Game Master Round 1.3

"This is a competition isn't it?" Kenny said as they traveled through the jungle.

"Duh.... why would you even say that?" she replied.

"Well, so far we've only encountered Shinji and Benimaru. I'm sure we're supposed to be meeting others here too."

"True, maybe they died," Coral shrugged. "Hey, where did Ophelia go?" she asked, referring to the smaller of the plant monsters.

Kenny shrugged, he used the Vuvuzela-sounding whistle again to call her. This time, she didn't come. "That's odd. Vincent, find Ophelia," he told the bigger monster.

The monster bobbed it's head back and forth, eventually deciding on a direction. After ten minuteds of dodging trees they could hear a rather psychotic laughing in the distance. Vincent stopped before they reached a small opening in the jungle that led to flattened grass. There Ophelia was deflecting blow after blow from a large war hammer. The laughing had come from it's wielder. Beyond this battle, on the other edge of the opening, there was another person. This one looked almost exactly like the person holding the war hammer.

"They must be from one of the other teams," Kenny whispered. They stayed quiet while the battle waged on.

Ophelia miscalculated a step and was hit on the right side by the war hammer. Down to the ground she fell. She took this chance to melt into the ground.

"Whack-A-Mole? I love that game!" the crazy fighter screamed, watching the ground and waiting for Ophelia.

Ophelia came from behind, in between him and his look-alike on the other side of the field.

"Behind you Shadow!" the person yelled, obviously a girl.

This man, Shadow, had quick reflexes. He turned himself around quickly and landed the war hammer into Ophelia's head, causing her to melt into the ground again.

"I think I got the pest that time Rachael!" he smiled in triumph.

Kenny growled and hopped off of Vincent. Coral followed suit and allowed Vincent to go underground and find his partner.

Coral watched Kenny, if he ever got angry it had to do with her or his pets. Shadow had crossed the line. She watched him in a daze for awhile until a sneeze brought her back to reality. The girl, Rachael kept sneezing.

Kenny stepped into the field, "Shadow I presume? I believe we have some unfinished business."

"We do?" Shadow replied, confused.

This started the battle. Coral stood and watched solely because Rachael made no move to join the battle either. Instead they watched the battle and, at one point, watched each other. The battle would have been even but Kenny was gaining the upper hand due to his anger.

"Kenny! Wrap it up, we got a competition to win!" Coral yelled, getting bored of standing there.

"Why don't we trade places?" a voice said from behind Coral. It was Shinji.

Coral squealed and hugged him, "Where did you go?"

"I was working out some inner demons," he smiled at his own pun. "So I hear you're in a competition. How about I take Kenny's place and fight this guy while you two move on?" he said.

Coral nodded and pushed Shinji into the field, "You're going to switch with Shinji, so let's get a move on!"

Kenny nodded and backed away to let Shinji take his place, Shadow seemed unfazed by the switch.

"One more thing," Kenny said walked over to Rachael. She swung a baseball bat at him, only managing to crack it when it slammed against his arm. She backed away glaring. Shinji threw Kenny one of the long string-like explosives wrapped around his leg. Kenny grabbed it and picked Rachael up with one hand. He tied the explosive around her hand to a small tree bordering the field.

"Alright, so don't tug this... it might explode or something," he told her nonchalantly and walked away. She made no move to follow him.

Vincent reappeared and brought Kenny and Coral back on track to the center of the jungle. The clanging of metal on metal soon disappeared as they traveled farther away from the battle.

"One team down, two to go," Coral said.

Kenny nodded, "Is Ophelia okay?" he asked Vincent. The monster nodded, staying focused on where he was going.

"That's good." Kenny said. He stayed quiet for a awhile.

"So Kenny..." Coral said, the silence was bugging her. She turned to see blood dripping down everywhere on Kenny's body. She inhaled slowly, realizing that the fight must have reopened all of his wounds. His body swayed a little before he fell off of Vincent. "Kenny!" she yelled, jumping off of Vincent who had stopped when he felt Kenny fall off.

She tried stopping the blood but there was simply too much. As she panicked she could hear others in the distance. With her adept hearing they could have been miles away, yet they alerted her none the less. It was two men in conversation.

"I haven't seen any of the other teams yet," one man said.

"Who cares, we're the best of them anyways," a different man replied.

"Maybe there will be a battle royal at the end?"

