Hot Potato
Ding!
Damon and Bryan looked down at their respective phones simultaneously. The long message contrasted against the cold simmer of the setting sun.
Message: [Congratulations on completing your first mission. You are now officially documented into the Hippoi Areioi. Meet at location xxx xxxx xx for orientation. The special requirements have been made for this test, bring xxxxx to xxx xxxx xx...]
The message continued on, but the two read it in silence.
"Is this for real?" asked Bryan.
Damon stood up from the bench, he looked out across the river at the setting sun.
"We don't have a choice. We already made it through the first three tests, we can't go back now."
---
The next day began bright and early in the morning. The birds were chirping and the clouds were clearing into an open blue expanse.
In the city of Cleveland, off the side of the residential district and closer to the rural suburbs, six strangers stood in the middle of an empty airfield.
There were no planes, no helicopters, nobody but them. They all stood opposite eachother in a circle, staring in pairs of twos.
Aria stood next to Luna.
Across from them stood Bible, a soft compliant man in a dark black military jumpsuit. And next to him stood Jill Bell, a rowdy woman who wore a short crop-top, tight blue jeans, and a sawed-off shotgun that hung by a silver chain that wrapped around her waist.
On the other side of the two duos, stood a tall man named Geroge Mike, who wore a bulletproof vest and dark green camo pants. Next to him squatted JK, an older rougher man in his mid-forties, who had pulled-back black hair and a dark red scar that cut across his face and chest. He was also half-naked, with long sweatpants reaching down to his ankled-boots.
The three duos stared at eachother, waiting for the final text message to tell them that the preliminary tests were finally over. To tell them that they could finally enter the Immortal Horses and compete for the real prize, for not just plain old fake immortality, but for the real thing, for True Immortality.
---
Two minutes later and Damon and Bryan finally walked on the scene. They strutted to the group of six. The three opposing sides all staring at them in unison.
"Finally," scoffed Bible.
Jill Bell pulled out her phone, "is that all that made it? Out of fifty only eight survived?"
Luna turned to Damon.
"Damon!" she screamed while instantly jumping across the empty asphalt space trying to get to him.
But as soon as she reached half the distance between them, Damon quickly held out his hand stopping her approach.
"Don't approach us!" yelled Bryan as he pulled a grenade from a paper bag.
Luna slowly backed away as he pulled the pin.
Chink!
"Whoah whoah whoah! What are you doing?!" complained Jill Bell.
Bible and Geroge Mike immediately pointed out their fingers, ready to cast their witch powers on Bryan, but Aria quickly stepped forward stopping everyone's confused anger.
"Everyone settle down! I know this guy..." She turned to Damon, "what are you two doing?"
Bryan spoke up, "this is the final test, the final orientation. Me and my friend here were given a special request to buy a grenade and set it off during the orientation meeting."
"And you actually believed it? You listened to that message? You followed it blindly?" asked Jill Bell skeptical.
"Yeah, Damon, do you wanna kill us or something?" asked Aria sarcastically.
Damon looked at her with a stone-cold face, "I couldn't care less how this goes."
Everyone started bickering with each other as Bryan held tight to the grenades lever.
"Just toss the grenade away," suggested Bible.
George stepped up, his bullet-proof vest contrasting the bright orange sunshine, he pointed at Bryan.
"Are you trying to kill us? After we passed all those trials?" he questioned. "Cause if you are, then I'm going to have to kill you first."
Slap!
KJ slapped Geroge on the shoulder. He stood up from his squat with his insane muscled chest bulging out with every step.
"You all, stop bickering and just listen to what the kid has to say," he said pointing to Bryan.
Bryan spoke up to the group, "ummm, yeah... So this final test before the orientation. In the text, it sounded like they wanted us to play hot potato with a grenade. We'll all have to stand in a circle equally apart and toss the grenade between ourselves."
"Can I run away?" asked Jill Bell.
