the hunger games(part 12): setup

"I guess this means we're officially married now." Falcon grinned making Kyle raise a brow, he then diverted his gaze from her landing it on the blind archer.

"I know you want to be left alone, trust me I do too. but since we're temporarily working together, I feel it's best if we know your name." Kyle expected to see some sort of reaction or change in expression from her, but there was nothing at all. The reason he was trying to interact with her was because he wanted her to feel at ease with him and falcon, so he could ask her some questions relating to her abilities.

"Am Kyle and this is falcon." Kyle added, hoping to get her attention but she didn't nudge a bit. He wasn't concerned about telling her their real names since he didn't feel she could use it to harm them in any way, and for some reason he felt something off about her.

"Aren't you going to say anything." Kyle was beginning to get annoyed, at this rude young female's attitude. He'd tried to be nice by introducing himself and falcon, but looks like she didn't want any part in their little group.

"Fine, have it your way." Sick and tired of playing the good card, he gave up on her as he planned to rest and recover his lost strength for tomorrow.

"You saved me. Why?" He finally heard the Archer's voice, turning he could see she was staring at him but with her eyes closed.

"Whether you like it or not you're part of our team, at least for now. And in this team we protect ourselves."

"You're a fool. You could've died for someone you don't even know, and am not in your team." She coldly said.

"You're right." Kyle softly said. "I could've died and I don't know you, but am willing to take that risk." He plainly said, and for a split moment he could see a hint of shock on the red haired face. Placing her head down, Kyle saw she was deliberating on something.

"What are you?" She abruptly asked staring at Kyle.

"What do you mean?" Kyle asked pretending to not know what she asked, he decided to play it safe and act innocent.

"Your aura, it's like nothing I've ever seen. and that bat, I can sensed it made a hole where your heart is. But you have two heart correct?"

"Guilty as charged." Kyle playfully raised his hand in defeat.

"And that lady beside you I can tell she's a fox, so that must mean you two are beasts?"

"Hey! who are you calling beast weirdo!" Falcon shouted, insulted by the red haired archer words.

"She's a fox woman from the fox tribe, but she doesn't like to be called a beast. And am.. a demon." The archer immediately gasped upon hearing that word, the shocked expression on her face was clearly vivid.

"Haha! priceless." Falcon chuckled softly with a mocking look, seeing the archer socked expression.

Calming herself down, the archer took in deep breaths as she finally raised her head up again with a calm composure.

"I expected you to be a beast or some type of mutated hybrid, but never did I expect you to be a.. demon." Kyle felt the dread and despair in her tone mentioning 'demon', and his body couldn't help but tingle.

"What, you're not scared?" He teased.

"Nothing scares me."

"Really now.." he smirked resting his back against the wall, he was happy he'd finally gotten her locked in a conversation.

"you said you could tell. how? I know you're blind so it must mean either you have a skill that allows you to magically see us, or an ability of some sort." Kyle had read about such skills that allowed it's blind user's to see, for a particular moment of time and at a great cost. But the thing was, such skills were hard to come across and learn as they were so rare and hard to find. And even if found, they would be considered useless to a person with sight.

"It's an ability."

'Wait. if she has an ability that allows her to see, then how did she conjure up those fire skills?' Kyle vividly saw her cast fire out from her hand, and even turn herself into a fire entity for a moment.

"I have two abilities, just to clarify your thoughts." She said making Kyle's eye go wide a bit, even falcon was also equally shocked at this revelation.

'Two abilities. That's new.' The only person he knew with two abilities was Vladimir, as he could use blood and shadow abilities. He'd read of characters in fictional stories having more than one ability but it was usually rare, as the possibility of having two abilities was small.

Mostly in the books he'd read, the characters were either extremely lucky to have more than one ability, as the body was mostly limited to one. But having more than two was beyond the laws of nature, as such characters were considered overpowered.

"Those flames you conjured, they're pretty impressive." Kyle complimented her, but he could see she just shook her head slightly.

"There's nothing impressive about that." She said downgrading herself, making Kyle raise a brow.

"What do you mean not impressive? even if you don't know it, you're last attack managed to weaken that snake lady greatly. If not for her hardened scales am sure you would've killed her!" Kyle enthusiastically said making the archer look at him for a while, turning her head to the side a bit. Kyle could see a hint of smile on her lips as she turned to the side.

"My name's Aurora~" She finally spilled out the beans saying her name.

"Aurora.. that's a-" Kyle was about finishing his words when he saw falcon's threatening gaze, making him swallow the word down his throat.

"Good name." He gulped chuckling awkwardly. Aurora slightly smiled seeing the two childish attitude, she was more than confused and intrigued how they kept they calm composure through all this chaos.

"Are you two a couple?" She softly spoke making Kyle's face go bright red from embarrassment, he wanted to say no in protest but the cunning fox had already stolen the show.

"He's more of a shy person, so I speak for both of us when I say this. Yes, we are. infact we fell in love right here in the dungeon." Falcon honestly said a sly grin plastered on her face.

'Stupid.' Kyle wanted to bury his head right now in shame. He didn't know how, but falcon just knows how to get under his skin.

"C-congratulations to both of you then." Aurora awkwardly spoke unsure of what to say.

"We're not a couple." Kyle unable to bear the embarrassment finally spoke, shaking his head. "She just has a weird way of joking about stuff, don't mind her."

"Not officially!" Falcon protested, making Kyle roll his eye at her. Aurora who was caught in the middle didn't dare say anything, as she silently watched the odd couple nag it out.

"I can't believe this is how you treat me, after all we've been through." Falcon sobbed, pretending to be hurt by Kyle's word.

"Are we seriously doing this right now." Kyle frowned rolling his eyes at falcon.

