SE-OCT Round 5

There are some things in life that should simply not be questioned. Trying to make sense of them is completely futile; they exist as a mystery without a solution, nothing more. The room that Thane was about to enter was a perfect example of one of these mysteries.

The door creaked open, its hinges protesting as if awakened from a deep sleep. Thane stepped out of the blackness of the catacombs and into the light. The sun's rays streamed in from a nearby window; he soaked them up hungrily, feeling his strength return. A torch just isn't very bright, and he had been longing for something more substantial. But these thoughts were forgotten as he stared in confusion at the room around him.

"A dental office?" He asked, incredulous. Sure enough, there was a stereotypical dentist's chair, grey-blue except for a few odd red stains. He eyed it warily. Wasn't he in a creepy forest before? How did he end up in a dental office? And hadn't it been nighttime? He couldn't have been underground for that long.

"More evidence that this is only a second-level world, and not the third-level world they told me I was going to reach," he muttered. But he was grateful for the sunlight just the same, even if its presence didn't make sense. Not needing the torch anymore, he extinguished it with a quick fire-to-air transformation and tossed the charred stick aside before heading for the door and stepping outside again.

The forest was gone. Completely gone. Thane blinked in shock as his eyes roamed the alien landscape he had found himself in. It was like something out of a dream- the perfect lawns, the identical houses, and the scent of a barbecue somewhere. The only thing missing was the noise of habitation. It was suburbia.

Thane blinked once; the lavender glow that marked the judge's location was still visible off to his left. Strange as this development was, it didn't change anything. He had to keep moving forward, and he'd either find and defeat his next contestant, or do the same to the judge. Whichever came first. With a shrug, he strode off towards the glow.

Bright and cheerful as this place was, it remained… eerie, somehow. Thane felt uneasy. The neighborhood was deathly silent, as if it was devoid of people. He glanced around, and saw that it was indeed deserted. But more eerie still was that in place of the absent people were more mannequins. At least something was consistent about this world.

His thoughts were interrupted by a flash of purple- the first he'd seen since entering the catacombs. His muscles tensed. Something bad was about to happen. What had changed? His question was partially answered a moment later when he heard a crash from inside the nearest house.

Not my bad luck this time, he thought, relieved. But it could only mean that his foe was nearby, and had just inadvertently given away his position. Thane hurried to the door as quietly as he could; it was already partially open. He slipped inside and began to search. He blinked once; a lavender mist filled his vision, but there was no sign of anybody else. Then again, the glow of a human body could easily be lost in the swirling energy of the mysterious judge.

He went deeper into the house, looking around carefully as he went. Stepping into the living room, he noticed that the drapes were completely closed, so much so that the only light in the room was from the light bulbs in the ceiling and the TV in the center of the room, which a trio of mannequins were watching. The image on the screen was the only thing moving.

Suddenly there was another lavender flash, and the power went out. The light bulbs flicked off with a click, and the tinny sounds of the TV were cut short. Thane resisted the urge to spew obscenities. The situation was far too dire. He regretted throwing away the torch now; he was helpless in the dark, with his opponent lurking somewhere nearby. As quietly as he could, he began to feel his way back out of the room.

"Please, stay a while," said a feminine voice. Thane froze, not daring to speak. "Thank you. I wanted to take this opportunity to inform you that you and your opponent are the last competitors left standing at this moment. Congratulations on making it this far."

"Wait, that means- you're the judge!" Thane searched for her energy in the darkness, but there was still nothing but the purple mist.
"Indeed I am. My name is Miss Fortune."
"Very fitting. You've really been pissing me off, do you know that?" he snarled, beginning to wander through the darkness, trying to find the source of her voice.
"Oh, you mean my little interventions? Don't be offended. It's nothing personal- they simply happen. As long as I'm around, all of your efforts will be hindered by unexpected turns of fate."
"Don't try to tell me you're not doing this on purpose!" His arm bumped into the arm of one of the mannequins.
"Oh, don't get me wrong. I could 'turn it off.' But this is a much better test of your abilities, isn't it? As well as your opponent's abilities. I want the winner to be truly qualified."
"You bitch…" he grabbed onto something solid- an arm of the sofa.
"Good observation."

