In the end, just the 6 that Jack had on his side made the two of them completely helpless. There was quite literally nothing they could do in order to win, so long as Jack always stole one card, then attacked the other.
Although they still tried, it was all for naught.
First, Myra went down. The card that attacked her was a spades, which transformed the card itself into a wide spades suit. Then, it cut off part of the outer layer of her stomach, revealing a small part of the rib cage and the organs within.
But other than being rather shocking to look at, there was no immediate threat. Though if handled poorly, then a bad infection was probably coming for her.
Secondly, Elise went down. The card that finished her was a diamonds, which materialized a scythe that slashed at her body diagonally. A rather large gash formed on her torso, and began bleeding.
But still, all things considered, it wasn't too bad. In the end, Blake was the unlucky one that faced the worst punishment out of the three.
Though panicked, both Myra and Elise got bandages to try and deal with their injuries. Myra was having a tough time and was also looking over at Blake, which distracted her. However, Elise was able to finish it fast enough and rushed over to perform basic treatment on him.
"Don't worry, I got him! Focus on yourself!"
Myra gave a small nod and furrowed her brows as she used her bandages to essentially act as a layer of skin. However, it was still quite painful when they pressed onto her organs, prompting her to sweat and grit her teeth rather hard.
At the same time, three separate cards flew over to Jack from the respective playing decks.
He got a 2, 4, and a 6.
Though despite the fact he already got the reward and the punishments were delivered, they weren't ejected from the game. Jack looked around curiously, thinking that there might've been some other game he was missing, but that didn't appear to be the case.
However, before he could ponder over it any longer, the scenery suddenly shifted. All of a sudden, it had become dark and dingy, but that wasn't because they were in the cavern. The tables disappeared, while the chairs arranged themselves to form into rows.
The seats themselves had a decent amount of space between them. Jack was in his seat, while the other three were on the ground near them, still tending to their injuries. For a few moments, nothing really happened.
It seemed that Elise and Myra didn't really realize their actual situation since they were more focused on tending to the wounds. Elise whispered to Blake, but it was more like she was doing so to herself.
"Come on, you're not dead, are you? Just fucking moving around hurts like hell and I'm doing all this to save you, so you better be appreciative and live, fucker!"
After a little while, Blake did become conscious once more. He blinked a few times and tried to open his eyes all the way, but they lazily fell down right after.
"God... I feel... so tired..."
Elise was panting, but still smiled.
"Thank god, you're actually alive."
A bitter smile was on Blake's face as he looked around.
"Chest hurts like hell though. I guess you two aren't much better off either though."
But before they could have a heartwarming moment, a loud snap rang throughout the place, as two massive spotlights turned on. While the room was still dark and dingy, it revealed enough to show what looked like a stage. Apart from this stage, there were countless rows of seats, though save the one Jack was on, they were all empty.
And at the center of said stage, was something that appeared to be a person. Except, it wasn't so simple as that. Even from a distance, it was easy to see that various parts of the body were instead replaced with mechanical parts.
However, it wasn't like a fancy cyborg with futuristic additions. Instead, there were parts of the body made out of rusted scrap metal, along with broken wires hanging out from everywhere.
One of its arms was completely mechanized, made out of a simple metal endoskeleton with countless damaged wires around it. As for the parts of its body that did have skin, were also damaged. Stuffing was seeping out from these damaged parts almost like an extremely worn-out teddy bear.
Additionally, there were five different metal rods sticking out from its back, all with sharp pointed ends. It almost appeared as though these rods had joints from how they bent, and stretching it slightly would make it appear as though a hand was reaching out to grab the thing from behind.
However, despite the strange state he was in, the guy smiled anyway, and upon closer inspection, one would see a mixture of stuffing and mechanical bits within its mouth.
There was also a small doll sitting on its shoulder. It had brown hair tied into pigtails along with green eyes. The face had clown makeup on top, along with a small red clown nose with a wide smile to match.
There didn't appear to be anything tying it down, but it had no trouble remaining on the thing's shoulder anyway.
After taking an exaggerated pose, he began speaking, his voice projected like he was talking into a microphone.
"Now that everyone's awake, we can now start the show! Since we have such a special guest, I thought it would only be natural that we make an extra special game today! But before we begin, I ask that everyone takes their seats. A proper audience doesn't lay down on the ground."
His voice was distorted, and jarring to listen to, like the scraping metal was part of its voicebox.
Blake furrowed his brows and whispered.
"We should do what he says. He's definitely not someone normal."
Elise seemed against being compliant but didn't say anything in the end. Instead, she helped Blake up into the chair. Blake leaned far back in his chair, with his neck over the backrest, using it to make the load easier on his rib cage.
Myra did something similar, trying to be cautious with her organs as it wasn't the most comfortable when they rubbed against the bandages.
Once everyone did get seated, the guy at the center spoke up once more.
"Alright! To start things off, we will be your host, Stanley and Naya! Unfortunately, we aren't the star of the show today, so we will be taking more of a passive approach. But get ready, as we now bring in our three contestants!"
Several loud and squeaky pulley sounds resounded throughout the room, as three different people were slowly lowered from the ceiling. They were all bound by a combination of ropes and wires and had duct tape on top of their mouth. Combined with their lighting, it made it a little hard to make out their features. The three were all trying to break free, but that consisted quite simply of squirming and muffled screaming.
And some of their faces were quite familiar.
"Everyone say hello to our contestants, Jessica, Mia, and Mike! Give them a hand for all failing a surprise game so spectacularly!"
Seeing this, Jack stood up from his seat and waved with both hands enthusiastically.
"Hi guys!"
Seedy matched his energy and waved too, looking quite excited. As for the other three, they were looking on rather nervously. Jessica and Mia naturally didn't recognize Jack since he had an entirely different get-up along with Seedy on top of his shoulders.
As for the host, Stanley, he let out a small chuckle.
"It's great to see that some of our audience members are so excited. If that's the case, then I won't delay any further! Here's our first little fun game I like to call Donations!"
He spread out his hands with confidence.
"Each member in the audience will be given a 2, 3, and 4! You can choose to donate to our contestants here any amount you want. However, if the value of any contestant exceeds 10, then they will lose their chance at redemption AND the person who donated the smallest amount will share their fate! You can also choose to forsake donating altogether, and you will get to keep any cards you don't donate."
Stanley then put up a finger on his lips as though shushing, and spoke with a low tone.
"But keep in mind that if a contestant doesn't receive any donations, then for our next game, they will almost certainly lose! Now, it is our contestants' turn to try and beg you for a pretty penny!"
Suddenly, the duct tape ripped off all of their faces, prompting them to cry out in pain. The first one to speak up was Mike, who immediately began bribing.
"Sort it between yourselves and give me a 9! I will double any cards that anyone gives me back after this is all over."
Mia immediately lashed out after hearing that.
"Bullshit! We purposely gave you an out when you were losing so that you could win with us, but of course, you had to fuck it up and get us all trapped in here, piece of shit!"
Jessica had a frown on her face.
"It was so easy for us all to survive too. Why did you go so far? You really tried to kill us all when we went out of our way to help?"
And so, the arguing commenced.