Blurred out sounds of the voices of his teammates, the yelling and cheering from the audience, and the muffled out sounds of explosions filled Chan's ears. He opened his eyes, a certain dizziness caused his own world to spin as he did so, he blinked rapidly to rid of the wooziness only to discover himself being dragged away by Jakob and Gaho, with Jisung right at the rear of the group, prompting the two eldest members to hurry up.
"It's gaining on us!" Jisung yelled, pulling out his sword as he didn't follow the rest of the team anymore, "You guys go ahead, I'll take care of this bitch!"
"Jisung!" There went Gaho, almost ready to scold Jisung just by cursing in the middle of an amphitheater battle, until the younger male cut Gaho off.
"Definitely not the fucking time!" Yelled Jisung as he attacked the bull with his sword, straight from the bottom, buying the others enough time to get behind the blue line, where everything was always safe during battles. As soon as Gaho and Jakob got behind the blue line with Chan, Gaho instantly told Jakob to help Jisung. Jakob jumped into the battle with his club in his hands as he let out a rather dramatic scream of war.
With a few swings of Jakob's club across the four-horned ox, and five stabs to it's side from Jisung and his sword fighting skills, the beast fell to the floor with its dying bellow, followed by blood oozing out of its body and onto the amphitheater floor.
The arena was filled with a roar of cheers, and whistles from the audience, from those who betted on them and from fans that even Chan dared not to believe in unless one would introduce themselves to Chan. Another victory within the first month of the year.
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"For Pete's sake, Chan!" Chastised Gaho as he gently scrubbed off the dirt on Chan's face, restraining himself from hurting the younger male then and there, "No idiot charges into an animal with four horns without any weapons!"
"And just because you knocked down a similar beast with your bare hands, doesn't mean that you can do the same thing on an even bigger one," Seungmin interjected, his hands in surgical gloves, the medicines, gauze, and disinfectants ready on a tray. "Don't overestimate yourself too much."
"How's the clinic working, Seungmin?" Gaho asked as he assisted the spectacled male on applying first aid on Chan.
"Quite well," the latter replied as he gently applied the disinfectant on Chan's new wounds, "Jeno and Jaemin have been very helpful, even though they bicker at certain times."
"And the tattoo shop managed by Hyunjin?" Chan interjected, hissing as Seungmin directly pressed a swab with disinfectant on his wound, the latter sending an apologetic smile Chan's way.
"Customers come and go, he just had an apprentice last night," Seungmin answered, removing the surgical gloves with a sigh, later on cutting off a fair amount of gauze to put over Chan's wounds, "You're lucky you don't need stitching this time, last time you needed stitches were-"
"Six months ago," Chan cut Seungmin off, grimacing to the dusty ground, "so now I had a tattoo that I didn't plan to have."
"I'm pretty sure Hyunjin did a great job with the wolf on your chest though," Jakob spoke, meaning to cheer up Chan with a compliment, but the other male wasn't having any of it.
Taeyong, Jungwoo, and a new head administrator that goes with the name "Moti" have added so many thrills to the amphitheater events, from brutal criminals to mutated beasts against the gladiators, they never ran out of ideas to entertain the spectators that come to watch the bloody events every week days.
That beast that Chan and the others were facing was a mutated beast that scientists made over the past long years, Taeyong paid them, of course, with unknown amounts of money, but everyone gambled that the madman paid mountains of amounts of money or cheques. Despite being a tyrant and a dictator over the past two and a half years, everyone - except for the gladiators - agreed that he is a man of entertainment.
Others, who didn't support him, would mock him behind his back, that he would be better off handling a circus rather than a country if all he wanted to do was to entertain himself and others that supported him. Little did they know that all the entertainment ideas were from Moti, who was mentioned before, a new addition of the administrators, since he used to handle an entertainment house at the Entertainment District.
Taeyong's sitting on the throne as a President of the country had caused immense karma already, taxes increased, excelling to the higher status wasn't as easy as it was before, rates of hungry citizens rose, and even riots and illegal protests hadn't stopped after his victory - which had lead to mass killing and red tagging.
