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“Shut up, shut the fuck up!” Someone yells into nothingness, Phil doesn’t know why they are yelling. They don’t sound like an adult, they sound like a kid, maybe a teenager. Why would a teenager yell for people to stop talking, and especially a kid in the middle of nowhere.
Phil was send here for one thing and one thing only: getting people out of the human trafficking. He has been driving this road for ages, nothing to be seen, only sometimes a car driving past or a lonely camel walking through the sand land.
There hasn’t been anything that could intent that a kid would be near this road, maybe the car that passed him seven minutes ago could be it, but they didn’t have a child anywhere in the car. Suddenly, there is a loud cry. The cry sounds like it could come from the boy, a voice of a young boy that is no older than 16.
Phil stops the car, he doesn’t need to look around if it is save, because there is no one that is here, or worse, no one that would be here to harm him.There is another cry, it doesn’t sound like the first one at all, this one is louder, a cry out of pain, loud- to scare people away.
"No!' the boy yells again, it is clear that something is following him, might have been following him for a while now.
Phil steps out of the car, not knowing if that is the safest option ever, but he still do it if he could help the kid.
He hears the kid yell again, but now the sound is more muffeld, more like something is covering the kids mouth. Phil hears his feathers ruffeling, feels them standing up.
Phil has learned a lot of things about his wings, one of them is that they can understand his emotions before his brain even knows these emotions exist.
"Let go off me!" The boy yells, Phil can hear the struggle, can feel that the boy is scared.
Phil is running before he can register the movement, he is running in the kids direction, only coming to a stop as another car lane comes in sight. He can see a car speeding off.
His wings immediately know what to do, rising him in the air and following the car. To his surprise, the car is faster than him, speeding out of view in no time.
Phil tries to go faster, tries to catch up with the car, but it is still too fast.
Phil almost gave up, but his eyes catch a building in the distance. The building doesn't look modern, like it was build eons ago. He comes closer to the building, his breath hitching as he sees that the car from minutes ago is parked infront of it.
He decends to the ground, not wanting to let the people know that he is here by the noises that his wings make.
People are laughing inside, the sounds of voices coming closer every step he takes.
"Looks like we got a winner!" Someone yells inside, they are loud, like they are wearing some sort of mike.
Phil walks to the entrance of the building, seeing some old looking symbols on the door. He can't understand most of them, only the ones he does understand aren't very pleasant.
<... are entering the ... . Be aware the ... can be a ... to you.>
From the small amount of symbols he understands, he can make out that the language is Enderian. He is lucky that the avians learned him a bit of the foreign language, even if he forgot most of it while he wasn't there.
"Next fight-" he can hear someone announcing, he frowns, fighting? Here, in the middle of nowhere?
His gut is telling him not to open the door, he knows he should turn around, leave this place immediately. But his curiosity gets the best of him, he opens the door, stepping into a huge ballroom. Suddenly, there is a man in front of him, Phil can't understand what they are saying, it isn't the same language as on the door, it is harsher than he remembers Endarian sounding, only it too has the same flow as it, the two could have the same roots?
He looks the man in front of him up and down, they are a piglin hybrid, one that would stand out to the trained eye but one that the public would only recognize as piglin by subtle pointy ears the man has.
"I am looking for.." Phil doesn't know exactly what he is looking for, only to his luck, the man seems to know what he is hinting to.
"Come with me," the man says, bowing. Phil can recognize that the language was English, but it was harder because of the strong accents the man carries.
The man walks forward, only looking back once or twice, checking if Phil is still behind him.
When the man opens a set of doors to a place that smells like blood, Phil understands where he is.
The next fight- the subtle hint of danger on the front door- the smells of blood and the yelling.
A fighting ring.
Phil doesn't know if this is The fighting ring, because every person living in Subbin knows of one fighting ring, one no one knows the location of, only the name.
The pit. Only the thought of this being that place brings chills up Phil's spine. The pit is a place where hybrid kids fight against eachother and the surviving ones are being sold afterwards.
As Phil enters the place, he sees banners and posters hanging around, he only needs to see the logo and his suspicion is correct, this is the pit. Phil almost gags as he sees two kids fighting eachother underneath him. He hears people laughing, hears people betting on who is going to win.
Phil can only look at the children, he knows that the pit doesn't take kids above the age of sixteen, he can guess both of the kids ages while being maybe 100 feet away.
