Kipo settled against the wall of the cell, completely worn out. All her bones and joints ached, and in the back of her mind (away from all the satisfaction of defeating ANOTHER opponent), she was a little worried. They seemed to be winning these fights by the skin of their teeth, and soon enough, their luck had to run out, right?
Kipo shifted. This concern was starting to settle in the forefront of her mind. "Um... Kris?" Kipo spoke up. "How many more opponents do we have?"
Kris lifted up their hands, preparing to answer, but before they could actually say anything, the guard from outside spoke up.
"You have one more," the guard told them. Kipo blinked.
"...Wait, what?" Anne asked, tilting her head. "That's it."
"I... would have though there were more," Fei Fei frowned, and the guard glared at them.
"Kris had a ninety eight percent rate," the guard grumbled. "So, you didn't have that many left."
For a second, no one spoke, all of them mulling over the new information.
"Wasn't that... different before?" Kipo asked, trying to think back. "What was the number before?"
It wasn't a number that stuck in her head, which was odd, because Kipo was usually good at numbers.
"I remember it being a lot smaller," Fei Fei agreed.
"I think that this is looking a little suspicious," Anne's eyes squinted as she stared at the guard, who rolled her eyes. "Ok, does any one else find it kind of weird that all the guards act literally the same here?!"
Kipo stared over at the guard. While she didn't agree with most of Anne's conspiracies, she, too, was also starting to get a little suspicious.
"Hey, wait, Kipo, weren't you supposed to be the positive one?" Anne suddenly asked. "You look more like the person to say 'I believe in everyone!' than 'this is suspicious'."
"What?" Kipo gave Anne a bewildered look. "That doesn't apply when there are all these red flags, Anne!"
"Alright, alright, I understand." Anne backed away, her hands help up in mock surrender as she shrugged. Kipo turned away, staring back over to the guard. Now that she thought about it, why did they have a guard in the first place? It really did feel like they were prisoners, rather than fighting for some 'honour to fight monsters'.
This just wasn't adding up... Kipo's gaze dropped to the ground in front of her, wondering what to do, when the sand in front of her caught her eyes. Glancing at the guard again, she made sure she was looking away before catching Anne, Fei Fei and Kris' attention. She gestured down to the sand, and then wrote, in big-enough-to-read letters 'We'll have to communicate this way, so we're not overheard'.
Kipo leaned back, and then it only took a couple seconds for Anne to read it, but Fei Fei seemed to be having trouble. Kipo winced, but eventually, Fei Fei seemed to get it, and she nodded. However, Kris didn't move the entire time, even after Kipo waited for them. Eventually, Kipo erased the words, and wrote something else: 'So, we all know this is weird, right?'.
Fei Fei and Anne nodded once again, and this time, it was Anne who erased Kipo's words and wrote something. 'We know, so what are we going to DO about it?'.
Kipo frowned. That was the question, wasn't it?
'I'm worried about this last fight,' she wrote. 'I feel like it came out of nowhere.'
'Yeah, what could they be planning to do?' Anne asked, and Kipo frowned. Another good question.
Eventually, Fei Fei raised her hand, making it hover over the sand, but then she paused, hesitant. She looked like she was struggling, but then she put her hand down, and Kipo and Anne watched as she clumsily wrote the letters.
'We can find anything in here'
Kipo nodded, both because she agreed with what Fei Fei said, and that she was impressed that she managed to spell all that.
'You're right,' Kipo wrote. 'We need to get out of here, and to check around.'
'Yeah, we need to figure out what's going on,' Anne wrote. 'But how are we supposed to get out with that guard there?'
Kipo glanced at the guard. 'Good ques-.'
Before Kipo could finish writing, Kris suddenly stood up, and the three girls watch as they made their way over to the gate. Before they could even blink, Kris had raised their hand, and easily knocked the guard out. She crumpled to a heap on the floor, not even getting a gasp out.
"...Oh," Kipo said, surprised. "Well, I guess that works."
"I can open the door," Fei Fei announced, getting to her feet and running to the gate. Kipo didn't even get to see what she did before the gate was creaking open, though she did see Fei Fei putting what looked like two metal toothpicks back in her pocket.
