"Well?" The voice, smooth yet laced with an edge of impatience sliced through the tense silence. His presence alone seemed to chill the air as he extended a hand that spouted a weird assortment of tentacles as it wrapped around a nearby kettle without a care and in an instant, the water within began to hiss and boil, steam coiling like a phantom. "Aren't you going to answer me? I genuinely want to know: were you the ones responsible for the Giga Tanteract's destruction? It's not a difficult question to answer."
Alice stood rigid as a cold sweat began pricking at her skin. Her hand instinctively tightened around the hilt of her knife as a primal urge screamed at her to plunge it into this unsettling stranger and bolt. Yet, a paralyzing hesitation held her captive.
"Don't. It's a trap." John's voice, raspy and strained, cut through her terror and keeping her from acting on those instincts. He barely managed to grit out the words as his gaze fixed on the red figure.
The crimson-clad creature turned his attention to John, a flicker of irritation crossing his features. "What do you mean, 'trap'? I'm simply asking this young lady to answer my question. If she feels inclined to attack me? Well that's her prerogative and choice, it's not a place for you to interfere so just die quietly to the side." The last words were delivered with a casual tone that somehow felt more menacing than an outright roar.
"A trap? What the hell do you mean? And you!" Alice's eyes narrowed, her grip on the knife like a vice as her focus went from him to the red figure. A spark of her usual manic energy, a twisted attempt at dark humor, slipped into her voice as she addressed the enigma. "What even are you if not the devil? And more importantly, I know better than to mess with or rush headfirst into anything unknown that has tentacles, especially after what those vines did to that poor guy!"
"He's a manager," Dave's voice, though muffled by the floor he was being pressed against managed to break through the tense silence. "They don't get involved unless absolutely necessary, or if things go completely off the rails and need their personal attention to fix an issue. They're incredibly dangerous, overseeing and managing the changes well keeping things 'interesting,' there the ones who control the various situations and events that happen with administrators being the only ones above them. What in the world did you two do to garner the attention of one of th—" Dave's explanation was abruptly cut short as the unseen chains binding him tightened, silencing his words.
"At least someone here knows who and what I am. Hmm, you do seem rather familiar though, have we perchance met before?" the red figure mused, a hint of something unreadable in his tone before shaking his head. "Bah, it doesn't matter, I'm sure I'll recall why you seem familiar eventually. In the meantime, why don't you finally answer my question before my patience somehow wears even thinner? The Giga Tanteract, in case your rather dim and need me to describe it for those evolved monkey brain that can't seem to recall something so significant, it was a colossal, spider-like creature! It was meant to grow and spread smaller spiders out eventually breading out titans and beasts for you idiotic players to gain experience and keep things entertaining." His voice escalated, demanding an answer as his eyes bore into Alice, glinting with barely contained fury.
Alice though surprisingly found her fear beginning to recede by his words, instead replaced by a surge of indignant anger at the man's dismissive arrogance. "But why wasn't it locked up, or given some kind of protections or anything then? You can't possibly blame us for this if you were stupid enough not to give it any way to defend itself! And you can't be serious that this was the first time something like this has happened!"
"No, it has in fact not happened before!" The red figure bellowed, his anger finally boiling over. A fine spray of spittle escaped the corners of his mouth. "Normal people would try to run from it or focus on surviving these early stages rather than running headlong into what could be there death! And then much later when the mating pair have grown enough and spawned a decent amount of kids claiming a large area they would be announced to entice the platers to rush in and try to claim the 'first kills,' as you call it. So again no it hasn't happened before and it would normally have time to grow in size and brood without care or worry, it's never needed protections or to be kept away from people before and now you ruined that and the future activities planned for it!"
"But that's just plain stupid!" Alice retorted, her own anger flaring hotter as it swallowed the previous fear. "You had nothing preventing it from dying or being destroyed though! And yet now that it has happened, entirely due to your own stupid negligence, you're trying to blame us! Was it even meant to be part of the main event, or just your own personal easter egg?"
Her words were the final spark. Unable to hold back any longer, the red figure lunged. In his hand, a slender cane materialized, its surface covered in a sickening network of wriggling red veins, like living tendrils.
