- Slave Chambers (A Week Ago) -
"Enough."
Frid and Pendrick continued glaring at each other, not even turning to acknowledge Astelle.
"Is this really important right now?" she asked, frustrated with the men. "Would you rather butt heads or be free?"
The question sobered the two instantly, both weighing the latter option to be more significant.
Pendrick clicked his tongue, kicking his boot against the ground.
"Okay, fine," he said grudgingly. "So what's the play exactly?"
Frid sat back down, looking up to the blond.
"That's exactly why I needed you."
Pendrick blinked. "You're saying you don't have anything... at all?"
"I created a basic starting foundation!" Frid defended himself. "That counts for something! I just need you to pick it up from there..."
The blond gripped his hair, falling onto his butt on the ground. He held back the scream he so desperately wanted to let out.
"Okay..." he said. "What is this foundation exactly?"
Astelle gently lowered herself onto the floor, creating a triangular formation between the three, and looked at the helmet wearer for his explanation.
Frid leaned forward. "The biggest issue is obviously the mark."
"So we need a way to get rid of it," he continued. "The method I decided on is getting help from a person who's influential enough to find a way, but also open to dealing with slaves."
"So, Gavis Balroc," Pendrick said conclusively. "How would you get to him exactly?"
"Honestly, I wasn't certain as to who it would be yet," Frid admitted. "But I'll trust your judgment if you pick him."
Pendrick opened his mouth, then closed it again.
It was becoming more evident that the helmeted man was flying by the seat of his pants. He had been lulled into believing in the man when he had correctly identified the core problem, but his faith was right back at zero now.
He was blatantly contemplating whether working with Frid was the right idea.
Frid chuckled nervously at the blond's visible doubt toward him.
"But look, I have friends who can help with moving things along," he said. "That's how we reach him."
"You have non-slave friends while being enslaved to Fernand?" Pendrick asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, a servant at the house with a good degree of freedom to move around," Frid said, continuing when he noticed Pendrick's questioning look. "She has special circumstances..."
"Right..." The blonde said. "Reaching Balroc shouldn't be an issue then."
"What about your other friend?" Astelle asked, jumping back into the conversation.
"Ah, he's like you," Frid answered. "He's a slave like us, but his ability will be useful for anything we end up doing."
"Okay then," Pendrick started, wincing as pain shot through him. "To address the more immediate problem..."
"The slave seal's repression function," Astelle said, nodding while sweat dripped from her forehead from enduring the mark.
Frid looked between the two with a confused expression.
"Yeah," Pendrick affirmed. "It's impossible to plan anything efficiently with it flaring up like this."
"We're barely managing by purposefully distracting our thoughts, right?" he asked, assuming they were all on the same page.
"Right," Astelle answered. "And when getting back on topic, it's basically a matter of enduring the pain for short bursts."
"...Yeah," Frid chimed awkwardly, which the blond didn't miss.
Exhaling deeply, Pendrick continued. "It's distracting."
"We can't get anywhere like this."
"So?" Astelle responded. "What do we do?"
Both pairs of eyes now focused squarely on the blond.
"We need more time," he said wearily. "Preferably as much time as we can get..."
Pendrick looked up at Frid.
"Which brings up another issue," he said. "The tournament won't last forever. Outside of these walls, there's basically zero opportunity for coordination between us aside from me and her."
Frid shifted as he moved to speak, but Pendrick raised a hand to cut him off.
"Your maid friend won't work for this," he preemptively shot down what the other man was going to say. "Do you think our owner will just let a noble's servant talk to his slaves without his supervision?"
Frid slumped. "What then?"
Pendrick sighed, relenting that he would have to perform a significant amount of the mental labour.
"You're a no-go since you belong to a noble, but..." he said, trailing as he looked at his hand and then at Astelle. "One or both of us—if possible—will have to transfer over to your side."
"I couldn't even begin to tell you how, though," he concluded.
Frid smiled. "Is that all?"
The other two looked at him, doubtful of the solution he would propose.
"If it's getting Fernand to want you, that's easy."
Pendrick looked at him sideways. "Okay, but him wanting us and him actually being able to get us are two completely separate things."
Frid released a hollow chuckle.
"Trust me," he said dryly. "If he wants you, he'll get you."
