"She's from earth?!"
"Yeah, we never really knew where she came from in the first place but this is so far from what either of us thought. Her DNA I guess was 50 percent from the islands and 50 percent from earth. The earth DNA didn't have any sort of element in it and there were no records of her being born in any hospital on the islands."
Blair was still trying to process the situation herself. "Vanagloria being from earth was a joke we would tell each other as a hypothetical. It's insane to think it's reality."
"I think that makes her the only one." He said.
"Oh yeah, she definitely is."
"So did they give you any idea what they're doing to Vanagloria? Like what type of element is she getting?" Said the guy sitting next to Blair in the back of the truck.
"Yeah this is definitely Martyr." She thought to herself, looking over at him. It had been a super long time since they had seen each other last so one of her big worries of the trip is that she wouldn't be able to recognize him and she would end up with a stranger.
Despite the stupid looking black goggles he was wearing, he looked pretty much the same, just a little older than the last time she had seen him. His extremely dark skin had more small scratches on it and his pure black messy hair had grown out a little bit from the almost completely shaved head she remembered. It must've only been and inch or two of messy hair but it made a big difference. He had even grown out a little facial hair all along his jawline and down to his chin. He was still really tall, with his legs pressing up against the other side of the truck. He looked around the same age as Blair, 19.
One thing that worried Blair is that Martyr wasn't wearing a suit like her. She was wearing it as a way to look less poor in the sea of rich kids they were about to enter. She wasn't able to get Vanagloria in a suit either, Blair ended up changing after she lost her in the hospital. Martyr was wearing pretty typical faded jeans and short sleeved plain black t-shirt that showed off his surprisingly good muscles for his assumed age.
"Blair?"
"Oh yeah, sorry there's a lot on my mind right now." She said creating a little bit of visual confusion on Martyr's from her unfazed response after he caught her staring at him.
"Well the doctor said they are going to give her the shot in front of the arena it before the competition starts. I imagine he's going to use the fact that she's from earth to surprise everyone when they give her the element test on stage. But I guess It would get us noticed by everyone and it would promote their hospital." Blair said, grabbing her hair from flying in a hundred different directions.
"I honestly don't trust the doctors that much, it just doesn't sit right with me. Gloria told me she wasn't entirely on board either because of how people might react to somebody from earth on the islands but she was willing to take the risk for the team."
"Wow…"
Martyr looked speechless. "I'll have to thank her for that one. That's the type of person we need on our team. I'm sure it'll all work out though."
"I know, I think it'll end up ok in the end but I'm just worried about her, plus I missed a lot of what she was saying, I was getting so emotional in the hospital. She's the closest thing I have to family, and I know she can take care of herself but I…"
"Hey don't worry about it so much, it sounds like you gotta take your mind off it a bit." Martyr got up. "Lemme get you a hairband. Here I'll yell in the car for one, I know Sam has a few."
At the moment Blair hadn't even noticed how messy her hair was. She had subconsciously been pushing out of her face this whole time.
"No you don't have to scream, I have some in my bag." She says letting go of her hair to slide her backpack off.
"Oh my god." Blair closed her eyes to absorb the complete bliss as the backpack crashed down onto the floor of the trunk. She felt so weightless, the 30 pound burden she had been carrying all day long finally had a place to stay.
"Yeah oh my god, you just put a dent in my truck."
"Oh crap, I'm so sor…"
Martyr laughed, "No no, it's fine. That's the least of my worries right now."
The car starts to slow down and comes to a full stop at a crowded traffic light.
"Perfect timing." Blair rushes to get her headbands out before the truck starts again.
As she starts to pull her hair up, Martyr opens up the back window. "Hey how's it going in here, were you guys able to fit everything aight?"
Blair can just barely hear the girl in the shotgun say "Yep, we had to put her friend's bag up front though." The girl up in front had Vanagloria's bag on her lap and was turned around taking to Martyr.
She notices Blair and waves to her. "Hi Blair!"
Her boyfriend in the driver's seat turns around and does the same with a small smile.
"Hey guys!" Blair waves back with the hand with the hair band, still holding her hair in the other.
HOOOONK!!!
Blair shoots up in terror from the noise. While Spectre was waving behind him the light turned green and the grandma in the car behind them seemingly lays on her horn.
The honk also seems to get everybody else as well. It especially gets to Spectre who accelerates a little too fast around a right leading into a massive parking lot, catching Blair off guard for a second time.
