The Players: Staring Contest

[Ashe]

"Kaden!" Ashe called, waving for the courier to look her way. When he didn't reply immediately, engrossed in conversation with the guy with the eyepatch, she ran over and grabbed him, jerking him away violently.

"What, Ashe?" he asked a bit stiffer than he intended.

"The, uh, thing is lighting up over there. The blinky thing. It keeps..."

"Blinking?" he finished for her.

"You have such a way with words," she smoothly replied as he took a sit at the console. "What do you think it is?" she finally asked, leaning over his shoulder.

He shrugged and looked over the console a moment before Orion stepped forward, deftly pressing a button that both of them had seemed to miss. "It's a communications feed," the blond finally announced unnecessarily as the screen before them lit up.

"Is this thing on?" the figure on the screen yawned, revealing nothing more than a massive forehead until it drew back, its long dark and spiky hair coming entirely into view. "Oh, there we go," the man finally smirked, looking over the crowd. "How do I keep getting you guys as my opponents?"

"Would you hurry this up, Raditzu?" a teal haired woman in the back snapped at the man on the screen, prompting him to wave her away.

"I'm just saying. You'd think this Gamer guy would have programmed a better matchmaking system then this. How else can you explain us getting paired down against these guys every single time?" the warrior snidely replied.

"Oh, just fucking blow them out of the sky already," the woman snapped again, burying her face in her palm as if she was ready to take over command at any moment.

Kaden and Ashe exchanged a look as the other pink haired woman came up to join them, standing alongside Orion. "I wonder if they realize there's no sky in space?" Ashe whispered to no one in particular, but Victoria corrected her quickly.

"I'd say the chances here are about the same as our being able to race a pirate ship through downtown."

"Point taken," Ashe acquiesced.

"Tch," the long haired man on screen expressed rudely. "We're supposed to blow you guys up," he announced. "You guys are pretty lucky - or unlucky, I suppose," he considered, leaning back in his comfortable Captain's chair and stretching his large hands casually behind his head, fingers spreading through his thick mane. "You've gotten the honor of being beaten by me repeatedly now. It's not very often one gets to compete with a warrior such as myself and live to tell the tale. Though I suppose Gamer's setup does rather assist you in that problem," he measured with a slight hint of irritation.

"I don't exactly expect any favors from this one," Lance warned from the back of the room.

Before Raditzu could continue his... awkward speech, the teal haired woman in the background cut in front of him. "Consider yourself fucked," she announced icily, the screen going black immediately afterwards.

Everyone sat in silence for just a moment before Kaden piped up good naturedly. "Well, I suppose it's not all bad."

"That's Bra, the current King of the Saiyan race," Orion informed their group.

"How can a girl be a King?" Ashe queried from his side.

He gave her a dismissive look before returning his eyes to the blank screen, grumpily answering her question. "Our race has always had a male heir to the throne before she took her place on it. To call her Queen would imply that her counterpart is the primary ruler and that she is simply his concubine. She has earned her place on the throne in a way recognized by all of our race, and we do not question her right to be there. There are those who disagree with her rule..." he trailed off, his gaze passing over each and every one of them before continuing. "But as you see, this hasn't caused a change of the throne."

"Wait, haven't the Saiyans constantly been fighting civil wars for the throne during nearly the entire Vegeta dynasty reign?" Lance pointed out, provoking a quick response from the cyclops.

"Yes," he snapped, turning to look him directly in the eye. "How does this have any bearing on our current situation?"

Baller's eyes nervously twitched as he held his hands up defensively. "Whoa, calm down there big guy. I just thought since you were handing out information..."

"Information that might make you understand what we are facing," Orion clarified. "Bra is ruthless and temperamental, and if we expect to survive till the next round, I'd recommend everyone grab a defense panel immediately."

"That name is so familiar," Ashe mumbled nearby, spreading her arms wide while thinking out loud. "I just can't remember where I know it from. Maybe someone I know mentioned it once."

"Get your asses in gear!" Belle cried out from behind them, staring at another screen. "They just fired a bunch of shit at us!"

Before most of them could react, the entire ship rocked violently from side to side, throwing most of the group to the ground as a few explosions were heard in the background. "Throw up some more shields or something!" Victoria insisted, jumping back up to get to a computer station.

Ashe managed to find her feet and grabbed the nearest chair before climbing into it, looking around at the strange symbols around her. "I have no freakin' clue what this stuff says," she finally whined, staring wide-eyed. "I never took Latin!"

"Just push some fucking buttons!" Belle raged from the back, frantically slamming his hand down on anything that seemed moveable.

"Uh, some more bad news."

Everyone looked up when Kaden spoke, following his hand to the screen above them. Their eyes widened in unison as they took in what he was saying while their minds came to the same realizations on their own. "It looks like they combined that giant whirlpool pirate fight event with this..."

"Is that a freakin' black hole?" Ashe demanded, looking back and forth at the group. "No, seriously, a black hole?"

"Well, you can't actually see a black hole," Lance pointed out.

"WHAT?" the girl cried back. "Are you kidding me?" she asked loudly, each word punctuated by a wild throwing of her arms in the direction of the screen, as if guiding a plane in for a landing. "What do you call that thing then?"

"A... uh," he began, scratching his arm intently. "Black... space... whirl pool?" he guessed with a shrug.

Ashe began to cross her way towards his general direction when another barrage from the adjacent ship rocked her to her feet again. Directly across from them, both ships found themselves caught within the pull of the maelstrom, the hull of their massive starship groaning under the pressure as they began to glide in perfect choreography across from one another while skirting the outer rims of the gravity well. She pushed herself to her feet and found her chair once more, looking at the screen with panic in her eyes. "Hold on tight!"