"Listen up. You're going to tell me something right now," Thane demanded. "Where am I really? This isn't Earth. This isn't even a third-level world, is it? Tank lied to me, didn't he?"
"Probably. He's not known for his exceptional moral character- none of us are, of course. But what would be the point of bringing you to Earth when we can give you much more interesting arenas on second-level worlds?"
"What about my prize? How are you going to give me the entire Earth if you can't even bring me there?"
"I never said it wasn't possible. My master- the powers that be -she'll be more than happy to give you whatever your heart desires. And she's easily powerful enough to make it happen- more powerful even than you, Mr. Death. Especially here in the darkness, powerless… But relax. If you win, all will be well."
"Master singular, powers plural…?"
"Yes. Well, I will leave you to it. You've got one more fight to fight. Oh… and try not to let a little bit of bad luck get you down." Miss Fortune's disembodied voice chuckled and faded away into the darkness.

"Excellent," Thane muttered. That was awfully strange. But it looked like he would probably have to put up with these damned purple flashes a little longer, at least until his last foe was finished. He began to feel his way back along the sofa, bumping into the mannequins again. It was creepy- their limbs were eerily life-like in the darkness, and he could feel fingers and hands. It seemed like he'd passed two. No, three. Was that it, or was there one more? He'd forgotten. No, there was one more set of hands- though these felt a little strange. An instant later they had moved.

Thane heard the swish of a small blade moving very fast; there was a lavender flash and it made a thudding noise as it embedded itself in the side of the couch. Thane yelped in surprise, leaping up and running blindly through the darkness. He heard his foe get to their feet, grabbing the knife and pounding after him.

This time, the purple flash actually made a noise- a sort of a cross between a whoosh of air and a sizzling sound. Thane's leg caught on the leg of a coffee table and he went sprawling.

Fzshh!

His pursuer grunted in pain as the table fell over backwards, colliding with their legs (his legs, really. The voice was clearly male). Thane rolled out of the way before his attacker could get his bearings and began to feel the wall for anything like a door. He found the frame; his hands followed it until they found a doorknob. Just as his hand closed around it, something wet wrapped itself around his own wrist. He cried out in surprise; it began to drag him backwards, away from the door. But he refused to let go, slowly twisting the knob.

Fzshh!

The door flew open, and Thane flew backward- and felt his foot connect with the man's face. He picked himself up once more and sprinted for the door again, or at least where he thought it was. It was impossible to tell, even with his ability to see energy; the lavender haze drowned everything out.

Fzshh!

He ran right into the wall. Of course.

Fzshh!

Judging by the thud, his opponent had apparently done the same. Thane didn't waste an instant. He found the doorframe again and quickly slipped into the next room. It was still completely dark; he had no idea where this was.

Fzshh!

He tripped over a pile of what sounded like pots- probably the same pots that had created the crash he heard earlier. He heard footsteps behind him. His foe was still pursuing. Thane grabbed one of the pots and pushed it backwards, hoping it would trip the man.

Fzshh!

Instead his foot hit it, sending it skidding back towards Thane and colliding with his back. The man had reached him, and he was defenseless. There was a soft swish as the knife came down…

Fzshh!

And struck the pot that was still resting on Thane's back. Thane dashed forward, not daring to tempt fate again. His hand found another door and he dashed through it, breathing hard. Behind him, his attacker followed suit. Thane rushed forward, holding his hands out to try to feel any furniture in front of him. His hand hit the edge of a table; the rest of Thane changed course, moving away.

Ffffzzzzsssshhhhhh!

There was an especially bright flash, followed by an especially loud crash- the noise of a chandelier colliding with a table. Bits of glass skittered everywhere; Thane covered his face with his robe, hoping for the best.

Fzshh!

A chair toppled over and knocked him to the ground. This time, he didn't move. He had run out of motivation. This was all incredibly stupid. He had no chance of escaping to a better-lit area if the judge kept interfering like this! It was going to end now.

