Night 3.

so in summary the apple fritters guy just got aura farmed on by the clock

🌙 NIGHT 3 — THE HOUR GLASSES BREAK

Night settles like a held breath. Lanterns gutter. Watches swap with numb hands. The forest is a web of quiet, cracked by the occasional animal call — and by people trying, badly, to control things they cannot.

Drama frays everywhere tonight. People can still hear Divide, CMP Goober, and Spy as absences; those ghosts shape every whispered plan. And somewhere, in a shaky corner of the woods, two very different souls decide to try a desperate play.

Early Night — Tensions Boil Over

Oliver’s camp is taut. Cassie’s rituals have become sharper, cutting off more paths than they protect; Shovel Man paces with Scoopheart like it’s a lighthouse.

Cassie (whispering): “Keep the embers low. I’ll sense anyone who steps on my line.”
Shovel Man (firm): “I’ll dig a false path behind the ridge. Anyone follows the noise, they follow Scoopheart.”
Oliver (dry): “We don’t want more surprises. No one goes alone.”

Wembry chews incessantly; Sector keeps morphing into odd, reassuring shapes. They all watch the dark like it’s an animal with teeth.

The tactician camp is still raw. Parcelboy paces, clutching bolts; Stormy rips through shadow like static waiting to snap; Scampton crackles with manic bravado — louder than usual, hungry for a plan that makes him a hero.

Parcelboy (edge in voice): “We could ambush him when he moves the ridge. Get his supplies. That’s what Spy would’ve done.”
Stormy (short): “He got played. We don’t want the same fix.”
Scampton (bouncing, all caps in voice): “[I’LL BE THE DISTRACTION!] I’LL MAKE IT [SPECTACULAR]!”

Scampton’s teeth grin in the dark. Shovel Man, who’s been listening from a ways off — solemn, shovel tucked at his back — catches Scampton’s eye. Scampton’s idea is stupid, dangerous, and perfect.

Scampton (whisper-hiss): “[A NIGHT MINI-GAME: AMBUSH THE OGRE!!]”
Shovel Man (soft, unexpectedly hopeful): “If it protects others… I will help.”

They leave together: the jester and the knight with a shovel. Two impulses — showmanship and devotion — walking toward one of the most dangerous men alive.

Grimm, Pablo, and Goobert — Watching the Chessboard

Grimm watches from a tree with cruel curiosity. Goobert is quieter than before; Pablo blinks slow and flat. They’ve killed before; they understand the calculus of endings.

Grimm (quiet, delighted): “Let them dance. The show is the trap.”
Goobert (soft, worried): “:3 … don’t get hurt.”
Pablo: “Pablo will watch.”

The Ambush — Scampton & Shovel Man Make Their Move

They arrange a chokepoint near a narrow ravine that Yujiro likes to patrol — a place where a single powerful strike can be decisive.

Scampton hums, setting pipis and cards like confetti booby-traps: a chaotic, glittering distraction that will blind and confuse — if it works. Shovel Man grinds Scoopheart into the earth to brace for the strike.

They wait. The night yawns.

Scampton (whispering loudly to himself): “[READY—ON—THREE—]”
Shovel Man (breath steady): “For Scoopheart. For them.”

A shadow fills the path.

Yujiro steps into the trap with the arrogant silence of someone who believes destruction is his right. The moonlight slides across his muscles; his presence bends air.

Scampton (whooping): “[NOW—]”
He launches pipis; the sky sparkles. Shovel Man leaps up to strike.

For a moment, it looks like the plan will work — glitter in Yujiro’s eyes, a glancing blow, the chance to topple legend. Then the ground heaves like a living thing.

Yujiro’s glance snaps up. He moves at a speed that makes the world judder. Scoopheart bites into air — and Yujiro catches the shaft with two hands, arms like grappling hooks.

Yujiro (low, amused): “Foolish. Little fools.”

He starts to end them.

They Almost Die

Yujiro’s counterattack is not theatrical — it is clinical. He twists Shovel Man’s arm, wrenches Scoopheart free, and flings it like a thrown moon. Scampton is slammed into a tree, breath knocked clean out. Shovel Man’s ribs shutter with impact. Two small bones snap somewhere in the dark.

Scampton (gasping, a manic laugh with pain): “[THAT WAS—THAT WAS—OW—]”
Shovel Man (through clenched teeth): “Scoopheart—!”
Yujiro (crushing, growl): “You think you can play with me?”

They are broke, helpless, on the edge of being finished. Yujiro lifts a hand like a judge shouldering a verdict.

