Day One: Morning

[Zangya]

Zangya’s eyes fluttered open. She was dead—she had to be. Her tired eyes scanned the horizon, half expecting to see the room that all contestants were taken to following death. She was met with a familiar setting, though. The city buildings remained in her vision, as did the bus that Aero had crashed into—the jade woman watched as he climbed solemnly out of the wreckage, nearly unscathed but still shaken.

“That was Seventeen,” Celipa muttered nervously. Zangya lifted herself off the ground and turned to see Celipa struggling to get up. “I don’t understand why he would just let us be. Seventeen’s… I mean, I know I’m not too acquainted with him, but I know the guy. He’s not one to just leave a job unfinished. And he could’ve killed us all in one fell swoop.”

“Especially with that upgrade activated,” Aero interjected. He held up his broken scouter. “I caught the upgrade before he smashed my face; he wasn’t holding anything back.” The warrior looked solemn, and Zangya understood his reasoning as she slowly sat down on a pile of rubble, massaging her forehead. “You alright there, Zangya?” Aero asked, coming over and sitting next to her. Zangya looked at him with an evil glare. He thought he was going to flirt with her now?

Please.

A punch quickly made its way into Aero’s unscathed jaw, and the silver-maned warrior was sent tumbling backwards into the pile of rubble. “That’s what you get for being such a jerk,” Zangya scolded. The man shrugged it off, standing quickly and making his way out of the pile of rubble. Zangya’s eyes, for some reason, scanned the ground. What was she looking for… she knew something was missing. Then, she saw it. It was lying in plain sight on the ground. She scooped it up quickly, catching the attention of her comrades, and stuffed it into the rather spatial inside pocket of her coat.

“What’s wrong?” Celipa asked the jade-skinned woman. Zangya sighed from exhaustion, and turned to face the raven-haired woman. She looked at her solemnly, and then took her aside, whispering it in her ear what it was.

“It’s… uh… It’s my pregnancy test,” she told her, and then backed away. Celipa nodded in understanding, silently assuring Zangya they’d talk later so that she could tell her more about it. The two women looked over at Aero, and Zangya took the lead again, beckoning her two comrades to come up to a nearby office building with her. “We’ve got to hide out for right now,” Zangya told them, “That android may be anywhere. We’ve got to be able to see him coming. This is the best hideaway.”

The two others agreed, and they quickly entered, leaving the people outside of the city to live in fear of Android Seventeen’s RAGE upgrade. But the struggle wasn’t quite over—Zangya’s sickness was slowly growing in her body, slowly growing up into something that she couldn’t quite comprehend. She made her way towards one of the hotel’s bathrooms, and leaned over it, expunging all of the remains of the food she’d eaten out of her body. It felt horrible, and it felt like she wasn’t going to be okay… Aero looked inside the doorway, attempting to decipher what was wrong, but Celipa pushed him aside. “This isn’t your battle,” she said snidely to Aero, closing him out of the room.

It was as the sun neared its peak in the sky that the sounds of a crying Ader could be heard throughout the city, and the sounds of her friend, her new friend, comforting her would go on deaf ears, blocked out by the screams of pain.