Rows of players of all aspects dressed in fancy clothing covered the inner halls of South Paradise Arena. Since the segregation of the lower class into West Paradise, they'd had little to worry about. Money, as it turns out, was still a useful aide for living, even if there was nobody to wave it around in front of. Deep down, their greed made them sick to their stomachs, but they were having too good of a time to notice. Every night was spent drinking only the finest alcohol with only the finest meals, while only the finest slaves sit at their feet.
That was their secret. They didn't kill players when they showed up at the door to South Paradise, hoping for a way in. They took advantage. They pulled them in and shielded them from the cold, only to throw them back onto the ground and command them to start licking as if it were their only purpose. The slaves didn't have much of a choice. As it was, you can still get into South Paradise, but it's very rare that they'll allow you to leave again.
And so, the halls, filled with the richest of the rich, and the most submissive of the captured, quietened down, ready for the coming event.
King Connor II had accepted his situation. Having to gain his political power all over again wasn't how he'd planned to spend the past few weeks - he'd rather be in the Post Scratch session forcing them to do his bidding - but instead he was here, having to grovel at the feet of his peers. He hated it. He was above this. He'd fought so hard back on Earth all that time ago so that he'd never have to be put in this position again.
But it was necessary. He understood that.
He wasn't a slave. Oh, no. Far from it. His richer-looking clothing and the crown on his head had given him something of a better start when he turned up one day out of nowhere. The Southerners cared not for Gods, so they didn't recognise his snake-like eyes or the fact that his classpect just to happened to match that of one of their gods. For all of their money, and all of their deceit, and all of their power, they weren't very bright. But they still had power.
He planned on changing that.
He stepped onto the stage. This didn't surprise anybody. He was there to make a speech, and they'd been waiting for him for far longer than they had wanted to. Some of them looked annoyed at him for taking longer than the agreed upon twenty minutes to prepare. Didn't he know that these people had busy lives to lead?
The stage was set. There was no podium in the middle. Rather, a lone microphone. Towards the back was an incline, leading to an upper part of the stage. An unopened door led onto it.
Before he prepared himself to speak, King Connor II took one look over the crowd. He recognised some faces. Some were the faces of people who he'd had to suck up to in order to get to this position. Some, he still was - in particular, a bald, fat player by the name of Alexander. He was brutish, with a large frame, and had a menacing look. His Majesty knew that he could end him without so much as a second glance in his direction, but killing one person wasn't the way to get power.
Killing a whole bunch of people, on the other hand.
His plan was simple, and absolutely hysterical to him. He would give a brief speech, introducing himself to those who didn't already know him - most did - and telling them what he was doing here. Then, he would move on to a musical number. He had a band all set up and waiting to join him on the stage. The microphone had even been set up so that he could take the lead vocals. Really, he had to. The message he planned to convey just wouldn't come across as clear if it was spoken by somebody else. There was more to his plan, but he merely chuckled to himself. Spoilers.
With that, he stepped up to the microphone, and, giving one last look over the crowd - and a faked submissive look to his superior, Alexander - he began to speak.
"Good evening. Some of you know who I am, but some of you don't. For those of you who don't, my name is Connor Burns. As the crown implies, I was once a King. I don't expect any of you to regard me as such... unless you want to touch on a couple of my more private desires."
That got a laugh. Such a simple, stupid joke. God, these guys were pathetic.
“I don’t want to waste any more of your time. It’s about time that I brought up the reason that we’re all here,” he paused, and then took another meaningful glance over the crowd, moving his hands behind his back.
“West Paradise,” he stated, and then gave another pause. “You all know what it is. Some of you are glad that there’s such a convenient place to stash all the… less worthy of luxury. Others, myself included, are angry that there is such a beautiful mass of land going to waste on people who do nothing but squander everything they own. The land is deserving of better. It is deserving of love. Tall, glass towers to make the sky look wonderful. Carefully crafted nature reserves to show off the best that Paradise’s nature has to offer. My friends, I come to you today to not do what we’ve been doing for so long; complaining. I come to you with a solution.”
He could see the eyes of the crowd light up as he played them for the bigoted fools that they are. Maybe not all of them. Some, no doubt, were as he was, kissing the ass of someone with more power to ensure their eventual place higher up. He had no time for his equals, though. There was no room at the top for anyone other than himself.