But it didn't. Both Thane and his opponent simply stayed there in the dark, breathing heavily.
"Are you done running yet?" asked the man's voice.
"Maybe," Thane responded warily.
"This is nonsense. Every two seconds, another flash-"
"Blame it on the judge. Not my fault."
"Fine."

But it didn't seem like the man was going to attack him, or even get up. Maybe he was as worn out and ready to despair as Thane was.

"Can I get a name?" Thane asked. "It's a kind of tradition."
"Gideon."
"Gideon? I'm Thane."
"And you're Death?"
"Huh?"
"The conversation you were having with Miss Fortune. What I'd like to know is how Death can be weakened by darkness. That's not very impressive."
"Shut up."
"Seems I struck a nerve."
"I'll just kill you more painfully for that."
"One thing at a time. I'm going to make sure we can fight properly first. Excuse me." Thane could hear Gideon getting to his feet, and then feeling his way out of the room.
"You're going after Miss Fortune?"
"All she's doing is keeping you alive. I don't need that."
"I'll come along. I owe her a painful death already."
"No thanks. See you soon." Gideon's footsteps quickly faded; he had apparently found the door. Thane rose to his feet and followed as quickly as he could, stumbling through the darkness- but by the time he found the exit to the darkened house, Gideon was already quite a ways down the street, headed for the judge.

Thane was ready to run after him when a thought occurred to him. Perhaps it would be better to just kill him now, while he wasn't looking, and maybe while Miss Fortune wasn't expecting it? He pointed at the ground, causing a chunk of asphalt to break off of the street, rising into the air as it formed a sharp spike. Focusing carefully on Gideon's distant back, he sent it flying towards him.

There wasn't even a lavender flash this time- Gideon just wasn't that naïve. He whirled as the spike approached, and something red shot from his arm, knocking it away. He turned towards Thane, waving his hand. A moment later, a mass of small, red projectiles was flying straight for him.

Thane had no time to use magic. Instead, he reflexively dove to the side, taking shelter behind the corner of a house; the red bullets struck the house behind him, leaving dents in the wall. As Thane watched, the projectiles seemed to melt and flow towards the ground. He peered around the corner; Gideon, apparently satisfied, had resumed walking. Thane examined the red stuff on the ground. From the look and smell of it, it was probably blood.

Weird.

He began to follow Gideon again, keeping a safe distance. Perhaps fighting could wait for later after all.

* * *

It did, indeed, wait. Thane followed Gideon for quite some time, passing many of those eerie, deserted houses before finally reaching what was unmistakably a high school. They had arrived at the back of the school, near a football field, rather than at the front gate. Now, for the first time, there was sound to be heard.

A crowd of parents and fans cheered; a pair of football teams seemed to be playing a game right then, running against each other over and over as football teams generally do. The scene was alive… only, it wasn't.

Gideon had stopped near the edge of the field. Thane, who had given up on killing him for the moment, took the risk of approaching him.
"Is it just me, or are these people all dead?" he asked.
"I would expect you to be the expert on that."
"They look like zombies to me."
"Well, if it quacks like a zombie…"
"Huh?"
"Which way is Miss Fortune?" Gideon asked.
"I'll lead you there."
"No. You'll just try to kill me when I let my guard down. …Again."
"Well if you don't know where to find her, how did you get this far?"
"I tried going right out of the dentist's office at first. The road is blocked off that way. There was nowhere else to go but here."
"Fair enough. Tell you what," Thane said as one of the teams scored a touchdown. He had to shout over the audience's moaning. "I need to get up high to see her energy through all of these people. Come with me and I'll point you in the right direction."
"Like I'd let you out of my sights anyway."

Thane started for the stands, climbing towards the top, not that he really needed to get up high to find Miss Fortune. Her energy could probably drown out that of everyone else here- but he had a bit of a plan. As he climbed, he looked around at the people in the stands. Sure enough, everyone was a zombie- but they weren't doing anything zombie-like, aside from eating what appeared to be brains. They seemed harmless, anyway. For now.

