(Pre-Show) The Barracks

[Mickey Mouse]

Sparse fluorescent lights dimly lit the barracks. Making up for what the facility lacked in lighting fixtures, however, hung a large, bright television screen above the contestants. The finalized list of accepted combatants played on a loop. With Mickey sitting atop his shoulders, Luffy stood beneath the huge monitor. The pair watched as names flashed by, looking for their own amongst the crowded list.

“Number fourteen,” Mickey nodded when his name—or, well, ‘Ears’—appeared on screen. A few moments later, Luffy’s name popped up next to the number thirty-seven.

“Looks like we aren’t neighbors,” the skinny pirate scowled. Mickey slid off of the boy’s shoulders and dropped to the floor.

“Yeah…”

“But still friends, yeah?” Luffy asked, his eyes gleaming with hope.

Mickey smiled. In the short time he had known the boy, he had grown particularly fond of him. “Yeah, we’re pals,” the mouse agreed, and held out a gloved hand. Luffy shook it, once again with a fervor that couldn’t be matched. “See ya on the island, bud!”

“See ya!” Luffy pointed a finger at Mickey and spun around, heading off somewhere—to get comfy in his room, the mouse supposed.

Mickey turned and headed toward his own temporary home, the hallway that housed combatants eleven through twenty. A quick glance down the first corridor told Mickey that despite the producers’ warnings against violent activity, the fight had started far earlier than planned. Burn marks littered the hallway; the doors looked shabbily re-attached. Obviously something… excessive had gone on here, as if this whole competition wasn’t excessive enough already. The King shook his head—sometimes, he wondered why these people insisted on catering to this competition’s penchant for violence.

Of course, he supposed that if he was going to survive and win the prize omnilium for Bree, he would eventually have to get down and dirty and… kill one of his fellow competitors. But he resolved to stay strong as long as he could manage. This competition was going to be brutal—it thrived on promoting unnecessary violence, pitting people against each other who, under normal circumstances, might have become friends, and thrived like that. Well, the last time he had checked, the producers of Dante’s Abyss had not yet shuttled them off to the arena to kill each other. At this point, the contestants remained a bunch of people—a bunch of Primes—who actually were not that different from one another. So until Dante’s Abyss began, the mouse would keep his head the only way he knew how: he would stay noble.

A golden-haired man interrupted his thoughts, pushing by him brashly. He shoved Mickey out of his way without a second thought, and the mouse stumbled into the concrete wall of the facility. “The insolence,” the man muttered under his breath, and Mickey’s eyes widened. See, this type of behavior… this was the type of behavior he would not tolerate.

“You, sir, need to calm down,” the mouse piped up, and the golden-haired man stopped in his tracks.

“Not again… what do you want?” he turned back to the tiny mouse, at first not seeing him. He looked down, catching the mouse in his glance. “…wait, seriously?” the man raised an eyebrow, obviously stunned by the idea that a mouse had been labeled an official combatant in this competition, “I don’t have time for this, you diminutive miscreant. Stop bothering me.” The tall man held up a hand, and looked to go.

“Say, mister, that’s not very nice!” the mouse squeaked, crossing his arms defiantly.

“Break it up, boys,” the floozy blonde woman from before called out, putting on her fakest smile. Mickey and the blonde man ignored him.

“Watch your tone when you speak with me, cretin,” he growled, “I am Gilgamesh, King of Heroes, and I will not tolerate such impudence.”

If Mickey’s face could change color like a human’s, it would have flashed red. Anger flared inside his stomach. Who the heck did this guy think he was? “Oh, yeah, well I’m—” he sputtered, stopping short of revealing his own royal identity. Come on, Mick, he coached himself, hold yourself together.

“You fellas heard the lady, didn’t you?” a deep voice said, and Mickey turned to see one of the many guards patrolling the facility approaching them. Gilgamesh, too, glanced at the man, and straightened up, spinning around and leaving with a harrumph. Mickey’s gaze followed the blond man as he stormed away, his brow furrowing furiously. “Keep your temper, little guy,” the guard threatened, “or we’ll have to collar you up like we did him and that maniac turtle.”

“Collar me up?” the King asked.

The guard snickered. These collars did not sound pleasant.

“These collars… they for everybody? All of us?” the mouse tilted his head to one side.

“Everyone gets to… enjoy the effects once they’re headed to the island,” the gruff soldier chortled. Something about this situation struck him as very, very funny. Mickey didn’t share his particular sense of humor.

