14
Chapter 14 Chase
This was fucking weird,no doubt about it, and the worst part was I didn’t seem to be the only person confused. Everyone was confused. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t allow all the participants to circle the judges table, to put in their opinions on the outcome of the first round, but then again, I also didn’t want everyone to be shooed away. I really wanted to know what was happening. I glanced over at Rory as the yelling got louder. Both of us were a little behind the middle of the pack of the race, with Hatcher a little further behind us. The outcome wouldn’t directly affect us since we had no shot of winning, but I couldn’t help caring about Alek and what happened to him. I couldn’t explain why we were so suddenly so intensely bonded, but we were.
“Alek must be disqualified,” the oldest judge cried out, unable to keep the irritation from his voice. “The rules are clear. No one can fully shift during any of the Astro Games events.”
“But the moment Drew clipped his bike, the race came to an end,” the judge from the other end of the conference table yelled back. “We all saw what happened there. It was intentional.”
I didn’t see it, because I was focused on my own driving, but I had no doubt that was the truth. Drew had been gunning for Alek since we got here, probably because he knew Alek was the only one who could take him down. If one judge had seen something to make them think it was intentional, then surely they all had. I couldn’t understand why any of this was even up for debate.
“We can’t pass judgement on intention.” The opinion of the third judge was definitely unwelcome. “That would be wrong.”
Drew smirked at Alek as they stood at either end of the table, waiting to see what the result of this meeting would be. He seemed to be showing Alek that he was winning again. Of course, this made Alek’s eyes narrow and his bear ripple to the surface. Mine started itching to come out as well. The tension in the room had everyone on edge. I really thought it would be better to get this over and done with before the volcano erupted.
“If we don’t decide on the intention of Drew’s actions, then we can’t make a decision on whether the bike crash ended the race…”
“And nor could Alek, which is why we need to assign this as a rule break…”
The first judge, the oldest judge at the table, sighed before he interjected himself into the argument once more. It appeared he did not want to be doing this. “This is a grey area, and we cannot make snap decisions.”
“Better to disqualify him now, rather than have an Astro Games filled with grey areas later on. The rules are there for a reason; we can’t start bending them or eventually they will break.”
Mobius, the Bear King, then rose to his feet and spoke in a booming voice, silencing all the petty arguing. “We must make a ruling right away.”
The judges all exchanged a look before the oldest man spoke once more. “I think this will have to be passed on to you, Bear King. I can’t see a way in which all of us will agree.”
As far as I was concerned, this was ridiculous. Drew was obviously gunning for Alek, anyone could see that, even without a big-ass monitor showing them what happened. And the judges did have that big-ass monitor, so this was ridiculous. I caught Alek’s eye and gave him a sharp nod, letting him know that I was confident here. The Bear King would see reason, even if the judges couldn’t. This was going to be just fine. Although Alek surprised me by bristling and partly shifting, rising with anger once more. I stepped closer to him, pushing people out the way so I could rest my hand on his shoulder. I didn’t think I would have anything like the effect Karly had on him, but I was hoping I could help a little. Bring him back to his usual, stoic, confident demeanor.
“We need this ruling quickly, Mobius,” Sly suddenly said, alerting us all to the fact that he had joined us. I wasn’t sure why I was surprised, that asshole was everywhere. “So we can push on with the rest of the games. You wouldn’t want to show favoritism this early on, would you?”
I sucked in a sharp breath. That was one hell of an accusation. I stared at the Bear King, wondering how he was going to react.
“This has nothing to do with favoritism,” the Bear King snapped back, obviously angry at Sly’s not so thinly veiled threat. “This is a new situation, an awkward one. We need to make the right decision.”
“This will set a precedent,” Sly warned, hands in the air as if he was surrendering, even though he was doing anything but. This was a challenge for sure. “You just want it to be the right one.”
My bear didn’t like this one bit. I was sure I wasn’t the only one wrestling with my inner animal, but none of us shifted out of respect for the king. This was already messy enough, without us making things worse.