One looks around 13, the horns on his head not fully grown yet, his tail not fully developed. You can clearly see that the kid is an endarian, the only questionable thing is why his skin is a mix of multiple tones, white and black, because most endarians Phil knows only have the black skin. The kid also has heterochromia, his eyes being red and green instead of the usual purple.
When Phil looks at the other kid, he supresses a shiver. The kid is a piglin hybrid, Phil can already see that at the little tusks just poking out above his under lips. The boy looks around eleven, maybe less than that. He has long hair, it is in a braid, but Phil can see that it isn't cared for in a long while. The man can only stare in disbelieve at the boy's hair, it is pink, not blond-pink, but actually pink! Phil thought that that was a myth his parents told him, that piglins with pink hair didn't exist. But he was clearly wrong.
Phil focusses on the game again as the enderian punches the piglin boy in his jaw, kicking him to the ground. Only, to Phil's suprise, the boy jumps up again and kicks his opponent to the ground, the boy presses his foot on the other kid's neck until there is a deavening crack and the other boy goes limp on the ground.
There is yelling all around Phil, people throwing stuff out of anger. People cursing the kid out for killing his opponent, even if that is the whole goal of a fighting ring.
"Looks like we got-" the announcer starts, but there is grunt as the kids too falls on the ground. "A winner!" They continue, clearly not caring about the wellbeing of the boy.
The boy grabs his head, pulling his hair. Phil can see the boy mumbling, Phil tries to listen, but suddenly the boy is talking loud enough for the man to hear him. Phil needs to grab his ears as the boy starts screaming, louder and louder.
"Stop talking... Stop talking! STOP TALKING!" The boy yells, hearing the boy's voice, he immediately knows it is the same boy as not even an hour ago.
"The boy is posessed!" Someone from the stands yells.
"He is constantly talking about voices," someone, likely his 'owner' adds.
Soon, everyone in the crowd is yelling the chime 'the kid is posessed' or 'kill the boy'. The announcer, that is still standing next to the yelling kid, suddenly yells something. Phil can't listen to the words he is saying though, he can only look at the blade in the man's hand.
"- he is a curse, he killed our priced possesion," Phil can hear him say, Phil looks at the knife closely, seeing it suddenly rise, before he can stop himself, he is yelling:
"No!" Everybody turns to him, even the kids head shoots up. "Don't kill the... Monster." Phil hates how he needs to use that word for the boy, but Phil also knows that he needs to dehumanize his language to make his plan possible. "It doesn't deserve death," Phil says, he shivers as people around him gasp. "It deserves worse than that. Give it to me." He walks to the fences, standing right before them when he speaks his next words: "I will give that what it deserves."
It is completely silent as everybody takes in what he just said, some people start nodding, other people just stare at him like he is crazy.
"And you are certain?" Someone, presumably the boy's owner, asks. "It is a danger to you, I needed to chain it to a wall because it tried to attack me over and over again."
"I recon I can handle it, sir. It won't be a trouble to me after the one I handled some years prior," It isn't a lie completely, he too adopted Wilbur from a fighting ring, only Wilbur didn't quite attack him after Phil fed him a decent meal.
The man steps closer to Phil, he can feel the warm breath on his ears. "Between you and me, are you sure about this?"
"Yes, I am," Phil answers, it is not completely true, he doesn't know how the boy will react to him or Wilbur and Tommy, but he hopes that the kid will feel save after some time at his house.
"I accept Mister.."
"Craft."
"I accept Mister Craft's offer, giving him the owner ship over the monster." When the man finishes talking, everybody claps, Phil doesn't know for who the clapping is, but they don't seem too angry about not killing the child.
"Come down, Mister Craft," the man in the field says. The boy only stares at Phil, looking half betrayed by the man.
As Phil walks down to the boy, he can see him tensing up.
"Look at you, you beautiful thing," he says, he tries to sounds like he is mocking the boy, but his words are not what he wanted, they are loud, angry- even better than he wanted. The boy's eyes dart around the room, trying to find someone that can help him, but he doesn't seem to find anyone, choosing to stare at the ground instead.
Phil knows he needs to play the bad owner for just ten minutes, then he can try to convince the boy he isn't that scary after all.
Phil comes closer to the kid, standing just in front of him.
"Look at me," Phil says. He knows this part in the story all too well, having been forced in the same position as the kid is in right now. When the boy doesn't look up, Phil snaps: "Look. At. Me." The kid looks up, not meeting Phil's gaze but his eyes ending up on Phil's chest. Phil is sorry for the kid, truly, he is sorry for the kid that he already knows at that age to never look someone in the eyes that has power over you, every arena kid was thought that after some beatings.