"You fight and I'll sneak the flag past, from what I know all the other artists are just girls."

"Sounds like a plan, I could defeat the other characters any day. That is, if I feel like it."

"You better, I'm not going to lose to a bunch of girls."

On a conversation like this continued. Coral panicked again. Kenny was in no condition to fight and despite their demeaning words, they weren't completely off base. She knew she definitely couldn't fight them off without Kenny.

"Vincent, take Kenny and hide him," she ordered. Vincent looked at her confused, he knew she couldn't be alone. Yet, he slide under Kenny's body, picked him up and moved away, watching her the whole time.

She relied on one of the few skills she did have, digging. Back in her home land, she would have to burrow to stay cool in the desert. She would also dig to avoid predators. So after years of digging daily she became quite skilled at digging deep holes quickly and efficiently. She got to work digging through the jungle ground. She created her hole in the shape of a crescent, about 4 feet wide, 6 feet long and 10 feet deep. Normally this would take a group of men hours but within two hours this hole was finished.

Her breath was heavy when she climbed out of the hole, her light weight allowing her to climb easily without pulling more dirt into the hole. She then continued to cover the whole with various thin branches and leaves. She intended to use this hole as a trap for the two men. She placed herself on the inside of the crescent, just outside the hole and facing the two men who were very close now. She huddled herself up on the ground, covering her face with her tail and waiting for the two men to show up.

"What's this?" one man asked, she could tell they were only a few meters in front of her.

"One of the artists I think, the one with the tall guy remember?"

"Oh right, where is he now?" the first one said. Coral could hear leaves crack as he took one step closer.

"Don't get too close, it may be a trap," the other man offered.

"Whatever, I won't be beaten anyways." the other said, taking a few steps closer. Coral could barely see him over her tail, he had white hair with black highlights. He didn't really seem to take the situation seriously at all. He took a few more steps before falling into the pit.

Coral smiled to herself until she saw his hand catch the side of the hole. The dirt crumbled away under his hand but his grip was replaced by his other hand, in an attempt to stop falling.

His partner, a boy with messy brown hair just watched as if he was in daze. Suddenly he snapped out of this state and ran to help his character. When the boy lowered himself to grab the other man's hand, Coral jumped on his back and then behind him, then proceeding to kick him down into the hole. The man caught the boy but their combined weight was too heavy now, as the dirt gave way.
She was lucky the jungle dirt was as moist as it was. This prevented either of them from trying to climb up. She had a feeling this wouldn't stop them for long, but she just needed the time.

Long roots seemed to shoot out from every side of the hole, they wrapped themselves around the two men. Coral watched confused and then smiled, realizing what had happened. Ophelia's head popped out of the ground and looked in Coral's direction. "Thanks Ophie, distract them as long as you can," she said, giving the monster a kiss on the head. Coral didn't understand how Ophelia did it, but she didn't question it and ran towards where Vincent and Kenny had gone earlier, leaving the second team behind.

It wasn't long before she found Vincent and Kenny. Kenny was slowly breathing and laying on Vincent, his eyes were closed. He was still alive though which was enough to relieve Coral.

"Is the center close?" she asked, Vincent nodded. Just then her com-link, the old joystick controller, pushed itself out of Kenny's backpack and to the ground in front of Coral. The controller cord began to scribble words by themselves into the air, creating a trail of black behind them.

It was Sapphyre, she was sending her a message from her own com-link. It followed a Pesterchum message from Homestuck. Typical Sapphyre, Coral thought to herself with a smile. The message in the air wrote;

---sapphyreEdge started trolling coralLotus at *insert time here*---

SE: Coral! What's up Brosef Stalin?!

Coral couldn't believe Sapphyre was actually able to message her. She picked up the cord and started writing in the air after Sapphyre's message. They continued messaging each other for some time;

CL: Brosevelt Franklin! Things be good.
SE: Good times
SE: So dude, where are you? I'm stuck here in the jungle surrounded by nature.
CL: OMG Seriously?
CL: I'm here too!
SE: BRO THAT IS AWESOMESAUCE!!!

Coral frowned, no that was not awesomesauce, that means she would have to face Sapphyre and Spade which again, she couldn't do without Kenny. Either way she kept a positive attitude, which showed how stressed she really was, and continued to message with Sapphyre;

CL: No it's not.
CL: I'm dying from this heat….this sucks.
SE: Suck it up P:
SE: Dude, you and Kenny should totes try to find me and Spade!!
CL: Hellz yeah! That would totes be epic.

