"Everyone gather around! We will now be choosing the groups!"
After about 20 minutes, Eros' name was finally called.
"All right. In group 28, we got Ivan Shieldings, Eros Eldritch, Lucerio, Sasha Green, Ibo Obara, Fuze Forest, and Knight Light."
Sasha hugged Eros after the announcement while Lucerio complained that he had to be paired up with him once again. Eros hung his arm around Lucerio's neck, testing his luck.
"It seems we're an inseparable duo after all..."
"Yeah..." Lucerio muttered to himself, annoyed by Eros' presence. They gathered with their group members, who certainly made for a weird bunch.
Ibo crouched in the corner, typing away on his laptop. Eros doubted he even noticed the rest of their group members as he stared deeply into his laptop's screen. There were dark circles under his light blue eyes, stress covered his young face.
Fuze was covered in a pound of makeup, her cheeks blush red. The brunette was too occupied applying more contour to her face, ignoring Eros as he greeted her. Her brown skin matched her eyes, madly in love with the reflection in her pocket mirror.
Knight was the opposite of his name. He did not appear brave nor strong in the slightest. The young man cowered in a corner, uncontrollably shaking. In a way, he reminded Eros much of his younger self, a version that Eros vowed never to be again. It seemed like this young man had not found a similar resolve yet, cradling himself as he rocked back and forth with black strands of hair covering his scared hazel eyes.
Ivan stood against the wall, yawning as he scratched his beard. He was not a morning person, surprising Eros considering his old age now.
Lucerio stood behind Eros, staring at the roof out of pure boredom. Knight had tried introducing himself to him earlier but Lucerio gave him a death stare, resulting in Knight hiding in a corner far away from him.
Sasha still had herself wrapped around Eros' arm, her head resting on his shoulder. She had not let go of him for some while now, perhaps believing that if she let go of him, he would forever disappear like a distant dream. Her eyes were closed as she smiled and muttered his name several times under her breath, unaware that Eros could very well hear her.
Well, this is great. I got an old man, an emo, a number 1 fan, a screen zombie, a narcissist, and a coward... How am I supposed to win with this group? At least I got Lucerio and Ivan, they will be more than enough to pick up the rest of the slack.
"By the way kid, I forgot to tell you. I'm not gonna be in the festival with all of you."
There goes the old man...
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"I made a suggestion that one member of every group be selected to disguise themselves as staff members during the event."
"And let me guess, that member in our group happens to be you?"
"Why, of course... my young artist."
Knight grabbed Ivan by the arms, tears streaming down his eyes.
"Wait! You mean you get to live in luxury and leisure for over a month while I gotta fight to the death!?"
"Precisely. That festival of war is a young man's game, I'm far too old to participate in silly events like that. Best of luck to you, young man."
"NO! IT SHOULD BE ME INSTEAD! I DON'T WANT TO GO!"
"Relax, have some faith in yourself." Ivan softly laughed, clapping Knight on his back. The coward cried even more, falling to his knees and muttering curses under his breath.
"I-I swear, if I survive that festival old man..."
Eros interrupted, placing his hand on Knight's shoulder.
"It'll be fine, Knight. You'll survive the festival."
"You should listen to him, crybaby. Eros is the strongest! He'll protect all of us!" Sasha teased, her head still resting on Eros' shoulder.
Don't go making promises for me. I don't know who I will be able to save during the festival.
Eros smiled softly at Knight, reassuring the crybaby. The young man sniffled, looking up at Eros before he hugged his knees tightly.
I need a new team...
"You'll be working closely with the nobles then, old man?" Lucerio asked, zero emotion escaping his words.
"Yeah... trust me, that will be no picnic. I heard the last festival was the longest one, it lasted nearly 3 months because the last 10 survivors were hiding out in different regions of the moon. The nobles got bored of watching them do nothing, so Velvo Volarion suggested that they tortured their staff until something interesting happened in festival. The nobles placed bets on how long it would take until Velvo could break them. But there was something else that happened that day..."
