[04] City Sector FIGHT

[DA 2009]

CITY SECTOR FIGHT

(1) Ashe vs. Sophia

(2) Tamsin vs. NPC Hollywood

[Jesper]

Her eyes opened to find that the dream had faded.

Sophia yawned and sat up, rubbing sleep from her still drooping eyes. Her reality sank in—she had hopped from an indescribably good dream to the nightmare, a horror that stood before her like stalker waiting in the night. She sighed gently, a smile creeping upon her lips as she recalled her dream. She dreamed of butterflies, she dreamed of fields of flowers, she dreamed of the warm fairy tales that her father related to her so many years ago. Everything that she wanted to remember, to cherish, had been there, and they had been so suddenly whisked away by reality.

Swinging her legs off the bed, she stood up and straightened her clothing. How long had she been asleep? Things seemed to be unchanged, from every nook down to the very last cranny, though she supposed that she wasn’t conscious enough to even make note of everything. The healer sighed and shrugged her shoulders—it hardly mattered anyway. People were there, nobody was there; in the end, nothing was about to change. She was still on an island, forced to pick perfectly harmless people off one-by-one. Things were like that, and nothing her logic could provide offered her any comfort that they would ever change.

What was her motivation for even being there? She was perfectly fine in the afterlife. King Kai took care of her. She was learning new things. Bubbles was annoying. Everything in her life after death seemed right, as everything was in its proper place. She would have completed her training, sure, but she would have moved onto something else that wasn’t at all like Dante’s Abyss, and she would have been better off for it. It made no sense to her, when she thought about it, that she was fighting so hard to remain in such a miserable existence.

Her conclusion was that she needed to see Kaden. He was the only thing keeping her going. If she could just see him again, even one more time, things would make sense again. She smiled at the thought—the courier had a funny way of putting things in perspective, even when he wasn’t trying. Somehow, she was satisfied with her answer as every brain cell joined in union, bellowing a single thought: find Kaden, nothing else matters.

Exhaling, Sophia moved her feet towards the next room, the main room, where any competitor that passed through would be likely to reside. Pushing the door open, she peaked her head into the next room. Ashe was the first person that Sophia saw, standing awkwardly in the center of the room, next to a large table. The healer tilted her head slightly, following the girl’s fixated line of sight until her eyes rested upon another familiar figure. Tamsin stood, sighing deeply as she looked around. Whatever she had experienced during her last combat day was needed badly, it seemed.

“Hello to you guys, too,” Sophia smirked as she approached the center table. Both ladies glanced in her direction.

“Oh, it’s you,” Ashe spoke. “I was wondering if you’d ever wake up.”

“You were watching me sleep?” the healer chided.

“Heh, no,” the teenager shook her head with a smile. “I’m sure the whole city knew you were sleeping with the way you were snoring.”

The pair shared a laugh, though with Tamsin’s gloomy countenance, it was short lived. The silver-haired girl turned to Sophia. “Have…have you seen my master?”

Master? What had the girl gotten herself into? It didn’t make sense to her until she made note of the maid get-up. She shrugged. “It depends on who your master is.”

“Maleficus Nova,” she answered. “A Namekian.”

Sophia had absolutely no idea what a Namekian was, but she was sure that a name like “Maleficus” would easily return to her memory if called upon. After a moment of thought, the healer shook her head apologetically.

Tamsin sighed. “Oh…”

Sophia glanced at Ashe, whose faced practically shouted “don’t even ask.” She hadn’t planned on it, but she didn’t get the opportunity to even if she had. Suddenly, all of their collars beeped in unison, piercing and echoing through the hollow chambers. All eyes went to their respective devices, fear flashing within the hazed orbs as each pondered their own situation. The healer looked up and glanced between the two girls present—she didn’t want to fight either of them, but if they were the only ones there…

“Shit,” Ashe managed to breathe right before the devices performed their function.

Sophia blinked, and she was teleported to another part of the city. She wished that she had been able to keep her eyes open to see how smooth the transition was, but that was the least of her worries as her frantic eyes darted around, trying to find her opponent. Dim street lights shined on cracked, black concrete, casting eerie shadows upon the ground. The place was as deserted as ever, devoid of any civilization whatsoever save the healer and her new opponent, who had just appeared from thin air.

“Oh no…” Sophia groaned. She glared at her collar, like it could possibly be afraid. “Why is it always somebody I don’t want to fight?”