Epic it would be, if Kenny survived. After awhile of no answer, Coral slipped the com-link back into Kenny's bag and jumped onto Vincent's back. "If it comes down to a battle, you'll help me Vincent, right?" Coral asked.

Vincent nodded, understanding the situation completely. It was soon after this they came to a clearing in the trees. In the clearing were four tree stumps, carved to look like a pedestal. Each stump had a team name on them, the far right one bearing the name, "LemonBlue."

Coral exhaled in relief to see no flags placed on any of the stumps. Vincent set Kenny to lean on one of the trees at the end of the clearing. Just as Coral jumped off of Vincent, Sapphyre and Spade walked into the clearing.

"Well what do ya know? It's my dearest friend, what's up buddy?" she asked.

"Not so good," Coral replied, motioning to Kenny.

"What the hell? You'll have to tell me what happened later. After I place this flag and kick your ass, I'll be happy to help you," Sapphyre replied. Spade staying quiet behind her.

Coral laughed, "Kenny or no Kenny, you're not winning anything here!" She jumped over the stumps and lunged at Sapphyre. To say the least it was the worse battle in the history of battles. Just two girls slapping at each other's hands from a distance with their heads turned away. Boring.

Vincent and Spade on the other hand engaged in a real battle. Spade was throwing his playing cards at full force, a few managing to slice Vincent in various places. As he was dodging the snapping of Vincent's mouth he tripped on a tree root Vincent craftily placed behind him.

More came from the ground to drag Spade down. Spade pulled out the lighter he kept in his pocket to burn away multiplying tree roots that tried to grab a hold of him. This same lighter that was unfortunately pulled into the ground by another wayward root. From the lighter he used his last resort weapon, a switchblade he hid in his shoe.

While these battles continued, one of epic proportions and the other not so much, Kenny slowly opened him eyes.

"Wow, is this the center?" he whispered to himself. As his vision came to he could see Coral 'fighting' Sapphyre and Vincent dodging Spade's blade. He reached into his pocket to find their team's blue flag still folded inside. Luckily Coral hadn't taken it.

He slowly worked his way to their pedestal. His energy was drained away with all of the blood he lost. Neither Coral, Vincent, Sapphyre or Spade had noticed him yet. They were all too engaged in their own battles. He slowly placed their blue flag on the pedestal marked, "LemonBlue." The flag burned into the tree and one by one the pedestals disappeared. They had won.

The disappearance of the pedestals caused both battles to stop instantly.

"Kenny you're alive!" Coral said, racing to him.

"For the time being...yes," he said with a smile.

It was time to tie up loose ends here. Sapphyre was pissed she didn't win, but who wouldn't be?

"Hey, you tried hard," Coral told her afterward. "Besides, I know plenty of people that wouldn't want to see you like this and would want you to go kick more bootay in the future. Like Kisuke and America and Donghae and M. Shads and his dimples of course... because if you don't smile at them, then you have no soul," Coral said, reminding Sapphyre of one of her favorite motivational posters about M. Shadows' dimples. He was the one and only lead singer from Avenged Sevenfold.

Sapphyre smiled at this which made Coral feel a bit better about that situation. After that they patched Kenny up again.

Tying up loose ends also included retrieving the two men, who they found out were Scherzo and Bodie from Team Citrus. Vincent was able to pull them from the hole. Coral sent them off with Ophelia to lead them back to the outer edge of the jungle where they could get picked up by their team leaders. Sapphyre and Spade stayed with them until they reached Rachael and Shadow.

Here they found both Shadow and Rachael tied to the tree with explosives. Shinji was lounging about in a nearby tree. Battered a little but still okay. It took some time to get the explosives off but the two were soon sent off, with Vincent as their guide.

Coral let them get a head start before leaving with Sapphyre and Spade.

~~~

It had been a long day and Coral was finally glad to lie down in bed. Though she was sure Kenny was even happier. It was hard to believe Coral had punched Kenny in the face just this morning, an incentive Kenny had to keep still. He didn't need anymore wounds to reopen and get anymore blood on the sheets.

"So how about telling me those dreams you've been having recently? The ones you keep beating me up because of," he asked.

He turned to see Coral already asleep. He smiled and said nothing, eventually falling into his own dreams.