[A/N: If you didn't read the auxiliary note, go back to read it, in order to avoid future fights between us— don't make me throw hands with you. I'm barely sane.]
~~~~~~~
The count echoed like a death knell.
"10! 9! 8!..."
The larger fighter pressed his thick arm across the chest of the man beneath him, his knee pinning his opponent's legs while the body under him thrashed. The pressure never lifted as the count continued.
"...3! 2! 1!"
DING!! DING!! DING!! DING!!
The bell rang around the dimly-lit underground arena, with two men in the middle of an enclosed wrestling ring.
The larger man released his hold and stood up, wiping away the blood on his busted lip with the back of his palm.
"And the winner," the announcer started, "for tonight's match, the one and only beast! The champion of the ring... ACE!! LESTER!!"
The announcer bellowed, and the underground arena exploded into loud cheers, whistles, and roars.
Some of the men in the crowd held huge banners and flags with Ace's face printed on them, with words like "Big W for Ace Lester."
Meanwhile, some women held signs and large cards with his name written in bold letters, wishing him luck, decorated with hearts and red lip prints.
Every eye stayed on the man at the center of the ring, as the referee lifted his arm.
The speakers crackled, and Gangsta's Paradise poured through the arena.
...living in a gangsta's paradise...
The referee handed over the belt to Ace, who lifted the belt up briefly, a look of indifference plastered onto his face, as if he hadn't just crushed another opponent.
There was no smile, neither was there any celebration on his face. His expression stayed flat, almost detached, as if the cheers and banners were meant for someone else.
To him, the win felt like a routine, just another fight survived rather than a moment worth celebrating.
His swollen eyes swept over the crowd, lingering for a second on the faces shouting his name.
He searched longer than he intended to, scanning the back rows and the shadows near the exits.
Sawyer had said he would be there tonight, but he wasn't.
Ace gave a brief nod to the cheering crowd. It wasn't gratitude or pride, just a habit of his.
He draped the heavy belt over his shoulder and turned away from the ring, already done with the moment.
"...Still living in a gangsta's paradise..."
As he walked out, the music slowly faded into the background. The roar of the crowd dulled with every step he took, but the uneasy feeling in his chest stayed with him.
Ace knew there were eyes in the arena that didn't belong to his fans, and those eyes had watched him fight tonight.
He knew they were coming for him.
And then,
[TWO DAYS LATER]
"Lester!" One of the men shouted, as six of them chased after Ace. "You fucking cunt!"
Ace's feet moved on instinct, taking sharp corners, jumping broken curbs, sliding past parked cars with barely a glance.
He reached a T-junction and took one last drag from the cigar in between his lips, before throwing it on the street to his right while he ran left.
The moon high above was the only light that illuminated his path, seeing that the government had refused to fix the street lights.
"We are working on it." That was what the mayor had said on the podium three years ago, and yet, the street lights remained untouched.
Ace continued running till the street ahead narrowed, the houses closing in on both sides, with just one turn left.
He took the turn and slowed instinctively, his eyes lifting before his feet could stop.
The man who Ace recognized as Lee was already there, blocking the way with his broad shoulders filling the space.
A crooked grin made it to Lee's face. "Running out of roads, Lester?" The man said in between heavy breaths, a satisfactory tone laced in his voice.
Another set of footsteps skidded to a stop behind Ace a second later.
"Looks like the shadows finally caught up with you." The man behind Ace, Rico, inhaled deeply, then chuckled.
Ace remained silent, eyes darting to every corner, already calculating his next escape.
"You didn't stick to your promise, Lester," Lee started, while three others arrived on the spot. "We had a deal."
The frown on Ace's face deepened. "We had no deal," he replied coolly, putting his hands into his pants pocket.
"The match two nights ago, you were supposed to lose, on purpose." Another man spoke, his voice raspy from smoking twenty packs ahead into the future.
"Do you know how much your ego had cost us, hm?" Lee spoke, pulling out a cigar from the makeshift suit he had on. "70 grand." He lit the cigar and placed it in between his lips, huffing out a puff.
Ace shifted his weight on the ground, but remained silent.
"Cat cut your tongue?" The broad, six-foot slab of a man spoke next, sounding far more confident than he had any right to.
Ace was a tad surprised he made it this far without collapsing on his fourth step.
Rico suddenly laughed, grinding his palm against his knuckles until they let out a series of sickening pops. "Six of us, one of you. Should've taken the fall in the ring, Lester."
Six of them spread out around Ace, cutting off the narrow street before he could think to run away.
Two held metal bats, gripping them tight like they were itching to swing.
The rest also cracked their knuckles and smiled, the kind of smiles that meant they had already decided how this would end.
Ace stopped scanning the area, because he knew there was nowhere to go with the six morons surrounding him.
One of the men rushed him first, swinging wide and sloppy. Ace stepped into it and drove his fist straight into the man's jaw.
The man dropped hard, crashing onto the pavement and not getting back up.
Another came from the side, and Ace turned and slammed his elbow into the man's ribs, then followed it with a punch to the face.
Blood sprayed, teeth clicked, and that one staggered back, coughing and holding his mouth.
For a moment, it looked like Ace might actually pull off this six-versus-one man show.
