have been the wall – when a weight fell over him. Not just the courier, but four cries of surprise rang out as an unidentified mass pressed itself upon them. Heavy enough to force Kaden to one knee, the weight sat upon his shoulders… and his head… and…

“What is this?” the courier asked anyone within ear shot. Surprised at how muffled his voice came out, he began speaking louder. “Is this… cloth?”

“Feels like canvas!” Victoria’s voice responded.

Struggling back to his feet proved an incredibly frustrating task for the courier. Every movement he attempted was made labored by the veil of… whatever… that had been thrown upon them. In his mounting annoyance, he resorted to one of the things he did best.

A blue bolt of energy shot into the air, an audible rip accompanying its ascension. Light flooded over the courier as he gazed up at the streak of energy, quickly growing distant. A second, larger blast followed the first, punching a hole in the canvas large enough for Kaden to step through, though that ended up being unnecessary. The canvas fell to the ground around him, revealing the sights behind it.

“Ok. I wasn’t expecting this,” he said to no one in particular.

At Kaden’s feet, sprawled across the ground, was a massive canvas, its bright red and yellow striping identifying it as one of the circus tents that had populated Gamer’s between-event Carnival, which made sense, given that, no matter which way he looked, Kaden found himself smack-dab in the middle of it. In short order, Orion, Victoria, and Baller had freed themselves from the circus tent.

“Look over there,” Lance said, pointing off to a corner of the tent.

Two more protrusions were writhing against the weight of the tent, prompting Kaden and Victoria to make their way over for a closer inspection. Orion cross his arms as he watched the courier and the huntress blast two new holes in the canvas and pull from its depths Ashe and Belle, respectively.

“What is going on?” Ashe asked as Kaden helped her to her feet.

“We’re not really sure. I think it’s a good thing, though.”

“How is someone trying to bury us under a… tent?! A good thing?” Belle fired back at Kaden, jumping to his feet and putting some space between himself and Victoria.

“Oh hey!” It took Kaden a second to process the voice. “Belle! Congrats.” Once again, the hybrid was in possession of his original anatomy. “We’re supposed to be in a staring contest. And separated. Since we’re neither of those things, not everything is going the way Gamer wants.”

“Or he’s just trying to screw with us,” Orion countered. “Don’t let your guard down just because you found a friend.”

“Hey!” Ashe interjected before anyone else could speak. “What do you think this means?”

Grabbing her PAGER, the girl extended it towards Kaden, the closest person to her. Frowning, the courier studied it for several seconds before reaching down and pulling his own free from its place on his belt. There was some kind of message scrolling across its small display, but the letters, if they could be called that, were jumbled and nonsensical. It looked like someone had bashed their head against a keyboard and then deleted every other character.

“I think you broke it, Ashe,” Kaden joked. The girl had already moved on, though.

“What do you think ‘Fission Mailed’ means?”