#TheKnight - 1

Honey stares into the mirror of Godforsaken’s restrooms, fixing the wing of her eyeliner and waiting for her mini curling iron to heat on the sink countertop.

The bathroom is filthy. Covered in gum and unidentifiable stains that Honey doesn’t even want to know where they came from. Random graffiti of phone numbers or phallic symbols decorate the walls like some sort of Godforsaken Exclusive art gallery.

She takes the only clean space in the cracked mirror to touch up her appearance.

A girl to her right (Honey doesn’t know her name, but she has breath smells like she ate a whole pack of cigarettes before heading to school that day) leans against the mirror, scrolling through her phone.

Another one poses in the mirror, hiking up her skirt a little higher to see how far it could go without showing her underwear. Honey knows the length isn’t the problem with her stubby legs.

A third girl is on the sink next to Honey, applying lipstick that’s definitely NOT her color.

All of them waiting for Honey.

These girls appeared out of nowhere. One day Honey skated through the school gates a little later than usual and somehow collected an entourage on her way in. Following her like attentive servants.

They’re bleak, foul-smelling, hideous individuals that Honey wouldn’t normally associate with, but she needs some background characters to hype up her beauty.

Which they do. A lot.

If Honey allows herself to miss one thing from Vainglory, it would be this. A forgettable posse trailing behind her like starved dogs, fighting over whatever scraps Honey offers. She revels in their undivided attention, squeezing every last compliment out of them until they’re bled dry.

Honey barely even talks to them, they mostly talk at her. They don’t even give her a chance to speak sometimes.

They smile at her with yellow teeth.

For some reason she hates it.

Right now, they’re spewing gossip like it’s their second language and they’re completely fluent.

Honey doesn’t know half the people they’re talking about. Actually, scratch that, she doesn’t know any of the people they talk about because she doesn’t remember names.

On the topic of someone sleeping with someone else’s boyfriend, matters Honey couldn’t care less about as she curls her bangs to hide the scar, they point at Honey with their pitiful manicured nails.

“Please don’t tell me you’re dating the school demon.”

Honey shakes out her hair, raising an eyebrow. Up until a while ago, the school demon might have been classified as Honey herself.

“Who?” She asks.

The girl snorts. Honey moves away from her smoker’s breath.

“That guy that sits next to you? He’s such a creep, he sticks to you like a stalker.”

Speak for yourself, Honey thinks. She wants to say it out loud, but she just got this little fanclub and she doesn’t want to ruin it just yet.

Maybe she’s a little starved for the attention.

“You’ve heard about his dad, haven’t you? It was all over the news two years ago.”

Honey blinks.

It’s the same thing that the police officer had told her.

‘That boy will probably end up like his father.’

This is something she should hear from Misha. Elias’ voice is almost like her conscience, she hates that his face is etched into her brain and all she can see is the look he’d give her.

She shouldn’t care. She doesn’t care. 

But the topic keeps resurfacing and every time, it’s dangled tauntingly in front of her face. Making her feel stupid. Honey doesn’t want to hear this from these walking disasters, but it’s starting to get on her nerves.

“What happened?”

All three girls’ jaws open with shock. Honey wishes she could snap them shut.

“You don’t know?” Miss short skirt with equally short legs puts a hand over her mouth incredulously.

The other girl tugs on Honey’s sleeve.

“He didn’t threaten you or something did he?”

“No.” Honey snatches her arm out of the girl’s grip, packing her curling iron and make-up away.

Smoke breath looks too giddy to share gossip, “WelI, I guess the previous King had it coming. Unlike Joshua, he was a hell of a mess, trying to pit schools and rankers against each other, we couldn’t even leave the house without the chance of getting jumped.”

She turns to Honey.

“Maybe the previous King pissed off his gang or whatever but,”

Honey didn’t realize she had been clenching her beauty bag until her stiff fingers release the handle and her knuckles crack from the sudden lack of tension.

“Misha’s dad was killed by police officers after beating the previous King to death.”

----

Misha throws a ball of paper at Honey’s face when she returns to Class 2-B. A few students greet her from their desks like they’ve been her friends this whole time. Honey spares them a pathetic wave.

She catches the projectile without looking.

He smiles.

“And that’s three days in a row that I haven’t been able to catch you off guard. You’re ready to face-” Misha gives her a thumbs up, but she doesn’t look as annoyed as she usually did when he threw something at her.

It’s one of the rare instances she doesn’t look angry or violent or any other emotion associated with her usual belligerent attitude. Her brow smooths out enough to make her look like a normal high school girl and not an elite in an illegal fight club.

Right now, her face reads conflicted.

“You okay?”

He’s only asked that once before, afraid she might blow up if he asked it again. And she does. As if smelling something terrible, her face contorts and she looks disgusted. Just like usual.

He expects her to say something, her mouth is slightly open and ready to speak, but she’s silent. For a split second, she looks unsure of what to say, eyes darting around everywhere but on Misha, before deciding to take her seat quietly.

Weird. That was definitely weird. But he knows that no matter how much he prods and pesters her about it, she won’t open up to him. 

He drops it. If she wanted to talk about it, she would.

“Alright,” Misha throws an eraser at her. She catches it again.

“Will you quit that?”

Ah. And there is the Honey Misha’s come to know. Quick to catch on fire.

“Well, it looks like you’re ready to face The Drunken Serpent.”

“Yeah, with little help from your ‘training’,” She spits, pulling out her phone to do her hourly social media check, effectively telling him to shut up. Her tone has a little less bite today.

At first, Misha thinks she’s mad at him, a different kind of passive-aggressive mad, but then in the middle of class, Honey slides a paper onto his desk. Discreetly, not even looking up from her phone although no teacher would bother scolding her even if she shouted at Misha from across the room.