“FML,” Ashe rolled her eyes. “Uh, hey, Sophia.”

“Hey.”

Sophia had little else to say. What could she say, given the circumstances? “Sorry, Ashe, we might be friendly outside of this island, but you’ll have to excuse me if I try to beat the living daylights out of you.” Somehow, though the sarcasm certainly would not have been lost on the teenager, the healer thought that comment would not fly. Nothing would.

“…let’s just get this over with,” Sophia said, locking eyes with Ashe.

“Sophia?” the pink haired girl seemed uncertain.

Her facial expression pasted itself into her eyes, even when she closed them. “Listen, I…I don’t want to do this.”

“Neither do I, but…”

“…we have to,” the girls spoke in unison.

Sophia nodded. “He’s going to get his fight either way, and I can’t exactly lose…” she touched her halo, an unconscious action.

“What if we just…don’t? What if we refuse?” Ashe managed to maintain some sense of optimism.

“Tested it already. You’ll get a shock,” Sophia tapped her collar. “Or what happened with you and Kaden? I’m not willing to believe that Kaden pounded on you willingly.”

“I…I guess,” she lowered her head. “Maybe they have a way to control us.”

Sophia’s conscious pelted her. Hard. Omission versus commission, she thought, was not much of a choice at all. “But at least…” she continued her thought process aloud. “…we’ll be able to control our own fates.”

“I…I can’t believe…” Ashe held out her hands and looked at them. “I…I don’t even know how to fight.” She laughed nervously.

“I…I can…” tears sparkled within her sockets, on the verge of bleeding out. She had offered the same thing to Tamsin; to end it quickly. ‘It won’t hurt a bit’, she would offer. ‘It’d be over before you knew it.’ Was that the kind of person she had become? An assassin under the guise of a saint? “I can…’t. I can’t do it.”

Like a good dream, the prospect of ever seeing Kaden again seemed to fade away with each word that left her mouth.

[Tamsin]

It was nearly dark. As the day was almost done with it`s transition into night, the first stars appeared on the red and blue sky. As a final farewell before retreating under the horizon for a while, the sun illuminated the long desolate street with it`s final powerful beams. As if this last part of solarisation served as a sort of cue, the street lights and neon signs themselves suddenly lit up and prepared the city for nighttime. It was in this practical light show that Tamsin appeared out of nowhere, finding herself standing in the middle of the concrete road.

Although she had underwent teleportation several times by then, the prodigy maid was never able to quite get used to the sudden shifts of location. She had just nodded in acceptance to Ashe that apologised for her disrespectful behaviour when her neckband sounded the signal for combat. Her mind was filled with worry over her master`s whereabouts and wellbeing at the time, so she was caught unprepared for the upcoming battle. So while she was physically in the middle of an urban lane, she was emotionally still back in the City Sector bunker.

Attempting to focus on her present location, the silver-haired girl scanned her surroundings. The street appeared to be a part of a shopping district, display windows facing the pavement as far as the eye could see. The shopfronts contained objects of innumerable kind, from electrical appliances and books to various kinds of clothing. Also, if one listened carefully, one was able to hear the faint sound of music in the distance, most likely from a discotheque. But none of these things caught the adolescent`s attention as she noticed a person other then herself standing on the road, a long shadow originating from it.

Raising her hand to shield her eyesight from the sunlight, she took a better look at her would-be opponent. His sparkly blond hair and not particularly tall figure reminded her of the eliminator she had faced in that very same sector before. However, everything else about the person was different. His brown leather jacket and close-fitting trousers wavered gently in the light breeze, while a prominent pare of darkened spectacles covered his eyes. The girl sighed in relief....at least he was not wearing armour, like all of her previous opponents. Wanting to make sure that her initial suspicions were indeed incorrect, Suzaku hesitantly asked:"...Pierre?"

If it had been her previous opponent, she would have probably received a slew of broken French or sword wavering in response. Instead, a prominent laughter resonated through the largely deserted street. The man lowered his designer sunglasses a bit, revealing the blue-tinted iris of his eyes:"Babe, please...do not insult my dignity by comparing me to that joker. Unlike him, I am a real man."

Placing himself in a rather daring pose and forming a thumbs-up with his right hand, he exclaimed with a fair bit of pride: "Ray Norris is the name, but my friends call me....Hollywood."

"Bollywood?" asked the silver-haired female, having misheard him.

