224: First Teams

224: First Teams

“I hope you’re not too proud of that so-called ‘victory’,” the pale-skinned Number Forty said to Number Seven, standing boldly with crossed arms in front of the man that was four full heads taller than her.

“Go find yourself some other little girls to play with until it’s your turn to die,” Number Seven said, barely acknowledging the girl’s existence. He did not even grace her with a glance, preferring to instead study the other participants in the arena.

“Getting so full of yourself after stomping a bunch of hapless fools?” Number Forty asked.

“Have you come to join a team with me?” Number Seven asked.

“Pfft!” Number Forty nearly burst out laughing. “As if!”

“Then why the hell are you even standing here, wasting both our time?”

“No doubt to inform you that your wanton cruelty shall not go unpunished!” another girl declared loudly as she walked up to the pair from the side.

A slender girl in a white and blue uniform. She had long, gory red hair that reached all the way to her naked thighs and red eyes. Her uniform was a mix of cloth and plate armor that combined with a pleated schoolgirl skirt made its damndest to accentuate her slender figure. The only off-color item was the armband on her right arm, like all the other participants. The fiery-red numbers spelled ‘fifty’.

Behind Number Fifty were her three teammates—two guys and one girl, all wearing similarly designed, white and blue uniforms, all with gory red hair color.

“You must be joking,” Number Seven said, turning his head to the other skinny girl that arrived to pester him. Only no one was laughing.

“This is no laughing matter!” Number Fifty exclaimed and stepped forward. “You had the choice to spare the unfortunate people by simply letting the time run out. You chose to murder them for no other reason than for the sport of it! Do you feel no remorse?”

“Remorse? You do realize where we all are, right?” Number Seven asked, questioning the sanity of the passionate girl.

“If it comes to killing, I will do what I must!” Number Fifty declared. “But I will do so in a fair fight, not hunt down fleeing opponents like animals.”

“And it will end with you dying unfairly, slaughtered like an animal!” Number Seven said and turned his back to the uniform-wearing quartet.

“Do not turn your back on me!” Number Fifty demanded but was ignored.

Number Seven continued walking and as he passed Number Forty, she said, “I know your secret.”

“You will die with it,” Number Seven answered, neither of the two made eye contact.

“That man’s brutality is only matched by his cowardice!” Number Fifty said through grit teeth.

“Don’t ya worry, sweetheart!” her teammate, Number Twenty-two said as he put his hand on her shoulder. “That big ol’ sack of shit will come tumblin’ down yet! Can only hope we’ll be lucky enough to match against him and take care of business first!”

“I can only hope,” Number Fifty said and clenched her fist while watching Number Seven walk away. “Before he does any more heinous misdeeds!”

Not surprisingly, Number Seven attracted many more participants. Like the giant planet whose gravitational pull kept passively attracting smaller objects. And while the two girls had no interest in teaming up with the giant man that was now also armed with the biggest weapon around—which very few people could wield properly—many other participants were highly interested in teaming up with one of the strongest participants around.

“Can we team up?”

“Pick me!”

“No, pick me! With your strength and my speed, we’ll be unbeatable!”

“They’re all losers! I’m stronger than them all! I can prove it!”

Surprisingly, Number Seven was not particularly picky. If anything, it did not seem like he listened to anyone make their case at all and instead seemed to pick his three teammates by proximity, dependant on which three dared to approach him the closest.

Number Seven ended up with a bearkin on his team who was completely covered in fur and only a head shorter than he was. The second teammate was a tall, slender, well-built leopardkin who touted his speed. While the third teammate was a short, jittery hyenakin, covered in scars and armed with several old daggers.