“Before I give you the finer details, I’ve arranged for myself and some lovely, lovely people to perform something of a song for you all – in honour of those who are going to lose their lives soon.”
The plan was perfect. More or less. He was buttering his crowd up to believe that he was about to give them a way to crush those beneath them. He wasn’t a good person. In fact, he was quite bad. But he’d never believed in crushing the lower class. They were an integral part of society, for all of their suffering. Rather than killing the lower class, he was going to kill everybody in this room. There must have been dozens. Probably hundreds. Perhaps even closer to a thousand.
This wouldn’t even have been the first time he’d done such a thing, but it was much harder when everyone you were trying to kill had superpowers.
He glanced at Alexander.
Alexander stared back.
He smirked.
East Paradise. It wasn’t a pretty place, by anyone’s standards. Most of the trolls who had arrived here were dead, either by killing each other, or suicide. Even though their society revelled in violence and destruction, the utter hopelessness of their situation and the realisation that there wasn’t anything better waiting for them drove some of them to take their own lives.
It was a desert wasteland. An intense smog clouded the sky, ensuring that even in the middle of the day, the land was dark, with everything a shade of darkened orange. Some of the sand had been blown away by the occasional, no doubt simulated, tornadoes which came through and ravaged the area. It had left behind structures which could only be described as bridges of rock between the sand, as if you could take all of the sand away and be left with some sort of three-dimensional spider web.
The trolls lived in tribes, and used these bridges for cover. Some even drilled into them and dug out the insides, creating a cave network in which to live. Some of those ended up weakening the strength of these arms of rock and causing their homes to collapse.
Supplies were few and far between. A lot of trolls ate each other. The shift to cannibalism wasn’t as hard as it would have been for humans. Humans consider their brethren’s bodies to be off limits, as far as food goes. At least, most of them do. Most trolls don’t have this barrier.
Which was convenient for Tsuvai Axoros, as he devoured the body of someone he had once considered his friend. Convenient, yes, but not ideal. This was the third player he’d been forced to murder for survival, that week alone. Even worse, he had actually cared about this one.
He stood up, towering above the rest of his surroundings. Even for a troll, he was tall, but his body was rather thin, giving the impression of weakness, or perhaps even starvation. Neither of these were the case. He wasn’t starving, and he definitely wasn’t weak. Many had already made that mistake, and many more would make it in future, as no player had survived their mistake to warn others.
He reached up, and plucked a piece of flesh from his horn. He hated eating other trolls, because, for all of its drawbacks: being disgusting; tasting pretty bad, a part of him couldn’t deny that he enjoyed it – he got carried away. He wouldn’t just eat his victims, he would devour them, tucking into their flesh as if it were the nicest meal he’d ever had. He hadn’t merely pulled pieces of the flesh from the dead player and eaten them, he’d tucked in, burying his head in the cavity he’d made and devouring their insides. As he’d pulled out, he’d taken a part of them with him, using his horn.
After using a nearby bowl of water to clean his horns, he cleaned his face. He was handsome – or so he’d been told – but his face was, like his body, thin. He had what humans would call a ‘serial killer’ look. His horns curled, like that of a ram, out from hi long, black hair. His hair was straight, but parted in some places, looking as if he’d just gotten out of the shower. Once his face was clean, he began to wash his hair, trying to get rid of all of the blood. He’d eaten an olive blooded troll. They weren’t his favourite, but he liked them. He hated the fact that he had preferences for cannibalism. He hated the fact that his race had been reduced to what they were.
He hated humans, and he had a plan to kill them. He’d caught wind of an oncoming war between two of the factions in West Paradise, and planned to take advantage of that to go in and take over. The way that he’d gotten this information was smarter than he’d ever give himself credit for. Some players from West Paradise would walk out into ‘No Man’s Land’ in an attempt to gain access to South Paradise. They took them in, sometimes, but other times, they’d leave them at the door, banging on it for help.
South Paradise kept things in check. They’d stop a human from entering South Paradise without permission. They’d stop a troll from entering either West Paradise or South Paradise, using a flying drone, armed with a laser cannon. He was sure that they had better defences, but nobody stupid enough to enter No Man’s Land in the first place was smart enough to take the drone down, and any conversations about charging the gates all at once had been met with doubts.