Astelle and Pendrick shifted uncomfortably at Frid's shift in demeanour.
"To assure you guys, however, I'll make it easier."
"What do you mean?" Pendrick asked.
"We'll give Fernand an opening to exploit so that he can have an easier time stealing you from your owner," Frid responded casually. "You said you belonged to some average guy, yeah?"
Pendrick's expression darkened.
"That's an insult to average people," he said plainly. "He's lower than that."
"Worthless really," Astelle added.
Frid was subtly amused by their unenthusiastic vitriol, but continued nonetheless.
"Okay, then all you need to do..." He started fishing in the back of his shirt before pulling out a jagged, crudely sharpened short bar of metal. "Is hurt me."
Astelle looked at him, expressionless. "Are you out of your mind?"
"No... this time, he's onto something," Pendrick interjected. "That could work."
The blond turned to look at her. "Do you think you could survive if the very worst of the fighters were set against you?"
"The worst..." Astelle paused. She looked at Frid then back at Pendrick. "If it's not him—and there's no one else on his level—I'll win."
Pendrick smiled. "Okay then!"
He got up, snatching the makeshift weapon from Frid and extending it toward her.
"You stab him," he instructed. "In the aftermath, I'll make sure they don't kill you immediately. Instead, they'll probably set you up for a fixed match."
"When they do," he continued. "Rampage. If you can't, that's fine—but you'll probably die."
Astelle felt a certain way about the proposition. She looked at the sharp edge, thinking about whether she would do it or not.
Frid noticed her hesitation and decided to intervene in the blond's plan and add his own spin.
"Hey," he started. "You were a noble, weren't you?"
Pendrick looked at him and then shifted his gaze to the side uncomfortably.
"Yeah... What about it?"
Frid stood up and stepped in front of him.
"You do it."
Astelle's attention snapped to the two, exiting her reverie. She wondered if the man had lost trust in her ability to contribute.
"Why?" Pendrick's face scrunched. "That wouldn't get us anywhere."
"You're a gambling man," Frid responded. "That's what I heard. So, stake your life and freedom here and now."
"Let's take a shot at getting both of you stolen."
Astelle moved closer to the two, shooting the taller man a questioning glance.
"Realistically, Fernand will want her as long as she puts on a show out there," Frid explained. "But if you both attack me and manage to survive, then you become a package deal. In that case, it will be up to you, Rick, to make him want to keep you, too."
'Rick?' The blond raised an eyebrow, then shook his head to clear his thoughts. "There would be more for me to do than just convincing your master. I would have to make sure we both don't immediately die and that they send her off to the field."
"You can't do it?" Frid asked somewhat playfully.
"...No." Pendrick frowned, a detail coming to the forefront of his mind. "I can."
Astelle tapped both of them.
"I haven't even agreed to the attacking part of this plan," she said. "Let alone to the aspect of ambushing you."
The men exchanged a look, Pendrick of exasperation and Frid of communicating patience to him.
"Sorry, what's your name again?"
She blinked, realising she hadn't introduced herself.
"Astelle."
Frid nodded. "Cool name."
"Don't you have something motivating you to break free?" He looked her directly in her eyes.
Astelle's eyes widened and steeled in resolve as she thought of her two companions.
"I do."
"Then for now, do it for whatever that is," Frid said calmly. "You can even pretend that I'm an obstacle to you getti—"
Before he could finish, she had already sprung into action. A faint glow covered her fist as it rocked into his helmet-covered face. He staggered back three steps, being met with a further rush of punches and kicks to his head as the woman refused to let up.
'She's quick...'
He intercepted a kick, lightly pushing her back and stepping forward to enter a short exchange of blows. He purposefully missed a punch that would have collided with her face, then pivoted into a leg-sweep that she jumped over.
A glowing double palmstrike found its target in his gut, making him cough up trickles of blood. Standing his ground, he grabbed her arms, still outstretched and gripped them with a moderate amount of his strength.
Astelle winced as she felt her bones strain a little under the man's grip.
"I was right," she said, her voice strained. "You're not a normal fighter."
Frid looked down at her through the severely banged-up openings of his helmet. They needed to make it believable, and he was pretty much certain he had done his part.
"You haven't done enough yet," Frid spoke. "This is supposed to be an incident. Now that it's started, you need to go all in."