"Yeah, Bolly...Wait, what? No! Hollywood!" came the frustrated reply from the man, thinking that the maid was not paying attention to him. This quickly reminded him of the thickheadedness of his previous opponent, the elderly Saiyan by the name of Orion. But a smile crept up onto his face...he fixed that problem with the "inferior jackets" rather handily. As a partial attempt to taunt the teenager, the stuntman told her: "Look, little girl. This isn`t a playground. You could get seriously hurt. How about you spare yourself the trouble and let me just knock you unconscious or something?"

Tamsin remained silent, her long hair gently fluttering in the light wind. She took hold of the gold medallion that hung around her neck, gazing upon the jade cat-like eyes glittering on it`s surface. She could not know where Maleficus was or whether he was even still alive. However, she knew well why she had joined the event to begin with. Her master wanted to conquer the Abyss and she would help him do so....no matter what would occur.

Releasing her medallion, the maid started pulling the knives from her belt one by one. Carefully placing them between her fingers, she entered a combat stance and readier herself for the inevitable. Her opponent, however, uttered a sigh and placed his spectacles back onto their proper place:"Why do they always want to do things the hard way?" However, he was just putting an act. He was actually quite glad of a fight...although he was uncertain whether or not the adolescent would prove much of a challenge.

Suddenly, Norris charged towards the prodigy, his black and white sneakers heavily hitting the concrete beneath his feet. Suzaku was so shocked by his lightning speed, she barely had time to move away. The heavy punch directed towards her hit the side-mirror of the nearby car instead, Tamsin`s reflection coming from the bits and pieces of the ensuing debris. If there was any doubt within her that the man she now faced was not her golden armour-clad opponent from before, it quickly evaporated upon the sight of this fierce assault. Ray had the speed of a jaguar and the strength far surpassing anything Pierre`s sword was capable of doing.

Grinning in immense enjoyment, Hollywood viciously pursued his assault. Although the girl was completely exposed to any potential energy attacks, the stuntman never made any outer manifestation of ki....it was just not his style. Her perfered to strike himself and feel every blow that lands onto his foe. So he kept up his physical attacks, precisely aiming his every strike. The silver-haired girl could barely keep up with him. He was taller, faster and stronger then she was, giving him a serious edge. To make matters worse, the sun`s rays obscured her vision and made it more difficult to anticipate the moves. An ocassional swipe with her dark blades was all she could do to keep her persistant assailant at bay.

Knowing she could not remain on the defensive forever, the adolescent counterattacked and aimed to pierce her foe`s shoulder. However, this was the opening Norris was looking for. Using the advantage of his longer arms, he sent an uppercut into the girl`s chin and she was sent flying before the sharp tips of the knives could touch him. As she landed flat onto her back, Ray already moved in for the kill and exclaimed:"Hasta la vista, baby."

A panic took hold of Tamsin as she felt lost as to how to defend herself. Her foe seemed fierce and unstoppable. Suzaku attempted to think. She knew that her ki was her greatest strength, that only by using it would she be able to surpass her opponent....This thought subconsciously triggered her hidden power. The dark blades among her fingers suddenly launched themselves at the enemy. Completely caught off guard by this, Hollywood jumped back to avoid them. But the knives changed course and flew from different directions at him. It was the stuntman that was now on the ropes, barely dodging the seemingly self-minded assaults of the girl`s weapons. A few of the strikes came so close to hitting his flesh that they cut through his garment, doing so as if they were made of paper.

The prodigy maid suddenly regained her focus and the knives flew back to her hand. Albeit amazed at what had just occured, she wasted no time in getting back onto her feet. Using the remaining shock that still held onto her opponent, she jumped over him and faced her back to the sun. Although this gave her no advantage, as her opponent was wearing sunglasses, it improved her own visibility.

After turning around to face the girl once more, Hollywood looked down onto his torn clothing and his visage formed a grimace: "Oh, not this AGAIN!" But Tamsin was paying more attention to her knives, looking at them in awe. She had already unknowingly used her knives against her opponent once before. However, this time, it did not require as much focus or desire from her to execute the feat. Infact, she had almost knowingly tapped into her hidden power. Was it increasing....was it closer to it`s true potential? However, these questions had to wait as her opponent adressed her once more. This time, the blond male had a grin plastered on his face and pointed at himself with his thumb:"That was some impressive trickery. But a real man uses his fists to hammer at his opponents!"

Suzaku sighed. He was no Pierre....but his ego was certainly big enough to fit the bill.

