The Bellators

4:2:2

 On a surface that would have been otherwise pitch black, dark along with the rest of the underworld, shimmers of faint whitish light illuminated the dark resting waters of the infinite underground ocean, making visible the caustics on the surface that move in animation on the otherwise still sea.

Those caustics didn't reach any other surfaces however, as the only nearby planes were the ones far above the sea, the chrome disks that levitated in the air that happened to function as the light sources in the first place. There were many chrome disks high up above, different platforms at different elevations, the colony of pads as the sole luminescence in the black world.

The world was always at night too, the dark stone sky covering any light with many thick layers of isolation, and further deterring attempts at exit were countless razor sharp spikes that hung from the sky, teeth visible for as far as the light touched with the implication that it continued on forever. Even from deep down at the surface of the sea the spikes were clearly huge, presenting a threat to any lifeforms who sought to oppose the natural solitude of the cavern.

Those stalactites only looked larger the higher up one's perspective would be, same with the chrome pads that perhaps from the very bottom only did look like small disks but upon closer inspection actually covered the surface of a whole room, not only large enough for a person to stand on but more than enough to house a great amount of furniture or other equipment.

While at first glance the pads appeared to be positioned at complete random, there did appear to be a distinguished center point that being the widest pad of them all but also the lowest, as all others were at other variations higher and at other variations smaller. They did however lack any visible connections between each other as they were deficient in any interconnecting bridges, or at least in the moment of viewing. Still, there was a clear intent with the placement of the pads, a methodical design that had to be adequate in order to not only survive such an unforgiving environment but to thrive in it.

For those pads were not just random flat platforms hovering in the cavern, as instead they all appeared to house furniture and equipment, making use of its space to hold stations on each of the pads. Large metal machinery could be seen on some of the distant pads, tall boxes resembling server computers, and others with the resemblance of a laboratory given large chambers connected by tubes with some even having what looked to be cages stacked on one another as though experimenting with living organisms although all vacant.

Most of the pads while carrying equipment didn't have any present movement or much expression beyond the static lighting of some machines, although that was with the exception of the central bottom pad which had four curved tables around the edges along with a few other small machines and devices, but close to the origin were four more curved tables making a tighter enclosure where above the tables were screens that fully wrapped around in a cylinder, lit up blue but with visible movement as there seemed to be animation on the lights.

In fact, the closer to the screens, the more apparent it was that the image being shown to the outside was just a suppressed mirror of the actual displays they were meant to exhibit, for all over the screen there were many rectangular widgets, some of them moving and others stationary. There wasn't any movement outside of the cylinder that the screens made, no motion on the rest of the pad or any of the others for that matter.

However, through that particular curved display at the very origin of the pad hovered a single chair, and on that chair was the sole being inside the cavern who was of life, the man with long black hair down to his shoulders that parted with bangs like solar rays, dressed in a suit with a long black cape with a hood that was at the time down.

Surrounding the one man who lived in the hostile cave was the cylindrical monitor full of a myriad of windows featuring various written articles, spreadsheets, and videos with many of them seeming to be styled as news broadcasts given the long bar on the bottom with moving text and some of them even displaying news anchors at a table speaking. Upon a keener inspection, many of the news videos that are not just showing anchors but rather other footage show said footage of mass gatherings, people many of whom dressed in all black some marching down streets and others at great fields, and a few of the footers of those broadcasts read: "MOURNING OF THE SHIELD'S DEATH CONTINUES WELL AFTER PUBLIC FUNERAL," "MEMORIAL SAID TO BE IN DESIGN TO BE PLACED IN VERSEPOLIS SPACE SQUARE," and "VPCD OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON CHIPPER AS OF MORNING ON DEATH OF MEDITAT."