"Hmph!" She scoffed puffing her cheeks and turning to the other side, away from Kyle. Shaking his head a bit Kyle softly smiled, as he remembered the fun moments he'd with his women before the great disaster.

'Am coming for you Lucifer.' Kyle thought, his facial expression taking a 360 degree turn full of malice, as he vividly recalled the one who took everything away from him. Anger raged in him as his blood boiled, he was so upset the he didn't realize when his aura started intensively leaking out from his body with murderous intent.

[Killing intent: 51]

In just a matter of seconds his killing intent had spiked to great numbers, as anger washed over his entire body.

'This feeling.' Aurora could feel Kyle's rage, and she could clearly see the colour which his aura emitted as it was a black mixed with red fog, clouding his body like the smoke being released from hell's flame.

"You also have a fire ability right? I saw you when you shot those dark flames, and I could immediately tell they weren't normal." Kyle softly shook his head, there was no point hiding his flames as it would soon be exposed to the world, starting from this kingdom.

"It's a skill I acquired when I turned into a demon." He calmly spoke.

"Wait.. so you're saying you were a normal human?" Kyle just nodded a bit, he saw her face widened in shock as she placed her hand on her chin.

'How could he be a human?' She thought. Mostly she had heard of tales of demons but she'd never seen one, Kyle was the first she'd ever seen. Judging from what she'd been told, Kyle didn't look or fit in any of the descriptions instead he was the opposite.

'If demons are cruel and malicious beings then why did he save me?' It wasn't once Kyle had saved her from the sneers of death, as she could've long died in the maze

'No. I can't let my guard die, he might be pretending.' She thought, refusing to believe Kyle's calm and enticing attitude. Demons were meant to be deadly, hideous, and untrustworthy, so she had a feeling kyle might be playing her.

"That last attack you conjured, I can tell that's one of your powerful skills."

"Correct.. though it's still weak, but it's one of my lethal blows. It's called shooting star." She softly said, brushing the strand of red hair blocking her eye to the side.

'Shooting star huh.' Kyle knew how powerful that attack was, as he wouldn't be stupid enough to be caught in it. The only reason why that snake woman survived, was because she hardened all the scales on her body to the max, encoanting it in her strange ability. But still Aurora's shooting star skill had managed to pierce through her defenses, weakening her greatly.

They then chatted about other stuff for a short while, before finally ending the conversation as they're eyes fluttered shut. Tomorrow came fast as they were jolted by the sound of metal being hit, they heard their cell opening as multiple guards walked in.

'This much guard for us.' Kyle chuckled a bit, amused that king troy wasn't going to take any chances. The guards then led them out the dungeon to the castle, through the secret passage they had once came.

Entering the glass lift the guards inputted some numbers as it began going up, after a few minutes it finally stopped on a floor making a ding sound with it's glass doors sliding open.

"Move." They were shoved into the room by the grumpy guards, taking a few steps Kyle heard the voice of the mischievous king.

"Now now.. let's not be rude to our guests. Afterall, it's just breakfast we're having." He said in a sinister tone, sending shivers to all who heard it. The blindfolds were then taken off their eyes, as their gazes befell on king troy in front sitting on his gold throne.

He had a quirky smirk on his face seeing the group, more especially Kyle. standing, he then proceeded towards them.

"Believe me, when I say it's really an honour to have you here in the palace." He stretched his hands open for a hug, but Kyle hastingly declined.

"I see you don't trust me yet, and I understand." Troy smiled, then gestured they followed him as he led them to the dining room. there multiple chairs were lined up around a long table, with several trays of dishes in sight.

"Don't mind me but I love to go all out, don't you think?"

"Yeah.." Kyle slowly said taking a seat with falcon and aurora besides him, meanwhile troy sat at the head and in a short while Lumia joined, sitting opposite Kyle next to her father.

Kyle could see she had her head bent downwards clearly not happy with her father's decisions, but he also felt something else bothering her.

"Don't just stare at it.. come on, dig in!" Troy smiled grabbing a fork and knife, using it to peel the flesh off a roasted goose. He saw Kyle and his team weren't interested at all, staring at the items with blank expression.

"I promise it's not poisoned or anything." He joked, but that just added more to their suspicions.

"We'll pass." Kyle calmly uttered. "I don't think it's you summoned us here just to have breakfast." Troy's happy expression then darkened a bit, as he dropped the cutleries to the table.

"You're right.." a holographic screen then formed floating in the air displaying a footage, more especially Kyle's.

"From the footage, it's no doubt seen that you in alliance with your team stole not one or two but above, beast cores."

"Stole! What the hell are you talking about. You're clearly setting us up!" Falcon yelled annoyed by king Troy's claims, but she was immediately shocked by electric currents from the blue power cuffs.

"The rules clearly didn't say anything about an offense of taking beast cores." Kyle protested with troy nodding softly.

"True.. but still, it is considered as an act of treason and as the king of Lumia kingdom I must follow the rules, and punish you all accordingly."

"I hearby sentence you and your team to the forgotten desert for a day, without any equipments as punishment." He declared with a stern voice.

"Father.. y-you can't be serious, they won't survive." Lumia gasped hearing those words from her father.

"Don't think I don't know you also aided the offenders daughter." The screen then showed Lumia cloaked in the dungeon, passing Kyle some items. "I can't believe you were so naive to coenive with the traitors."

"You can't-"

"Silence!" Troy roared his aura dominating everyone, forcing their heads down while their breaths became shaggy.

"You're lucky my daughter is with you." He spoke with hints of disdain and regret. "Survive for one day in the forgotten desert and your sins will be forgiven." He declared dispersing his aura, releasing the force on them as he calmly walked out the room with a frown.