"Got it!" Victoria announced, quickly hitting a series of keys before doing a quick fist pump in the air. Everyone braced themselves, to include her, as the shots dissolved just short of actually striking their ship. "Shields are UP," she smirked, leaning back in her chair.

"Great," the cyclops reacted cynically. "Now we should probably blow them out of the sky so we can get crushed by this black hole while in one piece."

"I told you it was a-" Ashe began, throwing her voice across the room in Lance's direction.

"Hey, all I was saying is that in reality you can't actually see-" he attempted at a defense, prompting Belle to intervene.

"Would both of you shut the fuck up already?"

"Incoming," Kaden warned once more, everyone gripping their seats in anticipation.

The energy beams struck the shields just moments before the torpedoes reached them, creating a weak point in the energy field. A series of explosions detonated just outside of the field but to the group's dismay, a small subset of explosives continued their path through the short lived hole that had been blown through the shield before it reverted itself.

"Shit," someone cursed just before the explosions struck the side, prompting the computer to speak up.

"Another hull breach," Victoria informed them, her eyes reading the data on her computer screen as she searched for some method of sealing off the damage. Her hands pressed a few buttons hesitantly, breathing out a relieved breath as the computer spoke up once more to inform them that the damage had been resolved. "We're running out of shields, I think," she continued, frantically relaying the information.

"No," Orion interrupted, at her side suddenly and reading over her shoulder. His finger touched her screen and drew her attention to its location. "Shields are still doing pretty well. They just gave us a smart attack by timing their shots to rip a small hole in a specific location to let them backdoor a smaller attack through the opening before it closed up.

"That's not good," Kaden commented.

"No, it's not," the Saiyan unhappily agreed.

"Doesn't look like we're going to have all that long to worry about it," Lance groaned, looking outside of the ship. Already, they could see the other ship had began to distort, stretching one side lazily towards the event horizon while fighting to keep their weapons directed at their opponent. "You'd think they knew something we didn't."

"What do you mean?" Belle asked him.

"Well, I mean they don't even seem to care that they are about to get ripped apart atom by atom," he continued.

"Uh, because they are just game characters?" Ashe stated sarcastically. "They'll get ripped apart pixel by pixel while we are the ones smashing atoms into one another."

"Maybe not," Kaden considered, standing up suddenly to pace back and forth. "Maybe..." he began, his hand running nervously through his hair for a moment before Victoria realized where his thoughts were going.

"Maybe Lance is right that they know something we don't," she spoke up, prompting him to nod.

"Right. What if the center of the black hole is the next portal out of this event?"

"What if the center of the black hole is the singularity cell annihilating doom of our entire existence?" Ashe countered coolly.

"...right," he sighed, unsure of himself. "Well," he decided, spreading his arms out and gripping the back of the chair he'd been sitting in. "We're about to hit the event horizon either way guys. The way I look at it is this - we can either send all power to the main engines and hope to break the hold of this black hole and hope to whatever power you believe in that we don't get blown away by that other ship as they go down, or we can floor it straight into the center and hope we come out the other side."

Everyone was silent a moment as the grave thought passed between them.

"I mean, everyone is at stake here. So I think we should go with a unanimous decision here," he finished, his eyes still glued to the screen as another series of missiles found themselves deflected by the shields, the gravity of the maelstrom having interfered with the precision targeting.

"...let's give it a shot," someone finally spoke up, prompting a few others to agree hesitantly.

Kaden nodded and looked over to Victoria. "Alright, think you can put all the power into the engines?" he asked her.

"Shouldn't be an issue," came her reply.

"Wait," Belle interrupted. "I thought the scenario of putting all the power into the engines would get us blown up by the other ship?"

Lance shook his head and took the question. "That's if we are trying to fight our way back out of this whirl pool-"

"-black hole!" Ashe threw in with a grin.

"-at a snail's pace while the other ship is firing at us. Because of the gravity, no matter how hard with floor the engines, we'll be barely moving on our way back out of its pull, and that's hoping we don't hit the event horizon before getting enough speed. But if we floor it going into the whirl pool-"

"-black hole-" came the instant reply from the background.

"- then theoretically-" he tried to finish, but this time it was Orion that interrupted him.

"The plan is to boost the engines to send us through the hole before the next volley can decimate us," he explained.

"Yeah, that," Lance agreed.

Belle stared at him a moment. "Whatever the fuck you just said, let's just do it already. And I swear to god, if this gets us all killed, I'm going to come back to life and kick all your asses!" he warned them.

At that moment, Victoria opened her mouth to announce that she'd sent all of the remaining power to the ship's boosters, but everyone found their words caught somewhere in their air passages, unable to escape as their velocity increased exponentially. Their eyes all twitched as one to the computer screen as a volley of rockets seemed to stop mere inches from the direct from of the ship before freezing in place.

The entire ship, and everyone on it, began to stretch out through space, their very thoughts no longer able to continue through their minds as reality itself began to shatter. That was when their consciousness went black.

---

"Did you like the part where we pretended to kill you?" a strange cheery yet computerized voice echoed throughout all of their ears. "That was fun."

Ashe's eyes slowly opened to see her companions all picking themselves up from the floor around her with a series of groans. Each of them stretched their sore muscles as their fingertips danced across their bodies to make sure that every part was where it should have been. Satisfied with her body structure, Ashe noted that their clothing had changed once more into what appeared to be some form of prison garb.

"Please lie down on the ground and remain stationary until a party representative can arrive and escort you to the party room where there will be cake," the voice echoed once more through the room.

"Where are we this time?" Belle demanded, looking around angrily.

"Anyone know what this is?" Victoria spoke up shortly after. In her hands was a large cube with its polished surfaces adorned with what appeared to be... hearts. Pink hearts.