Alice raised her knife, ready to block and counter, but before she could, a thin, taut chain abruptly yanked her back. It was connected to a kitchen knife, which John, even from his bound position, had somehow deployed. The blade arced upwards, meeting the red figure's veined cane in a searing clash. With a sickening hiss, the kitchen knife instantly dissolved into a smoldering mix of black goo and smoke, before it struck the floor causing a small quake and leaving a fist-sized, melted hole in its wake.
"I would advise against being hit by that stick of his. You'd have a rather bad reaction if it makes contact," a cold, newly resonant voice cautioned Alice. She looked up. John seemed different in the way he carried himself, as if he wasn't used to his own body well projecting an aura of strength that he didn't have before. The chains around him were no longer a means to help him move, instead having thickened and become long twisting strips of steel woven together rather than the links of chain they had been previously, while his eyes now glowed with an eerie, dark green light. His cloak having lengthened and tattered as it billowed around him without a breeze and in his hand, a thin chain ending in a wickedly curved blade that resembled a scorpion's stinger. What once might have been his dagger was now a small and compact yet clearly formidable scythe strapped to his side, Alices own now resting on the table next to him. Behind him a morbid fan of kitchen knives seemed to levitate but looking closer it was clear that each was held by its own chain, poised and ready to strike.
"Now this is interesting," the red figure mused, his fury momentarily giving way to a cruel amusement. "The half-dead person is suddenly alive and kicking. But I doubt it will last long as I plan to make you both pay for what you did!" With those words a second cane, identical to the first materialized in his other hand. The room was already thick with tension but now it thrummed with raw, volatile anger, transforming from a kitchen into into an impromptu arena.
Without warning the red figure lunged, both canes flashing like crimson blurs. Alice and John seemed to react in perfect synchronicity without realizing it. Alice brandished her knife well slowly moving closer to retrieve her scythe, while John's own new scythe whipped through the air after having thrown the knife edged chain at the manager in front of him, his fan of chained knives spreading out behind him like a deadly peacock's tail as they struck out at him.
The levitating knives met the sinister canes with a furious clang, sparks of malevolence flashing with each impact. John's flurry of attacks aimed to create an opening for Alice who now held her scythe in her other hand yet all his efforts seemed futile as the manager remained firm. The red figure's canes pulsed with an eerie power made short work of John's summoned blades, reducing them to smoldering waste with every parry as he moved with impossible grace, dodging Alice's strikes with contemptuous ease well showing no reaction even when a stray hit managed to graze his crimson suit.
With each repelled attack, the managers taunts dripped with condescension. "Is this all you've got? Pathetic." His mocking laughter echoed hollowly through the room, a chilling counterpoint to the clang of steel and the hiss of dissolving metal.
Undeterred, Alice and John pressed their assault, desperate for something to work, to find an opening they could exploit to bring this foe down, but their weapons were steadily rendered useless. One by one the kitchen knives were melting into puddles of black goo, sometimes being sacrificed to keep the canes from hitting Alice or her own weapons. The few times Alice's own blade managed to slip past his defense and land a hit it seemed to barely even scratch his suit and when it hit skin it simply glided across it.
Desperation began to claw at them as the manager looked at them as a human would an ant. No matter what tactic they tried, nothing seemed to even leave a mark. A swift elbow strike followed by a kick sent her stumbling back, clutching her stomach.
Finally, as the last kitchen knife dissolved into the same black goo as its predecessors, manager gave a small bow and looked at them amused before casually tossed his canes into the air. That split second, the fleeting moment of distraction as John and Alice's eyes followed the spinning weapons was all he needed. With a swift, calculated motion he attacked, striking Alice first and knocking her violently to the floor already turning right after to strike John who refocusing with a roar and lunged at him, attempting to stab with his scythe in anger but the blade missed its mark. Instead, he received a harsh kick to his stomach. His twisted chains, thick as they were offered little help as he was sent sprawling onto the ground next to Alice.
Standing over them, the manager sneered. "Weak," he hissed as he caught his canes, his voice thick with cold fury and a self-satisfied sense of his own inherent superiority. "You're nothing but playthings, meant as a means of entertainment so know your place."
Alice and John, bruised and battered, were left to stew in their gut-wrenching failure, they had known he would have been strong but never expecting the difference to be to this extent. From their pinned positions Greeny and Dave watched, wide-eyed and terrified. The fight had been fast and the managers victory absolute, leaving them to wonder, with chilling uncertainty about their own uncertain fate once he dealt with the pair.