The intruder and Taha fought ferociously all across the island. They jumped from shadow to shadow as blows were traded. Taha knew he couldn’t win out here and was doing everything he could to drag the ugly little intruder back towards the arena.

The intruder was aware and refused to allow him to do so.

“Come. We eat!” it hissed at Taha as it pulled him out of an unsuspecting candidate's shadow and dragged him back towards the house they had been in. It had a crushing grip as its fingers dug into Taha’s shoulder, giving it a solid hold on him.

Taha struggled, furious that he was being dealt with so easily. He knew his limitations and refused to be held hostage by these ugly intruders. “Let go you ugly shit!” he yelled at his captor as he clawed at its arm. He left deep gashes in the things arm and it barely flinched. Instead of blood a grey, sentient mucus appeared and began to latch on to Taha’s fingernails.

From the gash leaked a dead, decaying smell that was strong enough to make even Taha gag. The mucus began to slowly eat at his fingernails as the intruder continued to drag him back to the rest of its family.

Taha continued to struggle, his fury building as he was unceremoniously dragged back to the room and thrown down in front of the rest of the intruders.His first instinct was to jump into a shadow and run but he was quickly stopped by the sound of a loud kissing sound. “Don’t go, stay and talk, little king.”

The voice had a wet rattle to it, like the speaker needed to clear a large chunk of mucus from their throat. “We see you lot have found us, yes?” it asked as it wiped its blood stained hand on the suit of the lackey it had eaten. It approached Taha, who was crouched on all fours in the middle of the room, and sat down on its haunches to level with him. Even though it had no eyes it still gave Taha the unsettling feeling that it was looking deep into his being. “You’re an ugly little thing.”

“You’re pretty fuckin’ ugly too.” he replied as he spat in the things face. One of the other intruders, an emaciated body that had no head but a gaping maw in the place of a neck, swiftly threw a kick at Taha’s face. Before the kick could connect it was caught.

_______________________________________

Nima let go of the foot of the intruder. At the sight of him all the intruders immediately jumped behind their leader and Mr. Bel.

“Welcome, intruders.” said Nima in his usual quiet way as he slowly looked over each of the intruders. “Mr. Bel, if your guests won’t behave I’ll have to take care of things myself.”

Each of the intruders felt the immense power that the leader of the Tu’i possessed, even if he was outside the arena. They instinctively knew that they stood no chance against him. Maybe due to his long years of being worshiped but Mr. Bel remained oblivious to the danger he was in. Or maybe he just refused to acknowledge that he was being dwarfed by some backwater scrub.

As recognition dawned, Mr. Bel felt his throat become parched. “Aren’t you-”

“Yes.” answered Nima curtly. “But that’s in the past. I’m here to talk about the future.” Nima looked around and saw no available seating so he pulled some out of the shadows of each of the inhabitants of the room except for Taha. “Let’s have a little meeting. Taha, you can go back now.”

Without looking back he felt the little Tu’i jump into a shadow and disappear.

Nima motioned for the intruders to take a seat. “Let’s start over on better terms.”

_______________________________________

Sone and Mai were finally done for the day. Just like the rest of the days that they’d recently spent under the tutelage of their fanatical instructor they were absolutely spent. While definitely not as bad as the first day they definitely didn’t have much energy left over to enjoy the sights.

“Did you notice how upset they got?” Sone wondered aloud. Mai nodded in response, not wanting to spend too much energy on speaking.

“It was weird. They looked pretty mad.”

Sone was walking with his arms lifted and hands clasped behind his head. He could feel a cramp lurking in the depths of his abdomen, he was sure that one wrong move would end in a full body cramp.As they continued to walk at their leisurely pace they noticed the head of communications stepping out of the candidate house across from their own.

Sone’s face brightened a little as he saw the woman he felt was the most beautiful in the whole world. He was still a bit smitten ever since the first time she’d introduced herself. “I’m gonna go over there for a little.” he mumbled absentmindedly as he picked up his pace.

