#UnlikelyAllies - 2

“I think first I should know why you even want to join the Midnight Fights?” Misha asks after inviting her to eat lunch by the riverside.

They hop over the fence and land in the rolling fields, the spring breeze picking up in the open air. Honey doesn’t catch her skirt on the iron bars this time.

She debates her answer.

Tell him the truth or come up with a calculated lie. If she says she wants to become The King he’ll drop her again and she put too much effort into building this shaky relationship, she has to act thoughtfully.

“The King, Joshua,” Honey starts, “I have a score to settle with his girlfriend, Charlotte.”

Misha hums.

“Sounds like a lot of work for revenge.”

“I want to take her reputation away from her like she did to mine.”

Honey’s seething when she says it, which makes it all the more believable. Misha doesn’t question her any further. She looks like she’d ignite if he prodded.

Elias is waiting for them in the same spot as last time and he waves politely to Honey. He has the same thermos and large set lunch boxes placed beside him.

In the spring sunlight, Elias looks like a celestial being, shimmering hazel eyes and a shine across his red hair like a halo. He’s practically reflecting the sunlight. Honey squints when she looks at him.

Is this what people see when they look at her?

“So it worked out!” Elias says cheerily when she sits down along with Misha.

Honey nods. She doesn’t know why Elias decided to help her or gave her an idea on how best to get Misha to work with her. Maybe he’s scheming, but with a face like that, it’s hard to make any sort of accusation.

Nonetheless, she’s grateful for the extra hand.

Misha raises an eyebrow.

Honey doesn’t think it’s worth explaining.

She’s not sure how to feel with her new lunch companions, but it’s slightly better than eating in the classroom alone. Only slightly. Usually, she’d avoid social outcasts like the plague, now it seemed like she was gathering a collection of them.

“Honey’s interested in getting revenge, Eli.” Misha says.

Elias pours tea into the thermos lid to offer to Honey. She stares at and then gets a good look at the two of them side by side. They look like night and day sitting next to each other. Elias had soft edges and a pretty face while Misha always looked ready to commit a minor crime.

Elias chuckles, “Well, I guess that means both your goals and reasons are the same.”

Honey takes the tea, wanting to get to the point already. 

“You were the Midnight King,” Honey gestures to Elias, then to Misha, “and you were supposedly second. Tell me, how did that happen?”

They share a troubled look, figuring out what to say with an unspoken conversation just between the two of them.

Annoyed, Honey bites her tongue. She never had to put this much effort into a relationship before. It’s fragile and any wrong move she makes now could set her back to ground zero with no leads.

Elias begins.

“To make a long story short, our interests aligned and we were working together to get rid of The Midnight Fights.”

He opens the lunch boxes and passes one compartment to Misha and eats from the other. Honey noticed that they did this the last time too, Misha even unveils a box of chocolate muffins.

One of which he gives to her.

Honey feels like she’s visiting her grandparents, which also makes her a bit too comfortable. She’s not here to relax and she knows nothing about these people.

But the muffins are good, so she stays right where she is.

“Alright, then let me ask you two this,” Honey swallows her bite of muffin, “why didn’t your little plan work two years ago?”

Not that it concerns her, she won’t be following through with whatever they had in store to destroy The Midnight Fights, but there’s some merit in knowing why and how they failed. Not to mention more on what exactly was their plan.

Both of them look uncomfortable and even Honey knows it's a tentative concern. She suddenly feels like she doesn’t want to pry, but she doesn’t retract her question.

Elias looks her straight in the eyes with so much sincerity, she doesn’t know what to do with it.

“Honey, when I told you this runs deep, I meant a lot of people aside from students are involved. With all the violence, of course people brought this up with the police...however none of it got resolved. We didn’t see it at the time but-”

He inhales so sharply it looks like it hurts.

“We think the police might be pulling the strings behind The Midnight Fights.”

Honey blinks.

She’s here for popularity, not to get involved in some grand scheme to undermine the local law enforcement. This was something straight out of a detective narrative, the ones that came on in the middle of the day between paid programs about kitchen utensils.

How deep did The Midnight Fights really run? Was it even worth seeing Charlotte grovel at her feet and beg for forgiveness?

Honey considers it.

Yes, actually it is.

“Look, Honey, we’re not about to let what happen to us happen to you, but if you don’t want to do this…” Misha says carefully, giving her time to back out. For a face made to look like a delinquent, his eyes could hold a lot of sympathetic worry. She kind of hates it.

Honey snorts and waves off his warning. 

Back out? As if. 

This isn’t her plan. Honey’s not about to expose something that could potentially ruin her reputation...again. Once she becomes King and gains her sweet revenge, none of this information will be relevant anyways.

She sets down her lunchbox, fork resting carefully on top of her all protein diet, and nods for them to continue.

“In order to completely get rid of the Rankings and the hierarchy, we had to fight our way to the top. Once one of us was King we were going to put an end to it.”

“You can’t just defeat the King?”

Misha rests an elbow on his knee while he eats. He covers his mouth when he talks with it full of food.

“It’s not that easy. You’ll be seen as a Tyrant and the top 4 Rankers will come after you all at once. Remember, these are the type of people who won’t listen unless you beat some sense into them first.”

Honey’s head tilts to the side. “The top 4 Rankers?”

Misha wipes his mouth on the back of his hand.

“There are 32 Ranks. They’re named according to chess pieces:

6 through 32 are called Pawns,

5 through 2 are respectively The Rook, The Knight, The Bishop, and The Queen,

finally, number 1 is The King.

“When you win a fight, you exchange ranks with the person you’ve beaten through a private app. You saw it. It’s programmed to exchange ranks with a single phone tap and a confirmation.”

An app?

She knows this is quite a big operation, planned down to every technical facet, she just didn’t expect it to this extent. It was a network of students, a whole cacophony of people addicted to violence with someone at the head.

Perfect for taking advantage of.

Honey thinks of the pawn given to her after beating up the vulture looking boy as well as the one on Royale Street.

“You got a pawn, number 15, but unfortunately since you didn’t register you lost your invitation.”

Honey’s face scrunches.

“And whose fault is that?” Neither of them told Honey she lost her chance at The Midnight Fights. She could’ve beaten her way up a couple of the Rankings by now.

Misha rolls his eyes, “You’ll get another chance.”

Honey doubts it, there are only 32 people in the rankings and out of all the schools involved, it’ll be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

“How do you know?”

“We’ll take you to a fight.”

She stops eating her lunch. Well, things were moving a lot faster than she anticipated now that she had their help. Honey didn’t even know there was a designated spot for these fights.

Let alone where to even look.

Still, a bit of her temper begins to rise thinking they could’ve just pointed her in the right direction all this time and be done with it.

Unless there was something else she didn’t know that they weren't telling her.

Something obviously happened to them at The Midnight Fights, something bad.

If she were joining for any reason, she might have asked what it was, but she pushes her curiosity down her throat and pretends she doesn’t give a damn.