At last he reached the top, where a zombie was holding a microphone and making announcements about the game (most of which sounded like "mmrrrrrnn aaganana, nrrrnallloa aaaarrroooo!"). Thane seized him with his shadow; he made an odd gasping noise and fell over. He didn't have much life to drain. Thane grabbed the microphone from his hands.

"What are you doing?" Gideon demanded.
"Fresh brains this way!" Thane bellowed; his amplified voice reverberated throughout the stadium. "Home-made, still-living brains, no preservatives, no artificial flavoring! Right this way, top of the stands!"

Gideon knocked the microphone out of his hands- but it was too late. The crowd had collectively risen and turned towards the commotion; whether they understood what Thane had said was anybody's guess, but they looked hungry enough either way. They poured into the aisles, shambling up the stairs towards Thane and Gideon.

"You idiot!" Gideon shouted. "Now we're both going to die!"
"Sorry," Thane said, "I'm not very good at dying." He snapped his fingers and began to vanish, leaving Gideon to face his doom alone.

Fzshh!

It failed. The world spun for a moment, and Thane staggered- Gideon had seized his sleeve, preventing him from teleporting.

"I can't just let you run away," he said.
"Then prepare to die." Thane's shadow latched onto Gideon's foot. He felt the warmth begin to flow into him. "Your final mistake was-"
Thane was interrupted by the glob of blood that hit him in the face. He staggered, trying to regain his balance.

Fzshh!

His foot slipped; he began to fall backwards, down the stairs. A few seconds later, his head hit something- not the floor, but some zombie appendage. It squished softly as he collided with it.

"Mrrraaaaghh," the zombie stated matter-of-factly. A moment later, before he could react, he felt himself being grabbed by a number of nearby zombies and dragged away, down the stairs. At least the zombies had apparently reached Gideon as well.

"Get off of me! I'll cut you into more pieces than you're already in! Thane, I'm going to kill you!"

"One thing at a time," Thane grunted. His shadow sucked the life out of one of the zombies that had grabbed him, but even as it fell to the side, another took its place. He readied a blast of transformed fire, hurling it towards the zombies that were grabbing Gideon. If he could free his opponent, they might be able to fight off the zombies long enough to survive… and kill each other.

Fzshh!

The fireball missed the zombies. Instead it hit Gideon in the face. Thane leaped in surprise, causing one of the zombies to lose its grip; the others quickly released him as well, surprised by the unexpected change in the weight distribution. Thane tumbled downwards; the last thing he saw before his head hit the ground was a popcorn bag that had a brain stuffed inside.

That doesn't have any significance at all. How anticlimactic, he thought.

The world went dark.

* * *

"I see our other problem student has regained consciousness."

Thane opened his eyes carefully; his head ached. The room came into focus. It was a medium-sized office, mainly consisting of a desk and a few chairs while the rest of the room was empty. Thane occupied one of these chairs; behind the desk, another chair contained Miss Fortune.

"You've been causing quite a bit of trouble around the school," she noted. "You disrupted the homecoming game with your antics, not to mention that you killed the announcer and several of the parents."
"So that's what you look like in person," Thane said, sitting up again. He was immediately grabbed by a pair of zombies; these zombies were dispatched by his shadow with equal speed. "And please tell them to stop that."
"Fair enough." Miss Fortune gestured at the door lazily; a few more zombies that had been standing behind Thane left the room.
"Where's Gideon?" He asked.
"Oh, him? Seems you forgot the part where you hit him in the face with a fireball."
"That was unintentional."
"You act as if it's a bad thing. Take some credit for your achievements, unintentional though they may be."
"So he's…?"
"Not dead, but not in fighting condition, certainly. He'll be in the nurse's office for a while, I think."
"So I win, right?" Thane asked.

"Mmm…" Miss Fortune seemed to consider this. The fact that she had to think about it was a bad sign. "Perhaps. I'm impressed by the idea, but I'm just not satisfied. You two hardly fought at all. I'm not sure you'll do…"
"Oh, that's too bad. Who else are you going to use?"
"One of the surviving losers, maybe. But I'm sure you'll do fine."
"Do fine on what?" Thane asked suspiciously.
"Just a pop quiz," Miss Fortune said, rising. "First question: how do you win when faced with incredibly bad luck?"
"What?"

