Round Five (Final Round) Intro

It was evident to Lard Nar at this point that he didn’t think his plan through enough.

Although his daring escape from the battleground had gone smoothly, his ascent into the sky was not going as well. Hours later, and he was still flying around in the sky on the metal disk, completely unaware of where he would end up. He shivered as the air got colder with the increasing altitude.

“Perhaps I should have implicated some sort of control mechanism on this thing…” he muttered, sitting down in the middle of the contraption and tucking his legs underneath him. “Vort only knows where I’m gunna end up at this rate.”

A loud, sputtering sound suddenly erupted from the bottom of the disk, followed by a few, bright sparks of electricity. The device began to shake violently, vibrating and twisting from side to side. The Resisty leader wrapped his small, grey fingers tightly around the rim of the disk as he peered beneath it, where he saw a thick, black fluid leaking from behind a small door.

“Perhaps I should have given this thing a tune up, as well.” he chuckled nervously, now noticing an odd, sinking feeling as he watched the sky get farther and farther away from him; he and his disk were plummeting. Plummeting from thousands of feet in the air, down to the ground that was clearly not that of Rexant. For all he could tell, he could have drifted to a completely different planet; after all, his vehicle was very fast, and he had stopped paying attention after he realized that there was no way for him to control the thing.

Screams of horror erupted from his throat as he got farther and farther from the sky, the disk slipping from his hand and falling on its own. There was nothing he could do. “The high and mighty Resisty leader, and this is what I’ve been reduced to?” he asked himself silently, his yells still audible until his scrawny body smacked against something cold and hard, a loud “THUD” resonating throughout the air as Lard Nar’s eyes slowly began to close.

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Numerous hours later, the leader came to, two familiar voices floating through his head.

“Thank you, again. Your loyalty has been noted.” one of the voices said, though Nar was in far too much pain to open his eyes and see who the voice was addressing. The voice itself caused even more pain.
It was the voice of the Irken ruler, Almighty Tallest Red.

“Yes! Join us for snacks, won’t you?” continued the other Irken leader, dressed from head to toe in purple. “We have doughnuts in the other room, follow me.”
Lard Nar knew that he had to speak up; he refused to seem so weak and subdued in front of his greatest enemies.

“What’s going o-“ he started to say, though a cough resonated from his throat instead. He was surprised at how painful it was, and even more shocked when he felt a small drop of warm liquid trickle from his mouth. Something was wrong.

Eyes now open a bit, he was able to see the Almighty Tallests turn around and smirk at him, Purple folding his arms across his metal-plated chest as Red reached over and placed his hand on the shoulder of a young, though tall, Irken. He wasn’t completely sure of where he was, though the room he was in resembled images of the Massive that he had seen in school, since the Vortians themselves had designed the ship when they and the Irkens had been allies. But those days were long behind them.

“Oh, goodie, you’re awake.” Red cooed, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid that we have to be goi-“

“TELL ME what’s going on!” the Vortian interrupted, pulling on the metal straps that kept him restrained to the chair that he was placed in. Another cough punctuated the end of his sentence.

The two Tallests glanced at each other, the young Irken looking around confused, almost frightened. Before long, the entire group began to move towards the captured Vortian.

“I suppose that it’s only fair to tell him.” Red spoke, a large grin forming on his face. “After all, it’s his dying wish.”

“Alright, Vortian scum.” He began after clearing his throat. “It’s a long story, and I doubt that you have an attention-span long enough to comprehend the entire thing, so I’ll put in terms that you might understand. This little one here,” he gestured to the young Irken, his brown eyes wide, “came across you when you fell onto his ship. He was trying to get to the repair shop to get his headlights checked out, but he got a bit lost.”
Cutting in, the other Tallest interjected, “You owe him for the cost of repairing the massive dent that your stupid head left in his ship.”

“Never mind that,” Red hissed, waving his hand as if waving the useless comment away, “Continuing on, this loyal little soldier here was able to recognize who you were and, knowing the right thing to do, brought you to us.”

Lard Nar began panting, his head pounding from the bruise that he assumed was there, and even more blood dripping from inside of him. “So? It’s not like you’re gunna do anything to me. And I still have your precious citizens held captive on Rexant.” As soon as he spoke, he wished to take his words back. He was clearly in no condition for a fight, and he really doubted that the Tallests were going to simply let their mortal enemy off with a warning. He tried to slow his breathing and appear as calm as possible.

