"HOLY MARY MOTHER OF CHRIST WHAT THE HECK JUST HAPPENED JIN?"

Silence.

"Jin?"

Sniffling.

"Oh god, Jin, are you crying?"

Ava was holding her arms tightly around herself, confused about the scenes they'd just watch unfold.

But at the pitiful look on Jin's very red face, Ava lost the bite in her voice. And her voice.

Jin folded himself forward and heaved a toad-like sob.

Ava, not one for physical contact, gave a pitiful pat to Jin's shoulder. "There there," she said uncertainly.

After a few more sobs of various volumes, Jin sniffled himself into a red-faced lull.

"You don't get it, do you?" he asked in breaking tones.

"Get what?"

"Tae is...."

Ava hated the feeling that suddenly sank into her stomach. She hated the look on Jin's face, the sound of his voice, his tears.

But most of all, she hated Jung Hoseok.

As recognition took hold, Ava crawled to her feet in a daze, found a bin near to the doorway, and threw up.

____

Lilith wandered into a dingy room where Min Yoongi sat at a portable computer with a sugar stick in his mouth and his shoulders hunched forward in concentration. She had changed from her black dress to her strappy black combat gear and she had a bloodless, blank look on her face.

Lilith wasn't sure what to say, where to start.

Yoongi pretended like he hadn't noticed Lilith's entrance.

"Suga-nim, I...."

He asked flatly, "Did you finish mending Hobi up with that medi-pen after his fight?"

"Yes. He should be ready for round two," she said in a quiet voice.

"And Chimin's ready for our great getaway?"

Lilith nodded. "I think he will be when it's time. He's already plotted the best escape course, at least. He left me some hand grenades in case we need to block our exits."

Yoongi's voice was rough, relatively normal. "Alright. Well sit tight, because our final magic trick is ready to fire."

"You mean you broke the codes?!" Lilith's voice rose a few octaves.

"I mean. This arena was built before my great-great-great grandparents were even an inkling in someone's mind, thank you very much. These anti-magi-codes are some serious shit." Yoongi sent a self-satisfied look over the top of his laptop. "So yeah. Of course I broke the codes. This bitch is ready to blow."

"It's weird to think that they're what have kept the games fair for the fighters for so many years...and you're about to render them useless."

"Yeah, but what's fun about fair?" Yoongi sent a deadly smirk over his computer screen in Lilith's direction. "Especially when the end goal is a bit of healthy anarchy."

____

"Joonie, where do you think you're going?"

Kim Namjoon looked like he was prepared to sprout wings and launch himself from that balcony seat as he gripped the hand railings that he'd been leaning over just as the final blow had landed.

As Tae's final breath had been heaved in Hobi's lap.

He didn't answer Petra, just pivoted from the balcony railing and started for the exit staircase. As he moved, three of the six fellow fortress leaders in the box suite with them stepped in his way to stop him. He eyed them viciously, his hands clasped into fists, then spun around and walked up to Petra.

His hands lashed and latched around her throat, tight and intentional. Menace flickered in his narrowed dark eyes.

"Get the fuck out of my way. I'm going to Tae."

She gasped, "He's dead so what's the point?"

His grip only tightened, and Petra made a slight choking sound. His breathing became fast and strong, like angry wind bursting from his flaring nostrils. As his thumbs dug into the front cleft of her throat, as Petra gagged for breath, two sets of strong arms reached forward and pulled Joon off of her.

Petra fell forward coughing and gasping.

Joon twitched and struggled, and roughly shrugged his way out of the grips of the men on each of his arms. Then he adjusted the sleeves of his suit jacket and tugged on the end of his jacket to smooth in over.

"I'm leaving."

"You walk out of here now, you walk out of here for good, Kim Namjoon." Petra said with a laugh. "Let's not have you loose the salvation of Noon Mool to a petty emotional whim like grief. Such a fleeting thing, the grief of one life, compared to the grief of thousands."

Joon wanted to punch that evil smirk right off of Petra's face.

"There's a good boy," she cooed devilishly.

A trumpet sound was raised again as the gates opened once more, but it wasn't the announcer's voice that suddenly echoed over the stadium to announce the next battle.

The raspy voice of Min Yoongi echoed over every living body, a sound jarring and enlivening all at once, to ask, "How's the entertainment been so far?"

The sound of it was like a warning siren to Kim Namjoon. Something is very, very wrong.

There was a roar of general approval that rumbled across the stands. Petra and Joon, however, both wore shocked expressions as they slowly walked up to the edge of the box suite and gripped their hands against the bars of the ledge.

"Well you snitches better be ready, because we're about to show you something you ain't never seen. Make some noise for the best act your asses are gonna see all damn day."

The crowd wasn't even concerned over who this strange new commentator was or what the act was about to be. The gruff announcer, the strange shift in mood, and the fact that four gates had just opened below them at the same time, sent the stands into a general uproar. They did indeed believe that they were about to receive the greatest show they'd ever seen.

As four separate figures stepped out, one from a different gate around the oval stadium, Kim Namjoon thought that he had either already, or was about to lose his god damned mind.

"I have to stop this," Joon said in a deadpan voice.

Petra snapped back, no hint of playfulness in her voice as she said, "You don't need to do anything. Except stay where I tell you to stay: at my side."

"You fu—"

"Watch it. I like you, Joonie. That's why you're up here next to me, instead of being the dead body that just got dragged from the arena. You should keep it that way and stay still, with your sexy mouth shut. Besides." Petra swished the drink in her hand. "I think this is going to be the most entertaining thing I've seen in a long time."

"But what if they hurt Shae? She doesn't belong in any kinda fight, especially one that's completely rigged against magic! They swing her down, and there goes your fancy new toy!"

Petra gave a petty laugh. "Oh, they may hurt her plenty, but they won't be able to kill her. Not really. And that's really all that matters."

"Bitch."

"Oh, I know I am. But what are you?"

Kim Namjoon's face flushed with the fullness of his fury.

"That's what I thought. Just a—"

But whatever Petra was about to say faded into a scream as Kim Namjoon launched himself into her, yanked her by the shoulders, and threw her over the side of that three story balcony.

"Fuck this."

Without waiting around to see where she landed below, his arms flashed with electric white rune light and he turned towards the exit. All six male fortress leaders standing there parted before him like the Red Sea.

"Those bastards aren't killing her, too." Joon barked. "Over my dead body."

Dee-Oh, among the casually observing fortress leaders, had a devilishly pleased grin on his face as he watched Kim Namjoon rush away in a white-lighting fury. The Essem leader laughed into his cocktail, "He has no idea. He really has no idea what he's just done."