"Perfect!" Anne cheered, quietly. "Good job, Fei Fei."
Fei Fei beamed smugly at the praise, and stepped through the cell, looking out left and right. Kipo, Anne and Kris stepped up behind her, intending to follow, but Fei Fei quickly forced them back.
"There are guards in front of every cell!" Fei Fei whispered to them in a high pitched voice. "Every one!"
"What?!" Anne frowned, looking bewildered. "The plot thickens... Wait, what if they notice..."
As if actually finishing her sentence would alert them, Anne trailed off, motioning to the guard on the floor.
"Uh, well, some where sleeping... maybe they will think she's sleeping?" Fei Fei suggested.
"On the ground?" Kipo questioned, tilting her head, but Fei Fei sheepishly shook her head.
"They were leaning against the wall..." she told them, and Kipo shrugged, stepping past Fei Fei to pick the guard up, setting her against the wall.
"There, now she looks like she's sleeping," Kipo said. "Well, she WAS sleeping before, but now she's not sleeping suspiciously."
"Great," Anne deadpanned. "But how are we supposed to get through all the other guards? Put them all to sleep?"
"Most of them were already asleep," Fei Fei said. "I think we'll be alright."
"Oh."
The four of them sat in silence for a couple seconds, uncomfortable. They were all understandably nervous, and no one was really willing to make the first move out of the cell, at least until Anne let out a nervous giggle and stepped towards the door.
"Heh heh heh.... What are we waiting for?" she asked, sounding a little hysterical. "To get caught? Let's go!"
And just like that, the spell was broken, and they were filling out of the room, and into the hallway. Anxiously, they peered down both sides of the hallway. It looks like Fei Fei was right, most of the guards WERE asleep.
"Okay..." Kipo whispered, probably more quietly than necessary. "The arena is that way. Are we going over there?"
"Is there... evidence over there?" Anne whispered, just as quiet. Kipo shrugged, and Anne sighed. "Okay! We're going over that way!"
Without further ado, they started down the way, Kipo had motioned to, all of them keeping a sharp eye out for any awake and alert guards. Luckily, they seemed to pass unnoticed, and soon, the cells were behind them.
However, that didn't mean that they were alone. In fact, not only were they not alone, but someone was actually waiting for them at the end of the hall, looking, as expected annoyed and irritated.
Kipo spotted her first, not doing anything, just... standing there. Kipo froze, not even moving when the other three bumped into her. After a whisper chorus of complaints, they spotted her too, and they went quiet. Kipo quickly raised her fists, but the guard only turned away.
"Follow me," she said quietly, but it echoed around the halls, and soon, it sounded like she said it through a megaphone. Kipo glanced back at her companions, and they looked back at her. Eventually, Kipo shrugged, and started after the guard. They didn't have much choice anyway, and at the very least, she wasn't leading them back to their cells.
Kipo, Anne, Fei Fei and Kris followed her through the halls, past the entrance to the arena, and then up some stairs. It was only when Kipo was really starting to wonder where they were going when they finally arrived at a big wooden door, and the guard paused, knocking politely.
After a very long and very tense wait, Kipo's ears finally picked up a faint 'come in', and the guard opened the door, stepping to the side, giving a small cough when Kipo didn't move at first. Taking the hint, Kipo stepped in.
The new room they found themselves in was small, but still bigger than their cell. It didn't really feel like it though, because it was cluttered with a big table with boxes and papers piled up on it, and file cabinets all along the walls. So, somehow, the space the four of them were trying to crowd into where even smaller than the room they usually occupied.
As they tried to force themselves in, a very familiar mustached face looked up, and Kipo's eyes widened. "Wait, aren't you the guy that captured us on the first day?"
Anne face twisted. "Well, 'captured' isn't the right word... we surrendered!"
The man squinted up at them from the paper he had been writing on. "Ah, yes, that was me... and I see you four are causing trouble again."
Kipo paused. She didn't know how to respond to that... "We... We were just a little confused about something."
The man stared at them. On his desk, there was a nameplate: Chief Clifton Reilly. His name, Kipo assumed.
"I... see," Reilly said. "And you needed to sneak out of your room to do that?"