Then, the bat came down.
The metal struck his shoulder hard, and pain exploded through his arm.
Before he could recover, another bat hit his back, forcing the air out of his lungs.
He cried out before he could stop himself. He dropped to one knee, gasping, his hands shaking as he tried to push himself up, but they didn't give him time.
Kicks landed against his ribs, his stomach, his legs, with shoes slamming into his face.
Someone grabbed his hair and yanked his head back just as a fist smashed into his nose, with an audible crack resonating through the street.
Warm blood poured down his nose, lips, and chin, making it hard for him to breathe.
Ace swung back when he could, punching blindly, landing a hit here and there. But every time he moved, two more hits came back at him.
Blood ran down the side of his face, dripping from his jaw onto the dirt below.
The world around him started to blur, the edges darkening as his eyes struggled to stay open through the pain spreading everywhere at once.
He tried to move his fingers, but they wouldn't respond, and he felt like his body was sinking into the ground.
Even as he fell to the pavement, the boots didn't stop coming down on him while he curled up, trying to protect his head from the hits.
One of the men flexed his aching fingers and stared down at him.
"How the hell is this bastard still breathing?"
By the time they finally stopped, Ace barely moved. Bruises covered his body, and blood poured through his torn clothes, pooling beneath him in the dirt.
As he lay there broken, every breath he took hurt. He was close enough to death that even the men standing over him could see it.
They all stared down at his battered form, each of them wearing expressions that were far from remorse, but closer to elation.
None of them spoke at first.
Then one of them finally broke the silence. "Now what?" he asked, staring at the others expectantly.
Lee looked down at Ace, then glanced around the empty street. "We clean every trace of him, like he never existed to begin with."
All of them seemed to agree with Lee's words, since no one argued against it.
Ace heard the words, then he heard footsteps move closer, before he felt hands grabbing him roughly under the arms and legs.
His head lolled to the side, and he let out a weak sound that didn't resemble a groan or a cry.
He felt himself being dragged on the hard stone pavement for a moment, before he was carried properly.
Immediately his body left the ground, the pain that shot through him was hard enough to make his vision flash white.
He lifted his head weakly, blood dripping from his mouth as his eyes settled on them.
"Burn this face into your mind," he wheezed, the words dragging through the blood in his throat.
"Because if there's anything waiting for me on the other side," he gritted his teeth, a small smile spreading across his face. "I'm bringing it back to end you all."
All of a sudden, the men stopped, and Lee laughed under his breath before leaning closer. "Go on." He encouraged. "But first, when you hit hell, tell 'em we pushed you there."
"Ace Lester is dead to the world," a voice stripped of emotion said, right before they threw him into the well like a stone.
Ace's life flashed before his eyes as he fell into the well in slow-mo.
And in that brief moment he was thrown into the well, he managed to open his eyes one last time and saw a familiar face staring down at him.
For a moment he thought the blood in his eyes was distorting what he saw.
Because the face staring down at him was the same guy who had once dragged him out of a bar fight and called him brother.
Betrayal had never tasted this bitter.
"Sawyer."
Ace whispered just before his back hit the water in the well, and he began to sink slowly.
His hands lifted weakly, trying to fight, trying to survive, wanting one more chance to live, but all he saw was water, which was tainted with his own blood.
His eyes drifted to the opening of the well one last time, and everyone was gone except Sawyer.
Sawyer stared down at him for a moment longer, guilt written all over his face, before turning and fleeing the scene.
In that moment, Ace wanted nothing more than to know why his best friend had chosen betrayal over him.
"Why..."
The word barely formed on his tongue before the water swallowed it.
Ace didn't struggle much because his body was too far gone for it, so he just watched the surface of the water drift further away while the small circle of light at the top of the well got smaller until it was nothing but a pinprick in the dark.
His heart gave one last ragged beat before the darkness began to change, turning from a void into something solid as a cold red glow began to bleed into the water from nowhere, swirling around him like ink.
[System Override Detected.]
The words didn't flash before his eyes but vibrated inside the marrow of his bones, sounding heavy and absolute as the system locked onto his expiring soul.
[Host Soul: Ace Lester.]
[Status: Expired.]
[Action: Soul-Vessel Migration Initiated.]
[Searching for Available Vessel in Current World-State...]
The water around him began to ripple and tear like paper, feeling like a thousand tiny needles were pulling at his skin and dragging him through the bottom of the well toward a void that didn't have a bottom.
He wasn't sinking anymore. The world wasn't letting him sink. It was removing him, stripping him out of its logic like corrupted data.
The last thing Ace heard before everything went white was a single mechanical chime.
[Warning: 0% Compatibility in 2025 Time-Stamp.]
[Fast-Forwarding Search...]
[Searching for Available Vessel (Earth-State: 2065)]
[Vessel Identified: Human Male (Rank: Livestock)]
[Controlled Territory: Circle VII Feeders]
[Status: Awaiting Processing]
[Synchronization: 100%]
[Initialization Complete.]
~~~~~~~
A/N: This is a survival system. No rewards. No quests. No level ups. No cheat codes.
If you're waiting to be saved, I'm afraid you're in the wrong story.