An aggressive knocking assaulted the door of Vorelando’s hotel room.

“Vo! Vo! You OK???”

Kobe was the assaulter. He needed to check that his friend was alright.

“Shut up! I’m coming!”

Vorelando came and opened the door.

“Answer my fucking calls yeah?” Kobe said.

“I was asleep.”

“How did you sleep through this?”

Kobe flung open the curtains in Vorelando’s room to a horrifying sight. The streets were a mess, blood on the walls, glass in the streets, smoke pouring out of most windows.

“What the hell happened?”

“Someone tripped over the plug of the big computer that controls all the money and the economy crashed. There were mass riots, so many deaths.”

So that’s what they’re going with Vorelando thought.

His memories of what had happened yesterday were vague, but he remembered the mindless hordes and the exaggerated voring of a young nation state in Oceania. Obviously now that that country no longer existed on a conceptual level, there needed to be a scapegoat for all of the deaths. Cause a quick market crash by unplugging the computer that controls all the money and people will connect dots that were never there.

“Damn, that’s rough.” Vorelando said.

“In one way, but in another, it’s perfect.”

“Yeah?”

“A lot of the competitors died in the riots. They’ve reorganized the brackets with those of us left alive. We’re all going straight to the finals.”

“Wow, that sure sounds convenient.”

“Sure is. Sure is. But don’t sweat the details bro, we’re nearly at the end. Now I’m going to go watch Two’s final in the voratorium. Meet me after the section break.”

***

“OK, I’m here.” Vorelando said, arriving at his seat holding two boxes of Father Francis’ Fuckoff Fries. He handed one to Kobe and then tipped his one into his mouth in one go.

So engrossed in his fries, Vorelando missed the preamble, his attention only returning to the ring when the announcer shouted that the match had begun.

Two’s opponent was drooling all over the floor, making things too slippery for Two to approach without falling over.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“What a move from Name Notavailable! What will Two do?” The announcer announced.

In response to this, Two started flexing.

“So he’s going to try it huh?” Kobe said.

“What’s he trying?” Vorelando replied.

“Just watch.”

As Name Notavailable continued to drool across the floor, Two continued to flex. His muscles strained, his face went red, bones started to crack. He kept flexing and flexing… then he popped. He turned into a giant rock.

Vorelando turned to Kobe with a neutral_face, so Kobe explained.

“Two has spent most of his life eating rocks, he tells me. He’s always been as hard as a rock, but he’s never been a rock. He told me about a theory he had about his signature move, he figured that if he studied different models of rock, he might just be able to become them.”

Name Notavailable was scrambling across the rock that was Two, trying to find a weak point but he couldn’t.

“So what exactly has he turned in to?”

“That’s a vintage 1999 Coral Reef Boulder you’re looking a Vo. The pioneers used to drive those babies for miles.”

Name was starting to panic as he found no structural defects in Two’s rock. He chomped down on the top of it and all his teeth shattered. Name Notavailable started writing around in his own saliva, screaming in agony. Two simply remained there, being a rock.

“So Two’s plan is to just starve him out?” Vorelando asked.

“Seems like it.” Kobe replied.

Eventually, Name Notavailable stopped screaming and retuned to his feet. He started drooling all over the floor again before sliding Two across the floor into the sides of the cage. Two was sturdy as a rock, and the impacts showed no signs of affecting him.

“It seems like we have some time here, mind if I get something off my chest?” Vorelando asked of Kobe.

“Sure, I guess.”

“Thank you. You ever heard of that movie, Now You See Me?”

“What about it?”

“You know it got a sequel?”

“Yeah, Now You See Me 2.”

“That’s right. Doesn’t that piss you off?”

“What that it got a sequel?” Kobe asked. “I’ve never even seen the original, I can’t say if it’s quality warranted a sequel.”

“No, that’s not what I’m talking about, I’ve never seen them either.”

“So what pisses you off about them?”

“The name of the sequel, Now You See Me 2. It makes me angry.”

“Seems like a pretty standard way to name a sequel.”

“OK, sure, I get that for normal movies but the name comes from the idiom, you don’t hear ‘now you see me’ without thinking ‘now you don’t’ afterwards, right?”

“I guess but what’s your point?”

“My point is, that whatever idiot executives were in the room when the sequel was greenlit had to hear the idea to call it Now You Don’t and actively decided to reject it.”

“It’s just a business decision Vo, they probably assumed people wouldn’t know that it was a sequel to Now You See Me if they called it Now You Don’t.”

“Well, first of all, fuck those people. If they can’t understand that, they don’t deserve to be watching film. Second, they could’ve just called it Now You See Me 2: Now You Don’t. Would’ve avoided any confusion and finished the idiom in the title. It’s absolute horse shit Kobe.”

“Calm down Vo, it’s just a movie.”

“But it’s not just a movie, it’s a reflection of the expectations that those in power have for the people. An indictment on the culture we’ve allowed to fester underneath us. They ruined culture Kobe, those fucks over at Bisney took centuries of culture from us.”

Vorelando looked down at the match with a renewed rage. Name Notavailable had given up and was now crying in the corner.

Suddenly, he remembered his conversation with the President. He had the power to vore concepts. He could fix culture.

“How long does it take for a person to starve to death?” Vorelando asked.

“With no food and water… I reckon he could last at least a week.” Kobe replied.

“OK, that’s plenty of time.”

Vorelando got up from his seat and made for the exit.

“What are you doing?” Kobe shouted across at him.

“Something I should’ve done a long time ago.”