The two Irken leaders erupted into a fit of laughter. “You’re so naïve!” both of them hooted at the same time, holding their abdomens as the hysterics sent cramps throughout their bodies. Once they had calmed a down a little, Red wiped a fake tear out of his eye before continuing with his explanation. “Yes, two of our citizens are still on your stupid little planet. But, now that we have you here, there’s nothing that you can do to them that you haven’t done already.” He suddenly became serious, “You know, like kill numerous of their fellow Irkens. Something that you’re NOT going to get away with.”

Suddenly, a large screen that was behind the two leaders that Lard Nar had somehow managed to not notice flickered on, and a grainy, poor quality video appeared on it. Whatever was recording the image must have been on the ground, as the angle that the footage was taken showed a flat horizon and seemingly giant trees. Out of the corner of his eye, Nar could see Purple reach for a microphone that was resting by one of the pilots.

“We managed to tap into this screen that survived your ship crashing.” explained Red, nibbling on some nachos that one of the service drones had delivered to him, “We can see from it, as well as talk through its speakers. This allows us to inform our captured citizens that help is on the way. We don’t think that they could be too far from the crash site, and I’m sure Purple is capable of getting their attention even if they are.”

Glancing over at the other Almighty Tallest, the Resisty leader watched as he began calling out into the microphone. “Attention Irken citizens who have been taken captive by the Vortian scum! Attention Irken citizens who have been taken captive by the Vortian scum! These are your leaders, Almighty Tallests Red and Purple, speaking!” Without even thinking twice, the purple-eyed Irken allowed his previous sentence to flow directly into his next one, which was spoken completely in Irken, as if to ensure the two Irkens still on Rexant that this beckoning wasn’t an elaborate hoax by the now-captured Vortian. Although Nar was unaware as to what the purple-eyed ruler was saying, he assumed it was something derogatory towards him, as the other Tallest began to laugh from the other side of the room.

“THIS is your ingenious plan? Making fun of me through my destroyed ship’s intercom?” hissed the Vortian, continuing to pull at his restraints, “You don’t even know Rexant’s coordinates, yet you’re promising help?!”

Suddenly, a shock struck Nar’s body, sending him into a fit of twitches and flailing. The pain burned his eyes and flesh, but he knew that he had to keep fighting. He came this far; he couldn’t let the Irkens foil his plan now. He had exterminated so many, and even the thought of getting two more out of the universe gave him enough strength to hang on when the electricity finally stopped, and he was left panting and slouching in the chair.

“Calm down, calm down, we’re getting to the good part!” Red said, setting a remote control down next to one of the Massive’s pilots. “Not only are WE going to talk to Teivol and Scree,” as he said this, two Irkens came running from the seemingly enormous trees, “but we’re going to arrange a little reunion for you all, as well!” As he spoke, Purple swung a camera that was attached to a large metal arm that came from the ceiling down in front of the Resisty leader. “And as for the coordinates, we tapped into your brain while you were out. We already know exactly where the tournament was being held.”

A small red light blinked on the camera in front of Lard Nar, and the screen above showed a split screen: one half showed the bloody, bruised face of the Vortian, and the other half showed two green faces, one male and one female. Both of them looked confused, glancing between the damaged monitor and each other. Various injuries decorated their skin, and their abdomens were gaunt. They were clearly exhausted, as well: grey circles lined the lower part of their eyes, their antennae drooped, and they panted heavily as if they might soon run out of air.

“Now,” Purple stated, covering his microphone with one hand and speaking quietly, “You’re going to apologize to them, even though that can’t even BEGIN to make up for what you’ve done. You’re also going to insist that the Irken race is FAR superior to the Vortians and the Resisty. And, as a grand finale, they’re going to watch as you are electrocuted to death in front of them before we send out our ships for their rescue.” He quickly poked a small button on the control panel, causing a blue light to blink on the camera, as well, indicating that audio could now be heard by the captured Irkens on Rexant.

Lard Nar looked up at the screen with tired eyes, his hands still shaking from his previous shock. The two Irkens glared back at them, a hungry look in their eyes; they could not wait to see their captor be reduced to nothing. Scree crossed her arms across her chest, while Teivol simply stood still, a grin forming slowly. The Tallest also stared at the screen, menacing looks on their faces, watching their weak citizens and devising plans as to how to get them back in the way that would be the most devastating to the Resisty and any of Nar’s allies. They were so engrossed that they didn’t even notice as Nar leaned down and flipped open a panel on his wrist cuff with his teeth.

“Hello, scum!” he teased, grinning as the Tallests glared at him from across the room. “Pleased too see you again; hope that you’re doing well.”