He huffed, experiencing some of the strain from her earlier blows.
"While you're at it, you might as well become the disruption that buys us time," he continued. "I'm counting on you."
Astelle felt his grip loosen and understood the underlying instruction. Within herself, she started to call up more of the destructive power she possessed. Slowly, the glow around her intensified as the air and ground started to tremble.
Heat began to permeate the halls, making the arena management alert to something being wrong.
Shult looked around, sweat starting to bead across his body. He wiped off the drops that trailed down his face, meeting one of the arena guards.
"What's happening?"
The slovenly guard straightened, becoming aware of his higher-up's presence.
"Um...I'm not sure, sir," he said. "But it's probably nothing. Maybe just an unusually hot day."
Shult frowned, unhappy with the lack of urgency or precaution that had become the norm in this place.
"Look around," he said sternly. "Let's avoid unnecessary trouble."
Just as he got the words out, a loud sound rang from deep within the chambers, and the colosseum started experiencing a massive quake. Panic instantly spread across the entire building.
Shult stumbled against a wall, gripping it as he tried to maintain his stability in the midst of the violent shaking. Not far off, the slaves panicked, except for eight of them. Among them, the Gifted trio searched for each other, clinging to the pillars and bolted benches.
Outside, the audience panicked, gasps and murmurs breaking out. Order was barely being maintained as Fyke looked around in fear and ire at the disturbance.
Up in the reserved booth, Willian and Henry maintained impassive looks. Fernand motioned to Selene, who, while panicked, understood the will of her lord and shakily went off to look into what was happening.
Balroc gazed down into the tunnel. He could perceive the flow of power coming from deep inside.
"So that confirms it... and it's a significantly strong one," he muttered, internally acknowledging the affirmation that the girl he'd seen before was Gifted.
Back with the three slaves, Frid let out a long whistle, impressed by the power Astelle was releasing. The heat was enough to make even him want to back up.
He took a step forward, however, ready to put on a last "struggle". Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in the lower left of his back. Turning, he saw Pendrick holding the jagged bar that was now buried deep into him.
"Oh..." Frid said, realising that the injury was more severe than he'd planned for it to be. "That's..."
The helmet-wearer buckled, falling to his knees before losing consciousness on the ground.
The power swirling around Astelle immediately stopped. She rushed over, blood already pooling at her feet when she got close enough.
"Hey, this is too much!" she yelled at the blond man.
Pendrick looked calmly at Frid and then at her.
"Don't worry," he said. "He'll live."
Astelle felt some anger rise in her chest. She leaned down to try to burn the wound so it would stop bleeding, shooting a glare at Pendrick.
"We don't have time," he said calmly, turning toward the exit of the halls. "Like this guy said, you're going to do a lot of heavy lifting from here."
She prepared to retort, but he spoke again before she could.
"It's about to start."
Voices could be heard approaching, notably the sound of Fyke's frustrated chastising of his men.
Pendrick sighed. "Let's just not die."
---
The sound of the door to the private room opening interrupted Pendrick's retelling of the events. A man and a woman walked in, both intimidating in their own right.
Pendrick got out of his relaxed seating position and leaned in toward the table.
"Bach, we'll tell you the rest later," he said, his demeanour serious. His eyes remained on the two, unwavering. "Hello there. You're who I'm here to meet, I assume?"
"Yes," the woman replied, smiling gently. She was dressed in pure white, skin pale and with white hair to top it all off. Simply by appearance, she seemed inhuman.
She turned to look at Frid, who was staring down the man who accompanied her. Tapping the man on his bare chest, she signalled for him to relax and stop intimidating their guests.
The man was massive, more muscular and taller than even the famed arena champion. He was more tanned than the woman, but wore similarly pure white loose pants with no shirt or shoes. Like Frid, his face was covered, but with a white mask that had horns protruding from where the eyes should be.
"You can be at ease," she said, her voice smooth and kind. "Helis here sometimes gets ahead of himself, but he means you no harm."
She sat down right beside Frid, Helis positioning himself appropriately to stand guard behind her. Before anyone could break the brief silence, she continued, her voice and presence unnerving the three visitors.
"My name is Minerva," she spoke, tone seeming gentler than before, if that was even possible. "I've been waiting for you."