"No, if you do, the text said you would be killed on the spot. This final test is mandatory, there is no backing out of it. And... Well... It did say this but... The worst part is... It said... One of us here is gonna have to die, cause this grenade has to go off in one of our hands..."
Jill Bell looked up with her soft brown hair and green eyes, "but grenades explode in like six seconds?"
Bryan tossed the grenade to Damon.
Tick...
"Whoah whoah whoah chill man!" she screamed out as if the grenade was gonna go off.
Damon caught it.
"The message told us to pick up this grenade at a secret location. It's been modified to have fifty ticks, one second per tick."
"Fifty ticks...?" she looked up.
Complete silence.
Everyone else stared at her, completely stone-cold.
"Can yall stop staring at me-"
"Can you please shut up?" asked Aria slightly pissed off by her constant talking.
Jill turned back with a pissed-off stare, "I'm not going to shut up, bitch... This is life or death."
"Did you just call me bitch?"
"Yeah! And I'm gonna ask all the questions I can! My life is at stake here! Your's I don't give a shit about!" she screamed back.
Aria turned to Damon.
"Damon just toss the fuckin grenade already, I'm sick of hearing her voice."
He tossed the grenade to Jill.
"Wait not me..."
The grenade flew across the air.
Tick... Tick... Tick...
She caught it in her two hands and quickly gripped the lever.
"Yall are fucking insane!"
She immediately threw the grenade to Aria.
Tick... Tick...
Aria caught it.
Tick...
She tossed it up into the air.
Tick...
She caught it again. She tossed it back into the air.
Tick...
She caught it. She dangled it by one finger, not holding down the lever, not stopping the clock. She let the ticking continue.
Tick... Tick... Tick... Tick... Tick... Tick... Tick...
"What are you doing?" asked Luna.
"It's a strategy in hot potato, where I let it tick down until it gets low. Usually, this is just random since Hot Potatoe is played with a random timer, but it's a lot easier if I know how long you have to wait for."
"Then what are you going to do after the timer runs out?" asked Luna again.
"Well..." She turned to Jill Bell, "I'm gonna toss it to her and kill her."
Jill stared back with a mad gaze.
"Don't you fuckin dare bitch! I'm gonna kill your ass."
Slowly as the timer ticked down on the grenade, all the other witches started to back away from the two angered women.
"You're really gonna kill me-"
Jill pulled out her chained sawed-off shotgun.
Aria in an instant reaction pointer her index finger.
Gravity Spell: [Weighted Pressure x10]
Before the shotgun could even go off, Aria had sacrificed some of her blood to make Jill weigh ten times the gravity of the earth.
She couldn't even stand, she couldn't even lift a finger. She was stuck to the asphalt runway, the heat pressing against her loose clothing and bare skin.
"What... Did... You?!"
She could barely even speak.
Tick... Tick... Tick... Tick... Tick... Tick...
Thirty ticks ticked by.
Jill started to cry in fear. The imminent danger. The looming feeling of death, of nothing that could be done. She was stuck. Unable to move. Her life... Her family... Her wish for immortality... To save the world... To change it for the better... For her long brother... Her everything...
Aria tossed the grenade.
Roll... Roll... Roll...
It rolled right next to her. Right next to Jill.
"Damn dude, she's psycho," said Bryan to Damon as they stood twenty feet away from the two girls.
"Yeah... She's evil. Eviler than anyone I know. Pure... Crazy... But she's also smart. She's commanding. She's brave and knows what she wants. She's sort of the opposite of me..."
Tick... Tick... Tick... Tick...
Five more ticks remained.
"Goodbye bitch!"
Tick... Tick... Tick... Tick...
"No...! Don't...! I'm sorry...! All... I... Did... Was... Talk... A... I can't... Speak... It's too..."
Tick...
She looked at the grande in front of her. Her arms and legs unable to move. The gravity was just too strong, too powerful.
"FUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKKK!" she screamed.
BOOM!