For a moment, the room was still. Mickey and the much taller man kept each other’s gaze, and the tension between them slowly grew as the mouse’s scowl grew deeper. After a few moments, the guard seemed satisfied that he had intimidated Mickey into subservience. He nodded, satisfied, and turned to walk away. Mickey swallowed his nerves.

“Why not now?”

The guard stopped.

“…what do you mean, now?” he asked, turning around and offering a puzzled glance to the little mouse.

“I mean, put it on me,” the King uncrossed his arms, taking a bold step forward. “‘Collar me up.’”

Mickey put on a brave face. He might have been small in size, but he had a big heart, and a big soul, and a lot of courage—or maybe recklessness—to go along with it. Already, these guys had them locked into a competition designed for them to murder each other in cold blood. They would not bully them into submission.

The guard stayed silent. He seemed in a state of shock that someone would—well, that this little mouse would volunteer to have the collar put on him. Was he stupid?

Some might say that, Mickey thought. Lookin’ at you, Minnie.

The taller man held his arm out behind him, and the floozy blonde woman rushed to a cabinet and pulled out a keycard, sliding it through and opening the box up to find a bunch of collars stacked one on top of another. Grabbing the first one, he rushed over and placed it into the gruff man’s hand. Mickey kept his gaze trained on the man as he began to approach him, slowly but surely. He knelt down, and lifted the collar up to the mouse’s neck. Once it was securely around, Mickey felt it fasten together rather violently at the back.

Gosh, was everything here going to hurt like heck?

The mouse lifted up a gloved hand and massaged his neck just above where the collar had been placed. The man, meanwhile, stood up, and gestured to one of his compatriots, who pressed a button near the cabinet.

ZZZ-ZAP!

Mickey’s knees hit the floor hard, and a little squeal escaped his throat. A collective giggle ran throughout the watching crowd—which wasn’t too large, but had quite a few people in it by now—and the mouse felt his face flush red just a little bit. So that’s what those things did, then. He supposed he should’ve expected to receive a little comeuppance for his brashness. “I’m so fuckin’ tired of you Primes’ shit. Thinking you can just sass us guys without any punishment. Well, hope you liked that, little bitch.”

“Actually,” he protested with a smirk, “it kinda hurt. Try and be more careful next time, alright?”

The man’s grin transformed, very quickly, into a scowl. He advanced on Mickey, rearing one of his fists back, but the mouse was just as quick. He reached for his keyblade—

And to his surprise, all he felt was air.

So that’s what that does.

The guard’s fist connected with Mickey’s face. Tiny as he was, the little guy flew like a rag-doll into the wall. Mickey pulled himself up. Alright, so they couldn’t use any of their stuff with these collars on. That much had become abundantly clear. Which meant that at the moment, unarmed and not so dangerous, these guys in charge had put themselves in a position of power. “Got anything else to say?”

At this point, Mickey knew, he really should have kept his mouth shut. But between Gilgamesh being a royal jerk—literally—and this guy’s rudeness, his pride had begun to swell. He couldn’t back down; and even worse, now he wanted the last word. Side effect of being friends with someone like Donald Duck, he supposed. Mickey hadn’t been so riled up since the last time he had argued with that blubbering mallard.

“Yeah,” the mouse wiped some blood off his lip, “Just that that’s not really any way to treat a royal guest.” Mickey stole a glance down the hallway where the overtly-bold blond man had stormed away to. The mouse didn’t often let his pride get the best of him like Gilgamesh, but he had dealt with just about enough for one day.

“…royal?” the guard sighed, “Jesus Christ, how many fucking fake-ass kings and queens did Karl rope into this shit?”

“I know, I feel like I’m at a frickin’ United Nations meeting,” the buxom blonde sighed. “You’re that ‘Ears’ guy, right? Alright, so what, you want me to add ‘King’ to your name? I’ll just get Carmen on the phone, get her to tell Karl we’ve got another one…” she began to giggle in the most annoying way possible, and the guard started laughing, too.

“King Ears,” the gruff man nodded, “Well, if that isn’t the stupidest fuckin’ name I’ve ever heard, then put some panties on me and call me Daisy.”

“It isn’t Ears,” Mickey interrupted, “The name’s Mickey. Mickey Mouse.”

Somewhere in his over-decorated office wearing one of his spangly suits, Karl Jak smirked.

“Later, pal.” King Mickey left the guard and his perky companion in the dust. Up on the big screen, the listing of the competitors shifted almost immediately. No longer did number fourteen represent a contestant named “Ears”; instead, that moniker was replaced with his actual name, the one given to him by his Creator.

Number 14: Mickey Mouse.