"Sorry!" Martyr yells behind them as the car takes an illegal left.
As Martyr shuts the window, Blair looks down at her hands in horror to realize the hairband she once had had flown out of her hand and probably out the back of the truck in all that chaos.
Martyr turns around so his upper back is above the roof of the truck, grabbing the sides of the trunk to keep himself in place. He locks eye-contact with an angry Blair who is being supported by the tailgate of the truck, her hair flowing behind the truck.
His expression is confused at first, clearly taking him time to process why Blair looked so angry. After he looks down at her empty hands he starts to burst out in laughter only to be cut off by the truck coming to a screeching halt, digging the corner of the truck roof into his back.
Before Blair is able to even start revenge-laughing back at Martyr, her 30 pound bag flies directly into her chest, shoving out all of the air she had in her lungs.
…
After a minute of the two of them groaning in pain on the floor of the trunk, the tailgate opens revealing the two of them to the rest of the group.
Too out of strength to flip her body around, Blair moves her head up to look at her upside down friends sticking to a sky of a parking lot that goes around an impossibly big castle that she had seen on the way to the hospital.
"Did we make it?" Her voice sounded scratchy as it left her throat.
"Y-yes, we made it." Samsara said with a hand over her mouth. Her voice was shaky, clearly trying to hold back laughter to try and not embarrass them.
She hears a muffled laugh coming from Spectre who had his face tucked into his hoodie. One hand was being used to lean onto the truck, the other pulling up the collar of his hoodie.
"Y-you good?" He said trying to be as genuine as he can.
"No."
The truck makes a creaking sound, being pushed down by the weight of someone getting into the trunk. Blair was too lazy to look who got on, nor did she really care at the moment. Soon after the weight of the bag she still had on her stomach was lifted, making Blair feel like a feather once more filling her with energy.
When she sits up Blair faces a dead eyed Martyr sitting down defeated. Samsara who now had Blair's bag in her back lifted up the goggles on Martyr's face. His eyes flare up showing their incredible scarlet color.
"Oh fuck, I can't see!" He says immediately covering his eyes with his arm.
"Come on man, we gotta go." Samsara's tone is more serious and collected now. "From the looks of it the entertainment part has already started."
"I'm never riding in the trunk again." Blair says, slouching out off the tailgate onto the hard concrete.
"Here Spec, can you put this into the back seat." Samsara hands him the bag effortlessly. "Grab the entry fee money too."
"Yeah, I got it." He said, still calming himself down. His pale face is now completely red.
"Martyr." Samsara extended her hand out to help him up.
"Thanks but I need a second to adjust." Martyr said making a dumb face that doesn't seem to help him see any better. "Why are we even taking off the glasses, this is too much for me."
"Cause we don't wanna look stupid, have you seen these things." Spectre said, slamming the back door.
"Bro you got glasses on right now." Martyr slowly starts to get himself up.
"Wow you really are blind." Spectre laughs.
"Yeah you do, don't fuck with me." Martyr says, staring hard at Spectre. "I can see them on your face."
"Nah, these are just normal sunglasses. No shot I'm wearing the ones the guard gave us. They look like diving gear."
"Whatever this doesn't matter, we gotta go." Martyr jumps off the truck with a big slam, small orange sparks shoot off the ground around where he landed.
"Do we have everything?" He says looking around for everyone. "Everybody's here? Who got Vanagloria's paper?"
"Her paper?" Spectre asked.
"Yeah she's gonna be performing even before the event I guess. That's why she's not here." Martyr responded before Blair could.
"Wait really?" Samsara looked surprised.
"Yeah I'll guess we'll see soon enough."
"I've got the paper in my bag." The 5' 3 Blair says looking up at the 6' 3 Martyr.
"Ok good job, now can someone explain to me why we parked all the way in the back of the lot."
Blair looks at the parking lot now at a normal angle and notices how there are no other cars near them. The parking lot is easily a few blocks wide and the truck was parked the farthest away from the colosseum it possibly could be.
"We noticed some people fighting over in the crowded parts of the lot, it's better if we just avoid them, I don't wanna risk getting in the middle of a fight." Samsara said now off of the truck, standing next to Blair.
"Aight good call, let's just get over there as quickly as we can." Martyr says starting to walk.
They all follow behind Martyr as he starts to navigate his way through the sea of empty cars filled with bags and different types of weapons.
"Holy shit." Blair says as she passes by a car with a stack of spears and swords in the back seat. "Why are there so many cars armed like they're about to go to war? Were we supposed to pack weapons?"