'Room,' Kipo thought, puzzled. 'That's what they're calling it?'
Out loud, she said: "Well, we tried to ask the guard, but... um... they couldn't answer."
"Then it's probably something you don't need to know." Reilly dismissed them, going back to the paper in front of him. The guard stepped forward, almost threateningly, but Kipo refused to move.
"Hold on," Kipo said, putting her hands on the desk, but she removed them when Reilly flinched away. "Some things here aren't adding up."
"Yeah!" Anne agreed. "There's something else going on here. For one, those aren't 'rooms', those are jailcells!"
"And how did we get so much more win rate so suddenly?" Fei Fei added.
"Also, where were those people?" Kipo asked. "Those people we fought in the arena. We never saw them before, and we never saw them again. What's with that?"
"Yeah!" Anne agreed. "Tell us, we're listening!"
Reilly paused, glaring up at them. He huffed in annoyance. "Well, that last one's an easy one. The reason you never see them is because they're in a completely different part of the building that you are. A lot of people never see you either."
After that, Reilly went back to writing, and though Kipo, Anne, Fei Fei and Kris waited, he didn't continue. Eventually, Fei Fei spoke up.
"And... all the other stuff?"
Reilly clicked his tongue. "You don't need to know any of that."
Anne and Fei Fei groaned, and Kipo bent down to Reilly's eye level. "Okay, fine then. Just tell us what we are. Why are we in jail, and also, if we're in jail, why are we fighting for some 'honour' of going to the surface to defeat some monsters? Is this a voluntary thing... or a prison?"
Instantly, the chatter behind Kipo quieted down, and even the guard looked at little interested, and Reilly didn't seem too happy about that.
"Well... technically, you are prisoners..." Reilly told them slowly.
"What? Why?" Anne cried. "What'd we do?!"
"You were trespassing."
"Wha- I think we were just walking through the town?" Fei Fei pondered.
"You snuck into the arena-."
"Then why didn't you say that first?" Kipo stared down at the man in front of her, and Reilly stared calmly back. He didn't really look like all his arguments were getting ripped to pieces. "And everyone else who's fighting in the arena, are they prisoners, too?"
Reilly paused for a beat. "Yes."
Anne huffed. "Why is this sounding a little exploitative?"
"Ok... finally question," Kipo said. "How long would our prison sentence be if we weren't doing this?"
"It would be a life sentence then."
Kipo was taken aback. "What?"
"A life sentence!" Anne shouted. "For trespassing on a town! This IS exploitative!"
"Isn't that... a bit long?" Fei Fei asked.
"So you put people in jail for really little crimes and then you give them only one choice to get out, but it's by fighting everyone else to try and go up and kill monsters," Kipo guessed, watching Reilly's face closely, though she knew she was correct. "And you want US to be those people, right? That's why you changed Kris' win rate so much."
Again, Reilly didn't move, but Kipo knew she was right. She stepped back, crossing her arms. "Then what's the deal sending us into this last fight? Just let us go up to the surface and we'll just fight the monsters for you."
Reilly turned back to his writing. "No."
Kipo blanked. "What?"
"I said no," Reilly said. "We have to keep up our appearances somehow. The public is stupid, I know, but even they will notice if you three disappeared when we've been hyping up your last fight."
Kipo's mouth fell open, and she didn't know what to say for a while. "...And what if we don't win? You want us to go to fight those monsters, right?"
Reilly ignored the second question, and instead focused on the first. "If you don't win, you will serve out your life sentence here. I don't give second chances."
"Then we'll just escape," Anne said in a 'duh' voice, but Reilly shook his head.
"No... I doubt you will," he said. "But if you DO manage to beat Chariot and King and all the rest of them at once, I will be very impressed."
"Oh."
They stood in silence for a second. Eventually, Reilly put his pen down. "Well, I suggest you all head back to your cell and rest up for your fight tomorrow. It wouldn't be good if you lost tomorrow. The guard will lead you back."
Kipo, Anne, Fei Fei and Kris didn't immediately move, but when they figured they really did have nothing else to say, they filed out. Kipo only glanced back at Reilly once, but she couldn't catch his eye, because he was looking back down at his paper.
He didn't seem in the least bit concerned.