[Ashe]

The tournament was clearly taking its toll on the both of them. She'd lost her calm and rationality. She'd stumbled over her aversion to cursing at times. Would the next step be to throw away her humanity, no matter how altered she had discovered it to be, and...

What was she supposed to do about it? This wasn't some kind of fantasy spellworld video game that they were from. This was reality, and even if the two of them were not entirely familiar with each other, they definitely shared no ill will toward one another.

"At least this... reality that they are giving us," she began, voicing her thoughts out loud. "Its not actually real, is it?" she suddenly asked, looking straight back up at Sophia hopefully.

"I... I think it..." Sophia stammered, unsure of how to answer.

"I mean, you get what I'm saying, right?"

The priestess stared at her. "No, I think-" she tried, having absolutely no understanding of the teenager's reasoning.

Ashe sighed for a moment before slumping down to the ground, her face in her hands. "Yeah... Me neither," she admitted.

The two of them stared off past each other for a moment, unsure of what to do next, when Ashe suddenly began talking again. "Its just that when I fought this guy earlier and somehow eliminated him," she rambled, catching Sophia's attention. "He just kinda shimmered suddenly and disappeared. Like those old school video games where you'd shoot the monster with a laser beam from your sword and it would just poof away magically. Ya know?"

Silence.

"Ok, so video games aren't the best way to explain it to you. Gimme a second then," she prompted, holding up her hand while staring into the sky, her lips moving over each other, seeking some perfect phrase. "There's some saying that my teacher taught us the other day when we had to read Through the Looking Glass. It brought up the concept of reality and perception of reality - like that movie about that computer program that people were unknowingly in - and what defined reality.

'Some guy thought he was hilarious and brought up the argument that maybe we were all just strung out sea turtles at the bottom of the ocean tripping on acid and imagining all of this. Funny thing is that the teacher actually agreed with him," she rambled, laughing as she pushed her hands forward to make her point about how ridiculous it seemed. With an extravagent rolling of her eyes and another wild wave of her hands, she continued. "He countered the argument with some quick story about an old man asleep under a tree dreaming of a grasshopper sleeping on his chest. And then asked us," she paused, taking on her best weird teacher impression. "Or is it the grasshopper dreaming that he is sleeping on the old man's chest?"

This entire time, the priestess was lost in her own thoughts, tuning in randomly as Ashe continued spilling out these chaotic bits of knowledge that she'd gained over her short life. "Kaden, what should I do?" she suddenly asked herself, catching Ashe's attention.

"Kaden..."

Sophia looked up at Ashe, the two sharing a sudden look of confusion and concern.

Ashe took a breath and continued. "He... He didn't make it, did he?"

Five seconds passed without another breath being taken before the healer suddenly drew in oxygen to reply. "I... guess not," she considered. "I haven't heard from him since his last fight."

The student nodded slowly, looking at the ground. "Yeah. Me neither." It was likely boring the life out of Damon Dukes to watch these two quietly talk to each other during a Combat Day, but neither of them particularly cared. "That last guy that I fought - the one I somehow eliminated," she added, continuing to use that term instead of kill, unsure if it was simply a coping mechanism or an acknowledgment of his strange way of losing the fight in this game. "He attacked me while I was with Kaden. Kaden got trapped behind one of those blue laser wall things and then he disappeared."

She rose back to her feet before stretching her cramped legs, setting her bag down on the ground and leaning up against an all too familiar lamp post. Her eyes drifted over it, studying the markings that the elements had left upon it. When she'd last leaned against this particular light post, Kaden had been talking to her during her fight against him. Before Damon decided to interfere in their game. "I haven't seen him since. Nor any notes or anything from him," she added, suddenly blushing. "Not notes like crush notes or anything, just notes to let me, or well, someone," she backtracked, realizing that she'd entirely assumed that the note had been left for her in the first place. It was entirely possible with Kaden and Sophia's friendship with one another that he had been wanting to reach her attention and Ashe had simply stumbled upon it. He had been constantly making it clear that he wanted them to find Sophia, usually when Ashe thought that the two were focused on each other and her training.

"Know where he went," she finished, her mood having soured greatly from the thoughts. That had to be it, she realized. Barring the time that they had spent together while under the effects of what had to have been some really good X laced into their food by Dukes, anything beyond simple friendliness was likely to have been entirely read too far into by the heartseeking girl. "Sophia, are you his girlfriend?" she suddenly blurted.