"Good," Phil says, nodding in fake pride. He turns his attention to the man still standing next to them. "There is a place for it right? Or at least, a box and cage for it containing it's stuf?"
"Y-yes."
"Bring me to it, please."
The man nods, turning around. "Follow me."
Phil casts his gaze on the kid again, "Stand up." The boy listens immediately. Phil grabs the kids braid, the boy hisses in responds, but Phil pulls the braid a bit harder than needed and the kid quiets down.
"Let go off me," the kid hisses, just low enough for only Phil to hear.
"When we are out of here," Phil answers, the boy tenses up even more.
"W-what do you mean?"
"I will let go of your braid when we are out of here, understood?" He says, his voice carrying a sence of power over the boy.
"Sir," the man says, still looking at the encounter of the two. "This servant will accompany you to the crate of the monster, please follow it, it has other work to do."
Phil pushes the boy forward, the boy stumbles first, but soon he walks with the same speed as Phil so he doesn't need to be pushed around the whole time.
"We've arrived," the man leading them says, opening a door to a small room.
"Thank you, I can handle it from here."
Soon, after Phil is handed a key, he is left with only the kid.
Phil, after locking the door, lets go of the kids braid, letting the kid shoot back to a corner of the room.
"Do you have a problem with being leashed for a bit?" Phil asks, the boy nods slowely. "Even if it is just a couple of minutes?" The boy shakes his head. "Do you have any personal stuf here?" The boy thinks about the question, Phil knows how likely it could be a trick question, but this isn't, he genuinely cares about if the kid has anything that he wants to take with him. Then, he nods even slower as before, Phil smiles at that, glad he has more than Phil had then.
"Grab it," Phil says, and the boy moves to a bag, it isn't big, maybe bit enough to fit the kids hand in it. The kid opens the bag, throwing everything on the ground in one go. Phil can see some stuf that the boy is laying aside, searching for something specific.
When the boy finally found it, he immediately reaches for his ear, but Phil pats the boy's shoulder. The kid's face, at seeing Phil's outstretched palm, immediately darkens.
"Don't worry, you aren't yet save here." Phil doesn't know how to explain to the kid that he needs to look like Phil is his 'owner', rather than a convenient person that takes him out of this hell hole.
"But.."
"Sorry, but when we reach my car, you can get them back."
The boy hands them over, not that it looks like the boy trusts it that he gets them back, but more that the boy thinks that he doesn't have a choice.
Phil and the kid finally leave the room, Phil looks at what he has taken and sees that it is mostly restrictions for the kid. Mostly rope; the leash and collar; and the little packet the kid gave him.
Phil yet doesn't know if this is just an act that the boy is putting up or that he is actually just too scared to attack Phil.
"I.." Phil suddenly stops the kid, "the leash, otherwise they'll-"
"chjust do it," the kid says, their accent giving away the fact that he definitely is born in the nether and spoke Piglin at first.
Phil snorts at the anger mixed with the accent, the kid looks at him, fire in his eyes.
"chwat?"
"Nothing." The boy nods slowely at him, his arms crossed. Phil bends down at the kids level, trying to clip the collar and leash but the boy flinches back his hands come closer to his neck. "You want to do it?" Phil asks, the kid nods, taking over the collar and
"That feels good?" The boy only nods hestitantly in return. Phil can see for a fact that the kid doesn't like the collar at all, even if it is normal that a human being doesn't like to be chained, it looks like the kid is going to have a panick attack.
Phil is glad when he sees the somewhat familiar doors, the ones leading them out of the building. He opens the door, unconsciously preparing for an attack, luckily for them, nothing shows.
Only now, he remembers that he left his car behind when he left off to chase the car, they'll need to fly to the car, but Phil doesn't know how the kid would like his life being in hand of a stranger he just met. Deciding that it is better to ask the kid before throwing assumptions, he asks:
"You want to fly?" The kid looks at him, debating if he heard Phil correctly. "My car is a bit far away to walk to." The kid nods, seemingly understanding. "But I'll need to carry you then." The kid nods again, getting just a bit more pale than before.
Phil grabs the kid, holding him tight between his arms and rises in the air.
The kid screams as they fly through the air, Phil can only smile as they fly through the air, knowing that the kid is save from the rings and the men in it.