The Clock — Silent Intervention

A soft, precise ticking begins — measured, inevitable. No one notices at first; then the ticks seem to sync with Yujiro’s heartbeat. A figure walks into the moonlit clearing: The Clock in its tuxedo, hands immaculate, face unreadable. It moves like a metronome. No one calls it, it just enters.

Shovel Man tries to lunge again; Scampton’s eyes go wide. They expect another blow. They do not expect the thing that happens next.

The Clock reaches out with one slow hand and plucks both Scampton and Shovel Man from the battlefield as if lifting stray moths. They go liminal — suspended, unharmed — and are pulled clear of Yujiro’s reach and deposited behind a boulder, breathless but alive.

Scampton (in a tiny, stunned voice): “[WHA—WHO—]”
Shovel Man (shaking): “Thank—” (he cannot finish)

Yujiro roars and strikes at the Clock with everything he has. He punches, claws, screams.

But Yujiro’s blows do nothing. The clock-face smiles not at all. Metal hands absorb impacts, tick-tock rubbing off like a varnish that repels force. Yujiro’s strength — the kind that stops hearts and splinters stone — meets a certainty that does not belong to his world.

Yujiro (confused, fury burning): “What—? What is this—?”
He lands a fist and expects the world to shiver. The Clock tilts its head. The punch sounds dull, like wood against glass. Nothing.

The End of Time

The Clock steps forward. Each movement is the sound of a pendulum marking a life’s length. It takes Yujiro by the collar with one unyielding hand, its grip neither strong nor weak — simply absolute.

Up in the air, the forest watches. Scampton and Shovel Man peer from behind the boulder. Even Grimm, watching nearby, stills.

Then the Clock does what weapons and appetite could not: it silences him. Not with spectacle, not with gore — with a small, final action that needs no flourish. Yujiro’s chest stills. The body goes slack in the Clock’s hand.

The Clock lowers him gently, like setting down an expired watch without ceremony. The forest is raw with the sound of heartless wind.

The Clock (voice calm, the tick softer than a knife): “Time runs out.”

It turns, straightens its tuxedo, and begins walking down the path it came from — a measured, unemotional parade — ticking as if nothing has happened. Yujiro’s hands twitch once, twice, then stop.

No one moves for a long while.

Immediate Aftermath

Scampton sobs, then laughs, then goes very, very quiet. The manic energy is hollowed out.
Scampton (shaking): “[I WAS GOING TO WIN—]”

Shovel Man curls around Scoopheart as if it’s a child. He is broken, grateful, and furious all at once.
Shovel Man (hoarse): “I owe you… the shovel… I couldn’t—”

Oliver’s camp hears the echoes. Cassie’s ritual line smolders; Sector turns to glass-shields. Oliver stares at the place Yujiro fell, something in his jaw hardening.
Oliver (quiet): “No one expected that. The rules are changing.”

The tacticians freeze — the audacity of the ambush, the failure, and then the impossible intervention; Stormy’s tail twitches with something like awe and rage.
Stormy (soft, almost a hiss): “Clock… remember that face.”

Grimm observes, a thin smile stretched: an artist appreciating the finish on a scene.
Grimm (low): “Perfect timing.”

Springtrap watches from the shadows, gears clicking with new plans. The mechanical mind is not impressed by miracles; it is planning around them.
Springtrap (sibilant): “Interesting.”

Notable Event — Night 3
The Clock kills Yujiro Hanma.

How: Ambush attempt fails; Scampton and Shovel Man nearly die. The Clock intervenes, rescues them, walks into Yujiro’s path. Yujiro cannot harm it. The Clock lifts Yujiro and ends him with a single, cold pronouncement: “Time runs out.”

Ripples into the Night

No one knows what the Clock is — guardian, executioner, anomaly, or the Capitol’s most precise toy. People whisper theories: a glitch in the Games, an enforcer for some unseen rule, or something older, with a mandate deeper than any alliance.

Two facts settle like frost:

Yujiro is gone. The predator everyone feared is no more. That shifts power drastically.

The Clock is now an unknown variable. Allies who would have happily hunted Sprintrap or Grimm are suddenly wary of attracting “time’s” attention.

Goobert (very small): “:3 … did it hurt?”
Scampton (voice gone thin): “[IT WAS SO CLOSE—]”
Parcelboy (whispering, terrified): “If time can take him—who’s next?”

Night closes on a forest that feels simultaneously safer and immeasurably colder. The Clock’s ticking drifts like a warning through dreams: the Games are not only about hunger and violence now — they are about timing, and the measure of every life has been made literal.