The cleric took a step back, turning a faint rose shade in her cheeks. "What?" she asked, surprised at the question during a time when they were supposed to be attempting to kill each other. "No!" she exclaimed with false bravado. "No way! Of course not..." she trailed off, feeling very put on the spot.

"Then who is?"

Sophia looked from side to side, unsure how to answer the question. "Uh, um..." Ashe hadn't asked with any kind of dagger attached to her question, but Sophia nevertheless felt verbally assaulted by the questions.

"Nevermind," the girl sighed, turning around and kicking her bag in frustration before crossing her arms. "I'm just being stupid anyway. Besides, you don't have to worry about me," she called over her shoulder. "I don't fall for hot blond messanger boys."

Her words were a bit harsher than she'd planned them to be, but she didn't want to get into some kind of girl power struggle for a guy's attention. She wasn't the type that would steal the guys that her friends were into. She left that type of selfishness to Becca. Besides, she wasn't entirely friends with Sophia, but the woman seemed like a nice person after all. She was a priestess.

Thankfully, Ashe's mind completely overlooked Sophia's declaration of FOE when in Rose's game during the previous deadly game, betraying another friend without the heartlessness necessary to fulfill the deed herself.

"No, spiky red heads are more my type. The kind that are into computers or something. Maybe punk rockers. Not package delivery."

Sophia's mouth dropped. "Excuse me?"

Ashe turned around to face her, looking at the ground. "Nevermind," she repeated. "I'm not calling him a jerk or anything," she falsified. "I'm just saying he's not my type. He's a great guy, don't get me wrong. But you don't have to worry about me trying to take him from you," she conceded.

The priestess burned red while holding up both of her hands. "I'm not worried - I mean - We aren't..." she spilled, completely unsure how to proceed.

"JUST COME AND HIT ME ALREADY!" the girl suddenly screamed at Sophia, stunning her into silence. The emotional release that had left Ashe spilling out her concerns while also attempting to provoke the other girl into doing the deed hadn't seemed to work. She picked up her bag suddenly and threw it hard at Sophia's direction, watching as the woman sidestepped it easily while jerking her head back in surprise.

"I can't..."

The pink and blonde haired girl pulled out her wand suddenly, trembling as she pointed it directly at the priestess before her. "I said you can have him!" she argued with no one, her eyes getting moist. "There are plenty of nice guys out there and I don't want him anyway." She hadn't been able to argue when her friend Claire had once accused her of falling deeply for guy after guy too easily. Becca had never been good with secrets, so Ashe had never really talked to her about the things that had happened with her and the boyfriends that she'd been with, or even those she'd been with that weren't boyfriends yet, but healing emotional damage was definitely something she'd been searching for with every new guy. "But we have to fight! Sophia, you can have him," she cried out. "But just... please, let's get this finished."

The truth was... She was scared. She knew what had happened when her and Kaden had been forced to fight, and knowing that Damon had forced Kaden to beat her in such ways, bringing back painful memories of years past, had been a bit much. Anyone watching would likely have been completely unable to follow the events that were passing, but Ashe flowed through it like a mistress in the midst of an emotional breakdown. Was it more chemicals? Or was it simply events unfolding? She had no way of knowing.

Sophia stared at the wand, her own arm shaking as she held up a hand and attempted to calm Ashe. "I can't hurt-" she began.

"No!" Ashe yelled, shutting her eyes while cutting her words short with her volume. Her hand snapped forward again and the beam fired from it, quickly closing the distance between the pair of combatants but missing entirely, striking the building directly behind the whirling maiden, causing the wall behind her to explode and sending dirt and shards through the air to cover both of them. The student kept her eyes closed as she dropped her wand suddenly, shaking hard from the emotions coursing through her as she fell backwards, landing on her rear with her hands grasping behind her in support. She hadn't intended to actually fire her wand.

Had she?

Her eyes were still closed as a tear crept out between the closed lids when she felt a hand somberly touch her on the shoulder. A thought crossed her mind, bringing a sad smile to her lips as her eyes slowly opened, the dirty rocks thrown all around her in the road at her feet.

She hadn't hit Sophia.

After a moment, she moved her hand to put her wand up, but the priestess suddenly kicked it away before she could reach it. Ashe nodded, looking up at her before she sighed. "I can't do it, Soph. I'm sorry, but I can't fight you..."