Mai, who wasn’t really paying attention, was caught by surprise and followed him. She noticed the head of communications at the last moment and quickly realized why her brother had suddenly perked up. She picked up her speed as well and caught up to him.

“He-.” Sone was about to raise his voice to greet the head when he was pulled to the side by Mai. Out of the building that the woman had stepped came 4 more people. The two candidates immediately recognized 2 of them and one of them seemed vaguely familiar. The last was the most surprising and something they hadn’t seen their whole time on the island, a young girl.

Taken aback by his sister he turned to voice his displeasure but was greeted by her shushing him. Mai had felt something was weird when she saw the head of communications stepping out of a candidate house. Due to her high position in the Conglomerate she wouldn’t be the one making house visits. The odd group of people who exited behind her confirmed that something was going on.

It took Sone a few moments to make the connections as well and he followed his sisters lead. The two continued to observe and strained their ears to hear what they were saying.

“Ain’t that the guy from that day?” Sone whispered, His sister nodded as she began to remember where she recognized him from. It was the average looking member who had been getting bullied.

“What the hell is going on?” Sone continued to verbalize his questions under his breath while Mai just ignored him.

The oddest thing was how they all acted towards the average looking guy. He definitely seemed to command a lot of respect despite looking like a lower end member. The siblings were too far to hear anything so they both tried to read the group's lips.

“Tamai? What’s that mean?” Mai whispered. She wasn’t sure but 4 of the 5 people in the group had said it. The best she could guess was that it was a title of some sort.

They had spent less than a minute talking outside the building before the group split up and did something that surprised the siblings immensely. One moment all of them were moving and the next they all disappeared.

Both siblings inhaled sharply at seeing the group do this. As they stood in stunned silence they both began to feel as if they were being watched.

_______________________________________

Nima had felt the two siblings long before he had exited the building. He immediately knew who they were so he had waited to see if any of the other Tu’i would bring up their presence. When none did he decided he’d take care of it himself.

“Hello candidates.” he said from behind them.

Both jumped, the boy let out a little yelp.”Did you need help with anything?” Nima asked with his best member's voice. They had the scent on them. Maybe it was because he was the leader but none of the other Tu’i could smell it the way he could.

“Uh, n-no sir. W-we were just going back to our rooms.” stammered the boy, fighting his wavering voice. The girl looked like she was ready to faint. Nima chuckled and stepped towards them. They both flinched.

“Well it is getting late, which one is yours?” he asked, keeping up the facade. He skirted around them easily and looked around as if he were looking for their lodgings.

“That one over there.” the girl answered, pointing at a building located just across from the one where the intruders were. Nima clicked his tongue at that. The old hag loved doing this, always trying to make things complicated.

He quickly turned on the siblings and asked in his most serious voice “How much did you two hear?” Both of their faces blanched as they realized what he was asking about. He could see their thought processes as if they were written on their faces.

“We couldn’t hear anything. We were too far.” the girl answered. She was honest, he liked that. He nodded absentmindedly as he said “Ok. Well, there’s a problem with your rooms so I’ll have a member recover you things. In the meantime, we have another space available to the both of you. I’ll show you the way.” He gave them no room to object as he turned around and began walking.

After a moment of hesitation they both began to follow. The boy spoke up “What happened to our room?”

“Gas leak.” was all Nima said. As they continued to walk he could hear the siblings whispering to each other.

“Who ar-.”

“I’m Main. Just a member, doing my job.” Nima answered coldly before the boy could finish his sentence. “And a part of my job is making sure that all candidates are safe. That includes any who may have seen or heard anything they shouldn’t have.”

He didn’t need to see their faces to know that his underlying message was being digested. They seemed like really smart kids. As they arrived at the new residence he noticed the two siblings gawking. It was a pretty nice place. For them anyways. Nima had seen better.

“This will be your new lodging. It isn’t a shared space so don’t worry about any house mates and it’s pretty close to the training facilities.” Nima opened the door of the house with a grand flourish.

The siblings gawked for a moment before timidly shuffling in.