Leon woke up thanks to a source of car horns in the background of his apartment. Whether it was some early celebration of a sports game or some weird car gang thing, he didn't know. If it was the second, he was super glad to have ditched that nonsense.
Jay was already in the living room, eating what looked to be granola out of a saucepan.
"Bowls are all dirty." He said before Leon could add anything.
"Washing doesn't take that long." Leon replied groggily.
Jay looked down, then at a bowl.
"Yeah, you're onto something here."
Leon let Jay explore this revelation and got his coffee from Ms. Chou, the absolute legend. Then, he got a buzz on his phone.
It was the game's group chat. And Xaawo was texting up a storm.
'K, today's challenge is in the centre again.'
'Gotta be nice to Leon, he's a working man after all.'
'Also, I hope the donut was nice for whoever won it.'
'Seriously, Mind Fuzz donuts is actually the best thing I've ever tasted.'
'Try it. Might bring some to today's game, actually.'
'Anyone motivated?'
Well, great. More bullshit in the centre. All of a sudden, he got another text from Janet.
'Yo whats the best place to hang in the centre'
'Don't know, just try to stay away from my apartment'
'Dude come onnnnn its not that dangerous surely'
'I don't want you messing with people'
'Ughhhhhh ill find something to do. Gonna scope the place out tho, bring Evelyn too'
Leon was half tempted to take the day off just to ensure Janet didn't do anything incredibly stupid, but he was pretty sure the games were already messing with his schedule to the point the manager was looking for a reason to fire him, so probably best to not give that gun any more ammo.
Valerie was pondering what to do with Elijah. She was texting the other members of the Spades in secret, trying to see if any of them could make up an urgent matter for Elijah to attend to. A few of them had ideas, but they either weren't getting his attention, like Joey suggesting a rat was seen in the junkyard that could possibly be an infestation. Elijah wouldn't consider that a priority. Then Chandler suggested setting himself on fire and Elijah would have to come over to put it out. That was a worse suggestion, especially considering that Elijah had fire powers. Her goal was to lessen the deaths, not make them.
Screw it, only option was to call Elijah.
She waited for a few minutes, and Elijah answered.
"What's this?" Elijah asked. He already sounded annoyed.
"Look, Elijah, we don't need to go to tonight's game. We just stay home and-"
"I'm going."
"But you don't need to go! Look, the only people who need to go are Leon's team. So either him, Janet or Evelyn are dying tonight. Now, you think Leon who's the descendant and I'm guessing Janet, so that's a sixty-six percent chance one of our desired outcomes is right-"
"Not enough." Elijah replied coldly.
"Okay, why do you want to kill Leon?" She whispered to him. She was trying to stay calm, but Elijah still refused to admit what him and Leon got up to."
"Can't say." He said calmly after a second.
"Yes you fucking can!"
There was a moment of silence at the outburst.
"Val, are you okay up there?" Her mom asked from the living room.
"This doesn't concern you!" She screamed back. Her mom didn't respond.
"Look, Elijah." She snarled as she returned to the previous conversation. "Either you tell me what went down, or I'm leaving you to fight Leon. If you want to die like a bitch over whatever this is, be my guest."
There were a few seconds of pause from Elijah.
"You won't leave me this late in the game. See you tonight."
And then he hung up.
Valerie threw her phone across the room, knowing he was right. She wasn't gonna leave him three against one. If she entered, she's only dying in a freak accident, because of course they'd go for Elijah. But if Elijah dies, her chance of surviving the games is dropped to near zero. So she had to come to the next game.
So for Elijah, Leon, and Valerie, the day continued as normal. Leon's most exciting event was some kid dropping a bottle of vodka on the floor and winning the resulting game of rock paper scissors, meaning he didn't have to clean it up. Elijah's most exciting event was a cloud that looked kinda like that one actor who groomed a teenager and went missing. Valerie's most interesting event was lying in her bed, panicking on what could happen, letting every possibility cloud her mind.
But at around six, the time came. Leon went back into the centre, wondering where exactly this game was taking place. He texted Janet, who was apparently chilling in an abandoned apartment she could sneak into easily. Evelyn, on the other hand, went to the lobby of Leon's apartment complex and waited for him there.
"Let me guess." Evelyn sighed when Leon came in. "Janet's exploring some random house, and if we ask her about it she'll say something about having a tactical advantage."
"First one's true, second one's probably true." Leon nodded.
"You'd think a girl who intentionally blinds herself would, you know, not go around abandoned buildings. Honestly, if that grey eyed loser breaks her leg in a building, we're leaving her to die in there, saves us a challenge."
"She has grey eyes?" Leon asked. "When'd you figure that one out?"
"Uhhh…they fell off during movie night while you weren't there. It was a whole thing."
But before discussion of Janet's eyes could continue, they both got a new message from the group chat from Xaawo.
'today's mission is inside the old Valence building'
A few seconds later, they got a new notification from Janet.
'yoooo im in the valence building im a godamn penis'
'genius*'
When Evelyn and Leon made it to the building, they both realized it was next to the building Mateo died in, or at least what was left of it. Evelyn felt it distasteful at best and psychotic at worst. Leon was just silently guessing if the plan was to slowly destroy the centre for whatever reason, and that if that was a plan to destroy him for whatever reason.
"Yo, guys!" Janet said, breaking their thoughts by poking her head through the doorframe. "Come in!"
So the two did. Before them was an empty lobby, and like every other abandoned building in the center, it was moldy, grimy, and what furniture was there looked either rotten or like it would certainly snap in half if you tried using it. Evelyn spotted the only exception out of the corner of her eye. She went into the room to the left of the lobby, and within was a pristine white place, lacking even a speck of dust. It looked like it was taken from a different room and placed in the crappy apartment via a very well hidden portal, which for all she knew was the explanation. The only things in the room were a round table. Looked new, and looked fancy. Wood seemed to be some kind of expensive stuff from a foreign country she was only kind of aware of. Around it were ten wooden chairs that seemed to be of a similar quality.
After a few minutes, Elijah and Valerie entered the apartments. No conversation was had, and the two groups tried to avoid looking at each other. There was obviously no point in conversation considering what was about to go down.
After what felt like an eternity but Janet's phone confirmed was about four minutes, Xaawo and Kwaku walked into the room.
"Ah, everyone's here." Xaawo said calmly. "Isn't that great, Kwaku?"
"I suppose it is." He nodded with his eyes closed.
"Anyway, room to the left, please!"
They did as she told them, and each made it to the next room. Evelyn took a seat before she was told, with Leon and Janet following her example. Elijah and Valerie had to be told to sit down, with them sitting opposite Leon. Xaawo sat between them on the left side of the table, and Kwaku took the right.
"Now, you may be wondering what the point of this is?" Xaawo exclaimed. "Well, now that we've revealed the games purpose, we can get a little more…intelligent with it. So, allow me to introduce the roundtable!"