South Paradise wouldn’t stop a human from entering East Paradise, and they wouldn’t stop anybody from trying to enter North Paradise. No point in it, he assumed. Anybody who enters there is likely to end up dead regardless. Point being, if a human left West Paradise to gain entry to South Paradise, he could just sneak on up and kidnap that human, and nobody would try to stop him. He figured that South Paradise didn’t care what happened to what they considered to be their lower class. It was so short sighted. His own culture had once been obsessed with caste, and that had gotten them nowhere.
So, he did. He stole the wayward humans, and took them back to East Paradise. He protected them from those who, similar to him, hated humans, and took them back to his tribe. They’d be taken to his home, and given one night of hospitality, before he began to torture them. For however long it would take to break them, he would make their lives a living hell, utilising whatever he had to in order to do so. Then, once they were broken, he’d do it for a little longer. His aim would be to make them his slaves. By the end of it, they’d be convinced that they needed him in order to survive. It worked. Every time. That’s because, he’d keep going until it did. He was determined to never let even a single human die by his hand. They didn’t deserve death. Death was the door that all of his brethren had turned to when Paradise had failed them. Death was a door exclusive for those who had earned it. These humans, with all of their cowardice, had not.
He stepped out of the hut he’d been in, looking around the area outside. His tribe was one which had decided to just build on the surface. As such, everything was created to be as tornado proof as possible. They hadn’t really gotten it down just yet, but most of them were still alive. A friend of his; Burnut, shifted from his position leaning against a wall and waved, before walking over to him.
“Is it time?” his friend asked.
Tsuvai nodded.
The music kicked in, a heavy guitar track filling the large room. The choice in genre had clearly surprised some of the crowd, but King Connor was a respected person, so they went along with it. The sound wasn’t pre-recorded – a fact which became clear when the door behind him opened and the rest of his band walked out onto the stage. From the door also came a dozen dancers, each dressed in fancy outfits which didn’t suit the rhythm of the song, but the way they moved wouldn’t tell you that. As the dark guitar riffs filled the room, the dancers, comprised of very attractive males and females, moved in an erratic fashion, pulsing in and out of the centre like a deranged Spirograph, moving closer to the man himself each time the pulse softened. When they surrounded him, the ones in front got down onto their knees, facing the crowd, so that they wouldn’t block the crowd’s view of His Majesty.
Dead men they celebrate, As the final chapter fades away. But they can’t hide. We can see their flesh is rottin’! The band plays a hopeful tune, The champagne is poured as they socialise, The look in their eyes, Hide in the light!
His voice boomed, surprising those who had spoken to him personally. Usually, his tone was calmer, sounding much like Kevin Spacey if he were British. It was a tone that suggested deeper meaning, as if he was always holding a trick up his sleeve. He liked it that way, but for the sake of his show, he was willing to sacrifice it.
Some of the crowd still questioned his music taste. What relevance did the works of Avenged Sevenfold, a heavy metal band, have in a theatre built for only the finest of performances? Little did they know, that was the point. He was sick of them. Sick of their judgement, and their orders. He was going to kill them because of that, though; no. He wasn’t petty. Or, rather, he didn’t allow his pettiness to seep into his work. Their deaths would grant him power, and power is what he needed to put his long-term plan into place.
Still, even the hardest of asses had to admit that they appreciated his metaphor. It was so obvious, but that was what was so great about it. He was alluding to the people of West Paradise, as he had previously mentioned, the crowd assumed. It was an incorrect assumption, but that wasn’t their fault. He’d planned it that way.
He struggled to contain his excitement. He was very proud of himself.
Everything is paid for tonight, Here at the party of the dead dancing in their graves, The drinks here are free so relax, Enjoy the sight of all the dead dancing in their graves, And while the world that they built, Told them to change, Told them to listen, They just kept it the same. And now that midnight has come, I’m in a room watching the dead dancing in their graves.