She snapped her fingers and there was a familiar purple flash as Thane's chair collapsed. Bits of wood poked him in the sides; he leaped up, startled.

Fzshh!

A chunk of the ceiling dislodged itself, plummeting towards his head. Thane put up a shield of air to block it.

Fzshh!

The clump of plaster slid off the shield and hit the desk, sending several pens flying straight towards Thane with incredible speed. He leaped out of the way and they embedded themselves in the wall.

"What the Hell?" He demanded, reaching for Miss Fortune with his shadow.

Fzshh!

It snagged on something- not Miss Fortune, but some small insect that had been living in her desk. She stepped back, unconcerned. "You need to be a bit cleverer than that, don't you think? Come on. See if you can beat me."
"You bitch," he muttered.
"You never seem to tire of that insult."
"Earth to fire!" Miss Fortune's desk burst into flames; she didn't flinch for a moment, even as Thane's energy lifted it into the air and began to lob it towards her. She stepped back a bit, yawning.

Fzshh!

The desk landed perpendicular to the corner of the room, unable to reach Miss Fortune.

Fzshh!

With a loud pop, a piece of the desk exploded and hurtled towards Thane, setting his robe on fire.

"Such a disappointment. But maybe it's ridiculous to think that anyone can win when all their efforts must necessarily fail."

Thane stamped on his own robe madly, trying to put out the flame.

Fzshh!

His shoe had caught fire. He tore it off, trying to toss it away.

Fzshh!

It brushed his sleeve, setting that on fire as well.

Fzshh! Fzshh! Fzshh!

In seconds, the rest of the robe was aflame. The heat made Thane dizzy; he could feel it scalding his skin right through the fabric.

This is it, he thought, she's going to kill me. I was so close…
To what? To a reward that was promised to me by liars, by villains? What's to say there is a reward?
Then screw it. This god damn waste of time- I fought my way here for nothing. They lied to me. But the joke's on them. When I "die," I'll just come back as a force, skip the manifesting, and take down their worlds. I'll start with this one. Nobody messes with Thanatos and gets away with it.

Thane laughed. Even through the burning of the flames, he couldn't help but laugh maniacally.

Fzshh!

The door flew open and a group of zombies carrying buckets rushed in. In instants, the flames on Thane's robe had been doused; he was singed and irritated, but alive.

"Oho," he muttered. "So that's the trick."

Miss Fortune's eyes widened.

Thane sent his shadow out again- not towards Miss Fortune, but to the left of her. To grasp at the air, or absorb light from the desk, but certainly not to harm Miss Fortune. He wanted to scare her but not to hurt her. Not to attack her. He told himself this many times in those instants.

Fzshh!

A piece of the desk exploded again- more softly, but enough to generate a breeze that blew Thane's mist-like shadow over to Miss Fortune. It caught her leg and held.

"So whatever I try fails. Even if it's not in my best interest to 'succeed.' Meaning that if I try to lose, I win. Is that clever enough for you?" Thane asked smugly.
"Hmph," Miss Fortune said calmly. "I guess so. Well, I won't keep you, then. I think you're exactly what my master is looking for." With one final purple flash, she vanished; Thane's shadow slithered back towards him, gathering at his feet.

He stared into the air for a moment before turning away from the burning desk and leaving the room. It could keep burning. So what if it took the school down with it?

"What are you looking at?" he asked one of the zombies as he went by. It stared at him dully. He shrugged. "You guys should really just stay dead. You're more interesting that way." Without another word, he left the room. He had no idea where he was supposed to go to meet these "powers that be," but standing around wouldn't help.

As he passed a window, he noticed a school bus pull up in the front parking lot. It was normal in every way- except that it was painted black with the letters "SE" spray painted on its side.

Thane grinned. "These guys may be freaks, but I have to hand it to them- they have style." He pointed a finger at the glass; it turned into air, and he climbed through the window with ease. "And now either I'll get my reward- the entire Earth, mine to destroy -or I'll make these 'powers that be' understand what it means to piss me off."