Death's Hunt

Chapter 12

I tapped my foot impatiently as I waited for Alger to give the signal for the first event to begin. Despite having said that it would start soon, everyone had been waiting for half an hour now, cementing my belief that Alger had no idea what he was doing.
I went over the rules in my head, or rather the lack of them. Get the widest variety of souls without duplication. Stealing from other teams was allowed – really, anything was allowed which was ridiculous. I kept going over our chances of success. I wasn’t worried about my own skills. I knew for a fact that Anga would do anything to win. Vlagor? I was not sure. He definitely had the ability to both get and steal souls as well as keep them away from opposing teams which probably meant we could trust him with our bags. Chiyoko, well, I was still worried about her. I knew she had the abilities to do this. There was no doubt her methods were very effective, but I still didn’t know if she had in the right mindset. I had observed how she was even when she successfully made a kill. There was always that one little speck of doubt in her eyes. I should probably stay with her.
I had also taken a look at the other teams. There were five opposing teams in total. Four of them didn’t seem like they would be too much trouble. By that I meant that none of the deaths here were true masters of soul collecting, yet they definitely weren’t amateurs either. My real concern was Sheri. As greedy as she was, as well as desperate to win this bet, I was almost one hundred percent sure that she would do anything to sabotage our progress. Just by the looks of her teammates, I knew that they wouldn’t be easy to beat either. On top of that, all three of them had built themselves quite the reputation.
Urgaz was built like a euoplocephalus. Standing at twenty feet tall and just as wide, he was the only other death I could see overpowering Vlagor. With gigantic arms and a face not even a mother could love, he had smashed his way through thousands of beings. If the rumours were true, he had even punched a redwood so hard it immediately fell over. But I had doubts about those claims. The one good thing was that his legs were puny, if you could even call those little knobs legs in the first place. So as long as we were able to stay out of his reach, outrunning him wouldn’t be a problem.
Pennu was the complete opposite of Urgaz. She was small, lightly built and an excellent runner. Apparently, she was able to collect over ten thousand souls in one night. Looking like the human equivalent of a cheetah, this gave me one more reason to have Vlagor carry our soul bags. Considering how small she was, she wouldn’t be able to reach our points if Vlagor was holding them. Even Chiyoko was taller than her.
Finally there was Wik. He was essentially a giant spider, or almost that. His face was much more crocodilian in appearance. What a combination! And he was just as unsettling as he appeared. Supposedly, he didn’t even try to hide from mortals, scaring them to death just by his appearance. If that was true, then the only threat he would pose to us was possibly gathering more souls than us.
As I was assessing our situation, I heard Sheri hiss from the other side of the field, “Are you ready to lose, Anga?”
“The only death who is going to lose is you, Sheri!” Anga yelled back.
“You and your pathetic excuse of a team don’t stand a chance. Really, if you even get passed this round it will be because of Kakrix. After all,” she then turned her attention to me with a smug smile on her face, “he’s the best killer out of anyone else here.”
I didn’t engage. I was smart enough to know that she was trying to aggravate us. “Anga, don’t talk to her. She’s just trying to get under our skin.”
“If you really think that you can stand a chance against my team, then you’re dreaming,” Sheri continued. “I mean look at this: a half-bear, half-man; a temperamental Scottish bartender; a death no one ever wants to be around; and an armless little girl.”
“Don’t you bring Chiyoko into this!!” I roared, forgetting about keeping quiet.
“Seems like you hit a nerve,” Wik said, hissing like a snake, “although she is right. I think it’s safe to say that we won’t be seeing you four any time soon.”
“You know you don’t even sound scary. You’re just making a fool of yourself,” Anga scoffed back.
“At least he has more kills than you,” Pennu mentioned in a nonchalant tone while leaning on Urgaz’s massive frame.
“That statement is very much debatable,” Vlagor interjected.
“Then why doesn’t puny death prove it?” Urgaz commented pointing a baguette-sized finger at Anga.
“We’ll have all the time to prove it when this hunt starts,” I growled between clenched teeth.
“Oh, we’ll see about that Kakrix,” Sheri laughed as her group moved away to their starting area.
“I swear, I’m going to shove that smug face right down her throat,” Anga mumbled through her mask.
“That made absolutely no sense,” Vlagor pointed out.
“I’m angry! Shut your trap!”
“Anga, this is exactly what Sheri wants. She is trying to get us to fight amongst each other. Listen, all we have to do is not finish last. Now I have a plan. Vlagor you will be holding the soul bags – you’re the biggest and strongest of us and I don’t trust a single death to be playing fairly here. Anga, how much CO2 do you think you can pump into the area?”
“As if you have to ask.”
“I do have to ask.”
Anga simply looked at me as if I had something on my face. “Wait! You’re serious?”
“And you aren’t serious?”
“Fine! I can pump enough carbon dioxide in the air that if someone lit a match the resulting inferno would be as strong as a forest fire.”
“All right, then get ready to pump out a lot of it.”
“Hey! What do you think I am? An infinite CO2 well?”
“You’re the one who put your own bar on the line.”
“Kakrix is right,” Chiyoko hesitantly added.
“Fine! But only to save my bar.”
“All right, Chiyoko and I will go make sure that none of the other teams will try anything funny and hopefully get something to start a fire.”
“Wait! What?” Chiyoko stammered. “We’re going to burn a place?”
“Don’t worry Chiyoko. Everything will be fine,” I told her while giving her a small smile before looking back at the others, a serious expression on my face. “No one goes on their own unless I say otherwise. I have a feeling Sheri and her gang are going to do everything in their power to make us lose this round. If I know her well, she will be gunning for us. Our job is simple: don’t end in last place. Otherwise, we’ll be eliminated and will automatically lose the bet. Everyone understands their role?”
“Da,” Vlagor said while giving me what I think was supposed to be a thumb’s up. I couldn’t be sure because his hands look more like bear paws than human.
“Yah, I understand the plan,” Anga mumbled under her mask while casually waving an arm to her side.
“I… I think I understand,” Chiyoko stuttered.
“Good. Now let’s win this!” I then heard Alger’s loud and obnoxious voice.
“Deaths! Our first challenge will soon begin! For those of you who have for some reason not read the rules, it is very simple.” I started tuning him out as he continued to speak, or rather yell into the megaphone he was holding. Eventually, he stopped and started announcing each team. “Next up is the White Team consisting of Sheri, Urgaz, Pennu and Wik.”
I glanced over to our rivals, and I could see Sheri doing the same. As we made eye contact, I saw Sheri give me an evil grin. I immediately knew that my suspicions were correct. She was targeting us.
“And finally, for Team Black, we have Anga, Vlagor, newcomer Chinoka, and most shocking of all, Kakrix, the legendary Wings of Death!”
I tilted my head down in an attempt to not bring more attention to myself, but when I did so I noticed Chiyoko. She was clearly trembling. I could see she was trying to hide. I discreetly placed my tail behind her and gave her a reassuring smile. “We will do this together. Don’t worry.” She gave me a nervous smile in response before Alger finally yelled,
“And beginnnnnn!!!”
Just like that everyone was off.