[DA 2009]

TAMSIN VS. HOLLYWOOD

Hollywood laughed and ran a hand through his perfectly quaffed locks. “It’s been a real blast, but, I think it’s time to finish this little charade, don’t you think? At least the other guy put up a good fight. You, you don’t even know what you’re doing. Think that little knife trick’ll save you? How’d you even get into this tournament, anyway?” the stuntman guffawed.

Some part of the Eliminator’s words rang true; the only reason she was in this tournament was because of her master, and she didn’t have the same level of brutality that her namekian employer seemed to possess. He told her that she would have to find it, somehow, if she wanted to survive. Tamsin steeled herself against her opponent. She’d outlasted Vad, hadn’t she? She’d overpowered Pierre (what a weird man he was). Thus far, the maid had only been bested by Sophia, and even then, Suzaku had survived. Her power was increasing; she could control her knives much better now than she had at the beginning of the tournament. That last attack was no accident, and she proved she could be deadly when she needed to be. Who was Hollywood to say she didn’t belong here?

“Hate to interrupt that little internal monologue you’ve got going,” Hollywood said. “But we have a fight to get back to.”

Tamsin’s eyes narrowed, and she readied her knives again. She tried to tap into the elusive power once more, this time of her own volition. Ray launched himself at her, and Suzaku brought up the sharp little tools once more. She couldn’t be sure if she’d willed them, or if they went of their own accord, but the blade struck against Norris’ face, sending him more than a few steps backward on account of pain. His sunglasses broke in half, directly where the lenses connected, and they fell of his face. A thin red line sliced along the bridge of his nose all the way down to the bottom of his jaw, and it slowly leaked liquid that dribbled down his chin.

“My…face…” he growled slowly. “This is the moneymaker! You do not mess with the face!”

Before she could even blink, Hollywood had gotten behind her, and wrapped one arm beneath her knife arm and the other around her throat, sticking his knee in-between her legs to prevent her from shifting around too much.

“I would really love to kill you for that, but, this will have to do,” he said, surprisingly calm. “Sorry sweetheart.”

Tamsin’s hands flew to his arm, and she clawed at the leather material. She made choked, gasping noises as she struggled for air. She fought hard, as hard as she could. The maid reached out to her knives, hoping to activate the instinctual need once more, but they did not come. Her head began to swim, and stars popped in front of her eyes like glittering fairies, taunting her with the frightening promise of unconsciousness. The maid wasn’t even aware when it happened, and Hollywood felt her slump against him. He dropped her on the ground, uncaring as to the position in which she would fall. He wiped an index finger along the line of the cut, smearing blood on the skin of the pad as he did so. Bitterly, he rubbed the pointer finger against his thumb until the friction completely removed it.

-----

“HA!” Audric hooted. “God I hate that guy.”

[DA 2009]

ASHE VS. SOPHIA

Damon exhaled a heavy breath of air, gingerly rubbing the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. Knowing he couldn’t afford to stall much longer, he returned the hand to his trousers pocket and leveled his chin with the screen, the one that showed two girls standing, talking, doing nothing. Ironically, it was the same girl from the very first round of the tournament whose fight required more persuasive means of conclusion. The other two fights had finished relatively quickly, the Eliminators fulfilling their jobs perfectly. Perhaps it was coincidence, then, that the skirmish against two players with annoyingly persistent consciences would take the longest. The host could hear the soft whoosh of the door as it permitted entry, and Audric strolled in, whistling.

“Anything yet?” he asked cheerfully.

“No,” Damon said curtly.

The supervisor sat in his chair with an enthusiastic twirl until he righted himself in front of the console. He offered a steaming, flaky pastry towards his boss. “Would you like a Hot Pocket? It’s good.”

“No,” Damon repeated, a little more aggravated.

“It’s barbeque,” Audric persisted in a sing-song voice. Damon refused to reply. With a shrug, the supervisor took a voracious bite, flapping his trap open with small cries to vent the heat and steam that suddenly filled his mouth. After he was able to down the scrumptious microwaveable goodness, he cleaned off his hands and returned them to a resting position on the controls. “Well,” he said in a serious tone. “We have the shock, manual override, or I can write up another mod program.”

Dukes shook his head. “That’s not what the situation calls for. The shock is like a cattle prod, and if the fear of that sufficed more than its actual use, Sophia would have started fighting by now. Neither of them are in a vulnerable enough psychological state to use a mod, and even so, it wouldn’t make Ashe fight any better than she presently can. Manual override would achieve the desired result, but the board is watching, and I’m not so sure I want to use it again.”