The scrap of paper has a grid on it.

Tic-tac-toe.

They play five rounds during the afternoon lecture.

For some reason, he thinks she’s trying to comfort him.

---

12 AM. The warehouse is packed. 

The three of them arrive just as The Queen ends their fight, leaving a battered teenager lying half-alive in the center of the ring. People holler like donkeys around the baggy clothed individual, stomping their nonexistent hooves when The Queen passes.

The mysterious teen already making for the entrance, one fight to uphold their already shaky reputation, but one fight that would make everyone remember what kind of ruthless The Queen really was.

No one knew when the second of The Rankings would ever show up, although when they did, it was usually a bloody statement. It was such a rare occurrence that whenever The Queen appears, the news would spread fast and the warehouse would crowd with high schoolers.

All vying to get a glimpse at this rare event. Enraptured by someone who didn't even have the courtesy to show their face. 

The Queen's fights could only be described with one word. Merciless.

Honey watches the hooded figure with an obvious look of envy,  pulling on her bangs to satisfy her urge to steal that spotlight.

And The Queen, dressed in all black with clothes that didn’t seem to fit quite right, looks right back.

Misha thinks they're looking directly at Honey. He can't tell from the oversized hood, but they tilt their head in her direction. Acknowledging her. 

Then The Queen is gone. 

Lost amongst the throng of people like some sort of paranormal phenomenon. Even the large warehouse doors seem to shut soundlessly once they are out of sight.

Honey glares at the place where The Queen once stood. The exchange felt like a taunt, almost as if to say, ‘come get me’ with a single move of their head.

Her teeth grind together. She's visibly repulsed. 

It could be from The Queen.

Or it could be from how many bodies are currently packed into the rusted, shoddy warehouse tonight. The smell alone is offensive, greasy high schoolers who had nothing better to do than watch people fight to the death couldn’t be bothered to put on a little deodorant.

Or run themselves through the laundry.

With Honey’s growing following and her persistent posting, a lot of people knew about the showdown going to happen today. Another bit of a rare occurrence. Two elites fighting for their positions (and appearance from The Queen), spark excitement for the recently stagnant Midnight Fight Rankings.

Hunnie.bunnie143, The Rook.

And Drunken Serpent, The Knight.

The bets are equal. They all expect this fight to be something worth watching.

“Honey, look, it's that guy from the library.” Elias taps on her shoulder and she lazily swats it away. 

Misha peeks over the crowd, adjusting his disguise so that he could see past the long black strands of his wig a little better. Gray passionately styled both their wigs today and although they looked lovely, Misha wasn’t used to long hair.

Sometimes strands would get caught in his mouth and he’d have to spit it out.

Elias points at a pretentious looking boy with glasses standing a few paces away from them.

Although he looks like a model student, he’s throwing back beers like there’s no tomorrow. He has two already empty in his hands while he drinks from a third with a posture so rigid his spine is as straight as a metal rod.

Honey’s fingers tighten around her arms. 

She turns and says something to Elias, something Misha doesn’t hear over a boy yelling above the crowd to find his friend.

Suddenly, they seemed closer than before.

Almost like a couple. 

The two of them together, two popular high schoolers possibly having a date at a rather unsavory venue that’s less than romantic. Elias makes a face he usually would only wear around Misha. Maybe Elias wanted new friends, a new partner-in-crime, a new romance, something other than the face that probably reminded him of all his bad memories.

Maybe this was for the best.

Misha feels a little out of place.

There’s a tightness in his chest that he ignores.

A bottle smashes on the ground in the open ring. It makes a deafening shatter as it hits the concrete and litters the floor with shards of glass. Anyone loitering aimlessly inside the ring immediately jumps out at the sound.

The model student had been making his way through the crowd with beer bottles in hand just to get inside the now vacant ring. He downs the third bottle and a timid, little attendant hands him a fourth.

When he talks, some of the alcohol runs down the side of his chin.

“Yeeesh, what’re ya’ll standing around for? Someone to suck your balls?”

Misha, Elias, and Honey share one big collective look. Like an internalized meeting and the issue today involved a boy that would probably spew nothing but vulgar, yet still looks like the teacher’s pet.

All present cheer once he staggers out into the ring. He proudly brandishes his beer bottles as if they were some kind of award in a TV show, raising them above his head for all to see.

His foot catches on one of the spectator’s legs and it nearly sends him careening straight into the floor. His reflexes save him from face planting into a pile of ashes, but his glasses come clattering to the ground and in his recovery, the boy has stepped on them.

He hiccups. 

Looking down at his broken glasses once before sweeping his hair from his forehead. The more time that goes by, the more time that the goody-two-shoed boy from the library turns into a disheveled, discourteous alcoholic.

The type to shout conspiracies on public streets in their drunken fever.

Misha had never seen a high schooler so wasted that he couldn’t even stand upright on his own, swaying from side to side like an unbalanced Jenga tower. His feet struggle to keep under him, lurching to catch up with his excessively tall torso that looked ready to topple like at the slightest movement. 

The Knight, Drunken Serpent.

Honey pushes past Misha and Elias, into the ring, hitting the toe of her skates on the concrete floor to get his attention. It’s the same as snapping your fingers in someone’s face or tapping your nails against a table to demand recognition. 

Misha feels a little worried.

Honey seems too excited. Too eager. Too ready to throw herself into another fight like she was itching to use her unbridled strength again. Anticipating the attention and popularity that came with it.

“You’re the Drunken Serpent?” The snarl beginning to twist her face.

His eyes slide onto her. 

Dark pupils jittery and unfocused, like they're having trouble find out which direction Honey's voice had come from. His delayed reaction melting from a tipsy smile to a sick smirk of amusement. 

He flashes his teeth at Honey.

“You want an autograph?”