With all the politically bad events happening, the former gladiators that accomplished their own missions, were promised to be untouched from the government of any violence. While laying low, Hyunjin, Changbin, Seungmin, Minho and Jeongin take turns on investigating where the people, who have gone missing since Taeyong's sitting at the powerhouse. So far, all of them were known to be active protesting citizens and non-supporters of the corrupted government officials.
Seungmin was the first one to be released, miraculously, he had achieved winning five months straight, he resumed studying in med school and opened up a clinic shortly a year after establishing his clinic right beside Hyunjin's tattoo shop, since Jeongin and Seungmin were both released the same month, Jeongin had returned to studying while working part time at Seungmin's clinic, or as what Seungmin called it as 'free food and free bed to sleep on' for Jeongin's assistance.
Hyunjin had been running a tattoo shop three months after he was released from the Amphitheater, Changbin had been assisting Hyunjin ever since he was also released shortly after Hyunjin; their records weren't far apart, with all his determination and probable shear dumb luck.
"There," Seungmin said with a satisfied sigh as he finished putting a bandage over Chan's wound.
"Gladiators for the next interval, please prepare yourselves by the safety gates," they heard the ring master, Qian Kun, announce, "the gladiators for this interval, please proceed to the medical wing to be scanned so we would know if there are any deep and internal complications."
Before going the only opened gate of the amphitheater, Chan looked up at the hologram of the chart rankings, seeing that most of his team was in the top ten, except for him. Chan was one heck of a runner, he was a fighter also, but things have changed - a lot.
Two years and a half has passed, yet the team hasn't ever forgotten their great loss, Felix, who was their symbol of hope, their human embodiment of sunshine, and their representative of motivation. The short amount of time Felix spent with the others was great enough to cause a mourning and longing impact on them. Even so, everyone responded quite differently, the others recovered quickly and moved on, the others were still missing him, and then, there was Chan, who had the belief that Felix is still alive.
It was understandable for the others, since Chan and Felix had been lovers for the majority of Felix's membership. Jakob and Gaho have been helping Chan recover for the long years, however Jakob had been sensing that Chan was still in his bargaining stage, not budging at all.
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While watching the batch of gladiators fight off the same mutants that Chan's team and other teams had fought earlier, Chan noticed Chaewon at an area, assisting a nurse in aiding Renjun's bleeding arm.
"Hey, Chaewon," Chan said as he approached the female, can't help but remember Felix from the slight similarities that the lass had with her brother, minus the freckles.
"Hi Chan," the lass greeted with a friendly smile, face covered in a thin sheet of sweat from the heat and also probably from working, "how was today's match? I couldn't really watch since I was busy at the kitchen, I had to fill in two spots."
"Three at a time?" Chan started to worry, "Isn't that triple the job you have in the cooking quarters."
"I get paid triple anyway," Chaewon giggled, "besides, I'm chained to the area that I'm assigned to until these shackles are satisfied," Chaewon added, lifting up her skirt to show her ankles wrapped in shackles with a count down meter.
"Dongjun and Saeji are fine, right?" Chan queried further, doing his best not to sound too worried about Felix's family. Chaewon nodded, and then turned to give the nurse the gauze pads needed for Renjun's wound.
After Chan's imprisonment with the others, he had been checking on Doyeon, Chaewon and her parents whenever their intervals in the amphitheater finishes. He made a clear promise to himself that he'd take care of them, make sure they're safe. Felix would as this of Chan and Chan just knew that the aforementioned male would ask for the exact thing.
"Chaewon..." The man called, having Chaewon turn to him with a hum, a narrow smile painted on her face as her eyes were wide with curiosity. "How are you?"
Chaewon went silent for almost a minute, her smile wavered for the first time in that moment, then she opened up her mouth to speak, "If telling you I end up with an aching body from overworking, would you be okay with that?" She answered with a question, he voice almost cracking as she responded to Chan.
Chan frowned, then he sighed. He petted Chaewon by the shoulder and then sent a reassuring smile yo her direction.