“Get on with it!” both of the Irken leaders cried in unison, Red glancing down at the watch that wasn’t there.

“Alright, alright, calm yourselves.” he looked back over at the camera, “I’m here to tell you some very important things. Number one: you two managed to make it to the end of the competition. Congratulations. Under normal circumstances, the final round would commence now, leaving only one of you alive at its conclusion. However, it seems that something else has come up.” With this, he glared that the Tallests, who simply mouthed the words, “Do what we told you.”

“Number Two: I need to make an apology. I have to say, from the bottom of my heart, that I am really, truly sorry…” In the middle of his sentence, he leaned down once more, smacking the button inside his wrist cuff with the side of his face.

“Sorry that your rulers are such imbeciles!”

The leader knew that he had just ended his own life, but none of that mattered at this point. Cackles of glee erupted from his throat, despite the pain that it caused him, as guards swarmed around him, pointing spears and other various weapons at him. The Tallests approached as fast as they could, commotion echoing throughout the huge control room of the ship.

“What did you do?!” Red screamed over the noise, reaching over the crowd of Irkens to grab Lard Nar by his shirt collar. “What the hell did that button do?!”

Still in hysterics, the Vortian nodded towards the big screen, causing the entire group to fix their attention on it. Scree could be seen digging through her ChargePAK, as if looking for something, and Teivol was frantically reaching behind him towards his own PAK. A loud beep could be heard coming from the speakers of the ship. Various voices from the cluster called out, “What did that do?! What’s the beeping?! What are they doing?!”

“Get your FILTHY selves away from me, and I’ll tell you!” Nar boomed suddenly, confidence and superiority flowing through his veins. The crowd instantly backed away a few inches, though weapons were left locked on their target. “It’s an emergency device that I had implanted in their PAKs when I first captured them.” He explained coolly, “It’s simply to keep the contest moving along if something was to take a turn for the worse, like what has happened here. I activated it by hitting this button on my wrist.” He paused as the device was ripped from his person and numerous pilots and other personnel began tinkering with it, hooking it up to machines, and trying to find some way to deactivate whatever it was that Nar had done.

“Good luck with that,” he cooed, grinning, “It has a suicide battery inside of it. It recognizes that, if it is pressed, it is clearly in some state of emergency, so the battery explodes, destroying the entire system. There’s simply no way you can reverse what has already occurred.”

Silence.

After a few moments, Red cleared his throat and spoke up, “So, what exactly has ‘already occurred?’” he asked, using his two long fingers to place air quotes around the last part of his sentence.

“Like I said, emergency protocol.” Nar explained, “The devices that I had implanted are bombs. Yes, bombs. If need be, I can activate them to go off within a set amount of time, in this case, an hour. Unless Scree kills Teivol or Teivol kills Scree within this hour, both of their bombs will detonate, killing them both. However, let them fight, the bombs will recognize that one of the bodies is no longer living and will shut the devices down, and only one of them will lose their lives.” He hissed through gritted teeth, “Your choice~”

Silence once again.

The two Irkens on the screen had stopped their frantic running about at this point, staring, mouths agape at the scene before them on the monitor. Neither of them spoke, and simply glanced at each other.

Eyes wide, Red and Purple did the same, before approaching the camera and sighing heavily.

“I guess you heard that,” Red remarked, looking sadly at his two citizens. “Apparently, and unfortunately,” he glanced around the room at everyone there, each with a look of sadness in their eyes that mimicked his own, one of the pilots holding up Nar’s cuff and shaking his head, indicated that no solution could be found, “I-I don’t think there’s anything we can do. We know the coordinates, but it would take three hours at best to get there, and even then it would be extremely risky to try and remove an implant from the PAK due to all of the sensitive tissue around that area.”

He glanced down at the ground before turning around to the group. Pointing at Lard Nar, he calmly stated, “Get him out of here,” and watched as a handful of guards carried Nar, electric chair and all, out of the room, a cocky grin still plastered on his grey face. The red-eyed leader slowly turned back around to the camera.

“There’s only one thing that we are capable of doing, and it’s not a happy solution. But we’ve lost so many at this point, and we can’t let him win anymore than he already has.”

Scree spoke up at this point, glaring at the monitor and remarking, “What are you implying?”

Another heavy sigh, and Red looked at the camera with a heavy heart, “I’m saying that, as horrible as it sounds, losing one would be better than losing two. Neither solution is even close to ideal, but we have to pick the lesser of two evils here. I need you two to do something for me and for your entire race…

…I need you to fight.”