At this point, King Connor made little effort to hide his grins and smirks. He’d earned them. Some of the people sat up front – those that could see his expressions – began to shift in their seats. Even if they trusted him, there was something unsettling about the look in his eyes. One of them, a rich man who profited on slave ownership, stood up to leave. As he tried to shift through the aisle, one of the dancers jumped up into the air. The others continued their movements flawlessly, as their colleague landed before the escapee. With a swift, but graceful kick, the dancer had the guest back down in his seat. Those who witnessed this began to worry about what exactly was going on, here. Those that didn’t, remained blissfully unaware to their oncoming demise. Even those who suspected, however, couldn’t imagine exactly how King Connor was going to pull off killing a room full of people. Those odds inspired courage, but none dared to move just yet, through fear of causing a scene. Pathetic.
As the dancer returned to his place on stage, King Connor moved before them to stand at the front, lifting the mic to his mouth to continue on with the song.
Bones covered up by suits, As the visible scars they multiply, Kiss it goodbye, Too stubborn and now you’re destroyed! Tick tock the time bomb has been recognised and pressurised. Nowhere to hide, Hide in the light!
Those among them with better hearing could have sworn that they’d heard an explosion in the distance, alongside the lyrics which mirrored such an event. Some of their courage disappeared. What tricks could this man possibly have up his sleeve?
Perhaps it was fear, or perhaps it was stupidity that drove the first man to make an effort to leave. He was high up, so the dancers couldn’t prance about to get to him, but that didn’t mean that he was safe. Unfortunately for him, the crowd’s time had come.
Tsuvai stood atop a small ridge, looking down upon a mass of trolls. There had to be a few dozen, which was an impressive turnout for a race quickly becoming extinct. He didn’t need to prepare himself for the speech he was about to make. He’d gone over it in his head a thousand times.
“Four thousand. That’s how many of us there were when we were dropped here. As I’m sure you all very vividly remember, they counted us. One by one, plucked out of the lives that we’d made for ourselves to be thrown in here, all because of paranoia. Paranoia that told these cowardly motherfuckers that we were nothing but trouble. That all we were going to do is kill them; eat them; ruin them. I look around your faces, and I think of all the lives we’ve lost because we did exactly that. We kill each other. We eat each other. We ruin each other. The difference between their prediction and our reality is that we wouldn’t have done this if they hadn’t forced our hand.
“We would have been able to live alongside them, and our numbers would still be in the thousands. Recent counts of those of our brothers we can still find put us in the hundreds. Think of your lusus, who took the time to raise you. Think of all the trolls who came before you. Would they be content knowing that their lineage – their culture – died because another race decided that we weren’t worthy of living? Fuck no.
“Do you want to know the part of all this which really, really gets underneath my skin? We were put here to avoid damage to their race. To avoid the aforementioned killing, eating and ruining. So, since they went through all of the effort of putting us here, you would assume that they succeeded, right? ‘Of course, Tsuvai!’ you’re crying, because you don’t want to believe that our race has become what it has in vain, but you’d be wrong. Everything they accused us of, they are doing to themselves. On the streets of Void City, a human will kill another human over words! Over spoken word! In Rageborough, they eat each other for fun! For fun! None of the faces I’m looking at seem like they’re going hungry. We’ve all tasted the flesh of our own race. We’ve all looked at ourselves in the mirror, unable to look ourselves in the eye. We’ve all suffered. And these motherfuckers do it for fun? And right now, as we speak, they are preparing to go to war. Every single faction will be forced to take a side, or be wiped out as collateral damage.
“No more! No more. We’ve suffered enough at the hands of those who have the decency to strip us of our freedom only to recreate our supposed flaws. Join me, brothers and sisters! Pick up your weapon, push the last of your strength to the forefront and get ready to fight! They’re at war. They’re not going to be expecting us. If we don’t strike now, we may never get the chance to again!”
Bullets rained on the crowd. Those who could see through the flash of the muzzle before their lives ended would see dancers holding Tommy Guns. King Connor was having the time of his life, enthusiastically running around on stage as he danced to a guitar solo. He couldn’t wait to see the look on Alexander’s smug, dead face.
He, himself, couldn’t see beyond the flash of the guns. He didn’t want to. Having to see those assholes still breathing would completely ruin the moment. While the flash was in the way, he could imagine that they were all already dead, and that his dancers were merely firing into a line of corpses for the fun of it, but if they stopped now, that façade would be pulled down.
Eventually, the bullets did stop, along with the guitar track, a repeated pair of lines repeating themselves over and over, sung by all of his dancers in unison.
