| abstract | - Felix-116's eyes flew open abruptly, and he realized with a start that he was already standing on his feet. It was an odd feeling. He was no stranger to being unconscious for whatever reason; that type of thing was unavoidable and sometimes customary when you served in the UNSC. But he was certain that he had never woken up on his feet before, with nothing holding him in place. There was no feeling of a headache, or haziness to his thoughts, or whatever usually accompanied the state of waking up that would give a clue as to how he had been unconscious. In fact, he couldn't even remember what he was before here; all he knew was who he was and that something weird was happening. He pondered this for another moment before military training kicked in, and he stopped trying to figure everything out, deciding instead to look around and see what he could do in his current situation. He seemed to be in a room, except that wasn't quite the right word for it. He was standing in a large rectangular prism with about a dozen others—Marines, aliens, even a Spartan or two—except there didn't seem to be any doors, or any way out at all. Is this ONI pulling some kind of stunt? The others looked mostly confused, with one or two watching each other warily. None of them were armed, but they were fully armoured. He noticed that two of the aliens were a Kig-Yar and a Jiralhanae, and tensed. He should at least incapacitate them before doing anything else, and maybe a couple of the shiftier-looking Sangheili that didn't look like they were friends of the UNSC. Felix tried to take a step towards them, but realized that he couldn't move at all. He couldn't even struggle; apart from moving his eyes and breathing in and out, he couldn't so much as tilt his head. What is going on? Then a voice spoke. It sounded like it belonged to an adolescent, not an ONI officer. "Hey, can you all hear me?" Some of the others grunted a reply. Felix looked around, trying to see where the voice was coming from. "I'll take that as a yes," the voice said. "Well, let's not forestall any longer. Welcome to the fourth season of Survival of the Fittest!" "And the second that hasn't been cancelled," a second voice muttered. This one belonged to an older person, but this speaker wasn't any more visible than the first. "Yet." There was laughing heard in the background. "Yes, yes, you can blame Actene for that. But I happen to be more organized with that kind of stuff." "Oh yeah, thanks," came a third voice, presumably belonging to the one called Actene. "I'm right here, you know." "Of course I know. I picked you as one of the guest writers." "Hey!" yelled one of the Marines. "Are you guys going to argue all day, or do we get to find out what the hell is going on?" "LOMI, tell your Marine to shut up," said the first voice. "Hey Brandon, shut up," said the fourth voice, LOMI. But Brandon kept talking. "What do you mean 'his Marine'? I don't know anyone called LOMI." "It doesn't matter," said the first voice impatiently. "And we're getting off topic here. You're all a part of Survival of the Fittest, and basically your goal is to kill each other." Felix looked over the others in the room. There were some he certainly wouldn't object to killing, but a few of them were UNSC. Kill them? Why? "Wait, wait wait, hold on," said a female Navy officer. "First of all, who are you guys?" There was a pause. "That's irrelevant." "Are you ONI?" "No. It's not that simple." "At least tell us why we have to kill each other." "Well...this is going to sound bad. But it's for fun." "Fun?" repeated Brandon. "How is that fun?" The Jiralhanae snorted. "This would be fun if there were more of them to kill. As it is, I count only thirteen of us." "Ah, yes," the voice said. "It's not just thirteen of you. There are going to be sixty-two of you in total." The alien gave a huff of approval. "I'm in." "So where are the others?" the Navy officer asked. "Oh, they don't know. They'll be dropped into the map and have no idea what's going on." "That is hardly fair," objected one of the Sangheili that Felix recognized as Autel 'Vadam. "Well, I like to keep things surprising." "So why do we get to know?" asked Brandon. "Not that I mind, of course." "Because it wouldn't be interesting to sit back and watch you guys wandering around for ages until one of you figures out you have to kill everyone else, would it?" "Or because you want your characters to have an advantage," said LOMI's voice. "Bullshit," the first voice replied, sounding offended. "I'm being perfectly fair here." "Then how come you put both Felix and Autel into the room? Admit it, you want your characters to win." There it was again. Felix wondered what LOMI meant. He glanced at Autel, who returned his confused look at being referred to as someone else's "character". This is bizarre. Who could these guys be? "Can we get on with it?" said another Marine. "I think you people are sick, but if we have to kill each other, I'd rather not listen to you teenagers argue over it first." "Actually, I happen to be twenty-five," said the other unidentified voice, the older one. This statement was followed by a chorus of groans. "Dude, there's no point being anal over details with fanon characters," said the first voice. "You do realize that you're misusing the word—" "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Okay, everyone, get ready. In about five seconds, you'll find yourselves in a gigantic map with sixty-one opponents. Consider every single one of them hostile, because when this is over, only one of you can be left standing. Good luck." Felix's mind was whirling. He wanted to ask the voice how they got here, what he meant by "characters", and what the purpose to it all was. This could just be a dream. It can't be real. It just can't. Then the floor disappeared beneath them, and he felt himself falling. Some invisible force gripped him, penetrating through layers of shielding and armour without resistance, and he felt himself beginning to black out once more.
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