"I'll get us out of here soon, Chae," Chan swore for the nth time already, but it didn't matter to Chaewon on how many times Chan made the same promise, because the more that he swore, the more hope she felt grew in her chest.
"Thanks Chan," Chaewon beamed gratefully at the man, a sad tear running down her cheek, "you guys really are symbols of hope."
"Injured gladiators, please follow me!" Announced Jaehyun with a few claps of his hands, catching the attention of the gladiators in the area, "Hurry now!"
"I'll be off, Chae," Chan turnedto Chaewon as he slightly ruffled the lass' now jet black hair, "Tell Dongjun and Saeji that I said hi!" Then off he ran towards Jaehyun, who was leading the throng of injured gladiators towards the clinic.
"What's going on?" Chan asked Jaehyun under a whisper, walking in the same pace as Jaehyun.
"Taeyong forced my employees and I, also Yuta and his men, to create a type of technology a few months ago, so your healing won't take up too much time," Jaehyun answered as rolled his eyes to the memory of Taeyong whining about gladiators taking long leaves because of serious injuries in the amphitheater, "just come and watch what happens, and we're going through a few tests too, the others might find it painful, since Taeyong doesn't have enough funds for hiring human test subjects, we only tried it on rats and dogs."
Chan felt a creepy shiver down his body at what Jaehyun just told him.
"The tech hasn't been tested on real humans yet?" Chan asked, growing nervous for the operation.
With a shake of his head, Jaehyun answered, "No," he nonchalantly said as he clicked on the names of gladiators that were following him, "you guys are the first ones."
The gladiators were put onto chairs, some of the ones who moved a lot had to be strapped to the chairs, and for the first time since Chan last went to an actual doctor's appointment, Chan had an IV line attached to him.
"I don't remember you saying that there would be any blood transfusion happening," Chan muttered under gritted teeth, only to hear Jaehyun softly laugh at the comment.
"Relax, it's part of the process, these will help quicken the process and have it not so painful," the latter explained, "unless if you want to feel prickling numbness, then be my guest I can use the unmixed material-"
"I take it back-" Chan immediately said, some slight post traumatic flashbacks kicking in. Having Jaehyun snicker at Chan's reactions.
"Okay, and I might have you sent to a trusted psychiatrist of my family on the weekends," Jaehyun wrote down on his clipboard, he turned on the machine and Chan jolted at the cold substance being transfused into his system, "so far so good, your body has been reacting well to the substance, are you feeling any sudden shiver or sweaty palms?" Asked Jaehyun as he monitored Chan's vitals.
Chan shook his head to the question, unable to hold back a yawn.
"Dizziness? Hallucinations?" Jaehyun asked as he noticed the bruises and fresh wounds on Chan's body started to heal.
Chan shook his head once more to the query, internally struggling to keep a neutral face as he felt the stinging pain all over his body.
"Oh and about that psychiatrist?" Jaehyun brought up the previous conversation, eyes trained on his clipboard as he wrote down some notes, "She might help you with your..." Jaehyun took a rather long pause, swallowing hard at the thought of having no other choice than to say it to Chan, "Felix situation."
"Oh," Chan laughed, eyes closed by now since he was starting to feel relaxed from the transfusion, "I'm not surprised you don't believe my crazy theory about Felix still being alive." Chan yawned again, "Damn, why am I so fucking sleepy?" He questioned in pure annoyed curiosity.
"Don't worry about falling asleep, Chan," Jaehyun smiled, "it's how the transfusion works, you'll be awake a few hours after the process and you'll be ready just in time for the welcoming ceremony later." Chan chuckled, followed by a yawn, eyes growing heavy as the side effects of the transfusion was coming in fast.
》a/n《
I'm so excited for this book as much as I was excited to work on Acceleration! I never really thought that Acceleration would have a sequel, but here we are! There is so much more to tell about the books' world and the characters that live in it and I can't wait to tell you guys all of that within this book!
Updates will be monthly, so don't forget to add this to your library if you want to get notified about the updates! Also follow me if you want to read my other stories (completed, ongoing and soon to be published), thank you! Love lots!