"They're not supposed to be. We can only use the non-lethal weapons provided by the capitals." Spectre said from behind her, in the most serious tone she had ever heard from him. "They pack it for self protection. In case they get into one of the fights like the one we saw earlier. Some teams think it's a good idea to take out the competition here."
Blair pictured the last time she saw Vanagloria. "What did we get ourselves into?" She thought to herself. "How have I not thought about this before?"
"Don't worry about it, we won't let anything happen to you guys." Martyr said from in front of her as if he was reading her mind. "We're a team now. We protect each other."
"It's just… Now that I think about it, I've never been in a real fight before. My only experience is from our combat class."
"It's fine, I can help train you guys. I've been in plenty of real fights in my life, Sam and Spec have been a few themselves. Plus the school training is still helpful, I wouldn't discount that."
"Yeah the outskirts of the dark capital are pretty brutal right?" Blair said.
"Eh, Martyr's hyping it up for you, most of his fights came from the drama in his friend group." Samsara poked fun at him.
"Yeah that shit gets heated!" Martyr said, raising his voice as if this wasn't the first time he had to prove the seriousness of his fights. "Those fights are always the worst, street fights I can just end with one fire move. If I pulled that in a friend group fight I would be a scumbag for fighting dirty."
Spectre started grinning at him. "'Oh no, Altair slept with another girl again.'" He said with a high pitched voice.
"Oh my god. Don't make me explain that whole drama to them."
"I don't know, I'm kinda curious now." Blair said, joining in on the fun.
"Okay well first of all, they aren't all bad…" Martyr slowed his pace to walk next to Blair.
"That friend group? no way." Spectre said, sliding through two very close cars. "Martyr you couldn't get away from them for years."
"I mean we did meet Martyr through Calamity." Samsara said, looking back at Spectre.
"Oh yeah, back when she was still cool."
"She is still cool." Martyr said with a confused look.
"Bro you really gotta stop hanging out with her." Samsara said. "Calamity is not good for you."
"Nah, I can handle it. I know she's a good person deep down, she just has some… habits she has to take care of."
"He's got girl problems." Samsara whispered to Blair, making her laugh.
Martyr looked like he was trying to hold back embarrassment while he glared over at Samsara who was grinning at him.
"You guys gotta sit me down and explain all this drama to me later." Blair said with a big grin. "I could listen to this all day."
"Oh trust me, Martyr loves to talk about it." Spectre said.
"Yeah." Martyr admitted with a laugh. "I mean if we go major today, that means we'll end up on Australis at some point and you'll probably get to meet them."
"Wait really?" Blair looked up at Martyr.
"Well… some of them." Samsara hesitated a bit. "I can think of a few I wouldn't want to expose you guys to."
"They might not get that choice." Spectre said.
"Hold up, we can talk about that later." Martyr said, putting his hand out to get them to stop as a car went by him.
They were one road away from the colosseum. The road in front of them was the one thing standing between them and the colossal building.
Blair looked up to try and see where the end of the colosseum was. It wasn't even close to as tall as the pillar of Astreum which soared past the clouds and beyond but it was a similar feeling. It was almost scary, the closer she got to the building the more it seemed to loom over her.
"Go now!" Martyr said, which caught Blair off guard as the rest of the group started jogging across the road.
She was able to catch up pretty easily as the rest of the group wasn't going too fast.
Blair got across the road first along with Spectre, the rest of them seemed winded by that 50 meter dash. Blair was very proud of herself. She wasn't out of shape by any stretch of the imagination but she ran with Vanagloria a few times a week and always got destroyed whether it was long distance or sprinting. It happened to Blair whenever she did any sort of sport with Vanagloria.
"Bro my back is killing me." Martyr whined as he caught up with the two of them on the sidewalk.
"Yeah, what happened to you in the trunk?" Spectre said, looking a bit concerned.
"He got his back cracked by the roof of the truck." Blair giggled.
Spectre let out an explosive laugh. "Yeah I probably should've warned you before I parked that quickly."
"Yeah, I'm not sitting in the trunk next time." Martyr said, pressing his hands on his back.
Blair looked back at the road from which she just came. "Wow… this really is the big city." She thought to herself while she joined Martyr looking at the skyscrapers beyond.
Blair felt like she learned a little too much about Martyr's personal life today. All of the talk about his girl problems had stuck in her head.
In fact,
A devious little idea started to form in her head.