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There’s a buzzing under Martyn’s skin. Time. He needs more time. He needs more. He need, he needs, he needs-
He kills Scott the moment his armor is off. Martyn scoffs when he speaks of honor. This is a death match. There’s no such thing as honor. There’s only blood, only gushing crimson like a flowing current among coral and spilling sand in an hourglass.
A voice behind him shouts in surprise, begs him to follow the rules they had set out. All Martyn hears is another thudding heart, another ticking clock. Something else to steal for himself.
His sword slices through Impulse and that’s that. No matter how frantically he whips his head around, searching for someone, something to give him more delicious time, it’s over. The only outlet for his energy now is to laugh, maniacally. He gave them a good show didn’t he? And he was rewarded, he won!
Lightning cracks down on his head before he can process it. For a moment there is splitting pain and then there is nothing. The buzzing stops, like the current was interrupted when he was struck. It leaves behind a feeling like he’s been fried, and he’s not sure if it’s the rush of victory or the lightning. He’s shaking, he thinks.
Martyn doesn’t know what to expect when he opens his eyes. It’s not to be in his base on Coral Isle. Shouldn’t he be gone? Booted back to the server he was on before this started? He looks down at his hands and finds them translucent.
For a moment, Martyn panics at the idea that he’s stuck here. That his punishment for not following Scott’s stupid rules is that he never gets to go home. They wouldn’t do that to him, would they? They liked what he did, even if the other players didn’t. Right? Before he can spiral, he spots them.
Two figures sit on his spilled hour glass. One balances on the edge of the base, tense and mostly supporting their own weight. The other is inside, sitting in the sand and precariously leaning on the shattered glass. Neither is speaking. Just waiting. Like they have all the time in the world. Martyn is almost jealous of this moment of seeming peace.
He approaches and sees who they are. Scott and Pearl, waiting for him. Scott perks up upon seeing him, standing at attention. He looks great. Glowing, quite literally. He's wearing a golden and emerald crown, coated in starlight. The coral and gills are gone. Martyn recognizes his outfit from the last time he had seen it, when they were in the final four of Last Life and he managed to kill himself with his own end crystal in an attempt to kill Scott. Frustration rises in him at the memory.
“I thought you were gone. Do I need to kill you again?” Martyn speaks through his teeth. He goes to grab his sword and finds it missing from his side.
Scott only smiles that stupid serene smile he does sometimes when he thinks things are going well. He’s done it enough this season for Martyn to become all too familiar, especially when they were green. He found it comforting at the time. Now it just makes his veins burn with the urge to throttle him.
“Pearl, he’s here. Your turn,” He taps on the glass. Pearl turns to look up at him lazily.
In contrast to Scott, Pearl looks awful. Far worse than when he last saw her in this game. She’s ragged, gaunt and pale. Her clothes are torn and stained with blood and dirt. The only glow to her is a thin sheen of sweat. There’s a crown almost tangled in her knotted hair. It’s rose gold, lined with small chains that have rubies the shape of drops of blood dangling onto her face and tickling her ears. Right in the center of her forehead, on a raised curve at her hairline, is a large crescent moon shape. She wears it like it’s too much for her. Pearl supports herself heavily on the side of the hourglass as she gets up, grunting in pain. Blood soaks into bandages on her thigh and her arm. Not injuries from this game. No, this is how Martyn remembers her looking at the end of Double Life. He tamps down the mild embarrassment of his final moments in that game, when he had falsely assumed that Tilly was corrupting her, not realizing she had already died. There was no demon, no witch, he knew now. Only Pearl.
Something about seeing her makes his rage cool, but only a little.
“You look like shit,” he bites out at her. He’s not sure why. The anger just needs to go somewhere. Pearl laughs a short barking laugh.
“Yeah. Turns out there’s a difference between winning and enduring. You can kill all your enemies and still end up like me, I guess. Not that they care. I was the victor anyways,” Her voice slurs tiredly in a way he’s never quite heard. Tired Pearl is usually manic, he thought, not… this. “Either way, I have to crown you,”
It’s more a laurel than a crown in her hands. A wreath of tangled seaweed cast in silver, a large circular garnet in the center. His namesake, Mars. Her hands shake with the weight of it. He kneels before her, almost on instinct.
“She passed out before I crowned her. I had to do it when she was asleep. They weren’t happy about that. They made sure you were… more awake this time,” Scott clarified from behind Pearl. Martyn feels it buzzing in him. He couldn’t sleep right now if he wanted to, and by God he doesn’t. He wants to swim and bite and kill. Instead he dips his head, anticipating the weight of the crown.
Instead, a callused but gentle hand slips across his cheek, tilting his head up. She’s ice cold. Pearl smiles, small and sad. Hazy blue eyes shift in the sun to a light purple.
“What are you, victor? A winner, or someone who has endured?” It’s not until that moment that he remembers that Pearl was in Evo too. Her eyes aren’t quite their purple, not that vibrant. But their mark is there in her too. He isn’t sure who is speaking to him with Pearl’s voice. Martyn grins viciously.
“I’m a fucking winner,” he sneers. Pearl smiled back, showing off sharp canines.
“Go on then,” And it’s her speaking again. She lays the crown on his brow.
Power surges through him like the lightning had before. He’s never felt more alive.