We feel a coming strength, But now it’s too late to change.
Whatever his accountant was paying these people, it wasn’t enough. He’d gave them all a pay rise. Two pay rises! Two pay rises for all, and a third for the cute ones! The flash faded completely, and so did his mood. The majority of the crowd were dead, as he had planned. Alexander sat, a grin on his face, his hands gripping the arms of his custom, throne-like chair.
Before he could say anything, all of King Connor’s dancers turned their guns to him. He paused, and then shook his head, moving his hands behind his back. The fun was over.
“You must have really done a number on these slaves, Alexander. They won’t betray you even when given the perfect opportunity.”
Alexander shook his head. “You misunderstand, Connor,” he began, knowing exactly how much King Connor hated being referred to by just his first name, “I have never mistreated my slaves. In return for my kindness, they give me information. I’ve known about your little plot since before you’d even solidified the idea.”
“Then why didn’t you stop me? Look around. There must be a couple hundred people dead.”
Alexander smiled, and then crossed his arms. “You know what would really help me, right now? A war. A war in which we take West Paradise, and keep it for ourselves.”
“You just allowed me to kill most of the people who make up ‘ourselves.’”
“You know as well as I do that steps on the ladder can be filled, and have to.” The truth about the people who made up East Paradise’s higher class is that they were replaceable. They were nobodies. They were the same as those that weren’t, with the only difference being that some wore suits.
King Connor paused. “…that’s how you got the slaves to help you – how you’re planning to get the others to lend a hand.” Alexander nodded, and His Majesty facepalmed. He should have seen this coming. How didn’t he see this coming? A thought struck him, and he stood up straight, looking Alexander in the eye.
“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” he asked, crossing his arms. Surely Alexander wouldn’t let him live. He knew too much, and, above that, he hated him. He was sure that Alexander knew that. What possible upside could allowing him to live have, other than being able to tease him about the difference in power?
Alexander didn’t answer right away, instead giving a signal. His dancers – those who Connor had thought were his own – lowered their weapons. “My friend, I respect you.” A lie. “As much as it genuinely pains me to admit it, you’re very smart. This plan of yours, had I not heard about it from my spies, would have no doubt been the end of me.” Not a lie. “It would be a shame to end such a high level of intellect over something as silly as petty rivalry.” He was putting himself on Connor’s level; buttering him up. Connor knew this. “I’d much rather have you by my side.” He may have known it, but he could do far more alive than dead, and denying Alexander here would likely be the last thing he’d have the chance to do. Yes, Alexander had the upper hand now, but Connor was determined to change that.
“Deal,” Connor replied, before using his powers to teleport only his hand before Alexander, palm open, somehow still attached to his body. Alexander tried, and succeeded, to not think about it, before shaking his hand. Neither of them knew how long this deal would last – they both imagined not very long – but for the time being, they were partners. Partners who viewed themselves as better than the other.
It was a question as to what would fall first: one of them, or Paradise.
Within hours of their agreement, their army began to assemble. Everybody was told that the massacre at the theatre had been defected slaves who had infiltrated South Paradise from West Paradise. This was the means to go to war. Connor was given control of his own airship. He and Alexander were far from equals, but he was given enough freedom to be happy – that is to say, he was given enough freedom to be able to plan all of the ways he was going to slash open Alexander’s throat.
Guards began to stand outside the entrances to South Paradise, West Paradise and East Paradise. Spies working for various factions in West Paradise began to relay the information back; one of the factions had attacked South Paradise, and they were going to invade them because of it. The smarter of them knew that this was a set up, but all of them were aware of the terrible consequences that this would have. Time and Space were against each other, and now West and South.
Unbeknownst to them, the trolls of Eastern Paradise were also on their way. Led by a troll named Tsuvai, they were fighting their way through No Man’s Land, readying themselves to invade the west.
Atop the mountain over No Man’s Land, there lay a stone slab. Looking much like a god-tier bed, this slab waited for a body to lay on it. The body of a ghost wouldn’t do, though, it needed real flesh and blood.
Meanwhile, far away, two figures stood in a room, one holding the dead body of Chris Duszanskyj.
“It’s time.”
![[S] FA & AE: Drive It Home](https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_o72ynbOj6H1ud1vteo1_1463083751_cover.png)