All of a sudden, my nose was flooded with a different scent. A new, yet all too familiar one. Karly. But she couldn’t be here. Humans weren’t allowed in the judges’ section of the Astro Games, nor were members of the press. Especially members of the press. I wasn’t the only one who noticed Karly’s presence; it seemed like all the bears turned to look at her. But she wasn’t intimidated, she never was.
“Nosy humans,” Sly muttered, but loud enough for her to hear. “We haven’t gotten any real control this year.”
No one seemed to move as Sly growled and edged towards Karly with his lips curled in disgust. No one but me. I wasn’t about to let anyone get close to her. As soon as I facing her direction, I noticed Rory, Hatcher, and even Alek taking a step as well. We were all ready to line up in her defence, not caring at this point what the rules were. No one was going to hurt Karly. The rest of the crew balled up behind her, and Sly let out a snort of derision. As if we needed a vocal expression of how he felt.
“That is enough.” It was a relief when Mobius jumped in once more and brought the focus back on him. “Now, we are all here for one thing and one thing only. We want to know what we’re going to do moving forward. I have listened to the opinions of the judges, but made the decision myself. This is a grey area, ergo, I believe there is only one possible solution here.” All the air was sucked out the room as we waited for him to continue. Even Sly didn’t seem to have a sarcastic comment on the tip of his tongue, which was very unlike him. “Alek will not be disqualified from the competition.” Oh thank God. I was pretty sure we were all relieved to hear this. Well, aside from the Unaligned clan, of course. “However, because of the full shift, which is against the rules, Alek will receive no points for today. The footage will be reviewed to determine the positions everyone else was sitting in when the crash happened, which will become their future starting position moving forward, but Alek will receive zero and be in last place.”
Wait, what? Couldn’t we just have a rematch or something? Wouldn’t that be fairer? I wasn’t the only person who had a problem with this, as the room erupted with a variety of opinions, but arguing was futile. Once the Bear King had made his decision, that was final. He didn’t have to consult the judges or other people, his word was law. This fucked-up response was his shitty answer. I hated it. It gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. But worse than my reaction was Alek’s. The strong and powerful leader of the Gemini clan was fully defeated. Sly and Drew had won. They hadn’t gotten Alek kicked out of the Astro Games, so it wasn’t a total win, but it was enough. With zero points from the first race, the chance of Alek winning the whole round on just the second race was damn near impossible. The best he could hope for was not to fall into the bottom half, threatened with elimination. For him, that would be the end of everything. I wouldn’t have been too worried if it was me, it wouldn’t have crushed me, same with Hatcher and Rory. None of us really had our eyes on the prize.
But Alek did. He had the whole fate of the Zodiac Empire weighing down on him. He had decided it was up to him to beat Drew and prevent him for causing anarchy and toppling everything. He could have done it, but now he was at a real disadvantage, and the fact that Drew was at the top of the leader board again had to be killing him. The reality of what this meant for Alek washed over his face, his confidence ebbing away by the minute, before he turned and stalked off.
“What does that mean?” Karly asked him helplessly, reaching out to Alek desperately. “What just happened? Do we need to fight this? I don’t understand what just happened…”
He didn’t give her a scrap of attention. Alek shook Karly off and kept walking.
Sly made some sarcastic comment about moving on, and the place erupted into chaos. Alek might not have stuck around to argue his case, but that didn’t mean other people wouldn’t. It was a waste of energy to even think about trying to overturn a ruling made by the Bear King. Things weren’t going to change. It was done.
Karly didn’t even hesitate. She took off after Alek, calling out his name as she did her best to hobble on her bad leg. To be honest, that seemed like a much better place to be than here. Here sucked. I caught Rory’s eye, then Hatcher’s, before I began to back away from the crowd. Alek was going to need all the support and brain power he could get if he was going to find a way to still win…if winning was definitely what he still wanted. I figured it was up to me to remind him that there were many other competitors in the Astro Games who could take down Drew, it didn’t need to be just him. Just because he was the closest to Drew in the qualifying rankings didn’t mean someone else couldn’t win.
Alek might not want to hear me, but I was going to give it my best shot. Something had to cheer him up, or to at least give him a new focus. I just hoped we could sort it out for him.