The Tributes from the Maze (Newt/OC)

It Was Not a Piece of Cake

There were a few things that Newt learned when he was trying to complete his newly assigned mission. The first was that cutting a piece of cake was relatively difficult if you don't know where the cake is. He had reached the top level of the facility but had no idea what the Green Wing was or the Poppy Room. Was he meant to be looking for a poppy garden in a greenhouse? He wandered down the Blue winding corridors past the differently labelled doors.

The second thing he learnt was that signs could save your life if you pay attention to them. So after about five minutes of ignoring the big colourful signs, he actually stopped to read one and figured out that the four sections to each floor were colour coded into Red, Blue, Yellow and Green. He was in the Blue corridors and needed to continue to the right to find the Green section. Once he listened to the signs he found the Green section. But finding the Poppy room was going to be harder than he first thought. Five minutes were down and he only had ten left to push the button.

The third thing he learnt was that if something helps you once, use it again. So he looked at the signs again, and they told him that each wing had rooms labelled with different things. The Red section were land based animals, the Yellow section were flying creatures, the Blue section were marine animals and the Green section were all plants. The plants were in alphabetical order. So he looked for the room with the label 'Poppy'. Once he found it he had eight minutes to spare.

Taking off the mask of the guard uniform he had disguised himself with, Newt approached the desk in the middle of the far wall and searched for a button. What greeted him instead were several tens of coloured buttons. How was he meant to know which one to press?! There was one that caught his eye. It was large and red. Glancing at his watch, a jolt of panic seared through him as he realised had seven minutes left to push the button and he still had no idea which one it was.

Just at that moment, the doors burst open and a man in a white coat walked in. He stopped in his tracks and before Newt could so much as curse, a gun was being aimed right at his head. Newt slowly crept around the desk and put his hands in the air.

Then he lunged and the man shot. The bullet grazed past his right side and Newt rushed forward, crashing into the man and knocking the gun to the floor. The WICKED worker tried to reach for his radio to call for back up but Newt saw it too and skidded across the floor, kicking it away. He checked the clock, he had five minutes left and he still didn't know which button to press. So he picked up the gun from the floor and aimed it at the man's head.

"Don't move! You move and I shoot! I don't care what I hit! Okay!?" Newt shouted. He turned his back momentarily to look for the button and the man disappeared from his line of sight. Newt's eyes searched frantically around the room but they couldn't find their target. Hands wrapped around Newt's neck from behind and tugged him away from the control panel. Newt struggled to try and break free, clawing at the hands around his neck. Newt hit the man with the but of the gun and he collapsed to the floor.

Newt checked the clock on the wall, he had one minute to press the button. He still had no idea which one it was. The man got up again and grabbed onto Newt's back, trying to haul him away from the control panel. Thirty seconds left and Newt had to push the button. Just at that moment Ariadne arrived at the door and saw the struggle. She hurried forward to help Newt but the man turned on her instead. Newt glanced at the clock, twenty seconds left.

"Push the button! It doesn't matter if it's a few seconds early." Ariadne said as she tried to put some distance between herself and the WICKED man.

"Which one? This one?" Newt asked hurriedly, fifteen seconds left.

"Which one are you talking about?" She asked.

"This one. The big red one. I'm going to push the big red one!" He told her and reached out to push it. Ariadne knocked into him from behind and pulled him away from the control panel, she pushed a gigantic white button in the middle labelled 'Emergency transfer'. She shot him an incredulous look. Then the man came up again behind her and held a dagger to her throat. She froze, fear written all over her face. Newt didn't know what to do. He had the gun but if he shot the man then the man would cut Ariadne's throat so they were at a standstill.