“Then what would you like to do? The clock is ticking,” Audric reminded.

Damon closed his eyes to think. His first thoughts simmered around a potential modification program, even though he already ruled it out. Both of them fixated strongly on Kaden, so something to do with the courier might help…if they believed the only way they could see him again was to fight each other. The Syntex employee discarded the idea before reaching a viable conclusion; it required too much manipulation and would arouse more suspicion than anything else. Mentally, he went down the list of his remaining competitors, having memorized their faces and profiles by heart. The other four were willing, unfettered by moral dilemmas that prevented them from fully participating, or in some cases, openly embracing the concept of bringing death. A good chess-master always observed and took into account the most useful pieces on the board, utilizing them to achieve the victory while discarding the rest.

He opened his eyes.

“Re-route the collar protocols. I want you to switch them to manual, and prematurely set them off,” Dukes instructed.

“You’re going to dust both of them?” Audric asked skeptically.

“Sometimes,” Damon replied emotionlessly, “pieces must be sacrificed.”

-----

“You fired at me,” Sophia said matter-of-factly, staring down at the girl below her. Her tone was something of a mixture of incredulity, sadness, and…betrayal?

“I didn’t mean to,” Ashe explained apologetically. She forced out a small chuckle. “My aim’s not even that good anyway. It’s more luck than anything that got me this far. You wouldn’t happen to have a copy of The Hong Kong Book Of Kung Fu, would you?” Before Sophia could even give her startled and confused reply, Ashe waved her off. “It’s okay. Figured you wouldn’t anyway.”

Suddenly, both of their collars started beeping.

“Guess that means we’re done,” Ashe guessed.

But the beeping persisted. It did not increase in pace, as it normally did before a function was executed, but remained at a slow, soft sequence.

“I don’t think so,” Sophia countered. “We would have been gone already.”

“We both entered a bunker…” the pink-and-blond-haired girl reasoned.

“We’re also not fighting,” the priestess pointed out. “You don’t think…?”

“…he’s just going to dust us both?” Ashe finished.

They both fell silent as the grim reality of it sunk in. The pace of the beeping audibly kicked up a notch, and then remained. It was as if the collars were slowly counting down a warning, giving them more time than the other unfortunate souls who were dusted.

“I can’t go back. Not yet,” Sophia insisted sadly. “If what Sage says is true, and this isn’t real, then when you die, you go back to wherever it is you came from. If I die, I go back to Heaven, and I…I won’t get a chance to see Kaden again. I’m not alive, like you. I’m here on borrowed time, and…I can’t go back.”

“Then you better finish it, because I can’t,” the student said, her voice filled with an equal tone of somberness.

“And make a murderer out of me again,” Sophia chuckled, although it was a hollow, bitter laughter. “The choice really isn’t fair.”

“Yeah, I know. I was promised punch and pie,” Ashe chortled. Given the circumstances, it really wasn’t funny at all. “Come on then. Just do it. It’s one of us or both of us.”

As if to accentuate the girl’s plea, the collar blips rose in pitch, becoming more urgent. The priestess looked down on her ‘opponent,’ being placed in an undesirable position for a third time. She had become some kind of perverse angel of death, and upon reluctant realization of the thick irony, the woman touched her halo. Unable to stay, unwilling to go. But she had spared Tamsin before; she had fought, and let the girl go, and no harm had come to either of them. If they could just temporarily give Damon Dukes what he wanted, they could further forestall their fates. Sophia broke out of her miserable reverie, and reached out her hand to the fallen Ashe.

“I won’t do it,” the priestess said firmly. “I’ve been in two fights where both people survived, and we can do it, together.”

Ashe let out a sigh of relief. For all her bravado, she didn’t really want to die, either. The girl reached up her hand and firmly grasped Sophia’s. “Awesome, because I—”

Just as their palms touched, Sophia jerked Ashe forward with resounding force, right into the path of her barreling fist. Ashe took the blow straight on the face, knocking her out cold. The priestess waited and closed her eyes, praying for the beeping to cease and desist. She let out a gasp of relief as the collars finally stopped their deadly ticking. Sophia bent down, checking Ashe’s pulse almost as if to make sure she had not committed sin again. Still alive. They were both still alive. She patted the unconscious girl, as if to gently reassure her that she was safe. More importantly, Sophia was given a few more precious hours of borrowed time.