"What?" Eros asked.
"Velvo brought Belle and her mother to spectate the festival as his honoured guests an—"
"Wait! Her mother? I thought they said they were too late to save her? I thought Velvo took Belle as his only prisoner?"
"They were... the moment Velvo captured them, he planted fake corpses of the mother and daughter at the scene, which our analysts confirmed was them."
"Which obviously wasn't true."
"Right, it was likely due to an art that Velvo was able to trick our analysts, hiding the fact that he had captured both of them. We found out the truth too late..."
"At the festival..."
"That was their first public sighting in 2 years. They looked slightly different, probably due to years of torture and malnutrition, but once our analysts confirmed it was indeed them... it was too late. After suggesting his little mini game, Velvo forced Belle to torture her own mother..."
"I..."
"He made Belle skin her alive, promising he'd abolish the slavery of Empyreans in secret. Once she had finished, Velvo whispered into her ear that he had lied..."
Eros remained silent. For the first time since the day he had lost everything, he was lost for words.
Belle...
"Before Belle could even process what she had just done to her mother, what she had done for the amusement of nobles... Velvo announced that he would be entering her into the next festival to compete for him."
"That's..." Even Sasha was speechless. Eros hadn't noticed, but the entire group was staring at Ivan, listening to Belle's tragic story. They all remained quiet, unable to meet Ivan's eyes.
"Belle was only 14 when she killed her mother, easy to manipulate, easy to make false promises to. In the past 5 years, it's not like the association hasn't tried to rescue her, there have been multiple attempts. Some were so close to rescuing her, but each time she refused to leave with us."
"Why?" Lucerio asked, slightly interested in the story now.
"Because the kid blames herself for what happened. She doesn't believe she's worth saving, much less worthy of being a queen to her people. It's likely that when you're in there, she will refuse your help. She plans to kill herself..."
"I won't let her." Eros replied with a determined expression. His angry violet eyes locked onto Ivan's. "I'll save her before that happens!"
The entire group looked at him, nodding their approval.
"I'll help you save Belle!" Sasha exclaimed.
"Me too!" Ibo had closed his laptop, nodding his approval to Eros.
"She'll need a makeover once we save her!" Fuze agreed, lost in thought about what makeup would be best for the young queen.
"I-I'll help too! As long as there's no scary monsters, right?" Knight asked in a concerned tone.
"And I'll provide any support I can from the viewing party kid! I'll be sure to cheer you on!" Ivan chuckled, clapping Eros on his back with enough force to break a tree in half.
"Stay out of my way when we're in there. That goes for all of you..." Lucerio replied coldly, walking past all of them to leave the room.
"No..." Eros gripped Lucerio's wrist tightly, stopping him before he could leave. "When we're in there, we're going to need to work together..."
"Maybe if it was just you and I, that'd be true. But look around us, they're dead weight. What's the knight in shining armour gonna do when we encounter the champion? Piss himself? And what about Mrs. Married To Her Own Reflection, she gonna ask it if it thinks she needs more makeup?"
"Hey, you're being rude!" Sasha yelled at him.
"Careful fangirl, you're gonna need that tongue for all that ass kissing you've been doing since you met Eros..."
"It's no wonder why you had no fans coming out of the academy. Did your mother ever teach you any manners?"
Eros grabbed Lucerio's right wrist in time, stopping the dagger before the blade pierced Sasha in her right eye. She was breathing heavily, her eyes widened as if her life had just flashed before her eyes.
"Why don't you just leave... we don't want you here. Nobody wants you..." Sasha panted, the rest of the group except for Ivan nodded in agreement. Their hands were reaching for their weapons, incase Lucerio intended to attack again.
I need to take control of this situation.
"Sasha shut u—"
"Fine. I don't want to be here anyways."
"Wait! Lucerio, don't leave!"
Lucerio slammed the door, shattering the glass surrounding it. And just like that, Eros knew that their group had sealed its fate.