The Ranch

Tih & Friends (3)

All the contestants return to their seats in the audience except those that were too injured to continue. They get time to rest as scores are calculated at the arena below is transformed to the next game setting.

Scores are tallied and Gladiators is in the lead with [213points]. The top one-hundred last people standing got points depending on their rank.

Almost all of Tih's teams points came from Tih and Theodore, who was first and fifth place respectively, earning them one-hundred ninety-five points alone.

Their actual total is [198 points] landing them in third. Someone on their team must have lasted to the last hundred for those last extra points.

The rankings look like this:
[1. Gladiators 213 points
2. Sphinx 204 points
3. Poseidon 198 points
.... ]

Yes, they named their team Poseidon after their leader's calm, water-like eyes and the fact that, in Kai's words," Also cuz we'll sweep them under their feet!" Whatever that means.

First place is actually Instructor Kane's team, among which are some of his living teammates and his strongest disciples.

Soon, it's time for the next game. Everyone crowds back down to the arena. On the way, they grab a black vest and weapon. This time the weapons are mandatory.

The weapon station becomes a mess as everyone wants first pick. No one in Tih's group has a profession that uses weapons, so they decide to wait and avoid any unnecessary injuries.

In the meantime, they pull the vest over their heads and tighten it with the straps on the side. Tih tries to mimic the others, but ends up tangling the straps because he couldn't get a clear view of what the others are doing.

Victor already finished strapping himself in and notices Tih. He pulls Tih's soft hands off the tangled straps and untangles the mess of black before pulling them through the correct sections. When tightening the vest, he gets a good idea of just how small Tih is. He always wears hoodies and military pants that aren't form-fit, making Tih look wider than he actually is.

Once the crowd cools down, team Poseidon scurries through the crowd, looking for suitable weapons. The weapons are no longer displayed in an orderly fashion, but a haphazard mess of leftovers.

Before going in, Henri reminded them," The Goal Isn't To Injure Them, Only To Touch Them."

Henri picks up a sash of throwing knives. Sherlock picks up a crossbow. Kai a slingshot. Victor decided on a whip. Although shorter than the other weapons, Theodore can't ignore the mace and chain he found. Abel finds a wooden club with spikes. Basile finds a bow and arrows. Pierre grabs a spear a head taller than he is. Lucien can't find anything and ends up grabbing a random longsword.

Tih scrounges around the area of weapons, forgetting his purpose and searching and recording anything he hasn't seen before. Going through a pile of sharp weapons, he unearths what doesn't know is a Fanny pack. What he does recognize is a zipper that's usually on clothing.

Pinching the zipper and sliding it along the grooves opens it up to reveal transparent balls the size of tennis balls densely packed together.

He pokes it. It has a hard, jelly texture. He continues to investigate it when he's pulled by the collar. Still invested in the contents of the Fanny pack, he's dragged across the floor, all the way back to his teammates.

Kai let's go of Tih's hood just as the announcer speaks," Now that everyone's chosen a weapon, look for the scanner somewhere on your weapon. Each team will have their own color for this game of tag. A total of thirty different colors. Scanning your ID will make the weapon your team's selected color. And as a reminder, you can't tag yourself with your own color, so don't even try. The game will last a total of ten minutes."

Everyone finds the scanner on their weapon. Tih found it earlier on the strap of the bag. He copied the other and takes out his ID.

Henri comes over," Here, You Wear It Like This." He wraps the Fanny pack around Tih's waist and clips it together in the pack. Then he pulls the strap to tighten it. Tih's small waist creates a long tail of strap. Worrying that someone could pull the strap and affect Tih's movements, he...tucks the leftover into Tih's pants like a mom would tuck her child's socks or fold their sleeve so it doesn't get into the food while they're eating.

The landscape of the arena is clear of anything, but the terrain is exaggerated. Parts in the land that curve into sharp hills, slow up climbs that drop to the ground again, squares of hardened dirt, deep pits in the ground.

Everyone is spread apart, and teammates aren't necessarily placed by each other. If they want to fight as a group, they'll have to traverse a battlefield first.

The game starts and everyone's vest lights up. The arena is colored in a multitude of colors. The moment it begins, fights break out all around. Tih looks down. Coincidentally enough, his vest's light is blue. He instinctively ducks forward. A woosh passes above. Tih backs away from the person that attacked him to scope the field and look for his teammates.

"Die!" A still immature voice says in a murderous voice. The grudge-filled words don't match the pre-pubescent voice.

A sword is thrust once more towards Tih's vitals. Tih dodges while getting a good look at their face. The person in question is Axel, whom Tih hasn't seen since that time in the central market.

Axel continues to target Tih as the boy continues to absentmindedly dodge while looking for the others. Axel seethes while recalling the image of his lone figure remaining on top of the platform.

He was so busy surviving the last game, that he didn't know Tih was participating until he was already knocked off, letting Tih win all the glory of the first game. Axel's superiority complex flared in that moment and he decided to knock Tih down a peg now that he has the chance to fight him.

He's no longer the weak boy that first came to the island. He's trained to his utmost and his teacher even says he has some talent. He'll finally get his revenge here and now. Perceived as fate by Axel, he was placed by his enemy at the start of the match.

Some groups did purposefully target a single individual, but that's a strategy, this is plain grudge. Once one side changed the opponents light to their own, they would usually try to run before they themselves got hit since their purpose had already been accomplished.

Some people that have been tagged like to blend in with people of the color they tagged with and surprise attack them. Of course, this only works if the other person doesn't realize you're not on their team.

While Tih's looking around, he notices that the colors on the vests keep changing. Then he notices they only change when a weapon hits the vest.

Some people that chose shorter weapons they were more proficient with have to get closer to an opponent to touch their vest, but that increased the chances of the other fighting back. Those with long-ranged weapons have an obvious advantage, as they don't need to be near people to change their color, the problem with this is, not many people are proficient with long-ranged weapons.

Of the fighting professions, bare-handed combat is the most useful and sword-related fighting styles are the most popular, making long-range weapons a minority. One major question newbies always ask is," Why doesn't everyone use guns?"

The answer to that is because they never experienced a popularity boom. Bullet are handcrafted, time-consuming, and expensive, and guns aren't popular enough to build a manufacturing factory for them, and so it became an endless cycle.

The only ones that can afford to train and fight with bullets and arrows are those super rich islanders, but by the time they've become rich enough to afford them, they've already learned and become proficient in another combat profession.

Reader: So where did you get your inspiration for the games?

Author: *cough* fall guys *cough*